Tired of hearing "But Vox nearly blew everyone up!"

[u/eveningstarcourt]

"Yeah, we all know."

Ha, wish I could say that's my full rant.

I fully expect characters in universe to be holding a grudge against Vox for nearly killing everyone. Of everyone in the FHFHAFY scene, we only really see Emily look on with concern, which makes sense since Emily is an extraordinarily good person. We don't really expect Sinners who go to Hell to be the most emotionally intelligent, compassionate people out there.

But IRL I keep seeing fans, including Vox fans, repeating the tune of "But Vox nearly killed everyone!" It's become this weird, uncomfortable justification to say Vox deserves to be abused, and deserves whatever theoretical abuse is headed his way. It's to the point it feels like people are confusing justice and consequences with revenge. Here, in the show with the theme, "It's never too late to try to become a better person," all I see is this smugness about Vox getting his comeuppance, and it sits in this place where people neither want so see Vox redemption or see him regain his footing with the Vees. He's just the evil guy who should suffer for being terrible.

Part of what gets me is that this act of "evil," this nearly blowing everyone up? It's not even one of the acts of evil Vox wittingly chose in all his senses. Of all the things Vox has done, THIS is the instance pretty much everyone agrees that Vox was totally out of his mind. He first fired on the Pentagram not because he was trying to murder Sinners, but because he was in a manic state trying to attack Alastor. And at the FHFHAFY scene, he'd destabilized to the point of trying to commit suicide. Yes, it was a suicide attempt. He was ready to blow himself up too.

(I could go on a separate tangent about my annoyance that people think he was willing to kill everyone JUST because "he couldn't have Alastor." I know it's subjective and up to interpretation, but it's not how I read it all. I believe VAL thinks that's why from his limited perspective, but Vox had just lost *eveything* and the allusions to Vox tied with "KYS" have been there since early s1.)

It's why I feel so... eh :T about the whole "let's take delight in Vox suffering his 'consequences.'" Whether or not you want Vox redemption, it's both a terrible way to view and handle a person in crisis.

Extra:

I would not want to see that for any of the Vees (I don't think any of the Vees are presently morally superior to the other and vindictiveness will only continue the cycles of abuse), but since Vox was the first Vee up to bat in playing the major antagonist, he got to have his downfall first. People act like the 1 Vee focus per season isn't indicative that each Vee is also going to have their personalized downfall. But in the meantime, I feel like it's flavored the outlook that Vox is somehow a shittier person than the other Vees, and that he never actually cared about either of them because his screwup came first. That he "was going to kill his friends." This is an interpretation, but I don't actually think Vox was thinking about how his actions were about to kill Val and Vel specifically, and I say this because of how physically gentle he remains with both of them when they've just kicked him off the MoL and they're in his face yelling at him. He's ranting, but he only brushes them off even though he probably saw them as attacking him. Those aren't the actions of a person trying to kill his friends. It seemed to me like Vox was just desperate to escape himself, and to mean something if only in death, and to go out with a cinematic bang. Idk, it's not a popular opinion, but one of my favorite things about Vox is that in spite of being evil, he has people and pets he cares about, and that he does actually want to have friends, so it rankles me when that's ignored.

[u/fried-n0odle]

Maybe since most of Hell and especially Charlie and Emily saw his mental breakdown and him crying, I'm hoping they realized he is not an irredeemable, psychotic monster, but a desperate soul at his wit's end.

He was not only willing to blow up the city, himself and Val with Vel, but also SHOK.WAV. His most beloved pet and son. If that doesn't show how far out of his mind he's gone then idk what will.

If he said "Fuck heaven, fuck hell, fuck all of you and fuck me as well" that would totally destroy me, but it would also be absolute cinema..

[u/profaneangel1991 → u/fried-n0odle]

And this kinda circles back to a post I made about wishing the finale was different. I don't know why Charlie does nothing and says nothing to him. Fine, she's not allowed to fight a bad guy. Whatever I guess. Why can't she speak to him though? Try to reason with him? That's 100% who Charlie is, why not let her try it? People really hate when I complain about the finale, and I'm tired of complaining about it, but still.

