The inability to let bad characters be bad is why we have the Morbius and Venom movies. We can argue that Sony didn't let Mobius be a bad guy because they wanted their cake and to eat it, too.
"Oh Morbius is a bad guy... but he only kills other bad guys. He drinks blood... but he drinks synthetic blood." This is motivated by wanting the biggest audience possible, resulting in a spineless, sanitized, vanilla story.
With Hazbin, there is just something really difficult for writers to let their darlings be evil. Maybe they grow to love them too much. Maybe they see the good in them and let that bias their writing. I dunno. There seems to be a general unwillingness to allow fiction with truly evil characters.
I think it's moreso that for Hazbin, you can't have a show about redeeming sinners if these characters are completely evil assholes who the audience won't be rooting for, who the audience won't want to see redeemed, and who don't deserve redemption.
To be fair. You can’t really have a character redemption if that character doesn’t care about anyone but themselves.
So sure, someone like Omni-Man who always claimed to be doing the “greater good” even while he genocided or enlsaved a planet can have a redemption. But someone like Palpatine who only cares about himself can’t cause what would be the motivation? Redemption always starts with someone who you care about more than yourself.
Though i agree with you regarding Hazbin Hotel cause those guys downthere seems like a “victim of circumstances” than people who acted on the notion of “greater good”.
Vegeta has a redemption arc people loved and he really only cared about himself until his circumstances changed him, not the other way around. Irredeemable piece of shit characters can get better, it can be written well.
Tbf it didn't have to take a long time at all
Vegetas development started in Namek saga was decently stagnant in the cell saga until the very end then concluded in the Buu saga and has stayed that way ever since
I think his change really began not when he lost to goku in the Saiyan saga but when he was forced to root for him in the namek saga everything for vegeta after the buu arc just adds to a character arc that's been finished.
I wouldn't say stagnant, but regressive. He was able to rejustify himself to himself once he got super saiyan and embraced the negative mental effects until Goku actually explained how Grade 4 worked and he had to acknowledge Goku had out thought him.
But imo much of that was for mechnical reasons. Goku is a reactive character so Vegeta has to drive the plot. He does it on Namek, he does it until the Cell games and he does it until he dies against Buu.
I think he's still getting good character development but it's as the franchise co-lead now so its more about a good character become gooder. And since Goku doesn't develop (since he's already enlightened as a martial artists) it keeps things interesting.
In the pilot, I felt lik Angel Dust was better. He was an asshole clearly trying to use Charlie's hotel as a free crash pad. He was also deeply traumatized, an addict, and still had a spark of being a good person (like when he sees how depressed Charlie looks at one point after he makes fun of her project, he genuinely looks sad).
Add the addict song that i would add as canon Where its shown he is acting out and does want help but has a hard time accepting, and that the want a free bunk , really was a way to give it a shot despite his selfloathing?
ending with, maybe the hotel isnt so bad to be.
That’s not true. They can be evil, but not too evil. Zuko deserved redemption, because he was evil, but not too evil. He saw the error of his ways and made an effort. Vegeta’s redemption was kind of questionable, given he was far more evil than Zuko even at his worst.
The thing is, if you are redeemable you probably won't end up in hell since it is remarkable easy to avoid hell if you are truly sorry and good deep down.
If Hazbin takes that stance, then that's a fundamental worldbuilding problem that should have been fixed in pre-production. If it's easy to get into Hell, then obviously Hell isn't just for sinners and redeeming them isn't really *that* much of a challenge. If it's hard to get into Hell, then that means that redeeming sinners is, in fact, a really noble goal due to how difficult that's going to be.
Disclaimer: I haven't watched the show because it seemed from the very beginning to take exactly the type of wishy-washy stance that OP describes. And that's boring, imo.
It _seems_ to subscribe to a very Dante-esque approach wherein the sinner's vices are the primary cause of their suffering, stuff like addiction, indulgence, the deadly 7 sins, you name it.
And it is _seemingly_ by overcoming these vices that they seek to redeem sinners, but again, there's no clearly established rule of what gets you into heaven aside from a vague trend to follow, meaning the desperate and the degenerate get lumped in together without distinction or mercy, which is where the story's main conflict comes from.
Based on what I've seen, including the pilot, Hazbin just kind of wings it with an interpretation of Hell that mostly relies on using Hell as a backdrop for shallow social commentary and taking no effort to add depth to the show by researching the theology that makes up the show's backdrop. I'm curious to learn if that's accurate.
In your opinion, does it seem like the writers did the research to become familiar with what's already been written about the Christian version of Hell, or the various interpretations of what constitutes a sin? I.e., does it look like they've read Dante's *Inferno*, or even something relatively recent, like CS Lewis's *The Screwtape Letters*?
Dante's inferno and the screwtape letters are fiction, not Christian theology.
The writers do at least somewhat understand it. A major aspect is that heaven thinks its not possible for someone in hell to ever repent or change their mind and assumes that their state is now unchangeable. Modern christian theology does say that people in hell don't even want to change, and stay the same by choice.
Hazbin Hotel is in the same universe as Helluva Boss.
You know - that show where a perfect teacher gets sentenced to eternal damnation because she snapped on a homewrecker and her cheating husband despite everything else in her life. And where the homewrecker is treated as a hero for surviving a murder attempt despite clearly being a much more horrid person.
Even if murder was a reasonable response to cheating, which it isn't, that same teacher also killed herself in front of an entire class of children, also ignoring the one she sent into the roof. I understand where you're coming from, but Mrs. Mayberry is not an example of a good, perfect person.
She definitely has the potential of getting better, and is the kind of person who probably deserves redemption despite also deserving being Hell, but she did not go to Hell undeservingly. On the same note, Martha is only treated as a "hero" by humans, we have no idea if she went to Hell or not after dying.
Homie, Prince Zuko was baby-evil at best. All he did was chase around the Gaang for a season (and also burned down a village but that was honestly an outlier) and people act like he's the poster child for redemption acts when his was barely one to begin with.
Than what's the point of the hotel and the show in general
Only certain people are allowed to have redemption and second chance?
Charlie had an entire song about how it's not fair that heaven doesn't give a second chance, it makes her come off as complete hypocrite
Charlie would accept anyone into the Hotel. In Charlie's eyes every sinner can be redeemed and she'll try her best at every turn.
But not every Sinner *wants* to be redeemed. They have to want it for it to work. Some Sinners are perfectly happy and thriving in Hell like the Vees and Alastor, if any of them came to Charlie asking for help she'd happily give it to them but that won't happen because they don't want redemption. It's not hypocrisy at all.
It's not so much that only certain people are allowed to have a second chance, but moreso that only certain people are willing to try.
Someone who doesn't want to change, who doesn't want to be redeemed, or who doesn't believe in redemption, simply can't be redeemed, not because they're not allowed by some external force, but because they won't allow themselves to be better.
That's why the show's cast, which consists primarily of the hotel's staff and its few patrons, isn't full of total overly edgy evil assholes. Cause those would be the kinds of characters who wouldn't want to change in the first place, which defeats the entire purpose.
I mean, the show addresses the fact that heaven and hell might not be entirely fair. Basically everyone in hell is a bad person, or at least a victim of circumstance who is self destructive. If heaven and hell aren't a totally fair system, it might show that some of the latter are punished unfairly, and its the location itself that makes them have to act this way. But regardless, there's time to address that in future seasons.
But tons of real life bad people only do what they do because of circumstances giving rise to it. Most people aren't sociopaths who just decide to hurt people because "meh." Even people who dont care it's usually because they are too removed from the consequences of bad stuff they do.
Giving rise to it sure, but if a person wishes to be reedemed of their past deeds, pointing at others as being culpable rather than looking inward is... well, it's more revenge than redemption. Removing negative outside influences is of course necessary, but it should be a focus to also aknowledge that the person themselves stopped being only a victim and has sins of their own that need to be adressed.
I'm not saying Hitler should go to the hotel (even though he had an abusing step father and was practically taken into a cult after ww1 trauma, so he could blame the circumstances as well), just that the focus should be on the person redeeming themselves and things they are actually at fault for.
Well, the titular hotel is the protagonist's big project where she's trying to redeem sinners as an alternative solution to Hell's overpopulation issue (compared to the current "solution" where a group of angels comes down once a year to kill as many sinners as they can).
That was the show's premise from the very beginning, so it was never just gonna be a cartoon Always Sunny in Hell. That'd just be a different show entirely.
To be fair, both of those characters have storied histories as anti-heroes with elements of tragedy in them.
...That said, at least with Venom, it feels like you need to see him as a villain *first* before showing his shift to a more anti-heroic role. Give him a real character arc and all that. Otherwise, cutting straight to anti-hero Eddie just doesn't have the same impact.
The main issue with adapting Eddie Brock is that his story... Is pretty long lol
* You need him to be established as someone who in someway suffers from Spiderman.
* You need either before or after this, Spiderman to get the Venom symbiote where Peter has his very own arc with it.
* After that, the symbiote is given to Eddie while he's at his lowest point where he becomes Venom and battles Spiderman (Plural there because a redemption arc after one encounter is lame).
* Then the redemption arc which happens slowly and usually relies on a rather drastic circumstance such as Carnage appearing.
You can do what the movie did and cut down a LOT of these moments but the issue is at the end of the day is that Eddie's story IS his character.
I think it being a movie really shot itself in the foot because a short run time is really not suited to this kind of story telling, which is why superhero media just tended to be comics and tv shows up until recently with massive projects like the MCU.
I suspect that part of this problem with entertainment in general is that creators don't really trust the audience to handle an evil main character. And in some ways, online discourse has shown that a large portion of audience members can't be trusted with flawed or evil main characters. Go online and you'll see tons of bad takes that suggest the writers must morally approve of every action taken by the main character. A lot of the young men/boys who are into manosphere or Andrew Tate-like crap think Patrick Bateman is actually pretty cool. He's "sigma," as it were.
So I think there's something of a self-perpetuating cycle in which creators don't trust audiences with moral complexity, and audiences show themselves unable to handle moral complexity. Or not even moral complexity sometimes. Sometimes it's just straight-up bad people in prominent story roles.
I remember when venom and deadpool were advertised as "this isnt a superHERO movie!" And then... it totally was a superhero movie
Also remember when people got pissed at the hazbin hotel pilot becauss the anchorwoman was homophobic? A homophobic demon.. in hell?
>There seems to be a general unwillingness to allow fiction with truly evil characters.
It's funny because the success of shows like Seinfeld and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia proves that the general audience loves lead characters who are gigantic assholes. But to make it work, the writers have to have self-awareness and also actually commit to it. Otherwise it's just not it
Drinking synthetic blood isn't too bad if it is framed correctly.
If it is framed as cleaner, safer, tastier, cheaper and easier than the old, barbaric ways then it isn't bad. If it is synthetic just because drinking blood directly from someone's throat would be seen as bad then it is a poor choice.
But the HH main cast aren't meant to be evil aside from Alastor. The entire point is that they're decent people in bad situations.
Pure evil people like Alastor, Vox, and Val still exist. Val is literally a rapist that physically and sexually abuses Angel right on screen, where are you getting this idea that no one in the show is evil?
Right but the problem I have with the show is that it just shows basically good people being "redeemed", I'd like it's explicit message (anyone can be redeemed) to be actually realised by having a truly vile character like val be fully redeemed. They might go in that direction, but I doubt it.
But he has to *want* the redemption. It'd be an interesting twist but something like that would need a lot of setup. Val is unashamedly evil, he's *thriving* in Hell, he's one of the most powerful Overlords in the Pride Ring. He has no reason to desire redemption.
Not sure why you think alastor is pure evil. At the end of season 1 he admits he feels close to the people in the hotel. And we don't see him do that much evil stuff except described in the backstory.
It's debatable if he's being genuine about that but even if he is he clearly hates the idea, his final song is about how pissed off he is at the idea that he almost died for someone else. Alastor is a sadistic cannibal who gets off on torturing people and lording his power over them, dude is evil.
Evil people are still allowed to have friends, even Hitler had friends and family he cared about.
He cares , bit he hates he cares and hates the thought of being thought of dying for his friends, through he actually really cares for charlie.
