Hazbin Hotel / Helluva Boss Thread - Now a Griefing Thread

[Autistic Gunspergings]

I agree with the Stolas sucks part of your post, but I disagree with the idea characters shouldn't be likeable. Likeability is a big part of being captivated by what they do. If I don't like a character, it's hard to find what they're doing interesting because I won't really care what's going on with them. I think it's a big reason Hazbin is so bad, a lot of the characters are just so bland and boring and having no real charm to them, and the few that are likeable or potentially interesting tend to get shoved in the background so the bland and boring characters can take center stage. Or characters that seemed likeable in the pilot ultimately became boring and unlikeable in the main series.

It can also make or break the premise of a show. With shows like Dexter, where the main character is an undeniably bad person, you need to have said character be likeable, otherwise, all you have is hate watchers tuning in each week waiting to see if he dies. Hazbin fans latched onto Adam because he was likeable compared to the rest of the cast. And I think that was due to him basically saying he wants to murder all the likeable characters. If he was constantly threatening people the audience actually cared about, I'm sure he'd lose most of his fanbase. Smaller, more character focused shows are also make or break on whether the characters are likeable. Something like Six Feet Under would fall apart if you don't like at least some of the main characters because the show is really just about them.

But being a likeable character doesn't have to mean the same thing as being a likeable person. Obviously, we wouldn't befriend someone in the real world who wasn't likeable, but with fictional characters, you can like a character even if they're an in-universe monster. While he is by no means a monster, it's one of the reasons Kramer was so popular on Seinfeld. In reality, I don't think anyone would actually want to be friends with a guy like that who has zero respect for your privacy and constantly takes your food/personal items or rope you into crazy, potentially harmful schemes, but as a viewer, all those zany things are precisely what makes him likeable. Similarly, a show with the Bizzaro cast from that one episode where Elaine makes new friends that are the opposite of the main cast wouldn't work because, while all of those people are friendly and probably great to hang around in real life, following their plotlines would be really boring, so we wouldn't like the characters. It's also why a lot of Mary-sue types fail as characters, they're usually doing good things in the universe and making it a better place, but they just come off as so unlikeable that it's hard to care or root for them, even if what they're doing is good and their motivation makes sense.

Characters in fiction shouldn't be likeable, in my opinion, especially if they're not made to sell shirts or twenty dollar plastic cutouts. The purpose of their existence will be achieved if you're captivated by what they do with their motives given reasons for. For me, I find Stolas to be the most unbearable and repulsive character in the series at the moment, which is a shame, because I absolutely adore his design reminiscent of furryfyed Grimm from Hollow Knight. His relationship with Blitz confuses me at most, as judging by their characters I can't find any cause why Blitz would decide to hang out with him in the first place: Stolas is a huge hypocrite with surface-level emotional intelligence, completely illogical feelings and his value of Blitz supported by the fact that he makes him "not feel lonely" is derogatorily deranged. I'm not sure if it would have been a better option to move with a more Stella-like-minus-anger-management-issues Stolas from the pilot, but it could be so much fascinating to witness their interaction in a form of a more intuitive relationship where both would want, but struggle to settle with each other because of different standards and beliefs, without openly emphasizing the fact that they have very subtle and sentimental mutual feelings. Instead there's a gay bird with a child that cucks his wife with a toony fiend.

I think we're conflating "likable" with "interesting". A character is that, a character. They're not a person. they are, at the most fundamental level, a vessel made to convey a story in a captivating way. If a character cannot convey a story, nor do it in an interesting way, then it has fundamentally failed as a character. I do agree that not all characters need to be Likable, I dont think you need to give your characters enjoyable personality traits, But if you cannot make said characters interesting, if you can't make them engaging to read/watch, then you have failed as a story writer.

I will admit that I haven't watched HH since the end of S1, I just can't be bothered to, but from my memory of the show and reading up on the discussion surrounding the current episodes, Blitzo/Stolas is a case of characters being not only unlikable, but just uninteresting to watch. They are set up in a way so that their relationship goes absolutely fucking nowhere, and any meaningful progress gets reset to zero.

Everybody knows where this shit's gonna end. Stolas is gonna remain an Uwu sad boi, Blitzo is still gonna be a dumb retard, and nobody is gonna have any impactful character development. It's gonna be the same dumb shit that everybody is tired of, and we know this because we've retreaded this shit before in the show; we know how this is gonna end because we've seen them in the same situation before. That is the failure of blitzo/stolas as characters. They are physically unable to progress the story in ways that aren't the same queer song & dance, over and over again. Their shit personalities are just the cherry on top.

