Basically, “kill your darlings” you can’t add everybody in such a concise shoe and with the limited time. If I have 10 oranges, but can only afford a crate to hold 5 oranges, I either need a bigger crate, or to drop a few oranges…
A huge problem this show has is that most of the lore and explanation happens off-screen in like live streams or social media posts. A lot of fans don't see the show as confusing because they follow all of that stuff, but casual viewers like myself were very confused.
Another problem that I just thought of is how the hotel is now useless. If the characters can easily beat back an extermination, they don't need to actually redeem anyone anymore.
@@jacobwortham8068 Well thats not the only reason its basically useless in helluva boss yes they are two different shows however same universe in different parts of the pride ring. The angels there literally wouldn't allow the chrubs back into heaven because "their actions resulted in the death of a humam". Its cannon their set in the same universe yet helluva boss as a different version of heaven I know their chrubs wich are child angels but still.
@@alexisdied4558 Well, to specify on this (HB) and also refine a little from the show (HH): Similar to how there are different types of Demon (Sinners being people with past lives and the rest being Hellborns), I think there means to be different kinds of angel. This is as in, there are the Winners; people who made it to heaven from Earth (called humans in some cases), there are cherubs; the essentially guardian angels of the universe this takes place in, the exterminators; the ones who go stabby-stab, and many more. This is my understanding of the show(s), as I am not part of the crew for either. Hope some things were answered. For the other part (hotel is now useless), I think at this point, it's about letting people become better, not really just fixing the overpopulation.
@@Jdudec367 But they still did it, which means there’s no excuse to not give the rest of hell angelic weapons to defend themselves. And if you really look at the fight in a whole, it was easy. Besides from Snake Man’s death, angels were literally dropping like flies while most of the cast remained fine and unharmed, and with Lucifer by their side, they’re basically OP
26:19 THATS WHAT IM SAYING!!! “did you know angels could be harmed?” Should’ve been changed to, “did you know angels could be killed?” To fix that plot hole. Vaggie should know angels can be harmed but not killed. Having her eye and wings ripped off caused a lot of blood loss, yet she didn’t die (same thing applies to lute when she ripped her arm off). Srry if my wording doesn’t make sense I’m bad at words
As a side note, I think the idea that angels leave their weapons in hell is stupid. Even if I have infinite weapons, there is no way am I leaving (presumably) holy weapons in hell for demons to use. IDK how broken (can they be broken?) the weapon I am taking it back.
@@xXlonefighterXx This is what I brought up in fandom and got chewed out/explained. They used their angelic weapons to harm Veggie, but then left them all over the place. If there is a point of, "Demons can't touch angelic weapons." or "Angels can be harmed, but not killed." it would be more believable.
@@xXlonefighterXx The best way I could explain it is that the Angels didn't know they could be killed yet with their own weapons but leaving some for violent, murder hungery Sinners to kill each other? Well why not? c:
The main problem with the show is that it’s more about heaven and hell going to war than Charlie actually using her hotel to get sinners to rehabilitate
@@SpoopySquid I can forgive Helluva Boss for it though because at least the soppy melodrama is fun to watch and _isn't the show that everyone started following Vivzie for._ Hazbin Hotel simultaneously fails to deliver on the promise of the premise *AND* bloats itself with full music numbers. Yes Helluva Boss has music numbers, but it always picks between either having two shorter ones like in episode 2 or a single full one like in episode 7. AND in all cases, they move the plot along or are not intrusive (like the Striker song in season 2). Hazbin Hotel has 2-3 FULL LENGTH music numbers PER EPISODE, most of which stop the story dead in its tracks to complete. It's genuinely unwatchable.
@PoisonFlower765 In my opinion, the only songs in Helluva Boss that even worked were the ones that actually made sense story-wise. House of Asmodeus and the entirety of Mammon's episode had songs that worked because they seemed like songs that would legitimately be sung in the setting. Other than those, the songs just feel like they exist to just "make it a musical" instead of existing to move forward the plot. Songs that do (like Moxxie's Bad Trip and Loo-Loo-Land) could have easily just been actual scenes instead of that.
@@gearscore349 Alright that's fair. Another thing though that I didn't mention is that because of how many songs are crammed into Hazbin Hotel, a lot (if not all) of them SUCK. All of the HB songs out so far (in my opinion) are damn good! But the HH songs sound really weak, not well thought out, and just feel rushed. That's also a major weakness.
@PoisonFlower765 Poison is quite good to me, and so is You Didn't Know, but I agree for all the rest. I legitimately forgot Happy Day in Hell and It Starts With Sorry existed until I watched videos like this.
One thing I find annoying though is when a TH-camr is confused by one thing and the comments are flooded with explanations when actually you shouldn’t need to explain an important plot detail the show literally never fucking said in the first place… hazbin has a lot of that, they really don’t like explaining anything in the actual show ☠ (just something I notice when people make more critical videos on hazbin)
Well, sometimes people are unsure if the youtubers will watch the rest of the show and like to give explanations of things that are only revealed later. And other times the show expects everyone to follow them on twitter and read all of their posts. Quoting JelloApocalypse "I hate when shows force you to do outside research to just understand them"
Yeah, like, I'm a big fan of Freindship Is Magic and My Hero Acadamia. I don't need to explain the show and lore to someone who's watching it for the first time as those shows tell you the lore within world building or a quick explanation for context of what's going on in the plot. Like you shouldn't have to give homework to the viewer to understand your show. The stuff outside the show should be like extra content to indulge in like spin-off comics or streams if the creator is a content creator first.
@@tpfoxCastro I think the fact that HH falls into the 2nd camp is OPs point and problem here. If things were going to be revealed later that’s one thing. Good Pacing is an entirely separate topic, but one that can be fixed nonetheless. HH doesn’t do that, though.
@PeteyBirds Im going to slightly disagree with you If somebody watches a show and dosent understand a lot of the time is audiences not following the narrative very well. Other cases is the writters fault. A good example i have is murder drones, the whole story is there in the show but core information about the story is placed in very sutbletly throughout the show, forcing ppl to pause to be able to follow the narrative. As for HH, neither apply. Essential info is simply not in the show. HH is written as if we know the world and love the characters as much as vivizie does. At this point in time Hazbin is just dumb fun; the narrative is too fast to get engaged and it dosent take itself serious enough in moments that matter(serpentious death), but it has funny moments and good enough music
The biggest problem of Vivziepop is that she ISN'T A WRITER she's an artist a commissioner a character creator. That's why the show has an already large cast but added MORE and MORE and MORE characters.
@@NatTheNoodler literally all of her productions have the same problem TOO LARGE CAST specially if she has a limited runtime. In 8 episodes you can't cram over 10 characters. You have the hotel cast, the Vs the heaven etc. And helluva is worse. Because that show will last as Viv wants. And we got introduced to irrelevant imp family, irrelevant hounds, the Blitzø's ex, greed and lust and gluttony with an episode that is just a GLORIFIED AMV, the cherubs, the human association that wants to kill demons... That's the same thing that killed her previous projects. Like Zoophobia.
you hit the nail on the head. I used to follow Viv's art and she's a character designer first, writer second. she has a lot of ocs outside of her shows and she has stories for each of them, but giving a story to an individual character is different than giving stories to multiple characters in a show. you have to be able to pick and choose to make it more focused and cohesive.
My problem is just the pacing. They rushed so fast over problems they set up. Who killed the angel? Oh, it's Carmilla. When was she introduced? Episode 3. And when did we learn she did it? The minute she's introduced. Sir Pentitous being sent to spy on the hotel. When did he do that? Episode 2. When did they find out? Episode 2. When did we find out heaven citizens don't know about the exterminations? Episode 6. And when was it revealed to them? Episode 6. When did we learn Charlie has daddy issues? (To be honest, her daddy issues aren't even daddy issues, but the show insists it is.) Anyways, Episode 5. When did she resolve it? The same episode. What ever happened to fleshing out your ideas and not rushing?
To be fair, it semi had ATLA pacing with far less episodes. It’s less the pacing of each plot point I personally had an issue with, but rather the lack of episodes, and lack of events in those six months. If you are going to go for a similar pacing as something like ATLA, there needs to be, just- more. More story, more touching on the events in those six months, cause it felt like a month would go by between each episode, but acted like it was the next week. (I guess that’s a form of pacing? Just- different) what I’m trying to say is the pacing of the actual episodes wasn’t the problem for me, it was the pacing of the time in between said episodes. I also don’t really see the show portraying it as “daddy issues”, absolutely mommy issues are present! But I see the situation with Charlie and Lucifer as more a parent and a child completely misunderstanding each other, and actually being more like each other than they first believed. They are just- both kinda neurodivergent and never had that conversation with each other. And I think the show displayed that fine. Just my personal opinions though
@@HybridAngel I see what you're getting at, the fact the entire season took place in six months but not enough happened it's valid. And I agree with your statement on Lucifer and Charlie, the relationship is just them misunderstanding on each side, that's why I said it isn't daddy issues, but yet the writers have characters saying daddy issues left and right like Husk telling Charlie she had daddy issues when what they have isn't daddy issues.
I mean Sir pentious being someone sent to spy on the hotel was meant to be a short subplot not anything too long so that makes sense really. Carmilla I can see how she was rushed though. But there is nothing wrong with us finding out that heaven ciitzens don`t know about the exterminations in episoded 6. Episode 5 was kinda rushed but it wasn`t THAT bad. They can be fleshed out still and are at times.
@@Jdudec367 Yeah I believe I heard that the shortened season was done by Amazon, which really compressed everything down. Since this season should've been like... 15 episodes if not more at best. Proper amount of time to introduce and explain everything, and character development.
the way I went "you didnt know angel was there for redemption? but they talked about it in the pilot- oh..." says a lot about how you shouldnt lock important info behind supplemental material, like you said. it just kinda hit me that a LOT of viewers who didnt see the pilot likely didnt even realize angel was at the hotel for rehabilitation until at least episode 6, which is very clunky writing (at best)
The problem is that even if you are a hardcore fan and been in the fandom for years before the show aired, you are still not ammune from being lost, because its not very clear what is and isnt cannon in the main show. The first episode seems to assume that the viewer knows that it takes place right after the pilot, but are the terf wars still relevant? Is charlie doing the hotel pitch on tv still cannon?
@@montserratmarroquin400 The idea in the pilot is that while he joined the hotel for redemption, he still engages in turf wars and doesn't take it seriously. Vaggie yells at him for making the hotel look like a joke and he says he did it to maintain his reputation, that nobody would take him seriously if they "knew he was trying to go clean." The issue is that episode 1 doesnt go over this at all and if you haven't watched the pilot you're left wondering if he's part of the staff, seeking rehab, or just hanging out, and it doesnt make it very clear at any point. Even if you've seen the pilot, you could still come out of it wondering if he's aiming for redemption or just a place away from Val.
@@montserratmarroquin400 Angel *is* just there for free rent, but the girls demand he tries to better himself while he's there so he has a hard time being fully indulgent in his "bad habits" while maintaining his rent-free apartment.
Honestly I thought episode one would've involved them repurposing the pilot and making it fit with the shows new lore and finalized plot, but it just didn't. This was an immediate shock to me as that's where we get a lot of lore as to why characters are there and the publics view on the hotel. Yet the show doesn't show that it just says- look at these characters, they're here! Don't question it!
Am I the only one that feels like the timeline went by really fast? We're told heaven is bumping up the extermination to 6 months, but the show never addresses how close it gets to that timeframe until maybe 1 or 2 episodes before the finale. Like, shouldn't they emphasize the fact there's a deadline to beat? Especially since the hotel itself would be targeted first?
@@sunflowersandsarcasm4518 because of the horrible pacing, i originally thought that the extermination date had been moved up again, rather than a whole 6 months having actually passed already. while i understand that they only had 8 episodes to work with, they probably could’ve stretched this part of the story into 2 seasons, that way the pacing would make more sense, we’d get to know and actually care about the characters better, and there’d be a greater buildup to the extermination
@@saltymarshmallows316 I've seen lots of people argue that the fact the pacing is horrible is because there's ''only 8 episodes'', but honestly it's not the damn episode count it's the amount of lore Vivzie and the writers try to cram into them. I watched Scott Pilgrim and it also has 8 episodes but *much* better pacing 😅
As much as I enjoyed the show....It seems more like Hazbin was written for people who have followed Viz since the start. Which isn't a horrible thing but it holds it back for sure. Longtime Hazbin fans won't have trouble connecting to characters or plot because Viz has been sharing information about these characters for years. While New fans can easily become confused and uninterested because so much is happening to a cast they just met. I agree that the first season should have been character focused. Longtime fans would have loved it because we would get a better understanding of what is canon for certain characters and what isn't. And New fans could become invested in these characters without having to learn about them from the wiki rather than the show.
This was a major sticking point for me. I like animated shows a lot so when a buddy of mine recommended it and told me the creator was inspired by invader Zim, I checked out. It was enjoyable but I was very confused the whole time lol
Exactly! When Mimzy was introduced, I had no idea about the hype, being this long-awaited character with a big arrival. She just felt... "oh look another one!"/neg
Yeah. I haven't followed any of the livestreams where old lore was (only heard about the lore from others in the fandom secondhand), but I saw the pilot when it first came out and I was still sort of confused. And honestly, even the old livestreams/supplementary lore aren't fully relevant anymore because the actual lore has been changed for the show (like Vaggie's backstory). For those who DO know the background lore, that credibility has been thrown into question because the show doesn't make it clear how much of it they're even going to keep. They really needed to take important things that they wanted to keep and establish it in the actual show, or communicate it more clearly. As someone who had the context of the pilot for episode one, I immediately noticed it was all dependent on the pilot. It basically takes place in direct continuation and nothing is explained. Our introduction to Alastor in the first episode is Vaggie saying "Alastor says he has something to show us" as if we're supposed to already know who he is, and the pilot much more clearly establishes him meeting the cast and why he's here than the quick rehash in just a few of his lines in episode one. Charlie's proposal of the Hotel on the news, Angel Dust's reason for staying ("crack is expensive, I need somewhere rent-free to crash!"), and the battle with Sir Pentious...all of it was communicated so clearly in the pilot. They should've either linked the series to the pilot on Amazon, with the latter as an episode 0, or started the main series as "episode 2 onwards" (although pilots are usually not part of the final production, especially given the rougher character designs and art style changes-and that Vivzie's is already available on youtube) or wrote the first episode to cover the same steps as the pilot to establish everything. Pilot information could've easily been planted in place of the episode 1 B-plot about the Hotel commercial. We don't even get to SEE it in the end, anyway, after all that time in the episode. Heck, they could've easily made room for Angel Dusts's "What happens if I die here?! Is there a double-hell?!" joke from the pilot to establish the question to the audience in the series.
@@Jdudec367 Was it, though? If it kept us from seeing the growth Angel supposedly had? I get the appeal of finding ways for a fan-favorite character to have a more significant role in the narrative, but if they start taking roles from pre-established characters then that can lead to problems later down the line.
@@a.n.9800 Mhm. It didn't though, we still see Angel's growth. But Sir Pentious didn`t do that he just further adds to further proving that redemption is possible.
@@a.n.9800 But Sir Pentious was the only character arc that was actually Good in that show. If you want more Angel Dust content then take away Mimzy or Nifty or some of Alastor's 80,000 scenes instead
@@Jdudec367 How much of Angel’s growth did we actually see though? There’s none in the first two episodes, it all happens offscreen in episode 3, episode 4 is good but there’s none in episode 5. And then in episode 6 he’s suddenly come so far? We see him at different stages in a growth arc but we don’t actually see him travel from each stage to the next, he just suddenly ends up there when the story needs him to be.
I think the fact that the fandom will often expect people to know lore and stuff featured outside the show is something I find particularly annoying. Good analysis! I'd love to see you make one for Murder Drones tbh!😊
Even in this comment section I'm seeing a few people with endless free-time mansplain the plot to people who are simply complaining about the poor writing of the show 😭 The fans do nothing except prove our points about the show and fandom lol. I wish more people could understand the concept that a show can have a good concept... and then still be executed like dogsh*t.
I'm a bit surprised they didn't include the pilot on Amazon, because it effectively does what your idea for a rewritten Season 1 does. It's 20 minutes just focused on Charlie, Vaggie, Angel Dust, and their dynamic as a team
And some things that were mentioned in the pilot were retconned in the season. So it would have caused some more inconsistencies if the pilot was included^^
@@poccripeardew4750 Yep! such as Lilith (Charlies mom) being supposedly missing in the main show and Charlie being on call with her in the pilot, this might be pushing it but I believe a remake of the pilot would have worked out great without the weird jokes and plotholes
@@Vamptre Generally speaking, all of the pilot characters are total fetish bait. I mean seriously, try to find one post about Angel Dust that isn't fetishizing his addictions or the fact that he's fruity 😭 The fandom makes me wish I wasn't gay
my biggest problem was that a lot of things felt like they happened off screen especially with Alastor. Like, in the song “Hell’s Greatest Dad,” he says that he’s always helping around the hotel… except he’s not around for most of the time. He is supposedly this manipulative dangerous possible antagonist with his own agenda and plan, but he’s just never around leaving him feel unexplored.
Okay, so I stopped watching at episode 2 as a casual fan who watched Helluva Boss as it came out and was there for the pilot. I was disappointed as hell. Anyway, so when I stumbled upon the Hell's Greatest Dad music number I felt like I misunderstood _fucking EVERYTHING._ Like??? YOU WROTE ALASTOR TO CALL HIMSELF A FATHER FIGURE??? *ALASTOR??? **_THE_** TUMBLR SEXYMAN ALASTOR????? A **_DAD?!?!?!?_* absolutely the fuck not. who had that idea and why weren't the fired on the spot.
@@Deadflower019 Psst, Alastor is a power-hungry troll and was making shit up to get under Lucifer's skin. It's comedic because the audience knows he's just being manipulative and that Charlie is too innocent to suspect he's lying.
Knowing that he was around for not even a year and that she's older than him. I understand that Alastor was just trying to piss of Lucifer but Charlie didn't even think of the problem there
A problem I also have is about hell born sinners, they did nothing to get there and Charlie doesn't stand up for them. It could have been a great point to tell the angels, because Charlie herself did nothing to be there either.
There is a difference between hell borns and Sinners. Hell Borns don’t get targeted by the extermination, that’s a pretty big detail in the meeting with Adam. Hell Borns are beings like imps, hellhounds, and succubi, and they aren’t restricted to their respective rings, while Sinners were once alive as human, and once they died, went to hell, restricted to the pride ring. The extermination only targets Sinners (or it used to-). That’s what the main concern was for Charlie
Question, should Charlie try to get his father to let sinner in other rings... since you know he is the king and doesnt do anything other than make ducks?
@@HybridAngel then that really begs the question for me. why does charlie care so much? they aren't her people. they're like her dads old high school science project.
@@HybridAngel We don’t necessarily know that, though. If you only watch the Amazon series and haven’t seen the pilot or Helluva Boss or any of Viv’s other work, then the only confirmed hellborns are Charlie and her immediate family. We know there are more since Lute refers to them in the plural, but we don’t know who or what because the show doesn’t elaborate further than that. (Example: I didn’t find out that Rosie and everyone in cannibal town were supposed to be hellborn demons until after I’d finished the show and I found supplementary material later. I thought they all looked like that because that’s just what cannibals turned into on the way down to hell after dying, since I DID know from supplementary material that the lore is sinners turn into creatures and such when they die and descend to hell, and Alastor looked different because he was a serial killer who practiced magic as well as a cannibal. I shouldn’t have to rely on supplementary material to understand how the world of the show operates.)
@@veepersjeepers She believes that since they're in hell, they're her people. She's a kind person but she's also using the hotel to escape her unresolved issues in her own life. Basically a mess trying to fix other messes.
Hopefully they’ll give them more next season, like how Parks and Recreation had a 6 episode first season and then about 20 episodes for every subsequent season.
My biggest problem with Hazbin is that if you were a causal fan of the show you would know literally NOTHING about the characters. Most of the things we know about the cast are things said on streams or twitter or blog posts. We shouldn't have to do homework to understand characters. Angel for example: if your watching the show how would you know he's an Italian mobster? Nothing about his character tells you about the time period he was from or what he did when alive. As you said season 1 definitely should have been about exploring the characters. You shouldn't be expected to dig through streams just to get a basic understanding of their character (Edit: I have since changed my opinion on this point, my point on redemption still stands though) Another issue that botherd me was the whole redemption thing. Like how much would Charlie be willing to forgive just so she could redeem someone? Would she try redeeming Valentino despite what she knows about him? Where does she draw the line? What does she think is unredeemable? Hell what have the main cast done to be sent to hell?? Should they even be forgiven for their crimes?? If they are forgiven and sent to heaven, what about their victims? Do they just have to deal with the fact that the person who killed/ruined their life is now in heaven because they're 'sorry'? WHY WAS THIS NEVER DISCUSSED IN SEASON 1 WHEN THE WHOLE SHOW IS ABOUT REDEMPTION?!?
