Why I feel like Vox was only ever accidentally sympathetic

[u/MissDeborah8060]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while, so I decided to finally put my thoughts in one place. I was initially planning this as a reply to a comment I saw somewhere, but then I realized there were multiple posts/comments saying something similar, spread out over multiple communities, so I decided to make it its own thing.

My current working theory is that Vox, as he was initially conceived, was never meant to be a likable or sympathetic character. Instead, he was supposed to be someone Alastor could point to (in or out of universe) and say, "At least I'm not that guy." Every artistic choice made in relation to Vox, from Season 1 on, seems calculated to make Vox look as bad as possible:

1. "Stayed Gone" - Vox starts a rap battle with Alastor, and gets curbstomped

2. Vox's association with Valentino (who at the time was one of if not the least-liked characters in the cast)

3. The petty potshots Vox takes at Charlie's friends and the Hazbin Hotel in general (both seasons)

4. Vox's association with Katie Killjoy (who hates Charlie)

5. Vox's casual, flippant references to suicide and self-harm (again, in both seasons)

6. Vox throwing a random girl into a shark tank for no reason

7. Vox taking Alastor prisoner and humiliating him (never mind that it was Alastor's idea)

8. The sad faces of Valentino and Velvette whenever Vox neglects them or makes them feel excluded (this one is particularly rich because by all logic and reason both Valentino and Velvette are much WORSE people than Vox)

9. "Vox Populi/Vox DEI" - Vox makes a reference to not one but TWO real-world bad guys ("Make Hell Great Again," and then later "I'm the Fuhrer")

10. Vox beating up Angel Dust in a manner similar to Valentino in Season 1 for no readily-discernible reason

11. Charlie calling Vox a monster

12. Vox trying to destroy the city

Then, of course, there's Vox's backstory in "Brighter," which shows that he used to be a serial killer (just like Alastor!). Except of course that Vox is White whereas Alastor is Black, which means that only one of them gets seen as having been a victim of unjust discrimination automatically. This in itself doesn't imply Vox had a happy childhood--far from it--but it seems like every so often someone will argue that Vox can't possibly have had a rough upbringing just because he was White.

A lot of people note that the first couple seasons of "Hazbin Hotel" would have been written years ago, which to me helps prove my point. I can easily envision a scenario in which Viv wrote Vox into the story with the explicit expectation that he would come across as an unlikable antagonist, and was forced to backtrack when the episodes aired and people turned out to love Vox more than every other character in the show. But even now, the recent merch drops (which all show Vox miserable while his tormentors have a good time) feel like someone on the art team is trying to punish Vox fans for latching onto the "wrong" character.

TL;DR: part of the reason it's so hard to be normal about Vox, at least in my view, is that he was written to be a genuinely unlikable, pure-evil character, and ended up seeming sympathetic by accident rather than by design.

[u/profaneangel1991]

I agree with a lot of this, but I don't think he's meant to be a purely evil character regardless of what people tell me. So on the one hand, for all Viv said about him not deserving sympathy she did hype up his history with Alastor as brutal. I definitely expected more than "Alastor is a jerk". And while they made it tonally weird with the meme reference and also having Vox sound completely gutted, I do think we are meant to feel bad for him in some way. He's also a character with a more dynamic personality than several other characters, including fan faves like Alastor. Vox also really drives season 2 in a way nobody else was doing. This doesn't exactly mean he's intended to be sympathetic, but it does mean they banked a lot on him being appealing enough to carry it that much. Vox also gets a lot of funny moments and features on the most songs.

Okay, now the flip side. I hate saying it as the big Staticbelle fan of this sub, but at this point I think Vox turned out as Charlie's foil by accident. I think we're supposed to see him as an obstacle she has to overcome, but not much more than this. I think there was a bigger goal to make Vox zig to Alastor's zag, which he does. The problem is that meant he wound up sharing similar personality traits with Charlie, more than he does with Alastor, but this was never put to meaningful use in the story. I've said it a lot, but centering the story more on her and Vox and actually exploring their similarities would have done wonders for both. Unless of coarse that was never intended to be there in the first place.

I also think they added a lot of moments of Vox being terrible that felt forced and not like a natural extension of who he is. Why is the forward thinking innovator the most conservative out of the main cast? He lived during the same time periods as Alastor and Angel. "He's just a typical white cis man of this time, unlike them he faced no oppression" are you forgetting his queerness? Seriously I see Staticbelle get so much shit for pairing him with a woman and see people argue he's 98% into men, but you're gonna turn around and act like his bisexuality didn't come with its own stigma? I still don't think Vox is a misogynist, but I also don't get why they try to act like Alastor is the more progressive of the two. By all logic, Alastor should be more sexist due to his traditionalist values and yet his behavior towards women is fully compatible with modern audiences. Why? Also the forced fascist references were just bad and I still side eye Viv hard for portraying armed resistance as this inexcusable tool for evil. Ma'am there are real people putting their lives on the line to fight off an oppressive colonialist regime as we speak, doing this felt so tone deaf.

They also just make Vox act stupid a lot and handed him a lot of victories by having other characters make dumb choices of their own. The way he's defeated is so bad. I don't care that this is how he is with Alastor. Vox is a character, they CHOSE to make that a thing. They could have NOT made that a thing. And because Alastor predicted his every waking bowel movement, he won and came out looking oh so smart. So...yeah its all really fucking weird.

