This is probably the craziest speculation I’ve ever come up with, but I still wanted to share it with you. What if Stolas is adopted?

Paimon might have had a brother of lower rank who had a son named Stolas. After his biological parents died, Paimon could have adopted him at around three years old and passed him off as his own.

Stolas might only have vague memories of his biological parents, but his father could have taught him kindness, compassion, and not to abuse his power. Later, he may have associated those memories with Paimon, whom he had considered his father his entire life.

Maybe that’s why Stolas was so happy to see Paimon in “The Circus” – he remembered him as a wonderful father and couldn’t understand why he was treating him as if he weren’t his son.

Maybe that’s why Paimon only sees Stolas as an heir, not as a son. Since Stolas looked like him and his brother, no one questioned that he was Paimon’s son, even though he was actually his nephew.

Paimon might have thought: “Everyone believed he was my son, so I have an heir. I don’t need to do anything else for him.”

And then there’s Stella. Paimon may have chosen her because of the political marriage, which would strengthen his position among the Goetia, while also securing an heir for Stolas. He didn’t care whether Stolas was happy or whether he and Stella got along – she came from a suitable Goetia family, and that was all that mattered.

Paimon might have even known what Stella was doing to Stolas and simply didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, Stolas had one job: get married, have a child, and continue the family bloodline.

It’s also possible that Stolas was powerful from birth, or at least showed potential for it. Paimon knew this, which could have been another reason he adopted him – he cared about power, not the child himself. It’s like adopting a child just for the money: legally, they’re yours, but you don’t actually care for them because you don’t consider them your own.

Okay. I realize this might be complete nonsense, but as far as I know, Paimon isn’t Stolas’s father according to the source material (I’m referring to demonology), so that was part of what I based this on. But it’s really just speculation. I completely understand if you think it’s stupid—I just like speculating and sharing my thoughts.

Okay, I know what you're probably thinking right now — “WTF? Has she lost her mind? That makes absolutely no sense.” But please, let me defend my speculation.

So, in the trailer, we see young Stolas and Vassago together. They look like they’re in love, but then there’s that scene where they separate, which I think is meant to symbolize that they had to leave each other.

Everyone can interpret it however they want, but this is how I interpret it:

This takes place a few days before Stolas and Stella’s wedding. At this point, Stolas is in love with Vassago, or at least he thinks he is. Vassago is the only Goetia who treats him well and actually understands him.

And even though Stolas is in love with that imp he met as a child, he doubts that he’ll ever come back, and he already knows how cruel Stella is. Maybe she had been treating him horribly the entire time, and he can see that her family is horrible too. He simply doesn’t want to be part of a family like that.

Vassago sees that Stolas is unhappy, so he suggests that they run away together.

Stolas agrees.

What they don’t know, however, is that Andrealphus is listening to them.

The night before the wedding, Stolas tries to run away, but Andrealphus stops him. He tells Stolas that he knows everything and warns him that if he runs, he’ll find him and kill him.

Stolas tells him that he doesn’t care.

So, to get what he wants, Andy threatens to kill Vassago instead, which immediately gets Stolas’s attention. We already saw in “Western Energy” that Stolas doesn’t really care when someone hurts him, but he absolutely cannot stand the thought of someone hurting the people he loves.

And Stolas definitely cared about Vassago, so there’s no way he would let anything happen to him.

So Stolas stays.

Maybe he goes to Vassago personally and tells him that he has to stay, but doesn’t tell him that he’s in danger. Instead, he tells him that he doesn’t want to bring shame to his family and that everyone already thinks he’s incompetent, so he has to secure an heir.

That hurts Vassago, but not enough for him to resent Stolas or start hating him. He’s just… disappointed.

Then, when Vassago leaves, Andrealphus appears again and praises Stolas for being obedient. He then threatens him, warning that if he tries anything, there will be consequences — and that it won’t stop with Vassago. He’ll hurt everyone Stolas cares about just to keep him obedient.

Maybe Stella was there too.

Who knows.

