The daughter of the rich banker Folco Portinari, there is little record of Beatrice in history save for what Dante wrote about her. Although Beatrice was married to a rich banker named Simone dei Bardi and Dante was married to a woman named Gemma Donati, Dante held an extremely high opinion of her, and used the courtly love that he felt for her as an aid in his poetry. Even after her tragic death in 1290 at the young age of 24, Dante continued to use Beatrice as his muse, and… Okay, who's the smartass who keeps putting new pages in my script?

…Well, I thought it would be interesting for the readers to know the true story!

I don't care! You're going to make me lose my bonus, and… How exactly did you manage to put new pages in my script, anyway?

With the power of God, all…

Oh, don't get him started on the power of God. We'll be stuck here all week!

Just because you raised arms against him doesn't give you the right to…

Would you two please let me finish? Thank you. The game's Beatrice was Dante's sweetheart and fiancée. They had premarital sex before his departure for the Third Crusade, but on the condition that he remain loyal. Shortly after a mysterious assassin (more on him later) killed both her and Dante's father at Dante's villa, Satan suddenly appeared and spoke to her shade. He revealed that while she was going to Heaven, Dante was going to go to Hell for the sins he had committed during the crusade. She begged him to spare her beloved's soul, so Satan offered her a wager. If Dante had remained loyal to her, his soul would be purified. However, if he hadn't been loyal, then Beatrice would become the Devil's bride. She took the bet, and of course lost it. Now she's the queen of Hell.

So, her soul was corrupted after she had died, and not through any actual sins?

Um… yes.

But that's directly contrary to one of the main messages of the original Dante's Divine Comedy! He argued that, for the punishment/reward system of the afterlife to make any sense, humans have to make their own decisions, free from direct intervention from either the divine or the infernal! Otherwise, you can't hold the people accountable for their actions, since they were influenced by powers beyond their comprehension! And you most certainly can't use your own innocent soul as a bartering chip, since that would violate the entire system!

They haven't exactly been very faithful to the source material so far, you know.

But this is one of its core concepts! It's a philosophy that helped shape western civilization into…

You can stop talking now; Beatrice just got redeemed.

…Oh.

I know I'm going to regret asking this, but how did she get redeemed?

Well, after Dante realized that he'd kind of been a horrible person and offered to remain in Hell in her place, she saw that he still had the cross she gave to him before he left for the crusades. This somehow purified her, and an angel came down and took her up to heaven.

Well, I can't say I'm surprised that I was substantiated, but I can't say I'm happy about it either.