Demon Soul the making of part 6: Why is it painful for angels to cure people and not for demons?

 

Demon Soul is mainly about demons, especially one demon named Sahel who is learning about his powers.

In the book, we discover how baby demon acquire their powers over the fourth elements and how when they reach adulthood (which is a bit younger for demons than for humans) they go through a special training to obtained their fifth power, the Aether power which allow them to cure themselves, to regenerate, to cure other people, to change form (It's more difficult for the Watchers than for the Nephilim but they can manage that with a lot of training) and other things related to connection with people and the mind which are not explored in Demon Soul but in the further novels coming up. Sahel is just a beginner at using his powers and he already rocks at it.  

Here is an example  for Aether powers used from Demon Soul (chapter 13)

The little creatures that had visited him in his living room few days ago appeared in the purple smoke as the demon from his dream was going back to the end of the room.

“You see”, he said. “That is the perfect example of what you should achieve but will never be able to.”

He pointed at the little creatures who transformed into three huge demons under the incredulous eyes of everybody. A young female demon fashionably dressed was the first to get back from her surprise.

“I hope I’ll never achieve it”, she said, “I wouldn’t like to look that ugly”, she laughed making a group of demons around her laugh as well.

The old demon threw her a terrible look, probably thinking about making her pay later for daring ruin his effect.

“Well, well, well”, he said. “As you seem all to be more than willing to die for our pleasure, let’s start the festivity.”

Demons can cure people without feeling any pain or having to deal with carrying the pain of others, just you have to make them want to help which is another matter. But Isakael, the only angel of the story, does feel tremendous pain when curing other, he seems to be stealing the pain from them. Even though we saw before that demons are the descendant of the angels there abilities became very different at time passed. 

The angels are given powers by god when they are born, that's painless and they don't have to go through training to use them learning to use them is more like learning to speak and walk, it comes naturally. Therefore their powers can't evolve and are limited. They don't have the powers over the fourth elements like the demons do. However they have the Aether power enabling them to heal. When someone is sick or hurt, it belongs to God's plan. If an angel decides to interfere and to go against God's plan by curing that person, the pain is transfer to the angel to keep the balance in the world. This is the reason why they are in pain, they need to pay tribute, healing is not for free.

Here is a passage about Isakael and his relationship with his powers from Demon Soul (chapter 6)

Ayokunle was a cursed baby, every time he wished for something his dream would come true but he would have to go through a lot of pain to get it. It had already happen with his wings and had reminded Isakael of the traumatic experience he had to go through himself while his own wings were growing. He had flown the house every morning unable to bear the cries of the little boy, as his healing powers had been useless on the cursed wings.

The demons at the contrary broke their contract with God. As they are having a difficult life a part of it is to get powers that are not directly given to them but written in their genes, they come like an infantile decease difficult to survive as the idea was to limit the number of demons breeding and filling the world. So they accumulate the pain through the training they have to go through and for the survivors, the reward is to be able to use their powers without any pain. If they interfere with God's plan it doesn't matter because when breaking their contract they obtained free will.

The ebooks of Demon Soul has been updated don't forget to go grab it