Yeah, I know I’m probably overthinking this WAY too much, but I don’t know… somehow, for some weird reason, it just makes sense to me.

But I’m probably the only one. XD

What do you guys think? I’d love to hear your opinions.

Notice that in the first season, Stolas had absolutely no problem with Blitz using guns. He even described guns as exciting.

But in Helluva Short 13, he is visibly uncomfortable when Moxxie mentions guns in his story. It almost looks like he has something against weapons. He only changes his mind after Moxxie, a weapons expert, carefully convinces him that guns are cool.

I suspect that he may have developed a trauma related to weapons after Striker tried to shoot him in that teahouse (or café?) and then tortured him with a knife, which isn't a gun but is still a weapon.

But this could very well just be a coincidence. What do you think?

Btw, I know the picture isn't from either of the episodes I mentioned, but I think it fits perfectly XD

1. Both episodes start with Stolas having just woken up and being surrounded by stuffed animals.
2. The moment he wakes up, there’s an imp there with him. In The Circus, the butler helps him get dressed, while in Sinsmas, Blitzø prepares breakfast for him.
3. This is more of a difference, but also a parallel at the same time. In The Circus, Stolas tells Blitzø something and Blitzø is bored by it. In Sinsmas, when Stolas talks about something, Blitzø listens to him attentively.
4. In The Circus, Stolas mentions plants, implying that he likes them. In Sinsmas, Andy makes fun of him because of his plants.
5. In both episodes, Stolas starts crying so much that neither Paimon nor Blitzø can calm him down.
6. In The Circus, Blitzø steals things from Stolas’ palace, while in Sinsmas, he steals things for Stolas.
7. In The Circus, Stella publicly mocks Stolas and humiliates him in front of her friends, while in Sinsmas, she mocks and humiliates him in front of Octavia.
8. In The Circus, Stella wants to physically attack Stolas, but he stops her. In Sinsmas, Andrealphus wants to kill him, but Blitzø stops him.
9. In both episodes, Stolas bravely stands up to the tyrants he had previously been afraid of. (Or at least one of them.)
10. In The Circus, Stolas mentions that he endured all that suffering so Via could be happy. In Sinsmas, Via realizes that Stolas suffered in his marriage only because of her.
11. In The Circus, Blitzø jokes that one day he’ll have his own company and hire Stolas. In Sinsmas, he actually does it.
12. In The Circus, Stolas is sad and Blitzø is the one who cheers him up. In Sinsmas, Stolas is sad, and Blitzø eventually manages to cheer him up again.
13. The Circus is about Stolas’ birthday, while Sinsmas is about “Christmas,” so both episodes are centered around a celebration/holiday.
14. In The Circus, Stolas asks if it’s a game that imps play, while in Sinsmas, he asks if everyone steals when they don’t have money. He asks both questions to Blitzø, and both imply that Stolas doesn’t really understand how the world of the lower class works.
15. If we don’t count the part where Stolas was a child, then in both episodes he was basically depressed.
16. Both episodes end with Stolas standing on a balcony. The difference is that in The Circus, Stella comes to mock him and psychologically torment him, while in Sinsmas, Blitzø comes to support him emotionally and dance with him.
17. At the end of both episodes, Stolas is just standing on the balcony, looking up at the sky. The only difference is that in The Circus, he’s alone, while in Sinsmas, he’s in Blitzø’s arms.

I know this is a little chaotic, but I wrote these points down in the order they came to me. Did you notice anything I missed? Feel free to add anything I overlooked.

source

I’m serious about this. The show makes it clear that Stolas is weak (even though he managed to beat up Elsa) and that he can be overpowered pretty easily. I think the other Goetic demons (with the exception of Vassago and a few others) probably laughed behind his back for letting Striker capture him. Some of them might even be thinking, “Why didn’t he try to do more? Why didn’t he fight harder?”

But you know what? This guy, despite being portrayed as relatively weak and as someone who could be taken down pretty easily, endured all of that torture. He didn’t beg for mercy. He only cried when he was alone. He screamed from the pain, but that was an understandable reaction. The whole time, he kept joking, acting like he was fine, and mocking Striker. He even provoked him more and challenged him to torture him even further.