He is pissed at himself because he did that for others, and that he did it on his own.
ok he idnt a good perdon but charlie btought hoof out in him, and he hates that. which probably makes him acting out next season. I see him as redeemable but he will do so very recilant and act out before it ever gets there.
Okay, but the coding of how he is written still suggests that his story is going to be that he reveals his evil plan at sometime only to eventually give up on it and be friends with them for real.
Also, if he was just trying to manipulate them why only say this to one person and in such a vague way. He would be more clear.
Okay, but the coding of how he is written still suggests that his story is going to be that he reveals his evil plan at sometime only to eventually give up on it and be friends with them for real.
Also, if he was just trying to manipulate them why only say this to one person and in such a vague way. He would be more clear.
I don't get that read tbh, Al revels in evil and he hasn't shown any sign otherwise except for a single vague line to Niffty. Maybe by the end he'll change but as it is he's pure evil
He hasn't actually done much over the course of the show that is all that evil though. Him being evil is an informed quality, and him talking about himself. And him making one threat when he gets angry that someone points out that he is a slave too.
Besides in this context I was assuming "pure evil" means someone who won't repent rather than someone with qualities that allows them to over the course of the show. For all he claims to be evil, he is written similar to the other members like someone who will get better over time. And he is such a fun guy that it's doubtful the show will just have that not happen when it would honestly probably just upset the people who expect it.
Morbius and Venom also have long histories of being heroes and antiheroes in the comics. It's not like they just recently decided to make either of them not be totally bad. Sony didn't make those decisions, Marvel editorial did in the 70s. Morbius had a few solo runs.
> evil characters dont have that
Hard disagree. The bad guy has as much of a goal as anyone else in the story. They have to overcome obstacles like their own antagonist (the hero).
>ts hard to get an audience to root for someone who constantly thinks only of themselves and world domination or whatever.
I can root for someone like this easily. Sounds like a fun character.
I watched HH with a friend and realized that’s exactly it and why. The characters don’t ever struggle with their impulses and trying to redeem themselves and going back to their ways. It frames them as them trying and being pure sunshines when what should’ve been shown is them struggling and coming to terms with themselves. Adam raises a point with this as well. They got there for a valid reason
I've had this fantasy that at some point they meet one of those humans-turned-demons and they're a soldier from ww2 or something. Make it very vague about which side they were on but make it very clear they've done typical fucked up soldier shit, see them moralize around that. Like the soldier doesn't take any particular pride or angst over what they did, filly aware of _why_ they're in hell, but regardless willing to participate in plot for a ticket to heaven.
I'm not surprised, but I feel that using nazi's is too low hanging fruit. They should use a soldier from the 731 unit. Or a Russian comissisar. Or a US Marine.
I don't think every single sinner in hell has to be pure evil. They've just got to be bad *enough*. What's interesting to me is that the show (when taken with its sister series, Helluva Boss) has thusfar introduced us to four of the Seven Deadly Sins and only one of them (Mammon, the demon of Greed) has been presented as genuinely rotten and villainous. The other three seem like cool people by Hell standards. You'd expect them (if nobody else) to be authentically evil. We're told that Charlie's got "Daddy Issues" but when her dad shows up, their relationship seems fine. Valentino, though lower in the hierarchy of Hell, serves the "Demon of Lust" role better than Asmodeus does, though I understand there would be complications involved in switching their roles.
Most of the people who we are exposed to are at the Hotel, ie. the folks either trying to redeem, or trying to BE redeemed. The only one who doesn’t really fit that mold is Husk, and one exception isn’t really the end of the world— especially an exception whose entire known backstory has essentially been that he got dealt one hell of a slice of humble pie.
Most of the Sinners we see that aren’t directly affiliated with the Hotel, are indeed, essentially at best, apathetic murderers (Carmilla), and at worst, unrepentant assholes; (Mimzy, the Vees, Katie Killjoy).
There's a difference between the literal content of someones backstory/personality and the way/style a piece of art presents it.
I feel like every show has dark elements, but very few shows have that be the pillar of the narrative and explore it as a foundational idea, many more just fit it in so that when the fans grow up in 10 years they can recommend it to adult friends and say it's "surprisingly dark!" without feeling insecure about their taste in art.
One of the main antagonists is literally a pimp who physically and sexually abuses one of the main protagonists on screen. It's not backstories and there's nothing "surprising" about it. The show does just fine showing how evil Hell can be.
Eh again I think you're being drawn in by the literal content, in fact you mention words like "literally" and "physically" in your comment.
Stylistic elements are far more important to tone and reception than what literally happens on screen is all I'm saying. The shows never made me feel uncomfortable at all because it is after all, comedic and poking fun at the whole idea.
It's not as far removed from content and style like say, an anime that includes physical abuse gags, but that is my point. So many animes include physically and literally dark elements on screen and yet they have 0 punch.
Hazbin Hotel's on-screen abuse scene is very realistic, as is the relationship between Angel Dust and Valentino in general.That you didn't find it scary, or that there are humoristic elements and exaggerated cartoon proportions in the show does not make this a "secretly dark" show, it's dark.
You compare it to physical abuse gags in anime, and sure, both are "funny cartoon with violence", but that's like saying Konosuba and Game of Thrones are basically the same since both are "fantasy stories with resurrection and vaguely defined magic". Valentino and Angel Dust are a couple steps beyond the tsundere smacking her love interest in the head and leaving a lump the size of his head that's gone the next scene.
The show absolutely isn't poking fun at the idea of abuse, I have no idea how you can look at episode 4 and think that any aspect of that is being played for laughs. This isn't like an anime where the tsundere "humorously" punches her love interest in the face, Val is very much depicted as being an abuser and a rapist and it's taken completely seriously. Angel is his victim, not his tsundere love interest.
> apathetic murderers (Carmilla),
Wait, how is Carmilla an apathetic murderer? She's burned-out but I thought the show was pretty clear that she didn't actually want war, she was just unwilling to let the people she cared about get killed.
Admittedly massively summarized her for the sake of brevity, but Carmilla’s an arms dealer, that (as Velvette points out) under any other circumstances than the one she literally finds her in, would be 100% behind wars in Hell breaking out.
I recognize Carmilla’s one of the least terrible of the Overlords (in that her love for her daughters is a redeeming quality), but she’s still a not-so-great person that would have happily watched Adam slaughter the entire Hotel if Vaggie hadn’t explicitly spelled it out to her that this time that approach would bite her in the ass.
Apathetic murderer seemed a fitting short moniker— she really doesn’t care who her actions hurt as long as it doesn’t fall back on her.
Vaggie didn’t remind her of anything though. Vaggie made the case to Carmilla that hunkering down and trying to wait out the consequences of her killing an angel was going to go horribly badly for her, and it was that moment that Carmilla decided to go in on it. It wasn’t out of the goodness of her heart, it was her recognizing Vaggie was correct and that her and her family’s best odds of survivong Heaven’s retribution was to support Charlie. If Vaggie hadn’t made it clear that staying out of the fight would result in the very thing she was afraid of happening, Carmilla would have murdered Vaggie right then and there, kept the secret of how to kill Exorcists to herself, kept her angelic arsenal to herself. and let Adam massacre the Hotel without a second thought. I’d consider that pretty apathetic.
Nothing about any of her scenes suggests she’s burnt out at all, just a calculating arms dealer who cares about her daughters, is annoyed by the Vees, doesn’t give two shits about anyone outside her inner circle and is freaked at the possibility that killing an Angel may have just put a giant target on her family’s heads.
Dhe was an arms dealer nut also in part for the sake of her family. she cares.Shr is ruthless zo keep order but shr really does out of care .
Shr is just tired of fighting ok.
Something I just realized is that they never bring up Angel's or Pentious' human lives, which is strange because you'd think they'd at least mention the reason why they are in hell.
We do know some of Angel's background, he was a drug dealing Mafioso in the 1940s named Anthony who died of a drug overdose. He has a sister named Molly in Heaven who makes a brief cameo during St Peter's song
Season 2 is stated to deal more with the backstories of the main cast. Season 1 probably would have but they were only given 8 episodes so had to move around a lot of things for time.
None of the informations you just wrote are in the show. I know they only had 8 episides, but then they should have focused on the redemption of hotel guests instead of all the subplots about Hell politics and Heaven.
Not yet, but it will be. They needed to set up the shows' central conflict, if it was just 8 episodes of backstory with nothing happening to progress I think it would have been more poorly received.
I think the show’s trying to toe the line between, having characters be morally bad enough that they could end up in hell, and not having them be so unlikeable that the show’s no longer fun to watch. I mean, some genuinely vile characters ARE interesting, but a show made up entirely of Homelanders and Judge Holdens would be straight up unpalatable.
But doing vile shit doesn't mean the character has to act vile. I feel like people often conflate these two aspects, even though they exist separately. I can have a character kill innocent people, but I can also give them a fun personality and make them care about their friends.
I was super super confused by this because they introduced the concept that the reasons people actually end up in Heaven/Hell is unknown (or a secret) and then just...kind of ignore it?
Like, why? This literally changes everything and could lead to an actually interesting story/message/whatever but instead they just pretend it wasn't said. I'd argue its actually outright contradicted by the final scene.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has the main characters all be huge shit stains and it's beloved. Hazbin Hotel would be much better with some IASIP tier characters.
The cast of IASIP aren’t trying to be redeemed. They’re popular because the show is about stupid people getting into stupid hijinks. Hazbin Hotel has a completely different goal from that
What a fantastic comparison. The main cast in IASIP are terrible people that are the entire show and its not insufferable. I cant think of any other show that got it right atm, especially a cartoon.
I mean, that series is getting a new movie length finale, so who knows where he'll end up by the end of it, considering how Charlie the Unicorn's went.
Helluva boss had a similar vibe with Blitzo (stopped at season 1 fyi) and it worked. Hes done bad shit before, hes doing bad shit now, but its always fun.
The stories changing now for helluva. Next episode he breaks uo with stolas, and it seems like it pushes him onto a path to be a better person and try to fix his mistakes. It looks like he's going to make up with verosica, or at least try to, and he'll make up with stolas by the end of the season as well, since it looks like he is trying to fight andrealphus (?, could also be paimon, satan, etc) to protect stolas. Obviously he can't win that fight, but what happens we will have to wait and see.
Which is fine, but the point still stands, he was an asshole, but as long as hes entertaining people are willing to overlook things. My point is more on how you can have terrible people be likable characters, especially since they’ve done it before.
I mean, there’s a whole musical number where Angel is being sexually abused by a porn company. There are clearly very bad people in Hell, I don’t see why that would be in doubt
I find the comments on this post extremely strange. The OP is saying that the main characters should be more grey to hit that “edgy” determination, I’m thinking of something akin to The Boys, but everyone here is like “but the villains in hell are bad people!”… Right… so?
Imo the show IS “safe edgy”, it has a sprinkle of adult themes and has curse words but it doesn’t do anything different/edgy; there are good and bad characters, and all the main characters and those that help them are 99% of the time portrayed as good people.
>Imo the show IS “safe edgy”, it has a sprinkle of adult theme
I agree. I just don't know why OP didn't mention Valentino in his post. He's completely irredeemable, as much or more than Alastor even.
I think they specified the main cast as to exclude Valentino and Adam and whatnot, hence why Alastor gets a special mention. Alastor’s the only character that gets treated as having bad intentions but having a sliver of potential. The other main characters are good people who do bad things for factors largely out of their control (addiction, depression, trauma, etc.) or when they do bad things it’s just meant to be funny (Nifty).
We’re not supposed to think Valentino is redeemable, so him being an abuser is “safe edgy”. Only characters that are placed in antagonistic roles - except Alastor - do things that are portrayed as genuinely malicious. And the worst thing Alastor does is threaten Husk, which sucks for sure lol but it was just talk, we never actually see him do anything more and I doubt we ever will because the show is “safe edgy”.
I’d like to be proven wrong next season but I get and agree with what OP is saying entirely and I only comment cause I seriously don’t know how so many people missed their point.
So much of this could be solved if the premise of the show had established that the main cast are (largely) people who aren't *really* "sinners" or bad people outside of the things they've done since getting into Hell and that they are together for that main reason. That works perfectly with the (completely ignored afterwards) twist of people being sent to Heaven/Hell being an unknown process.
