Seoulscapade

In the Eighth Circle of Dante’s Inferno, those who were evil counselors while alive are punished in Hell by having their souls forever engulfed in flame. They walk around like giant torches:

So thick and bright I saw the eighth moat twinkling
with wandering fires,. . .
(Inf. XXVI, 31-32)

So through that gulf moved every flaming spire;
for though none shows the theft,
each flame steals away a sinner. . .
(Inf. XXVI, 40-42)

“Within the fires are the spirits;
each is swathed in that which burns him inwardly.”
(Inf. XXVI, 47-48)

These sinners are punished in a tongue of flame because when alive they used their tongues to influence others to commit fraud. Now they are the ones wrapped by a tongue of evil. I often imagined these souls looking a bit like this scene from a “left4dead” CS zombie game.

Becoming a human torch is a possible punishment on some servers. But of course, the sin attracting this punishment is entirely different from anything in Dante: it’s for killing a player on your own team.

In the game pictured below, I was the one that dealt out this punishment. A player on my team in a previous game had killed me by accident, so when given the choice of a punishment, I nominated that he be turned into a human torch. It gave me a lot of laughs.

The problem was that anyone who came close to him was also engulfed in flame and suffered the same punishment. That’s what happened to me when seeking a screen snapshot opportunity. Others who were nearby were also engulfed.

In some zombie games, throwing a flash grenade at a bunch of zombies will ignite them. It’s fun to get them all in one hit, however, it doesn’t eliminate them, they just chase after you while engulfed in flame. The first screen shot above and the one below is from one of these games.

Here I am getting overrun with a tiny Glock 18C to keep me company. Predictably, I didn’t last long.