 

[LucasSomething]

Characters in fiction shouldn't be likeable, in my opinion, especially if they're not made to sell shirts or twenty dollar plastic cutouts. The purpose of their existence will be achieved if you're captivated by what they do with their motives given reasons for. For me, I find Stolas to be the most unbearable and repulsive character in the series at the moment, which is a shame, because I absolutely adore his design reminiscent of furryfyed Grimm from Hollow Knight. His relationship with Blitz confuses me at most, as judging by their characters I can't find any cause why Blitz would decide to hang out with him in the first place: Stolas is a huge hypocrite with surface-level emotional intelligence, completely illogical feelings and his value of Blitz supported by the fact that he makes him "not feel lonely" is derogatorily deranged. I'm not sure if it would have been a better option to move with a more Stella-like-minus-anger-management-issues Stolas from the pilot, but it could be so much fascinating to witness their interaction in a form of a more intuitive relationship where both would want, but struggle to settle with each other because of different standards and beliefs, without openly emphasizing the fact that they have very subtle and sentimental mutual feelings. Instead there's a gay bird with a child that cucks his wife with a toony fiend.

No, you're missing what i said. My use of unlikable there is on his narrative presentation vs perception and not how good or bad of a person he is on practice.

Stolas was actually way "less likable" at season 1 when he was the defacto abuser fully in control of blitzo but everyone gave him a pass cause he was funny. You can forgive any monster if they're charismatic enough.

Season 2 is vivzie TRYING to make him """likable""" by detoxifying him and failing miserable because the rectons make Stolas comes across as a hypocrite. She expects us to feel sorry and side with Stolas completely because "he loves too much" and ignore how manipulative and horny he actually was.

This also had the secondary effect of making him boring and depressing, thus unlikable from a viewer retention standpoint. The only people who still get happy when stolas gis on screen are shippers.

 

[Cyber Bowling]

Season 2 is vivzie TRYING to make him """likable""" by detoxifying him and failing miserable because the rectons make Stolas comes across as a hypocrite. She expects us to feel sorry and side with Stolas completely because "he loves too much" and ignore how manipulative and horny he actually was.

This also had the secondary effect of making him boring and depressing, thus unlikable from a viewer retention standpoint. The only people who still get happy when stolas gis on screen are shippers.

This is an issue with the majority of Viv's characters. Okay, well, not the retcon or detoxifying specifically, but trying to make her characters come across as "good" despite picking the one setting where characters are there because they are evil.

It's why the redemption aspect of Hazbin never existed. In order to show her characters getting redeemed, that would first mean acknowledging they did terrible things that require redemption. When I'm watching a show set in hell, the last thing I expect to see is morally good and flawless characters. It's just like how if I pick up a Superman comic, I'm not expecting Superman to gun down criminals while shouting about putting motherfuckers on a lead diet.

Because Viv is unwilling to explore why her characters are "bad" people, they often end up feeling just so...generic. Like they're lifted out of a coffe-fic instead of a hell-based story about redeeming sinners to avoid a genocide from heaven. There's really nothing interesting about them, they're all just so safe and bland and generic that it's hard to like any of them. It's like being presented with plain crackers as a snack. I don't have anything against plain crackers, there's nothing there for me to really dislike, but it's certainly not a food I'm going to get excited for, or something that I'd go out of my way to get.

It doesn't help that Viv has way too many characters and keeps introducing new ones. Each new character means less time for an existing one, which makes it harder to give them any substance. Running with the saltine example, it's like having a few pieces of cheese to add to the crackers, but being told you have to eat the whole sleeve of them. You might be able to spice up like, 3 or 4 crackers, but then the rest are just going to be indistinguishable from one another.

Not every character in hell needs to be the worst example of humanity, but they also shouldn't be perfect little angels whose only flaw is they just love/care too much.

 

[ssaneenah]

No, you're missing what i said. My use of unlikable there is on his narrative presentation vs perception and not how good or bad of a person he is on practice.

I see what you mean, thanks for clarifying. I did notice how different Stolas's presentation in the second season has become as soon as he started getting more attention. Frankly, I didn't hate his narrative in the first season - he was just an idiot that exploited the main character, who just had to deal with Stolas's bullshit. I guess the reason why I can't stand him anymore is that the cartoon decided to make me like him more by making him look insecure, vulnerable and, in this context, likeable. Now when I'm thinking about it, the entire idea of attempting to flesh out all of the characters in the second season just showed how plain and uninspiring those characters are, most likely because they all were just mere caricatures from the ground up.