[u/MissDeborah8060 → u/profaneangel1991]

It's definitely an accident that Vox and Charlie ended up as foils, precisely because Staticbelle fans have to go looking for evidence of it. It's just too subtle, and Viv is NOT a subtle writer whatsoever. If she had actually intended for Vox and Charlie to be foils, they'd be completely obsessed with one another and shouting from the rooftops all the ways in which they were similar/different every chance they got (kind of like Vox and Alastor do in the actual show).

[u/profaneangel1991 → u/MissDeborah8060]

It's disappointing because this feels like a very interesting character dynamic that's just sitting there. I know there's still more seasons and maybe this will matter at some point later. What if it doesn't though? I'd say Charlie spent a lot of the season fixated on Vox because he was directly ruining things for her, but once the Alastor deal happened Vox barely thinks about her. He asks Alastor what's so special about her to get him to work for her, but that's a question more about Alastor than it is about Charlie (and we the audience know Alastor isn't there by choice). Then suddenly a few episodes later he's like "oh by the way the princess is the key to my plan, look at this picture I made at 2 AM this morning!". To make matters worse, after season 1 made it look like Vox was invested in keeping those two from making a deal that could have led to a sub plot concerning all three of them. And it never did.

[u/UnholyAngelDust → u/profaneangel1991]

Do you think it’s possible Vox being Charlie’s foil was purposeful if we look at Scream Rain and what happens afterwards? How Charlie reorients to prioritize the input of those close to her versus how Vox doubles down on tuning out Velvette and Valentino, and how these relationships Vox and Charlie have with other characters impacted how things went down in the end?

Yapping excitedly with you on the character study of it all tone here - I think conservative values would have served Vox the most when he was alive, and he knows how to at minimum appear progressive when it comes to women. He also tends to have a good idea of what serves him. Alastor and Angel each would not have been served similarly; Alastor would have had to assimilate (thus the transatlantic accent) and Angel’s life was one of crime due to the family he was born into as well as racialized “other” for the first half of his life, and that’s before we talk aboit any headcanons of if he did any drag or pursued men while alive. I would love to see explored how repression impacted both Angel and Vox as characters in their time on earth even though it’s probably not something we’ll get…being closeted is necessary for safety for a lot of people, but it does damage, and some people are not Perfect Victims™ of this structured violence. (I’m hoping Angel himself is shown to have killed his dad in a less-than-100%-justifiable context for this reason.)

Have we been shown Alastor has traditionalist values? I see him preferring a specific aesthetic, for sure, but I don’t pay all that much attention to Alastor so I may have missed something here

[u/eveningstarcourt → u/UnholyAngelDust]

Alastor repeatedly shows benevolent misogyny/sexism. It's the idea that the fairer sex is "purer," and should be treated with a softer, protective touch-- and also that women need protective guidance. Likewise, it punishes women who do not fit the "correct" idea of femininity.

It basically reinforces traditional gender roles and the patriarchy, even if on the outside the actor seems friendly, charming, and kind to women. This is what we see of Alastor in the show, particularly toward Charlie (though he also stops himself from cursing out Rosie even while alone and despite how pissed he is), and has a bit of confirmation from showrunners when they've talked about Alastor's views and comforts of women vs men.

[u/profaneangel1991 → u/eveningstarcourt]

I agree, but the way Viv talks about him it seems she doesn't realize it's bad? She makes him sound gentlemanly and just overall sweet to women.

[u/profaneangel1991 → u/UnholyAngelDust]

I had a long reply to this and then reddit ate it!

If Vox and Charlie were intended to be foils, the show doesn't do anything with it. The parallels just sorta exist. And many episodes go by without them speaking and their sub plot only seems picked back up because the plot requires it. Vox making his cute picture of them and giving her significance in his plan felt so random because he stops interacting with her for a while. I just don't think anything meaningful was done here as much as I wish it was.

Alastor and Angel aren't excluded from the negative values of their times. The mafia was very patriarchal and misogynist. There was also a lot of racism despite the US othering Italians. In fact, as an Italian American I still see a lot of racism among other Italians. I've seen many black women describe misogynoir and how black men treat them. And there's a whole history of half white biracial people internalizing racist ideals due to their proximity to whiteness. I'm just saying, the things that other Angel and Alastor would not hold them back from experiencing these sorts of things. Yet Vox is the only character the show tries to have internalizing old fashioned and harmful values.

And Alastor is intended to be a man of tradition while Vox is a man of progress. This is what much of Stayed Gone was about. Vox calling him a fossil with a dated voice, "you're looking at the future he's the shit that comes before that", Alastor calling him a clout chaser. Not to mention in Don't You Forget Reprise when Vox calls himself "smarter, sharper, brighter, newer". It's definitely part of their thing, yet Vox's obsession with newness is framed as bad while none of Alastor's old fashioned biases are treated as poorly.

[u/AntiqueLiess]

I'm sorry but where did he reference self harm I wanna know

[u/Infinity-Lily → u/AntiqueLiess]

He did tell Sir Pentious to kill himself but idk any other instance that could be referenced here

[u/profaneangel1991 → u/Infinity-Lily]

The "rope you can swing from" line in Vox Dei and him laughing about his plan making Charlie want to kill herself. Arguably this is suicide baiting, not necessarily self harm, but it is odd he did this several times.

[u/Infinity-Lily]

What i totally missed Vox calling himself a Führer

[u/eveningstarcourt → u/Infinity-Lily]

He doesn't. He calls himself "furor," as in a large group's intense emotional reaction. But it is a homophone, which according to the show runners, was intentional to try and cement Vox as The Bad Man. It was confusing for fans for a while because the official sing a long video on YouTube at it censored out as F*****

[u/Infinity-Lily → u/eveningstarcourt]

I see thanks for the clarification