Hazbin Hotel (Amazon Prime)

Well this was weird thing I have witnesed.

On new topic, does anybody thing there is in-universe explanation why modern christianity considers Lucifer and Satan to be the same being?

My headcanon is that Satan took spot for Lucifer when somebody summoned him since Luci was busy or wasn’t in a mood, he was annoyed by being refered to as Lucifer, and situation spirale from there.

We don't know if they are considered the same being by humans.

De Romanīs, lingua Latina gloriosa non fuī.

That would be interesting to learn about.

Surprisingly, it's more accurate to Christianity (at least in regards to the Old Testament) for Lucifer and Satan to be separate individuals, though it would technically make more sense for Satan to be the actual devil instead of Lucifer as in the series.

Obviously, a good devil isn't very accurate to Christianity, and neither is a good Lucifer. But looking at the origins of the name, a 'good' (or at least non-evil, I don't think he appears in enough myths to be considered any morality) Lucifer is more accurate to the belief system the name originates from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus_(morning_star).

I'm not an expert (I'm just going off Wikipedia), but basically Satan always meant the Devil. However, Lucifer was originally the name of the planet Venus (specifically when it was the 'morning star') under the Romans. There's a section in the bible when a king of Babylon is compared to the 'morning star', which would have been read as Lucifer in Latin. It specifically mentioned falling from heaven (as the literal 'morning star' does), so the name Lucifer was mistakenly conflated with Satan/the Devil. After that point, Lucifer began to be a name used for the devil as well.

I think in Paradise Lost it might be implied that Satan was known as Lucifer when he was an angel, though it's not explicit. In actual Christianity, I think both names are used for the devil both before and after he fell.

Edited by king15 on Mar 27th 2024 at 10:04:11 AM

I was under the impression that in the original text, Lucifer was the original guy and then when he got cast down to Hell, his name was changed to Satan. Is that not the case?

It's been 3000 years…

Satan actually had nothing to do with the Devil at all originally. Ha Satan means "the accuser" and is god's prosecutor. Basically like Adam in actions and Sera in motivations, arguing against the character of individual humans. I can see given that why Vivzie avoided using "Satan" for Charlie's dad.

The Crystal Caverns A bird's gotta sing.

I think it was the other way around actually?

From what I recall, it was Lucifer that was more of just a phrase someone was using then an actual 'character' in the Bible. It later became conflated with Satan/the Devil.

The First man

I'm gonna be honest and interject my opinion: I don't like this show.

A lot of the problems come down to three things: 1. Viv's issue with being unable to let a concept go, 2. Her inability to maintain a consistent tone, and 3. The fact that it only has eight episodes. Look at helluva boss for example. So many villains get cliffhangers that say "oooOoOoOo I'm gonna reappear in another episode, just you wait!!" And they either just don't or the execution is completely flubbed stryker-style. And what is the show supposed to be? Is it a slice of life comedy about imps killing people on the surface? That concept was basically abandoned like five episodes in. A serialized drama about a complex relationship? Nope! the exploration of Blitz and Stolas's toxic relationship is returned to status quo for gag comedy. OOP! We've got two new characters to center the episodes around while abandoning the core cast!

Now look at Hazbin. I really liked the pilots concept! The idea of sinners being redeemed was interesting, the animation was nice, the characters were compelling, and I was really interested to see how they would develop over time and become better people! Then episode one of the new season comes out. Suddenly its about how heaven sucks actually (Off topic but can we talk about how in the opening exposition, Charlie talks about how angels kill demons to keep them from rising against them, and then in the meeting with Adam talks about overpopulation? What's up with that?) and quickly turns into a war against heaven plot.

You know the main concept of the show? Redemption of sinners? Yeah. I can count how many episodes are about that on a couple fingers. And count how many characters are actually there for redemption on two. And there are so many side characters they like to focus on rather than, I don't know, Focus on Charlie?

Thats another problem! Charlie barely has a focus. You'd think, as the main character, she'd get some sort of development, or some kind of arc, or at least more of a personality than "sunshine princess with big dreams". I don't use this word very often or very lightly, but shes very much mary-sue ish. Her obvious issues (IE seemingly weirdly fundamentalist christian ideas on redemption, constant overstepping of boundaries, the fact that she barely seems to put anything into her relationship with Vaggie while Vaggie falls over herself to make sure Charlie's happy, Very visible savior complex) are never discussed or adressed, and the fact that her hotel is based on an idea that doesn't have any evidence of actually even being possible is only ever addressed by antagonists who are supposed to be in the wrong. She doesn't change, she doesn't do much, but still manages to get everyone to sacrifice themselves for a hotel they're supposed to be super attached to. But we're never shown WHY they care.

