u/MissDeborah8060

Think of it this way: to advance technologically, you need to be not only fairly smart, but capable of forming groups with other like-minded smart people who can help you plan and build. However, in Hell, just about everyone is varying degrees of dysfunctional, and only a minority of them seem to be especially smart. It's clear both from the overlord meeting in Season 1 and the Season 2 song "Bad With Us" that overlords mostly don't work together, at least not to accomplish anything constructive. And if this is what the overlords are like, how much more useless do you think the average sinners are?

In general, a lot of the sinners live (what we think of as) fairly anachronistic lifestyles, or just seem to be stuck in the past. Just about everyone in Cannibal Town looks like they stepped out of a time where electricity and running water still would have been considered luxuries. In fact, apart from the Vee's, the only overlord we regularly see using modern technology in her line of work is Zeezie (sp?), while everyone else prefers analog tools or magic to get things done. Yet, somehow, despite all this, Pentagram City is full of security cameras, television sets, and drones--all of which are owned by VoxTech.

In light of all this, I can't help but think that before Vox arrived in Hell, life in Pentagram City and the Pride Ring (and maybe even all of Hell) was a lot more primitive. He is the one who brought modern communications technology, wi-fi, and all the rest of it, to the citizens of Hell, because at the time, he was the only one both smart and socially-savvy enough to encourage engineering and innovation or make it profitable (later generations of sinners, who were used to such technologies already, then kept buying in so that they wouldn't have to live without them).

This would also go some way towards explaining two of the series' plot holes: why the exterminations by Heaven only started seven years prior to the main storyline, and why the angels decide to make peace with Hell the moment Vox is defeated. Before Vox built his media empire, the sinners posed no real threat to Heaven because they were so far behind them technologically-speaking. Even if they tried to rise up, Heaven could overpower them easily, so they mostly kept to themselves. Moreover, at first, Alastor put a check on Vox's behavior by distracting him from any enterprises that might threaten Heaven. Once Alastor disappeared (seven years ago), Vox was able to expand VoxTech unchecked, until his team was producing technology that could rival Heaven's. Because of this, the leadership assumed that Vox was their biggest threat (and they weren't wrong). At the end of Season 2, Vox has been incapacitated, at least temporarily, which grants Heaven a reprieve and allows them to reopen talks with Charlie and other delegates from Hell.

I know Vincent is cute and all, but the more I look at him (especially in stills) the more he just looks...wrong. Where are his internal organs? why is his head so big? Why does his torso look like an inflated V-shaped balloon? I can understand Vox (the media overlord of Hell) looking freakishly skinny and weird because he's supposed to be a demon. But he's drawn exactly the same way as a human, and no human has those proportions.

That said, what are some recs of fan artists (and pieces of art) that actually depict Vincent looking at least somewhat realistic? Bonus points if he's just as attractive and/or looks especially like Christian Borle (who was probably the character model for Vincent to begin with).

To be clear, when I say "bad influences" I'm talking about Alastor AND ALSO Velvette and Valentino. It's pretty obvious that Alastor is bad for Vox, but Val and Vel are too, if you think about it for more than a few minutes.

On his own, Vox seems to be one of the more capable and respectable overlords, most notably when he's able to convince all the rest of the overlords to team up with him (something that it's implied no one ever tried before). Much is made of how he was a murderer in his human life, but while killing or otherwise damaging someone who gets in your way might be looked at with horror in the human world, it's more or less business as usual in Hell. At very least, Vox seems to be more selective in who he kills, tortures, and brutalizes than a lot of the other people who live there.

On the other hand, Val and Vel are as violent, petty, and dysfunctional as any other sinner, judging by the amount of times Vox has to go around putting out fires that they started. Yet, Vox keeps them around, and continues to trust them, against his own better judgment. At least in theory, then, if Vox were to cut them loose and strike out on his own (or even just get more docile or harmless subordinates), his life could look more similar to that of someone like Carmilla or Zestial (who mostly seem to just go about their business without bothering anyone). But perhaps that's just not who he is. What do you think?

So, it seems to me that there's more or less a one-to-one matchup in the main casts of Hazbin Hotel and TADC, or at very least, the two are remarkably similar. However, I don't think Vox is Caine in this analogy. I actually think he's Ragatha. Not that he's similar to her personality-wise, but he shares with her the willingness to go to just about any length to be loved (the word he uses is "worshipped," but that's basically just love with extra steps if you think about it). Also, the fact that he pretty much carries the story on his back a lot of the time and receives nowhere near enough credit for it.

The other similarities I could see are

Charlie=Pomni

Caine=Alastor

Angel Dust=Gangle

Husk=Zooble

Lucifer=Kinger

Valentino=Jax

Vox just doesn't strike me as the kind of person to cry over a shark in a movie, no matter how much he likes them. I mean, this is someone who's killed other human beings, seemingly without any hesitation. I feel like by now he would have accepted the fact that nature is red of tooth and claw, and thus, bad things happen to sharks sometimes (whether caused by humans or otherwise). We see him being gentle with Shok.wav because Shok.wav is his pet, but I don't think it follows that he'd view just any shark in the exact same way. Kind of like how you wouldn't expect someone to gush over or baby a wild wolf just because they owned a pet dog.

Bearing in mind that "good" is a relative term when we're talking about Vivziepop characters.