Also, hellborn demons. With Charlie, it's implied that demons can be born in hell, but the idea is not actually mentioned in the show, just speculation. Then you get people who consume all the extra content replying to your questions about hellborns with all of the lore about them, most of which contains ideas that aren't even mentioned in the show either! Like. Just watching Hazbin Hotel, the rings of Hell are not mentioned. Why should I care that Hellborn demons can traverse the different rings when I have no idea that our show takes place in the pride ring? If it wasn't in the show, why should it matter to me? This is coming from someone who hasn't seen Helluva boss (and shouldn't have to just to understand Hazbin)
@@diddykitty746 Exactly! Literally the only reason I know as much as I do is because of Helluva Boss and sifting through streams and twitter for cool facts. Which is something you should NOT need to do just to know where the SETTING OF THE SHOW IS (the pride ring)
So I have only seen the pilot and the show. I understand the show completely. Your complaint just seems over-repeated and untrue. Angel Dust being a mobster - Okay? Is him being a mobster relevant to the plot? It sure does explain the scene with the tommy guns but if anything is more just saying he was a mobster therefore he has this fun gun aesthetic. You don't need to do homework because you don't need to know absolutely everything. Where it's a problem is when stuff actually is relevant to the plot then suddenly comes out of this homework. Only example I can think of right now is Halo. Halo 4 and 5 had more interesting plots if you've actually read the Halo novels, but for most people who just played the games, the stories were awful. No one cares about the Mantle of Responsibility and the Didact... unless they did the homework. And it's all unexplained, since rather than reexplaining it for game audience, they just expect you to do the homework. If Angel Dust being a mobster is relevant, it will be explained. If it's not relevant, it will just be a fun aesthetic for the character since 4 tommy guns is cool.
@@EvilParagon4 Good point! I honestly think I'm starting to get a bit frustrated with Hazbin, so my opinions are starting to get biased. I do hope that if/when that stuff is needed in the show they explain it, and don't rely on the other stuff like Helluva. My other opinions still stand though; I really wish the season was a *bit* more character focused. I know this is just the first season, and this season only has 8 episodes, but I can't help but want a bit more out of it ya know? And the whole redemption thing as well, it feels like we didn't actually get to see Sir Pentious get redeemed. Sure he's pretty nice and he sacrificed himself for his friends, and we got some really nice scenes of him. But what did he do to go to hell? I don't remember him showing any guilt for the things he did while alive, or try to remedy the things he did (aside from being nice) I just ghdydhdysh If he actually did some bad stuff while alive he shouldn't have been redeemed or he should of had a bit more spotlight on his redemption journey. Idk it could just be me but people need to earn redemption. Once again this is just the first season, so hopefully all the stuff I have gripes with will be explained (not fully obviously, but enough to know that it will be built on more later) I hope I don't come off as rude or bitchy in these comments, because I do genuinely really enjoy Hazbin, and I really want it to succeed
She could have a made a montage of their development, it would have been rushed but it would have something Or just like Helluva Boss they could have made shorts for each and every one of them Still wouldn’t fix it but atleast it would have shown something
"this MAN... is STINKY" made me laugh 😂 Appreciate hearing a critique if this show that feels sort of disconnected from all the bile surrounding it. I've read/listened to some much much harsher critique ive agreed with but here I appreciate the genuine desire to see where the show couldve been better if given the tools/structure/time. Looking forward to more narrative academy in the future ^_^
Yeah my goal is to come at my critiques in such a way that, if anyone who worked on the show saw it, they wouldn't be upset. My goal is never to be the person hating on a thing just to hate on it- I think there's lots of things we can learn from imperfect media, and I wanted to explore that!
_Who could thought angels could be harmed._ Said the one-eyed wingless angel (evangelion opening starts) WOMAN, YOU'RE THE Fμ¢KING ANSWER! How nobody noticed that?
The moment that a writer thinks they've had a clever idea, they will prop up a million dumb ideas to support it. Someone had the brilliant idea "Adam is moving up the extermination because.... They've killed an angel! It's retribution!" And every other idea in the story is built on making that make sense. "What happened the last time a demon killed an angel?" Oh, uhhh... In 5,000 years, this has never, ever, ever happened before.
Stuff like this happens when ideas that were never intended suddenly become extremely important. Vaggie having only one eye wasn't an issue originally but now that she's been made into an angel the plot point of people being shocked angels can be hurt makes her look stupid.
@@coolman229 It makes her look painfully, dumb. It makes Charlie look painfully dumb. When they showed the flashback way back in EP 3 of Charlie MEETING Vaggie in what was clearly a war-torn area, although we didn't know yet it was literally on an Execution Day (which makes them monumentally, astronomically dumb) with Vaggie clearly being injured and she saved her life, and Vaggie adopts a Drill Sargent attitude to train the boys, I honestly thought the writers were being coy. "I was a stranger in a brand new place." If COURSE she's an angel. I assumed the writers were saying Charlie has always known she was an angel and was keeping it a secret FROM EVERYONE ELSE. It would have never occurred to me that the writers want me to believe that Charlie rescued her while she was wearing her angelic uniform, holding an angelic weapon, injured during Execution Day, but Charlie never knew she was an angel. 😡😡😡 Evenmoreso.... CHARLIE IS ALSO AN ANGEL!!! She's a half-human angel. For the royal princess of hell to say she doesn't know if she can be hurt (as if political figures aren't targets from the day of their birth), that she's clueless about her own biology, in a story where she has an overprotective father who threatens anyone who might harm her or not sacrifice themselves protecting her.... 😮💨 No wonder the writers were also desperate to write that she's barely ever actually spent time with Lucifer. They can make as many excuses about how she doesn't understand her own angelic nature by saying he just failed to have a single meaningful conversation with her for several hundred years.... Because of a depression and social anxiety issue that gets solved in the same episode it's introduced in.
@@Cityweaver Political figures being targets from the day of their birth actually justifies her questioning if she can be harmed. Why would you think people targeting her is proof she can be harmed when 100% of them failed?
Coming to this not having seen the show, this feels like it’s trying to do what The Good Place did. The Good Place’s central premise was a group of ‘sinners’ trying to figure out how to improve themselves and get into The Good Place (their version of heaven), as all of their sins are essentially being annoying, vain, or selfish. A lot of the episode themes are centered around philosophical concepts around morality. Then there is a twist that no has gotten into heaven in hundreds of years, because the rules of getting into heaven are archaic and now capitalism and the internet have made everyone complicit in the horrors and so even when you do good things it’s counted as a negative due to the wider impact. In the end they themselves set up a scheme to prove the system is flawed and needs fixing. Basically, watch The Good Place
It helps that the framing for that is a much more reasonable one, once revealed. I'll not spoil it here, but the core idea of what the project was about (and how it failed) is brilliant.
I haven't seen good place but i think the problem HH Heaven isn't bad or severe. Because just look HH team members; serial killer, gangster/ Nifty, husk was overlord so he doesn't care to eslaved people make me believe he sold other in his mortal life too, same Viv told you are noing to hell for little things. Most imporatnt thing angel doesn't judge souls but take care of them ,but divine judgement isn't unfair, it was ser pent would never gotten redeption if hell is forever. I love charlie but she didn't bring prove someything and during trial she was just a karen,because how angel are responsible? They don't ascend people. Viv make horrible people and want to paint heaven bad because they don't trust them? About adam , i think it is more easy thinking he was agod person when he died but after years he got depressed and angry with humanity, look that eyesbangs! That's not a face of happy man. Viv wants to write bad heaven but i see more imperfect heaven. Before you say but extremination, I really doubt extremination was regulated by elders too, and the questions why there extremination in first place. I believe hell attcaked heaven by creating overlord so powerful by deal souls, then heaven removes souls. It is war repair. That is building grey morality world ,not just heaven bad, I find also so strange, there is gossip abou viv wants to redemeed val ... so I don't have words about
On the topic of the qualifications for getting into heaven being brushed off while in heaven, I think it’s very realistic, I’m getting “we are angels so everything we do is good” vibes from them instead of choosing to do good, the extermination is a perfect example of this as Sera clearly doesn’t want it but acts like it’s good because she decided it’s good, I feel like if I were her and I were confronted with “what does it take to get into heaven” I’d want people to forget that topic so that I don’t have to explain why I don’t know
As a Catholic, I did hate this show since she was clearly trying to show as you said “Christian hypocrisy”. The issue is she doesn’t seem to understand Christian philosophy, if she did then she could easily make her criticism. She did not even try to write a moral code, like why is this bad, like why is killing people bad? Why is taking drugs bad etc. Most religions have a moral foundation as to why things are good or bad. For example, Slavery is bad, why? Well according to the Abolitionist, if God loves us all equally and we should love our neighbor as ourselves, well blacks are human and making them a slave is not loving so therefore it is wrong. In fact the pro slavery arguments was saying blacks were not human so they be enslaved.
@@MrSophire I mean, you don't even need to be Catholic to try and show some moral code, but it definitely would help explain some stuff as the very basics of "why is killing bad?" Plenty of shows and people know of Christianity being hypocritical and nothing wrong with that but this show barely do the minimum for that trope.
I agree that it felt in-character for Sera to brush it off asap, but…why did everyone listen to her? This is a huge revelation for Charlie and then she immediately puts it out of her mind just because the head seraph doesn’t wanna pursue the topic? She never brings it up with anyone else involved with the hotel after that moment? Never discusses it with Vaggie, once she knows that Vaggie is from heaven originally? Never asks her dad, who seems to be familiar with the “lots of rules” heaven has? It was a moment that needed more buildup, or needed more followup, or both, in order to function as the bombshell it seems it was supposed to be. Even if Sera dismissed the topic and the moment itself was unchanged, it needed MORE moments surrounding it.
My two main queefs with the show it self 1. Most of the info that we are supposed to know is basically off screne And Wikipedia and fans are constantly contradicting them selves with information from 3 years ago that migth not even apply anymore 2. the designs How most of them DON'T correlate with the time they died all the characthers in the main cast are basically just in suit and tie Its like These characters had very different purposes and they just didnt want to edit the design but gave them backstories that dodnt match Also the insp for alot of designs do not come through Like angel being a spider Or velvette being a demon doll thing
one change I could make: THE TRIAL COULD BE THE SEASON ONE FINALE INSTEAD OF ADAM. End the season on a hopeless note for Charlie and a fck heaven, build it up towards 'You Didnt Know' but also now she knows that no one knows how to get into heaven, this relies on them getting a season 2 but it would be cool and keep my favourite song
problem was they didnt know if they would get a second season so they packed all things into 8 episodes + they did not got the amount of episodes they wanted (around 12)
My main issue with the redemption plot line is it has no idea how redemption works. Why are we trying to use the qualifications in order to get to heaven in the first place? Those were meant for alive humans with a clean slate. Those aren’t relevant. What you need is what it takes to make up for the sins you already committed on earth and continue to commit in hell. Charlie seems to act this way too using camp counselor tactics to redeem people who need therapy and boot camp tactics. Plus she keeps acting like extermination is due to overpopulation even though in the story SHE read it shows the true reason. Hell was gaining power because Lilith for some reason was in encouraging human bad behavior (which we see in helluva boss) and growing hells numbers and the extermination was to keep hell from taking over. Which if she really cared about this then she’d use her influence as princess of hell to stop the hellborne from growing hells power and numbers. Take preventative measures to make sure people don’t go to hell in the first place. And even in the episode after the heaven trial she admits she doesn’t have evidence yet was still so adamant on seeing heavens higher ups.
I think the intention of the show is that it's arguing for redemption being about improving yourself for the sake of the people around you that you're hurting in the here and now (played out with Angel and Husk) vs doing it for the sake of the external result of a pleasant afterlife (a critique of what the writers obviously think of religion). That could definitely work with this story's logistics. What's stupid though is that Adam's made up list was proved to be true when Pentious turned up in Heaven after he arguably crossed everything off. Like why? Did the writers think that was funny? "Ohh Adam is a monster but it would be so ironic if he got it right!" Or does it mean the angels used to know how to get in and he was just remembering it vaguely? It makes no sense.
@@lurkingaround7410 i really hated how the trial charlie and everyone took that list so seriously when it was obvious he made that up on the spot and it has 3 of the most basic stuff. that trial was a fluke and needs to be redone with neither adam or charlie as representatives
@@burstlogic3457 I do think that was the point of the scene. That it's the hotshot first human coming up with the qualifications to get into Heaven on the spot when no one knows them, so therefore they "must" be right. Even if they were arbitrary (and very likely not the actual qualifications, if there are any), Angel (the character) still completed them which worked against the antagonist Adam, and since nothing happened, it then led to the question of "Why didn't it work?" which then led to how none of the Angels actually know how someone gets into Heaven and so on. The list was arbitrary and simple yes, but I think the scene served to show that even when playing by the Angels rules, and succeeding, there was no progress, revealing how clueless the angels are. I have no explanation for Pentious getting into Heaven though
I’ve fumbled the “keep in mind what your audience knows/doesn’t know” thing before. If you’re ever writing a dramatic-irony reveal in a limited POV, make sure you know which end of the shock your audience is gonna be on XD
Narrative academy seems like a very useful and interesting series for all of us that are working or want to work on our own freelance projects, helping us know and notice mistakes in our own works and make a more critical view of the shows we consume. As for hazbin, I think that not puting up the pilot as a chapter 0 is a huge problem since there are some plot points (like how angel dust ended up as a client of the hotel and Charlie starting the hotel) and the show relies a lot on outside information
It would have required some editing work to avoid plot holes, but that would have been well within the scope of the project AND effectively required for the plot to work.
Here’s an idea- what if Charlie was raised in Heaven, isolated from her pops and raised by one of the angels (explaining her obliviousness towards the crappiness of the Hazbinverse version of Hell and the complexities of redemption)?
Another massive plot point that kinda finally pushed me over the edge into "This show was a good concept, that had poor execution" The exterminations, the focused on main event the story revolves around. Was kept a secret from a majority of the higher power angels because even if it was demons, many angels where very much not chill with committing genocide. In fact it was purely Adam, Sera (who signed off on it in secret), and all exorcists (like vaggie & lute) created solely for the purpose of committing genocide who knew! So when it is brought up during Charlie's hearing, it literally shakes the court room and emily literally tells sera off for signing off on such a horrible crime like that. That is a really, really big deal. Because it means that the exterminations weren't even supposed to be a THING. It meant that adam was killing for fun. Not because of overpopulation, not because of fear of an uprising from the countless sinners, but because of adams bloodlust that had been building up for hundreds if not thousands of years. And then in the same case, there's vaggie an angel who was rewarded for slaughtering millions but when she spared singular demon child she was punished. That is also a massive deal in my book because it wasn't even heaven who dealt out that punishment, it was solely adam and lute! It shows how gray the rules between heaven and hell actually are...and it's all contained in one musical number. We don't see the consequences for adam letting the cat out of the bag just so he can rub it in charlie's face that she's helpless. We don't see the consequences for lute taking punishment into her own hands and ripping out vaggies eye or cutting off her wings. You're telling me that a secret genocide that was kept hush hush for years and only got exposed because the princess of hell was tired of her people being slaughtered directly challenged adam, had ZERO repercussions at all? Nothing, it's just immediately after a dive into "Well how do we fight off the extermination because fuck em" --- I've been following the project before the pilot was even dropped, but I wasn't watching the podcasts or following every single detail I could get my hand on. I was a casual fan excited for the release. So when Hazbin Hotel didn't feel like a show, it felt like "These characters I created are FINALLY on screen guys look!" and the story suffered for it? I just, was so disappointed. You can't even really blame it on just "Oh well the production company only gave them eight episodes to work with" because helluva boss has some of the similar problems with its own narrative. It's purely the writers this time around. Good concept. Horrible execution.
For some reason, mediocre writers always think that the easiest shortcut to making a villain deplorable is to also make them a liar. Even about things that functionally don't matter for them to lie about. Like how in the MCU movie Eternals, the god of the Eternals lie to them about their own origin and their purpose on Earth and the ONLY reason that's in the script is because the story is the choice between either saving humanity or their god's baby and the writers needed these immortal aliens to justify killing a baby. 😂 So we get, "Waaah, they lied to us!" Adam and Seraphim lie about the Extermination, which makes absolutely no sense in any context. The writers try to build to some crescendo there with the Hell is Forever reprise, completely ignoring that they are diluting their own point. They already HAD a complete argument in discussing the sorting of demons and angels AND in questioning the morality of eternal damnation. Adding "He's a fibber!" does nothing. It is a petty and meaningless argument to focus on little sins like lying and casual sex. 😂 "If hell is forever, Heaven isn't just" is everything they needed. But they built up pointless arguments anyway that, like you are saying, they don't have the time, energy, or willingness to explore.... Not to mention, to be perfectly honest, I don't think civilians being unaware of every movement their military makes counts as "lying" anyway. 😂 I hate it when writers who are clearly pop culture liberal and civilians think that compartmentalization of military information is somehow a thought crime. I'm sorry random person who barely remembers to vote in their state level elections, what were you going to do with that classified military information that you felt it needed to be reported to you?
and honesty if hh was mature only thing charlie has done is declaring war. If there were winners who wants to believe in redeption, they would step back. First Adam wasn't nobody, ok he got 140 children everyone hates him? No it is impossible, so also if adam rift apart from his children I doubt they will be happy about their dad's death. Ok , everyone hate him, he is still a simbol. Exocist, my personal headcanon the aren't artificial but winners like adam, special one, victim of sinners. So for that they were so ducking murder. Listin what ever crime, and 99% victms didn't recevied justice. Now give the victim tool and army who protect them for killing who destroy ther life, and not would be suprised if they enjied to kill sinners. But if in case exocists are all created, doesn't mean they don't have family and friends, do you think they would hate charlie? Plus if heaven is so terrible, redeption project is useless,
@@Sifya Exactly. If saints are literally no better than sinners, why are you fighting to join heaven? This is the problem with making Christianity literal and then trying to criticize it. At least in real life, you can make the argument that terrible people can still populate churches, so you can't decide who is Elected and who isn't by their outward appearance. Oh, and maybe that's in the Bible a million times, too. "Don't be like these priests, who pray in public for attention. Mind your own business and make sure your place in heaven is secured. Don't criticize someone's splinter when you have a whole plank of wood in your eye. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." But you make a story where you explicitly say all the sex offenders are put into a ghetto and then say angels are bad people for wanting to torment sex offenders. 🙄 Okay, what? So then the only way this story can have any sympathy at all is to give the main characters the "softest" sins possible and just ignore them. Oh, Angel is a sex addict, sure, but he's also a gay bottom, so all his aggressive, unwanted flirting becomes funny, because as long as he's not harassing *women* who cares (plus, he's perceived as weaker, so lets ignore how same-sex abuse actually works to giggle at his antics.) Sir Pentius dresses like Napoleon and wants to rule hell. So write him as incompetent, so that his warmongering seems less disgusting. Even though I'm sure that for whatever century he lived in, him being an incompetent Commander got even more people killed than if he was a competent Commander. And Husk swears up and down that he's a gambling addict, but not once does this addiction factor into the story in a way that shows him as vulnerable or impairs his judgement. (For an example of that recently, in Jujutsu Kaizen, gambling addict Fushiguro has a master plan to assassinate an exceptionally powerful opponent, and his plan works very well as long as he thinks clearly through contingencies. But he loses the MOMENT he stops carefully planning his next move and he "bets" on himself instead. He ignores all evidence in front of him and attacks when he clearly should retreat. That's the very nature of gambling addiction being his undoing.)
