The Controversial "Decline" Of Stella - Helluva Boss
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 พ.ค. 2023
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What other Helluva Boss Topics should I talk about?
striker being more of a caricature of himself.
Strikers giant erection statue
I have heard a lot of complaints about Striker. Maybe that would be interesting. Love your video's keep up te good work! :)
Or, could Moxxie and Striker be related?😊
i haft to correct you yes stella was placed as a nice mother by octavia in ep 2 when they were yelling did she blame stella for not being around? no. did she say how stella acted like a bitch to both them? no. in fact according to Octavia she was even happy before they started fighting which even says she was not a mother who was never around. octavia blamed her dad for the fights. so if octavia turns out to be a bitch in every sense of the word ep 2 would not be cannon.
Just a reminder to everyone that the writers do not care about your headcanons, nor should they be compelled to.
Fr tho when was the last time that creators not caring about headcanons ruined something?
I have like 5 examples of how authors taking headcanons too seriously ruined the story but I can't remember any time someone trying to incorporate a plot point indirectly tied to a franchise into said franchise ever went well
@@airplanes_aren.t_real is it safe to assume rwby is one such case?
@@airplanes_aren.t_real literally bendy and the ink machine
Star vs the forces of evil reacted to fanon in real time and it sucked after season 2 for it
@@airplanes_aren.t_real Homestuck is the best case scenario and Andrew Hussie isn't even a part of it anymore.
I think the problem with Stella is not that her character was “retconned” (she’s always been horrible) but that she’s just really boring. You can make an engaging villain without making them sympathetic but Stella is like a cardboard cutout. Everything she does revolves around hating Stolas and that’s it. She has no outside interests or hobbies, and her relationships to other characters either directly involves Stolas (brother helps her with her divorce, Striker is hired to kill her husband, friends are there for her to talk shit about Stolas) or nonexistent (Octavia). She feels less like a person and more of a prop the writers bring out to make you feel bad for Stolas.
Honestly though, that fits with her essentially being that 'trust fund kid" type of person (not that all children born rich are like this, but stereotypes and all that). All she has is parties and money and nothing else really going on. So when someone steps in her way, she latches onto the drama of it and blows it out of proportion bc she's never had any other struggle or reasons to develop hobbies/interests. She's always just had what she needs. Her being a cardboard cutout of a person tracks imo bc there are real life people that act like her bc they grew up so privileged and with zero motivation to develop any sort of anything that requires effort.
I think she's perfectly fine just being a simple bad guy whose boring barely below the surface.
My issue with this is people do this ALL THE TIME with abusive boyfriends and husbands and NOBODY CARES! A shitty boyfriend or husband can just be a shitty boyfriend or husband but for some reason a shitty girlfriend or wife can't be one dimensional. We see the abusive dad, husband, boyfriend tropes all the time and they're usually the same dbag. But for some reason when it's a women she has to be different.
But I also feel like that's the whole point. She has made it so that her every action revolves around her cheating husband so she gets praised, gets attention, gets pitied etc.
@@lexyruse603if I can give my input- it's just more obvious when a female character isn't given alot of time writting when compared to a male character cause right now, there is discussions about misogyny in writting happening.
@@couldyounotdude3168the creator is a woman so-
Stella herself may not have been changed in season 2, but her relationship with Stolas was. Everything in season 1 pointed to her being distant and uninterested at worst before the cheating became a thing. Season 2 now instead tells us that no, she's actually been physically and emotionally abusive to Stolas from day 1.
yeah and as a lot of people pointed out, that doesn't make sense because octavia would see that, or at least would know that something's not right. the children ALWAYS know that something is wrong. It would only work if Stella was an expert manipulator-gaslighter etc but she's clearly not as shown in this episode.
@@elswayr4525 None of what you just said is true though: Children growing up in abusive households often normalize the abuse going on around them, to the point that they sooner assume that the abuse is the way it is in all other families as well.
@@GrahamChapman and that is why we believe Stella has changed. what Octavia say in season one make no sense now. it was implied that things have changed enough to be noticeable by her but the way season two makes it out the only thing that changed was Stella is secretly hiring an assassin behind both Octavia and Stolass backs. Octavia wouldn’t have been upset about how her parents No longer “care” for each other and are fighting so the conflict in looloo land is lost.
@@shadeofthenight8988 No it still does. You have to look at what Stolas says in the same scene. "She's always been..." "We weren't in..." and keeps cutting himself off. He's trying to -admit- to things, and it's not hard to figure out what he's trying to say here. Stella and Stolas have always had a bad relationship. Stella has always said these things. But from what we can see in the pre-cheating scenes. From that episode and the one in S2. Stolas was tolerable for her, because he was her punching bag and he hated it.
But he never told Octavia, and from the sound of it in the same scene she says "now you two just hate each other". Tried to hide it from her.
@@strifeandharmony6472 except in season two it’s been shown that Stella has been open about her hate and abuse where as in season one what Octavia ( and then later asmodeus) says implies that it wasn’t and that her parents would fake it at the very least to not only her but the public. If she was openly as abusive from the start as what season two says Octavia would have grown up with it being normal to her so the conflict is lost. It would just be about Stolas no longer paying attention to her and not that her parents hate each other now because the relationship between them was always abusive she would just think it’s normal.
I really wished they went with a more grey route for Stella
Specially now that we're introducing her brother...
keeping her brother as the evil one after Stolas wealth while making her "I don't care about you, but I care about our child and your cheating has insulted my honor as a noble" would have been a lot more interesting, like, I know they're making her cartoonishly evil to make Stolas cheating more acceptable, but they can both be in the wrong and still be interesting and likable
maybe we'll get more thanks to her icy brother convincing her to hold off on having him killed. so she's still in the story and there's still time for us to learn some things about her that'll make her likeable. maybe even get proper character development. maybe not enough to make her as likeable as Stolas but hopefully enough to make her interesting enough for people criticizing every single thing to calm the hell down... unless they find something else to get angry about IF it happens, which I'm sure they will.
Nah, Grey villains have become being overdone after Thanos’s popularity skyrocketed, going back to the cartoonishly evil assholes who love being evil is such a breath of fresh air. Not every villain needs to be grey or relatable now, some of the best villains were not relatable tragedies, but just straight up douchebags, The Emperor, Joker, Sauron, Hans Gruber, Hannibal Lecter, Darkseid and so on, yeah Thanos is up there, but so many medias are trying to jump the bandwagon he started and it’s getting really annoying.
@@baron6588 Villains or antagonists with nuance have been widespread since stories where being told, Thanos (comics or MCU) didn't really affect anything.
Hell even within those examples, The Emperor is loved but outweighed in popularity by Darth Vader, Sauron is iconic but so is Gollum, the Joker's most famous story is the Killing Joke and one of the closest things he has to a sympathetic depiction, Hannibal Lecture while not ambiguous is still often portrayed as having his own set of principles and strong interiority.
Villains can range the whole prism in nuance, but what matters is execution.
@@gota7738 Except I never said or meant that nuanced villains were not widespread before Thanos, nor did I say nuance villains are worse than pure evil villains. I said overdone, and every example you have made is before Thanos started making nuance villains overdone. Your right, it is all about the execution, and that includes making your villain nuanced because it makes sense for you character, or making your villain nuanced because it’s the popular trend everyone now expects from every villain now, even pure evil villains suffered from this too for a period of time. I probably worded my comment wrong, though I clearly said they were overdone, never hinting that they weren’t widespread before Thanos, those words are different.
@@baron6588Sorry your right, saying 'some of the best' rather than 'the best', I misread. I do agree with the sentiment that the antagonist or villain should be fitted for the story rather than following other media.
However if I'm right in assuming we're talking about MCU Thanos, then I can't say I've observed any uptick in nuanced or morally grey villains after his film appearances. The MCU itself tended to lean towards sympathetic villains in the build up to Thanos taking centre stage.
Stella’s character is descending into/slowly revealing to be a “bimbo” which surprises me. I honestly thought she’d be cunning like a disney villian😂I love it regardless lol
My head cannon is that she’s acting out of character. Not due to the writers but due to her being so cocky that she’s won. People get sloppy when they think they’ve won.
I mean she was calling to striker about him needing to kill Stolas at the dinner table in front of Stolas. She's never been cunning, she's just dangerous cause she goes to great ends to get her way.
This is how I always pictured her. Like from her first appearance she always seemed very superficial and surface level.
Her voice gave unbearable ex bimbo vibes . If you seen certain movies . It's actually a thing.
Not a bimbo, bimbos fall under three traits. That's being sexy, friendly, and naive
Stella falls under only being sexy and naive
Look.... are characters not allowed to be "just bad people"? There doesn't need to be some childhood trauma that we need to cry about
How about we listen to what Chorus has to say before commenting on a video 2 minutes after it was uploaded…
People are so focused on humanizing fictional characters that they forget that writers of media only have so much sooo much to cover before they drop dead.
@@ashleypisarts People can still post their opinions beforehand lol
Jack Horner: You know, I never had much as a kid. Just loving parents, stability, and a mansion... and a thriving baked goods enterprise for me to inherit.
Big Jack Horner and The High Evolutionary are two good examples of what you’re talking about
You see, here's where the problem with Stella really is:
During her first appearance in the show, it is implied through Octavia that her parents didn't use to hate each other, making emphasis on how Stolas ruined their family by sleeping with Blitz. This HEAVILY implies Stella and Stolas used to get along at least a little bit, not to mention we've seen the two share bed without yelling at each other.
The family portraits around the house depict them as a once "happy" family, and they're a lot and not just one.
Point being:
You can tell there was going to be more behind Stella other than "she hates Stolas even before cheating", they clearly had a simple idea at the time, that being the affair between Stolas and Blitz causing a family collapse, in which Stolas isn't respected by neither his wife nor his daughter.
However, as the episodes progressed, you can tell the writers realized Stolas was coming across as a dick for all the shit he's done, and backpedaled so hard by saying "Nono! Guys! He's a VICTIM!!! Stella is a massive bitch and has TOTALLY been always like this since day 1!" even tho this was NEVER the implication during her first appearance.
Now I want to clarify and say I'm not saying that Stella was a goody two shoes wife of the year, but she was clearly not meant to be a cardboard cutout who's only trait is hating on Stolas.
The writers wanted an easy route to make the audience feel bad for Stolas and exempt him from any possible faults, make him a victim, so their only logical solution was to write Stella in a way that the audience would have literally no choice but to root for Stolas, and that's so fucking LAZY.
Stolas and Blitz' relationship went from something truly complex in which both characters had faults and flaws, to just a "perfect/meant to be" relationship with no flaws.
Stella was not necessarily ruined, but she was most likely cucked by being made into this one dimensional character when it is clear this wasn't the original direction they intended for her, she was used as the writer's easy way to make Stolas an innocent boy.
EXACTLY, you put it into word better than I ever could.
I agree with everything. It's clear they changed the direction because Viv grew to love Stolas and Blitzo so much she wanted the audience to see them as these UwU baby boys that just need love but in reality, it's just bland and lost all of the complexity. Octavia and even Asmodeus himself implied that Stolas had a fairly comfortable life with Stella, if not perfect. (Octavia says "when my parents didn't hate each other" and Asmodeus says "You used to have a smokin' wife, a kid, you had it all!")
In the looloo land ep, I did find it interesting that Stella was embarrassed because Stolas slept with an imp. Okay, they didn't love each other, but hey maybe Stella just puts up with Stolas because he gives her a high standing among the Goetias right? Not likely anymore, because in a later episode Stella is so open about embarrassing her husband for the sake of being a "bitch". Like girl, calling your husband a pathetic man will look bad on you, too 💀
It's clear they added Striker to make things more complex.
I agree with that, however I don't necessarily think Hulleva boss is aiming to be a very deep and complex show. It's not it's selling point. It's an episodic series. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't critique it, however in making statements like it's lazy. I think it's good to clarify that that it's not the writers or even management that's being "lazy" they've chosen a simpler option because it's easier. These are writers with experience we are talking about, it's not as if they couldn't make stella complex with ease. However we should take into account the necessity for a shows themes that are needed to be dumbed down a little or shorten for the sake of time. More complex themes need more episodes which needs more animators which needs more money. Money which is being used to invest on everything else such as marketing, and the other projects that vivziepop has going on. I think this is an important factor that people need to take into account when talking about such topics because it can lead to people just blaming the writers. Because I'm really sorry but it's not groundbreakingly hard to envision stella as being a morally complex character. But stella isn't part of the main cast, neither is she really a major villain and this is a comedic show. So although I would love to see a more complex stella I can't really submit to the idea that it's a big problem that the little hints of nuaince were cut from growing into something bigger.
