Love that you just come here like once a year, just to post a huge wall of text analysing whatever character has been rotating in our mind that you needed to write a wall of text about, and then it's back to radio silence for another year. Keep doing the lesbian lord work.
lol at this point I only use this blog to get the brain worms out of my head. If I don't start blabbing I'll explode.
Rumi as a trans metaphor just works so well and feels so extremely powerful to me. Itās in the big stuff like how she is so utterly terrified for her cis friends seeing her naked because she knows that theyāll see something that she has that they do not but I also think the real tragedy of it comes in the small stuff. The tiny ways in which she continues to hurt herself, miniscule cuts on her soul, that she doesnāt even seem to realize what sheās doing until sheās so broken down she cannot even begin to explain how she just needs it to stop.Ā
Itās in the way that her sword, something implied to be a manifestation of her own soul, is double edged and constantly held near her own throat. Like sheās waiting on the slightest mistake or misstep or pathetic excuse to angle it just a little more to finish what sheās wanted to do all along.Ā
Itās in the way she insults herself, insinuates without outright saying that she deserves to die, not because of anything that she did, but only because of how she was born.Ā
Itās in the way that sheās so desperate for Celineās love, not the half forced love of someone who thinks theyāre doing whatās best for you while they slowly but irrevocably tear you down from the inside but the whole unconditional love that a parent has for a child. A baby who is crying and begging and pleading to be seen and cherished and taken care of when all she gets instead is the look of a detached owner, waiting for the animal to turn around so the shot can go off without guilt, regardless of the fact that sheās too much of a coward to do the difficult part.Ā
Itās in the way that she lashes out at the people that she loves most because she has no other defense mechanism other than to push away and crawl back into her own skin, curling into herself as hard as possible to keep literally anyone else out, even when all she wants deep down is someone to understand and be there for her. Even when you can tell that she immediately regrets when this happens, that it just makes her hate herself more that sheās hurting the only people she ever cared about.Ā
Itās in the way that she desperately clings to the one person that acts like he understands, not realizing that heās not the one that she needs to be opening up to. That heās just a stand-in for the people that she needs to come clean to but she canāt help it when he looks like she does.Ā
Itās in the way that she thinks Zoey and Mira were going to hate her when they realized what she was hiding when the evidence was there all along that they would have loved her no matter what. And to be clear it is not Rumiās fault that she thinks this. She was taught her entire life that she was something disgusting and vile, a mistake where the only way to make it right was to erase it and completely start over. Itās no wonder that she takes to harming herself in the same ways that she was harmed from the minute she was old enough to understand what was going on.
At the same time though it is set up from the very beginning that Zoey and Mira have been othered and ostracized too, just not in the ways that Rumi has. Golden is the perfect representation of that but Rumi still isnāt fully present for it even then. She claims that sheās done hiding and sheāll be who she was born to be and Zoey and Mira back her up by explaining how they both felt out of place and misunderstood too but Rumi is so lost in her own head that she canāt see it for what it is. It isnāt until This is What it Sounds Like that Rumi finally allows herself to admit it plainly and clearly, without any more half truths or outright lies or pretending that sheās opening up when sheās not. She finally takes a step back and allows Mira and Zoey to come to her, no more pushing them away or curling into herself or running to the wrong people. She knows it might hurt at first and they may not understand but the only way to heal is to let it hurt at first.
I think sometimes as trans people we do not give people the grace and patience that they need. This comes from a place of trauma and not wanting to be hurt anymore than we already are and sometimes people are cruel and will not love you no matter what you say but other times people are willing to try because they do love you, they just donāt understand.Ā
Mira and Zoey turning their weapons on Rumi was a mistake, a horrible one that they can see has instantly done irreparable damage. The kind of thing that they will apologize over for years to come and still feel guilty about but I understand it completely. They are scared and confused and hurt and in front of them is a begging and crying and snarling Rumi who is losing her mind more by the second with fear and pain and so they do the one thing that has been drilled into their heads for her entire adult lives. It is not the right thing, but itās the thing that makes the most sense to them in the moment. They are not allowed the grace and the patience that they would need in order to not hurt Rumi the way that she and in turn them have been hurting her for years.Ā
So instead they add one more cut on top of all the cuts that have been building on Rumiās mind and soul for her entire life, and that just causes the wound to open up so large Rumi is willing to do the unthinkable to make the pain stop.