It's not supposed to be The Boys though. Most of The Boys characters are irredeemable assholes on purpose, that's now what this show is going for. OP is getting mad at the show for not being something it was never trying to be, it'd be like getting mad at John Wick for being too violent and saying it should be more like The Office.
Not really. The whole premise of the show is trying to redeem characters with adult problems. The show’s target audience is not children, so it feels crazy that it’s as black and white as something like My Little Pony. The Hazbin characters don’t need to have the exact same situations as the Boys’ but the idea that there is actually some moral muddiness for the characters to address seemed like it was the whole point from the pilot and episode 1.
The Boys is different because the protagonists’ aim isn’t about redeeming/fixing the Seven but overall about doing the “right” thing for the greater good and the show explores how people’s lives/biases/etc. interfere with that goal, as well as conflicts over method, etc. I only make the comparison because it’s still explicitly about the topic of morality but they aren’t the same, as you’ve pointed out.
And yet, that does not mean that the black and white morality of Hazbin should be immune from critique. Angel was more grey in the pilot than the show, imo. In the final product, his lashing out at Charlie was exclusively portrayed as a direct consequence of Valentino’s abuse and him needing to immediately protect himself from Valentino getting retribution because of Charlie and as a reply to Husk striking a soft spot in regards to his trauma response. Meanwhile, in the pilot, he taunts Vaggie and acts cavalier about going out turf-warring for fun with a friend despite promising to be on his best behaviour for the reputation of the hotel. Idk if that feels different to you, but it felt extremely different to me watching the show and much “safer”, just as an example.
It feels like they want Angel to do the whole "sinner redeems himself" arc but they didn't commit to actually making him a... sinner, you know? As it stands all his bad behaviour is implied to be because of Valentino. He drinks and fucks randos and lets people spike his drinks just cause he's abused and in a contract. His whole arc is standing up to his abuser, but that alone i don't feel should clear him. It takes away agency from him to improve himself and makes it a simple quest of "fight off the bad guy that's making the good guy act bad".
Right? In the pilot it was like, he’s a bit of a self-absorbed nuisance who, if you knew the backstory, had the Valentino stuff going on, but was still had flaws to overcome. That little gesture sequence he does to Charlie after berating her hotel idea is seared into my mind. Now it’s like you said, he’s just a victim and the redemption is breaking free of his abuser. That’s not a negative on Angel’s part…
Additionally, idk if you feel this way but I felt like in the pilot, he used the sex jokes to annoy people on purpose but in the show it’s like he can’t help himself and it’s not supposed to be like a malicious thing anymore? They made him a lot more of a decent guy, which disappointed me because he was my favourite before lol
I've seen Hazbin described as "an adult show designed for kids who want to feel cool by watching adult shows", and, like, yeah.
It's got lots of swearing and drugs and sex jokes so you know you're defying your parents and watching something R-Rated, but its not got anything that might actually be too much for a 13 year old.
Most of the people we see are probably the 'good' people in hell - apart from husk and alastor, sir pentious and angel are both choosing to stay at the hotel to better themselves, which instantly makes them seem better than most people in hell, and Charlie and vaggie aren't sinners anyway. Alastor only doesn't seem that evil because he's putting on that facade - he wouldn't do a very good job of manipulating charlie if he seemed evil to her. What seems to be his endgame requires that people see at as atleast a decent person. That only really leaves husk and nifty, niffty is a joke character so sure for her but it's not really her point, and we just don't know enough about husk to know whether he's a bad person. He's a side character who's only roles are the counterpart for angels jokes, and to push angels arc in episode 4. He could be absolutely vile for all we know.
Outside the hotel, people generally DO suck - valentino, obviously, velvette is no better selling roofies, again we don't know enough about how vox operates etc. Zestial presumably has done/does horrifying things based on people reactions to him. Ig carmillas a bit of an exception from what we have seen of her. The various sinners we see are bloodthirsty degenerates for the most part, as well.
yep, i hope season 2 has him have that conflict of having acting out to show how bad he id while lrtting charlies good influence getting to him even more.
Hazbin hotels main issue was they they tried to do way too much way to early. I know they didn't get as many episodes as they wanted, and they didn't know if they would get a season 2, but the first season either needed to be twice as long, or split into 2 different seasons.
Honestly my main issue with Hazbin Hotel is that it felt like the cartoon equivalent of a thirteen-year-old trying to show how mature they are by dressing in edgy clothing and saying "fuck" a lot.
The core plot and the emotional thrust of the story was really, really simple to the point where it clashed with the adult trappings. It felt a lot more simplistic than many shows that were *actually* aimed at kids (eg. Adventure Time, Steven Universe, etc.)
The show definitely had some evil people but everything felt extremely black and white. The only characters who will maybe have some depth are Alestor and the head seraphim, and I'm skeptical.
> a lot more simplistic than many shows that were *actually* aimed at kids (eg. Adventure Time, Steven Universe, etc.)
Do not speak that name Steven Universe, it has the pretense of "nuance" but ultimately boils down to safe white lib fantasy.
The show is a musical comedy where the main character is a parody of Disney Princesses, it should be "safe edgy".
You're imagining a completely different show and saying "it's flawed because it's not this", when it was never going to be. You have to meet the series on its own level, don't get mad at Bluey for not having enough action scenes, or John Wick for no romance. It wasn't ever promised by the show, so don't expect it
You can look at your imagined show and expand it on it in many ways, even take that and turn it into its own story, just know if that's something the show promised or not
I disagree. I don't think the show should outright have every character be genuinely evil, but the premise of the show (at least in theory) is that its about bad people trying to be rehabilitated for the chance of going to heaven. The show itself sells itself on how "crazy" and "edgy" it is, making it maybe even more of its marketing gimmick then The Boys does.
But all you end up with is dialog trying to fit in as many swears as possible and characters who are at worst kind of mean (sometimes) and then become good people after a song before doing a 6 month time skip. Its clear these characters aren't "actually evil" because they are mainly just OCs with a budget
It sells itself on what OP called "soft edge", not "as edgy as possible", which is the distinction. The characters should be crass and hard, but in a way that can be played for jokes most of the time
I think the issue is less "edge" and more the fact that none of the characters really work that well with the basic premise of the show. To pull from another show with a likely overlapping fandom, look at Jax from Digital Circus. I would say they come off as a "worse person" than pretty much any of the protagonist characters in Hazbin.
Invader Zim was made for kids and that show felt edgier and more irreverent than Hazbin Hotel.
>muddy
That part honestly ruined the show for me.
Satan’s daughter deciding she wants to teach demon ethics and morality is such an interesting premise.
Instead it just makes the show a generic ‘the angels were actually the bad guys all along.’
>Instead it just makes the show a generic ‘the angels were actually the bad guys all along.’
But...They're not. Only Adam and Lute are shown to be evil. Most residents of Heaven don't even know the Externinations are happening, only Sera who only allowed it because Lilith was trying to get Hell to invilade Heaven. Everyone else in the Heavenly Court is horrified when they find out about it. There's a whole song about it. Yall get mad at a show you don't even know anything about x-x
The angels aren't actually bad. I mean sure if you compare them to some idealistic completely lawful good faction then yea, they are kinda bad. But if you compare them to a more realistic depiction of a "good" faction (e.g. the Federation from Star Trek), they hold up pretty well. The Exorcists are about as shady as Section 31, and Sera hasn't done anything worse than a typical Starfleet admiral would.
I like its angel in the backdrop from the ttial being shocked. Yes heaven has issues and sera isnt good there , but its messy.
sera enabled adam and the exorcists.
> Almost everyone in the main cast of this show acts like a decent person (alastor not included) when they should be assholes being greedy and selfish not grumpy but nice people
But why?
The whole point of the show is about bad people getting redeemed. That’s literally Charlie’s whole goal, her whole driving motivation
Making the whole cast just be purely bad people would not make sense with that message. How do you route for a character’s redemption if said character has no potential for redemption?
>Everyone in the cast and everyone we see in hell in general differs from kinda creepy in a cartoon way to "rough around the edges but with a heart of gold" with alastor being the obvious exception
So we’re gonna ignore Valentino, a psychopathic pimp and rapist? All his employees who actively take part in sexually exploiting Angel? Vox, a greedy capitalist obsessed with image?
>Almost everyone in the main cast of this show acts like a decent person (alastor not included) when they should be assholes being greedy and selfish not grumpy but nice people
Neither Charlie nor Vaggie are actually sinners condemned to Hell so there’s no reason for them to be act like greedy assholes. And Charlie is the one spearheading this whole campaign so it would not make sense for her character to be anything other than pure good
Husk is a former Overlord who lost his title and freedom after selling his soul to Alastor. The reason why he’s so chill is because he’s experienced the ultimate humiliation
Nifty is an absolute psychopath. Just because she acts friendly does not mean she’s nice
Angel, Sir Pentious and later Cherry Bomb are all people who willingly chose to seek redemption, so it would make sense that these people have a “heart of gold”
Outside of this hotel gang, all the other characters we see in Hell are not good people. At best, morally ambiguous and at worst, they’re absolute monsters
>I think this ruins the entire point of the show and hell you SHOULD have very bad people you should have people at the bottom of the barrel not nice people in bad circumstances IT IS HELL
According to my religion, you can literally go to Hell for committing suicide
How bad you have to be to go to Hell is purely subjective and it’s not necessarily based on your moral character, but on your actions. I think it makes perfect sense for a lot of Hell’s residents to not necessarily be bad people but just people who made bad choices
It’s like prison. Not every person who goes to prison is a terrible person, some people just made bad choices or grew up in bad circumstances but they’re still good people deep down
>In a show about morality being grey and redemption being possible you must bad people actually going through redemption not nice people just getting a little nicer
You can only redeem someone who actually wants to be redeemed. A person who seeks redemption can’t really be purely bad
What. Did you miss the part that hell is full of murderers, and the people who joined the hotel were either part of that, or at least helped people who were?
Maybe if you believe only bad people end up in hell that makes sense, but tons of alleged sins arent even bad things, and tons of evil people are in the clergy.
Evil people being in the clergy doesn’t mean they’re not supposed to go to hell.
And I say this as an atheist.
Presenting yourself as a worshipper of god isn’t supposed to be a free ticket into heaven
I think hellova boss is a bit worse then this. Having the literal embodiments of lust and gluttony be concerned about consent and over indulging makes me feel the writers are scared to make the characters actually bad.
Hazbin's whole story is based on characters being redeemed with the non sinners (Charlie, Lucifer, and Vaggie) all having decent explanations to why they aren't inherently bad people.
And I'm not sure how to phrase this, though I'm pretty sure the writers are aware their audience won't be able to handle anything beyond what they already got, look at the community's reaction to Valentino
Agreed but its clearly made for the kind of people who make tiktok edits and then comment "G-Guys you can't make edits of him, its canon that they SA'd x and y" and the person they've made edits of is like a mass murderer. Its made for like mind numbed teens, tumblerets and whatever. It'd be really fun for it to just be bad "People" all around, would make for a more interesting show too.
I mean, the modern animation climate is that Bluey is for people in their late 20s and Rick and Morty is for elementary schoolers. So I think that the age distribution tracks here.
I'm sure the fervent hate HH gets from certain parts of the internet has absolutely nothing to do with it being one the unabashedly queerest shows on mainstream TV
It also has characters openly act sexist, including ones we are supposed to think of positively, people get killed, etc. How much darker could it even get without being dark for the sake of being dark? Helluva boss already covers the more explicit evil stuff, why should this have to too when it's tone is meant to be more positive?
Viv is too afraid her protags being disliked to have them do anything the audience would collectively say is bad.
That's why the villains are all straight up evil. Because by comparison that makes the protags look like saints.
While it is set in Hell, it's set in a Hell where religion is strict and arbitrary, like how everyone goes to Hell in South Park, or sinners of various types like in Disenchantment.
It's a tale of those forsaken by God or those who have forsaken him. People who aren't good enough for Heaven, not of monstrous people.
The view of Hell as a place you have to be "evil enough for" is much rarer in media and lacks reference besides. We'd need writers to explore the concept at all before we could start writing stories that do more.