@@Cityweaver the problem I don't see HH heaven corropt but imperfect. First angels don't judge souls, so Charlie complains like a Karen with waiter for bad management. Viv herself tells in hell go people who make grave sin, for example angel is darm gangster. You know everything abuse he receives from Valentino, it is same abuse his family brings to civil. Yes mafia is horrible! They racked, killing, stealing and using also sexual abuse as tool. So why honestly heaven should accept angel? Who is sorry for consequences not what he did. Divine judgement is severe but fair, because it isn't against redemption, it would allow ser pent ascend. Before everyone tell me but adam and exorcists, we haven't never seen they interact with winners or people they respect, for what we know exorcists are nicest people in heaven but they hate sinner. Adam could be a good person when he died and become evil, which it is funny alastor is like Dexter, who kill bad people and don't believe in redemption, Adam is the same and it is bad. Damn 10000 years seeing the worst in humanity and trauma would turn everyone mad and evil. Extermination is wrong because removing the possible, but why we have extermination in first place? Well, overlord who became incredibly stronger by soul deal, people who doesn't care and want more. You want to make believe hell has never attacked heaven? Remember velvette. Come on. Extermination is a conseguence of fact hell isn't place of redemption or punishment but prize for bad people getting more evil possible. Charlie is ignorant about how hell and heaven work. And I'm not Christian! But I think HH is terrible naive about topic
@@Cityweaver I'm not Christian and but I think HH is very superficial about it. Redemption is Christian concept that works only the person recognises their sin and make amends. HH only paints heaven as evil and using victimism, but I see heaven good but imperfect. Viv herself told there are not lesser sinners in hell, so heaven is so wrong don't trust sinners. The worst thing about plot twist about angels don't know how soul get in heaven isn't not making sense. Sera says divine judgement ascends souls, they just manage. Now if heaven would be full of bad people, I honestly thing heaven born angels would be aleast concern, no heaven except Adam and lute are perfectly fine. Charlie was being a Karen with angels about Ascension, like a client with waiter for bad management. But divine judgement is severe but fair, because it wasn't ser pent would never ascend. About Adam and lute exorcists would classic examples of police who literally seeing the worst of humanity and starting to de humanize. The problem why does heaven need to worry about overpopulation of hell, it is easy, hell is treat to heaven and earth , and now without control, overlords would become more powerful then would be not enough resource sinners would attack. Velette says herself. Charlie project could work only if she take control of hell and turning in a place where who doesn't want to get better get punishment and redemption. Hell is actually a amusement park for evil people to getting evil
I feel like we could have an episode where after they learn that extermination is coming soon, they try to redeem themselves, but none of them actually know how. You know who might? Lucifer, A fallen angel. The episode could be sort of like the cast trying to convince Charlie to ask for help, while she tries to push it off and do it her way because she knows her dad won't help, but at the end of the episode, they convince her. Then, the next episode could be her calling Lucifer, and then essentially Hells Greatest Dad
As an Owl House fan, there are challenges with larger casts, or developing larger parties without easing into them. Which makes giving everyone a resolution much harder. So it seems Hazbin is in the vein of this, just if every season was like TOH's Season 3, accidentally shafting and introducing all at once.
I agree with all of your points, and I think the way I thought about it in my head was that Viv has a lot of pressure put on her for her first big project, without any real big story creation before. Because of this, it seems the the show is really just a place to put her OCs and their lore in. I don’t mean this badly, really, but it really does feel more character-focused rather than plot, which can be good, but with her limited experience, it doesn’t seem to be executed as well as it could have been.
I hope Viv has someone on her team that has the experience that she lacks, someone who has worked on other shows before, who is helping her for the upcoming second season.
Feels nice having a critique for Hazbin Hotel from someone that actually sounds like a normal person who actually means well, and genuinely wants the series to improve… *Yes I’m on Twitter how could you tell?*
Strange, that I didn't really feel the time passing through the episodes. You watch one episode, then there is another, and, suddenly, you learn that a lot of time actually passed, however, you don't really get to feel the changes.
honestly, looking at projects like Hazbin failing at certain aspects while having a stellar concept is making me really think about my own project where i want to avoid such pitfalls. it might not be perfect, and my project is not currently an animation based one (maybe in the future) but it does make me feel motivated to do better, and videos like this breaking down what could have been changed to improve the media actually really helps so thank you!
small rant but some minor issues that I had with HH is that wings are seen as the really important thing, like Vaggie losing hers and getting them back, but then a random character like Husker has wings just because Vivzie didn’t change like any of her oc’s to fit the plot of the show. (also what frustrated and confused me was that Vaggie got her wings back at the “Out for Love” scene even though literally the entire show she was out for love 😭 like she was never shown to be out for vengeance, only to protect Charlie, imo she should have gotten her wings back when she didn’t kill Lute, showing she had mercy, and the entire Out for Love scene could have been used for something which actually makes sense in the plot 😰)
the pacing just boiled down to, Viv was given 8 guaranteed episodes, but didn't know if A24 would give more. also, i feel like its just a deconstructed musical spit into episodes
I feel they could've done something interesting with Angel Dust being the one Charlie picks as an example in heaven. Maybe it didn't start out that way, she easily picked Sr Pentious, and Adam noticing that the angels are beginning to agree, shifts the focus to Angel Dust, which could make Charlie unsure. It could be something brought up in season 2 if Angel DUst not only finds out heaven was judging him without his knowledge, but that Charlie didn't have that much faith in him ?? Though I totally agree I would've loved to see Angel work up to take those redemption steps :D
One of my biggest issues with the hazibin/helluva lore, is that so much of it is revealed in outside media, like live streams. One of the more interesting examples, is that when sinners in hell die by non-angelic weapons, apparently they’ll just regenerate, or respawn if the wound is severe enough (and the regen process is incredibly painful). You would NEVER know any of this by watching either of the 2 shows.
The scene where Velvette complained that the audience wasn’t going to wait for her best model to “put herself back together” after Valentino attacked her in episode 2, I was thinking that the model was maybe recovering at a hospital. Only until I read fans comments about how people in hell regenerate after being injured or tore up, that it made me understand Velvette’s statement. Nothing in the show prior to that scene explained this.
And that scene you mentioned, if I didn’t know before hand, I would’ve just assumed at best, that her model just had a unique regeneration ability if anything. There’s no implication that that’s something ALL sinners can do, and it’s never explained as a plot point, nor is it never brought up again.
Also the fact that, if sinners die by angelic weapons, they get sucked into hell, which explains the eyes all over the buildings, and that is really important information and it gives depth to the exterminations and why they are so dangerous and a big deal, and correct me if I’m wrong (since this is what I have heard from other comments I think) that this is not explained in the show
That...that doesn't even make sense?? How could the angels possibly convince hell the exterminations are about overpopulation if they all just respawn, effectively not changing the population at all? Unless there's more stream lore we're missing. Aye yai yai...
Couldn't Charlie just ask Lucifer to make angelic weapons instead of including Carmine in this season at all? I mean, he is an ex-angel, who makes stuff- And like, you'd doubt the exterminstors would drop THAT many weapond behind is a bit exaggerated
From what I know, Carmilla doesn’t collect angelic weapons, she knows how to make them then sells it to other sinners or hellborn. I don’t think Lucifer would know how to make the weapons because: a) ducks b) he doesn’t really care about the sinners, just Charlie so he wouldn’t really put the effort into making the weapons or finding out how to make them earlier. To find out the formula for angelic weapons right before the exterminations would take a long time, so they would have had to go to Carmilla no matter what c) the extermination started after Lucifer was cast into hell, so the angels most likely didn’t share the formula on how to make the angelic weapons, so Lucifer had no way of knowing how to make the weapons to defend against the angels Also, I just wanna mention that the exorcists (exterminators) don’t leave their weapons behind, they take their spears to hell and come back with their spears and probably just put it in a closet or something until next year.
The show should been. Sinner presents. Sinner works to correct themself. Sinner fails. Song. Sinner tries again. Succeeds. Charlie has 1 point to show her system works.
I think during the judgment scene the whole group is being judged. It's not that Charlie is showcasing Angel Dust as her best work of redeption, but rather the angels just _target_ Angel Dust because he's the most obviously flawed. He's the most "sinfull" of the group. It's the lowest fruit for them to pick and also the "highest score" for Charlie if she could actually prove he's been redeemed. Also the fact that everyone, including the audience overlooks Sir Pentious makes for a much funnier payoff when he eventually does get to heaven,
Honestly. To me the biggest plot issue is having the redemption plotline and angels-can-be-killed-oh-shit plotline occur in parallel. It would've been a logical progression for S1 to go as you suggested: Charlie works to discover how sinners can be redeemed, she finds out they can’t. The season ends with a somber note with the sinners knowing they’ve failed as the clock strikes for another extermination. But as all hope seems lost, we see an angel's decapitated head roll to Charlie's feet. Thus establishing what the plot of S2 will focus on: if you can’t work with 'em, work against 'em.
I really, REALLY loved this media analysis!! It looks like some other people have pointed this out, but it feels like your "Kill your darlings" mantra really applies to how you approached this series. I hope you do more of these in the future -- I'd love to hear your takes on some of your favorite shows, or even shows that are flawed, but ones in which you still have passionate ideas about!
It may be a nitpick, but I found the reason for the exterminations quite confusing. In the opening, its said that the heaven do it to keep the hell in check, so they don't get too strong... but in the same episode its said that the extermination is happening due to the overpopulation of the hell.
Ehh that’s really not contradictory to me. Keeping hell in check and making sure they don’t get too strong by having too large of a population. A smaller population will keep them weaker-/ not allowing their armies to grow too large. It’s culling the herd to prevent them from standing a rebellion.
This Is actually how you should point out the flaws of the show. Because i see videos with titles like ''Hazbin hotel is bad'' or ''hazbin hotel cannot be this stupid'' which all of them make the same points and arguments. but You actually pointed out the real problems and ways to fix it. Good job.
Things that really bug me about the show: -We don't know why Charlie cares so much about redeeming sinners so its really hard to get invested in her as a character at times -Alastor has some big mysterious plans going on but the show will flip around and say being at the hotel has slowly turning him soft as he slowly starts to care about the people in the hotel -Carmilla Carmine, she doesn't want to cause a big fight with heaven and possibly lose her daughters but shes also a huge armsdealer selling it to not only sinners but hellborn as well -charlies lack of wings, idk, her dad has them but she doesn't and I really don't know how that works I feel like it should be genetic or something -where the hell did sir pentious get the egg bois? Are the egg bois also sinners who died beside him and have stayed with him in hell? -cannibal town in general, like Idk how true this is but I heard rosie was hellborn and not a sinner so I thought that also applied to the cannibals. Like are they all sinners who were cannibals and created a whole town in hell or are they hellborns who chose to live in the pride ring to invite new cannbals? Also the black eyes they all have, what is that about? -Nifty and Alastors whole relationship, like does alastor also have nifty under her control like husk? Or are they just good friends and Alastor thought nifty would enjoy it there? -can hellborns be redeemed? They did nothing to get into hell but I'm sure all of them have regrets and would like to change. And if so, what would happen? Would they become winners? Angels? Like I dont see why they couldn't be redeemed but I understand that messes with Vivs world. But like, they dont even know what gets you into heaven so by that logic I dont see why hellborn couldn't get redeemed. -Velvets role in the vees because Valentino has his studio and Vox has television and both have a pretty large mark, you never see that for velvet even though she talks a big game -how vox's anatomy works, like i assumed his face was just a tv but he can stick his tongue out or drink coffee tbf this isnt really a big deal it just gets weird to think about -do angels have families or are they just born one day and live in heaven? Like you never hear anything about Vaggies family in heaven or how she misses them. -What made Vaggie question the exterminations after killing 1000s of sinners? Because lute, Adam, and all the other exterminators are a big fan of them so what made vaggie different. -why did vaggie grow her wings back? -what is Charlie? A nephilim? Because her dads a fallen angel and her mom was human but did she turn into a sinner? So is she half angel half human? What is her mom classified as, because shes certainly not human anymore.. -i get the whole 'charlie is a disney princess stuck in hell' but why is she so nice and cheerful especially given her home, like its even established in photos she had a emo phase so what changed? -why is hell circus themed? -where is Eve? Up in heaven? -why are sinners/overlords ranked above hellborn in hells hierarchy? -why do half the characters wear the same outfit with different colors? (I know the reason is because viv really likes those designs but im asking in-universe) Heres more questions about helluva boss since its the same universe: -why do hellhouds have the ability to turn themselves human if they can't even get to earth with special books like stolas? And why dont imps or anything other hellborn have this ability? -why are 3/4 of the seven deadly sins we've been introduced to good people? They rule hell after all. Like I why Lucifer is, but the other two makes no sense to me.Tbf Bee comes across as kinda fake but she could also be genuine. Are the sins kinda like aunts and uncles to charlie and she got her kindness from them? -why are dhorks set on Demons so hard? -How did Chaz convince crimson he has money? Like dude went so far as to try and marry Moxxie and Chaz. -Why is bee a fox/bee hybrid? I like the design im mostly just curious. -why do the angels leave the cherubs on earth? Couldn't they have just set them to hell as punishment? -the dhorks have a button called b*tch juice, what the hell does that do? -why do scars turn imps skin white? I think thats all the questions I have and I would like to add despite all these i still really like the show I just feels like it explains so much we dont need to know that we dont have time to get answers on something important. If anyone has anymore questions to add or has answers to any of these I'd love to hear them.
Ok so imma answer the hazbin hotel questions for u (well most of them anyway) -carmilla is just an armsdealer, she doesn’t want war but will give weapons to anyone else if they need it, but only if her daughters won’t get harmed. (I think) -Charlie is half human half Angel, so she might not get wings or she has them but just doesn’t know it yet. -no one knows where the egg bois came from. Some people think that they are sir pentious’s minions who died with him. -don’t think Rosie is a hellborn (she might be but idk) but she has the entire cannibal town under a contract to behave nicely. Everyone from cannibal town is a sinner, they probably were cannibals on earth and it carried over to hell. Since Rosie has a contract with the entire town, they all have black eyes like her. You can see the similarities with the person under a contract and the person who made the contract, like with Angel and Valentino (gold tooth), Vox and his assistant in episode 2 (lines going across his face which signals techs or smth), and Alastor with husk and nifty (all have yellow teeth). Think most of the cannibals in cannibal town were people in poverty who had no choice but to eat human meat, then kept eating it (probably from the Great Depression) -Alastor owns nifty’s soul. A lot of people think that Alastor views nifty as his adopted daughter. -hellborn cannot be redeemed. They have no souls (literally, they aren’t human) and because of that, they can’t change their souls for the better, because, well, no soul -velvette is in charge of social media, Vox is in charge of news, and Valentino is in charge of the adult videos. Without velvette, Vox and Valentino would have a hard time sending out their videos -idk about vox’s face. Weird hell logic, I think? -think winners can’t reproduce like sinners, so vaggie probably didn’t have a family in heaven. She might have had friends though. Heavenborn can reproduce like hellborn (I think) -vaggie probably felt bad for the sinners, and once she saw a child, she decided to let him go. Adam and lute (in my opinion) have this sort of bloodlust that has them kill or harm anyone. - idk how vaggie got her wings back -not sure what Charlie is but she is def half Angel -honestly idk what happened either - idk -idk -cuz overlords/sinners usually have some sort of power that hellborn don’t have -idk but they look cool
4:00 I agree with this a lot. I've been keeping up with the show ever since the first preview of the pilot. However, when watching the show with my boyfriend, I could tell he was very very lost especially the first episode when it felt like the character introduction episode was missing. The show made it seem like we were supposed to know who these characters already are and the pacing made it so that there was just so much information being shoved down your throat at once. You shouldn't have to do homework or rely on a super fan of the show to get important pieces of lore in it.
Just wanted to touch on the topic of Angel Dust’s trauma mentioned at 11:17 as someone who’s a victim. I personally didn’t think there was anything wrong with his portrayal, but that’s just my perspective. I never got the feeling that his abuse was being romanticized and actually related to him a lot. I thought the show was more so trying to critique abuse in the entertainment industry, rather than say anything about Angel himself. The images in *that* song were definitely a bit triggering for me, but I viewed it as Angel dissociating and feeling as though he’s too far in to escape his abuse. Again, this is just my opinion on the topic, and i know other victims may have different views. Overall, I really liked this video concept and I can’t wait to see your commentary on Ghost Trick!
Definitely agree with you. I was genuinely surprised when I found out that people thought it was glorifying abuse! The song was intense and not very subtle or sensitive I guess? but I thought the blunt portrayal was the point. The whole episode was very negative towards his abuser and I say this as someone who didn’t even really like the show that much.
Yeah, I totally agree with this. Although I’ve never been through any physical SA and just online stuff, I really related to his complience in the relationship. His lack of autonomy from Val due to his fear of being hurt is something that most if not all abusive/toxic relationships involve (including my own), romantic or not, and I think that’s another large aspect of _Poison_ that’s not really touched on a lot. The song is often taken as something solely sexual because of the imagery when in reality it’s not, it’s about all aspects of an abusive relationship and Angel’s compliance with his own.
All your comments can pretty much be applied to all of Vivziepop's works, even those that don't have an episode cap (eg Helluva Boss) or even her webcomics. She has a talent for character design and ideas but she is not a writer and hugely struggles with setup (she's even stated herself she enjoys writing angst and payoff, not buildup). If she could get someone who is to rein in her ideas and handle the writing side, all her works would be so much better for it.
Man... Ngl, as someone who's only seen the art for Hazbin and never the show itself (lack of interest), it never hit me that: - That's Lucifer - *That's Charlie's dad* I just thought he was her "annoying younger brother" or something because of his baby face and being shorter 😂😭
I agree with a lot of your points! I casually started paying attention to the series like years ago, even before the pilot and I was worried watching the series due to some of the narrative flaws that it was gonna tank the show. I’m glad it didn’t but I thought some of the choices were…interesting. I think that there is also a hefty amount of the show runners trying to cater to long term fans who have seen some of these character designs and heard bits of lore and stuff for years and years. I understand the reasoning of course but narratively it winds up being very messy especially with the short amount of time they had. All in all I’m glad you had a well balanced critique and I’m hoping things are better in season 2 onward.
Your advice regarding altering the order to increase intrigue was genuinely thought provoking to me as a writer. I know it’s called “narrative academy” but I came looking for a hazbin critique, and left feeling like I learned a lot! Thanks!
Narrative Academy is such a great idea for a series on your channel! I'm super excited to see what other media you plan to bring on here, whether that be comics, shows, movies, anime, books, hell even stage plays and musicals! Having something like this in the back pocket to look at for reference would be fantastic for writers including myself. That fact that it's coming from you makes it all the better since not only will we get some great insight, but we'll also get some great art out of it.
The fans were waiting around 10 years (maybe more) for show to come out, I think that's why they fan fed the audience, giving everyone's favorite characters screen time and lore just to fed the fans like a 6 year old child feeding her first fish
As someone who does do their homework, I wanna say that alot of the questions are supposed to be answered in s2, and according to the writer is to be focused on most of the beginning questions mentioned. Overall though I think these questions are valid OH ALSO YEAH, THE WRITERS BLANTENT FAVORITISM TO ANGEL MAKES ME SO MAD
It just makes him feel like the most fleshed out character. Like I hope everyone has some significant lore written down somewhere to be expanded on later, but I'm always hearing about Alastor or Angel's backstories from people who watch the streams. It makes me wonder if they don't actually have anything for the other characters :/
Very well spoken! I hope to see you make more of these for other stories! I’ve been casually following Hazbin since before the pilot and it’s crazy to see how much it’s changed and how many people have seen it now. This show is the biggest example of the writers forgetting to include all the little details in their brain so the audience is just left confused.
@@bridegetmadsen5759I think That helluva boss works better because it's episodic so there is more room to breathe. The background plot is still getting slowly revealed, but the main focus is on the individual stories in each episode. I think hazbin would have benefited from having a similar approach. I'm a noob to both shows though so maybe that's anathema to what they're going for lol
12:29 I was 100% surprised by this choice as well. It comes back to: Hazbin Hotel, do you want to be episodic or have a running story? Because normally stuff like this only gets resolved at the end of a season, or even at the end of a second season... or even the end of a show.
this is such a wonderful analysis Star !! I've personally never watched the series (I don't have prime) but the way you explained the story and the characters and how they could've been different/better made so much sense !!
I want to tell you something Star, YOU are a BIG help with motivating me to continue working on making my passion writing project become real, YOU motivated me to not just keep the stories I love to write to myself, YOU’RE the reason why I want to publish my stories instead of keeping them to myself and not letting the world outside of my friends and family see them, I love your videos and you are very inspiring to me, and you help give me hope that I can get the world to like what I’m passionate about writing, thank you Star.
The meeting in Heaven really should have been 2 episodes MINIMUM in my opinion. It was easy for me to ignore the pacing problems up until this specific episode. Charlie meets Emily and they go on this grand tour around heaven. What happened during that tour? Did Charlie bring up the differences between Heaven and Hell? Surely Emily would be curious? Did Emily try and defend Heaven with information Sera fed to her? Emily later accuses Sera of being condescending but WHERE did we actually see that occur? Where did we see Sera attempting to protect Emily from the truth about exterminations? Literally none of that is shown and we just have to take their word for it. Prime example of show don't tell. I could go on about all the problem I have with this show, but I'll just keep it short. I love Hazbin Hotel, it's a fun watch and the music is prime earworm material, but it has many shortcomings and the pacing is a big part of that.