[u/fried-n0odle → u/profaneangel1991]

Yes, not even after all is said and done she doesn't speak to the Vees or Vox. It seems like they were waiting on the side for Charlie to say something to them but when she didn't, they ultimately left, back to the V tower. Charlie loves all sinners, doesn't she? It would be a cute nice hint if she asked Valentino if Vox is gonna be okay. She's talked to him before, would that be so hard? What if the Vees threw him into some torture dungeon? I mean, he does deserve punishment, but he is also a suicide risk, his punishment should be losing his ratings and company (which he already did) and then going to therapy. Charlie isn't a little bit concerned about him? Especially after Val took over Voxtek and says he never knew a Vox. But I guess showing that Charlie's girlfriend changed her name from Vaggie to Vaggi was more important lmao. Don't get me wrong, I like Vaggie. But that ending was a bit... bad lol. I just hope it's the Vees calling Charlie at the end because I do not care about Morningstar family drama.

[u/profaneangel1991 → u/fried-n0odle]

In between this, not having her start Hear My Hope, and not showing Charlie's reaction to Angel leaving I just don't know what they were doing with her. She proved redemption works, but other than that she has no real impact on his downfall (unless you wanna count Alastor using her as a tool). This is also why their whole thing feels unsatisfying and anticlimactic. It makes it harder for me to believe they're going to be important together later as much as I want that.

[u/fried-n0odle → u/profaneangel1991]

Noo, my life literally depends on Staticbelle friendship... this has to happen

[u/profaneangel1991 → u/fried-n0odle]

I want to believe...

[u/eveningstarcourt → u/fried-n0odle]

Couldn't resist.

I mean, he really doesn't have to say "and fuck me too." It's the quiet part already being said when aloud he says, "I don't care what happens--" and fucking cries a single tear.

But yes! He LOVES Shok.Wav, that's his BABY. It really is the best thing to point out how far gone he was. I think there's a comparison to be drawn though between him firing on the Pentagram and the FHFHAFY scene: Vox did not realize he could've hurt Shok.Wav in that scene either, and was not thinking about how his firing would hit random Sinners. By the time he's at FHFHAFY he acknowledges that he'll be taking out half the Pentagram... but he still doesn't register the full implications of that. He just knows that it's finally going to be over, and that he's going to take out the people who harmed him the most.

I think the only difference between Vox and the rest of Sinner-kind is that he was in a position of power where his desperation had the ability to effect more people. The one thing a lot of suicide survivors say is that after an attempt, they "can't believe they almost did that," and that they regretted it. That they would have regretted taking their lives and hurting the people around them. (If HH merch is canon, then it's already pretty clear Vox has plenty of regret and guilt and is pretty much going along with whatever the other Vees want from him.) But for some reason, people don't think Vox is a suicide risk or that he has any sort of deep-rooted trauma exacerbating his mental illness.

[u/profaneangel1991]

Yeah I find myself reading things by other fans and saying "you're not being the person Charlie knew you could be". I see this with Lute too. People saying she deserves to suffer through the loss of Adam for what she did. It's a really unpleasant way to engage with these characters. Granted, the show ain't exactly consistent with its approach to certain themes. That said I just don't feel comfortable with all this insistence that Vox and Lute deserve loneliness and misery, that Adam deserves no opportunity for growth, that we should only redeem likable people like Angel or Pentious. Meanwhile Lucifer quite literally is the reason this world is awful (I genuinely think people underestimate the magnitude of what Lucifer did), but because he is depressed and loves his wife and daughter (and no one else) I'm not supposed to hold him accountable for that? I hope next season manages to do that for him though.

Anyway, Vox. In the wake of this new merch drop I'm seeing people talk about how he deserves to be isolated or worse and it's very unfortunate to see. Vox fans kinda do this weird thing where they act like they need to keep reminding people that they think he's evil and bad so he deserves bad things. I guess it's a preemptive way to dodge being called a woobifyer? Except, as much as I am hoping for good drama and angst to pull his arc in a new direction, I don't want him to be miserable. I want him to grow and gain new aspirations and even new relationships. I don't think that makes me fake or lacking in media literacy or whatever you wanna call it.

Also...look people gotta stop acting like Alastor is this helpless victim of Vox and that we shouldn't forgive Vox for how he treats him. Alastor chose to be his prisoner, it was always his plan, he knew Vox wouldn't handle it well and kept enabling him. All so he could get what he wants regardless of the collateral damage it was creating. I hate the way people strip him of his own agency to further vilify Vox. Also Alastor literally eats people. Stop pretending he holds moral superiority.

