r/lutecult

I love Adam, he’s my favorite character, lute too even. In fact, most of my favorite characters in Hazbin Hotel are characters from heaven. Anyways, in the season 1 finale, no exorcist besides lute and Adam did anything.
I know that they don’t expect to get hit, so they don’t get trained in defense, or maybe they were barely trained in the first place, but still, one exorcist literally flew directly into Alastor’s shield.
Like when you think of a yearly extermination, you think of terrifying beings who are super strong and inevitable. The exorcists, but Adam and lute, are literal trash. I can probably beat them in a fistfight.

One thing I really like about Lute’s character is how she evokes an archetype I personally call “the inconvenient veteran”. She’s a soldier who was trained to fight and kill the enemy of her home, the sinners of Hell being her enemy, and did so well. Then, when the war against Hell turns inconvenient for her superiors, Sera and the other senior angels, they wring their hands, make their “Mea Culpas”, and try to move past it. Unfortunately, because Lute can’t pivot away from the mission she was trained for as fast and as gracefully as those who didn’t fight, she’s vilified and treated as an inconvenient reminder of the conflict.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that several of Lute’s actions, most especially her desire to resume the exterminations, are unjustifiable. However, it’s also clear that much of her behavior is influenced by the training she received, for a conflict that Sera did, ultimately, give her blessing towards. She also suffered major trauma from witnessing her fellow exorcists being killed, and her commanding officer dying in her arms. Much like real world vets, Lute is clearly dealing with severe mental and emotional trauma, which her superiors are more than happy to ignore as they move on from the Exterminations.

I also recognize that, much like the sinners in Hell, the first step to Lute’s healing is for her to commit to improving. But a major part of Sera’s redemption should also include her taking accountability for the damages that the Exterminations had on angels, like Lute and any surviving exorcists, not just the sinners in Hell. I do believe that Lute may prove to be more open to changing for the better if she weren’t so consistently brushed off and pushed into a corner where her superiors can just ignore her and her trauma.

Lute doesn’t want help or to be fixed. She wants to hurt people.

Even if you believe the head canon that Lute is some child soldier or whatever that still doesn’t change the fact that Lute would rather die than admit that she’s wrong,

First of all, euthanasia is a sensitive subject, and it’s not something you give someone just because they’re “difficult” to control. It’s for people who are seriously ill, whether physically or mentally, who have already made the decision themselves, undergone multiple evaluations of their mental health, and, above all, consent to it of their own free will. It’s not something other people get to decide for them.

Lute, no matter how reckless she is with her own life, doesn’t want to die. Her goals are to avenge Adam and punish Hell, and she’ll do it regardless of whether she dies in the process, but she isn’t choosing to die on purpose to relieve her suffering. On top of that, she hasn’t been properly evaluated or given the help she needs to consider her a lost cause. Treating her like a rabid dog that needs to be put down instead of like a person is disgusting.

And the worst part is that they want Sera herself to be the one to euthanize her. The same Sera who is changing herself, who is beginning to see value in even sinful souls, and who no longer wants to get her hands bloody. Having her do that to Lute would be absolutely repulsive and monstrous. Not to mention that Sera herself isn’t exactly free of crimes either, even sharing several of them with Lute despite the fact that she’s now trying to redeem herself, and nobody is saying she should die for them.

AN IDEA I HAD