"it is implied through Octavia that her parents didn't use to hate each other" I'm sorry but this is just straight up denial. The context cues outside of Octavia were screaming that Stolas and Stella had nothing real going on, and that she only cared about the money. The first thing we ever see her do is push her parental responsibilities onto Stolas, then we immediately hear that she didn't care about the affair, only the status issue of it. We have *never* seen them have a good relationship. And Octavia isn't really a reliable source, because Stolas has deliberately made sure not to disrupt her life as much as possible. So the likelihood is Stella was throwing insults at him left, right and center and he went along with it, pretending to find it funny or whatever for Octavia's sake. Just because she thinks things were okay, that doesn't mean they were. She's a kid, of course she's going to assume the best of her parents.
@@Lotan_ ???
Denial of what? Literally NOTHING during Stella's first appearances pointed at the current Stella that we are shown now, the worst thing she ever did was feel offended that Stolas slept with an Imp of all things, but nowhere does it make her seem like this massive bitch who already hated him even before this event happened.
Octavia IS the reliable source since she is telling her perspective of the situation, in which she literally states her parents didn't use to hate each other, that there was at least SOME degree of tolerance between each other that allowed her to see a side of their marriage that wasn't just constant hatred for the other.
The level of despise Stella has for Stolas and her shameless and open way of making fun of him as we see now is something IMPOSSIBLE for Octavia to completely gloss over, especially if she was this quick to immediately blame Stolas for ruining their family for sleeping with Blitz, she would've been 100% capable of catching onto her own mother's bullshit if Stella was truly like this all the time.
Also did you not read the part where I mentioned that they are SHOWN sharing bed? The Stella we see now would've forced Stolas to sleep on a dog's bed or some humiliating shit like that, but that wasn't the case because that clearly wasn't the intended direction for her at the time.
The problem with Stella is not that her being cartoonishly evil is a bad thing on its own, but rather that it's in direct conflict with Octavias character arc. Because Octavia's entire struggle is basically "I was a sheltered child and lived a nice privileged life with my daddy and my mummy and everything was nice and everyone was happy but then dad ruined it cause he cheated on mum and now my entire happy little world is collapsing and I can't figure out what to do and what to feel towards my parents" and that makes sense, thats a great story, except it falls flat on its ass if her mother is a fucking cartoon villain who just gets off of abusing her dad because the girl is 17 ffs, I would get if a particularly slow 7 year old child wouldn't be able to see that her mum fucking torments the dad and doesn't give a fuck about her, but she's not 7. Like, unless she was at like boarding school for 10 years and only got letters from her family she could miss it, but I don't think that's the case. And really, you cant say Stella is a "master maniplulator who was faking loving Octavia to make her take her side" because she doesn't give a fuck and why would she, she's a cartoon villain. So, circling back to the topic, if anything "ruined" Stella, it was s2 ep1, but even then, making Stella simple 2d villain didn't really "ruin" her as much as it ruined Octavia, who I now am forced to perceive as either immature, childish and unable to understand any kind of nuance and complexity in relationships in her own family, or just straight up fucking blind because there is no way a 17 year old with a mum like Stella would react to her parents relationship going towards a divorce with anything other that "fucking finally, took you long enough".
Exactly! And if Stella had no qualms about airing their dirty laundry to their friends, who's to say she didn't abuse him in front of Octavia? And if Stolas never fought back, in front of or not around Octavia, why does she blame him for their separation? She should be mad at him, but she should also be mad at her mom. I wouldn't be surprised if they play it off with a montage of her wearing her earbuds while they fight.
EXACTLY!!!!! RIGHT ON POINT!!! PEOPLE ARE MAD SLOW FOR NOT UNDERSTANDING THIS
THIS.
I don't know if my point of view on this will be appreciated but I'm going to give it a go. Disclaimer, I am only speaking my own opinions from my own experiences as a sheltered child of an abusive home.
Children from abusive homes don't always know any better and grow up still dearly loving their dysfunctional, crazy and abusive parent. Especially if they grow up majorly isolated and sheltered, with less opportunities to see what a normal relationship looks like there is nothing for them to compare their parents relationship too. Watching a severe power dynamic between parents when growing up can actually make the child take the abusers side, because they are being fed the idea that the more passive parent deserves it. "If your father did x when I told him I wouldn't have to slap him and scream". "If your mother would stop doing y I wouldn't need to cheat on her/hit her." and so on. If a child sees this behavior every day as they grow up it can very easily lead to them seeing this as completely normal because they grew up desensitized to it. That doesn't mean they are happy with the situation, but they think this is the way things are. For example, because it happens every time the child learns that when mother says do something, and you disobey, the consequence is being hit. So when father comes along and keeps repetitively doing things (possibly completely normal things) that wind up mother and make her abuse him, the child may start to think "why are you so dumb, why do you keep making her mad?" and "This is all your own fault, you know she will react like this." This thinking doesn't make the kid 'slow', and it doesn't mature out with age, the only way to heal from that is to experience healthy relationships, which may not be something that happens until later in life, if at all.
Which brings me to Octavia's family in the show, the point being that all of this is happening in hell! There's not a lot of 'healthy' relationships to go round. Abuse and suffering is everywhere on a scale that we can't even imagine. What is supposed to inspire Octavia to take her fathers side? From her point of view they both suck, but Stolas in her eyes might be the match to Stella's fuse every time things go wrong. Of course she's going to hold him responsible for the collapse of their family overall. Bonus points because blaming Stolas for everything all the time is probably a behavior demonstrated to her by Stella.
Now, I obviously don't know if this particular abusive family dynamic is what they are going for in the show, and I am in no way implying that my personal take on the story is the correct one. Its just the vibe I get from the story so far and why I relate a lot to Octavia as a character a lot from this perspective.
@@foxinabox2309 that makes sense and as a person with, how I like to call it, complicated, because I dont think it was bad enough to consider it abusive, home life I understand your point. Really, it might be the case, but if so, it probably should have been explored more by the show. It might be coming in the future episodes for all we know to be fair
stella couldn't be 'ruined' when our only interactions with her was her yelling. That's literally all we've seen from her, angry and yelling. So we had no reason to believe she was anything but emotion fueled. They didn't give us any reason to sympathize with her but it's far from a character assassination. She was never likeable.
But her intimidation and villainous effect could be.
Idk the sympathy is cause Stolas cheated on her and at the time, before we learnt she didn’t care, that was enough of a motive. Kind of like Scar being jealous of his brother or the Evil Queen from Snow White being insecure. Doesn’t justify them but it’s something
@@valentinkambushev4968 be damned cause she’s hella childish now. I wanna go back to the Harvest Moon episode 😭
@@devilheartcandy no, nothing scar did was justified, so does stella, just because is an reason that does not make you a good person
@@denysvision I never said it was justified? I just meant that that motive which was retconned gave us some complexity, of course until S2E1
I feel the thing that threw people off about Stella’s character was how Octavia reacted to their marriage. In Loo Loo land Octavia talks as if all the yelling and screaming was a completely new thing after Stolas was caught cheating. This then made it feel as if Stella didn’t always act as a crazy bitch around them. And it’s really hard to believe that a character that is 17 years old wouldn’t see signs of verbal abuse and yelling from people , let alone her own parents, especially since Stella has no shame in being public about how much she hates Stolas even before the affair started.
The only thing I could say to that was stolas tried to keep the peace by staying quiet when she said anything.
Its seen when stolas waves at her but she ignores him it kinda a subtle red flag. I think after the affair all he'll broke loose because Stella pride was hurt.
@@ruru2977 that would make sense but Stella doesn’t seem like the person to purposely keep quiet about how much she hates Stolas, I mean that’s literally her main character trait at this point.
She even screams about wanting him dead in front of Octavia when they’re all having dinner in episode five. So it just makes Octavia look incredibly stupid. It would make it better if the show had shown a single scene of Octavia and Stella even interacting which is the bare minimum but it seems to be allergic to doing that…
It would of been so easy to make it so that Stella cared about her status for her to not be so public about her failing marriage.
I bet she was much more of a condescending kind of bitch who makes subtle and very not subtle jabs and remarks who is prone to violent outburts, but it’s not necessarily a common occurrence, nor is it something that usual goes on for too long. This might just be the same old thing cranked up to 11.
@@dai5967 Yes, but that was AFTER the affair started. I doubt she actually wanted him dead up until then and just saw him as a punching bag with some small benefits before that. Judging by how she was talking at the party, I mean.
@@ruru2977 no, we saw in the circus that she was always loud and obnoxious and that their relationship was always shit, but in looloo land Octavia had said "i just want to go home, but home doesn't feel like home anymore, YOU ruined it." To Stolas, if Stella had always been intended by the writers to be this ignoramus cunt-waffle then there is no Reason for Octavia to say that Stolas ruined anything.
I don’t like that they framed Stella as THE problem, I always found it far more interesting that stolas cheated on her despite loving his daughter and somewhat still have feelings for Stella and her being rightfully upset but clearly isn’t helping still. But her being THE problem is much less interesting, it’s just Stella is a bad person and that’s why stolas cheated. It makes both the relationship and Stolas a more bland and less three dimensional character
Makes their relationship more realistic though: Many abusive relationships only have one party being the abuser.
How would Stolas have feelings for her? It's been pretty clear he's fully gay. Making him have ever the smallest interest in her would be a huge mischaracterization of Stolas
Well they are an arranged marriage so it would honestly be surprising if there wasn't issues in their marriage.
People like to forget that Stella didn't choose their marriage either. She's not being abused by Stolas, but Stella is also a victim of their shared circumstance.
I think the word you're looking for is "Less interesting" not "less three dimensional", because you can find people that are exactly like her..
but you're right about the former thing, this is the far less interesting direction to take it in and that's a shame for story telling purposes.
This episode actually showed a side of Stella I never saw. When she giddily admitted to her brother she hired the assassin, seeing her be goofy happy was a nice surprise. And that she apparently is more emotional than she is logical. Which fits since she has a habit of having a tantrum and causing a scene when she’s angry. It’s funny she never thought about the consequences of trying to kill her husband. The episode reveals that her brother seems to be more of the mastermind. And the only one she’ll listen to. When she acted like a spoiled brat wanting stolas dead, that was kinda funny. Seeing her act childish was interesting. We got little hints of how Stella is.
I didn't get the impression that she hadn't thought about the consequences of having Stolas killed. Quite the contrary: Her lack of reaction when Andrealphus pointed it out, and her pointing out that Stolas wouldn't ever want to give her anything anyway in turn, seemed to me like she had thought about it but, unlike Andrealphus, wasn't really interested in the wealth to begin with... Which, you know what? Kudos to her. At least she's not wanted to leave Octavia without an inheritance (unlike Andrealphus).
From what I've personally seen, the criticism isn't so much about Stella herself, but about how the show treats female characters.
In what way? The creator is female, and a lot of the female characters are good.
Exactly! They are allowed way less depth than make characters and even when they do their story still kinda ends up being about the men in their lives.
@@skittlecornnation4323 usually, female characters in helluva boss (i.e Millie) have barely any character development. If they have a spotlight in any episode, it's used to develop male characters instead.
Iirc Vivzie said once that Helluva Boss tends to focus a bit more on the male characters stories because the males are the main characters (Blitzo and Stolas), whereas Hazbin Hotel will focus a bit more on it's female characters as Charlie is the lead.
There's going to be an episode about Blitzo's sister tho, and I think either Millie or her sister are getting an episode, so maybe the girls will finally have their character development.
@@ssprites what about Octavia though?
I think the bigger issue is just the range of female characters in the show compared to the male ones. There's the Millie problem of course, and then with Loona and Octavia we never really get much of them without the show revolving around their dads. The disappointment about the direction with Stella is that she's a female character divorced (pun intended) from her male counterpart and she's....kind of boringly one note & now her brother seems to be taking over as the 'actual' antagonist. That's why she's ruined for me, at least.
Wow your pointing out the brother thing really hit me, as if no female character can be opinionated and powerful by themselves, they just has to stick to at least one male character somehow! Veronica is slightly better but she’s not main character and even that she’s blitzo’s ex.
@@RoseyVamp I agree, but the thing is Hazbin is not out yet. We have seen a pilot. That's it. Helluva Boss however, has been out for years. The fans have no point of comparison, just standalone poor writing. As a writer, you can't justify your poor writing by saying "Yes, but my other work is great, and balances it out !". It doesn't work like this. Either you have good, fully-rounded writing or you don't.
Plus, I find it weird to still consider Hazbin Hotel the main work, when most people and fans will come in BECAUSE they saw Helluva Boss.
@@susiem.2068 tbh I would not be surprised if part of why Hazbin has been quiet and Helluva has been getting all the attention is precisely because it demands well rounded female characters. Hell even in the pilot it seems like Angel Dust is destined to steal the show.
