Dagon
“DAGON, LORD OF THE FILES, MASTER OF MADNESS, UNDER-DUKE OF THE SEVENTH TORMENT. WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?” (59)
Dagon is one of Crowley’s superiors in Hell. His title, “Lord of the Files”, is a fair description of a bureaucrat with a desk job, as well as a play on Beelzebub’s title, “Lord of the Flies”.
Dagon does not make a physical appearance in the book. Instead, his preferred method of communication is through the sound systems of non-telephonic devices. When Crowley needs to confirm the release of the hellhound, he speaks with Dagon through the Bentley’s sound system (59).
Dagon’s dialogue is printed in all caps and given his preferred method of communication, it’s possible, but not completely certain, that the voice Crowley hears on other occasions is Dagon’s as well. Crowley only identifies the person speaking as the voice of the “Infernal Authorities” (211). He is contacted by that speaker several times during the course of the book: when he is issued his instructions as he drives the infant Antichrist to the hospital (9), when he is informed about the impending arrival of the hellhound while watching ‘Cheers’ (54), when he is notified that he’s in Hell’s bad books while watching the news on television (209) and when he is threatened while driving to Lower Tadfield (237).
In mythology, Dagon was a Assyro-Babylonian fertility god. He was depicted with a fish tail in Semitic iconography.
He is listed among the Fallen Angels in Paradise Lost.
Dagon appears in tales of the Cthulhu Mythos as one of the deities worshipped by the Deep Ones.
*Note: Hellhound is spelled different ways in the book: hellhound (54) and hell-hound (59).
Other sources:
Blake, William. Paradise Lost, Book I. Accessed 11 October 2012. <http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/readin
“Dagon”. Wikipedia. Accessed 11 October 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon>.
“The Deep Ones”. Wikipedia. Accessed 11 October 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon_(Cth
Edition referenced in this article: UK Gollancz hardcover (2007)
Written by Lynette