But, ultimately, itās in the healing too. The way that her healing does not and never did involve getting rid of the patterns that she hid for so long. The only way for her to move on was to show them. The part of herself that is scarred yes but is not any less worthy of love because of it. She canāt go back to the way things were before, hiding and running and hurting herself, but thatās ok. Healing is going to be long and tortuous, filled with hundreds of tiny aggressions that she, and Zoey and Mira, need to unlearn and through it all Rumi will still be scarred. Sheāll be different and no amount of understanding will change that but thatās a good thing because sheāll be loved and love is all she ever wanted to begin with.
I really resent the sentiment that I see often with Charlie that the progression of her character development will lead her to eventually stop seeking redemption for those that want to hurt her and her people and she will instead turn to cruelty and abuse of her powers. I feel like I see this a lot with pacifist characters in media where people want to act like their kindness is stupid and that violence is the correct answer that they will undoubtedly reach once they are just beat down enough.
Frankly I think that's all just ridiculous and personally what I wanna see from Charlie is that she will continue to choose to forgive and love even in the face of extreme violence, because even though that's the hard thing to do it's the right thing to do and her morals are very clearly defined in that aspect. I think the crux of her character development is going to come from just how difficult it will become for her to continue to choose peace above all else and we've already seen that a little in the first season but I truly think it's just gonna get harder for her as she becomes more and more of a threat to the status quo.
But people need comfort and peace above all else, they don't need more violence, even the ones who are so cruel to her. That's really why she spared Adam and why Vaggie follows in her footsteps and spares Lute too. Even if there's a demonic side of Charlie screaming at her to fight and protect what's hers at all costs, I just think it's a testament to her love and her morals that she keeps it all in check and continues to choose kindness.
While I realize that this might be premature, and that Charlie will undoubtedly continue to change and grow as more seasons come out, I cannot help but look at her character as it stands now. Even in this state of prematurity Iāve found her and the themes that she represents to be extremely compelling and she seems to me to be very misunderstood or at the least not looked at enough in terms of her character.
I do not think itās a stretch to say that Charlie is, at her core, a living embodiment of the themes of love, redemption, and forgiveness, that the show is trying to portray and the pain that she goes through attempting to instill this upon others has been nothing short of heartbreaking to me.Ā
So hereās something thatās way too long and self indulgent but that I had no choice but to write anyway, broken down into helpful little sections to hopefully be at least a little bit cohesive.Ā
Guilt:Ā
Itās clear to me that the guilt that Charlie feels for being hellborn and therefore having access to power and resources that most others in Hell do not brings her nothing but shame and agony. This is all something that we need to interpret based on her body language and actions as itās never something that she would come right out and say but I do think that itās a major aspect of her character that stuck out to me when I first watched the series.Ā
Thereās a moment very early on that sticks out to me in episode one. Lute talks about how Charlie and her hellborn kind are pardoned from the extermination by Lucifer and then asks her the question: āHow does that feel? To know how little you matter.ā Charlie is speechless and then has some amazing body language that really epitomizes these feelings of guilt she has.Ā
I think itās important to note here that expressions like this are very rare for Charlie. Thereās something to be said about the ways in which she seems to hide her uglier emotions. The horns only seem to come out when sheās extremely angry and even then theyāre a blink and you miss it kind of reaction. Sheās so good at pulling her anger back that we donāt even see that tail of hers until someone dies.
Even the times we see her cry in the series are either for emotions like love, like when Angel forgave her for crashing the studio, or she very quickly attempts to cover them up when sheās actually in distress like with Vaggie in the last episode. Even when she cries when Pentious dies sheās immediately covering her eyes and then hastily replacing those emotions with anger and even though thatās also an emotion she seems to try and hide she also appears to be more ok with that one showing when it comes to the safety of her family. So rarely is her genuine distress on full display, she doesnāt even want to show it to Vaggie of all people when theyāre alone in the hallway. Appearing to be strong and put together even when sheās dying inside and just wants to break down seems to be very normal for her.Ā
So when we see these emotions from her genuinely on display I think it says a lot about how sheās feeling, that sheās so lost in her own trauma that she canāt even remember to try and hide it. At first thereās a look of anger at Lute, like sheās trying to remain the intimidating princess of Hell who needs to convince these people at all costs and she cannot look weak.