@@99sins so much of the focus on Hazbin seemed to revolve around Angel Dust...like, before A24 put a clampdown on Hazbin and did some design/voice actor/etc. changes, the biggest tie-ins (the song/MV Addict and the two tie-in comics) revolved around Angel Dust and Alastor.
@@user-xu8bn7cb5n That is an extremely unchartiable way of seeing the issue. Loona has demonstrated multiple times she's more than capable of being independent, powerful and opinionated *without* anyone's input. Hell, half the time she's rejecting the men in her life.
I think the issue isn't what her character is, it's the potential that was kind of wasted. The show's female characters are all very one note and have such little personality (Millie is Cool Badass, Octavia and Loona are Angsty Daughters, Stella is Evil Shrew) compared to the male characters.
She could have been a nice villain but she's just an annoying child and it sucks that they couldn't even let her be a fun villain. Hell, her villain status is outshined by Striker and her brother (who had like 5 MINUTES ONSCREEN)
Look, my problem isn't with them making Stella so irredeemably evil (least not entirely), it's more the fact that now she feels like another plot device; a justification for Stolas and Blitzo's relationship. I don't know, it just feels like there was more intrigue when their relationship was also conflicted by their insecurities and not just everyone bullying them. At this point, they're only a Disney love song away from getting married, and I guess I was just hoping for something more clever or complex.
there's still plenty of time for that to happen
Here's the thing, I don't mind that she's a jerk. Who doesn't love a good mean girl? My problem is that she's nothing but that.
Who is she? What are her interests or hobbies? How does she control Stolas? She and him share a bedroom, but every single time we see that room it only has Stolas' belongings. What's her endgame? Just keep being mean? Does being a bully to her husband make her happy? How does she feel about her daughter, because we've literally never seen her address, talk to, or even look at her. Knowing this wouldn't make her sympathetic, it would make her a person that I can easily imagine exists. As it is, her job is too make Stolas look like a big uwu baby who just needs luv, and that's so boring. We could have had a really heinous, and hilarious, villainess and we just got a shrieking plot device.
Yes exactly! It’s making her AND Stolas more boring.
Yes thank you
Moxxies dad and striker already are presented as great villains. I don't really think she needs fleshed out. Some of the best stories have surface level villains
YES
Agree, especially the last two sentences.
That one scene where Stella has to be convinced to think about her own future over the quick satisfaction of killing her husband got me thinking about one question that I keep coming back to, 'Why is Octavia sad about her parents divorce and not happy that her dad is throwing her mother out?' Stella is horrible. Every scene we see her in, the only definitive thing we learn about her is that she's very openly cruel to her husband.
Now a lot of fans have answered that question by telling me, "Octavia's a kid. Most kids don't understand how their parent's relationship really is when they're not around." and I WOULD believe that if Stella was portrayed like a realistic abuser who uses manipulation tactics to convince people the abuse isn't happening. But can you honestly watch that scene and tell me that Stella would bother putting any effort into masking her cruelty? Nothing within the show thus far can convince me that she tones it down in front of her daughter. There is no way Octavia wouldn't be able to pick up on how bad her mother is for her father.
Another thing that fans keep telling me is "It's totally fine if not all the characters are complex and 3 dimensional. That it's fine for a villain to just be remorselessly evil." and I agree that some stories can work just fine with villains like that, but in this particular story, the fact that Stella has nothing going on with her except for her open, unabashed cruelty drags down Octavia's character who is not supposed to be written as 1 dimensional.
I agree! This helps sum up a lot of things!
I want to see Stella interact with Octavia alone; is she as bad to her? She couldn't have been since Octavia seems to not openly dislike her mother. Afterall.
I doubt they would make it more gray-leaning and have Stella not be an absolute terrible mother too, but I could hope she could maybe have some depth to at least show why Octavia was so against the divorce beyond her fear of Solas leaving her.
And noncomplex villains are fun, and I like Stella, but I do wish we got something more out of her. Beyond how she acts with Stolas, she seems to get along with her side of the family. What is going on there? Stella gave a lot of hints about caring about her reputation. Where did she get that from? Was she always like that? Did her family instill that mindset in her at a young age? Give me something!
She doesn't need to be redeemed or excused for her actions; they are terrible, but there are so many opportunities to show more about her, even if it is just a tool to help along her daughter's character arc or other stories as well.
I just want more about her, and it isn't because I want people to suddenly forgive her either, you know? some nuance that isn't all about Stola. :'')
You do realize that kids can see parents fighting and still want them to be together, right? Especially if that fighting is normalized within that household. This is literally something that happens in real life. Parents can be openly hostile, abusive, and violent to each other and the kids can see and still wouldn't want them to leave each other.
Sometimes to a younger person the parents being together with them trumps whatever issues they have by being together.
It's crappy but it does happen. Families in general sometimes end up accepting toxic or abusive situations as better than losing that family.
If it’s happened from a point in time when she was young she could see it as normal, and simply not question it because some people don’t question the bad things that happen to them. Some don’t even know that they are bad things. We don’t know much about her past, but she probably doesn’t have a healthy example of what a couple looks like. She could blame herself for the divorce. After all she doesn’t know what their relationship was like before she was born probably, and maybe she thinks the fact that she was born, and that they had to have a kid ruined their relationship to make it all bad before the cheating. We don’t know how Stella treats her, and we don’t know if she has low self esteem which could support the idea I just mentioned. Maybe she thinks they can work things out, and thinks they are too lazy to do so
@@fluidwolf My parents were like this actually, and for the most part totally agree. I never expected them to divorce when they did and it came as a heartbreaking surprise. I'm not necessarily the best at picking up social cues sure, but its not like its hard to tell that 2 people just aren't for each other when their shouting matches occur 2 or 3 times a week. At some point, the shouting enters the background and you never really stop and think about it with any depth until its already happened, because you have no other context for what 'normal' or 'healthy' means. Kids have a tendency to receive such unconditional love that they have no context for a world outside of that love and start with the assumption that all instances of love are like that and won't immediately pick up on even overt cues of problems. Love for most people is conditional, and learning that for the first time is an emotional event to us all. Whether that lesson was learned during your first couple of breakups or the breaking up of your parents.
I've related a lot to Octavia's wants and actions during her episodes because of this and I think a lot of people like her character because she represents a little bit of every emotion one goes thru as the loss of innocence and naivety begins to open you up for the first time.
@@fluidwolf Maybe is just a me thing but all my friends that had parents that used to fight a lot wished their parents were divorced, and like my friend was 12 at the time when they told me this, other that I met later in life said she and her siblings begged her mother to get a divorce. I think all depends on how the fights are being done too
I think the key moment for reading her character correctly is that she didn't have an "oh shit you're right" reaction to Andraphis pointing out she won't get the money. She had a "yes, and?" reaction.
Stella’s entire character is just making Stolas a victim and making you feel bad for him. She’s just a “justification” for him cheating and him being a uwu soft boy who does no harm.
Her character wasn’t ruined because she never had character in the first place.
Holy shit yes, I was literally just asking myself "they didn't ruin her character cuz she never had one to begin with. How can you ruin nothing?"
ya. she was the "abusive partner" trope. cept she wasnt wearing a wifebeater in a trailerpark.
She was a spoiled child and was the aggresive bully based on her picture as a child.
It's not an unheard of trop between the two, just the roles are reversed than the usual asshole drunk boyfriend. so its odd that people were expecting her to be more than...what she's always been.
I am convinced, 100%, that when they recast Stolas' voice actor they completely retconned his character and...baaasically had to rewrite the whole show and that's why it's...just kinda bad. And as a result, Stella had to become the reason for his cheating and also a justification to make Stolas out as a good guy.
The pilot made it clear that Stolas was aristocratic, powerful, and probably outright evil without worry or care for the consequences of his actions. That's hardly material for a protagonist we're meant to care about though they seem to not worry about that much with Blitz or Loona, so when they got the new actor they completely retconned him into the caring father forced into a marriage he didn't want by the powers that be. And to REALLY rub it in they even went with a "babies" episode to show that Stolas and Blitz met as children and justify making Stolas romantically interested in Blitz.
I think the biggest problem with Stolas’ cheating isn’t the fact that he cheated on Stella in the first place (because let’s be honest, can we blame someone for cheating on an abusive partner?), it’s that him cheating on Stella made his daughter’s home life incredibly dysfunctional and unstable. He didn’t ruin his relationship with Stella, he ruined his daughter’s relatively contempt life by thrusting it into chaos where he’s now at risk of dying and leaving her alone
And it doesn’t help that he still doesn’t recognise what he did had a negative impact, as he doesn’t refer to it as cheating because there wasn’t any love, even though, by all definitions, it WAS an affair
There is still mater of ruined potential. They still could make her that and also someone who was interesting multi-dimensional person. With Stolas action being in fact questionable, but without antagonizing him. People are not angry because of retcon, they are angry because Stella is a literal prop. And that is boring as hell. Worst part is that show was otherwise good in such subtle characterization. But this time they miss the barn.
I'm in the middle: while it is believable that their marriage was arranged, in Loo Loo Land there were some hint that their marriage was at least not hostile: firstly the picture of them at Loo Loo Land in the kitchen, and then Octavia saying: "When my parents didn't scream at each other". It is impossible that Octavia didn't felt the hostility of Stella towards Stolas when she was a child.
I never understood why people used the old Loo Loo Land picture as evidence to Stella once being nice, she looks angry in that picture
I just feel like these new aspects of her character make her and Stolas less interesting
@@IcyDiamond no? She's smiling.
Stolas has always kept Octavia away from his problems. We were hearing it from her point of view when Ocatvia claimed "They didn't hate each other". As far as she knows this only started after the cheating, but this isn't true. Stolas wouldn't slander Stella infront of their daughter just for his pride. He loves Octavia more than he tolerates his "wife".
@@Gabry4777 It looks like a forced smile then
Honestly, Stella not caring about the inheritance was the first thing that occurred to me. Her not caring about the money or taking power or anything like that would make sense. Real life murderers have thrown away far more over far less than what Stella was throwing away here.
i thought the same thing!!
she's rich even without stolas so her not caring about the inheritance makes sense (to me at least)
It was also, in a messed up way, a redeeming moment for her in my eyes: Sure, she wants Stolas dead, but at least she's got no intentions of disinheriting Octavia... cue Andrealphus being the exact sorta monster who's not only fine with making Via fatherless, but wants to take everything that should rightly belong to her as well.
@@GrahamChapman I wouldn't really describe it as redeeming. She's still a petty, malevolent, bullying murderer, and the lack of ambition just serves to make her less dangerous. We don't really know how she feels about Octavia. There could be love there, but it's probably more possessive than tender given her paranoia about Stolas turning Via against her.
@@napoleoncomplex2712 "Redeeming" can be a relative quality. Still, yeah, we'll see where this goes... I mean, if nothing else it seems like Andrealphus is trying to rope Stella into a scheme that would end up directly hurting Octavia.
While I don't think she's retconned, I do have two problems with her being so simplistically evil.
1) Octavia said her parents didn't hate each other in the past - does this imply Stella played along around Octavia? (Would also explain the one photo we have of happy family vibes) but we don't know bc all we have of Via and Stella is that they spend weekends together.
2) Stolas losing any sort of accountability in this situation means that, for me, a lot of Ozzie's song is less impactful. He's probably more focused on what Blitz thinks of him or being perceived as horny when he partly saw it as a means to an end, but still - he had no problem screaming about a divorce in front of Stella and her social circle.
Idk, personally I miss the gut punch of that scene now that Stolas rly only had Via to lose and he didn't lose her. I do think there's value on focusing on how this sucks for Via but thiscircles back to 1).
Ultimatively I think it's not like nothing works under these slight recontextualizations but we did sit on those for a long time between episodes. and when the new coat of paint ends up making everything less interesting/complex that's... Just a shame.
1) On the other hand, Octavia also opened up that same episode asking "Are you two done screaming for the day?" Which implies that it is (and has been for some time) a regular occurrence in their household.
2) Well, I mean, in many irl abusive relationships, there is only one abuser. There's far from always a "both sides are to blame" side to troubled families... and Stolas still kinda does have some responsibility in that he didn't push for a divorce before now...
Stolas owes nothing to Stella. A person who cheats on an abuser does not have any reason to be apologetic to their abuser
This is hell. The normal rules don't apply, or so I've been told repeatedly.
@@cailara And that's exactly what the show want the viewers to think. To take away all the responsiblity and flaws from Stolas and justyfing them by making Stella the worst person in Hell.
@@cailaraAgreed. And yeah cheating is wrong, but their marriage was arranged and they never loved each other. She abused him for years, and in my opinion, you can't betray an abuser who never gave a shit about you in the first place. If anyone should get an apology, it should be Octavia and it should come from both Stella and Stolas for causing her to grow up in such a toxic environment.