As a fan of Hazbin Hotel, I really liked this breakdown! It highlights some of the problems I had issues with, but more importantly, you said how they could be fixed! I like re-writing things in my head when someone I'm a fan of has problems that bother me. I think that, as fans, it's important to acknowledge that something we like has issues while still being able to enjoy it for what it is.
Personally I would have had Angel Dust be the one to sacrifice himself and then end up in Heaven at the end of the season. And the story that could have been told with this could very well be Angel Dust not having any real idea, like everyone else, exactly _WHY_ and _HOW_ he actually got there. Now he's in Heaven... but why and how? That could very well continue to gnaw at him when coupled with his overall low self-esteem. Was he sent to Heaven simply because he was vaporized by an Angel? Was it something about how he sacrificed himself, but if so was one single act of self-sacrifice really enough to actually redeem someone like him? And of course, Angel being Angel likely wouldn't completely change his rather scathing personality right away despite getting into Heaven, which could lead to both comedic and dramatic moments as he interacts with Heaven's denizens, all while he desperately tries to figure out what to do with himself now that he has very suddenly been torn from the life that, while he detested, was nonetheless used to and immersed in for a very long time. With Sirpentious, I doubt we'll get any of that. In many ways Sirpentious almost was a sinner that really didn't deserve to be in Hell at all; he was too ineffectual at being evil to have caused any real harm, he was too quick to want to change his ways and be better which suggested an overall good soul right off the bat, and him getting into Heaven really seems more like a chance for comedy rather than drama or pathos in the following season/s. Now I could be wrong and maybe this will lend itself to some deep character dive into him in season 2... but there really wasn't anything in season 1 to suggest anything particularly deep in Sirpentious' backstory that could be brought up in season 2 without feeling like it's being ripped straight out of the aether.
You which show did an amazing job about redemption and the unfair system of most depictions of the afterlife? The Good Place. They showed how the system was unfair. They used a point system, if you did good things, you gained points. If you did bad things, you lose points. But they showed why the system could be rigged. You could be the best person ever, be in a bad mood one day, then raise your voice at someone, you lose points and risk going to the Bad Place. In Hazbin Hotel, Heaven seems very chill and loose. I’ve seen many people associate strictness and a lack of free will and self with Heaven. It was… interesting to see the opposite. Heaven honestly just felt like Hell put in pastels and less nudity. For a place that’s meant to be unfair and represent the flaws of how the afterlife can work, we don’t see a lot of it.
And this is the main thing we need to ask. Why are we wasting time on a show with a premise it doesn’t deliver, when I can watch something that has the same premise but is executed better? There’s nothing wrong with using concepts or troupes, despite them being done many times. But what makes or breaks the writing of them is how that writer executes them. For example, I want to watch an adaptation of the abduction of Persephone but I’d like to see a romance bit with it. Now, finding hades and Persephone romance are easy… but the problem is most of the versions have so many similarities (demonizing Demeter) that it’s hard to enjoy a new retelling when it’s the same troupes as the old ones and don’t have enough change or nuance to stick out. Why would I wanna read *your* Hades and Persephone fanfic where it paints them as a perfect couple while demonizing Demeter, when I have can read ten others that do the exact same thing?! It’s no different than asking, “why would I watch Hazbin Hotel that has a rushed plot, stereotypical characters with hardly any development that’s earned, confusing plots and morals and terribly humor? When I can watch The Good Place with better pacing, more complex characters, and detailed concepts of corrupted morals?”
@@cosmok-1367 I understand what you’re saying and I agree. I do want to clarify that I don’t think Hazbin should be a copy of the good place. Merely that Hazbin should take more opportunities to show how the afterlife is unfair, or hint at it. Maybe season 2 will take that opportunity. Personally, I think we watch it for the payoff. Some want to see it finally end and some want to see it improve itself. A lot of people watch things for the ending. The ending it the opportunity to tie everything together. I think so many hope to see improve and end as nearly as possible. Especially since this was huge for indie animation.
I'm so angry that they broke the promise of the premise. The show was always advertised as a show about redeeming sinners and growing past your lower point, whether it be by bad decisions (sinners) or bad luck (hellborn). It was also supposed to be a show about proving naysayers wrong and overcoming the odds through courage and tact. But the show didn't do that. The show did not _want_ to be what it was. So when Charlie speaks to an angel in the first episode-and we're ignoring the fact that Adam is somehow the most powerful-he is shown to be an unapologetic asshole through and through, front to back. Instead of sparking some kind of deal with him so that Charlie's plan to redeem sinners has a chance to work, Adam shuts her down immediately and is completely unreasonable. He is not sly or underhanded yet cocky, he does not have a superiority complex but feels morally icky about commiting genocide, he has no character traits beyond "meanie". That's because the show doesn't want to be what it is supposed to be. If the show wanted to deliver on the promise of the premise, then Adam would have had some weakness of his character-either an ego that would compel him to make a deal with Charlie (6 months to prove that you can rehabilitate people or we have to slaughter more frequently becasue of Hell's overpopulation) believing like everyone else that she will fail _AND/OR_ having a weakness in character that, because the angels find it unmoral to get their hands dirty by exterminating, would make him willing to give Charlie a chance to prove herself to solve both of their problems. If the show _wanted to be what it was supposed to be_ it never would have been about war at all.
This is exactly the kind of analysis I really want to see more of, dissecting popular shows/media in order to learn more about the successes and pitfalls of crafting a compelling narrative! I really enjoyed your discussion and agree with a lot of your points. I look forward to future episodes in this series!! Honestly watching Hazbin Hotel and noticing the ways it fell short have actually been a huge inspiration in shaping my own writing. The biggest thing I noticed, which was touched on in the video, is the way that important world and character information just... isn't established very well, if at all. I do wonder if a part of the reason this is a problem is because, given it's huge online presence even before the show came out and side content, there was a bit of an expectation that certain things were just already known - sort of similar to the liberties fanfiction is able to take, assuming a level of familiarity with the material. It made me really reflect on how I plan to establish and introduce my world and characters in my own fiction, which I am grateful for, especially since I know I have struggled with it in projects I've done in the past. Loved the video, and I hope to see more in the future!!
I love all your points in this video especially the point that you are only taking the shows information. An issue with some fans is that when someone brings up a weakness they point to external sources for an explanation. Sure a really deep fan of the show is willing to go through thousands of tweets, hundreds of hours of livestreams and the prequel comics to get more info but your average viewer won't. Extra content is fun and a great place for fun extra information but important things to the plot or the function of the show needs to be in the show. I love your take which used what is already there and just places them differently.
i just wish the first ep was more like the pilot like angels character wasnt all about sex and showed his and cherri's friendship and showed that they were close friends. they barely spent time together in the show IMO
Nice as it is to see indie projects find popularity, this show doesn't deserve all the recognition it's getting. There are so many other indie projects that are FAR superior, yet get overlooked. This one is so popular because it's a +18 collage of OCs for children to use. While it clames to be a show for adults, most fans are teens (and young adults who were teens or pre-teens when the pilot came out). Feels like watching the new avatar live action.. "it's for adults bc there's violence"... The og one was way more adult than that thing.. Explicit doesn't mean 'adult'. Most lines are either cheep or on the nose.. Or both.. And are saved only by the incredible voice acting and interesting animation. The way it "explores" dark themes is also poorly handled. Angel's episode is really good in a vacuum, but there.. It just feels like dark fanservice. It's the only episode that takes it's time exploring something really dark, and it's not about the main character, but a random guy in the group.. Because of course the twink drug addictict "adult film" star who's in a toxic gay relationship is fandom's favorite cake. Is there something wrong with being any of the above? No. Is there something wrong with exploring any of the above? Also no. But to pretend it's not messed up that the only traumatic life we see down to the very detail is this one, that doesn't even belong to the main character, THAT is something to look out for. Expecially with how many times this happens both in this series and Helluvaboss.. Most main ships (both official and unofficial) are mlm.. The main character is in a wlw relationship and nobody could care less. Blink and you miss it. This show IS dark, but not for the reasons it claimes to be.
I just discovered this channel and I have to say that your ability to convey information while remaining respectful of the material you're critiquing is practically perfect. You prefaced the criticism with honest feedback, followed up with encouragement, and gave clear, concise reasoning for what you gave. This is not the kind of work I expect from a TH-cam channel; this is the sort of thing I got when I paid copious amounts of money to attend university lectures. Bravo.
As a fan of this show here a few things I’d like to mention: ‘Demon’ is the term for the sinners, people who were born on earth, hellborn, imps, a species of hellborn, and hellhounds. (Shown in helluva boss) Also I’m still confused about them getting killed in hell, there so far is no explanation on this. Angel was told be the first sinner at the Hazbin hotel, because of free rent like you said, so yeah, extra viewing like you said. Here’s some of my pet peeves: Carmilla said ‘they were surrounded by angles’ but surely if she killed one the surrounding angles would say something? It’s not like she killed multiple otherwise I think that would’ve been more prominent. Also, the dead Angel is just out in the open? Wouldn’t someone notice that? Rosie is a cannibal, sure, but those are a species of hellborn, cannibals, sure Rosie could just be a well respected cannibal, but she goes to an overlords meeting? Overlords have to be sinners. Then, the child that Vaggie lets go seems to be a Cannibal, but those aren’t sinners? The kid shouldn’t have been a target in the first place. Also why do angels seem so weak? Lute just causally pulls out Vaggie’s wings… and she also regrows them, with no explanation… But I do want to say that I do mostly agree with your pints and I can definitely see where you’re coming from!
It's currently unknown if Rosie and the citizens of Cannibal Town are hellborns or sinners. Vivienne never claimed that Rosie wasn't a sinner. It was a former illustrator and visual developer of the series known as Faustisse. Since they no longer work for Vivienne, it's likely not considered canon anymore. So, there's a possibility that Rosie and the citizens of Cannibal Town might be sinners, but it currently hasn't been confirmed.
Your idea for how to restructure the show is actually perfect and feels like the best solution to the issues present. Episode 4 being character focused was actually what hooked me because I was hoping we’d get more character focused episodes like the one we got with Angel. I really enjoyed Hazbin but something felt off about the plot and pacing, and you basically explained what felt wrong. Your art style literally looks amazing btw!!
If your confused If someone gets stabbed and die via normal weapon.. that sucks back to respawn sixer. But if it’s by angelic steel that’s game over. Also great vid 😁
@@dawntherin2833 Yeah it’s stated on a old live that’s why I hope they explain it in s2 because that is one of this shows big issues info being in lives
That's the issue I have with the series as a whole. Any plot hole or important lore is explained away by Vivsiepop herself or some live stream clip from 5 years ago. If you want to make a good story, the story elements should be present in the actual media instead a random tweet or video.
I really liked the Pilot when it first came out but I have to say I was unimpressed with the show. My biggest gripe is that Vivian decided to change the plot. In the pilot it was says that the reason for the purges was because Hell could become overpopulated, but now it's because Heaven is threatened by Hell. This sounds more like a plot twist if anything. It would have worked way better if it was found out later. Another thing that bugs me is that there are too many characters, and none really get to do much. The most liked character Alastor barely did anything. The only one that got any real attention was Angel Dust, and I'm not particularly thrilled with his development either.
Sadly, Vivzie isn't big on "show, don't tell" or having necessary inform IN THE SHOW. She expects you to follow the twitter accounts for extra information or know the streams from 2017.
Amazing video! Even as a fan of the show, I got frustrated with the flaws and writing choices as well and I agree with your critique, but I'm glad that the video wasn't only negative. I also loved your art and I hope to see more analysis of other shows from you!
I 1000% agree with your take of putting the important stuff in the story rather than outside sources. My personal rule I follow is "if it's not in the source material or an official side project, it's not canon."
Honestly i agree with most of not all the points here its really nice to finally hear actual real critisism instead of just aim less hate and i'd especially agree with the part abt vaggie tbh it always kinda bugged me too tbh its sad because in my opinion vaggie is one of my favorite characters but theres still so much missed potential here again i do agree with most if not all of your points here
I think my biggest problem is the pacing. They solved who killed the angel within minutes, and they treated Vaggie’s angel reveal like a big reveal in court when we already saw it 5 minutes ago
I don't get why people are so annoyed about Angel's episode. Like, I legitimately do not know how anyone can, with a straight face, say they think it "glorrifies" SA. Like, you have to have actually not paid attention. Just because it involved a pop song does not mean it wasn't treating that situation VERY seriously
I think it's because her merch of Angel Dust and Valentino is very sexualized. It's a bit weird to make keychains of a victim of sex work being abused by their pimp.
@@radioactivegum2298yeah like. She's been caught on twitter liking ahip art of Valentino + angel dust where the latter is clearly being abused. Not to mention one of the storyboarders who openly fetishize that stuff
Maybe it's because im somewhat religious, but the seven heavenly virtues should have been brought up to counter Charlie. Plus, the sins of the sinners never get brought up either. For example, if a sinner was a serial killer, should they get a second chance.
Yeah, you’d think for a show wanting to focus on redemption and being set in Hell, they would have understood how sins work and what brings someone to hell or sends them to Heaven. I say as I myself am not religious, but I do have basic knowledge of many mythology’s as well as moral code. Also the fact not even the angels know how to get someone into heaven, is a massive plot hole. Because if you don’t know how someone comes to heaven, how do you know that person isn’t actually someone bad in disguise? Does that mean some good people actually got sent to hell? I can’t tell if this plot hole is meant to make us think or because Viv hasn’t actually thought that out. And considering her tract record, I’m sure it’s the latter. At least the Good Place understood this concept and it handled it way better!
As a writer myself, It's so interesting learning how other people use narrative structure, and how I can improve mine too! Plus Your cartoon avatar is so adorable! ^w^
I find it interesting to see someone's point of view that wasn't in the fandom years before the show was released. Not saying you're wrong about the criticism of outside sources being the main way of knowing things (I completely agree), but the difference in how we view certain things like Mimzy showing up was basically fanservice for the people who were in the fandom for a while, and the Vees were also really fun to learn about as an older fan. As much as I appreciate their introductions as a fan from before the show, I wish they were given better opportunities to shine as opposed to kind of 'harming' the show's final product because a good show should be able to have older and newer fans enjoy the show in similar ways.
Angel dust being abused by Valentino is seen as terrible, but Sir pent getting sexually assaulted is seen as funny in the show. Does anyone see the problem here?
Animator: "To make this animation work, we're going to need 26 episodes." CEO: "No no no, you're getting a thousand. One Piece can't end yet." Animator: "No, I'm talking about a different show." CEO: "Diffrent to One Piece?" Animator: "Yes! And I need 26 epis-" CEO: "The best I can do is 12."
MAYBE if there were more episodes but yeah. That ep (was it 6? 7?) reveal that the extermination was a week away was like. What. How has it been that long 💀
@diddykitty746 Yeah and in all that time how many sinners redeemed? Sirpentious was like the first week the hotel was open. And Dust hasn't been redeemed yet. So... To prove her point Charlie got the "still in progress" of her "goodness school" was... 2 people. In almost a year. Yeah sure heaven will take you seriously. You dealing with the worst human known is of course extra points. Now why the hell do you want the hotel if you know that is pointless? You started a holy war.
@@maravreloaded the show really just needed more time. They could have expanded on so many things, like Charlie's motivation and belief in the good of people, for wanting to do something that had never been done before despite no one thinking its possible. But we didnt have the time, so season 1's ending felt like it had come too soon.
Some other hot takes: This series shouldn’t be a musical. The actors are all incredible but it simply isn’t long enough both in episode length and in season length to be a musical. Musical songs tend to be pretty long, and that’s for good reason. For example “Hell’s greatest dad” is an electro-swing diss track between two people. It’s in a genre of music known for having long instrumental solos, and for it to communicate the conflict of Alastor and Lucifer, we should see them go back and forward with a couple of verses each, at least two choruses and a bridge, as well as some of the bouts of fiddle and piano. If it were me, and I’d make this song about 4 minutes. Instead it’s only 2min 15 seconds. Compare that to other musical numbers that are confrontations between two people: Cabinet Battle #1 from Hamilton is 3min 30sec, Confrintation from Jekyll and Hyde is 4mins 26 secs, and while Les Mis’ ‘Confrontation’ is only 2min 30secs, it’s not a jazz number. And this happens with most of the songs. They are jam packed with key changes and tempo changes and time changes, that listening to them feels like somebody cut a better song in half. Ideas and motifs are discarded so quickly that it often feels like you’ve listened to halves of different songs stitched together. I think “You didn’t know” is the best example of this. This is the most climatic song of series, a huge turning point, what should be the best song in the series, a huge ensemble song with so many people and it’s only a little over three minutes. Compare that to Hamilton’s ‘Non-Stop’ which is 6 mins and 24 seconds… the only two songs that I think take enough time and are paced well enough are ‘loser’ and ‘poison’. Anyway, that’s my music critic.
![Hazbin Hotel was Garbage, Here's Why [Part 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9qI7BU_9iTw/mqdefault.jpg)
Basically, “kill your darlings” you can’t add everybody in such a concise shoe and with the limited time. If I have 10 oranges, but can only afford a crate to hold 5 oranges, I either need a bigger crate, or to drop a few oranges…
I agree. The writers don't need to kill their darlings either just need to take their time to flesh out each instead of rushing them.
Viv shoved all 10 into the crate instead leaving them all mushed just some are less mushed than others
@@genericbug I don't think so
Eat the oranges
Sadly, the show was only given eight episodes for season one, so the crew really had no choice.
A huge problem this show has is that most of the lore and explanation happens off-screen in like live streams or social media posts. A lot of fans don't see the show as confusing because they follow all of that stuff, but casual viewers like myself were very confused.
Another problem that I just thought of is how the hotel is now useless. If the characters can easily beat back an extermination, they don't need to actually redeem anyone anymore.
@@jacobwortham8068 Well thats not the only reason its basically useless in helluva boss yes they are two different shows however same universe in different parts of the pride ring.
The angels there literally wouldn't allow the chrubs back into heaven because "their actions resulted in the death of a humam".
Its cannon their set in the same universe yet helluva boss as a different version of heaven I know their chrubs wich are child angels but still.
@@jacobwortham8068 But they didn`t "easily" beat back an extermination it was far from easy.
@@alexisdied4558 Well, to specify on this (HB) and also refine a little from the show (HH):
Similar to how there are different types of Demon (Sinners being people with past lives and the rest being Hellborns), I think there means to be different kinds of angel. This is as in, there are the Winners; people who made it to heaven from Earth (called humans in some cases), there are cherubs; the essentially guardian angels of the universe this takes place in, the exterminators; the ones who go stabby-stab, and many more. This is my understanding of the show(s), as I am not part of the crew for either. Hope some things were answered.
For the other part (hotel is now useless), I think at this point, it's about letting people become better, not really just fixing the overpopulation.
@@Jdudec367 But they still did it, which means there’s no excuse to not give the rest of hell angelic weapons to defend themselves. And if you really look at the fight in a whole, it was easy. Besides from Snake Man’s death, angels were literally dropping like flies while most of the cast remained fine and unharmed, and with Lucifer by their side, they’re basically OP
26:19 THATS WHAT IM SAYING!!! “did you know angels could be harmed?” Should’ve been changed to, “did you know angels could be killed?” To fix that plot hole. Vaggie should know angels can be harmed but not killed. Having her eye and wings ripped off caused a lot of blood loss, yet she didn’t die (same thing applies to lute when she ripped her arm off).
Srry if my wording doesn’t make sense I’m bad at words
I also think they could have just changed the delivery and animation a little to imply shes trying to hide that she knows.
As a side note, I think the idea that angels leave their weapons in hell is stupid. Even if I have infinite weapons, there is no way am I leaving (presumably) holy weapons in hell for demons to use. IDK how broken (can they be broken?) the weapon I am taking it back.
@@xXlonefighterXx Agreed. They were stupid for leaving them behind.
@@xXlonefighterXx This is what I brought up in fandom and got chewed out/explained. They used their angelic weapons to harm Veggie, but then left them all over the place. If there is a point of, "Demons can't touch angelic weapons." or "Angels can be harmed, but not killed." it would be more believable.