And then that mask breaks and thereās a look of genuine shock on her face, like she canāt believe that someone just said that to her. And this is not shock in the context of contempt or anger, this is a painful kind of shock where she has been truly hurt by those words but doesnāt want to believe that someone would be so cruel so casually.Ā
Iād like to pause here and remark that weāve seen just how Charlie reacts when people are mean to her friends. Weāve seen those horns come out and eyes turn red when Angel is thrown around by Valentino, and she didnāt even get to see the worst of it. We can speculate all day about what she would have done if Angel hadnāt stopped her but I think thatās less important in this context. What matters is that she was driven to the point of true unfiltered rage at her friend being threatened and we need to remember that itās a lot for Charlie to do that, the last thing she wants to do is throw around her power and hurt people.Ā
However, this anger is not extended to her own safety. The only time that demonic anger flares up here with Adam and Lute is right after the line: āso give up your dumb endeavor, cause you donāt have a shot.ā Charlie is more angry at the mention of her dreams being seen as stupid than she is at Lute insulting her person and even then those horns are gone in a flash.
Lute telling her that she doesnāt matter just brings her pure and unadulterated sorrow that cuts so deep she canāt even say a word to defend herself. The guilt is so absolutely all encompassing for her that it only brings pain, anger seems the furthest thing from her mind.
Finally though, after the shock has passed and Charlie seems to process what Lute has said, she starts to frantically glance around the room which could be read in a few different ways. To me though it always came off like she was desperately looking for an out. Kind of in the same way an animal might start looking around the room for an escape route. I think she has been so hurt by what Lute said, the guilt has started to worm its way up her soul, that for a second she is genuinely considering bolting from the room, even if itās just on a subconscious level and she doesnāt actively think that thought.Ā
This could also be read as her no longer being able to make eye contact because of just how much this hurt her which I think is also a valid interpretation considering how much both physical contact and eye contact seem to matter to Charlie. This is also something we can see in the last episode when she and Vaggie have their duet. Charlie is very reluctant to make eye contact until Vaggie comforts her with physical touch. She glances towards her once at the beginning when Vaggie first starts to sing but then quickly looks away again. She only maintains eye contact after Vaggie touches her cheek and Charlie grabs onto her arm, signifying just how much Vaggie is soothing her with the song.Ā
Lastly, after the shock and the pain have permeated her, she begins to curl into herself, her arms subtly coming closer to her chest and her shoulders sinking in. This is of course a classic way that we self sooth. I donāt think she realizes sheās doing it as most people probably donāt but bringing your arms closer to yourself is instinctual to protect your chest and therefore your heart when youāre feeling threatened. Doing so can make us feel safer since we feel like weāre taking steps to protect ourselves.