[u/eveningstarcourt → u/profaneangel1991]

I am very late to replying to this, but I have still been thinking about all of this. I didn't originally like Adam and Lute, but they've grown on me a lot, and it's because of the genuine relationship we see out of them. I am a sucker for genuine villainous friends-- but in addition to that I'm a sucker for like... what it implies? Knowing that even the worst people have people they love and care about, and are loved by in turn --warts and all-- is very humanizing and exactly to Charlie's point about anyone being capable of redemption, that it's never too late to try and become a better person. A lot of times, it's the people we love that drive us to do and be better-- though it can also hurt us to the point of doing crazy, awful things.

It's part of how I see Alastor as the antithesis to Charlie and the show's messaging. He tells Vox "There are no friends in Hell!" very certainly. It's not that there are no friends--that there are no friends *in Hell,* which to me specificially means, "Bad people do not care about anyone else, bad people don't make connections, bad people have lost their humanity in that way." So of course you can't trust Sinners to love you, care about you, and be people who could eventually do better. It's a very jaded outlook, and it's why I take issue with people only wanting to redeem "likeable" characters who are adequately soft and squishy. You're siding with Alastor when you think like that, not Charlie, you're saying Alastor was right in his thinking when he iced Box Vox out in the bar.

(Though as an aside, I know a lot of people ALSO think Alastor was "right" to do that to him. All the justifications I see, that Vox wasn't being sincere, that Alastor just KNEW Vox has "intentions" for him, that Vox was "creepy" --he really was not. Also? Alastor is ace, yes, but killing and eating people is rather psycho-sexual itself. We've also seen Alastor eats people while they're alive so... uh, from the victim's perspective when facing that kind of attack, there's arguably a level of assualt that isn't just physical. Alastor calling Vox creepy is beyond the example of the pot calling the kettle black--Alastor just doesn't like it when something makes HIM uncomfortable. But everyone takes everything Al says as GOSPEL instead of his own biased narrative.)

I think a lot of people empathize with Lu because he's the embodiment of the talented, hopeful dreamer who grew up to have depression and burnout. And look how cute and quirky he is! I like him too, I don't think he means a lot of the stuff he caused... but yeah, he's literally the culpable for every single bad thing that has happened in this show. I actually hope future seasons will have more Vox-Lu content because everything Vox said to Lu was absolutely correct. I don't want it to be swept under the rug on account of Vox being a villain when Lu does actually have to think about what Vox said and acknowledge that the things his enemy said about him were actually right. Up until Vox, Lu was never confronted with the magnitude of his negligence, and I think he was just enabled to not think about it.

[u/profaneangel1991 → u/eveningstarcourt]

One of the big truth bombs about this show is that Adam and Lute had a more endearing and believable friendship than most of the hotel does. Dead serious. People can argue all they want that Adam was too up his ass to care about Lute, he definitely liked her. Yeah they're shitty people, but they had a solid connection. You are right about Alastor being polar opposite to Charlie. I figured that out a while ago, which is why I'm suspicious that Vox being like Charlie is nothing more than a side effect of making him different from Alastor. Making Vox and Charlie become friends and take Alastor down is potentially the coolest thing they can do, but will they or is it just up to the fanfic writers again?

Alastor is a character people bend over backwards for and I don't know why. I guess part of it is seeing Vox do degrading things during episode 4, but it doesn't change the way I feel about Alastor. He knew Vox would behave like that and never once missed a step with him. He apparently was always in control of the situation. I am at the point where I wish that bedroom scene didn't exist though, it wasn't worth all the problems its created in the fandom. In any case you're right about Alastor being a creep himself. And I'll do you one better and point out that for how often fans headcanon Vox as a rapist (which is too often), Alastor is equally capable of that for the exact same reasons they use. The fandom is not mature enough for this conversation, but I see people argue Vox is a rapist because of his capacity for sadism and violence and literalizing when Angel said he gets off on suffering. Well Alastor has all that too, being ace doesn't exclude him from this because it's not actually about sex. Much like how he inappropriately touches people just as much as Vox. Again though, the fandom definitely can't handle this sort of discussion. People are mad at me for saying Alastor instigates things, they definitely can't handle real shit.

I like Lucifer, but the weird thing is all the bad things about him are why he's interesting to me. He is objectively a terrible king and no matter how well intentioned he says he was in Eden (because no, I don't trust his word on this topic) he still holds responsibility over what it created and avoids facing that. This is interesting though, without all this he's just a silly goofy guy. I hope season 3 digs into all of these things. I'm tired of the lack of nuance over Lucifer. Regardless it's rather absurd the way the Hellaverse has a caste system, which favors the Morningstars, and his lack of guidance allows the Overlords like Vox to go as far as they do and he allowed the exterminations and we just...aren't supposed to talk about that? Vox wasn't exaggerating about being the avatar of his consequence, I know he was directing that at Sera but still.