@@xXlonefighterXx The best way I could explain it is that the Angels didn't know they could be killed yet with their own weapons but leaving some for violent, murder hungery Sinners to kill each other? Well why not? c:
The main problem with the show is that it’s more about heaven and hell going to war than Charlie actually using her hotel to get sinners to rehabilitate
The same problem as _Helluva Boss_ spin off. What was supposed to be a show about quirky assassination hijinks has turned into a soppy melodrama
@@SpoopySquid I can forgive Helluva Boss for it though because at least the soppy melodrama is fun to watch and _isn't the show that everyone started following Vivzie for._ Hazbin Hotel simultaneously fails to deliver on the promise of the premise *AND* bloats itself with full music numbers. Yes Helluva Boss has music numbers, but it always picks between either having two shorter ones like in episode 2 or a single full one like in episode 7. AND in all cases, they move the plot along or are not intrusive (like the Striker song in season 2).
Hazbin Hotel has 2-3 FULL LENGTH music numbers PER EPISODE, most of which stop the story dead in its tracks to complete. It's genuinely unwatchable.
@PoisonFlower765 In my opinion, the only songs in Helluva Boss that even worked were the ones that actually made sense story-wise. House of Asmodeus and the entirety of Mammon's episode had songs that worked because they seemed like songs that would legitimately be sung in the setting. Other than those, the songs just feel like they exist to just "make it a musical" instead of existing to move forward the plot. Songs that do (like Moxxie's Bad Trip and Loo-Loo-Land) could have easily just been actual scenes instead of that.
@@gearscore349 Alright that's fair. Another thing though that I didn't mention is that because of how many songs are crammed into Hazbin Hotel, a lot (if not all) of them SUCK. All of the HB songs out so far (in my opinion) are damn good! But the HH songs sound really weak, not well thought out, and just feel rushed. That's also a major weakness.
@PoisonFlower765 Poison is quite good to me, and so is You Didn't Know, but I agree for all the rest. I legitimately forgot Happy Day in Hell and It Starts With Sorry existed until I watched videos like this.
One thing I find annoying though is when a TH-camr is confused by one thing and the comments are flooded with explanations when actually you shouldn’t need to explain an important plot detail the show literally never fucking said in the first place… hazbin has a lot of that, they really don’t like explaining anything in the actual show ☠ (just something I notice when people make more critical videos on hazbin)
Well, sometimes people are unsure if the youtubers will watch the rest of the show and like to give explanations of things that are only revealed later.
And other times the show expects everyone to follow them on twitter and read all of their posts. Quoting JelloApocalypse "I hate when shows force you to do outside research to just understand them"
Yeah, like, I'm a big fan of Freindship Is Magic and My Hero Acadamia. I don't need to explain the show and lore to someone who's watching it for the first time as those shows tell you the lore within world building or a quick explanation for context of what's going on in the plot. Like you shouldn't have to give homework to the viewer to understand your show. The stuff outside the show should be like extra content to indulge in like spin-off comics or streams if the creator is a content creator first.
@@tpfoxCastro I think the fact that HH falls into the 2nd camp is OPs point and problem here. If things were going to be revealed later that’s one thing. Good Pacing is an entirely separate topic, but one that can be fixed nonetheless. HH doesn’t do that, though.
@PeteyBirds Im going to slightly disagree with you
If somebody watches a show and dosent understand a lot of the time is audiences not following the narrative very well.
Other cases is the writters fault. A good example i have is murder drones, the whole story is there in the show but core information about the story is placed in
very sutbletly throughout the show, forcing ppl to pause to be able to follow the narrative.
As for HH, neither apply. Essential info is simply not in the show. HH is written as if we know the world and love the characters as much as vivizie does. At this point in time Hazbin is just dumb fun; the narrative is too fast to get engaged and it dosent take itself serious enough in moments that matter(serpentious death), but it has funny moments and good enough music
not to mention a lot of those comments are peoples own headcannons... like bro your comment is redundant bc a headcannon≠explaination
The biggest problem of Vivziepop is that she ISN'T A WRITER she's an artist a commissioner a character creator. That's why the show has an already large cast but added MORE and MORE and MORE characters.
This is such a good way to put it
@@NatTheNoodler literally all of her productions have the same problem TOO LARGE CAST specially if she has a limited runtime. In 8 episodes you can't cram over 10 characters.
You have the hotel cast, the Vs the heaven etc. And helluva is worse.
Because that show will last as Viv wants.
And we got introduced to irrelevant imp family, irrelevant hounds, the Blitzø's ex, greed and lust and gluttony with an episode that is just a GLORIFIED AMV, the cherubs, the human association that wants to kill demons...
That's the same thing that killed her previous projects. Like Zoophobia.
@@maravreloaded I get it too, like making ocs is fun, but you can’t shove every single one in, it takes away from the main cast.
@@NatTheNoodler that or you keep a small but rotating cast.
you hit the nail on the head. I used to follow Viv's art and she's a character designer first, writer second. she has a lot of ocs outside of her shows and she has stories for each of them, but giving a story to an individual character is different than giving stories to multiple characters in a show. you have to be able to pick and choose to make it more focused and cohesive.
My problem is just the pacing. They rushed so fast over problems they set up. Who killed the angel? Oh, it's Carmilla. When was she introduced? Episode 3. And when did we learn she did it? The minute she's introduced. Sir Pentitous being sent to spy on the hotel. When did he do that? Episode 2. When did they find out? Episode 2. When did we find out heaven citizens don't know about the exterminations? Episode 6. And when was it revealed to them? Episode 6. When did we learn Charlie has daddy issues? (To be honest, her daddy issues aren't even daddy issues, but the show insists it is.) Anyways, Episode 5. When did she resolve it? The same episode. What ever happened to fleshing out your ideas and not rushing?
To be fair, it semi had ATLA pacing with far less episodes. It’s less the pacing of each plot point I personally had an issue with, but rather the lack of episodes, and lack of events in those six months. If you are going to go for a similar pacing as something like ATLA, there needs to be, just- more. More story, more touching on the events in those six months, cause it felt like a month would go by between each episode, but acted like it was the next week. (I guess that’s a form of pacing? Just- different) what I’m trying to say is the pacing of the actual episodes wasn’t the problem for me, it was the pacing of the time in between said episodes.
I also don’t really see the show portraying it as “daddy issues”, absolutely mommy issues are present! But I see the situation with Charlie and Lucifer as more a parent and a child completely misunderstanding each other, and actually being more like each other than they first believed. They are just- both kinda neurodivergent and never had that conversation with each other. And I think the show displayed that fine.
Just my personal opinions though
@@HybridAngel I see what you're getting at, the fact the entire season took place in six months but not enough happened it's valid. And I agree with your statement on Lucifer and Charlie, the relationship is just them misunderstanding on each side, that's why I said it isn't daddy issues, but yet the writers have characters saying daddy issues left and right like Husk telling Charlie she had daddy issues when what they have isn't daddy issues.
I mean Sir pentious being someone sent to spy on the hotel was meant to be a short subplot not anything too long so that makes sense really. Carmilla I can see how she was rushed though. But there is nothing wrong with us finding out that heaven ciitzens don`t know about the exterminations in episoded 6. Episode 5 was kinda rushed but it wasn`t THAT bad. They can be fleshed out still and are at times.
@@HybridAngel Yeah I agree, there should have been more events shown between the time between the months and more episodes too.
@@Jdudec367 Yeah I believe I heard that the shortened season was done by Amazon, which really compressed everything down. Since this season should've been like... 15 episodes if not more at best. Proper amount of time to introduce and explain everything, and character development.
the way I went "you didnt know angel was there for redemption? but they talked about it in the pilot- oh..." says a lot about how you shouldnt lock important info behind supplemental material, like you said. it just kinda hit me that a LOT of viewers who didnt see the pilot likely didnt even realize angel was at the hotel for rehabilitation until at least episode 6, which is very clunky writing (at best)
The problem is that even if you are a hardcore fan and been in the fandom for years before the show aired, you are still not ammune from being lost, because its not very clear what is and isnt cannon in the main show. The first episode seems to assume that the viewer knows that it takes place right after the pilot, but are the terf wars still relevant? Is charlie doing the hotel pitch on tv still cannon?
Wait Angel was there for redemption? I thought that he was just there for a free place (unless I’m stuck on the pilot, which I think I am)
@@montserratmarroquin400 The idea in the pilot is that while he joined the hotel for redemption, he still engages in turf wars and doesn't take it seriously. Vaggie yells at him for making the hotel look like a joke and he says he did it to maintain his reputation, that nobody would take him seriously if they "knew he was trying to go clean." The issue is that episode 1 doesnt go over this at all and if you haven't watched the pilot you're left wondering if he's part of the staff, seeking rehab, or just hanging out, and it doesnt make it very clear at any point. Even if you've seen the pilot, you could still come out of it wondering if he's aiming for redemption or just a place away from Val.
@@montserratmarroquin400 Angel *is* just there for free rent, but the girls demand he tries to better himself while he's there so he has a hard time being fully indulgent in his "bad habits" while maintaining his rent-free apartment.
Honestly I thought episode one would've involved them repurposing the pilot and making it fit with the shows new lore and finalized plot, but it just didn't. This was an immediate shock to me as that's where we get a lot of lore as to why characters are there and the publics view on the hotel. Yet the show doesn't show that it just says- look at these characters, they're here! Don't question it!
Am I the only one that feels like the timeline went by really fast? We're told heaven is bumping up the extermination to 6 months, but the show never addresses how close it gets to that timeframe until maybe 1 or 2 episodes before the finale. Like, shouldn't they emphasize the fact there's a deadline to beat? Especially since the hotel itself would be targeted first?
Yeah! It was paced quite poorly :(
They go from “we have 6 months to figure this out” to “guys the extermination is happening TOMORROW” in like 5 episodes and it’s crazy
@@sunflowersandsarcasm4518 I was like so confused, like huh?? I thought we had time and all of a sudden we’re fighting now??
@@sunflowersandsarcasm4518 because of the horrible pacing, i originally thought that the extermination date had been moved up again, rather than a whole 6 months having actually passed already. while i understand that they only had 8 episodes to work with, they probably could’ve stretched this part of the story into 2 seasons, that way the pacing would make more sense, we’d get to know and actually care about the characters better, and there’d be a greater buildup to the extermination
@@saltymarshmallows316 I've seen lots of people argue that the fact the pacing is horrible is because there's ''only 8 episodes'', but honestly it's not the damn episode count it's the amount of lore Vivzie and the writers try to cram into them. I watched Scott Pilgrim and it also has 8 episodes but *much* better pacing 😅
As much as I enjoyed the show....It seems more like Hazbin was written for people who have followed Viz since the start. Which isn't a horrible thing but it holds it back for sure. Longtime Hazbin fans won't have trouble connecting to characters or plot because Viz has been sharing information about these characters for years. While New fans can easily become confused and uninterested because so much is happening to a cast they just met.
I agree that the first season should have been character focused. Longtime fans would have loved it because we would get a better understanding of what is canon for certain characters and what isn't. And New fans could become invested in these characters without having to learn about them from the wiki rather than the show.
This was a major sticking point for me. I like animated shows a lot so when a buddy of mine recommended it and told me the creator was inspired by invader Zim, I checked out. It was enjoyable but I was very confused the whole time lol
Exactly! When Mimzy was introduced, I had no idea about the hype, being this long-awaited character with a big arrival. She just felt... "oh look another one!"/neg
If it was meant to be just for the audience that follow her religiously, than she shouldn't have put in a streaming service
Same. I’m watching season two, but the show has more examples of what not do to than to do.
Yeah. I haven't followed any of the livestreams where old lore was (only heard about the lore from others in the fandom secondhand), but I saw the pilot when it first came out and I was still sort of confused. And honestly, even the old livestreams/supplementary lore aren't fully relevant anymore because the actual lore has been changed for the show (like Vaggie's backstory). For those who DO know the background lore, that credibility has been thrown into question because the show doesn't make it clear how much of it they're even going to keep. They really needed to take important things that they wanted to keep and establish it in the actual show, or communicate it more clearly.
As someone who had the context of the pilot for episode one, I immediately noticed it was all dependent on the pilot. It basically takes place in direct continuation and nothing is explained. Our introduction to Alastor in the first episode is Vaggie saying "Alastor says he has something to show us" as if we're supposed to already know who he is, and the pilot much more clearly establishes him meeting the cast and why he's here than the quick rehash in just a few of his lines in episode one. Charlie's proposal of the Hotel on the news, Angel Dust's reason for staying ("crack is expensive, I need somewhere rent-free to crash!"), and the battle with Sir Pentious...all of it was communicated so clearly in the pilot. They should've either linked the series to the pilot on Amazon, with the latter as an episode 0, or started the main series as "episode 2 onwards" (although pilots are usually not part of the final production, especially given the rougher character designs and art style changes-and that Vivzie's is already available on youtube) or wrote the first episode to cover the same steps as the pilot to establish everything. Pilot information could've easily been planted in place of the episode 1 B-plot about the Hotel commercial. We don't even get to SEE it in the end, anyway, after all that time in the episode.
Heck, they could've easily made room for Angel Dusts's "What happens if I die here?! Is there a double-hell?!" joke from the pilot to establish the question to the audience in the series.
Sir pentious was actually re-purposed because the fandom loved him, he originally was just gonna be a silly one off villian when viv first made him
I feel like Ive heard that idea before actually with other fictional characters....that honestly was a good idea on Viv`s part.
@@Jdudec367 Was it, though? If it kept us from seeing the growth Angel supposedly had? I get the appeal of finding ways for a fan-favorite character to have a more significant role in the narrative, but if they start taking roles from pre-established characters then that can lead to problems later down the line.
@@a.n.9800 Mhm. It didn't though, we still see Angel's growth. But Sir Pentious didn`t do that he just further adds to further proving that redemption is possible.
@@a.n.9800 But Sir Pentious was the only character arc that was actually Good in that show. If you want more Angel Dust content then take away Mimzy or Nifty or some of Alastor's 80,000 scenes instead
@@Jdudec367 How much of Angel’s growth did we actually see though? There’s none in the first two episodes, it all happens offscreen in episode 3, episode 4 is good but there’s none in episode 5. And then in episode 6 he’s suddenly come so far? We see him at different stages in a growth arc but we don’t actually see him travel from each stage to the next, he just suddenly ends up there when the story needs him to be.
I think the fact that the fandom will often expect people to know lore and stuff featured outside the show is something I find particularly annoying. Good analysis! I'd love to see you make one for Murder Drones tbh!😊
ur comments so right but its so ironically funny that its sandwiched between two comments doing that exact thing lmaooooo 😭😭😭
@@RokkTheRock Is it!? I didn't notice!😂
Even in this comment section I'm seeing a few people with endless free-time mansplain the plot to people who are simply complaining about the poor writing of the show 😭 The fans do nothing except prove our points about the show and fandom lol. I wish more people could understand the concept that a show can have a good concept... and then still be executed like dogsh*t.
I'm a bit surprised they didn't include the pilot on Amazon, because it effectively does what your idea for a rewritten Season 1 does. It's 20 minutes just focused on Charlie, Vaggie, Angel Dust, and their dynamic as a team
I doubt they could, as the rampant sexist behaviour towards Vaggie isn't in the show. We never even see Alaster slap her on the behind again.
And some things that were mentioned in the pilot were retconned in the season. So it would have caused some more inconsistencies if the pilot was included^^
@@poccripeardew4750 Yep! such as Lilith (Charlies mom) being supposedly missing in the main show and Charlie being on call with her in the pilot, this might be pushing it but I believe a remake of the pilot would have worked out great without the weird jokes and plotholes
@@Vamptre Generally speaking, all of the pilot characters are total fetish bait. I mean seriously, try to find one post about Angel Dust that isn't fetishizing his addictions or the fact that he's fruity 😭 The fandom makes me wish I wasn't gay
@@VamptreYes they should fix the holes in the pilot and upload it on amazon
my biggest problem was that a lot of things felt like they happened off screen especially with Alastor. Like, in the song “Hell’s Greatest Dad,” he says that he’s always helping around the hotel… except he’s not around for most of the time. He is supposedly this manipulative dangerous possible antagonist with his own agenda and plan, but he’s just never around leaving him feel unexplored.
Okay, so I stopped watching at episode 2 as a casual fan who watched Helluva Boss as it came out and was there for the pilot. I was disappointed as hell.
Anyway, so when I stumbled upon the Hell's Greatest Dad music number I felt like I misunderstood _fucking EVERYTHING._ Like??? YOU WROTE ALASTOR TO CALL HIMSELF A FATHER FIGURE??? *ALASTOR??? **_THE_** TUMBLR SEXYMAN ALASTOR????? A **_DAD?!?!?!?_*
absolutely the fuck not. who had that idea and why weren't the fired on the spot.
@@Deadflower019 Psst, Alastor is a power-hungry troll and was making shit up to get under Lucifer's skin. It's comedic because the audience knows he's just being manipulative and that Charlie is too innocent to suspect he's lying.
Knowing that he was around for not even a year and that she's older than him. I understand that Alastor was just trying to piss of Lucifer but Charlie didn't even think of the problem there
A problem I also have is about hell born sinners, they did nothing to get there and Charlie doesn't stand up for them. It could have been a great point to tell the angels, because Charlie herself did nothing to be there either.
There is a difference between hell borns and Sinners. Hell Borns don’t get targeted by the extermination, that’s a pretty big detail in the meeting with Adam. Hell Borns are beings like imps, hellhounds, and succubi, and they aren’t restricted to their respective rings, while Sinners were once alive as human, and once they died, went to hell, restricted to the pride ring. The extermination only targets Sinners (or it used to-). That’s what the main concern was for Charlie
Question, should Charlie try to get his father to let sinner in other rings... since you know he is the king and doesnt do anything other than make ducks?
@@HybridAngel then that really begs the question for me. why does charlie care so much? they aren't her people. they're like her dads old high school science project.
@@HybridAngel We don’t necessarily know that, though. If you only watch the Amazon series and haven’t seen the pilot or Helluva Boss or any of Viv’s other work, then the only confirmed hellborns are Charlie and her immediate family. We know there are more since Lute refers to them in the plural, but we don’t know who or what because the show doesn’t elaborate further than that.
(Example: I didn’t find out that Rosie and everyone in cannibal town were supposed to be hellborn demons until after I’d finished the show and I found supplementary material later. I thought they all looked like that because that’s just what cannibals turned into on the way down to hell after dying, since I DID know from supplementary material that the lore is sinners turn into creatures and such when they die and descend to hell, and Alastor looked different because he was a serial killer who practiced magic as well as a cannibal. I shouldn’t have to rely on supplementary material to understand how the world of the show operates.)
@@veepersjeepers She believes that since they're in hell, they're her people. She's a kind person but she's also using the hotel to escape her unresolved issues in her own life. Basically a mess trying to fix other messes.
Your first point about them making so much plot in only eight episodes - i wish we could go back to 12 to 20 episodes per season
Hopefully they’ll give them more next season, like how Parks and Recreation had a 6 episode first season and then about 20 episodes for every subsequent season.
My biggest problem with Hazbin is that if you were a causal fan of the show you would know literally NOTHING about the characters. Most of the things we know about the cast are things said on streams or twitter or blog posts. We shouldn't have to do homework to understand characters. Angel for example: if your watching the show how would you know he's an Italian mobster? Nothing about his character tells you about the time period he was from or what he did when alive. As you said season 1 definitely should have been about exploring the characters. You shouldn't be expected to dig through streams just to get a basic understanding of their character (Edit: I have since changed my opinion on this point, my point on redemption still stands though)
Another issue that botherd me was the whole redemption thing. Like how much would Charlie be willing to forgive just so she could redeem someone? Would she try redeeming Valentino despite what she knows about him? Where does she draw the line? What does she think is unredeemable? Hell what have the main cast done to be sent to hell?? Should they even be forgiven for their crimes?? If they are forgiven and sent to heaven, what about their victims? Do they just have to deal with the fact that the person who killed/ruined their life is now in heaven because they're 'sorry'? WHY WAS THIS NEVER DISCUSSED IN SEASON 1 WHEN THE WHOLE SHOW IS ABOUT REDEMPTION?!?
Also, hellborn demons. With Charlie, it's implied that demons can be born in hell, but the idea is not actually mentioned in the show, just speculation.
Then you get people who consume all the extra content replying to your questions about hellborns with all of the lore about them, most of which contains ideas that aren't even mentioned in the show either! Like. Just watching Hazbin Hotel, the rings of Hell are not mentioned. Why should I care that Hellborn demons can traverse the different rings when I have no idea that our show takes place in the pride ring? If it wasn't in the show, why should it matter to me?