Charlie is feeling so threatened and hurt by this one line that she is desperately trying to make herself feel better in any way she can. Just the thought of her getting a free pass on death while her people live in fear of true absolute death at the hands of Heaven is enough to make her feel so much guilt that even all of her love and kindness does not save her. It makes her begin to spiral into her own thoughts and sheās only pulled out of it by the distraction from Adam that they donāt have much time left and if she doesnāt convince him of the hotel now sheāll miss her chance.Ā
This is just one moment from episode one but these feelings of guilt continue to color her actions into the series and I can only assume before that as well. The sadness that Charlie hides from the world is always there and I donāt think itās about to go away anytime soon, just like I donāt think her survivor's guilt is going to go away even as people start to get redeemed. I donāt want this to come off though like Charlieās actions are any worse just because theyāre fueled partly by this guilt.Ā
At the end of the day the fact of the matter is that Charlie is doing an immense amount of good. She may have no idea what sheās doing half the time and it may go completely wrong and take a lot of different winding paths but the journey sheās on is a good one. Someone just needs to try and it may not be perfect but I donāt think itāll ever be, even after she finds out that sheās actually been able to redeem someone. The important thing is that someone, anyone, is standing up for those who have nothing and defying a deeply unjust system that everyone follows because of a learned helplessness and a true lack of autonomy.Ā
Charlieās reasons for doing what she does can only really hurt herself as she doesnāt really seem to care for herself at the best of times and instead runs off to continue to help others. Sheās in desperate need of a break and someone to talk to about her feelings of immense guilt and her fear of being abandoned but unfortunately, the ones who she should be able to talk to are partly the problem to begin with.Ā Ā
Mommy and Daddy:
We can make all the jokes in the world about Charlie's mommy and daddy issues, and believe me I have, but the way her parents have treated her has made a huge impact on her personality. We donāt really know exactly how Lilith treated her daughter growing up so we donāt have much choice but to make some assumptions here. I do think itās safe to say that an adult who runs off on their own child for years on end when theyāre in desperate need of a stable, loving, guiding hand in life can only be described as indifferent at best and down right neglectful at worst and frankly I do not care how old Charlie is because she clearly needs her mother. Age should not be the deciding factor on the amount of love a parent gives their own child.Ā
What we do know about how Lilith has impacted Charlie seems to manifest in much smaller and subtle ways. We know that Lilith was the one to inspire Hell when Heaven came knocking and we can assume that this penchant for rebellion was passed down to Charlie, albeit in what I can only assume to be a vastly different tone. When it comes down to it though, we know that Charlie desperately wants to believe that Lilith must be doing something important and that in turn must mean that she has Charlieās best intentions in mind. I have my doubts as to whether or not this is true but for right now we can only speculate.Ā
When it comes to her father he clearly loves her with a passion that I rarely see with men in media (though if you find that to be an interesting character trait I would recommend you read a Justin Cronin book, specifically The Ferryman, as his depictions of love and anguish a man can have towards a daughter immediately came to mind when watching More Than Anything for the first time. Iād also recommend Salvage This World by Michael Farris Smith for the same reasons.) but itās also difficult for me to forget about the impact that his neglect and then sudden return to Charlieās life had on her.Ā
I do not in any way think that Lucifer is overall a bad father but rather that the mistakes heās made have had a direct impact on Charlieās world views both for the better and the worse. At the end of the day I find him to be a very realistic and complex father who loves his daughter but just truly does not know what to say to her, which is amusing in its own right considering heās the actual devil but thatās just part of the showās charm in my opinion. All of this to say that his neglect of her has led to a good chunk of her character flaws. One of the biggest being her constant need for love and validation.Ā
This is something that I donāt think weāre really going to see in full for a while but I do think itās still pertinent now, especially with the major character drama that we see between Lucifer and Alastor. Charlie is the kind of person who just wants to see the good in people. She wants to believe that everyone has the best intentions and can be reasoned with if she just finds the right words to say. At the same time she carries an immense amount of power both literally and from a political standpoint. Having Charlie on your side could mean a huge leg up in whatever it is youāre trying to accomplish.Ā
Alastor is what I can only lovingly call a master manipulator. He took one look at Charlie and saw someone who was incredibly driven but also incredibly kind and knew that he could use that for his own gain. While we donāt yet know exactly what he wants from her we do know how heās going to get it and we see that in song form during Hellās Greatest Dad.Ā
To Alastor Lucifer is a threat to his hold on Charlie. If Charlie becomes too close to her father that could mean that he might recognize Alastorās manipulation for what it is and take Alastor completely out of the picture, in whatever form he sees fit. This leads to their fight in episode 5 where Alastor uses both Luciferās guilt at his neglect of his daughter as well as Charlieās need for love against them at the same time.Ā
Charlie states that while she and Lucifer are not exactly on bad terms, theyāve never really been close and I think itās clear from the very beginning just how thatās affected her. Thereās this sort of deep loneliness and anxiety that seems to come out of Charlie from time to time. For all her attempts at showcasing love and positivity to anyone and everyone who comes within a square mile of her, she canāt help but let it slip from time to time just how difficult things can be for her.Ā
Her mother and father never being around has led her to believe that she needs to do anything and everything on her own but at the same time she needs to be told that what sheās doing isnāt stupid or useless. She has never once had her ideas be proven true. Sheās run into so much opposition that at this point itās a miracle that she continues to try at all. This would be difficult for anyone but for someone who loves as deeply as she does itās a continual deep cut into her psyche that she tries to patch at any opportunity.Ā
The look of complete happiness and relief on Charlieās face when Alastor says that theyāre so proud of her for what sheās accomplished is enough to make a bystander feel for her, let alone her own father standing right there. Alastor of course knows this and uses this information to try and keep the favor on him and not Lucifer. Charlie and her father do manage to have a very sweet moment in More Than Anything and while itās not enough to totally repair their relationship itās certainly a start.
