14 Of The "criticisms" That People Have Of Hazbin Hotel And Helluva Boss And My Responses

14 of the "criticisms" that people have of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss and my responses

1) "Hell is just Los Angeles but red! Vivziepop is so uncreative!"

Ignoring the fact that not all of Los Angeles is a complete cesspool plagued by crime, drug addicts, and homeless people, most of the people who make this comment know little to nothing about the Hellaverse and only have seen a few screenshots/GIFS of Hazbin Hotel. Only the Pride Ring (and to some extent the Wrath Ring) has a red background/aesthetic, and the other rings of Hell have different aesthetics/backgrounds. For example, the Greed ring has a green, industrial aesthetic, the Lust ring has a blue "red light district" aesthetic, the Sloth ring has a pink, pharmaceutical aesthetic, and the Wrath ring has a red and orange Western aesthetic.

2) "It is a plot hole/does not make sense that Velvette did nothing to help during Adam and his exorcist's attack on the Hazbin Hotel!"

Velvette (and the rest of the Vees) never had any intention on helping with the extermination problem. Velvette (who did not even now HOW the headless Exorcist Angel was killed) was simply trying to get the Overlord's at the meeting riled up, so that they would get themselves killed trying to fight the Exorcists without knowing WHAT could harm them.

3) "Vivziepop only knows how to draw skinny/anorexic/emaciated twigs for characters. There is little to no body diversity in the Hellaverse!"

The majority of the characters in the Hellaverse being stick thin/"noodle people" is a deliberate artistic choice on Vivziepop's part (she was influenced by the works of Tim Burton and Jhonen Vasquez, artists who draw most of their characters with exaggeratedly thin proportions). In addition there are plenty of characters that are not stick thin (some designed by Vivziepop, some designed by other people who work on Hazbin Hotel and/or Helluva Boss), such as: Mammon, Mimzy, Zeezi, Adam, Millie's parents, old Lyle Lipton/his demon form, Crimson, one of the Baphomet employee's at Ozzie's nightclub, Emberlynn Pinkle, Cleetus, and many, many background characters.

4) "Alastor is an overpowered Gary Stu!"

So overpowered, he was able to beat Adam all by himself!... oh wait, that never fucking happened and he got his shit rocked. Alastor is only "overpowered" compared to most SINNER demons, and compared to most OVERLORDS, he seems to be mid-high tier, judging by Zestial and Carmilla's reactions to him. He is outclassed by Goetia demons (such as Stolas), Deadly Sins (such as Asmodeus), and Archangels/Seraphim. He is also not a Gary Stu in any way, shape or form, as he has numerous flaws, such as arrogance/big ego (thinking that he can best Adam without an Angelic weapon) and being an attention whore (him getting angry when Carmilla told him that the other Overlords and herself did not really care where he went for 7 years), etc.

5) "The powerscaling in the Hellaverse does not make any sense, Alastor was hyped up to be this uber powerful god, and yet he got curbstomped by Adam and/or Charlie was hyped up to be the third most powerful character in the Hellaverse (after her parents) and yet got her ass handed to her by Adam and needed her father Lucifer to save her ass!"

My refutation for #4 answers the first half of this statement. And regarding the second half, although Charlie has THE POTENTIAL to be the extremely powerful, she is rather inexperienced/unskilled at using her powers, due to her "disney princess" nature and sheltered/privileged upbringing.

6) "Loser Baby is a terrible song that pretty much has Husk victim blame Angel Dust for getting sexually assaulted/abused/his terrible circumstances and compares his gambling addiction to Angel Dust getting raped/sexually assaulted."

In "Loser Baby" Husk does not victim blame Angel Dust for what has happened to him/his methods of coping, but instead he finds common ground with him over being in terrible conditions over having their souls owned by "a psychopathic freak" (Valentino for Angel Dust and Alastor for Husk) and makes him feel better by singing to him about how he is not alone.

7) "Demons in the Pride Ring are shown killing each other in "Happy Day in Hell", why are the exterminations done by the Exorcist Angels such a big idea?"

Because Sinner Demons can only be permakilled by Angelic weapons (and will regenerate/"pull themselves back together" if killed by conventional weapons), and the Demons shown killing each other in "Happy Day in Hell" were not using Angelic weapons.

8) "Vox is supposed to have died in the 1950's, why the fuck does he have a modern LCD/LED (Liquid Crystal Display/Light Emitting Diode) television head instead of an older CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) television head!? Vivziepop is an idiot who can't do basic research!"

Vox has a old photo on his desk of him and Valentino (who has two intact antennae, instead of 1 intact and 1 damaged antennae) that shows him with an older, boxier CRT television head. Vox has been established to be someone who loves modern technology and "gets with the times" in contrast to Alastor who dislikes post-30's media/tech and does not allow himself to be filmed/video recorded.