This is coming from someone who hasn't seen Helluva boss (and shouldn't have to just to understand Hazbin)
@@diddykitty746 Exactly! Literally the only reason I know as much as I do is because of Helluva Boss and sifting through streams and twitter for cool facts. Which is something you should NOT need to do just to know where the SETTING OF THE SHOW IS (the pride ring)
So I have only seen the pilot and the show.
I understand the show completely. Your complaint just seems over-repeated and untrue.
Angel Dust being a mobster - Okay? Is him being a mobster relevant to the plot? It sure does explain the scene with the tommy guns but if anything is more just saying he was a mobster therefore he has this fun gun aesthetic. You don't need to do homework because you don't need to know absolutely everything.
Where it's a problem is when stuff actually is relevant to the plot then suddenly comes out of this homework. Only example I can think of right now is Halo. Halo 4 and 5 had more interesting plots if you've actually read the Halo novels, but for most people who just played the games, the stories were awful. No one cares about the Mantle of Responsibility and the Didact... unless they did the homework. And it's all unexplained, since rather than reexplaining it for game audience, they just expect you to do the homework.
If Angel Dust being a mobster is relevant, it will be explained. If it's not relevant, it will just be a fun aesthetic for the character since 4 tommy guns is cool.
@@EvilParagon4 Good point! I honestly think I'm starting to get a bit frustrated with Hazbin, so my opinions are starting to get biased. I do hope that if/when that stuff is needed in the show they explain it, and don't rely on the other stuff like Helluva. My other opinions still stand though; I really wish the season was a *bit* more character focused. I know this is just the first season, and this season only has 8 episodes, but I can't help but want a bit more out of it ya know? And the whole redemption thing as well, it feels like we didn't actually get to see Sir Pentious get redeemed. Sure he's pretty nice and he sacrificed himself for his friends, and we got some really nice scenes of him. But what did he do to go to hell? I don't remember him showing any guilt for the things he did while alive, or try to remedy the things he did (aside from being nice) I just ghdydhdysh If he actually did some bad stuff while alive he shouldn't have been redeemed or he should of had a bit more spotlight on his redemption journey. Idk it could just be me but people need to earn redemption. Once again this is just the first season, so hopefully all the stuff I have gripes with will be explained (not fully obviously, but enough to know that it will be built on more later) I hope I don't come off as rude or bitchy in these comments, because I do genuinely really enjoy Hazbin, and I really want it to succeed
Not quite true. I only watched the show and I think the show does tell us about the cast pretty well for how crunched the main plot is.
There's a 6 MONTH cut between the first and last episode.
You know we could have a LOT of character development in that time lapse? Viv?
She could have a made a montage of their development, it would have been rushed but it would have something
Or just like Helluva Boss they could have made shorts for each and every one of them
Still wouldn’t fix it but atleast it would have shown something
"this MAN... is STINKY" made me laugh 😂
Appreciate hearing a critique if this show that feels sort of disconnected from all the bile surrounding it. I've read/listened to some much much harsher critique ive agreed with but here I appreciate the genuine desire to see where the show couldve been better if given the tools/structure/time. Looking forward to more narrative academy in the future ^_^
Yeah my goal is to come at my critiques in such a way that, if anyone who worked on the show saw it, they wouldn't be upset. My goal is never to be the person hating on a thing just to hate on it- I think there's lots of things we can learn from imperfect media, and I wanted to explore that!
I bet some sinners are smell awful to human and alastor smells like deer cadaver and death and souls of the damned
_Who could thought angels could be harmed._
Said the one-eyed wingless angel (evangelion opening starts)
WOMAN, YOU'RE THE Fμ¢KING ANSWER! How nobody noticed that?
The moment that a writer thinks they've had a clever idea, they will prop up a million dumb ideas to support it. Someone had the brilliant idea "Adam is moving up the extermination because.... They've killed an angel! It's retribution!" And every other idea in the story is built on making that make sense.
"What happened the last time a demon killed an angel?" Oh, uhhh... In 5,000 years, this has never, ever, ever happened before.
"one-eyed wingless angel"
ESTUANS INTERIUS IRA VEHEMENTI
Stuff like this happens when ideas that were never intended suddenly become extremely important. Vaggie having only one eye wasn't an issue originally but now that she's been made into an angel the plot point of people being shocked angels can be hurt makes her look stupid.
@@coolman229 It makes her look painfully, dumb. It makes Charlie look painfully dumb. When they showed the flashback way back in EP 3 of Charlie MEETING Vaggie in what was clearly a war-torn area, although we didn't know yet it was literally on an Execution Day (which makes them monumentally, astronomically dumb) with Vaggie clearly being injured and she saved her life, and Vaggie adopts a Drill Sargent attitude to train the boys, I honestly thought the writers were being coy. "I was a stranger in a brand new place." If COURSE she's an angel. I assumed the writers were saying Charlie has always known she was an angel and was keeping it a secret FROM EVERYONE ELSE.
It would have never occurred to me that the writers want me to believe that Charlie rescued her while she was wearing her angelic uniform, holding an angelic weapon, injured during Execution Day, but Charlie never knew she was an angel. 😡😡😡
Evenmoreso.... CHARLIE IS ALSO AN ANGEL!!! She's a half-human angel. For the royal princess of hell to say she doesn't know if she can be hurt (as if political figures aren't targets from the day of their birth), that she's clueless about her own biology, in a story where she has an overprotective father who threatens anyone who might harm her or not sacrifice themselves protecting her.... 😮💨 No wonder the writers were also desperate to write that she's barely ever actually spent time with Lucifer. They can make as many excuses about how she doesn't understand her own angelic nature by saying he just failed to have a single meaningful conversation with her for several hundred years.... Because of a depression and social anxiety issue that gets solved in the same episode it's introduced in.
@@Cityweaver Political figures being targets from the day of their birth actually justifies her questioning if she can be harmed. Why would you think people targeting her is proof she can be harmed when 100% of them failed?
Coming to this not having seen the show, this feels like it’s trying to do what The Good Place did.
The Good Place’s central premise was a group of ‘sinners’ trying to figure out how to improve themselves and get into The Good Place (their version of heaven), as all of their sins are essentially being annoying, vain, or selfish. A lot of the episode themes are centered around philosophical concepts around morality.
Then there is a twist that no has gotten into heaven in hundreds of years, because the rules of getting into heaven are archaic and now capitalism and the internet have made everyone complicit in the horrors and so even when you do good things it’s counted as a negative due to the wider impact. In the end they themselves set up a scheme to prove the system is flawed and needs fixing.
Basically, watch The Good Place
Man I need to finish that show
What the good place
The good place characters are also league's more redeemable
It helps that the framing for that is a much more reasonable one, once revealed. I'll not spoil it here, but the core idea of what the project was about (and how it failed) is brilliant.
I haven't seen good place but i think the problem HH Heaven isn't bad or severe. Because just look HH team members; serial killer, gangster/ Nifty, husk was overlord so he doesn't care to eslaved people make me believe he sold other in his mortal life too, same Viv told you are noing to hell for little things. Most imporatnt thing angel doesn't judge souls but take care of them ,but divine judgement isn't unfair, it was ser pent would never gotten redeption if hell is forever. I love charlie but she didn't bring prove someything and during trial she was just a karen,because how angel are responsible? They don't ascend people. Viv make horrible people and want to paint heaven bad because they don't trust them?
About adam , i think it is more easy thinking he was agod person when he died but after years he got depressed and angry with humanity, look that eyesbangs! That's not a face of happy man. Viv wants to write bad heaven but i see more imperfect heaven. Before you say but extremination, I really doubt extremination was regulated by elders too, and the questions why there extremination in first place. I believe hell attcaked heaven by creating overlord so powerful by deal souls, then heaven removes souls. It is war repair. That is building grey morality world ,not just heaven bad, I find also so strange, there is gossip abou viv wants to redemeed val ... so I don't have words about
On the topic of the qualifications for getting into heaven being brushed off while in heaven, I think it’s very realistic, I’m getting “we are angels so everything we do is good” vibes from them instead of choosing to do good, the extermination is a perfect example of this as Sera clearly doesn’t want it but acts like it’s good because she decided it’s good, I feel like if I were her and I were confronted with “what does it take to get into heaven” I’d want people to forget that topic so that I don’t have to explain why I don’t know
Oh for sure! My argument is that it should have been more of a focus point BEFORE the heaven meeting. It would've had a lot more impact that way.
Fair, I sometimes struggle to follow people
As a Catholic, I did hate this show since she was clearly trying to show as you said “Christian hypocrisy”. The issue is she doesn’t seem to understand Christian philosophy, if she did then she could easily make her criticism. She did not even try to write a moral code, like why is this bad, like why is killing people bad? Why is taking drugs bad etc. Most religions have a moral foundation as to why things are good or bad. For example, Slavery is bad, why? Well according to the Abolitionist, if God loves us all equally and we should love our neighbor as ourselves, well blacks are human and making them a slave is not loving so therefore it is wrong. In fact the pro slavery arguments was saying blacks were not human so they be enslaved.
@@MrSophire I mean, you don't even need to be Catholic to try and show some moral code, but it definitely would help explain some stuff as the very basics of "why is killing bad?" Plenty of shows and people know of Christianity being hypocritical and nothing wrong with that but this show barely do the minimum for that trope.
I agree that it felt in-character for Sera to brush it off asap, but…why did everyone listen to her? This is a huge revelation for Charlie and then she immediately puts it out of her mind just because the head seraph doesn’t wanna pursue the topic? She never brings it up with anyone else involved with the hotel after that moment? Never discusses it with Vaggie, once she knows that Vaggie is from heaven originally? Never asks her dad, who seems to be familiar with the “lots of rules” heaven has?
It was a moment that needed more buildup, or needed more followup, or both, in order to function as the bombshell it seems it was supposed to be. Even if Sera dismissed the topic and the moment itself was unchanged, it needed MORE moments surrounding it.
My two main queefs with the show it self
1. Most of the info that we are supposed to know is basically off screne
And Wikipedia and fans are constantly contradicting them selves with information from 3 years ago that migth not even apply anymore
2.
the designs
How most of them DON'T correlate with the time they died all the characthers in the main cast are basically just in suit and tie
Its like
These characters had very different purposes and they just didnt want to edit the design but gave them backstories that dodnt match
Also the insp for alot of designs do not come through
Like angel being a spider
Or velvette being a demon doll thing
Apparently the reason Angel is a spider is because; his family was in a string of lies
(Something like that :’) also his family was part of the mafia)
@@HoneyDragon that's kind of a stretch
@@maravreloaded Search it up on Google 'why is Angel dust a spider', it's literally the first thing that's shown.
Vaggie is apparently based off of a moth and I had NO idea.
"queefs"
one change I could make: THE TRIAL COULD BE THE SEASON ONE FINALE INSTEAD OF ADAM. End the season on a hopeless note for Charlie and a fck heaven, build it up towards 'You Didnt Know' but also now she knows that no one knows how to get into heaven, this relies on them getting a season 2 but it would be cool and keep my favourite song
problem was they didnt know if they would get a second season so they packed all things into 8 episodes + they did not got the amount of episodes they wanted (around 12)
@@Choroalp I was talking about the rewrite not the original
Not gonna lie the final ep flat out reminds me of the war of the best from one piece
My main issue with the redemption plot line is it has no idea how redemption works. Why are we trying to use the qualifications in order to get to heaven in the first place? Those were meant for alive humans with a clean slate. Those aren’t relevant. What you need is what it takes to make up for the sins you already committed on earth and continue to commit in hell. Charlie seems to act this way too using camp counselor tactics to redeem people who need therapy and boot camp tactics. Plus she keeps acting like extermination is due to overpopulation even though in the story SHE read it shows the true reason. Hell was gaining power because Lilith for some reason was in encouraging human bad behavior (which we see in helluva boss) and growing hells numbers and the extermination was to keep hell from taking over. Which if she really cared about this then she’d use her influence as princess of hell to stop the hellborne from growing hells power and numbers. Take preventative measures to make sure people don’t go to hell in the first place. And even in the episode after the heaven trial she admits she doesn’t have evidence yet was still so adamant on seeing heavens higher ups.
I think the intention of the show is that it's arguing for redemption being about improving yourself for the sake of the people around you that you're hurting in the here and now (played out with Angel and Husk) vs doing it for the sake of the external result of a pleasant afterlife (a critique of what the writers obviously think of religion). That could definitely work with this story's logistics. What's stupid though is that Adam's made up list was proved to be true when Pentious turned up in Heaven after he arguably crossed everything off. Like why? Did the writers think that was funny? "Ohh Adam is a monster but it would be so ironic if he got it right!" Or does it mean the angels used to know how to get in and he was just remembering it vaguely? It makes no sense.
@@lurkingaround7410 i really hated how the trial charlie and everyone took that list so seriously when it was obvious he made that up on the spot and it has 3 of the most basic stuff. that trial was a fluke and needs to be redone with neither adam or charlie as representatives
@@burstlogic3457 I do think that was the point of the scene. That it's the hotshot first human coming up with the qualifications to get into Heaven on the spot when no one knows them, so therefore they "must" be right.
Even if they were arbitrary (and very likely not the actual qualifications, if there are any), Angel (the character) still completed them which worked against the antagonist Adam, and since nothing happened, it then led to the question of "Why didn't it work?" which then led to how none of the Angels actually know how someone gets into Heaven and so on.
The list was arbitrary and simple yes, but I think the scene served to show that even when playing by the Angels rules, and succeeding, there was no progress, revealing how clueless the angels are.
I have no explanation for Pentious getting into Heaven though
I’ve fumbled the “keep in mind what your audience knows/doesn’t know” thing before. If you’re ever writing a dramatic-irony reveal in a limited POV, make sure you know which end of the shock your audience is gonna be on XD
Narrative academy seems like a very useful and interesting series for all of us that are working or want to work on our own freelance projects, helping us know and notice mistakes in our own works and make a more critical view of the shows we consume. As for hazbin, I think that not puting up the pilot as a chapter 0 is a huge problem since there are some plot points (like how angel dust ended up as a client of the hotel and Charlie starting the hotel) and the show relies a lot on outside information
It would have required some editing work to avoid plot holes, but that would have been well within the scope of the project AND effectively required for the plot to work.
Here’s an idea- what if Charlie was raised in Heaven, isolated from her pops and raised by one of the angels (explaining her obliviousness towards the crappiness of the Hazbinverse version of Hell and the complexities of redemption)?
If Viv was a baker, she would be trying to bake 10 cakes in 5 minutes instead of focusing on one or two and having them turn out right.
Bad example
I haven't seen Hazbin Hotel beyond the pilot, but I have tried reading one of Viv's older projects, Zoophobia, and your description does fit that.
Is anyone gonna talk about how great Star's art is
What is there to talk about? The art is amazing
Another massive plot point that kinda finally pushed me over the edge into "This show was a good concept, that had poor execution"
The exterminations, the focused on main event the story revolves around. Was kept a secret from a majority of the higher power angels because even if it was demons, many angels where very much not chill with committing genocide. In fact it was purely Adam, Sera (who signed off on it in secret), and all exorcists (like vaggie & lute) created solely for the purpose of committing genocide who knew! So when it is brought up during Charlie's hearing, it literally shakes the court room and emily literally tells sera off for signing off on such a horrible crime like that.
That is a really, really big deal. Because it means that the exterminations weren't even supposed to be a THING. It meant that adam was killing for fun. Not because of overpopulation, not because of fear of an uprising from the countless sinners, but because of adams bloodlust that had been building up for hundreds if not thousands of years.
And then in the same case, there's vaggie an angel who was rewarded for slaughtering millions but when she spared singular demon child she was punished. That is also a massive deal in my book because it wasn't even heaven who dealt out that punishment, it was solely adam and lute!
It shows how gray the rules between heaven and hell actually are...and it's all contained in one musical number. We don't see the consequences for adam letting the cat out of the bag just so he can rub it in charlie's face that she's helpless. We don't see the consequences for lute taking punishment into her own hands and ripping out vaggies eye or cutting off her wings. You're telling me that a secret genocide that was kept hush hush for years and only got exposed because the princess of hell was tired of her people being slaughtered directly challenged adam, had ZERO repercussions at all? Nothing, it's just immediately after a dive into "Well how do we fight off the extermination because fuck em"
---
I've been following the project before the pilot was even dropped, but I wasn't watching the podcasts or following every single detail I could get my hand on. I was a casual fan excited for the release. So when Hazbin Hotel didn't feel like a show, it felt like "These characters I created are FINALLY on screen guys look!" and the story suffered for it? I just, was so disappointed. You can't even really blame it on just "Oh well the production company only gave them eight episodes to work with" because helluva boss has some of the similar problems with its own narrative. It's purely the writers this time around.
Good concept. Horrible execution.
For some reason, mediocre writers always think that the easiest shortcut to making a villain deplorable is to also make them a liar. Even about things that functionally don't matter for them to lie about. Like how in the MCU movie Eternals, the god of the Eternals lie to them about their own origin and their purpose on Earth and the ONLY reason that's in the script is because the story is the choice between either saving humanity or their god's baby and the writers needed these immortal aliens to justify killing a baby. 😂 So we get, "Waaah, they lied to us!"
Adam and Seraphim lie about the Extermination, which makes absolutely no sense in any context. The writers try to build to some crescendo there with the Hell is Forever reprise, completely ignoring that they are diluting their own point. They already HAD a complete argument in discussing the sorting of demons and angels AND in questioning the morality of eternal damnation. Adding "He's a fibber!" does nothing. It is a petty and meaningless argument to focus on little sins like lying and casual sex. 😂 "If hell is forever, Heaven isn't just" is everything they needed. But they built up pointless arguments anyway that, like you are saying, they don't have the time, energy, or willingness to explore....
Not to mention, to be perfectly honest, I don't think civilians being unaware of every movement their military makes counts as "lying" anyway. 😂 I hate it when writers who are clearly pop culture liberal and civilians think that compartmentalization of military information is somehow a thought crime. I'm sorry random person who barely remembers to vote in their state level elections, what were you going to do with that classified military information that you felt it needed to be reported to you?
and honesty if hh was mature only thing charlie has done is declaring war. If there were winners who wants to believe in redeption, they would step back.
First Adam wasn't nobody, ok he got 140 children everyone hates him? No it is impossible, so also if adam rift apart from his children I doubt they will be happy about their dad's death. Ok , everyone hate him, he is still a simbol.
Exocist, my personal headcanon the aren't artificial but winners like adam, special one, victim of sinners. So for that they were so ducking murder. Listin what ever crime, and 99% victms didn't recevied justice. Now give the victim tool and army who protect them for killing who destroy ther life, and not would be suprised if they enjied to kill sinners. But if in case exocists are all created, doesn't mean they don't have family and friends, do you think they would hate charlie? Plus if heaven is so terrible, redeption project is useless,
@@Sifya Exactly. If saints are literally no better than sinners, why are you fighting to join heaven? This is the problem with making Christianity literal and then trying to criticize it. At least in real life, you can make the argument that terrible people can still populate churches, so you can't decide who is Elected and who isn't by their outward appearance. Oh, and maybe that's in the Bible a million times, too. "Don't be like these priests, who pray in public for attention. Mind your own business and make sure your place in heaven is secured. Don't criticize someone's splinter when you have a whole plank of wood in your eye. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
But you make a story where you explicitly say all the sex offenders are put into a ghetto and then say angels are bad people for wanting to torment sex offenders. 🙄 Okay, what?
So then the only way this story can have any sympathy at all is to give the main characters the "softest" sins possible and just ignore them. Oh, Angel is a sex addict, sure, but he's also a gay bottom, so all his aggressive, unwanted flirting becomes funny, because as long as he's not harassing *women* who cares (plus, he's perceived as weaker, so lets ignore how same-sex abuse actually works to giggle at his antics.) Sir Pentius dresses like Napoleon and wants to rule hell. So write him as incompetent, so that his warmongering seems less disgusting. Even though I'm sure that for whatever century he lived in, him being an incompetent Commander got even more people killed than if he was a competent Commander. And Husk swears up and down that he's a gambling addict, but not once does this addiction factor into the story in a way that shows him as vulnerable or impairs his judgement.
(For an example of that recently, in Jujutsu Kaizen, gambling addict Fushiguro has a master plan to assassinate an exceptionally powerful opponent, and his plan works very well as long as he thinks clearly through contingencies. But he loses the MOMENT he stops carefully planning his next move and he "bets" on himself instead. He ignores all evidence in front of him and attacks when he clearly should retreat. That's the very nature of gambling addiction being his undoing.)