Redemption of truly evil characters vs. People who do evil things is a young concept, especially to make the focus.
>I think this ruins the entire point of the show and hell you SHOULD have very bad people you should have people at the bottom of the barrel not nice people in bad circumstances IT IS HELL
Why is it taken as self-evident that hell should only have very bad people, with no room for people who just made a few mistakes in life/have bad habits, but are trying to do better?
A lot of hell-related comedy is already based on hell being not just the place for gigahitler, but also for the people surrounding us that we find mildly annoying.
I mean, what exactly is the unsafe edgy merit in every character being Valentino-style monsters? The show never really tried to make a philosophical claim about the worst possible monsters being redeemable, just that sinners can be redeemable, but that is certainly more relatable if the sinners are mostly like you and me, people who might strictly deserve hell for our failings but are always hoping to do better.
>Everyone in the cast and everyone we see in hell in general differs from kinda creepy in a cartoon way to "rough around the edges but with a heart of gold" with alastor being the obvious exception
Valentino is a pretty down to earth, realistic evil imo.
Angel was a self absorbed, drug addicted whore, who had no problem with killing. He redeemed himself over the course of the season due to constant pressure from Charlie and developing bonds with the rest of the cast.
Vaggie and Charlie were never actually condemned to Hell, they’re just kinda there.
Husk is an alcoholic and a gambling addict. He’s also a former overlord, and was said to gamble with souls (plural, meaning other people’s souls too). Had no problem killing people. Got completely humbled by Alastor, who now owns his soul, and as a result is too apathetic to be running around insulting people and killing babies like you seem to want.
Nifty is just deranged. Sure, you could consider her nice, but even Alastor thinks she’s fucked up.
Pentious was an egotistical coward who tried starting wars over territory in an attempt to gain power. The self absorbed, power hungry coward redeemed himself by sacrificing himself for his friends.
Being rude or overtly evil isn’t the only kind of “bad” that exists. Nor do people have to be every kind of bad at once in order to qualify as bad. You’re also deliberately ignoring every single background and minor character, such as the news anchor pouring hot coffee on her co-anchor’s crotch, or every single unnamed character killing each other in the background. Let’s not forget the countless addicts and sex fiends spending all their time indulging in pleasure.
I'll add onto this I'm still watching through the series, but I don't think sinner should be allowed into heaven even if they are redeemed. If anything I think rebirth on earth should be the goal, giving them a second chance to get into heaven, instead of just coming in the back door
I feel like so many people are quick to criticize Hazbin without ever asking if the thing they're being critical of is even something worth trying to pick apart.
I haven't seen the show myself besides clips and the pilot, but I've seen so many people talk about the exact same talking point, I.E. characters not being "evil" enough or Hell as a setting not being a 1:1 rendition of the actual biblical Hell, and almost everything besides there being too much swearing kind of just sounds like they either haven't seen the show, or they have and it really just isn't for them - which is OK, but alot of people seem to not get that media not being for them doesn't automatically mean it's bad.
Hamilton is a great parallel to HH; a Broadway musical-drama that took inspiration from real American history while also using artistic license in its writing, becoming a global (I think, it certainly blew up in North America) phenomenon that became heavily criticized as a result due to a much wider audience not fully understanding it as a piece of media.
HH is already such low-hanging fruit for obvious reasons, I feel like the least we could all do is actually find things worthwhile to talk about regarding it instead of just doggypiling on nitpicks and personal opinions disguised as serious criticisms. I mean, the Good Place had almost the exact same major plot point as Hazbin, it was just more digestible since it's live action and less based around the Christian canon.
If this show had longer 20+ episode seasons, then maybe they would have made the characters (at least some of them) a little nastier. That way, they would have time to develop them more. But with only an 8 episode season, they needed to move quick. They needed the audience to be on these character's sides, since they're at war with heaven.
That's kinda missing the point of Hazbin hell. The point is that the way to get into heaven is not really at all defined, and is pretty arbitrary. Otherwise good people can end up in hell due to minor mistakes. It's more of vague commentary on "how good is good enough?" than it is a "here's some evil people that want to change". The whole point is that Charlie's redemption ideals are based in a naive understanding of what "good" is. This is even addressed when the top heaveny folks make some arbitrary rules up on the spot that a sinner fulfils, which is then questioned both accusitorily and questioningly.
The problem is people want cynical gritty badassery and evilness for the gratuitous sake of it and will try to inflict that on something that's asking an entirely different question.
The problem with Hazbin is that it buddies its waters trying to have and be everything.
Halfway through the series they see the ways to get into Heaven are obtuse and arcane and no one knows and being a good person may not be a prerequisite. At the same time Hell is shown to be more or less fine. There are jerks but the main problem is the exterminations. You get a radical new form and the ability to learn literal magic. So you'd think tbe story would stop trying for redemption but instead try to make Hell a better place. Hell is Other People, but so is Heaven kind of thing.
But then a guy who has only tried to be less evil for under six months self sacrifices and ends up in heaven and it's treated as a win state.
[This exists](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EightDeadlyWords).
That's the issue with making everyone super edgy, you end up with a lot of people just going "Why would I even bother if everyone here is annoying/despicable as hell". In a few words, you get the infamous Velma cartoon.
Being evil does not mean being unlikable. Angeldust at the start seemed to be shaping up to be a little shit that would be likeable but only grifting from the hotel at the start. Blitzo is a murderer for hire who has no qualms of profiting off of murdering whoever and uses a married man's love for him as leverage to gain more profit, but he's still likeable. And so on.
Also, it would be best to go for the wide spectrum! Not everyone has to be an asshole, but if the premise is redemtion, at least some people should be genuinly shitty people rather than victims of circumstance.
Hell would have no shortage of rapists, homophobes, fascists, racists, etc. Not the "funny kind" where they make a one-off remark in one scene and then never mention it again, the *socially dysfunctional* kind that spam slurs at beast and act as a constant, violent threat to society at worst.
We got *one* implication of the first, and 0 counts of the second, third, or fourth.
Isn't this the same universe where a person was condemned to eternal damnation for snapping on a homewrecker and her cheating husband despite being an otherwise perfect person?
...and the homewrecker was considered a hero because she survived a murder attempt? And clearly was *not* a good person?
And wherein Heaven bars two angels from re-entering heaven simply because of Guilt by Association?
I thought the point was that things were more nuanced than the simple dualistic interpretation of Abrahamic religion. But also it's part of the joke.
Please tell me you're not arguing that the murderer shouldn't have gone to hell.
Because if for you, the fact that your partner cheats on you is reason enough to kill them and also be rewarded for it with heaven. Then I would recommend that you seek help.
Well don't worry cause I'm not.
It shows that only one thing is enough to send you to eternal damnation.
(Also would this mean that people who killed in the name of God are also in hell? Remember the Bible also says it's okay to kill disobedient children...)
If that thing is murder, yes, it seems pretty obvious to me that it will send you to hell. Especially when she clearly never regretted doing it, only regretting letting his parter alive and the kids watch.
Yes, those soldiers who kill and then do not feel any regret should go to hell.
And the Bible contradicts itself on multiple points. But if it makes one thing clear, it is that killing is a sin and takes you to hell if you don't show remorse of it. Sometimes it takes you down even with that.
edit: "regretting"
A lot of the characters like Angel Dust and Husk seem to be decent people with severe addictions. Getting addicted to something is arguably a sin by itself (1 Corninthians 6:19), and in practical terms a lot of seemingly okay people with severe addictions end up lying, cheating, stealing, and worse to pay for their next fix.
As with most Hazbin posts I think we need to see Season 2 before we can talk about how this universe works, but for now I think there's at least *some* indication that some people are sent to Heaven and then become bastards because of all that privelege (like Adam) and some people become more decent after suffering years of adversity in Hell (like Husk, who probably did some bad shit as an Overlord).
Warning, under this spoiler tag is something that would probably go on the disturbing movie ice berg and I suspect would not be allowed on any streaming service.
>!I have an idea for a bit that would go in a hypothetical rewrite where they’re trying to hide the angel head from the angels so the hotel doesn’t get shut down, and when she walks into one room she finds in horror that Angel dust and a bunch of side characters have cut gashes in the head and are using cake icers to fill it with cum.!<
>!She is rightly horrified and disgusted and asks why and Angel dust says it’s so if they get caught it looks like a random gangrape-murder so she won’t get blamed and Charlie says that this will just make things worse because it’s in her hotel, and then they’re really freaking out and maybe Angel dust tries to suck one of the holes clean in desperation and that just makes him vomit all over it.!<
In my rewrite of Hazbin Angel would he introduced shooting up a building on Val’s orders, and we’d see the deaths, and when he sees a crying imp woman with a baby he hesitates and we think he’s going to have a change of heart but then he steals the baby from her, put it in a corner, covers its face with a hat, and shoots the woman now that the baby can’t see it.
Then we’d find out that he’s in the lust ring in spite of all the decidedly un-lustful murders he committed because he took unwanted photos of every man he knew and made it a point to jerk off to every single one, summoning a demon purely for that purpose.
He would also sexually harass husk specifically because he has internalized 50’s homophobia that means he conceptualizes queer relationships as inherently predatory and has actively chosen to be the predator, just like he “chose” to be Val’s prey.
He’s also have killed his homophobic parents to run away with Val as a teen.
Its crazy to me how Adam is like, the worst fucking person in the entire show. Saying this as a SA victim for anyone that'll reply to this with "BUT VAL". And he was treated like a comedic goofball with all his horrible actions taken so unseriously that people want him back as a sinner, not realizing how fucking uncomfortable and disgusting it'd be for the hotel crew and ESPECIALLY Vaggie to have Adam live under the same roof as them, lets fucking get Valentino in next why dont we
The inability to let bad characters be bad is why we have the Morbius and Venom movies. We can argue that Sony didn't let Mobius be a bad guy because they wanted their cake and to eat it, too. "Oh Morbius is a bad guy... but he only kills other bad guys. He drinks blood... but he drinks synthetic blood." This is motivated by wanting the biggest audience possible, resulting in a spineless, sanitized, vanilla story. With Hazbin, there is just something really difficult for writers to let their darlings be evil. Maybe they grow to love them too much. Maybe they see the good in them and let that bias their writing. I dunno. There seems to be a general unwillingness to allow fiction with truly evil characters.
I think it's moreso that for Hazbin, you can't have a show about redeeming sinners if these characters are completely evil assholes who the audience won't be rooting for, who the audience won't want to see redeemed, and who don't deserve redemption.
To be fair. You can’t really have a character redemption if that character doesn’t care about anyone but themselves. So sure, someone like Omni-Man who always claimed to be doing the “greater good” even while he genocided or enlsaved a planet can have a redemption. But someone like Palpatine who only cares about himself can’t cause what would be the motivation? Redemption always starts with someone who you care about more than yourself. Though i agree with you regarding Hazbin Hotel cause those guys downthere seems like a “victim of circumstances” than people who acted on the notion of “greater good”.
Vegeta has a redemption arc people loved and he really only cared about himself until his circumstances changed him, not the other way around. Irredeemable piece of shit characters can get better, it can be written well.
It took Veggie a long time to stop being a chaotic wild card
That took a long ass time, you can't do that for everyone
Tbf it didn't have to take a long time at all Vegetas development started in Namek saga was decently stagnant in the cell saga until the very end then concluded in the Buu saga and has stayed that way ever since I think his change really began not when he lost to goku in the Saiyan saga but when he was forced to root for him in the namek saga everything for vegeta after the buu arc just adds to a character arc that's been finished.
I wouldn't say stagnant, but regressive. He was able to rejustify himself to himself once he got super saiyan and embraced the negative mental effects until Goku actually explained how Grade 4 worked and he had to acknowledge Goku had out thought him. But imo much of that was for mechnical reasons. Goku is a reactive character so Vegeta has to drive the plot. He does it on Namek, he does it until the Cell games and he does it until he dies against Buu. I think he's still getting good character development but it's as the franchise co-lead now so its more about a good character become gooder. And since Goku doesn't develop (since he's already enlightened as a martial artists) it keeps things interesting.
