Obviously, the main antagonist of Paradise Lost is Satan himself. as the epitome of evil, he is one of the most evil creatures ever to be thought of by mankind. In almost every work mentioning him or depicting him, he is evil incarnate ever poised to steal your soul and drag you to the pits of hell itself. He is often shown to be a devil creature with cloven hooves, a demonic aura, horns of a goat, wings of a bat, and physically intimidating to the point that the greatest warriors fear his sight. Milton, however, was one of the first to truly depict Satan not as a horrendous monster but as a charismatic, manipulative, and arrogant angel who fell from grace. As such he Is a powerful and influential angel in God's service until he rebels with his followers and is cast out. In the story he is characterized as e struggling, losing, and all around underdog and anti-hero. Although his ultimate goal is to sow the seeds of sin in God's new creation, humanity, his travel out of Hell to Eden is depicted as a tremendous undertaking that makes the reader sympathize with Satan's plans. Although his intentions are malicious, the trials and punishment Satan receives in pursuing his goals and enduring them gives Satan some noble and righteous qualities that are normally reserved for a protagonist and for someone who is thought as the "good guy". By focusing on Satan's side of the story, Milton rationalizes the actions of Satan by giving him a backstory as to why he is the ultimate evil and not just have him present as an evil that always was. Milton explains why Satan rose up to rebel against God in a perspective that doesn't make it seem as though it is a battle of ultimate good triumphing over ultimate evil but rather as the winning side punishing and exiling the loser. By doing this, it detracts from the fact that Satan is evil and puts it into a more rebelling against the established authority kind of way; something that was prevalent at the time as more and more the people were "rebelling" against the church's authority and placing faith in the more worldly technological achievements of the time. By giving Satan more character and humanizing and explaining his desires, Milton remakes Satan into an anti-hero rather than a malevolent antagonist.