@@Cityweaver the problem I don't see HH heaven corropt but imperfect. First angels don't judge souls, so Charlie complains like a Karen with waiter for bad management. Viv herself tells in hell go people who make grave sin, for example angel is darm gangster. You know everything abuse he receives from Valentino, it is same abuse his family brings to civil. Yes mafia is horrible! They racked, killing, stealing and using also sexual abuse as tool. So why honestly heaven should accept angel? Who is sorry for consequences not what he did.
Divine judgement is severe but fair, because it isn't against redemption, it would allow ser pent ascend.
Before everyone tell me but adam and exorcists, we haven't never seen they interact with winners or people they respect, for what we know exorcists are nicest people in heaven but they hate sinner. Adam could be a good person when he died and become evil, which it is funny alastor is like Dexter, who kill bad people and don't believe in redemption, Adam is the same and it is bad. Damn 10000 years seeing the worst in humanity and trauma would turn everyone mad and evil.
Extermination is wrong because removing the possible, but why we have extermination in first place? Well, overlord who became incredibly stronger by soul deal, people who doesn't care and want more. You want to make believe hell has never attacked heaven? Remember velvette. Come on.
Extermination is a conseguence of fact hell isn't place of redemption or punishment but prize for bad people getting more evil possible.
Charlie is ignorant about how hell and heaven work.
And I'm not Christian! But I think HH is terrible naive about topic
@@Cityweaver I'm not Christian and but I think HH is very superficial about it. Redemption is Christian concept that works only the person recognises their sin and make amends. HH only paints heaven as evil and using victimism, but I see heaven good but imperfect.
Viv herself told there are not lesser sinners in hell, so heaven is so wrong don't trust sinners.
The worst thing about plot twist about angels don't know how soul get in heaven isn't not making sense.
Sera says divine judgement ascends souls, they just manage. Now if heaven would be full of bad people, I honestly thing heaven born angels would be aleast concern, no heaven except Adam and lute are perfectly fine. Charlie was being a Karen with angels about Ascension, like a client with waiter for bad management.
But divine judgement is severe but fair, because it wasn't ser pent would never ascend.
About Adam and lute exorcists would classic examples of police who literally seeing the worst of humanity and starting to de humanize.
The problem why does heaven need to worry about overpopulation of hell, it is easy, hell is treat to heaven and earth , and now without control, overlords would become more powerful then would be not enough resource sinners would attack. Velette says herself.
Charlie project could work only if she take control of hell and turning in a place where who doesn't want to get better get punishment and redemption. Hell is actually a amusement park for evil people to getting evil
I feel like we could have an episode where after they learn that extermination is coming soon, they try to redeem themselves, but none of them actually know how. You know who might? Lucifer, A fallen angel. The episode could be sort of like the cast trying to convince Charlie to ask for help, while she tries to push it off and do it her way because she knows her dad won't help, but at the end of the episode, they convince her. Then, the next episode could be her calling Lucifer, and then essentially Hells Greatest Dad
I love seeing Lucifer and Alastor in your style. I also love that I can hear the “Can you butt out of my song?” part of Hell’s Greatest Dad 🤣
As an Owl House fan, there are challenges with larger casts, or developing larger parties without easing into them. Which makes giving everyone a resolution much harder. So it seems Hazbin is in the vein of this, just if every season was like TOH's Season 3, accidentally shafting and introducing all at once.
I agree with all of your points, and I think the way I thought about it in my head was that Viv has a lot of pressure put on her for her first big project, without any real big story creation before. Because of this, it seems the the show is really just a place to put her OCs and their lore in. I don’t mean this badly, really, but it really does feel more character-focused rather than plot, which can be good, but with her limited experience, it doesn’t seem to be executed as well as it could have been.
I hope Viv has someone on her team that has the experience that she lacks, someone who has worked on other shows before, who is helping her for the upcoming second season.
@@StarViewer68 I totally agree. Someone to help her figure it all out would be awesome for her and the plot!
32:34
"Stinky"
why did that catch me off guard- pfffft XD
Oh i feels this statement in my soul xD the way she says it too makes it better xD
Feels nice having a critique for Hazbin Hotel from someone that actually sounds like a normal person who actually means well, and genuinely wants the series to improve…
*Yes I’m on Twitter how could you tell?*
Great rule of thumb: Discourse on Twitter is never an accurate representation of how normal people should talk about things
people in real life: hey man hows it going
I'm sorry for your loss
Strange, that I didn't really feel the time passing through the episodes. You watch one episode, then there is another, and, suddenly, you learn that a lot of time actually passed, however, you don't really get to feel the changes.
Yep. Apparently, some episodes take place months after each other.
Perfect takes, 10/10
honestly, looking at projects like Hazbin failing at certain aspects while having a stellar concept is making me really think about my own project where i want to avoid such pitfalls. it might not be perfect, and my project is not currently an animation based one (maybe in the future) but it does make me feel motivated to do better, and videos like this breaking down what could have been changed to improve the media actually really helps so thank you!
small rant but some minor issues that I had with HH is that wings are seen as the really important thing, like Vaggie losing hers and getting them back, but then a random character like Husker has wings just because Vivzie didn’t change like any of her oc’s to fit the plot of the show. (also what frustrated and confused me was that Vaggie got her wings back at the “Out for Love” scene even though literally the entire show she was out for love 😭 like she was never shown to be out for vengeance, only to protect Charlie, imo she should have gotten her wings back when she didn’t kill Lute, showing she had mercy, and the entire Out for Love scene could have been used for something which actually makes sense in the plot 😰)
the pacing just boiled down to, Viv was given 8 guaranteed episodes, but didn't know if A24 would give more. also, i feel like its just a deconstructed musical spit into episodes
9:41 yeah exactly
I feel they could've done something interesting with Angel Dust being the one Charlie picks as an example in heaven. Maybe it didn't start out that way, she easily picked Sr Pentious, and Adam noticing that the angels are beginning to agree, shifts the focus to Angel Dust, which could make Charlie unsure. It could be something brought up in season 2 if Angel DUst not only finds out heaven was judging him without his knowledge, but that Charlie didn't have that much faith in him ??
Though I totally agree I would've loved to see Angel work up to take those redemption steps :D
One of my biggest issues with the hazibin/helluva lore, is that so much of it is revealed in outside media, like live streams.
One of the more interesting examples, is that when sinners in hell die by non-angelic weapons, apparently they’ll just regenerate, or respawn if the wound is severe enough (and the regen process is incredibly painful). You would NEVER know any of this by watching either of the 2 shows.
The scene where Velvette complained that the audience wasn’t going to wait for her best model to “put herself back together” after Valentino attacked her in episode 2, I was thinking that the model was maybe recovering at a hospital. Only until I read fans comments about how people in hell regenerate after being injured or tore up, that it made me understand Velvette’s statement. Nothing in the show prior to that scene explained this.
And that scene you mentioned, if I didn’t know before hand, I would’ve just assumed at best, that her model just had a unique regeneration ability if anything.
There’s no implication that that’s something ALL sinners can do, and it’s never explained as a plot point, nor is it never brought up again.
Also the fact that, if sinners die by angelic weapons, they get sucked into hell, which explains the eyes all over the buildings, and that is really important information and it gives depth to the exterminations and why they are so dangerous and a big deal, and correct me if I’m wrong (since this is what I have heard from other comments I think) that this is not explained in the show
That...that doesn't even make sense?? How could the angels possibly convince hell the exterminations are about overpopulation if they all just respawn, effectively not changing the population at all?
Unless there's more stream lore we're missing. Aye yai yai...
This whole helluverse is a perfect example of how NOT to do world building.
Couldn't Charlie just ask Lucifer to make angelic weapons instead of including Carmine in this season at all?
I mean, he is an ex-angel, who makes stuff- And like, you'd doubt the exterminstors would drop THAT many weapond behind is a bit exaggerated
From what I know, Carmilla doesn’t collect angelic weapons, she knows how to make them then sells it to other sinners or hellborn. I don’t think Lucifer would know how to make the weapons because:
a) ducks
b) he doesn’t really care about the sinners, just Charlie so he wouldn’t really put the effort into making the weapons or finding out how to make them earlier. To find out the formula for angelic weapons right before the exterminations would take a long time, so they would have had to go to Carmilla no matter what
c) the extermination started after Lucifer was cast into hell, so the angels most likely didn’t share the formula on how to make the angelic weapons, so Lucifer had no way of knowing how to make the weapons to defend against the angels
Also, I just wanna mention that the exorcists (exterminators) don’t leave their weapons behind, they take their spears to hell and come back with their spears and probably just put it in a closet or something until next year.
The show should been.
Sinner presents. Sinner works to correct themself. Sinner fails. Song. Sinner tries again. Succeeds.
Charlie has 1 point to show her system works.
I think during the judgment scene the whole group is being judged. It's not that Charlie is showcasing Angel Dust as her best work of redeption, but rather the angels just _target_ Angel Dust because he's the most obviously flawed. He's the most "sinfull" of the group. It's the lowest fruit for them to pick and also the "highest score" for Charlie if she could actually prove he's been redeemed. Also the fact that everyone, including the audience overlooks Sir Pentious makes for a much funnier payoff when he eventually does get to heaven,
Honestly. To me the biggest plot issue is having the redemption plotline and angels-can-be-killed-oh-shit plotline occur in parallel. It would've been a logical progression for S1 to go as you suggested: Charlie works to discover how sinners can be redeemed, she finds out they can’t. The season ends with a somber note with the sinners knowing they’ve failed as the clock strikes for another extermination. But as all hope seems lost, we see an angel's decapitated head roll to Charlie's feet. Thus establishing what the plot of S2 will focus on: if you can’t work with 'em, work against 'em.
I really, REALLY loved this media analysis!! It looks like some other people have pointed this out, but it feels like your "Kill your darlings" mantra really applies to how you approached this series. I hope you do more of these in the future -- I'd love to hear your takes on some of your favorite shows, or even shows that are flawed, but ones in which you still have passionate ideas about!
I LEGIT JUST FINISHED REDESIGNING MY HAZBIN OC THIS IS GREAT TIMING
It may be a nitpick, but I found the reason for the exterminations quite confusing. In the opening, its said that the heaven do it to keep the hell in check, so they don't get too strong... but in the same episode its said that the extermination is happening due to the overpopulation of the hell.
Ehh that’s really not contradictory to me. Keeping hell in check and making sure they don’t get too strong by having too large of a population. A smaller population will keep them weaker-/ not allowing their armies to grow too large.
It’s culling the herd to prevent them from standing a rebellion.
This Is actually how you should point out the flaws of the show. Because i see videos with titles like ''Hazbin hotel is bad'' or ''hazbin hotel cannot be this stupid'' which all of them make the same points and arguments. but You actually pointed out the real problems and ways to fix it. Good job.
Things that really bug me about the show:
-We don't know why Charlie cares so much about redeeming sinners so its really hard to get invested in her as a character at times
-Alastor has some big mysterious plans going on but the show will flip around and say being at the hotel has slowly turning him soft as he slowly starts to care about the people in the hotel
-Carmilla Carmine, she doesn't want to cause a big fight with heaven and possibly lose her daughters but shes also a huge armsdealer selling it to not only sinners but hellborn as well
-charlies lack of wings, idk, her dad has them but she doesn't and I really don't know how that works I feel like it should be genetic or something
-where the hell did sir pentious get the egg bois? Are the egg bois also sinners who died beside him and have stayed with him in hell?
-cannibal town in general, like Idk how true this is but I heard rosie was hellborn and not a sinner so I thought that also applied to the cannibals. Like are they all sinners who were cannibals and created a whole town in hell or are they hellborns who chose to live in the pride ring to invite new cannbals? Also the black eyes they all have, what is that about?
-Nifty and Alastors whole relationship, like does alastor also have nifty under her control like husk? Or are they just good friends and Alastor thought nifty would enjoy it there?
-can hellborns be redeemed? They did nothing to get into hell but I'm sure all of them have regrets and would like to change. And if so, what would happen? Would they become winners? Angels? Like I dont see why they couldn't be redeemed but I understand that messes with Vivs world. But like, they dont even know what gets you into heaven so by that logic I dont see why hellborn couldn't get redeemed.
-Velvets role in the vees because Valentino has his studio and Vox has television and both have a pretty large mark, you never see that for velvet even though she talks a big game
-how vox's anatomy works, like i assumed his face was just a tv but he can stick his tongue out or drink coffee tbf this isnt really a big deal it just gets weird to think about
-do angels have families or are they just born one day and live in heaven? Like you never hear anything about Vaggies family in heaven or how she misses them.
-What made Vaggie question the exterminations after killing 1000s of sinners? Because lute, Adam, and all the other exterminators are a big fan of them so what made vaggie different.
-why did vaggie grow her wings back?
-what is Charlie? A nephilim? Because her dads a fallen angel and her mom was human but did she turn into a sinner? So is she half angel half human? What is her mom classified as, because shes certainly not human anymore..
-i get the whole 'charlie is a disney princess stuck in hell' but why is she so nice and cheerful especially given her home, like its even established in photos she had a emo phase so what changed?
-why is hell circus themed?
-where is Eve? Up in heaven?
-why are sinners/overlords ranked above hellborn in hells hierarchy?
-why do half the characters wear the same outfit with different colors? (I know the reason is because viv really likes those designs but im asking in-universe)
Heres more questions about helluva boss since its the same universe:
-why do hellhouds have the ability to turn themselves human if they can't even get to earth with special books like stolas? And why dont imps or anything other hellborn have this ability?
-why are 3/4 of the seven deadly sins we've been introduced to good people? They rule hell after all. Like I why Lucifer is, but the other two makes no sense to me.Tbf Bee comes across as kinda fake but she could also be genuine. Are the sins kinda like aunts and uncles to charlie and she got her kindness from them?
-why are dhorks set on Demons so hard?
-How did Chaz convince crimson he has money? Like dude went so far as to try and marry Moxxie and Chaz.
-Why is bee a fox/bee hybrid? I like the design im mostly just curious.
-why do the angels leave the cherubs on earth? Couldn't they have just set them to hell as punishment?
-the dhorks have a button called b*tch juice, what the hell does that do?
-why do scars turn imps skin white?
I think thats all the questions I have and I would like to add despite all these i still really like the show I just feels like it explains so much we dont need to know that we dont have time to get answers on something important. If anyone has anymore questions to add or has answers to any of these I'd love to hear them.
Ok so imma answer the hazbin hotel questions for u (well most of them anyway)
-carmilla is just an armsdealer, she doesn’t want war but will give weapons to anyone else if they need it, but only if her daughters won’t get harmed. (I think)
-Charlie is half human half Angel, so she might not get wings or she has them but just doesn’t know it yet.
-no one knows where the egg bois came from. Some people think that they are sir pentious’s minions who died with him.
-don’t think Rosie is a hellborn (she might be but idk) but she has the entire cannibal town under a contract to behave nicely. Everyone from cannibal town is a sinner, they probably were cannibals on earth and it carried over to hell. Since Rosie has a contract with the entire town, they all have black eyes like her. You can see the similarities with the person under a contract and the person who made the contract, like with Angel and Valentino (gold tooth), Vox and his assistant in episode 2 (lines going across his face which signals techs or smth), and Alastor with husk and nifty (all have yellow teeth). Think most of the cannibals in cannibal town were people in poverty who had no choice but to eat human meat, then kept eating it (probably from the Great Depression)
-Alastor owns nifty’s soul. A lot of people think that Alastor views nifty as his adopted daughter.
-hellborn cannot be redeemed. They have no souls (literally, they aren’t human) and because of that, they can’t change their souls for the better, because, well, no soul
-velvette is in charge of social media, Vox is in charge of news, and Valentino is in charge of the adult videos. Without velvette, Vox and Valentino would have a hard time sending out their videos
-idk about vox’s face. Weird hell logic, I think?
-think winners can’t reproduce like sinners, so vaggie probably didn’t have a family in heaven. She might have had friends though. Heavenborn can reproduce like hellborn (I think)
-vaggie probably felt bad for the sinners, and once she saw a child, she decided to let him go. Adam and lute (in my opinion) have this sort of bloodlust that has them kill or harm anyone.
- idk how vaggie got her wings back
-not sure what Charlie is but she is def half Angel
-honestly idk what happened either
- idk
-idk
-cuz overlords/sinners usually have some sort of power that hellborn don’t have
-idk but they look cool
@@EvelynTheLemon omg thank you!!! Sorry I literally just saw this
@@Karma-s1d lol its fine imma see if I can answer the helluva boss questions
4:00 I agree with this a lot. I've been keeping up with the show ever since the first preview of the pilot. However, when watching the show with my boyfriend, I could tell he was very very lost especially the first episode when it felt like the character introduction episode was missing. The show made it seem like we were supposed to know who these characters already are and the pacing made it so that there was just so much information being shoved down your throat at once. You shouldn't have to do homework or rely on a super fan of the show to get important pieces of lore in it.
As someone who consistently watches several hours of content discussing media I don't engage with, this analysis video is right up my alley.
Just wanted to touch on the topic of Angel Dust’s trauma mentioned at 11:17 as someone who’s a victim. I personally didn’t think there was anything wrong with his portrayal, but that’s just my perspective. I never got the feeling that his abuse was being romanticized and actually related to him a lot. I thought the show was more so trying to critique abuse in the entertainment industry, rather than say anything about Angel himself. The images in *that* song were definitely a bit triggering for me, but I viewed it as Angel dissociating and feeling as though he’s too far in to escape his abuse. Again, this is just my opinion on the topic, and i know other victims may have different views.
Overall, I really liked this video concept and I can’t wait to see your commentary on Ghost Trick!
Definitely agree with you. I was genuinely surprised when I found out that people thought it was glorifying abuse! The song was intense and not very subtle or sensitive I guess? but I thought the blunt portrayal was the point. The whole episode was very negative towards his abuser and I say this as someone who didn’t even really like the show that much.
Yeah, I totally agree with this. Although I’ve never been through any physical SA and just online stuff, I really related to his complience in the relationship. His lack of autonomy from Val due to his fear of being hurt is something that most if not all abusive/toxic relationships involve (including my own), romantic or not, and I think that’s another large aspect of _Poison_ that’s not really touched on a lot. The song is often taken as something solely sexual because of the imagery when in reality it’s not, it’s about all aspects of an abusive relationship and Angel’s compliance with his own.
All your comments can pretty much be applied to all of Vivziepop's works, even those that don't have an episode cap (eg Helluva Boss) or even her webcomics. She has a talent for character design and ideas but she is not a writer and hugely struggles with setup (she's even stated herself she enjoys writing angst and payoff, not buildup). If she could get someone who is to rein in her ideas and handle the writing side, all her works would be so much better for it.
Man... Ngl, as someone who's only seen the art for Hazbin and never the show itself (lack of interest), it never hit me that:
- That's Lucifer
- *That's Charlie's dad*
I just thought he was her "annoying younger brother" or something because of his baby face and being shorter 😂😭
I agree with a lot of your points! I casually started paying attention to the series like years ago, even before the pilot and I was worried watching the series due to some of the narrative flaws that it was gonna tank the show. I’m glad it didn’t but I thought some of the choices were…interesting. I think that there is also a hefty amount of the show runners trying to cater to long term fans who have seen some of these character designs and heard bits of lore and stuff for years and years. I understand the reasoning of course but narratively it winds up being very messy especially with the short amount of time they had. All in all I’m glad you had a well balanced critique and I’m hoping things are better in season 2 onward.
Your advice regarding altering the order to increase intrigue was genuinely thought provoking to me as a writer. I know it’s called “narrative academy” but I came looking for a hazbin critique, and left feeling like I learned a lot! Thanks!
Narrative Academy is such a great idea for a series on your channel! I'm super excited to see what other media you plan to bring on here, whether that be comics, shows, movies, anime, books, hell even stage plays and musicals! Having something like this in the back pocket to look at for reference would be fantastic for writers including myself. That fact that it's coming from you makes it all the better since not only will we get some great insight, but we'll also get some great art out of it.
The fans were waiting around 10 years (maybe more) for show to come out, I think that's why they fan fed the audience, giving everyone's favorite characters screen time and lore just to fed the fans like a 6 year old child feeding her first fish
As someone who does do their homework, I wanna say that alot of the questions are supposed to be answered in s2, and according to the writer is to be focused on most of the beginning questions mentioned. Overall though I think these questions are valid
OH ALSO YEAH, THE WRITERS BLANTENT FAVORITISM TO ANGEL MAKES ME SO MAD
ikr? I thought Hazbin was supposed to be about the girls. Isn’t that what Vivzie said when responding to complaints that Millie isn’t a character?