Iād like to draw special attention to More Than Anything and specifically the body language from Charlie during the line: āIāll shelter and adore you more than anything.ā This entire time Charlie has been desperately trying to get Lucifer to take her seriously. Itās clear that he is protective to a fault where he is so terrified of Charlie making the same mistakes that he did that he will not allow Charlie to even try at all.Ā
But to Charlie Lucifer is where her need to fight for her dreams came from in the first place. Lilith may have inspired the rebellion in her but it was Lucifer championing free will above all that got her to start dreaming of something better. Something where people donāt have to fight and can instead work on just being better people.Ā
So when Lucifer grabs her and pulls her in, talking about how he will shelter her from all the wrongs in the world, Charlie puts her hand on his arm in a gesture that always seemed to me like she was about to push him away. She doesnāt want him to baby her, all she wants from him is to support her and be with her while she works towards her dreams.Ā
We need to remember just how long Charlie has been on her own. Even when Lilith was around it appears like her father wasnāt in the picture much. The separation from Lilith just seems to have made that fracture even deeper. Even with all of that though, even after being abandoned and then babied by her father, she still wants him around and makes a genuine attempt to connect with him for the first time in a long time with this song. Charlie just loves so much and feels so deeply that she cannot forsake her father even with everything thatās happened.Ā
It is love that defines Charlie and to love someone means to forgive them.Ā
Redemption and love:
What exactly does it take to redeem someone? What makes them worthy of that redemption in the first place? Is it naive to believe that love and forgiveness can drag a person back from the darkness even when everyone and everything is constantly trying to pull them back?Ā
One of my favorite aspects of the show is its overall themes of redemption and the ways that Charlie encompasses those themes. This is one of the biggest aspects of Charlieās character that I think gets glossed over too much and I want to highlight just how much I think that this part of her character is not in any way something to demean. I find this often in fiction that features characters like Charlie. It must say something about how we view emotions like love and forgiveness and kindness to look at someone who constantly and unconditionally champions such things to others and ask: āWhy are you so naive to think that something like that is even possible? Are you so stupid that you think thatāll actually work?āĀ
Iād like to be clear that I do indeed think itās naive to assume that something as complex as āredemptionā can be brought about just by cleaning up your act and role playing your middle school DARE program with all your friends in your living room. You know and I know that we cannot make amends for all of our wrong doings by pretending they arenāt there anymore. This is especially true when, for a lot of the cast, these so called āwrong doingsā exist because of systemic issues that they simply cannot escape from. Angel cannot just walk away from everything that keeps him both literally and metaphorically chained to Valentino and the very act of being chained to such a monster has caused him to spiral down into any sort of reprieve that he could possibly get his hands on, even when such things may be making everything so much worse in the long run.Ā
That being said though, while I understand that the ways in which she goes about seeking redemption for her people may be naive on the surface, at their core I believe that the emotions and intentions that power these actions are nothing short of admirable. Itās truly a test of your soul to look at the worst that humanity has to offer and still say that they are deserving of love. As Lucifer so aptly puts it: āThey got gifted free will and look at what they did with it!ā To Lucifer they could have done anything with that free will and all it got them in the end was a trip straight to Hell where they proceeded to learn nothing and be nothing more than exactly what they were on Earth.Ā
To Charlie though, a person is not defined by their sins. Not only that but their sins do not in any way mean that they deserve an eternity of suffering or that they should be brutally slaughtered by the very ones who claim that this is just how things are meant to be. Charlie will look at someone who ten minutes ago was trying to kill her, who has done nothing with their afterlife but bring about more suffering and destruction and does not see, or just does not care about the hurt they have caused, and she will offer them true forgiveness and love for the first time in a long time, maybe in forever.Ā
And I really, really want to stress here that coming from Charlie this love and forgiveness is truly unconditional. The only thing that Charlie requires is that you want it. If you ask for forgiveness itās yours in a heartbeat.