It's less that Stella is ruined, but rather the nuance in her and Stolas' relationship. I fell for Stolas because he did a genuinely bad thing, he cheated on his wife, but for a sympathetic reason, with him being unhappy in his marriage. It made the whole situation feel complicated and interesting and nuanced, not something that could be easily solved. There were no right answers. Stella's actions were terrible, but you knew where she was coming from. But the narrative making her this purely evil beast who was always evil and then framing the cheating as a positive, rather than a bad thing Stolas should be ashamed of, reduces the complexity and nuance of the situation. It makes Stella unsympathetic and unreasonable, and now their conflict is purely external. If she were killed, this whole conflict would be solved, and having such a simple solution to what could have been a nuanced problem is just not as interesting to me. I still love her character tho and I think her portrayal in this episode was perfectly in line.
It doesn’t actually portrayal his cheating as a good thing. Just that there were many factors that led to it happening. That’s actually why I like his character. So many factors led to this happening and like you said while it’s not justified at all you can sympathize with it
"Her actions were terrible, But you knew where she was coming from"
I mean, not really. Even from season 1 episode 2, it was clear that she didn't care about the cheating itself, she only cared that he cheated with a low class IMP. And even then, she was less upset at Stolas, and moreso insulting him, calling him pathetic, and an embarrassment.
Soo, when you say you knew where she's coming from, you mean... Her classism which borders on racism..?
all things considered, i do think that in such a heavy male-lead show, it does cheapen it a bit to have stella be "just" a bad/stupid person. the only female character that has any real depth in the show so far is loona, and even her depth pretty much ALWAYS relates back to blitz (octavia is a close second, but we still don't know enough about her on level with loona). compared to the development & depth characters like blitz, stolas, moxxie and even side characters like fizz, striker and asmodeus have (the latter based on previews), it's just frustrating how little the girls get. now even stella needs a man, her brother, to actually mastermind things for her, so it's looking like another male character is about to get all the depth that the female characters are just not getting in this show.
YES. Why did Stella need a more-evil, smarter, sexier, more charismatic brother who was pulling the strings? She couldn't have pulled strings? All signs point to "so that he can have the plot points that she would've had as a villain and maybe a hateship with someone". There's a 100% possibility of him showing up on things like merch instead of her.
@@CinnamonQuills She's shown to publicly ridicule her husband and actively ordered a hit on him in front of him and her daughter. She's never been shown to be smart.
Also she already HAS merch. Her brother isn't going to "steal her merch". If anything since he is now officially revealed he might have merch too but this is just silly.
@@CinnamonQuills LMAO instead? No, if he shows up she ain't going anywhere.
That's valid.
I think Vivi actually adressed this in a live stream. They wanted to focus on the male characters for helluva boss and female characters for hazbin hotel. So it’s not surprising that the male characters have far more depth than the female characters.
While I do think the fans go a bit overboard in defending the show, one criticism that I think is really stupid is the idea that they “retconned” Stella, even though she’s acted like this ever since episode 2 of season 1
It's a common fan response to when a villain turns out to be just a dick. To be clear, I'm very much in favour of dicks, and fans have no right to act like their fan theories are canon.
Season 4 will be a ok episode because i just will immediately know because I will not see every episode only episode 4. And fizzy pop has drama
Yeah I feel this is very Stella
@@hybridvenom9 Bro learn to spell, what the fuck did you try to say?
Love makes blind
I said this before in another video, but to repeat myself: Stella's character just feels like that bad fanfiction trope where one character is written unlikable, to be hated, in order to make another character seem better, or to push two characters to be in a relationship (i.e. Stolas and Blitz). I love that she's an antagonist don't get me wrong; but it really feels like, to me at least, it was pushing for "uwu, protect Stolas" or "Stolas did nothing wrong" agenda. And to slightly quote another comment I saw: "It's like they're playing it too safe with Stolas". Like they made Stella so horrible so you can excuse Stolas for cheating on her.
I personally don't believe Stella needs a tragic backstory to make her compelling, but her motivations, whether or not you agree with them, at the very least should be understandable that shows why she's doing the things she does. As long as they can keep that part of her character in check
thats exactly what happened here, Stella was written to be hated to make Vizi's Stolas x Blitz ship look good and its a huge shame
Oh you mean the trope Ron The Death Eater?
Yeah! She seems dreadfully written like those old yaoi fanfics where all the girls were written as harpies so the two guys can get together.
@@HebiHouse lmao, I Know! 🤣Because I used to read fanfic when I was a teen so I can spot it very easily like that stupid trope you just mentioned was soo common. I swear viv is a fujo
I think her character wouldve been a lot better if she at least had some depth to it. Like yes she can be an asshole, but maybe she actually has some affection for Octavia and or at least called out stolas for cheating and herself being loyal or along those lines. Like give her a set of likes and dislikes, morals etc. That make you believe that she had a life that is not all centered around haring stolas. I am not saying she has to be morally gray, but give her some traits that are not explicitly about stolas. Like how Kira from jojo has his own likes and dislikes and routine and stuff. Aside from his villainous shit and attraction to hands, he is pretty much a normal dude.
The reason why stella feels off, and wrong is because as said, it removes a bit of narrative complexity. Each time you see her she gets less and less interesting and let's be frank her role could be filled by...well anyone. She gets less interesting each time we see her. They wanted to make STolas out to be beyond reproach so they made her more 2 dimensional. She's an excuse..
useless Video turnedi hate
It's kinda ridiculous the amount of hate Viv was getting.
fr the only problem the last episode had were the weird tonal shifts.
I wonder why
I mean, she does come out with very lame excuse about her poor writing.
Viv has always gotten disproportionate amounts of hate, even when the criticism has some valid aspects.
I respect her with all my heart, but people have genuine gripes that don't boil down to attempts at canceling or insulting her.
She's not the dtrongest writer, from what we've seen from HH and HB (when Brandon Rogers takes a backseat).
But she's out here doing what most wish they could and putting a shit ton of hard work into it.
Being a not great writer shouldn't make one a social pariah.
@@valentinkambushev4968 Yes, but that doesn't justify a witch hunt, only a collaboration of rewrites.
This was basically what I thought. Stella doesn't care about the inheritance because she has a fallback, and her brother's insinuation about her being beautiful means he can probably find her another rich husband to pawn her off on when he gets sick of her, which she'll probably do because it means a continuation of her comfortable life.
Stella has the privilege to only care about wanting Stolas dead, because she knows one way or another, she'll land on her feet.
Plus she probably assumes that since it will go to Octavia, and then her. Do we really think Octavia is gonna kick her mom out the house? Or say no to her? Considering she's a teenager her mom is likely oing to help her with the estate and duties.
I feel like her being a spoiled woman child just makes the story less interesting. I always liked how Stolas was morally grey but was trying to get better. Now that we figured out how abusive Stella is it just gives him a valid reason to cheat which rids him of any wrongdoings
Cheating is still wrong even when it's justified though.
just because a reason is valid or not. dosnt mean it rids all responsibilities.
people can have a reason to be abusive assholes,dosnt mean we should just forgive them for being that way.
Ya she was an abusive twat, Stollas had his weakness and cheated on her and divorce kicked in. now he's a freebird who's still dealing with the consequences of his action.
eitherway, while the catalyst for these events can be debated on "good or bad", in the end its somthing that needed to happen one way or another.
Justified doesn’t equal good
@@This-is-a-commentt true.
It doesn’t erase how wrong it is. It just gives a psychological explanation for why it happened. Him cheating is still wrong.
I am disappointed with Stella's development not just because it makes her a less interesting character. It makes Stolas also a lot less interesting.
I think Helluva Boss could have been way more unique if the series didn't try to make stolas' cheating so 'justifiable'. To make the married woman the most shallow and terrible person imaginable is such a boring fanfic trope. Just let stolas be a terrible person too. Let him make morally bad decisions. Let him have an open affair. Who cares? He is an aristocrat from hell after all. I kinda miss the over the top stolas from the beginning. He has become a walking clicheè and this will-they-won't-they with Blitz is exhausting because we all know they will make up and end up together.
I while heartedly agree i think it would be much more interesting to either make both Stella and stolas shitty people or make them two people who loved each other but stoped. This could be a interesting angle because you would have a situation where there was a way easier solution.
Again this is very much fanfic territory but you could have a lot more complexity with that without makin stolas a uwu everybody hates me sad boi
Just because stolas is in hell doesn't mean he has to be bad/evil like Stella. Its like saying moxie shouldn't be a nice guy just because he was raised in hell and in a mafia family. The environment a person is raised in doesn't always define their character
@@cottonflamingo6585 that's exactly what I think. Make them both horrible or make them both flawed but understandable. Just making Stella so horrible and flat brings both of them down. Like, we saw angry Stella in the first season and we were 'fine' with her abusive behaviour because she had been cheated on. But Helluva Boss season 2 erased this solid motivation for her and gave us nothing just because the writers wanted to make Stolas more innocent in this whole affair. I actually don't think Stella is the main problem but Stolas who suffers the most from this show's inconsistent writing. He isn't allowed to have any flaw and lost any edges he had.
I have to say I do like mean stella. Its been long since I saw a character that is just an asshole for the sole reason they are spoiled and just an asshole. But I do really agree. I dislike how Disney princessy they made Stolas. Like i can handle insecurity and such but everyone just hates him for no reason. he has no friends in his family of 72 demons? really? at least one of them would like him.
Guys hear me out, Stella is actually so smart she convinced people she's dumb to make them underestimate people...
wait.. u have a point
Hold up....That could be something-
She's smart enough to act so spoiled and dumb that she has other people plan for her. Instead of her brother dragging out talks with Stolas, she sends it Striker Infront of them, and makes her brother think double time on alimony talks and now Stolas knows he has to answer quick or get tortured again.
@Jest3rr That is very interesting
@Jest3rr lol, you're welcome
Darla Dimple from Cats Don't Dance was a bratty, (literal) petulant child who was blatantly evil for the sake of being evil. The main difference is that Darla was an engaging, entertaining villain. Describing Stella that way feels generous at best.
When I was a teen, my eldest sister was steering me into a career of gold digging.
She would get me all prettied up and we would go to a couple places she had access to where the super rich liked to chill.
People like Stella really do exist. Trust me...
Unfortunately true.
Sounds more like Andrealphus' behaviour to me? I mean, Stella doesn't seem interested in Stolas' wealth, she just wants his life.
I mean, if that's how she's internalized "eat the rich", I've got no problem with her preying on fellow sharks.
So your sister screamed all the time, bashed anyone she hated in full public view, and was a rich pos from birth?
Stella has literally displayed traits opposite of a gold digger. She’s already rich, she was born into her wealth, she has not shown any attempt to seduce or sexualize herself for her own gain, and hell, aren’t gold diggers supposed to be agreeable to their husbands so they can get what they want?
That has nothing to do with Stella's character 💀
It's kind of obnoxious that the bar set for female characters in this series is so low that Stella having a shred of a redemptive trait or having ANY personality to her *at all* besides "b|tch" is why people are annoyed with it. Every female character is an extension of a focal male character and serves a function to characterize the men. Having Stolas be so absolved of any guilt or negative framing on cheating is why they make her such a one note b|tch. It's poorly written cause it's like the yaoi fanfiction where the female in the love triangle only exists to be a hatesink who is usually violently homophobic and irredeemable. It's essentially as annoying as a bad fanfic cause people don't ACTUALLY operate like that, everyone has something to humanize them. Fanfic writers usually grow out of making a 100% hate-sink without nuance.
That is why this Stella stuff bothers me so much it’s just a double standard and when you bring up why it’s bullshit people fucking dog pile you as if they know more about how the show is going to go story wise
It feels weird for Viv to explain her reasoning for why this is the way it is because oh!! “helluva boss focuses on his male leads!!” Which is odd?? Especially when you have a female as one of your main leads. She is on screen for most the time yet they push her aside??? It rubs me the wrong way that she is a low priority. Maybe it’s just me but I feel like we learned more about striker than millie and he has been in two episodes
@@cucosuzu no other modern series ever has the lack of self-awareness to say they *deliberately* downplay the importance of a whole gender of the cast. Like how is that positive thing? Even if you focus on the male protagonists most you can still make the females feel consistent and have roles outside the orbiting the men.
@@Nightman221k Viv apparently gets a pass because she is a woman. And as we know, women can't be sexist, just like how POC can't be racist.
@@Nightman221k the most well developed female is probably Octavia or Loons but that’s… not saying a lot. It’s really upsetting because i want this series to get better because I enjoyed it. I genuinely thought it would handle it’s female characters with care but it doesn’t which makes me so upset?? I hope it gets better but so far everything has been… lack luster
I actually kinda liked what the episode did to Stella. I think it actually ended up giving her a little more depth when compared to her brother. It showed that while her brother is more likely to scheme, Stella herself is just simply angry at Stolas because he cheated on her and publicly humiliated her. She isn’t “greedy for money or power”, she’s just angry and allows her emotions to control her behavior. On the other hand, her brother actually desires more wealth and power because he’s actually greedy and envious. Especially when her brother discussed Octavia, it gives the impression that he might be planning something that could negatively effect Stella and Stolas’s daughter. Stella on the other hand doesn’t have anything against Octavia, she’s just simply angry at her husband and wants to keep it between her and him.
i agree: the dynamic between stella and her brother is great so far.