And don't get me started on the side characters. The V's are only important in 1-2 episodes and never again, Carmilla exists as a plot device, Lucifer's... Lucifer, Adam is a one-note sexist strawman, and they just... Keep introducing characters. Pentious, Cherry, Mimsy, Cannibal town! You care about these characters! You must you must you must!!!! What do you mean you don't know who these characters are? Of course you do! They were in the plot important pilot that you have to get on youtube to watch!

These characters could have been explored so much better if there was more time in the show. Yes, thats the fault of Amazon, but when you're working with constraints, you need to learn how to work within these constraints. Keeping the "Heaven bad, hell good" thing for the second season while leaving the first season to focus on character development would have made the final battle so much more impactful. It's like an anti steven universe. People complain about how much filler steven universe has, but without that "filler" we wouldn't care about the characters as much as we do. Hazbin hotel, on the other hand, is like watching all the "intense, plot important" episodes without any context of who these characters are and why we should care about them.

At some point, when you're working in the industry, you need to learn that you need to trim the fat. Get rid of certain characters and plot points. Kill some characters off if you need. Wait to introduce a concept. If you can only work with a short amount of episodes, focus on making a good story with well developed characters first and a grand finale later. If you can wait, Wait. If you can't, don't. I know there's a second season but I genuinely don't know how it can go from here. Adam's dead, a sinner is redeemed, the hotel was rebuilt bigger and better than ever... what now?

TL;DR Hazbin Hotel reminds me of me and my friends old edgy gods and goddesses discord roleplay from when I was 13 than an actual planned story.

Sorry for the essay. Its honestly painful seeing something I looked forward too for years flop so hard on the execution. I love the concept, the songs, the animation is.... okay, Angel dust is best boy, but everything else is just eh. Mid. It tries to be so grandiose but I just felt bored and very confused throughout the whole thing, and very uncomfortable during episode 4. Its not offensively bad (hell, its barely even as offensive as people say it is) But its just. Not good in my opinion.

Currently obsessing over psychonauts

"So many villains get cliffhangers that say "oooOoOoOo I'm gonna reappear in another episode, just you wait!!" And they either just don't or the execution is completely flubbed stryker-style."

About the execution, obviously that is on the writers of Helluva, but about the fact they don't appear again, bear in mind that Helluva is episodic with ongoing plotlines (like Gravity falls). We're only half way through season 2, villains not reappearing yet isn't that weird.

"Suddenly its about how heaven sucks actually"

It initially seems to be about that, though IMO 'Welcome to Heaven' shows that Heaven is in many ways a nice place to live (certainly compared to hell) and there are good people (like Emily) and even many of the bad people (like Sera) are often well-intentioned (not that that justifies what they do).

"You know the main concept of the show? Redemption of sinners? Yeah. I can count how many episodes are about that on a couple fingers."

Episode 1 has Charlie trying to convince Adam the worth of redemption, Episode 2 had Sir Pentious lying about redemption and Angel Dust beginning to show signs that he might want redemption, Episode 3 has the attempts of bonding the group (part of the redemption process), Episode 4 has Angel's character development (linking to redemption), Episode 5 has Charlie teaching Lucifer the worth of redemption, Episode 6 has Charlie trying to convince Heaven about the worth of redemption with a case-study of Angel (leading on from Episode 4), Episode 7 has Charlie having to question whether Vaggie has redeemed herself and Episode 8 has Sir Pentious prove that redemption is possible. While it's not necessarily always the focal point of the episode, redemption is a common theme throughout.

"And count how many characters are actually there for redemption on two."

I personally think having two guests initially made sense, especially with only 8 episodes, as the show could focus on developing them two. The show also heavily implies that there will be more sinners looking for rehabilitation next season.

"an idea that doesn't have any evidence"

Part of the point is seeing whether the hotel will work (and it turns out it does). Trying to rehabilitate sinners, even if there is little chance of it working, is surely better then just letting the angels kill them. Also, two of the main characters (Angel Dust and Alastor) frequently show they don't think it'll work.

"we're never shown WHY they care."

I would certainly have liked more time for character development (showing the characters begin to like the hotel), but I found it fairly clear that Angel likes it as a place for him to escape his abuse and as a place he starts to have a support group, Husk and Pentious like it because it gives them friends (especially since the latter is shown to be very paranoid, genuine friends must be nice for him) and Nifty because they're nice to her.