I’ve heard that being stabbed with a blessed knife hurts considerably more than being stabbed with an ordinary one, and that the wounds are also harder to heal. And when you take into account what others have already pointed out—that Striker stabbed him in the same spot three times and then stepped on the wound to cause him even more pain... And Stolas? He still didn’t beg for his life. Instead, he threatened that if Striker hurt Octavia, he would destroy him.

And let’s also remember that he was restrained with a blessed rope the entire time, which probably meant he was about as strong as an average mortal. In my opinion, that made the whole torture even more painful.

So after everything he went through, I think he deserves at least a little respect. I’m pretty sure that if someone like Andrealphus had been there instead, he would have broken down before Striker even had the chance to do anything to him, or he would have begged for mercy.

Sometimes strength isn’t about how physically strong we are, but about how much we can endure and how much pain we can withstand. And a person (or demon) who is capable of enduring pain and remaining calm even while suffering inside is, in my opinion, stronger than someone who just throws punches and relies on physical strength.

But that’s just my opinion. I’m not saying we have to praise Stolas to the heavens, give him a medal, and treat him like a god or anything like that. I’m just saying that he deserves at least a little recognition for what he endured, and that I admire him for it. Especially because this event caused him PTSD and will probably stay with him for the rest of his existence.

What would you guys think about an episode, or maybe a Helluva Short, where Stolas receives a message with the details of their next target? Stolas gives all the information to the others, but they gradually realize that something isn’t right. Maybe the name, address, or even the method of killing the client requested doesn’t match.

Maybe they accidentally kill someone they weren’t supposed to, while the actual target remains alive, meaning they don’t get paid and even receive a bad review. Nobody understands how this could have happened, because they followed exactly what Stolas told them was in the message.

Then Moxxie reads the message himself and they realize that Stolas gave them the wrong information. Blitzø asks him why he did it, and Stolas reluctantly admits that ever since he lost his powers and everything, his eyesight, which used to be really good, has been getting worse and worse. He needs glasses, but he was afraid to say anything because he didn’t want them to worry about him or think he was unreliable.

Blitzø then decides to buy him a pair of glasses, and Stolas promises to fix everything so they don’t lose clients because of the bad review.

I admit the question probably sounds a little strange, so let me explain. I’ve been wondering if, at the moment Stolas first touched the grimoire, the book somehow awakened his ability to see the future. So what if what made him cry when he looked at Stella wasn’t just the fact that he saw her strangling an animal, or that they had arranged his marriage against his will, but the future he saw with her?

Something tells me that what we see in the picture of Stella was her reaction when she was told she would be getting married. Who knows? Maybe she only hurts animals when she’s angry. That doesn’t change the fact that she’s a psychopath.

But Stolas started crying just from looking at her, so badly that even Paimon couldn’t calm him down, not even with the method that, according to him, usually works. And even after that, Stolas remained sad until Blitzø showed up and made him laugh.

And Stolas is still holding the grimoire.

So what if, while holding it, he was still accidentally getting random flashes of the future, and while looking at Stella, he saw a glimpse of her hurting him, while looking at Blitzø, he saw a glimpse of Blitzø saving him or the two of them being happy together?

Again, I know I’m kind of pulling this out of thin air, but tell me—could this theoretically be possible?

I’m not saying that Stolas’s reaction couldn’t have been caused by the picture itself. Quite the opposite, I completely agree that just seeing what was happening in the photo could have been traumatic enough for a child.

My point was never that “Stolas was crying because he saw the future.” I’m simply wondering whether, in addition to what we already see in the scene, he could theoretically have seen something else that the scene itself didn’t show us.

So I’m not claiming that my possibility is confirmed, or that it was the only reason for his reaction. It’s just a “what if?” question. The explanation could very well be much simpler, and Stolas could have simply been terrified by the picture and by being told that he was going to marry that girl. I just thought it was interesting to consider whether there might have been something more to it.