This of course can absolutely be detrimental to her and we see this in just how much she wants to trust Alastor even when both the audience and Charlie herself can see just what a bad idea this is. Charlie just hopes deep down that in the end he will accept the love that sheās giving him and maybe thatāll mean he will try for her just like Sir Pentious decided to finally stop fighting and start trying. It of course remains to be seen whether or not his character arc will follow anything of the sort but I remain hopeful for Charlieās sake as well as his own.
As I said at the beginning though Charlie is truly the living embodiment of the themes that the show is trying to portray. In the absence of a God or a religion that is offering unconditional love the devilās daughter offers it instead. While Adam and the angels want to act like heaven is just and kind while simultaneously committing atrocities on those that they view as lesser, Charlie says it doesnāt matter what they have to say about you, I still love you.Ā
I find this to be fascinating in that Charlie is the antithesis to a lot of toxic fundamental religious beliefs that want to say that Godās love is unconditional but then proceed to pile on condition after condition until youāre not sure just how many of these rules youāve already broken by the time youāve had breakfast for the day. Charlie is of course not a God and she makes mistake after mistake in her endeavors. She has a tendency to get too excited and rush off without thinking. Sometimes she gets foot in mouth syndrome and doesnāt think about how her words might hurt people like Angel or Vaggie who are trying their best but tend to fumble because of their own self worth issues.
But at the end of the day I think the beauty of her love comes in its simplicity. She does not need complicated rules and conditions for it to be meaningful. It is meaningful because itās pure love for those with no love for themselves, with nothing asked for in return, and it does not need the catalyst of God or religion. Itās love that comes from deep down in her soul and she doesnāt even require you to love her back for her to fight for you, sheād do it regardless.Ā
Thatās part of why I think Sir Pentious and his redemption work so well. Truly all that was needed of him was love. This is something that I donāt think will work on everyone because of the aforementioned systemic issues but for people like Pentious all he really needed was to be loved and love someone back. Seemingly he has spent his entire afterlife fighting turf wars and marking out territory and trying to earn respect through violence and the only love that heās had has been artificially created by himself with the eggs boys.
It makes perfect sense to me then that when he has finally had enough, when heās at his absolute lowest and is ready to be killed for every single horrible thing heās ever done in this afterlife, Charlie puts a stop to it with a single sentence: āIt starts with sorry.ā Because to apologize requires humility and humility requires you to truly care about the people youāve hurt. To allow yourself to put your pride aside and say that youāre sorry even when itās difficult for you to do so is a test of love that a lot of us struggle with. Itās not easy to make yourself so vulnerable like that but Pentious allowing himself to feel those emotions opened the door for him to accept the love that Charlie was offering and in turn learn to love others.Ā
After that moment with Charlie, Pentious proceeds to make incredible strides with his emotions and comes to care for the residents of the hotel in his own way. He cares for Nifty at the club, cries when Charlie reconnects with her father, pets KeeKee on the couch, and flirts with Cherri in his own genuine and nervous way (also as a side note Iād like to say that the line from Husk that Pentious watches the residents sleep sometimes was probably meant to come off as mostly kind of creepy and amusing, I found it to also be sweet in the sense that I read it as the way that a parent might watch a child sleep to ensure they were still breathing, sort of a āplease donāt leave me now that I finally have youā sort of thing.)