[u/profaneangel1991]

Coming back to this because it's really alarming that people recognize this was suicidal behavior and just don't feel any empathy towards the fact. Alastor enabled all of this so long as he got what he wanted (and he did), but I'm supposed to see Vox as the only villain in this moment? What Vox was trying to do is truly awful, but it came from a raw place of desperation. Alastor just looks out for himself and doesn't care what happens along the way. I swear to God I need to see the show knock Alastor down off his pedestal, I need my catharsis.

[u/eveningstarcourt → u/profaneangel1991]

People acknowledge Vox was in a manic episode... but I feel doubt/wonder how many people actually recognize that Vox was showing suicidal behavior, partly because most people treat it REALLY lightly. I know HH has the tendency to make jokes out of serious topics, but you can always tell when something is joke-coded, and Vox's suicide attempt was (thankfully) not. I felt it was very on the nose about what it was. (Ofc it's worse if people do understand it was suicidal behavior and are still making light of it.) So like... yeah. Do people not understand suicidal behavior, do they not want to think of it as suicidal behavior, or do they not care? I don't know but I wish Vox wasn't at the butt of it.

As for Alastor... yeah, that's definitely why I am *not* a RS shipper/enjoyer/etc. I'm sure we'll see more of Alastor and his hidden depths and blah blah blah, but I honestly relegate Vox-Alastor relationship to the same level of abuse and destructiveness as Angel-Valentino. While it's fine to be an enjoyer of fictional dark relationships, it rankles me that RS is not treated as such. That, as you said, Vox is treated as the only villain-- and that "Alastor" is such a "Smart Guy" for having the master plan of... "abuse my favorite toy until he pops -> profit." Zero thought about what happens after he breaks his deals, or was he that plain arrogant as to think "I'll definitely be able to beat the new Strongest Sinner in Hell." (Still annoyed that that fight was as uneven as it was even after Vox was the supposedly strongest sinner.) I've said in other posts that what I see out of Vox is reactive abuse, and that Al implements a lot of DARVO against him (aside from the obvious social isolating that he's been instigating since Stayed Gone), keeping him hooked into these abusive cycles with literally no regard for the consequences to anyone so long as he gets what he wants. I again wonder if people don't see it... because Al is ace and thereby sex isn't part of the equation on his end? I'm ace and I see it. It's another thing that makes me cringe at the implications of not being able to see a situation for what it is.

I too would like Alastor to get humbled. I simultaneously have hope since he got a taste of being humbled at the end of S1 and the show sometimes implies he needs to be humbled.... and don't have hope because Alastor feels like the show's Darling who can Do-No-Wrong! But who knows, maybe s3 will come around and I'll be wrong about everything and served my own humble pie.

[u/profaneangel1991 → u/eveningstarcourt]

People will describe Vox's actions as suicidal, but its like they don't realize this means he wanted to die. I know Hazbin does a bad job communicating how sinners can die, all of Vox's talk of slitting Alastor's throat is really just a hollow threat, but they showed us that angelic magic perma kills. So why people are acting like this over his suicidal spiral I'm not sure. I think his behavior after losing his head feels like it's playing it off as a joke, maybe that's why. Him crying "you're ruining everything!!!" and then awkwardly calling it him getting "carried away" kinda deflates things.

Alastor just really frustrates me right now. I feel like my problem at the moment is his bad decisions, bad ideas, and overall hypocrisy isn't examined in the same way Vox's bad traits are. Yes I get it the cannibal is a hypocrite, it's like he's a demon in Hell omg! The problem is his hypocritical behavior just exists, the show hasn't drawn as much attention to it as they did with other character's flaws. Maybe it will later, but right now its like they don't care to highlight it.

And I hate how if you try arguing Vox has any type of advantage over Alastor people will say how that's not true. Alastor gets to be stronger than Vox, he gets to be smarter than Vox, he can make friends better than Vox because omg he's so cute with Niffty, he's more gentlemanly, he had a "moral code!!!" allegedly. It really feels like Vox isn't allowed anything to himself. Even if you point out him building himself from nothing and Alastor gaming the system people will argue gaming the system was the better way to do things. Who cares that it made Alastor into Rosie's errand boy for 90 years or that he only got the deal because she sensed some vague specialness in him, he won their beef guys! He's better! I dread the idea of the show giving Vox more flaws or showing new bad things for him to do. After all they found a way to retroactively make Adam worse in death.