9) "Alastor is supposed to be black!? Why the fuck does he have straight hair in a fugly bob cut and light gray skin!? He looks like he was a white man in life!?"

In addition to the fact that the Sinner Demons in the Hellaverse are DEMONS and Vivziepop/her team have artistic liberty/creative ownership over their characters and can design them however they feel fit. Alastor is not %100 black (he is mixed race Creole/half black half white), and white-passing mixed-race people exist.

10) [UNIRONICALLY] "Vivziepop's version of Hell is full of LGBTQIA people! Vivziepop/the people who work on Hazbin/Helluva are unintentionally based/liberal idiots who did not realize the implications of what they created."

This is commonly stated by moronic anti-LGBTQIA bigots who usually have a negative reaction to any piece of media that has a non-heterosexual/straight character in it. And in the Hellaverse, being LGBTQIA does not damn you to hell, and there is nothing wrong with having representation of minorities/marginalized groups in media.

11) "Stolas is a more realistic depiction of an abuser than Valentino and/or Stella, and is babied/treated with kids gloves by Vivziepop/the writers, while his victim, Blitzo is treated harsher by the narrative."

This take is incorrect, because real life abusers are varied in what they do to their victims, and while Stolas did a lot of bad shit (his sexual coercion of Blitzo, his condescending attitude towards "lower classes" due to ignorance, and his at times poor treatment of his butler imp, etc), he is clearly the lesser of two evil compared to monsters like Stella and Valentino, and the narrative does not favor Stolas over Blitzo, it shows that they both fucked up and have their own personal demons (no pun intended). "Apology Tour" was simply focusing on Blitzo's problems more and Stolas being an out of touch hypocrite at times is not "bad writing", it is meant to show that he has his flaws too.

12) "Hazbin Hotel and/or Helluva Boss are satanic and/or anti-christian and/or liberal/LGBTQIA propaganda! It portrays angels and Heaven as bad guys and Lucifer and the denizens of Hell as good guys."

Just like argument #10, this argument is commonly stated by media illiterate bigots who know little to nothing about the Hellaverse. Hazbin does not portray Heaven as bad and Hell as good in a black and white scenario. It is much more nuanced and "shades of gray" than that. Some of Heaven is bad (Adam and his Exorcists, and to a much lesser extent Sera, who approved Adam's sadistic exterminations and might turn over a new leaf/realize that she was wrong), but most of the people in Heaven (such as Emily, Saint Peter, and most of the Winners, etc), seem to be good people. Lucifer Morningstar is not portrayed as a pristine hero but a morally gray, goofy, and formerly depressed dad who made a mistake and truly loves his family.

13) "The show has too much sex jokes and/or swearing. Vivziepop is uncreative and her humor is nothing but juvenile and raunchy garbage."

The show having "too much cursing and sex jokes" is a subjective opinion, however, many of the people who criticize Hazbin/Helluva/Vivziepop for this hypocritically enjoy other shows with raunchy humor and swearing, such as South Park and Family Guy, and when criticized for this, they will state something along the lines of "those shows are actually funny" and/or "they have swearing/crude humor, but the characters are not constantly saying FUCK every 5 seconds and the cursing is used when needed". I think that its reasonable to state that a lot of the scrutiny/criticism that Vivziepop gets for her show having "too much swearing/sex jokes" is based on misogyny, anti-LGBTQIA bigotry, and racism. If Vivziepop was a straight, white man instead of a bisexual woman of Salvadoran descent, I feel that she would get half of the criticism on this front.

14) "Helluva Boss portrays the embodiment of gluttony, lust, and pride as good people, and the embodiment of greed as an evil piece of shit, making the show liberal/left-wing propaganda, because the radical left believes that capitalism is bad and promotes obesity/HAES (healthy at any size) and "debauchery" and sinful "pride" (accepting LGBTQIA people, promoting equal rights, and LGBTQIA pride parades)."

A third talking point that is sometimes used by far-right, anti-LGBTQIA bigots who think that Hazbin Hotel and/or Helluva Boss is "far left anti-Christian propaganda". Mammon being a greedy, selfish piece of shit (who is portrayed as genuinely evil in contrast to the more morally gray deadly sins, such as Beelzebub and Asmodeus) is not meant to be a critique of capitalism, but (according to some people), a statement on how Greed is a sin that can not be indulged in a positive way, like Gluttony and Lust, because it is a selfish, insatiable desire for material gain, while Lust can be indulged in a positive way by having safe and consensual sex with a willing participant (or participants), and Gluttony can be indulged in a positive way by having a feast/banquet with others at a celebration/festivities/etc.

LINKS/SOURCES:

ANTI VIVZIEPOP | Tumblr

vivziepop criticism on Tumblr

Hazbin Hotel (Western Animation) - TV Tropes

Helluva Boss (Web Animation) - TV Tropes

Hazbin Hotel Thread | Kiwi Farms