"The V's are only important in 1-2 episodes and never again"

More V focus would have been nice (though I don't mind too much since it's clear that this season was mainly their introduction and next season will have more of them). However, unless you mean the V's as a collective, I'd certainly argue they are important for more than 2 episodes: Vox has plot significance in episode 2 (he's the whole reason Pentious goes to the hotel and his treatment of Pentious at the end is what makes him want to stay as a genuine guest), Velvette has plot significance in episode 3 (being the reason Alastor, and ultimately the hotel, find out that angels can be defeated), Valentino is obviously important in episode 4 (and to Angel's character as a whole) and Valentino is also important in episode 6 (directly proving Angel's character development to heaven, not that it convinces them).

"Carmilla exists as a plot device"

She is important to the plot and, obviously it's up to you whether you like her, but I don't think it's fair to imply she's just a plot device. She has a clear personality (authoritative yet snarky), signs of depth (caring for her daughters, Zestial and her people) and motives outside of being a plot device (protecting those she loves).

"Adam is a one-note sexist strawman"

Naturally YMMV on whether that works, but to me that's what makes him effective as a villain. He's very easy to despise, and yet is also love to hate due to the sheer dickishness of him. He works as a good initial threat for the hotel to threat due to being pure evil, with future villains (likely Sera) presumably having more depth (and not being stawmen).

"Pentious"

He's more of a main character so focusing on him makes sense (especially given his significance at the very end).

"Adam's dead, a sinner is redeemed, the hotel was rebuilt bigger and better than ever... what now?"

The other sinners that need redeeming, the rest of heaven, the Vees, whoever controls Alastor, Alastor himself and whatever is going on with Lilith are all things that have been set up for the next season to deal with.

Sorry if I come off rude in this, obviously this is your opinion and it isn't any less valid then mine. These are just examples I personally disagree with. I do agree that the pacing isn't ideal (though I don't think it's too bad), but I feel like Viv and the rest of the team managed to use those episodes extremely well. Obviously this is especially subjective, but I also think she did a good job of introducing side characters, making them cool/likeable and giving them enough plot significance, without taking too much attention away from the main cast.

Probably went a bit OTT here, sorry (and also sorry to ).

Edited by king15 on Mar 28th 2024 at 2:23:31 PM

and The Broken Base entries for this show are going to be wild when they finally unlock in June. Can't wait to constantly have to be cleaning those up!

edit: Sorry, no, my bad, that wasn't a dig at you. I'm just humorously observing the juxtaposition of these two opposed posts and anticipating the inevitable avalanche of edit wars that will be raging then. I'd wager we'll have a dedicated Hazbin cleanup thread by November at the latest.

Edited by ReginaldOgron5 on Mar 28th 2024 at 6:54:55 AM

It's not about the gold; it's about the glory.

I keep thinking Lucifer is the best source for explaining all the backstory and all the mechanics of the afterlife and would answer and lot of questions and solve a lot of problems, but he isn't just going to sit there and infodump no matter conveniant it would be for everyone.

Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.

I think the easiest handwave is that while he could give the answers, if he thinks about any of it for too long he goes into a depressed funk thinking about Lilith leaving him or the like, leaving him in no position to talk about anything until he calms down.

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

To be fair I don’t think there is really in story need for him to exposit information, for now atleast. We have basic gist of the creation of Hell and Lucifer’s fall and nothing we have seen to far implies outring lies or that elaborating futher would been of any help to stop Extremination. When it comes to how afterlife works I really doubt he knows more than Heaven (honestly everything we get implies that he is just as much in dark about fact that not even Heaven actually knows or controls how or why somebody goes to Heaven and hell).

That nobody really knows the answer is probably why redemption operates on those mysterious unknown rules to begin with.

If one knew how to achieve it, then that would be "cheating" and dishonest.

And by achieving it without a clue on how and why, means that you genuinely earned it.

You can't cheat your way into Heaven.

Even Adam got in without a clue on how that happened and earned his spot in there, regardless on how he turned out as a person.

"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."

Plus, didn't Lucifer fall before there would have been any sinners/winners? He fell after convincing Eve to eat the apple which would have been before any humans died. It's therfore understandable that he might not know about the mechanics of getting into heaven, chiefly, that nobody knows how it happens. As far as he knows, the elders of heaven may have come up for a way of deciding who gets to go to heaven and hell, and given that by the time the series starts he's given up on redeeming demons, he probably thinks that the people who deserve to go to heaven or hell go where they need to - there's no point questioning it.

Speaking of which, there's all this fuss about what gets someone into Heaven, but there are also clearly people who deserve to be in Hell (Valentino, Alastor) or Hell wouldn't need to exist to begin with. Maybe the answer to figuring out who gets into Heaven involves figuring out what sends someone to Hell and reverse-engineering it?

It's not about the gold; it's about the glory.

Kind of hard to figure that out when some people seem to be in Hell for no reason. Again I point towards the Ivannakummore Counselor from Helluva Boss, since there's nothing to suggest he did anything worthy of being sent to hell, he just drowned to death.