Tbh? I can respect her for just wanting him dead. Most women tend to go for far more of an abusive thing to do that harms the family, Sure, it's bad, but hey, it's fictional lol
Hopefully one day we'll see Stella and Octavia interact.
It'd be kinda funny if she actually was nice to her, but considering the direction of the writing so far, that's quite unlikely
I 100% agree with you
It's common to see someone's intelligence dwindle, the angrier they get. Stella's a victim of that, but we've seen her calculate and plan without her brother's help. I don't think she's ruined, per se, but once we see how she behaves as a mother, we'll see the complete picture and probably be more satisfied with her as an adversary.
Or... we'll all just have more reasons to hate her than we already did.
OR, hear me out: She's not so much unintelligent as she just doesn't care about getting her hands on Stolas' wealth and is quite fine with Octavia getting the inheritance that rightfully belongs to her? Contrast to Andrealphus, who is such a greedy sleaze that he's more than willing to disinherit his niece before making her fatherless, and is now doing whatever he can to rope Stella into that scheme as well.
My problem isn't that Stella is Joseph Sugarman rather than Beatrice. Characters like Jack Horner show you don't need a villain with any tragic or complex traits. The problem is as Finn once put it "you're so evil it's boring", and even then the Lich has the whole "walking existential horror" thing despite it being a kid's show
I also don't think she's necessarily stupid. In the case of killing Stolas, she wants revenge and didn't think it all the way through. The passion of rage will do that to anyone, and she's always been seen as an angry individual.
This and I think a lot of people miss that she’s not surprised by the fact everything would just go to her daughter, so I think it’s more that she doesn’t care about that. She’s already extremely wealthy and her and Octavia seem to have a good relationship. She seems to only follow her brothers plan to make him happy.
Looking back on her previous scenes, Stella doesn’t seem retconned, but recontextualized. Her previous fits of anger weren’t her just being violent or a jaded wife, they were a child throwing a tantrum.
I 100% agree that Stella isn’t stupid, but she doesn’t think about the future/consequences because she’s never had to.
And I think the reason her brother has more ambitious goals compared to her is because Stella always got her way. Like, I completely see their parents always giving into her demands so they didn’t have to deal with her; her brother being more cool headed has probably had to actually work for what he wants in comparison to her not having any responsibility to speak of.
That's what I thought, to me she seems to be a spoiled brat throwing a fit. Stolas is spoiled as well don't get me wrong, they both come from rich families above everybody else and they both don't think ahead about consequences really. I also think her family didn't check Stella's emotions but instead used them to manipulate her. We saw how her brother didn't flat out tell her she was stupid, but steer her into what he wanted.
It’s disappointing because of how much the writers want us to feel for stolas when how he was depicted in the beginning was way more compelling as a morally grey character. There was so much missed potential with Stella but it isn’t surprising that yet again another female character gets the flat as cardboard treatment
there's still time to get more on her just like we sort of learned some things about Millie and why she is the way she is after meeting her family and where she grew up at.
Yes, we can even still feel for Stolas even if he's morally grey. If we see how Stella is annoying to live with (but not evil to the point of gossiping to her friends about him in front of him, which kind of ruins the whole point of her initial problems because she cares about her image so much but calls Stolas a pathetic man what????), anyways if we see Stella is annoying to live with because shes a spoiled brat but not an abusive monster, Stolas could not only feel trapped but also guilty about hurting his family and we would still feel bad for him!!! because its a difficult situation. Arranged, loveless marriage, bratty wife, love your daughter, cheats because he's desperate to feel love, we can still feel bad for Stolas even though he did a bad thing. And it would add complexity to his and Blitzos relationship (it is already complex but it would add more layers). There is always that guilt Stolas feels that prevents him from fully embracing his feelings.
Looking forward to the next episode regardless, we are getting a duet between Blitzo and Stolas. I'm very excited but also scared the writers will fuck it up. But I will decide to trust them for now because the last two episodes have been good. Seems like the shittier episodes always involve IMP ngl lol.
i personally prefer if they had gone more in the direction of stella being unintrested in stolas and then angry when he cheated. as it makes her feel more relatable and human then just "im a dumb idiot that doesnt understand whats going on around me and loooves being an asshole for no reason"
like if she was simply never in love with stolas that would be understandable. cuz she wouldnt have done anything to deserve what stolas did infront of EEEEVERYONE... then its just revenge which everyone can understand wanting revenge on a cheating partner. it makes for her being a much better villian because she would be IN THE RIGHT somewhat.. stolas wouldnt just be this "woe is me for i am so sad and blind to everyone elses emotions because i am so madly in love with this imp who may or may not love me" it makes stolas the reason this is all happening. it means stolas fucked up and is paying the price for it and not just having it happen JUST BECAUSE
Exatcly, between asmodeus and Octavia's lines in s1, we can assume that Stella wasn't on a hateful relationship with stolas . At least not openly, meaning they wouldn't let anyone know they didn't like eachother which means Octavia thought everything was fine and so did the public.
She only got public with her outbursts with stolas after she finds out he cheated, and above all else, with an imp. This would embarrass Stella in the social scene and nobility, and hurt her pride, along with cheating just being a dick move.
In the flashback with stolas showing Octavia the stars, Stella and stolas are seen sharing a bed, which meant, they either liked eachother or were neutral/ willing to pretend.
S2 Stella was basically rewritten her to always be an evil shouty woman, making some of her old characterization and dialogue surrounding her not make any sense.
@@halinaqi2194 it makes me more annoyed because everyone always was like "no she was always a bitch and this just proves it" like nah fam up until now we had no clue what she was like before stolas cheated on her. we all had ideas but hoped things wouldnt be so incredibly basic with her... she is as bitch basic as a number 2 pencil.... she is rich, hot, spoiled, and gets off to being bitchy... when she could have been a spoiled rich girl who was hurt out of the blue and wants payback... SHE COULD STILL BE BITCHY AND SPOILED but her reasons for what she does would make a lot more sense overall
When she was a little kid Octavia wouldn’t be able to read between the lines. Stolas and Stella would act like a couple to most people. Heck Stolas said specifically he wanted to give Octavia the impression of a normal life so clearly he would do his best to hide things from her. Obviously a little kid wouldn’t understand that. And later in life she probably wouldn’t have remembered all the little signs.
Stolas cheating was the straw that broke the camel’s back so that’s where Octavia’s misunderstanding comes from.
more human? as someone who has met plenty of dumb idiot abusive people who didn't really comprehend the consequences of their actions, I'd say she's more human than you give her credit for. also no, Stolas wasn't blind to everyone else's emotions or else he would've NEVER tried to make Octavia happy by taking her to Loo Loo Land, thinking it would make her happy. that's kind of the opposite of being blind to EVERYONE ELSE'S emotions
@@Shalltear773 allow me to explain something to you...
the joker is a mentally insane person...
EVEN THE JOKER has a reason for the actions he takes... he doesnt just make bombs with joker gas for the lols...he does it to get to batman... he wants batman to play with him... stella talks shit about stolas for the sake of talking shit about stolas... she has no reason outside of that.. thats not good character writing...
blitzo kills people because its his job or because he doesnt like them not just to kill them
stolas cheats on stella because he hates her.. stella doesnt hate stolas until after he cheats so everytime she was a bitch before that moment she had NO REASON for doing that outside of the plot demanding it...
I understand that she's just a bad character....but they did that wrong. I feel like the reason they made her as bad as she is was to make stolas seem like he didn't do anything wrong. In the first season, they made it seem like she cared that he cheated.
I think she does still care that he cheated, but it's not a scorned lover kind of deal (since if it was she'd go after Blitz but she has no interest in him). I've always believed that's it's about her personal pride being hurt that he slept with an Imp, a creature on the bottom of the food chain, in their bed as well would really disgust her.
It feels like they have no faith in their adult (or "adult") audience to recognize an abusive character without making the abuser a one dimensional bitch. I do like that Helluva shows an abusive relationship where the woman is the abuser because that does happen in real life and it should be addressed but this is not the way to do it.
For any writers who want to write abusive characters who are 3 dimensional while not wanting to seem like you condone their actions, go watch Moral Orel. That show has a perfect example of an abusive father who has a traumatic past that makes you pity him and hate his guts at the same time.
@@phoney2627 Considering how often people make excuses for and downplay abusive behavior IN REAL LIFE, especially when it comes from women, I think it's understandable that they felt they needed to lean into it quite a bit.
Morel Orel is kind of an outlier. A LOT of shows just depict the (almost always male) abuser as a blatantly evil person with no redeeming qualities, even shows that otherwise have nuanced and complicated characters. It could be that Stella is actually just an example of someone wanting to flip the script and show a woman in that light for once.
I think this character was poorly made from the very start. She was always a 1 dimensional villain with not much going for her other than that. And with a show where literally most of the characters are on some degree of grey if not straight up bad, I don't understand why they made her this way. Not that I think the fan repsonse to her has been right either. Like the amount of hate she recieves as opposed to other characters with the same level of irredemabless, because she is definitely the most hated out of them. So overall a character that has been done dirty by both sides.
Definitely
The issue with her's pretty glaringly obvious. Why is she from the start almost a cartoon caricature of a harpy of a wife to Stolas? Well so people don't feel conflicted about the fact that Stolitz was built on Stolas cheating on his wife and Blitz just spilling the beans on it publicly. Even as a fan of the ship, it's obvious Stella was gonna be the bitchy female character you see in a lot of yaoi fics and manga who's just there to be an absolute asshole so people root for the two guys to get together even more. We don't need to have every villain be complex but it just feels kinda scummy on her end.
People are frustrated because of the wasted potential. At first she was angry because of the affair and Octavia implied it was not like that before. Meaning they might have been a somewhat normal family in the past.
We as an audience could have sympathized with both Stolas and Stella, making it much more engaging and interesting.
But all we are left with now is Stolas good, Stella bad.
Just to add, most if not all female characters have little to no depth in comparison to Stolas and Blitzo. Simply put.
Octavia was a very young child when she recalled her parents being happy/not hating each other in the past.
I’m not saying young people are stupid, they aren’t, but Octavia could legit have been clouded by either nostalgia or a false memory.
I was mostly just upset by how her actually just being one dimentional affected stolus. I personally loved the fact he had some moral complexity to his character! I loved that while you can _understand_ his cheating in a loveless, arranged marriage. You also feel like it did impact on a likely not entirely deserving party (two, if you count Octavia!) And he seems to show remorse for this, but also continues to cheat because again, loveless arranged marriage. This means we can really empathise with stolas, but we can also empathise with the people he's hurt, making him a flawed, and complex character. I think it's all summarised in Asmodeus' song so well. He gave up everything to be with blitz, and that has interesting consequences for him as a character, and all the characters surrounding him. And I love interesting characters like that!
But now, it just kinda feels like he's the victim of everything all the time, and nothing else. He's the victim in his marriage, he's the victim who had an assassin try to kill him, he's the victim who's trying so hard with blitz and getting nothing back, he's the victim of Octavia not understanding him. He's never that much in the wrong, and he just keeps having more sad, victimising things piled on top of him. None of which really stem from his mistakes as a character (except maybe his holding out for blitzo). it just feels like his character now is just.. the universe is conspiring to make him as miserable as possible. And while I think characters like that can be fine too ofc, it's just something I personally find less interesting. I just get a bit worn down by every episode with him in it mostly just being "look how even more sad his life is now!"
To be honest, my favourite character is Octavia. I don't know why; probably because my favourite animals are owls. It makes me sad to see her personality of "My dad cheated, and thanks to that everything's worse now" lost due to Stella always being the worst. Also, I think they went too far with making her plain. I don't eat up Stolas being a good guy. He's a cheater. He should pay the consequences, not be treated as an immune little boy who can't do no bad, because we know he can and he has.
I'm not upset that she's just mean now. She's just predictable now. At least to me. I just hope as the show goes on she gets more depth. Her brother is now specifically Stolas's villain instead of her. As of the last episode she's currently just her brother's mouthpiece/ lackey and that's definitely.... an interesting choice.
The main problem with Stella is that she has no presence in hell
She spends most of Season 1 and 2 being an absentee villain, an Orcus on her Throne if you will. But the strength of those kinds of villains is that you can still FEEL their presence within the story. Feeling the strength of their ideals or the cunning of their plans when it's revealed that they were behind what was going on.