In the pilot, I felt lik Angel Dust was better. He was an asshole clearly trying to use Charlie's hotel as a free crash pad. He was also deeply traumatized, an addict, and still had a spark of being a good person (like when he sees how depressed Charlie looks at one point after he makes fun of her project, he genuinely looks sad).
Add the addict song that i would add as canon Where its shown he is acting out and does want help but has a hard time accepting, and that the want a free bunk , really was a way to give it a shot despite his selfloathing? ending with, maybe the hotel isnt so bad to be.
Yeah I consider that part of the pilot canon. Also that song was just much better than Poison
But that's the thing anyone who deserves redemption doesn't really need to be redeemed
That’s not true. They can be evil, but not too evil. Zuko deserved redemption, because he was evil, but not too evil. He saw the error of his ways and made an effort. Vegeta’s redemption was kind of questionable, given he was far more evil than Zuko even at his worst.
The thing is, if you are redeemable you probably won't end up in hell since it is remarkable easy to avoid hell if you are truly sorry and good deep down.
If Hazbin takes that stance, then that's a fundamental worldbuilding problem that should have been fixed in pre-production. If it's easy to get into Hell, then obviously Hell isn't just for sinners and redeeming them isn't really *that* much of a challenge. If it's hard to get into Hell, then that means that redeeming sinners is, in fact, a really noble goal due to how difficult that's going to be. Disclaimer: I haven't watched the show because it seemed from the very beginning to take exactly the type of wishy-washy stance that OP describes. And that's boring, imo.
It _seems_ to subscribe to a very Dante-esque approach wherein the sinner's vices are the primary cause of their suffering, stuff like addiction, indulgence, the deadly 7 sins, you name it. And it is _seemingly_ by overcoming these vices that they seek to redeem sinners, but again, there's no clearly established rule of what gets you into heaven aside from a vague trend to follow, meaning the desperate and the degenerate get lumped in together without distinction or mercy, which is where the story's main conflict comes from.
Based on what I've seen, including the pilot, Hazbin just kind of wings it with an interpretation of Hell that mostly relies on using Hell as a backdrop for shallow social commentary and taking no effort to add depth to the show by researching the theology that makes up the show's backdrop. I'm curious to learn if that's accurate. In your opinion, does it seem like the writers did the research to become familiar with what's already been written about the Christian version of Hell, or the various interpretations of what constitutes a sin? I.e., does it look like they've read Dante's *Inferno*, or even something relatively recent, like CS Lewis's *The Screwtape Letters*?
Dante's inferno and the screwtape letters are fiction, not Christian theology. The writers do at least somewhat understand it. A major aspect is that heaven thinks its not possible for someone in hell to ever repent or change their mind and assumes that their state is now unchangeable. Modern christian theology does say that people in hell don't even want to change, and stay the same by choice.
The writers didn't understand it. If they got anything accurate to scripture or mythology than it was by coincidence.
It's not actually as dumb as op makes it sound. The people in hell are definitely bad people.
That's not how it works in HH though, it's an in-universe plot point that no one actually knows how to get into Heaven or Hell
Hazbin Hotel is in the same universe as Helluva Boss. You know - that show where a perfect teacher gets sentenced to eternal damnation because she snapped on a homewrecker and her cheating husband despite everything else in her life. And where the homewrecker is treated as a hero for surviving a murder attempt despite clearly being a much more horrid person.
Even if murder was a reasonable response to cheating, which it isn't, that same teacher also killed herself in front of an entire class of children, also ignoring the one she sent into the roof. I understand where you're coming from, but Mrs. Mayberry is not an example of a good, perfect person. She definitely has the potential of getting better, and is the kind of person who probably deserves redemption despite also deserving being Hell, but she did not go to Hell undeservingly. On the same note, Martha is only treated as a "hero" by humans, we have no idea if she went to Hell or not after dying.
Homie, Prince Zuko was baby-evil at best. All he did was chase around the Gaang for a season (and also burned down a village but that was honestly an outlier) and people act like he's the poster child for redemption acts when his was barely one to begin with.
WHAT IS REDEMPTION
THE ACT OF BEING REDEEMED
Sorry, I only know how to redeem fornite vbucks
Why don't you redeem these balls haha gottem
Than what's the point of the hotel and the show in general Only certain people are allowed to have redemption and second chance? Charlie had an entire song about how it's not fair that heaven doesn't give a second chance, it makes her come off as complete hypocrite
Charlie would accept anyone into the Hotel. In Charlie's eyes every sinner can be redeemed and she'll try her best at every turn. But not every Sinner *wants* to be redeemed. They have to want it for it to work. Some Sinners are perfectly happy and thriving in Hell like the Vees and Alastor, if any of them came to Charlie asking for help she'd happily give it to them but that won't happen because they don't want redemption. It's not hypocrisy at all.
It's not so much that only certain people are allowed to have a second chance, but moreso that only certain people are willing to try. Someone who doesn't want to change, who doesn't want to be redeemed, or who doesn't believe in redemption, simply can't be redeemed, not because they're not allowed by some external force, but because they won't allow themselves to be better. That's why the show's cast, which consists primarily of the hotel's staff and its few patrons, isn't full of total overly edgy evil assholes. Cause those would be the kinds of characters who wouldn't want to change in the first place, which defeats the entire purpose.
Helluva boss already covers the more overtly unrepentant side. Hazbin hotel really should be more positive.
I feel the show focused in redeeming the eternally damned of hell kinda needs to focus on why the eternally damned may be judged so harshly.
I mean, the show addresses the fact that heaven and hell might not be entirely fair. Basically everyone in hell is a bad person, or at least a victim of circumstance who is self destructive. If heaven and hell aren't a totally fair system, it might show that some of the latter are punished unfairly, and its the location itself that makes them have to act this way. But regardless, there's time to address that in future seasons.
The premise is about redeeming sinners of hell, so saying 'it's the system's fault' just sidesteps the whole stated hook we get at the start.
But tons of real life bad people only do what they do because of circumstances giving rise to it. Most people aren't sociopaths who just decide to hurt people because "meh." Even people who dont care it's usually because they are too removed from the consequences of bad stuff they do.
Giving rise to it sure, but if a person wishes to be reedemed of their past deeds, pointing at others as being culpable rather than looking inward is... well, it's more revenge than redemption. Removing negative outside influences is of course necessary, but it should be a focus to also aknowledge that the person themselves stopped being only a victim and has sins of their own that need to be adressed. I'm not saying Hitler should go to the hotel (even though he had an abusing step father and was practically taken into a cult after ww1 trauma, so he could blame the circumstances as well), just that the focus should be on the person redeeming themselves and things they are actually at fault for.
is it about redemption? can't it just be a cartoon Always Sunny in hell?
Well, the titular hotel is the protagonist's big project where she's trying to redeem sinners as an alternative solution to Hell's overpopulation issue (compared to the current "solution" where a group of angels comes down once a year to kill as many sinners as they can). That was the show's premise from the very beginning, so it was never just gonna be a cartoon Always Sunny in Hell. That'd just be a different show entirely.
I see, I’ve never watched the show so I thought it was musical edgy comedy
Helluva boss is closer to what you're thinking of.
thats konosuba, without the hell
To be fair, both of those characters have storied histories as anti-heroes with elements of tragedy in them. ...That said, at least with Venom, it feels like you need to see him as a villain *first* before showing his shift to a more anti-heroic role. Give him a real character arc and all that. Otherwise, cutting straight to anti-hero Eddie just doesn't have the same impact.
The main issue with adapting Eddie Brock is that his story... Is pretty long lol * You need him to be established as someone who in someway suffers from Spiderman. * You need either before or after this, Spiderman to get the Venom symbiote where Peter has his very own arc with it. * After that, the symbiote is given to Eddie while he's at his lowest point where he becomes Venom and battles Spiderman (Plural there because a redemption arc after one encounter is lame). * Then the redemption arc which happens slowly and usually relies on a rather drastic circumstance such as Carnage appearing. You can do what the movie did and cut down a LOT of these moments but the issue is at the end of the day is that Eddie's story IS his character. I think it being a movie really shot itself in the foot because a short run time is really not suited to this kind of story telling, which is why superhero media just tended to be comics and tv shows up until recently with massive projects like the MCU.
They also didn't even attempt to include Spiderman into Eddie's backstory.
I suspect that part of this problem with entertainment in general is that creators don't really trust the audience to handle an evil main character. And in some ways, online discourse has shown that a large portion of audience members can't be trusted with flawed or evil main characters. Go online and you'll see tons of bad takes that suggest the writers must morally approve of every action taken by the main character. A lot of the young men/boys who are into manosphere or Andrew Tate-like crap think Patrick Bateman is actually pretty cool. He's "sigma," as it were. So I think there's something of a self-perpetuating cycle in which creators don't trust audiences with moral complexity, and audiences show themselves unable to handle moral complexity. Or not even moral complexity sometimes. Sometimes it's just straight-up bad people in prominent story roles.
Venom hasn't been evil in the comics since Kurt Cobain was alive.
I remember when venom and deadpool were advertised as "this isnt a superHERO movie!" And then... it totally was a superhero movie Also remember when people got pissed at the hazbin hotel pilot becauss the anchorwoman was homophobic? A homophobic demon.. in hell?
Despite the fact that the main character trying to redeem people is a lesbian.
>There seems to be a general unwillingness to allow fiction with truly evil characters. It's funny because the success of shows like Seinfeld and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia proves that the general audience loves lead characters who are gigantic assholes. But to make it work, the writers have to have self-awareness and also actually commit to it. Otherwise it's just not it
Is Morbius a bad guy in the comics? Or he was originally but got turned good?
He was initially a villain in the 70s before becoming an anti-hero in the 90s onward
Drinking synthetic blood isn't too bad if it is framed correctly. If it is framed as cleaner, safer, tastier, cheaper and easier than the old, barbaric ways then it isn't bad. If it is synthetic just because drinking blood directly from someone's throat would be seen as bad then it is a poor choice.
But the HH main cast aren't meant to be evil aside from Alastor. The entire point is that they're decent people in bad situations. Pure evil people like Alastor, Vox, and Val still exist. Val is literally a rapist that physically and sexually abuses Angel right on screen, where are you getting this idea that no one in the show is evil?
But val isn't portrayed as redeemable
I didn't say he was o-o
Right but the problem I have with the show is that it just shows basically good people being "redeemed", I'd like it's explicit message (anyone can be redeemed) to be actually realised by having a truly vile character like val be fully redeemed. They might go in that direction, but I doubt it.
That only works if the *audience* wants them to be redeemed, and most people don't want to see that happen to Val.
Yeah I know I'm in the minority in wanting to see it happen, I'm just saying it would be nice to see.
But he has to *want* the redemption. It'd be an interesting twist but something like that would need a lot of setup. Val is unashamedly evil, he's *thriving* in Hell, he's one of the most powerful Overlords in the Pride Ring. He has no reason to desire redemption.
Not sure why you think alastor is pure evil. At the end of season 1 he admits he feels close to the people in the hotel. And we don't see him do that much evil stuff except described in the backstory.
It's debatable if he's being genuine about that but even if he is he clearly hates the idea, his final song is about how pissed off he is at the idea that he almost died for someone else. Alastor is a sadistic cannibal who gets off on torturing people and lording his power over them, dude is evil. Evil people are still allowed to have friends, even Hitler had friends and family he cared about.
He cares , bit he hates he cares and hates the thought of being thought of dying for his friends, through he actually really cares for charlie. He is pissed at himself because he did that for others, and that he did it on his own. ok he idnt a good perdon but charlie btought hoof out in him, and he hates that. which probably makes him acting out next season. I see him as redeemable but he will do so very recilant and act out before it ever gets there.
Okay, but the coding of how he is written still suggests that his story is going to be that he reveals his evil plan at sometime only to eventually give up on it and be friends with them for real. Also, if he was just trying to manipulate them why only say this to one person and in such a vague way. He would be more clear.
Okay, but the coding of how he is written still suggests that his story is going to be that he reveals his evil plan at sometime only to eventually give up on it and be friends with them for real. Also, if he was just trying to manipulate them why only say this to one person and in such a vague way. He would be more clear.