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

The whole problem is that no one really knows what gets a person sent to Heaven and what gets a person sent to Hell. It's a Black Box.

Disgusted, but not surprised

• Watsonian: Maybe he was a dick and did something offscreen that sent him there but wasn't important enough to be saved from the Law of Conservation of Detail (I.E. Mrs. Mayberry killing her husband, which is crucial to the plot).
• Doylist: He arrived in Hell because he needed to give I.M.P. the job that lead them to Barbie Wire, and otherwise the...plot...wouldn't...happen. Ok, fuck.

Personally, I think there's some kind of broad "You can only get into Heaven if you don't seriously hurt other people", because then I think every single character we've seen would implicitly or explicitly end up in the right place and it would tie nicely into the greater theme the show has of community and friends improving each other as people over time.

Edited by ReginaldOgron5 on Mar 29th 2024 at 8:36:20 AM

It's not about the gold; it's about the glory.

I personally do think it will just be 'good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell' personally. Sir Pentious getting into heaven after standing against Adam seems to suggest that morality does play a factor.

The First man

Besides, Hell doesn't actually seem like a place with the purpose of "Punishment" as more it seems to be a "time-out corner" created by God where everyone in it undergoes symbolic transformations to carry as their "badges of shame" and given all the time in the world to "reflect on their wrongdoings and from there, repent and try become the better people they weren't in life." and earn their redemption from there.

God wants all people to be saved. He provides multiple chances for all people to accept it.

God is not "God of second chances", God is "God of Another Chance".

And that would go in tone with the series as well.

"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."

That's a really cool idea/interpretation.

Edited by king15 on Mar 29th 2024 at 4:12:30 PM

x3 That interpretation doesn't work when Adam was the first person to ascend to Heaven, and its not like he was only a dick after he died, since both Charlie's story and Lucifer's treatment of him suggests he was always a misogynistic jackass.

It looks more like there simply isn't a definitive reason for someone to go to Heaven or Hell, it's a roll of the dice. It's pure luck whether you go up or down upon death, which is why we have genocidal maniacs like Adam in Heaven, but at worst a stupid teenager who did nothing wrong damned to Hell.

There's too many unknowns for us to even make a guess why without it being poked full of holes.

• It can't be morality, cause Adam was the first to ascend when he's morally repugnant, and Angel Dust didn't ascend despite morally becoming a better person.
• It can't be lacking sin, since Adam and the Exorcists partake in Wrath with the exterminations, and Adam himself partakes in Pride and Lust.
• It can't be just dying to Holy Weaponry, otherwise countless slaughtered Sinners would be showing up in Heaven after the Exterminations.
• It can't be an act of selflessness, as we've seen plenty of Sinners before and after Sir Pentious acting selfless or protecting others, like Carmilla killing an Exorcist to save her daughters, Angel Dust defying Valentino to protect Niffty, etc.
• It can't even be just being overall virtuous, since the very idea of the Exterminations fly in the face of the virtues Kindness, Temperance, and Diligence, and Angel Dust demonstrates all of the Virtues aside from Chastity, while Sir Pentious failed to demonstrate Temperance.

Every argument for why someone could ascend to Heaven is a flawed one since the very virtues they espouse are things some of them fail to follow, which was the point of Charlie and Emily's duet in "You Didn't Know". So if not even Heaven can follow the standards you'd think would allow you to Ascend, why would a Sinner following them be what allows them to Ascend, especially when they were already following them.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Mar 29th 2024 at 12:31:49 PM

Vegeta: I'm back bitches!

How about:

Hell: "You have yet to learn your lesson. Stay there and reflect until you do."

Heaven: "You have learned your lesson. Congratulations. You are welcome home."

With "The Lesson" being different between each individual.

Perhaps?

"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."

That would be a great way of doing it. It could easily tie to character development as well.

To be fair, with what happens to Pentious, maybe you have to die to get to heaven (so Carmilla and Angel wouldn't just be zapped there unless they died), though of course it's hard to tell since it also seems that Pentious' death itself was the altruistic act that got him to heaven.

It could work. Aesop Amnesia is a thing, so it could also explain why people like Adam and other Exsorcists (perhaps) can be there despite… well everything.

Fact is that at the moment we simply not have clue how system works, we can barely be sure it even is a system. All suggested options have their ups and downs and would come with their own Aesop about redemption and what it means to be a good person, so all have potential to be true.

One thing I think it is guaranted that it will be broken in some way and in need of change, because it would be weird that after entire episode and song about that for show to sudenly go “Nope, system worked all along, they just needed to figure it out.”

Edited by EmperorGeode on Mar 29th 2024 at 10:08:17 AM