Stella is barely like that. Stolas and Octavia are free to do whatever, and barely anyone takes her seriously save for her brother and maybe striker. Despite even being some royal she doesn't seem to be written like one either.
Realistic Stella wouldn't be the person working on the front lines, like Striker was. She'd be some person you never, ever see, who sits in an office all day filing paperwork. It makes sense. It's also just not very compelling. Someone like Stella should be guarded behind a million legal walls, and who never interacts with anyone who could threaten her in any way.
Stella is ruined because she's been stripped of any depth she possibly could have had. I'm not saying she should be sympathetic but she should feel more like a person and less like a cardboard cut out villain that was just slapped into the show to make us care more about Stolas.
Now that I think about it, the writers could have milked out all the sympathy points from the start by simply making Stolas a single father with no power over his life. Maybe he'd still have his royal status but you could give him a plotline where he's forced to do whatever the more powerful goetias tell him to do at all times. That could work.
The problem is that having Stella being the bad one is an easy way out.
Stolas cheating becomes justified, Stella becomes a tool for her brother the whole thing basically turns her into a very childish character who hasn’t got a leg to stand on. Stella and Stolas’ relationship could’ve been written as being fine until her childishness became clear, then Stolas sees he’s married to someone who wanted to be a trophy wife and resents it. Meanwhile Stella doesn’t see an issue since that’s all she’s been raised to expect, and the relationship just breaks down.
Its abundantly clear to me as an author and mangaka that Helluva boss is not planned ahead at all. Its touch and go there are many inconsistencies and constant story changes that can be blatantly seen between season 1 and 2
I am writting two series at the exact same time. So there's really no excuse for this behavior. The least she could do is be transparent about it
Probably but another thing to always keep in mind is that Vivzie’s main focus is on Hazbin Hotel.
Viv just said that just now she has the whole show planned out, so maybe things might get better
True
@@islasullivan3463 she’s stated before that they both take up equal brain space for her and are both near and dear to her heart, but i definitely think managing two different shows with two entirely different teams behind each of them is definitely taking a toll on how well she’s able to push stuff out. That’s a lot of work for ANYONE.
@@javiinkling695 You should never believe an author when they say that. Most of the time writers change things on the go
tbh, I 100% agree that characters can sometimes just be pieces of shit without an explanation. However, the simplicity of Stella’s character is all to revealing at the shows failure in general at giving any of their female characters depth. You’ve already brought up Millie’s lack of character, Stella and Octavia are practically plot points in Stolas’ story, Loona’s character, though at times interesting, primarily serves as a plot point for Blitzø…. This is just sad - but I feel I shouldn’t he surprised either.
All these female characters are introduced with the potential to be intriguing, you look forward to learning more about them. Yet, Helluva Boss never grants you that luxury. Leaving you with a cast of female characters desperately lacking depth, and male characters who’ve been given all the time in the time in the world yet fail to be compelling due to mediocre writing and tonal issues.
I don't care if she's supposed to be a cardboard cut out or a one dimensional narcissistic brute. I just want a genuine interesting threat in this show that lasts as an actual threatening figure for more than 1 episode they appear in. The issue isn't the character she is, the issue is the kind of character the writer CHOSE for her to be. Missed opportunity, really, and don't even get me started on how they away any interesting aspect of Stolas and Stella marriage just to make us feel bad for Stolas and root for stoblitz.
i think the reason Stella was decided to have always been an abusive bitch was cuz Viv was so desperate to have people like Stolas that she didnt want them to believe that he was in the wrong for cheating on her
like sure she may have seemed like an angry person from the beginning, but before all this that couldve been chalked up to her being angry that she was cheated on with an imp [or just in general, idk if it matters], but then that would mean people would be able to believe that it was Stolas's fault and have a reason to dislike him, so Viv had to completely erase that possibility
That's right.
I think you nailed it. Stella not caring about the inheritance makes so much sense.
I just think Viv has her favourite characters and obsesses over them to the point she's willing to throw any interesting nuance out the window. I think the show loses interest by portraying Stella and Stolas as a couple, who never liked each other instead of people, who fell out of love. Except this would make Stolas seem worse and ectually a perpetrator, not just a victim, as the show portrays him currently.
Plus, I totally agree with the point about badly written woman in the show.
The idea that "Helluva" is a "guy"-centric show is dumb by itself. It sounds like a poor excuse for bad writing. There's such a thing as shows targeted at man or woman, but that doesn't excuse them writing either gender poorly.
It seems she turned into the new Thomas Astruck
@@ItsTanuki0_Clock honestly the best comparison. On a high horse about their shows and reacts badly to criticism
Yup it seems like it. I used to like the storylines, but them doing Stella dirty and excusing Stola's cheating as well as Blitz's debaucheries kind of makes the series more hard to stomach now
Especially when she hand waves it aside as 'Well Helluva is more male led and Hazbin is more female led', like we don't know that she's most likely gonna stick Angel Dust and Alastor in every scene as much as she can. It's no secret that she loves Angel Dust (He's been her baby for a decade) and Alastor is a fan favorite. Charlie is gonna be pushed to the side in this 'female lead' show.
But if that doesn't happen then I'll be pleasantly surprised.
I agree with everything but they were never in love? It was an arrangement. They never agreed.
True. Stella hasn't talked to her daughter at all. It's almost like the writers don't care about her as a character and are hellbent on NOT developing her. 👿👿👿
An interesting turn they could have taken was to have Stella actually caring and taking care of Via, at least as much as Stollas. This would have made it even more painful for him when Via potentially chooses her mom over him . Of course, with in Stella's mind the fact that if he dies, Via gets everything, but if she herself has custody of Via, she'll easily access it as well. Could have built her in a very strong female antagonist, instead of multiplying the characters.
But dang i'm like you, i can't help but enjoy her time on screen.
That could still be the case. We haven’t seen Stella and Via interact in the show.
I heard a theory about why they wrote her so terrible that I believe is true. She’s awful just to push the Stolitz ship forward. It’s so much easier to support a cheating relationship if the partner was super abusive.
True
No, they shouldn't push the Stolitz ship forward stolas deserves a better partner then blitz or Stella.
Stolas and Blitzø don’t really need anyone to cause conflict between them. They already cause enough problems on their own.
@@PeachBoba1523 not what I said but I agree.
Speaking personally as someone who was disappointed in the direction the writers took Stella, the crux of my disappointment stems from my misinterpretation of the target audience. When I was first watching the show, I thought it was going to be a mature and adult black comedy that explores the concepts of morality and sympathy. The IMPs are assassins that get paid to kill people. They've probably ruined so many lives and left a bloody trail of devastation in their wake. This is literally what the first episode of the show was about! But we also grew to empathize with these serial murderers despite their actions being horrific by real life societal standards.
But after watching season two, I realized that I was mistaken. This isn't a complex and mature show. It's a teenage edgefest, and there's nothing wrong with that. Everything is incredibly surface level. Why is Stella so villainized but Loona isn't even though she's beaten Blitz far worse and is just as nasty? Because Stella is the villain of this story and Loona isn't so just enjoy the ride. I'm not angry at this show and I don't begrudge the people who still find value in it. But I personally don't enjoy completely surface level shows and I'm personally sad because I saw a lot of potential complexity in this show that the writers just refuse to capitalize on.
100% agree. Making Stella so horrible feels like the writers wanting to turn BlitzxStolas into an actual angsty romance and they needed to get rid of her somehow.
'She is just a terrible person, your honor. Stolas is actually a heartbroken cinnamon roll and would never have cheated if Stella hadn't been such a b*'
I totally feel this. I still love the show, but after season 2, it's very hard for me to sell this show to new people.
Helluva Boss started off very strong with the first episode, and it just kinda...devolved from there
@@moonlitlaurel8103 If you even say that how Stella's portrayed stinks of 'Intentionally villanizing a female romantic partner just to make the mlm ship look better in comparison' people wanna bite off heads. And the level of maturity being what a network exec who watched Family Guy thinks adult comedy is like seems to permeate Vivziepop's works as well.
This this THIS. It's Tumblr-level "ACKSHUALLY, in my story Watson's wife is the most vile human being that ever walked the earth and so he FLEES into the arms of Sherlock and is ttly justified". And then on the flipside we have "Millie is a prop to be unfailingly supportive of poor woobie Moxxie, but the instant we find a ship we like better for him she's going to have suddenly been awful all along, so look out for that."
Couldn't have said this better.
Something i find weird is that i didn't see a single scene where Octavia and Stella interact with each other, no dialogue, nothing
And the sad part is that it could have been used to expand on her character beyond being and as Stolas said "A B i t c h" but it will probably go nowhere
Also important to note: SHE. IS. RICH. For many people who are raised rich, the idea of not having whatever they wanted just handed to them just never occurs to them.
See my problem with Stella was never that I wanted her to be a well developed character with some deeply tragic backstory to sympathize over. My problem is with the wasted potential they had in virtually pinning all of their marriage's problems solely on her. Granted, I am not the writer of the show, and have no control over what they do, but I was personally looking forward to a sort of juxtaposition between Stella and Stolas where they've both done awful things to one another, like Stolas cheating and not considering how that would hurt his wife or daughter. I personally would find something like that much more intriguing, BECAUSE it would give Stolas a more flawed side that could be explored, how he isn't perfect, he's hurt other people, and even if he's been hurt in turn by his wife, he as well is responsible for bad things. But noOooOoOOOOo let's blame it all on the one dimensional woman in the relationship to justify Stolas' raging imp boner and get more precious gay baby ship moments uwu
Please don’t ever say that last sentence again
Most people don’t have an acceptable reason to abuse people. There just bad people.
Stolas cheating was the straw that broke the camel’s back so that’s where Octavia’s misunderstanding comes from.
@@kingmatthewlego That and Stolas tried his best to shelter her from Stella’s abuse of him so she couldn’t see the full extent of the damage she did to him.
@@PeachBoba1523 Yall are treating octavia like she's 5 or something.
@@ok.4720 I meant that he’s been keeping it from her *since* she was 5 and very well after that. She does seem to have an idea of how bad things are given that she didn’t react to Stella tossing a plant her way but she doesn’t have the full context of them being forced to marry each other.
Stella's character hasn't been assassinated.
More like slowly strangled until there was no life left in her.
Like your title says, it's been a "decline" rather than a "death" for Stella's character.
I think why alot of people dislike the direction Stella's character has gone because - it basically erased all accountability and guilt on Stolas' side. The writers are tiptoe-ing around the ways HE screwed things up to make Stella the scapegoat for all HIS misery and pain.
Ignoring how Octavia has been upset at how STOLAS has treated her, she couldn't care less about Stella. It's Stolas who has hurt Octavia the most, but the writers keep having her just forgive him after some empty platitudes.
For it's that the point of the show is "bad people have more going on that appears and can be deep" so making Stella that one dumb, evil, cartoonishly evil with out backstory or a good reason seems weird.
Especially since she's the only one
Moxxie's father is even more cartoonishly evil than Stella and yet you don't see anyone complaining about him.
@@bobbobbobbobbbecause he’s a man
I feel like Stella and Millie are in the same boat storytelling-wise. They are seemingly flat but they are both more complex than we realize. Millie is a woman who seems to have finally found her paradise. Whereas Stella is a woman who wants to keep hers.
I mean, we like Jack Horner from Puss n Boots for being simply a cartoonish bsd guy. In my humble opinion, Stella's got roughly that same energy. Her anger is cartoonish and over the top and that's part of the comedy. And the scene with Andrelpheous is not her being dumb, she just can't be bothered to care about anything or anyone.
The difference is that Jack is actually threatening, intimidating, and funny. Stella isn't any of that, especially since the last episode where she was presented as an idiot.
@Valentin Kambushev exactly, and Jack Horner's evilness was presented in a gradual way, every action he took was as or more evil than the last and that kept him interesting through the whole movie.
With Stella it is the complete opposite, she peaked when she called Striker during the family dinner and has done nothing nearly as promising or funny as that since.
Stella: but I jsut wanna kill him nooooooowwww
Totally agree. It’s a cartoon. Let some of the villains be cartoonishly bad. Plus people forget we are all rooting for hell creatures.
@@sarafontanini7051 she reminds me of veruca salt that way
Stella just feels like she's just there to make us root for stolitz and stolas in general
Titanic did the same thing with Cal, Rose, and Jack and nobody complained then.
@@PeachBoba1523 I think I said something about that in another comment. why does every single character in Helluva Boss have to be fleshed out to the absolute maximum when you barely, if ever, hear the same complaints for other shows elsewhere?
@@Shalltear773 That is true. I rarely, if ever, hear people say that about any other show yet here it’s like the end of the world for some people.