If I don't like a character, it's hard to find what they're doing interesting because I won't really care what's going on with them. I think it's a big reason Hazbin is so bad, a lot of the characters are just so bland and boring and having no real charm to them, and the few that are likeable or potentially interesting tend to get shoved in the background so the bland and boring characters can take center stage.

Ironically enough, my favourite character from Hazbin Hotel was Husk, which is basically Loona as a cat. I found his ordinary attitude and overall conventional appearance (minus the dorky top hat and the fucking wings) flattering, contradictory to everybody else around.

 

[Cyber Bowling]

Ironically enough, my favourite character from Hazbin Hotel was Husk, which is basically Loona as a cat. I found his ordinary attitude and overall conventional appearance (minus the dorky top hat and the fucking wings) flattering, contradictory to everybody else around.

I was thinking about it, and gun to my head, I'd probably pick Husk as my favorite character. I think in general, a lot of people like Husk. I've seen some pretty server criticisms of HH acknowledge that they at least enjoyed Husk's character.

But I feel like there's two factors to Husks's success. The first is Husk really isn't a main character. At best, he's a side character. Side characters tend to fair a little better in terms of likeability because we have lower expectations for them. In a lot of cases, they fill some kinda comic relief role, and because our only interaction with them is laughing at their funny zinger and then never seeing them for the rest of the episode, it's easier to like the idea of them. Think of a character like Urkel, who was envisioned as a geeky side character and then skyrocketed to the main star, where many would argue he then jumped the shark and the show became so whacky he lost a lot of that likability.

Husk definitely benefits from getting to be the snarky bartender, the kind of character who maybe gets like a b-plot or c-plot once a season, but otherwise is just thrown into a scene when someone has a sarcastic joke to deliver. He doesn't really have any motivation as a character, he just...sorta exists. To use a Star Trek comparison, he's basically a snarkier version of Guinan. The most development he got was the "loser" moment with Angel, which was fine, but...eh, at the end of the day, it wasn't a huge revelation or anything and it doesn't make me look at his actions in a different way or suddenly understand new motivations from him.

And then there's the Keith David factor. And if we're being real, I feel like it's not so much people like Husk specifically, it's that people like Keith David. Which is totally fair, some actors just have enough talent/charisma where they can make any role interesting, even when there's almost nothing to work with. There's plenty of examples of actors being good enough to make their character into a breakout one when they were intended to either be a much smaller role or even a one off character.

 

[LucasSomething]

And then there's the Keith David factor. And if we're being real, I feel like it's not so much people like Husk specifically, it's that people like Keith David.

You're right that being a side character helps him a lot because if he was protag his snark would come across as mary sueish but i dont think it's just the VA. I think a lot of people like Husk because he's the "snarky jerk who secretly cares deep inside" in a real convincing way.

Husk did not help Angel to cope with his personal daddy issues or because he was ordered, he did because he wanted. Thanks to him Angel became a slightly less worse person. We also learn that his situation is completely his fault but unlike Angel he doesnt lash on others, he's fully self aware and chill so he's not a hypocrite. Husk is a better person than Charlie without even trying.

The third secret reason people like husk is cause furry/yaoi ofc.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I recently went to a con and man, I saw so many Hazbin Hotel cosplayers that surprised me.

Though LMAO I didn't see a single Helluva Boss one, this anecdote may be nothing but it is funny how no one seems to give as much of a shit about it.

Gamecon?

A lot of Alastor cosplayers lol.

 

[AnOminous]

Gamecon?

A lot of Alastor cosplayers lol.

I'm trying to visualize fat fucks cosplaying as a well-dressed seven foot tall wasp-waisted demon.

 

[Second Missing Primarch]

I'm trying to visualize fat fucks cosplaying as a well-dressed seven foot tall wasp-waisted demon.

Speaking from personal experience, it's fucking funny. I was at a con earlier this year that was overrun with HH cosplayers and the only one who didn't look like inflation/chubby-chaser fanart of the characters was a very petite teenager dressed as Charlie. The contrast between her and the rest of them was surreal.

 

[Bob Barbas]

I still think the Verbalse Charlie animation leak or whatever was some of the funniest content I've seen in awhile. Maybe even the best content to come out of the entire franchise's existence. And the best part is that was it, it was just comedically cringe. There wasn't any pedoshit or anything really morally reprehensible just a guy who was a little too down bad for the daughter of Satan.

I always cherish those kinds of laughs because they're so far and few between unfortunately.