It just makes him feel like the most fleshed out character. Like I hope everyone has some significant lore written down somewhere to be expanded on later, but I'm always hearing about Alastor or Angel's backstories from people who watch the streams. It makes me wonder if they don't actually have anything for the other characters :/
I just wanna say that i loved the “class dismissed!” at the end! Honestly a great line for a series called “Narrative Academy”
Very well spoken! I hope to see you make more of these for other stories! I’ve been casually following Hazbin since before the pilot and it’s crazy to see how much it’s changed and how many people have seen it now. This show is the biggest example of the writers forgetting to include all the little details in their brain so the audience is just left confused.
And this is why I like Hellva Boss more
@@bridegetmadsen5759I think That helluva boss works better because it's episodic so there is more room to breathe. The background plot is still getting slowly revealed, but the main focus is on the individual stories in each episode. I think hazbin would have benefited from having a similar approach. I'm a noob to both shows though so maybe that's anathema to what they're going for lol
@@jacobwortham8068 that 2
the fact hazbin hotel got me into studying heaven/christan topics is wild,
Same even I know the bible by heart
12:29 I was 100% surprised by this choice as well. It comes back to: Hazbin Hotel, do you want to be episodic or have a running story?
Because normally stuff like this only gets resolved at the end of a season, or even at the end of a second season... or even the end of a show.
this is such a wonderful analysis Star !! I've personally never watched the series (I don't have prime) but the way you explained the story and the characters and how they could've been different/better made so much sense !!
I want to tell you something Star, YOU are a BIG help with motivating me to continue working on making my passion writing project become real, YOU motivated me to not just keep the stories I love to write to myself, YOU’RE the reason why I want to publish my stories instead of keeping them to myself and not letting the world outside of my friends and family see them, I love your videos and you are very inspiring to me, and you help give me hope that I can get the world to like what I’m passionate about writing, thank you Star.
The meeting in Heaven really should have been 2 episodes MINIMUM in my opinion. It was easy for me to ignore the pacing problems up until this specific episode. Charlie meets Emily and they go on this grand tour around heaven. What happened during that tour? Did Charlie bring up the differences between Heaven and Hell? Surely Emily would be curious? Did Emily try and defend Heaven with information Sera fed to her? Emily later accuses Sera of being condescending but WHERE did we actually see that occur? Where did we see Sera attempting to protect Emily from the truth about exterminations? Literally none of that is shown and we just have to take their word for it. Prime example of show don't tell.
I could go on about all the problem I have with this show, but I'll just keep it short. I love Hazbin Hotel, it's a fun watch and the music is prime earworm material, but it has many shortcomings and the pacing is a big part of that.
As a fan of Hazbin Hotel, I really liked this breakdown! It highlights some of the problems I had issues with, but more importantly, you said how they could be fixed! I like re-writing things in my head when someone I'm a fan of has problems that bother me. I think that, as fans, it's important to acknowledge that something we like has issues while still being able to enjoy it for what it is.
Personally I would have had Angel Dust be the one to sacrifice himself and then end up in Heaven at the end of the season. And the story that could have been told with this could very well be Angel Dust not having any real idea, like everyone else, exactly _WHY_ and _HOW_ he actually got there.
Now he's in Heaven... but why and how? That could very well continue to gnaw at him when coupled with his overall low self-esteem. Was he sent to Heaven simply because he was vaporized by an Angel? Was it something about how he sacrificed himself, but if so was one single act of self-sacrifice really enough to actually redeem someone like him? And of course, Angel being Angel likely wouldn't completely change his rather scathing personality right away despite getting into Heaven, which could lead to both comedic and dramatic moments as he interacts with Heaven's denizens, all while he desperately tries to figure out what to do with himself now that he has very suddenly been torn from the life that, while he detested, was nonetheless used to and immersed in for a very long time.
With Sirpentious, I doubt we'll get any of that. In many ways Sirpentious almost was a sinner that really didn't deserve to be in Hell at all; he was too ineffectual at being evil to have caused any real harm, he was too quick to want to change his ways and be better which suggested an overall good soul right off the bat, and him getting into Heaven really seems more like a chance for comedy rather than drama or pathos in the following season/s. Now I could be wrong and maybe this will lend itself to some deep character dive into him in season 2... but there really wasn't anything in season 1 to suggest anything particularly deep in Sirpentious' backstory that could be brought up in season 2 without feeling like it's being ripped straight out of the aether.
You which show did an amazing job about redemption and the unfair system of most depictions of the afterlife? The Good Place. They showed how the system was unfair. They used a point system, if you did good things, you gained points. If you did bad things, you lose points. But they showed why the system could be rigged. You could be the best person ever, be in a bad mood one day, then raise your voice at someone, you lose points and risk going to the Bad Place. In Hazbin Hotel, Heaven seems very chill and loose. I’ve seen many people associate strictness and a lack of free will and self with Heaven. It was… interesting to see the opposite. Heaven honestly just felt like Hell put in pastels and less nudity. For a place that’s meant to be unfair and represent the flaws of how the afterlife can work, we don’t see a lot of it.
And this is the main thing we need to ask. Why are we wasting time on a show with a premise it doesn’t deliver, when I can watch something that has the same premise but is executed better?
There’s nothing wrong with using concepts or troupes, despite them being done many times. But what makes or breaks the writing of them is how that writer executes them.
For example, I want to watch an adaptation of the abduction of Persephone but I’d like to see a romance bit with it. Now, finding hades and Persephone romance are easy… but the problem is most of the versions have so many similarities (demonizing Demeter) that it’s hard to enjoy a new retelling when it’s the same troupes as the old ones and don’t have enough change or nuance to stick out. Why would I wanna read *your* Hades and Persephone fanfic where it paints them as a perfect couple while demonizing Demeter, when I have can read ten others that do the exact same thing?!
It’s no different than asking, “why would I watch Hazbin Hotel that has a rushed plot, stereotypical characters with hardly any development that’s earned, confusing plots and morals and terribly humor? When I can watch The Good Place with better pacing, more complex characters, and detailed concepts of corrupted morals?”
@@cosmok-1367 I understand what you’re saying and I agree. I do want to clarify that I don’t think Hazbin should be a copy of the good place. Merely that Hazbin should take more opportunities to show how the afterlife is unfair, or hint at it. Maybe season 2 will take that opportunity.
Personally, I think we watch it for the payoff. Some want to see it finally end and some want to see it improve itself. A lot of people watch things for the ending. The ending it the opportunity to tie everything together. I think so many hope to see improve and end as nearly as possible. Especially since this was huge for indie animation.
I'm so angry that they broke the promise of the premise. The show was always advertised as a show about redeeming sinners and growing past your lower point, whether it be by bad decisions (sinners) or bad luck (hellborn). It was also supposed to be a show about proving naysayers wrong and overcoming the odds through courage and tact.
But the show didn't do that. The show did not _want_ to be what it was. So when Charlie speaks to an angel in the first episode-and we're ignoring the fact that Adam is somehow the most powerful-he is shown to be an unapologetic asshole through and through, front to back. Instead of sparking some kind of deal with him so that Charlie's plan to redeem sinners has a chance to work, Adam shuts her down immediately and is completely unreasonable. He is not sly or underhanded yet cocky, he does not have a superiority complex but feels morally icky about commiting genocide, he has no character traits beyond "meanie". That's because the show doesn't want to be what it is supposed to be.
If the show wanted to deliver on the promise of the premise, then Adam would have had some weakness of his character-either an ego that would compel him to make a deal with Charlie (6 months to prove that you can rehabilitate people or we have to slaughter more frequently becasue of Hell's overpopulation) believing like everyone else that she will fail _AND/OR_ having a weakness in character that, because the angels find it unmoral to get their hands dirty by exterminating, would make him willing to give Charlie a chance to prove herself to solve both of their problems.
If the show _wanted to be what it was supposed to be_ it never would have been about war at all.
This is exactly the kind of analysis I really want to see more of, dissecting popular shows/media in order to learn more about the successes and pitfalls of crafting a compelling narrative! I really enjoyed your discussion and agree with a lot of your points. I look forward to future episodes in this series!!
Honestly watching Hazbin Hotel and noticing the ways it fell short have actually been a huge inspiration in shaping my own writing. The biggest thing I noticed, which was touched on in the video, is the way that important world and character information just... isn't established very well, if at all. I do wonder if a part of the reason this is a problem is because, given it's huge online presence even before the show came out and side content, there was a bit of an expectation that certain things were just already known - sort of similar to the liberties fanfiction is able to take, assuming a level of familiarity with the material. It made me really reflect on how I plan to establish and introduce my world and characters in my own fiction, which I am grateful for, especially since I know I have struggled with it in projects I've done in the past.
Loved the video, and I hope to see more in the future!!
I love all your points in this video especially the point that you are only taking the shows information. An issue with some fans is that when someone brings up a weakness they point to external sources for an explanation. Sure a really deep fan of the show is willing to go through thousands of tweets, hundreds of hours of livestreams and the prequel comics to get more info but your average viewer won't. Extra content is fun and a great place for fun extra information but important things to the plot or the function of the show needs to be in the show. I love your take which used what is already there and just places them differently.
i just wish the first ep was more like the pilot like angels character wasnt all about sex and showed his and cherri's friendship and showed that they were close friends. they barely spent time together in the show IMO
Nice as it is to see indie projects find popularity, this show doesn't deserve all the recognition it's getting.
There are so many other indie projects that are FAR superior, yet get overlooked.
This one is so popular because it's a +18 collage of OCs for children to use.
While it clames to be a show for adults, most fans are teens (and young adults who were teens or pre-teens when the pilot came out). Feels like watching the new avatar live action.. "it's for adults bc there's violence"... The og one was way more adult than that thing..
Explicit doesn't mean 'adult'.
Most lines are either cheep or on the nose.. Or both.. And are saved only by the incredible voice acting and interesting animation.
The way it "explores" dark themes is also poorly handled.
Angel's episode is really good in a vacuum, but there.. It just feels like dark fanservice.
It's the only episode that takes it's time exploring something really dark, and it's not about the main character, but a random guy in the group.. Because of course the twink drug addictict "adult film" star who's in a toxic gay relationship is fandom's favorite cake.
Is there something wrong with being any of the above? No.
Is there something wrong with exploring any of the above? Also no.
But to pretend it's not messed up that the only traumatic life we see down to the very detail is this one, that doesn't even belong to the main character, THAT is something to look out for.
Expecially with how many times this happens both in this series and Helluvaboss.. Most main ships (both official and unofficial) are mlm..
The main character is in a wlw relationship and nobody could care less. Blink and you miss it.
This show IS dark, but not for the reasons it claimes to be.
You're just mad because the show is more successful than anything you'll ever do in your life
I just discovered this channel and I have to say that your ability to convey information while remaining respectful of the material you're critiquing is practically perfect. You prefaced the criticism with honest feedback, followed up with encouragement, and gave clear, concise reasoning for what you gave. This is not the kind of work I expect from a TH-cam channel; this is the sort of thing I got when I paid copious amounts of money to attend university lectures.
Bravo.
As a fan of this show here a few things I’d like to mention:
‘Demon’ is the term for the sinners, people who were born on earth, hellborn, imps, a species of hellborn, and hellhounds.
(Shown in helluva boss)
Also I’m still confused about them getting killed in hell, there so far is no explanation on this.
Angel was told be the first sinner at the Hazbin hotel, because of free rent like you said, so yeah, extra viewing like you said.
Here’s some of my pet peeves:
Carmilla said ‘they were surrounded by angles’ but surely if she killed one the surrounding angles would say something?
It’s not like she killed multiple otherwise I think that would’ve been more prominent.
Also, the dead Angel is just out in the open? Wouldn’t someone notice that?
Rosie is a cannibal, sure, but those are a species of hellborn, cannibals, sure Rosie could just be a well respected cannibal, but she goes to an overlords meeting?
Overlords have to be sinners.
Then, the child that Vaggie lets go seems to be a Cannibal, but those aren’t sinners? The kid shouldn’t have been a target in the first place.
Also why do angels seem so weak?
Lute just causally pulls out Vaggie’s wings… and she also regrows them, with no explanation…
But I do want to say that I do mostly agree with your pints and I can definitely see where you’re coming from!
It's currently unknown if Rosie and the citizens of Cannibal Town are hellborns or sinners. Vivienne never claimed that Rosie wasn't a sinner. It was a former illustrator and visual developer of the series known as Faustisse. Since they no longer work for Vivienne, it's likely not considered canon anymore. So, there's a possibility that Rosie and the citizens of Cannibal Town might be sinners, but it currently hasn't been confirmed.
Yeah, it just seems weird how they are a specific species of sinners
Your idea for how to restructure the show is actually perfect and feels like the best solution to the issues present. Episode 4 being character focused was actually what hooked me because I was hoping we’d get more character focused episodes like the one we got with Angel. I really enjoyed Hazbin but something felt off about the plot and pacing, and you basically explained what felt wrong. Your art style literally looks amazing btw!!
If your confused If someone gets stabbed and die via normal weapon.. that sucks back to respawn sixer. But if it’s by angelic steel that’s game over. Also great vid 😁
I am pretty sure this is never stated in either the pilot OR the show since I've watched both and don't remember this? Correct me if I'm wrong though.
@@dawntherin2833 Yeah it’s stated on a old live that’s why I hope they explain it in s2 because that is one of this shows big issues info being in lives
@@dawntherin2833 sadly was mentioned in a meeting with vivzie. So not that easily accessible
yeah i would like to know
That's the issue I have with the series as a whole. Any plot hole or important lore is explained away by Vivsiepop herself or some live stream clip from 5 years ago. If you want to make a good story, the story elements should be present in the actual media instead a random tweet or video.
I really liked the Pilot when it first came out but I have to say I was unimpressed with the show. My biggest gripe is that Vivian decided to change the plot. In the pilot it was says that the reason for the purges was because Hell could become overpopulated, but now it's because Heaven is threatened by Hell. This sounds more like a plot twist if anything. It would have worked way better if it was found out later. Another thing that bugs me is that there are too many characters, and none really get to do much. The most liked character Alastor barely did anything. The only one that got any real attention was Angel Dust, and I'm not particularly thrilled with his development either.
Sadly, Vivzie isn't big on "show, don't tell" or having necessary inform IN THE SHOW. She expects you to follow the twitter accounts for extra information or know the streams from 2017.
Amazing video! Even as a fan of the show, I got frustrated with the flaws and writing choices as well and I agree with your critique, but I'm glad that the video wasn't only negative. I also loved your art and I hope to see more analysis of other shows from you!
I 1000% agree with your take of putting the important stuff in the story rather than outside sources. My personal rule I follow is "if it's not in the source material or an official side project, it's not canon."
Honestly i agree with most of not all the points here its really nice to finally hear actual real critisism instead of just aim less hate and i'd especially agree with the part abt vaggie tbh it always kinda bugged me too tbh its sad because in my opinion vaggie is one of my favorite characters but theres still so much missed potential here again i do agree with most if not all of your points here
This also in general comes from someone who loves hazbin and has for pretty long now but its hard to ignore the problems it has
I think my biggest problem is the pacing. They solved who killed the angel within minutes, and they treated Vaggie’s angel reveal like a big reveal in court when we already saw it 5 minutes ago
I don't get why people are so annoyed about Angel's episode. Like, I legitimately do not know how anyone can, with a straight face, say they think it "glorrifies" SA. Like, you have to have actually not paid attention. Just because it involved a pop song does not mean it wasn't treating that situation VERY seriously
I think it's because her merch of Angel Dust and Valentino is very sexualized. It's a bit weird to make keychains of a victim of sex work being abused by their pimp.
@@radioactivegum2298yeah like. She's been caught on twitter liking ahip art of Valentino + angel dust where the latter is clearly being abused. Not to mention one of the storyboarders who openly fetishize that stuff
Maybe it's because im somewhat religious, but the seven heavenly virtues should have been brought up to counter Charlie. Plus, the sins of the sinners never get brought up either. For example, if a sinner was a serial killer, should they get a second chance.
Yeah, you’d think for a show wanting to focus on redemption and being set in Hell, they would have understood how sins work and what brings someone to hell or sends them to Heaven. I say as I myself am not religious, but I do have basic knowledge of many mythology’s as well as moral code.
Also the fact not even the angels know how to get someone into heaven, is a massive plot hole. Because if you don’t know how someone comes to heaven, how do you know that person isn’t actually someone bad in disguise? Does that mean some good people actually got sent to hell? I can’t tell if this plot hole is meant to make us think or because Viv hasn’t actually thought that out. And considering her tract record, I’m sure it’s the latter.
At least the Good Place understood this concept and it handled it way better!
32:35 100% agree. I know Alastor smells crazy. I already know he doesn’t brush them yellow ass teeth. I doubt he even uses mints.
The way vaggie acts throughout the show makes me convinced that she wasn't meant to be an angel UNTIL THE REVEAL
As a writer myself, It's so interesting learning how other people use narrative structure, and how I can improve mine too! Plus Your cartoon avatar is so adorable! ^w^
I find it interesting to see someone's point of view that wasn't in the fandom years before the show was released. Not saying you're wrong about the criticism of outside sources being the main way of knowing things (I completely agree), but the difference in how we view certain things like Mimzy showing up was basically fanservice for the people who were in the fandom for a while, and the Vees were also really fun to learn about as an older fan. As much as I appreciate their introductions as a fan from before the show, I wish they were given better opportunities to shine as opposed to kind of 'harming' the show's final product because a good show should be able to have older and newer fans enjoy the show in similar ways.
Angel dust being abused by Valentino is seen as terrible, but Sir pent getting sexually assaulted is seen as funny in the show. Does anyone see the problem here?
Wait what?
Not me waiting through the Sir Pentious segment chewing on my cheek waiting to ask if you watched the post-credits scene
Animator: "To make this animation work, we're going to need 26 episodes."
CEO: "No no no, you're getting a thousand. One Piece can't end yet."
Animator: "No, I'm talking about a different show."
CEO: "Diffrent to One Piece?"
Animator: "Yes! And I need 26 epis-"
CEO: "The best I can do is 12."
28:20 and specially DON'T MAKE A 6 MONTH GAP in the first SEASON!
MAYBE if there were more episodes but yeah. That ep (was it 6? 7?) reveal that the extermination was a week away was like. What. How has it been that long 💀
@diddykitty746 Yeah and in all that time how many sinners redeemed?
Sirpentious was like the first week the hotel was open. And Dust hasn't been redeemed yet.
So... To prove her point Charlie got the "still in progress" of her "goodness school" was... 2 people.
In almost a year. Yeah sure heaven will take you seriously.
You dealing with the worst human known is of course extra points.
Now why the hell do you want the hotel if you know that is pointless?
You started a holy war.
@@maravreloaded the show really just needed more time. They could have expanded on so many things, like Charlie's motivation and belief in the good of people, for wanting to do something that had never been done before despite no one thinking its possible. But we didnt have the time, so season 1's ending felt like it had come too soon.
Relevant and constructive, you articulated exactly what bugged me but couldn't get my finger on. Great work!
Some other hot takes: This series shouldn’t be a musical. The actors are all incredible but it simply isn’t long enough both in episode length and in season length to be a musical. Musical songs tend to be pretty long, and that’s for good reason.
For example “Hell’s greatest dad” is an electro-swing diss track between two people. It’s in a genre of music known for having long instrumental solos, and for it to communicate the conflict of Alastor and Lucifer, we should see them go back and forward with a couple of verses each, at least two choruses and a bridge, as well as some of the bouts of fiddle and piano. If it were me, and I’d make this song about 4 minutes. Instead it’s only 2min 15 seconds. Compare that to other musical numbers that are confrontations between two people: Cabinet Battle #1 from Hamilton is 3min 30sec, Confrintation from Jekyll and Hyde is 4mins 26 secs, and while Les Mis’ ‘Confrontation’ is only 2min 30secs, it’s not a jazz number.
And this happens with most of the songs. They are jam packed with key changes and tempo changes and time changes, that listening to them feels like somebody cut a better song in half. Ideas and motifs are discarded so quickly that it often feels like you’ve listened to halves of different songs stitched together. I think “You didn’t know” is the best example of this. This is the most climatic song of series, a huge turning point, what should be the best song in the series, a huge ensemble song with so many people and it’s only a little over three minutes. Compare that to Hamilton’s ‘Non-Stop’ which is 6 mins and 24 seconds… the only two songs that I think take enough time and are paced well enough are ‘loser’ and ‘poison’.
Anyway, that’s my music critic.