Honestly I just wanted "more". Like I hate stories that try to justify cheating but if they gonna go that route at least make Stella a bit more complex. Or even the fun type wicked. But no we're getting the screeching harpy wife. 😟
Not justify
Is it really justifying the cheating though? Stolas is still suffering the various repercussions of letting Blitzo seduce him, while he was drunk and miserable. His home life bottomed out and his relationship with his daughter was almost destroyed, he's standing up for himself but Stella is still such a thorn in his life that he forgot one of the biggest promises he made Octavia, and he's realizing that what he thought was love likely isn't. He's been desperately trying anything he can think of to make things work with Blitzo and to prove he cares, but as of this episode he's been brought even lower than he had been the night of Ozzie's.
It may just be me, but that doesn't feel like he's being justified. He's definitely not being rewarded at the very least.
@@FullMoonDeria Even if he's suffering the consequences of his actions, no one would blame Stolas for cheating since it became obvious that Stella is abusive verbally, emotionally and physically. So yes, it was justified, in the eyes of the audience.
@@someonewithaphone3108 To be fair, in the eyes of the audience doesn't fully mean that much because of different perspectives on the various topics. I have several opinions on events is the show that feel very different than other people's, and a good chunk of the viewership still seems to feel like it's not justified at all.
@@someonewithaphone3108the word you are looking for is sympathetic, the cheating is not excused it's still bad they just made it far easier to understand WHY he did it.
I think the checking on the child scene is something that many parents do: take turns. Maybe she checked the last time the child woke up, so it was his turn. My husband and I do that, as many parents do
“You know, I never had much as a kid… Just loving parents, stability and a castle, and a powerful royal lineage for me to inherit… Useless crap like that!”
For me it’s how they characterised her more and more to be bad. At first she was nuanced as we knew Stolas cheated, and that’s bad. Then she’s revealed to be neglectful and that’s still fine, the best part was when she went supervillain and hired Striker, easily the best moment for her, like an old fairytale villain. But then Season 2 rolled around and just made her more evil and more unbearable, sort of ruining that subtle complexity she had by making her abusive and uncaring to Stolas, recontextualizing the cheating to be triumphant and making her ignore her status and duties.
Yeah, in Season 1 you could understand WHY Stella was angry.
Come Season 2, turns out Stolas never "hurt" her by cheating and she's always been abusive towards him.
She has no motivation to hate him anymore, she's just a hateful, nasty person for no reason.
@@PlanetZoidstar oooh nooo, a demon in hell is mean and rude for no reason? Alert the presses
@@vincentlucario5450 wow it's almost like the show has showed that demons aren't inherently awful *like in S2 Ep 1*
@@fruitloops2058 A lot of them really ARE though. There are a lot that are more nuanced but the default for a lot of hell IS still flat out evil by default. This is a world where people are casually assaulted and murdered on a daily basis and most people's default is rudeness at best. There's a reason why Charlie in Hazbin is such an outcast.
I think that “it’s hell” is a HORRIBLE excuse for poor writing or characterization, and honestly I’m _so_ tired of hearing it, but it IS a point. The only character in hell that would actually count as a decent person at ALL is Charlie and literally everybody in hell thinks she’s fucking insane. Even Millie & Moxxie aren’t good demons, they murder innocents and assault people and overall would probably have Netflix biopics made about them if it were the real world. They just seem so good because they’re in Hell, where majority of citizens do MUCH worse on a daily basis, and they’re also not nearly as emotionally unstable. Being an immoral or horrible person is the default in hell. You don’t end up there for no reason, the sinners were probably questionable people on Earth, and hellborns just embraced that culture and made it worse. GOOD demons don’t exist in hell, and if they do, they’re ostracized or made fun of for being weirdos.
I actually loved that she acted more like a little sister going off her hatred for Stollas.
But it also subtle i might be reading to much into it. But i think it showed us a bit of her motherly side.
When her brother said she gets nothing and it will go to Via. She does not mind. Nor does she care. As that is what she had Via for.
She shows ZERO hatred towards her daughter. But only to Stolas for the very VERY piblic affair.
The tone of the episode was everywhere but she was my favorite part of the episode.
stella being implied as stupid but isn't she the one providing angelic weapon to Stricker a weapon not easily obtained
Its more so the fact that she’s one of very few female characters, with like zero dimensions. She’s literally the stereotype for the ‘bitchy wife’ old men always complain about. Making her a boring villain just makes people justify Stolas’ actions and make him 100% innocent- which is like the opposite of the point of the show. I LIKED that Stolas cheated and Stella was having outbursts, because it made them mutually bad and a lot like parents people have.
Already the show feels like mlm fetishization, with being preferred by over Hazbin Hotel with a wlw lead. They don’t bother giving any personality or development to their female characters, focusing on their male gay characters. Hell, Vivzie stated that Alastor is aroace and has zero interest in a sexual or romantic relationship, yet she brushes off the concerns from the AroAce community when she encourages people to ship Alastor and Angel Dust. Its essentially shipping a canon lesbian with a man. Already aroace people are ignored and unspoken about.
Stella could’ve been great. She could’ve been such a cool villain- with being just as unhappy with the marriage and turning bitter over the years. It was implied that Stolas and Stella were mutually shitty to each other, and then season 2 threw that out with “lol she was always a bitch and Stolas is the poor owo gay boi”. At least give her SOME other reason than a surface level stereotype of the bitter wife.
You’re the type of person who will try to find any small detail that can be perceived as even somewhat offensive and try to blow it completely out of proportion. Hellova Bass is not sexist in any way shape or form.
Hello, I’m not ace but I’m asexual, I know ace is romantic attraction and asexual is sexual attraction, but I think I can still talk about it since Alastor is also very sexualized and stuffs.
Who care? Fans can draw whatever and ship whoever with him all they want. They’re having fun. While people ship him it is wholly fanon and they know it’ll never be canon in the show (and that’s fine).
I’m asexual. And I don’t like being used as a criticism shield. If someone ships an asexual character with another one in a sexual way I literally give zero fucks.
@@TheSlipperyNUwUdle oh my god i can ship a lesbian character with a man thank youuu thank you so much i just felt conflicted about it since its wrong to ship queer characters with straight ones but when two straight characters have shared chemistry everyone ships them (but then again most of the queer ships between men/women have better chemistry than heterosexual ones lol) but this ship was so good and their chemistry was so amazing so thanks for the validation ngl
On one hand it would be really interesting to see if Stella would draw the line at her daughter’s life or not, but on the other hand it’s fine for her just to be a bad person without having some sad backstory as to why she is like this.
Considering Stella's design seems to be based on the Secretary Bird, which is a long-legged bird known to kill snakes by stomping them to death, it kind of makes sense that she would only be focused on killing Stolas. It also adds a touch of irony or possibly foreshadowing, considering how Striker is initially characterized.
She's supposed to be a swan
@@MillyKKitty She's a peahen... Yeah.
@@MillyKKitty She looks literally nothing like a swan, I always saw her as a dove at best. She has a short beak (swans have big flat beaks, yellow or red, doves have tiny pink ones like her) and there's no long neck in there that is basically swans' main thing, I don't see how do people see her a swan
@@polish_pigeon Yeh, she really does not look like a swan unless we look at the dress. That's why I love Loves art23's Stells redesign sincr she makes her look like an actual swan
I'm in camp miss the potential nuance the situation had. I also thought Stella ordering the hit in front of everyone was because she knew no one would pay attention, not because, as now, she's just stupid.
I also think there was a retcon, not with Stella, but with Stolas. In season 2 he excitedly yells out in public that was the sound of a divorce, but in loo loo land, in what I can only assume is later that day, he's apologizing to her. What sense does that make?
It feels like a retcon when Stolas is acting defensive at Stella's accusations in the Octavia episode, instead of being continually triumphant, or trying to dodge the question when his daughter is around. It very much came off like Stolas was ashamed of what he had done because now he had to deal with the consequences, rather than "Fuck you, we're getting a divorce."
and what would dodging the question actually do for anyone beyond possibly making things even worse? to me, it didn't feel like he was ashamed he'd done it as much as he was ashamed what he did was now forcing Octavia to be exposed to the drama between her mother and father. hell, he even tried to resolve his relationship with Octavia after the fact by taking her to do what he thought she enjoyed doing to make her happy
@@Shalltear773 Your question doesn't adress my point. Characters can do actions that are counter productive to their goals. I'm stating it feels incongruent for Stolas to act the way he did in that episode, considering how happy he was to get a divorce.
@@jessicaberry5596 how was it incongruent? I'd like to hear it.
@@Shalltear773 Rewatching the scene from Loo Loo Land, Stolas does not notice his daughter until after he is finished arguing with his wife. His posture and tone of voice are more submissively defensive against her accusations. Hands raised, quiet tone, "No, of course not" as if she's not understanding when she asked him "You want to F* this one too?"
He's not proud in that moment, when again in season 2 it is revealed he was irritated by his wife, and proud to show some backbone and divorce her. It does not match the context we get later, thus appearing as a retcon.
@@jessicaberry5596 unless he wasn't exactly prepared for that much backlash from her since she's apparently always only shown a lack of care for anything. So perhaps he was caught off guard by the severity of it, thus the "retcon"
Actually, I think why me and many people believed Stella was more nuanced was because the show was clearly telling everyone that was the case. This is mainly because of:
1. Octavia. She's always had a positive relationship with Stolas at least until Octavia went into her emo phase/found out about the affair. But before that, you'd think if Stella was tormenting Stolas constantly and talking trash behind his back, you'd think Octavia would resent Stella or at least talk negatively about her. Yet we never see that, in fact, we're told Octavia frequently goes back and forth between Stolas' and Stella's households so it's implied that Octavia has a semi-good relationship with her mother. Overall, the fact that Octavia never says anything bad about Stella implied she wasn't the total villain she is now.
2. Stolas' convo with Octavia at the ride in Lulu Land. Stolas' struggled to put into words his relationship with Stella, saying things like "Your mother, she's always been-" , "I haven't been", and then "We weren't-", which implies Stolas believes both of them were at fault for the failed marriage, heavily implying the issue and cause of the cheating was that they simply were never in love. This scene also no longer makes sense because there's no reason why Stolas would be so hesitant if Stella acted awful the entire the time. He would've acted like he did at the end of S2, EP1, where we see Stolas' backstory and he proudly declares the divorce with Stella. Or at the beginning of S2: EP2, where Stolas is enjoying talking trash with Stella over the phone and yelling at her. Keep in mind, Stolas was ecstatic with divorcing Stella and all the scenes in Season 2 show him enjoying to finally argue with her but this all contradicts Season 1 materials because we never see this side before.
And if you want more proof about point 2, just think of this: If Stolas was always justified in his divorce with Stella, what was the point of him hesitating about his and Stella's relationship when talking to Octavia in Lulu land? The scene made it look like Stolas was part of the problem so why didn't the writers just have Stolas talk about Stella's abuse so not only Octavia but also the audience could understand that Stella was always this awful? They had the PERFECT scene for this and it was only episode 2, they could've avoided all this if they just changed this scene.
It's my firm believe that in S1, they were trying to present a more gray area with Stella and Stolas simply not ever being in love and that Stella was angry, not over the cheating per se but specifically cheating with an imp and making it public. Then for whatever reason, in S2 they made it so Stella was always evil and vindictive and Stolas was justified in the cheating and divorcing Stella which one again contradicts S1 Lulu Land because the scene with Octavia and Stolas heavily implies Stolas is part of the problem. On top of that, I find the new Stella just disappointing, she was one of the more unique antagonists because she wasn't straight up evil and you could actually understand her anger at Stolas maybe even her hiring Striker. But now she's just a single minded b*tch that joins the other dozen or so antagonists that want Stolas and Blitzo dead, now there's nothing really unique about her or interesting.
This. This is why I don't like the direction S2 has taken with the marriage and the divorce. S1 presented them both as being in-the-wrong, Stella had every right to be angry with Stolas cheating on her. Yes hiring an assassin was taking it too far, but Stolas didn't just cheat on her once, he cheated on her at least twice. He also drove their daughter into a depression and humiliated Stella in front of her friends. You could understand why she was pissed.
Then S2 happened and stripped away all of Stolas' accountability by revealing Stella was always horrible.
Now the cheating is being portrayed as a GOOD thing. Which is extremely insulting to real life victims of infidelity, to portray it as a power move.
@@PlanetZoidstar victims of infidelity???? Genuinely the dumbest sentence ever, you people need to get real problems seriously, also it's not cheating if one or both party's aren't invested in the relationship in anyway
@@xxstaryyxx161 Okay. If Stella had no investment in the relationship...Why did she call Stolas a "cheating prick" in episode 5? What's her motivation for wanting Stolas dead?
Stolas WAS invested in the marriage for 17 years. That's why he put up with Stella for so long. He's just trying to justify his cheating, as are the writers by stripping away Stella's motivation for wanting him dead. Or forgetting that Stolas invested 17 years of his life into the marriage.