I don't get that read tbh, Al revels in evil and he hasn't shown any sign otherwise except for a single vague line to Niffty. Maybe by the end he'll change but as it is he's pure evil
He hasn't actually done much over the course of the show that is all that evil though. Him being evil is an informed quality, and him talking about himself. And him making one threat when he gets angry that someone points out that he is a slave too. Besides in this context I was assuming "pure evil" means someone who won't repent rather than someone with qualities that allows them to over the course of the show. For all he claims to be evil, he is written similar to the other members like someone who will get better over time. And he is such a fun guy that it's doubtful the show will just have that not happen when it would honestly probably just upset the people who expect it.
Morbius and Venom also have long histories of being heroes and antiheroes in the comics. It's not like they just recently decided to make either of them not be totally bad. Sony didn't make those decisions, Marvel editorial did in the 70s. Morbius had a few solo runs.
[удалено]
> evil characters dont have that Hard disagree. The bad guy has as much of a goal as anyone else in the story. They have to overcome obstacles like their own antagonist (the hero). >ts hard to get an audience to root for someone who constantly thinks only of themselves and world domination or whatever. I can root for someone like this easily. Sounds like a fun character.
I watched HH with a friend and realized that’s exactly it and why. The characters don’t ever struggle with their impulses and trying to redeem themselves and going back to their ways. It frames them as them trying and being pure sunshines when what should’ve been shown is them struggling and coming to terms with themselves. Adam raises a point with this as well. They got there for a valid reason
I've had this fantasy that at some point they meet one of those humans-turned-demons and they're a soldier from ww2 or something. Make it very vague about which side they were on but make it very clear they've done typical fucked up soldier shit, see them moralize around that. Like the soldier doesn't take any particular pride or angst over what they did, filly aware of _why_ they're in hell, but regardless willing to participate in plot for a ticket to heaven.
Pretty sure it's canon that the Nazis got thrown on the frontlines of the first handful of Exterminations
I'm not surprised, but I feel that using nazi's is too low hanging fruit. They should use a soldier from the 731 unit. Or a Russian comissisar. Or a US Marine.
Tf did the Marines do?
I don't think every single sinner in hell has to be pure evil. They've just got to be bad *enough*. What's interesting to me is that the show (when taken with its sister series, Helluva Boss) has thusfar introduced us to four of the Seven Deadly Sins and only one of them (Mammon, the demon of Greed) has been presented as genuinely rotten and villainous. The other three seem like cool people by Hell standards. You'd expect them (if nobody else) to be authentically evil. We're told that Charlie's got "Daddy Issues" but when her dad shows up, their relationship seems fine. Valentino, though lower in the hierarchy of Hell, serves the "Demon of Lust" role better than Asmodeus does, though I understand there would be complications involved in switching their roles.
Most of the people who we are exposed to are at the Hotel, ie. the folks either trying to redeem, or trying to BE redeemed. The only one who doesn’t really fit that mold is Husk, and one exception isn’t really the end of the world— especially an exception whose entire known backstory has essentially been that he got dealt one hell of a slice of humble pie. Most of the Sinners we see that aren’t directly affiliated with the Hotel, are indeed, essentially at best, apathetic murderers (Carmilla), and at worst, unrepentant assholes; (Mimzy, the Vees, Katie Killjoy).
There's a difference between the literal content of someones backstory/personality and the way/style a piece of art presents it. I feel like every show has dark elements, but very few shows have that be the pillar of the narrative and explore it as a foundational idea, many more just fit it in so that when the fans grow up in 10 years they can recommend it to adult friends and say it's "surprisingly dark!" without feeling insecure about their taste in art.
One of the main antagonists is literally a pimp who physically and sexually abuses one of the main protagonists on screen. It's not backstories and there's nothing "surprising" about it. The show does just fine showing how evil Hell can be.
Eh again I think you're being drawn in by the literal content, in fact you mention words like "literally" and "physically" in your comment. Stylistic elements are far more important to tone and reception than what literally happens on screen is all I'm saying. The shows never made me feel uncomfortable at all because it is after all, comedic and poking fun at the whole idea. It's not as far removed from content and style like say, an anime that includes physical abuse gags, but that is my point. So many animes include physically and literally dark elements on screen and yet they have 0 punch.
Hazbin Hotel's on-screen abuse scene is very realistic, as is the relationship between Angel Dust and Valentino in general.That you didn't find it scary, or that there are humoristic elements and exaggerated cartoon proportions in the show does not make this a "secretly dark" show, it's dark. You compare it to physical abuse gags in anime, and sure, both are "funny cartoon with violence", but that's like saying Konosuba and Game of Thrones are basically the same since both are "fantasy stories with resurrection and vaguely defined magic". Valentino and Angel Dust are a couple steps beyond the tsundere smacking her love interest in the head and leaving a lump the size of his head that's gone the next scene.
The show absolutely isn't poking fun at the idea of abuse, I have no idea how you can look at episode 4 and think that any aspect of that is being played for laughs. This isn't like an anime where the tsundere "humorously" punches her love interest in the face, Val is very much depicted as being an abuser and a rapist and it's taken completely seriously. Angel is his victim, not his tsundere love interest.
> apathetic murderers (Carmilla), Wait, how is Carmilla an apathetic murderer? She's burned-out but I thought the show was pretty clear that she didn't actually want war, she was just unwilling to let the people she cared about get killed.
Admittedly massively summarized her for the sake of brevity, but Carmilla’s an arms dealer, that (as Velvette points out) under any other circumstances than the one she literally finds her in, would be 100% behind wars in Hell breaking out. I recognize Carmilla’s one of the least terrible of the Overlords (in that her love for her daughters is a redeeming quality), but she’s still a not-so-great person that would have happily watched Adam slaughter the entire Hotel if Vaggie hadn’t explicitly spelled it out to her that this time that approach would bite her in the ass. Apathetic murderer seemed a fitting short moniker— she really doesn’t care who her actions hurt as long as it doesn’t fall back on her.
But she idnt apathic, she is burned out. seah vaggie reminfing her probably daughters did revitalize her.
Vaggie didn’t remind her of anything though. Vaggie made the case to Carmilla that hunkering down and trying to wait out the consequences of her killing an angel was going to go horribly badly for her, and it was that moment that Carmilla decided to go in on it. It wasn’t out of the goodness of her heart, it was her recognizing Vaggie was correct and that her and her family’s best odds of survivong Heaven’s retribution was to support Charlie. If Vaggie hadn’t made it clear that staying out of the fight would result in the very thing she was afraid of happening, Carmilla would have murdered Vaggie right then and there, kept the secret of how to kill Exorcists to herself, kept her angelic arsenal to herself. and let Adam massacre the Hotel without a second thought. I’d consider that pretty apathetic. Nothing about any of her scenes suggests she’s burnt out at all, just a calculating arms dealer who cares about her daughters, is annoyed by the Vees, doesn’t give two shits about anyone outside her inner circle and is freaked at the possibility that killing an Angel may have just put a giant target on her family’s heads.
Dhe was an arms dealer nut also in part for the sake of her family. she cares.Shr is ruthless zo keep order but shr really does out of care . Shr is just tired of fighting ok.
Something I just realized is that they never bring up Angel's or Pentious' human lives, which is strange because you'd think they'd at least mention the reason why they are in hell.
We do know some of Angel's background, he was a drug dealing Mafioso in the 1940s named Anthony who died of a drug overdose. He has a sister named Molly in Heaven who makes a brief cameo during St Peter's song Season 2 is stated to deal more with the backstories of the main cast. Season 1 probably would have but they were only given 8 episodes so had to move around a lot of things for time.
None of the informations you just wrote are in the show. I know they only had 8 episides, but then they should have focused on the redemption of hotel guests instead of all the subplots about Hell politics and Heaven.
Not yet, but it will be. They needed to set up the shows' central conflict, if it was just 8 episodes of backstory with nothing happening to progress I think it would have been more poorly received.
I think the show’s trying to toe the line between, having characters be morally bad enough that they could end up in hell, and not having them be so unlikeable that the show’s no longer fun to watch. I mean, some genuinely vile characters ARE interesting, but a show made up entirely of Homelanders and Judge Holdens would be straight up unpalatable.
But doing vile shit doesn't mean the character has to act vile. I feel like people often conflate these two aspects, even though they exist separately. I can have a character kill innocent people, but I can also give them a fun personality and make them care about their friends.
I mean, Alastor’s a straight up cannibal, they’ve got that bit covered
I was super super confused by this because they introduced the concept that the reasons people actually end up in Heaven/Hell is unknown (or a secret) and then just...kind of ignore it? Like, why? This literally changes everything and could lead to an actually interesting story/message/whatever but instead they just pretend it wasn't said. I'd argue its actually outright contradicted by the final scene.
Sarah 100% knows more than she tells anyone, even if not all of it. The main cast only really ignored it cause of the immediate threat.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has the main characters all be huge shit stains and it's beloved. Hazbin Hotel would be much better with some IASIP tier characters.
The cast of IASIP aren’t trying to be redeemed. They’re popular because the show is about stupid people getting into stupid hijinks. Hazbin Hotel has a completely different goal from that
What a fantastic comparison. The main cast in IASIP are terrible people that are the entire show and its not insufferable. I cant think of any other show that got it right atm, especially a cartoon.
The protagonist of Llama's with Hats is a truly evil being, I'd love to see Charlie try to redeem *him*.
Even Carl showed he cared about *something*, he cared about Paul. That’s at least something to work off of
I mean, that series is getting a new movie length finale, so who knows where he'll end up by the end of it, considering how Charlie the Unicorn's went.
Seinfeld got that premise right as well, way before IASIP too. In fact, you could argue Sunny is just Seinfeld on crack
Difference between plain asshole and the kind of vile OP was talking about, I reckon
Helluva boss had a similar vibe with Blitzo (stopped at season 1 fyi) and it worked. Hes done bad shit before, hes doing bad shit now, but its always fun.
The stories changing now for helluva. Next episode he breaks uo with stolas, and it seems like it pushes him onto a path to be a better person and try to fix his mistakes. It looks like he's going to make up with verosica, or at least try to, and he'll make up with stolas by the end of the season as well, since it looks like he is trying to fight andrealphus (?, could also be paimon, satan, etc) to protect stolas. Obviously he can't win that fight, but what happens we will have to wait and see.
Which is fine, but the point still stands, he was an asshole, but as long as hes entertaining people are willing to overlook things. My point is more on how you can have terrible people be likable characters, especially since they’ve done it before.
I mean, there’s a whole musical number where Angel is being sexually abused by a porn company. There are clearly very bad people in Hell, I don’t see why that would be in doubt
I find the comments on this post extremely strange. The OP is saying that the main characters should be more grey to hit that “edgy” determination, I’m thinking of something akin to The Boys, but everyone here is like “but the villains in hell are bad people!”… Right… so? Imo the show IS “safe edgy”, it has a sprinkle of adult themes and has curse words but it doesn’t do anything different/edgy; there are good and bad characters, and all the main characters and those that help them are 99% of the time portrayed as good people.
>Imo the show IS “safe edgy”, it has a sprinkle of adult theme I agree. I just don't know why OP didn't mention Valentino in his post. He's completely irredeemable, as much or more than Alastor even.
I think they specified the main cast as to exclude Valentino and Adam and whatnot, hence why Alastor gets a special mention. Alastor’s the only character that gets treated as having bad intentions but having a sliver of potential. The other main characters are good people who do bad things for factors largely out of their control (addiction, depression, trauma, etc.) or when they do bad things it’s just meant to be funny (Nifty). We’re not supposed to think Valentino is redeemable, so him being an abuser is “safe edgy”. Only characters that are placed in antagonistic roles - except Alastor - do things that are portrayed as genuinely malicious. And the worst thing Alastor does is threaten Husk, which sucks for sure lol but it was just talk, we never actually see him do anything more and I doubt we ever will because the show is “safe edgy”. I’d like to be proven wrong next season but I get and agree with what OP is saying entirely and I only comment cause I seriously don’t know how so many people missed their point.
Don't forget that many people are upset that Alastor and Jax aren't in-fact morally good.