That being said, I was thinking about Adam's description of being a "good person" (i.e., act selflessly, don't steal, stick it to the man), and it occurred to me that none of the things he said are random. He really is describing the work he put in to get to Heaven. See, Adam is one of if not the strongest characters we've met in the show so far. Normally, in the Helluverse, if someone has access to that level of power, they use it to dominate others who are weaker than themselves. We see this with the overlords of Hell, and I think there's an implication that Lilith used to do this, and maybe still does. But not Adam. He's strong enough that if he chose, he could do pretty much anything, and take anything, he wanted, and nobody could stop him, but he chooses to exercise restraint, at least when he's dealing with the citizens of Heaven (when it comes to the residents of Hell, he assumes, not unreasonably, that they're his enemies and thus fair game). The only iffy one here is "stick it to the man," but I suppose that could be a joke.

In any case, the crucial point is that Adam knows how to behave decently in his everyday life, among his own people, and continues to do so even with few if any external checks on his behavior. By contrast, in Hell, everyone is always trying to get as much as they can within their own capabilities, even if it means trampling over someone else weaker than themselves. The fact that the other sinners are their compatriots means nothing to them; if they band together, it's only because they have something to gain, or they're too weak to accomplish their objectives on their own. They even admit this openly during the song "Bad With Us," when Vox describes his plan to recruit the other overlords in a way that makes it seem like nobody's ever thought of such a thing before. This is why Adam is a good person, and they are not.

Suppose for a moment that Vincent became a winner instead of a sinner. What kind of life do you think he would have had, and what would he get up to in Heaven?

My theory is that Vincent was originally supposed to die comparatively young from tuberculosis. Rather than accept his fate, though, he chose to make a deal with a demon in order to cure his tuberculosis and associated health problems, sacrificing what remained of his family in the process. Had he simply died from illness, he could have been a winner who was remembered for trying to raise a family in the midst of great hardship. He also wouldn't have had a TV for a head, obviously. Instead, I imagine him looking more like his human form, except with a lighter and softer color palate and no glasses. He also wouldn't have heterochromia anymore, since my headcanon is that the only reason why he has it is that he absorbed DNA from a dead twin in utero.

This is actually something I've been thinking about for a while, and a comment thread in another post inspired me to finally write it down. My current working headcanon is that the world of Hazbin Hotel is a place where "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," at least where the human characters are concerned. In other words, there's a direct relationship between the amount of suffering someone endures as a human and their strength in the afterlife. The biggest clue to this is Adam, who is the strongest character to be introduced so far and also the first man (and so would have witnessed or experienced virtually every kind of suffering at some point).

What this would mean for Vox is that his human life was pretty atrocious, with only fleeting moments of happiness (like when he got a promotion or stood in front of his adoring fans). One of the reasons why Alastor underestimated Vox at first is that he genuinely could not believe that a White man from the 1950s could have suffered more than a Black man who lived through Jim Crow, and therefore, Vox could not possibly become stronger than him. It's still possible that Alastor really did have a tougher life than Vox, and so would have been stronger when he got to Hell naturally (at least for a while). But because he cut a deal to become the "strongest sinner in Hell," he has no way of knowing this for sure, and the anxiety eats away at him. This isn't the only reason Alastor is out to get Vox, but it's part of it.

It seems to me that most fans who discuss Vox's relationship with Velvette and Valentino subscribe to one or both of the following views:

1. The three Vee's are a found family that love each other and stay together through thick and thin;

2. Any problems in the relationship are entirely Vox's fault for pushing the other two away and failing to fully appreciate them.

From my perspective, both of these are missing the point. The obvious reading of their relationship, at least in my view, is that Valentino and Velvette are two less-powerful demons effectively coasting by on Vox's power and credibility, while secretly resenting his authority over them. This is why they have no problem getting buddy-buddy with Alastor: on some level, they want to believe Alastor's lies that Vox is nothing without them and that they could make it on their own, or run things better than he could. Vox, meanwhile, continues to trust and support them against his own better judgment, partly because he's attracted to them and partly for any number of other reasons. Most of what we see in both Season 1 and Season 2 supports this theory.

Now, Val and Vel obviously don't have to be this type of character, and I suspect it'll be at least one more season before we fully get their side of the story (whether we'll like it or not is another matter). But what amazes me is that hardly anyone seems to even want to consider the possibility that Val and Vel could be the problem in the relationship, instead of just Vox. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least two instances in which Vox has to bend over backwards to stop the others from doing something stupid, or run damage control for some major mistake they made. Yet, many fans nowadays either act like those scenes never happened, or that Vox was somehow the problem for pushing them too far or making too big a deal out of it. And then, when Vox makes a major mistake, the others are allowed to hold it over his head with no repercussions whatsoever. It is all extremely frustrating. And it's bad characterization, too. It turns all three of them from complex, multifaceted people with conflicting motives to two-dimensional cutouts (a bad, abusive boss and his poor little victims who have to sleep with the boss to stay in his good graces).

We all know this community exists as a refuge from Vox slander, but "Vox slander" comes in many forms. What are your least favorite things that people say about Vox, and how often do they come up? For me, it's the idea that Vox is envious of Alastor when it's so obviously the other way around. It amazes me that more people don't see this, because Alastor is driven by envy in virtually everything he does. In fact, he effectively admits openly in the pilot that his main goal is to watch those who could be considered "better" than him fail and suffer. Even the color theory of the characters supports this, since Alastor's magic (but not Vox's) is green. I think the confusion lies in the fact that Vox killed people to get what they had, but was their goods (jobs, prestige, etc.) that he was after--not them personally. Whereas Alastor is deliberately and consciously targeting Vox (and anyone else who seems to have more power than he does) out of pure spite. And the saddest part is that he's gotten away with it (so far)!