Diablo 4: Why Lilith’s plan against the Prime Evils was ultimately flawed

❘ Updated: 2023-12-19T15:00:00

Blizzard Entertainment

We don’t think we’ve seen the last of the Daughter of Hatred.

Lilith is the main antagonist of Diablo 4 and her plan to conquer and protect Sanctuary has split the community in two, those who think she was right all along. However, you can take the demon out of Hell, you can’t take the Hell out of the demon. Spoilers for Diablo 4 lurk below.

While we wait for the Diablo 4 expansion, which looks to give Lilith’s evil dad Mephisto the limelight, it’s time to talk about the Daughter of Hatred. As far as Diablo 4 villains go, Lilith is considerably more sympathetic than her peers. Lilith is the progeny of the Prime Evil Mephisto, a brother of Diablo himself, and unlike her demonic family members, Lilith doesn’t just want to conquer Sanctuary – the world of humans – to enslave or destroy it.

Instead, Lilith wants the world to be a safe haven for those fleeing the war between Heaven and Hell, which is exactly why she and her ex, the Angel Inarius, created it. However, her definition of safety isn’t one most of humanity shares.

Normally, Diablo games end with Diablo being defeated in Act 4, then another villain, either one of the other Prime Evils or a different threat taking his place in the expansions. The ending of Diablo 4 ends on a sour note rather than a triumphant one, and this ending has caused players to now worry that Lilith’s way was the only true way to save Sanctuary from the talons of Diablo – or his equally unpleasant brothers. Some players even go as far as wanting to side with Lilith.

The game’s ending even stokes this fear, but we’re of the view that using a demon princess to fight a demon king only risks creating Hell on Earth, well Sanctuary.

Diablo himself remains the biggest threat in the series.

The Eternal Conflict

If we go back to the beginning to explain an abridged history of Diablo lore, Lilith and Inarius, a demon and an angel, fell in love and each abandoned their own kind. Rather than fighting in the Eternal Conflict as it became known. The pair decided to create their own world, a Sanctuary from both Heaven and Hell. Their children became demon/angel hybrids known as Nephalem and were considered an abomination by the armies of Heaven and Hell and hunted to near extinction.

After realizing that her Nephalem children were incredibly powerful, Lilith decided to use them as super weapons against Heaven and Hell and went to war with both, using her children as her troops. Lilith became gradually more despotic and demonic, her rage threatening all of reality. While her intentions started out as noble, wanting to live in peace and protect her family, Lilith eventually became the thing she despised, and in trying to avoid the Eternal Conflict, she became one of its most ruthless combatants.

Inarius, seeing no other choice, cast her into a dark abyss and went into hiding in Sanctuary, eventually building a religion around himself. Over time, he would yearn to return to Heaven but was unwanted by his angelic brethren, while Lilith’s cult would grow on Sanctuary as her children evolved into humanity.

Lilith wants to save Sanctuary from Hell, but who will save it from her?

Lilith’s plan to save Sanctuary from Diablo

Lilith returns in Diablo 4, freed from her dark prison by her followers, and immediately picks up where she left off. Seeing that the world has come under attack time and time again by the demonic Prime Evils, or even rogue angels like Malthael, Lilith unleashes her own demonic army on Sanctuary to bring it to heel. However, to secure her world against attacks by the Prime Evils, such as Diablo, Baal, and her father Mephisto, Lilith first plans to invade Hell and conquer that too.

Her reasoning is if Hell and Sanctuary are both conquered by her, then Hell can no longer threaten Sanctuary, she can then systematically destroy, or at least contain, the Prime Evils. It’s worth pointing out that Lilith doesn’t appear to be too concerned with fighting the armies of Heaven, likely due to them being greatly diminished during Diablo 3 when the Lord of Terror himself smashed down their Pearly Gates and went on a rampage.

Lilith’s logic is sound, but there’s a problem. She’d essentially be turning Sanctuary into her own personal dominion of Hell and a far cry from her original vision as something free from its taint. Sanctuary was a good idea due to its rejection of the Eternal Conflict and the balance both Lilith and Inarius brought to the table. Both figures have become jaded and corrupted by their own crusades, and both Lilith and Inarius fail to see that they’ve already succeeded in creating a world separate from their bloody history. All they need to do is leave it alone.

The story of Lilith and Inarius is the bedrock of Diablo 4.

The devilish truth

If they truly wanted to protect Sanctuary, both would be better served by forming an alliance with humanity, fighting on behalf of them, rather than seeking to conquer them as an overlord. After all, Heaven no longer views humanity as a threat, finally acknowledging their potential in Diablo 3, yet they still reject Inarius. Both he and Lilith are both driven by selfish desires, with Inarius simply using humanity as a tool to get back to Heaven, and Lilith not realizing she’s consumed by hatred, an ironic twist on her status as the daughter of the Lord of Hatred.

Ultimately, Lilith is defeated because of her demonic nature. While she thinks she’s doing good and her methods may even be effective, she’s just doing what demons always do, acting with malice and causing destruction and misery. For the second time, Lilith fails to protect Sanctuary because she’s incapable of escaping the Eternal Conflict. Her children – humanity – also can’t escape it because it’s part of them. However, they have the power to resist it.

The ending of Diablo 4 heavily implies that Diablo and the other Prime Evils will return. A stained glass window painting of Diablo literally and figuratively looms over Lilith at the end of the game, and Mephisto has already found his way back into the world of humans. However, when these demonic villains once again show their spikey faces, there will be a band of heroes ready to face them. Be they Barbarians, Necromancers, Druids, Rogues, Sorcerers, or various other classes of warriors, the Nephalem will rise again. That’s because it’s humanity’s destiny to defend Sanctuary, it was never Lilith’s.

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