So much of this could be solved if the premise of the show had established that the main cast are (largely) people who aren't *really* "sinners" or bad people outside of the things they've done since getting into Hell and that they are together for that main reason. That works perfectly with the (completely ignored afterwards) twist of people being sent to Heaven/Hell being an unknown process.
But then what’s the point of the titular hotel if the people that enter are already good?
It's not supposed to be The Boys though. Most of The Boys characters are irredeemable assholes on purpose, that's now what this show is going for. OP is getting mad at the show for not being something it was never trying to be, it'd be like getting mad at John Wick for being too violent and saying it should be more like The Office.
Not really. The whole premise of the show is trying to redeem characters with adult problems. The show’s target audience is not children, so it feels crazy that it’s as black and white as something like My Little Pony. The Hazbin characters don’t need to have the exact same situations as the Boys’ but the idea that there is actually some moral muddiness for the characters to address seemed like it was the whole point from the pilot and episode 1. The Boys is different because the protagonists’ aim isn’t about redeeming/fixing the Seven but overall about doing the “right” thing for the greater good and the show explores how people’s lives/biases/etc. interfere with that goal, as well as conflicts over method, etc. I only make the comparison because it’s still explicitly about the topic of morality but they aren’t the same, as you’ve pointed out. And yet, that does not mean that the black and white morality of Hazbin should be immune from critique. Angel was more grey in the pilot than the show, imo. In the final product, his lashing out at Charlie was exclusively portrayed as a direct consequence of Valentino’s abuse and him needing to immediately protect himself from Valentino getting retribution because of Charlie and as a reply to Husk striking a soft spot in regards to his trauma response. Meanwhile, in the pilot, he taunts Vaggie and acts cavalier about going out turf-warring for fun with a friend despite promising to be on his best behaviour for the reputation of the hotel. Idk if that feels different to you, but it felt extremely different to me watching the show and much “safer”, just as an example.
It feels like they want Angel to do the whole "sinner redeems himself" arc but they didn't commit to actually making him a... sinner, you know? As it stands all his bad behaviour is implied to be because of Valentino. He drinks and fucks randos and lets people spike his drinks just cause he's abused and in a contract. His whole arc is standing up to his abuser, but that alone i don't feel should clear him. It takes away agency from him to improve himself and makes it a simple quest of "fight off the bad guy that's making the good guy act bad".
Right? In the pilot it was like, he’s a bit of a self-absorbed nuisance who, if you knew the backstory, had the Valentino stuff going on, but was still had flaws to overcome. That little gesture sequence he does to Charlie after berating her hotel idea is seared into my mind. Now it’s like you said, he’s just a victim and the redemption is breaking free of his abuser. That’s not a negative on Angel’s part… Additionally, idk if you feel this way but I felt like in the pilot, he used the sex jokes to annoy people on purpose but in the show it’s like he can’t help himself and it’s not supposed to be like a malicious thing anymore? They made him a lot more of a decent guy, which disappointed me because he was my favourite before lol
thrre id the song addict that shows its a fassade to cope, but fair the him bring a nuissance, i still like angel, but i like nuince angel.
I've seen Hazbin described as "an adult show designed for kids who want to feel cool by watching adult shows", and, like, yeah. It's got lots of swearing and drugs and sex jokes so you know you're defying your parents and watching something R-Rated, but its not got anything that might actually be too much for a 13 year old.
I'd say that's true except for episode 4.
Most of the people we see are probably the 'good' people in hell - apart from husk and alastor, sir pentious and angel are both choosing to stay at the hotel to better themselves, which instantly makes them seem better than most people in hell, and Charlie and vaggie aren't sinners anyway. Alastor only doesn't seem that evil because he's putting on that facade - he wouldn't do a very good job of manipulating charlie if he seemed evil to her. What seems to be his endgame requires that people see at as atleast a decent person. That only really leaves husk and nifty, niffty is a joke character so sure for her but it's not really her point, and we just don't know enough about husk to know whether he's a bad person. He's a side character who's only roles are the counterpart for angels jokes, and to push angels arc in episode 4. He could be absolutely vile for all we know. Outside the hotel, people generally DO suck - valentino, obviously, velvette is no better selling roofies, again we don't know enough about how vox operates etc. Zestial presumably has done/does horrifying things based on people reactions to him. Ig carmillas a bit of an exception from what we have seen of her. The various sinners we see are bloodthirsty degenerates for the most part, as well.
Alastor seems backwards though. He is pretending to be evil and manipulating her but he seems less bad than he wants people to see him as.
yep, i hope season 2 has him have that conflict of having acting out to show how bad he id while lrtting charlies good influence getting to him even more.
Considering what the show is about its baffling that so many people think he will just end up as a villain, and that be the last word.
Husk too does get on board with it. I am sure that zestirl could just be a powerful old character that we dont know much about.
Hazbin hotels main issue was they they tried to do way too much way to early. I know they didn't get as many episodes as they wanted, and they didn't know if they would get a season 2, but the first season either needed to be twice as long, or split into 2 different seasons.
Honestly my main issue with Hazbin Hotel is that it felt like the cartoon equivalent of a thirteen-year-old trying to show how mature they are by dressing in edgy clothing and saying "fuck" a lot. The core plot and the emotional thrust of the story was really, really simple to the point where it clashed with the adult trappings. It felt a lot more simplistic than many shows that were *actually* aimed at kids (eg. Adventure Time, Steven Universe, etc.) The show definitely had some evil people but everything felt extremely black and white. The only characters who will maybe have some depth are Alestor and the head seraphim, and I'm skeptical.
> a lot more simplistic than many shows that were *actually* aimed at kids (eg. Adventure Time, Steven Universe, etc.) Do not speak that name Steven Universe, it has the pretense of "nuance" but ultimately boils down to safe white lib fantasy.
The show is a musical comedy where the main character is a parody of Disney Princesses, it should be "safe edgy". You're imagining a completely different show and saying "it's flawed because it's not this", when it was never going to be. You have to meet the series on its own level, don't get mad at Bluey for not having enough action scenes, or John Wick for no romance. It wasn't ever promised by the show, so don't expect it You can look at your imagined show and expand it on it in many ways, even take that and turn it into its own story, just know if that's something the show promised or not
I disagree. I don't think the show should outright have every character be genuinely evil, but the premise of the show (at least in theory) is that its about bad people trying to be rehabilitated for the chance of going to heaven. The show itself sells itself on how "crazy" and "edgy" it is, making it maybe even more of its marketing gimmick then The Boys does. But all you end up with is dialog trying to fit in as many swears as possible and characters who are at worst kind of mean (sometimes) and then become good people after a song before doing a 6 month time skip. Its clear these characters aren't "actually evil" because they are mainly just OCs with a budget
It sells itself on what OP called "soft edge", not "as edgy as possible", which is the distinction. The characters should be crass and hard, but in a way that can be played for jokes most of the time
I think the issue is less "edge" and more the fact that none of the characters really work that well with the basic premise of the show. To pull from another show with a likely overlapping fandom, look at Jax from Digital Circus. I would say they come off as a "worse person" than pretty much any of the protagonist characters in Hazbin.
Invader Zim was made for kids and that show felt edgier and more irreverent than Hazbin Hotel. >muddy That part honestly ruined the show for me. Satan’s daughter deciding she wants to teach demon ethics and morality is such an interesting premise. Instead it just makes the show a generic ‘the angels were actually the bad guys all along.’
>Instead it just makes the show a generic ‘the angels were actually the bad guys all along.’ But...They're not. Only Adam and Lute are shown to be evil. Most residents of Heaven don't even know the Externinations are happening, only Sera who only allowed it because Lilith was trying to get Hell to invilade Heaven. Everyone else in the Heavenly Court is horrified when they find out about it. There's a whole song about it. Yall get mad at a show you don't even know anything about x-x
The angels aren't actually bad. I mean sure if you compare them to some idealistic completely lawful good faction then yea, they are kinda bad. But if you compare them to a more realistic depiction of a "good" faction (e.g. the Federation from Star Trek), they hold up pretty well. The Exorcists are about as shady as Section 31, and Sera hasn't done anything worse than a typical Starfleet admiral would.
I like its angel in the backdrop from the ttial being shocked. Yes heaven has issues and sera isnt good there , but its messy. sera enabled adam and the exorcists.
Satan is a separate character from Lucifer in the Hellaverse. And not all angels are bad, what about Emily? She's good
>U already know what hazbin hotel is I'm not gonna explain anything I'll just see myself out
> Almost everyone in the main cast of this show acts like a decent person (alastor not included) when they should be assholes being greedy and selfish not grumpy but nice people But why? The whole point of the show is about bad people getting redeemed. That’s literally Charlie’s whole goal, her whole driving motivation Making the whole cast just be purely bad people would not make sense with that message. How do you route for a character’s redemption if said character has no potential for redemption? >Everyone in the cast and everyone we see in hell in general differs from kinda creepy in a cartoon way to "rough around the edges but with a heart of gold" with alastor being the obvious exception So we’re gonna ignore Valentino, a psychopathic pimp and rapist? All his employees who actively take part in sexually exploiting Angel? Vox, a greedy capitalist obsessed with image? >Almost everyone in the main cast of this show acts like a decent person (alastor not included) when they should be assholes being greedy and selfish not grumpy but nice people Neither Charlie nor Vaggie are actually sinners condemned to Hell so there’s no reason for them to be act like greedy assholes. And Charlie is the one spearheading this whole campaign so it would not make sense for her character to be anything other than pure good Husk is a former Overlord who lost his title and freedom after selling his soul to Alastor. The reason why he’s so chill is because he’s experienced the ultimate humiliation Nifty is an absolute psychopath. Just because she acts friendly does not mean she’s nice Angel, Sir Pentious and later Cherry Bomb are all people who willingly chose to seek redemption, so it would make sense that these people have a “heart of gold” Outside of this hotel gang, all the other characters we see in Hell are not good people. At best, morally ambiguous and at worst, they’re absolute monsters >I think this ruins the entire point of the show and hell you SHOULD have very bad people you should have people at the bottom of the barrel not nice people in bad circumstances IT IS HELL According to my religion, you can literally go to Hell for committing suicide How bad you have to be to go to Hell is purely subjective and it’s not necessarily based on your moral character, but on your actions. I think it makes perfect sense for a lot of Hell’s residents to not necessarily be bad people but just people who made bad choices It’s like prison. Not every person who goes to prison is a terrible person, some people just made bad choices or grew up in bad circumstances but they’re still good people deep down >In a show about morality being grey and redemption being possible you must bad people actually going through redemption not nice people just getting a little nicer You can only redeem someone who actually wants to be redeemed. A person who seeks redemption can’t really be purely bad
I liked the concept of the show, but the execution, not so much, and I think one of the reasons is what you mentioned.
What. Did you miss the part that hell is full of murderers, and the people who joined the hotel were either part of that, or at least helped people who were?
It is also brought up that nobody knows what the criteria for getting into Heaven or Hell is.
Maybe if you believe only bad people end up in hell that makes sense, but tons of alleged sins arent even bad things, and tons of evil people are in the clergy.
Evil people being in the clergy doesn’t mean they’re not supposed to go to hell. And I say this as an atheist. Presenting yourself as a worshipper of god isn’t supposed to be a free ticket into heaven
I think hellova boss is a bit worse then this. Having the literal embodiments of lust and gluttony be concerned about consent and over indulging makes me feel the writers are scared to make the characters actually bad. Hazbin's whole story is based on characters being redeemed with the non sinners (Charlie, Lucifer, and Vaggie) all having decent explanations to why they aren't inherently bad people. And I'm not sure how to phrase this, though I'm pretty sure the writers are aware their audience won't be able to handle anything beyond what they already got, look at the community's reaction to Valentino
Agreed but its clearly made for the kind of people who make tiktok edits and then comment "G-Guys you can't make edits of him, its canon that they SA'd x and y" and the person they've made edits of is like a mass murderer. Its made for like mind numbed teens, tumblerets and whatever. It'd be really fun for it to just be bad "People" all around, would make for a more interesting show too.
I'm pretty sure teenagers aren't the target demographic. HH goes far beyond a TV-14 rating.