 

[Vecr]

I still think the Verbalse Charlie animation leak or whatever was some of the funniest content I've seen in awhile. Maybe even the best content to come out of the entire franchise's existence. And the best part is that was it, it was just comedically cringe. There wasn't any pedoshit or anything really morally reprehensible just a guy who was a little too down bad for the daughter of Satan.

Is that the bad music video? Did we ever get a copy that wasn't compressed to hell (hah) and back, with zero color depth and almost as few pixels?

 

[Friendly Primarina]

just a guy who was a little too down bad for the daughter of Satan.

Bringing up a post I saw just after it happened, because the fact she looks like this makes it doubly funny

View attachment 5670779
She seems to be a master at that. (I can’t believe Verbalase wants to fuck… this.)

 

[InJailOutSoon]

So, I just recently watched Encanto for the first time (It was okay. Main issues were that there were too many characters and songs for such a small runtime with the story they were trying to deliver. In a way, very similar to Hazbin's issues.) Anyway, the only reason why I brought this up was because Stephanie Beatriz voices Mirabel in Encanto. The same VA for Vaggie. And the difference is just night and day. I get what was trying to be accomplished with Vaggie's voice, but the voice direction there was just awful. Half of her lines are just lacking any sort of emotion; especially when you compare it to the Pilot VA. They're almost like two completely different characters.

 

[Cyber Bowling]

Half of her lines are just lacking any sort of emotion

Probably because all of her scenes lack character. Even among Hazbin, I feel like Vaggie stands out for having almost nothing going on. She exists solely to be Charlie's girlfriend, any action she takes is in relation to being Charlie's girlfriend. Her goals? Be a good girlfriend to Charlie. Her backstory stuff? Only brought up in relation to whether Charlie will be upset she was hiding something from her. Isn't the one song she really features in all about protecting Charlie?

It's a shame because on paper, she should really be one of the more interesting characters. How does a former exterminator angel feel about redeeming sinners? Surely, she has to have some unique perspective on it given that she came from heaven. But instead, we get that she just supports the hotel because it's Charlie's dream, and god forbid she does/thinks something that isn't related to Charlie.

 

[Edgeworth]

FWIW I tend to like Stephanie Beatriz, but the problem with Vaggie is that they want the dry snark of Rosa from Brooklyn 99 mashed together with the Broadway showmanship of Mirabel and that combination can work, just not with what direction they're trying to go with.

Also agreed, Vaggie's a non-character. I stand by what I've said once or twice now about how Vaggie being in the show literally changes nothing and all of her drama-related plots could be given to other characters and nothing of value would be lost

 

[ssaneenah]

Vaggie's a non-character. I stand by what I've said once or twice now about how Vaggie being in the show literally changes nothing and all of her drama-related plots could be given to other characters and nothing of value would be lost

Well, if you think of it in a way that the only reason Vaggie exists is for the sake of every other character to point out that her name sounds like “vagina”, all the sudden she’s the best character to ever be created.

 

[Chilson]

Probably because all of her scenes lack character. Even among Hazbin, I feel like Vaggie stands out for having almost nothing going on. She exists solely to be Charlie's girlfriend, any action she takes is in relation to being Charlie's girlfriend. Her goals? Be a good girlfriend to Charlie. Her backstory stuff? Only brought up in relation to whether Charlie will be upset she was hiding something from her. Isn't the one song she really features in all about protecting Charlie?

It's a shame because on paper, she should really be one of the more interesting characters. How does a former exterminator angel feel about redeeming sinners? Surely, she has to have some unique perspective on it given that she came from heaven. But instead, we get that she just supports the hotel because it's Charlie's dream, and god forbid she does/thinks something that isn't related to Charlie.

Nah, she was more interesting in the pilot when she was just Charlies demon friend with an edge who was clearly aware of the harsh realities of hell and trying to shield the naive Charlie from it as she walked ass backwards into them without thinking.

Turning her into a rug munching ex-angel only made what was a potentially interesting character more one dimensional and far less interesting.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

Well, if you think of it in a way that the only reason Vaggie exists is for the sake of every other character to point out that her name sounds like “vagina”, all the sudden she’s the best character to ever be created.

that was originally her name

because Vivienne Medrano never mentally matured past high school

 

[KissMyTaint]

Viv OffherMeds wants a crossover between her two shows
[source]

wtf? doesn't she own her shows? can't she do that already?

 

[The Nothingness]

Viv OffherMeds wants a crossover between her two shows
[source]
View attachment 6362076
wtf? doesn't she own her shows? can't she do that already?

I'm guessing she signed any character featured in Hazbin over to A24, but I could be wrong.