The ability to make choices--really the ability to make wrong choices and to fail is what makes us human. Our lives seem to be an endless sequence of tests. The multitude we pass are forgotten and float away the next day, but the ones we fail seem to weigh a ton can shape all our future actions. In retrospect after making a bad choice, it can seem like the proper and good choice was calling out and was obvious.
The crossroads demon deal is one of the great American legends and it's built on older legends and rites to Mercury and Odin. It encapsulates that sense of moral binary choices. In the legend the person striking the deal is overreaching and driven by desire. The deal is legalistic, and is always Faustian. The petitioner might apparently get what he wanted, but has to pay a price that's too high.
It really can be soul killing to make a heavy bad choice. The demon is desire.
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