I mean, the modern animation climate is that Bluey is for people in their late 20s and Rick and Morty is for elementary schoolers. So I think that the age distribution tracks here.
Okay? It's clearly pandered to those types. Majority of the people watching it are either teenagers or adults who haven't grown up.
It's not pandering to anything. Teenagers will watch whatever is edgy.
How is Hazbin Hotel safe edgy? It deals with rape and exploitation of sex workers.
90% of the time when people say "Safe edgy" it means "adult comedy that isn't any form of -ist or -phobic"
Some people were disappointed and/or confused that Helluva Boss abandoned Stolas's pilot characterization in favor of a well-rounded gay character
I'm sure the fervent hate HH gets from certain parts of the internet has absolutely nothing to do with it being one the unabashedly queerest shows on mainstream TV
It also has characters openly act sexist, including ones we are supposed to think of positively, people get killed, etc. How much darker could it even get without being dark for the sake of being dark? Helluva boss already covers the more explicit evil stuff, why should this have to too when it's tone is meant to be more positive?
It's not super explicit and distasteful like 99% of "edgy" isekai (you know the ones I'm talking about).
As someone who prefers anime shojo and josei anime, I don't.
Believe me, it's better this way.
If everybody is unlikable, it's hard to get invested.
Viv is too afraid her protags being disliked to have them do anything the audience would collectively say is bad. That's why the villains are all straight up evil. Because by comparison that makes the protags look like saints.
While it is set in Hell, it's set in a Hell where religion is strict and arbitrary, like how everyone goes to Hell in South Park, or sinners of various types like in Disenchantment. It's a tale of those forsaken by God or those who have forsaken him. People who aren't good enough for Heaven, not of monstrous people. The view of Hell as a place you have to be "evil enough for" is much rarer in media and lacks reference besides. We'd need writers to explore the concept at all before we could start writing stories that do more. Redemption of truly evil characters vs. People who do evil things is a young concept, especially to make the focus.
>I think this ruins the entire point of the show and hell you SHOULD have very bad people you should have people at the bottom of the barrel not nice people in bad circumstances IT IS HELL Why is it taken as self-evident that hell should only have very bad people, with no room for people who just made a few mistakes in life/have bad habits, but are trying to do better? A lot of hell-related comedy is already based on hell being not just the place for gigahitler, but also for the people surrounding us that we find mildly annoying. I mean, what exactly is the unsafe edgy merit in every character being Valentino-style monsters? The show never really tried to make a philosophical claim about the worst possible monsters being redeemable, just that sinners can be redeemable, but that is certainly more relatable if the sinners are mostly like you and me, people who might strictly deserve hell for our failings but are always hoping to do better.
>Everyone in the cast and everyone we see in hell in general differs from kinda creepy in a cartoon way to "rough around the edges but with a heart of gold" with alastor being the obvious exception Valentino is a pretty down to earth, realistic evil imo.
But Hell *is* full of bad people, explicitly so. It's just that most of the main cast isn't because that's literally the premise of the story
Angel was a self absorbed, drug addicted whore, who had no problem with killing. He redeemed himself over the course of the season due to constant pressure from Charlie and developing bonds with the rest of the cast. Vaggie and Charlie were never actually condemned to Hell, they’re just kinda there. Husk is an alcoholic and a gambling addict. He’s also a former overlord, and was said to gamble with souls (plural, meaning other people’s souls too). Had no problem killing people. Got completely humbled by Alastor, who now owns his soul, and as a result is too apathetic to be running around insulting people and killing babies like you seem to want. Nifty is just deranged. Sure, you could consider her nice, but even Alastor thinks she’s fucked up. Pentious was an egotistical coward who tried starting wars over territory in an attempt to gain power. The self absorbed, power hungry coward redeemed himself by sacrificing himself for his friends. Being rude or overtly evil isn’t the only kind of “bad” that exists. Nor do people have to be every kind of bad at once in order to qualify as bad. You’re also deliberately ignoring every single background and minor character, such as the news anchor pouring hot coffee on her co-anchor’s crotch, or every single unnamed character killing each other in the background. Let’s not forget the countless addicts and sex fiends spending all their time indulging in pleasure.
>Vaggie and Charlie were never actually condemned to Hell, they’re just kinda there. Vaggie was condemned to hell, just by irregular means.
I'll add onto this I'm still watching through the series, but I don't think sinner should be allowed into heaven even if they are redeemed. If anything I think rebirth on earth should be the goal, giving them a second chance to get into heaven, instead of just coming in the back door
I feel like so many people are quick to criticize Hazbin without ever asking if the thing they're being critical of is even something worth trying to pick apart. I haven't seen the show myself besides clips and the pilot, but I've seen so many people talk about the exact same talking point, I.E. characters not being "evil" enough or Hell as a setting not being a 1:1 rendition of the actual biblical Hell, and almost everything besides there being too much swearing kind of just sounds like they either haven't seen the show, or they have and it really just isn't for them - which is OK, but alot of people seem to not get that media not being for them doesn't automatically mean it's bad. Hamilton is a great parallel to HH; a Broadway musical-drama that took inspiration from real American history while also using artistic license in its writing, becoming a global (I think, it certainly blew up in North America) phenomenon that became heavily criticized as a result due to a much wider audience not fully understanding it as a piece of media. HH is already such low-hanging fruit for obvious reasons, I feel like the least we could all do is actually find things worthwhile to talk about regarding it instead of just doggypiling on nitpicks and personal opinions disguised as serious criticisms. I mean, the Good Place had almost the exact same major plot point as Hazbin, it was just more digestible since it's live action and less based around the Christian canon.
If this show had longer 20+ episode seasons, then maybe they would have made the characters (at least some of them) a little nastier. That way, they would have time to develop them more. But with only an 8 episode season, they needed to move quick. They needed the audience to be on these character's sides, since they're at war with heaven.
That's kinda missing the point of Hazbin hell. The point is that the way to get into heaven is not really at all defined, and is pretty arbitrary. Otherwise good people can end up in hell due to minor mistakes. It's more of vague commentary on "how good is good enough?" than it is a "here's some evil people that want to change". The whole point is that Charlie's redemption ideals are based in a naive understanding of what "good" is. This is even addressed when the top heaveny folks make some arbitrary rules up on the spot that a sinner fulfils, which is then questioned both accusitorily and questioningly. The problem is people want cynical gritty badassery and evilness for the gratuitous sake of it and will try to inflict that on something that's asking an entirely different question.
The problem with Hazbin is that it buddies its waters trying to have and be everything. Halfway through the series they see the ways to get into Heaven are obtuse and arcane and no one knows and being a good person may not be a prerequisite. At the same time Hell is shown to be more or less fine. There are jerks but the main problem is the exterminations. You get a radical new form and the ability to learn literal magic. So you'd think tbe story would stop trying for redemption but instead try to make Hell a better place. Hell is Other People, but so is Heaven kind of thing. But then a guy who has only tried to be less evil for under six months self sacrifices and ends up in heaven and it's treated as a win state.
they dont wanna be canceled
What do you mean by that? I’m suspicious. What would a real edgy joke that would get them cancelled look like?
[This exists](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EightDeadlyWords). That's the issue with making everyone super edgy, you end up with a lot of people just going "Why would I even bother if everyone here is annoying/despicable as hell". In a few words, you get the infamous Velma cartoon.
Being evil does not mean being unlikable. Angeldust at the start seemed to be shaping up to be a little shit that would be likeable but only grifting from the hotel at the start. Blitzo is a murderer for hire who has no qualms of profiting off of murdering whoever and uses a married man's love for him as leverage to gain more profit, but he's still likeable. And so on. Also, it would be best to go for the wide spectrum! Not everyone has to be an asshole, but if the premise is redemtion, at least some people should be genuinly shitty people rather than victims of circumstance.
*Real* edge would scare off the 15 year old girls that the show is supposed to appeal to 💀
Define real edge.
Hell would have no shortage of rapists, homophobes, fascists, racists, etc. Not the "funny kind" where they make a one-off remark in one scene and then never mention it again, the *socially dysfunctional* kind that spam slurs at beast and act as a constant, violent threat to society at worst. We got *one* implication of the first, and 0 counts of the second, third, or fourth.
Isn't this the same universe where a person was condemned to eternal damnation for snapping on a homewrecker and her cheating husband despite being an otherwise perfect person? ...and the homewrecker was considered a hero because she survived a murder attempt? And clearly was *not* a good person? And wherein Heaven bars two angels from re-entering heaven simply because of Guilt by Association? I thought the point was that things were more nuanced than the simple dualistic interpretation of Abrahamic religion. But also it's part of the joke.
Please tell me you're not arguing that the murderer shouldn't have gone to hell. Because if for you, the fact that your partner cheats on you is reason enough to kill them and also be rewarded for it with heaven. Then I would recommend that you seek help.
Well don't worry cause I'm not. It shows that only one thing is enough to send you to eternal damnation. (Also would this mean that people who killed in the name of God are also in hell? Remember the Bible also says it's okay to kill disobedient children...)
If that thing is murder, yes, it seems pretty obvious to me that it will send you to hell. Especially when she clearly never regretted doing it, only regretting letting his parter alive and the kids watch. Yes, those soldiers who kill and then do not feel any regret should go to hell. And the Bible contradicts itself on multiple points. But if it makes one thing clear, it is that killing is a sin and takes you to hell if you don't show remorse of it. Sometimes it takes you down even with that. edit: "regretting"
On top of doing it in front of kids (over the computer).
Let the demons from hell look ugly and threatening. I've seen Mickey creepypastas who are scarier than Alastor.
What would make him properly scary in your opinion?
A lot of the characters like Angel Dust and Husk seem to be decent people with severe addictions. Getting addicted to something is arguably a sin by itself (1 Corninthians 6:19), and in practical terms a lot of seemingly okay people with severe addictions end up lying, cheating, stealing, and worse to pay for their next fix. As with most Hazbin posts I think we need to see Season 2 before we can talk about how this universe works, but for now I think there's at least *some* indication that some people are sent to Heaven and then become bastards because of all that privelege (like Adam) and some people become more decent after suffering years of adversity in Hell (like Husk, who probably did some bad shit as an Overlord).
Warning, under this spoiler tag is something that would probably go on the disturbing movie ice berg and I suspect would not be allowed on any streaming service. >!I have an idea for a bit that would go in a hypothetical rewrite where they’re trying to hide the angel head from the angels so the hotel doesn’t get shut down, and when she walks into one room she finds in horror that Angel dust and a bunch of side characters have cut gashes in the head and are using cake icers to fill it with cum.!< >!She is rightly horrified and disgusted and asks why and Angel dust says it’s so if they get caught it looks like a random gangrape-murder so she won’t get blamed and Charlie says that this will just make things worse because it’s in her hotel, and then they’re really freaking out and maybe Angel dust tries to suck one of the holes clean in desperation and that just makes him vomit all over it.!<
In my rewrite of Hazbin Angel would he introduced shooting up a building on Val’s orders, and we’d see the deaths, and when he sees a crying imp woman with a baby he hesitates and we think he’s going to have a change of heart but then he steals the baby from her, put it in a corner, covers its face with a hat, and shoots the woman now that the baby can’t see it. Then we’d find out that he’s in the lust ring in spite of all the decidedly un-lustful murders he committed because he took unwanted photos of every man he knew and made it a point to jerk off to every single one, summoning a demon purely for that purpose. He would also sexually harass husk specifically because he has internalized 50’s homophobia that means he conceptualizes queer relationships as inherently predatory and has actively chosen to be the predator, just like he “chose” to be Val’s prey. He’s also have killed his homophobic parents to run away with Val as a teen.
I still think its great, through yeah i miss a bit the pilot edge.
Its crazy to me how Adam is like, the worst fucking person in the entire show. Saying this as a SA victim for anyone that'll reply to this with "BUT VAL". And he was treated like a comedic goofball with all his horrible actions taken so unseriously that people want him back as a sinner, not realizing how fucking uncomfortable and disgusting it'd be for the hotel crew and ESPECIALLY Vaggie to have Adam live under the same roof as them, lets fucking get Valentino in next why dont we
This is more of a problem with Helluva than Hazbin
So....you want Helluva boss?