As the brother to a victim of infidelity I find your take on what does or does not count as cheating disgusting. Maybe you'd feel different if someone close to you was cheated on?
You're only defending it because you (and the writers) clearly have a hardon for Stolas. I somehow doubt you'd be defending Stella if she cheated on Stolas. I wouldn't.
Remember how Stolas reacted to Asmodeus "praising" his cheating? He felt guilty and humiliated then. Because he knew what he did was wrong back then. But now he could care less.
You clearly haven't watched the show at all, it's directly stated like 4 episodes ago in their big confrontation that the only reason that stolas has stay with Stella for 17 years is so Vias life wouldn't be turned upside down and not to cause problems with the greater goesha family, every single argument that stellan stolas have about the cheating always comes back to class, stolas directly says to her in episode 2 of the entire series, I didn't have time to go to a motel, and she completely avoids that statement entirely too then insult to the idea of going to a motel (low class cheap hotels) which is a third statement revolving around class in just that conversation from Stella, edit the big moment of vulnerability of her at the end of the conversation she doesn't talk about their marriage how it's hurt her or anything else you'll listen she says is how much of a public embarrassment he is. Before storming out of the room, also by that point the cheating only just happened it's been Max only a few days since it happened, so far Octavia to be so incredibly Jaden to it all teleport should just a pathetically asks are you two done screaming for the day in a tone of complete resignation makes it abundantly fucking obvious that this kind of behavior between them is something that happens on a regular basis even before the cheating happened. The only reason Stella cares is because Stolas made a massive scene infornt of her and her friends right after a party and it's caused a massive incident their social circle. Maybe you should check yourself with with the internalize sexism and homophobia, being that your pulling every string you can to victimize Stella, entreat stolas like an unredeemable bastard refuse absolutely no evidence to the contrary, even if Stella was justified I wouldn't make her behave you're okay she is literally been screaming at stolas nonstop for at least the entire night before the second episode of the series happens while simultaneously tearing the entire house apart, that's not how any person to ever fucking act with their teenage daughter sleeping a few rooms away
@@PlanetZoidstar also I could not f****** care less if somebody cheated on me or somebody close to me, the entire concept is stupid and made up in the first place, either it was a big mistake or wasn't and they don't love you anymore, I've never understood the Giant betrayal it's apparently supposed to be,
It's ridiculous it's not any more impactful then any other fight or disagreement in a relationship
I think Stella is having the same “problem” as Millie. Not every character is as emotionally damaged as Stolas and Blitz (the king of needing therapy). And thus, not every character needs as much exploration into their character and background for the story to work. We’ll probably get more back story on Millie (that doesn’t become an episode about Moxxie) in the future. Same with Stella and her life before marrying Stolas (and maybe their marriage before Blitz came along). But until then, both are female characters with a strong sense of self. They know who they are. They work well in the story and don’t need to change much. Not every character has to evolve and go on a journey of self discovery. Yes, it feels like they’re getting the short end of the stick. But I’d say it actually puts them above everyone else. They’re good enough characters from their introductions that we don’t need much more development for them. So yeah, I’m not really bothered by the direction they’re taking Stella in. I’ve always seen her as more of an NPC that’s really just there to explain Stolas’ problems and highlight why Octavia is so reserved and isolating.
Seems more like that they can’t work w characters w no daddy issues, I don’t think writers like them, when Millie literally disappears for a moment
That’s a good point. They’re simple characters and that’s ok. Plus didn’t the creative team (Viv specifically) say that Helluva Boss is more focused on the boys/male relationships while Hazbin Hotel is the opposite? I might be remembering that wrong idk.
No
No
not having a traumatic past doesn't mean you don't explore the character tho. SPECIALLY of character of such importance as Stella (she is an antagonistic force, the link to Andrealphus and the one who hires Striker + Octavia's mother)
@@salishanmusic yup!
I think people get way too hung up on this show being like a dark shonen anime with super serious and complicated villains and completely forget that this show is a COMEDY. So Stella being little more than a spoiled child throwing a tantrum is A. Totally in character and B. Funny as Hell. So I say no, Stella’s character hasn’t been assassinated. If anything if was fleshed out and made interesting because it’s funny.
....And *THEEEEEN* ..... Exes & O's: happened... and the show proved time... and Time again, before ... and After.... that it was NOT just a comedy.... But everything a GREAT comedy, drama, action, drama, thriller, soap opera, anime -
whatever DUFUQ really.....
It's **whatever** the writers want it to be.... and I'm all for it... So long, as it never gets bad.... or toooo *HEARTwrenching* because seriously ..... this SHOW GETS
"""uncomfortably""" **REAAAAAALLLLLL**
"Sometimes."
I think they need to give all the female characters some development, Stela's development was a letdown because she was portrayed as a generic evil abusive spouse, based on the writing that they where doing with the previous male characters I was expecting to see her POV on the divorce and maybe some sympathy on her side. Millie has two traits southern bell and pissed that's it, and Loona is better but, still suffering from being generic too.
In literally the very first scene with her, we see Stella telling Stolas to get up and take care of a crying Octavia, while Stella stays in bed, hogging all the blankets.
That more or less sums up her relationship with Stolas
I'd agree with the claims of Stella being "ruined" if there was actually something there to ruin. She's still been one-note so far in my opinion, even with piecing together the circumstances of her and Stolas since well, that's all we see of her. I have hopes that she'll be fleshed out a bit more. Doesn't even have to be anything tragic as a backstory, she doesn't need that. Trauma does not equal deep, after all. She can still be a whole bitch, rotten to the core, and be compelling. That's what I'm hoping for her down the line.
Thing is though, she doesn't seem to be compelling so far, despite her being the main big bad of the show.
That's the thing, she didn't have much before and was one note, but there was still a lot of room and time to show her when she is not angry, when she does anything other than be furious at Stolas like in season one. Yet the more they show of her the more the viewers realisa that she is and probably will be just a one note character with nothing interesting to show.
i dunno i like the dynamic with her and brother at least what we've seen now. Where she's like all proud of what she did and then acted petulant while he's trying to convince her to jsut be patient until they get somehting substantial out of this. That feels le a step in the rigth direciton for her, give her someone boucne off of that isn't jsut the man she hates.
this really is my FAVORITE media analysis channel. every time a new hb episode comes out i'm so excited to see what new brilliant essay you're gonna drop
Thw problem I have with Stella is there was a lot of room to give her character. And almost every other 'villain', from Ozy to Striker, has been given a character. And not only does Stella have good reason to be pissed, as far as nobility goes (to say nothing about hells nobility), for what and how Stolis did what he did, a simple hit is a pretty calm response.
It really feels like Vivz saw fans not hating Stella, and siding with her against her pet ship, and so had to make her just born evil
I honestly like Stella being bad just cause she wants to. After hearing a bunch of sad back stories for the past 10 ish years, it gets kinda boring and predictable after a while. that’s why I love Villains like Jack Horner since he’s evil cause he felt like it. So Stella being a dumb evil person from the get go, I actually like it, especially since the voice actress seems like she has fun with it
I think that they definitely handled her confusingly. Helluva Boss is all about character complexity - having a one-sided character in there for comedy is a great idea, but I don't think that the show made it clear that among all the villains, that one-sided, basic character would be Stella. It might also be this cultural stereotype that people are used to, which is that cheating is always done maliciously, especially if it's done by the husband against the wife. However, in Helluva Boss, Stolas' actions are understandable, relatable, while Stella is actually the abusive person. Overall, I still find the direction that the show is taking enjoyable, and I have no problem with their choices, but I can totally understand the fans, as well, especially because I was one of the fans who thought about Stella as a character whose complexity we will learn about later on.
The thing that confuses me about Stella is... well, what's her motive? All the show tells us is that she hates Stolas just because. What's weird is that when Stolas says he wants to leave her, Stella says "what will the rest of the family think?!" like bro she clearly didn't care when she called him a "scrawny twig ass" during her "Not Divorced" party, making it clear to them that her marriage is already shit which, technically, makes HER look bad as well. So what does she want really?
This bland writing under the disguise of "she doesn't need a sad backstory" is just full of laziness and just wanting us to ship Stolitz. We're not asking for an excuse for her actions, we just want depth 💀
I personally think that a villain doesn't need to have a tragic backstory and that we don't need to sympathise with them to be well written (I'm actually a massive fan of some unredeemable villains cuz I think they're fun to watch). Despite that I still feel like stella is poorly written, imo she's shallow and very unlikeable but not in an interesting way. Her only personality trait is being angry and there's nothing more to her as of now. She's predictable and without any nuances to her personality like being funny, smart, charismatic, manipulative, having values she believes in, something to care about or any other personality traits that would make me want to watch her do her thing. I feel like chugging any criticism towards her writing to just people wanting to have a sympathetic villain ignores all the very well written unredeemable villains out there but that's just my opinion😅
True, Stella has no need or interest in getting in Stolas' will. But she never says that to her brother.
After he painfully and slowly explains to her why she should find a way to get more out of Stolas she doesn't respond with something like "I couldn't care less about that prick's house or fancy book. If you want his crap so badly then go marry and divorce him yourself!"
Instead she just nods and goes along with his obvious plan as if she had just had the biggest eureka moment of her life and immediatly calls the hit. If Stella really didn't care about the will or Stolas' belongings then she would've said so, she is not the type of woman to keep her thoughts to herself.
Her indifference about the will is as much of a headcannon as any other theory. And the problem isn't that she is "out/in character", the issue is that she has become a much less interesting character as the show goes on.
There was a lot of potential before, she was spiteful and hateful, brash and uncaring. But still malicious enough to call a hit from a guy with angelic weapons, having the influence, money and resources to tie herself with as many villains as she pleased. But after the most recent episodes I really don't see her being able to dial Striker's phone without her brother rubbing her two brain cells together.
Yeah the idea Stella doesn't care about the power, or indeed that she'd still be independently wealthy after a divorce is just as much head cannon as the people who were assuming she had depth behind her anger in season 1.
I think her lack of surprise and when he mentions how everything goes to the heir and you’ll?
Stella (happily): laugh
Then when he says she’ll get nothing she looks very indifferent, and she’s still very reluctant to change her plans and call Striker.
Just wanted to say that you are doing wonderful job!
Here's my thing- in a show full of complex people, motivations, and grey morality, why isn't Stella afforded that luxury? Why don't we see the impact the arranged marriage had on her? Why do we get two episodes focused on her daughter (who is just an extension of Stolas) but not her?
I think turning Stella into someone who has no character traits beyond hating her husband was the writers trying to make Stolas' cheating seem less morally grey and instead make him a sad little uwu gay baby who needs to be rescued with the power of dick and cuddles. If I was gay, I would find that kind of insulting.
I get that Stella has pretty much been characterized as a one dimensional Princess from the beginning, but I feel like it was just a very missed opportunity to tell a complex story about a crumbling marriage.
I think the writers knew exactly where they were going with Stella, and she has always been portrayed as an asshole. When in comes to Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel, people really like to force their own interpretation onto characters.
It isnt the point
Ok she’s an asshole. That’s it? What about her relationship with Octavia what is that like? Why didn’t Stolas get a divorce sooner? If he knew that their marriage was just arranged to make an heir, why didn’t he leave sooner? We don’t get to see her being an asshole other than making Stolas look more like a bitch.
I see the same thing happen with Stryker. People projected a certain air of seriousness onto his character and were thus super surprised at his narcissism and humor in the newest episode. In reality, he was always narcissistic, and it’s naive to think that any character is immune to mockery in an adult comedy show, but since it didn’t align with people’s narrow head canons, people now say Stryker was retconned and “ruined”.
Yeah, and the problem is that they were going absolutely nowhere with her
@@gigachad3925 The jokes ruined stroker’s tension. I never actually felt stolas was in danger in that episode because of the pacing and jokes sprinkled in. He’s not immune to being made fun of and jokes being thrown at him but it actively ruined the tension of stolas being kidnapped. Plus you can literally see them try to make him serious again when he brings up Octavia and threatens Stolas.
“This isn’t a retcon, as we really never had enough information about Stella as a person to really make this call. In fact, we only ever got *glimpses* of season 1 Stella and we never got to see her *not* mad”
Pretty much my exact thoughts. They didn’t “change” her personality, what little we saw of it, they just *expanded* on it
And about Stella and Octavia, I too am quite curious about how things will go because again, we have nothing to go on for that. Stella has made it loud and clear, many times, that she hates Stolas’ guts but she doesn’t seem to have anything against Octavia and presumably just ignores her for the most part, and while we know about how Octavia views her father we don’t really know about how she sees mother dearest. The only thing we really have for that is a drawing she made as a child, showing her and daddy with mommy no where in the picture. Will definitely be interesting to see how they finally interact, especially on the topic of Stolas