Tension between white magicians (who appear to have a line of communications with the unfallen host in Heaven) and Ware is woven over the terms and conditions of a magical covenant that is designed to provide for observers and limitations. "Black Easter" ends with Baphomet announcing to the participants that the demons can not be compelled to return to Hell: the war is over and God is dead. "The Day After Judgement", which follows in the series, develops and extends the characters from the first book. It suggests that God may not be dead, or that demons may not be inherently self-destructive, as something appears to be restraining the actions of the demons upon Earth. In a lengthy Miltonian speech at the end of the novel, Satan Mekratrig explains that, compared to humans, demons are good, and that if perhaps God has withdrawn Himself, then Satan beyond all others was qualified to take His place and, if anything, would be a more just god. However, the defeat of Satan is complete. He cannot take up this throne and must hand the burning keys to man, as this is the most fell of all his fell damnations. He never wanted to be God at all, and so having won all, all has he lost. Algis Budrys was dissatisfied with "Black Easter", declaring it, despite Blish's outstanding craftsmanship, to be "an unreasonably inflated short story." He particularly faulted the novel's abrupt conclusion, characterizing Blish as an author "genuinely concerned with religion, not with trick endings." Theron Ware is named for the titular character of Harold Frederic's 1896 novel "The Damnation of Theron Ware", a Methodist minister who overestimates his intellectual abilities and social skills, loses his faith and his friends, and emigrates from his native rural New York to start a new life in Seattle. Many of the white magician monks at Monte Albano are named after Blish's fellow science fiction writers:  ("Black Easter", pp. 119–120)  Baines has two employees, names also possibly based on science fiction writers:  A reviewer of "Black Easter" said, of the book's California governor "Rogan": "A Californian governor named Rogan, which must be an allusion to [Ronald] Reagan", who was then Governor of California. Other people have suggested that Baines, the biggest arms dealer in the world in the book, is an allusion to then-U.S. President Lyndon "Baines" Johnson, including Ted White in his review of the book.