I donāt think him kissing Cherri and confessing his love at the end was in any way the only deciding factor to his redemption but I do think it was a good exclamation point at the end of his emotional journey. It was proof once and for all that he was finally okay being seen as vulnerable. He was allowing himself to actually feel and love the emotion of love instead of being scared that it would make him weak and open to attack from others. Telling someone you love them requires trust, it requires you to believe that them and those around them will not hurt you and I think at the end Pentious finally accepts all of this. He has taken the love that Charlie gave him and amplified it and put it back out into the world to maybe do a little good for once and that right there is what I think made him qualified for redemption, it just needed a little love.Ā
So ultimately Charlie may not consciously understand what exactly gets someone redemption but she sure did land on it by accident. She gave Pentious the tools to fuel his own redemption whether she realized it or not because all he needed was for someone to try for him. He could have taken Charlieās mercy and ran back off into Hell to continue to do what heās been doing this entire time and keep hurting others in the process but he didnāt. He needed someone to actually care about him and give him love, he needed Charlie, but not only that, he needed the security and friendship of the rest of the hotel. Even when Charlie is not there she has given them all a place that they can be okay in. Even if itās not perfect and shit always seems to be going down, even with Alastorās ulterior motives, that hotel is still the safest place any of them have had in a long long time.Ā
Vaggie:Ā
On the topic of love and the simplicity of Charlieās, I would be remiss to not talk about Vaggie and her relation to Charlie now. I have to say to start that I honestly find the people who talk about their relationship as if they have no chemistry or āthey feel like friends and not girlfriendsā to be extremely amusing to me. While I understand that their relationship dynamic may not be everyoneās cup of tea, I also think itās just inherently incorrect to say that theyāre poorly written or donāt feel as though theyāre actually dating.Ā
Just as a personal indulgence I would like to interject and say that while I get that a lot of people want their fictional relationships to be messy and have drama my crusty old self personally loves the biblical levels of beautiful tragedy that Charlie and Vaggie have going on and I find their subtle, comforting love to be very cathartic to me. Just the idea of love between a fallen angel and the devilās daughter is enough to get me interested and then add on the fact that the angel is fallen because she showed mercy to a single one of the princessās people and they just love each other so much and would do anything for each other, makes me go feral, but I digress.Ā
I want everyone to keep in mind what Iāve said about Charlieās love so far while talking about Vaggie. Remember simple and remember unconditional, those are the two fundamentals of Charlieās love that are constantly on display with Vaggie. I find it very remarkable just how much the body language between Vaggie and Charlie exhibits the love and comfort that the two have for each other especially in a medium like animation where every flick of the eye and turn of the mouth and hand gesture is another cut that someone out there needs to draw. That tells me that there was significant effort put forth to show a couple like Charlie and Vaggie who have been together for years and know exactly what to expect while also making sure that their love was simultaneously not downplayed or inadvertently exploited for sex appeal. Itās a very fine line to walk but I feel as though the show did a very good job of it all.Ā
There are so many tiny little moments throughout just about every single episode of the season that have body language showing the love that Charlie and Vaggie share. Just from the first episode alone thereās Charlie sliding over on the couch just to lean on Vaggieās legs. Thereās Vaggie cupping Charlieās cheek while she tells her she has faith in her dream. Thereās the small soft look that Vaggie gives Charlie when Charlie grabs her hands at the beginning of Happy Day in Hell.Ā
Even putting aside body language for a second thereās also the way that Vaggie tries to continue to make the commercial with Charlie gone even though it means she ends up having to work with Alastor who she hates specifically because she doesnāt trust him around Charlie. Thereās also how Charlie is hesitant to tell Vaggie at first that Adam didnāt listen to her because she doesnāt want to let her down when she believes so much in Charlie.Ā
I also really like their little character drama in episode three because I think it really exemplifies just how trusting they are in their relationship while also highlighting their character flaws at the same time. Charlie is so trusting of Vaggie that sheās willing to let Vaggie take over in their daily lessons even when this inevitably backfires. Iāve seen a few people think Charlie was doing this to use her girlfriend or be mean to her but frankly that couldnāt be farther from the truth.Ā
While things did eventually go south and Vaggie had a difficult time thinking that she was failing Charlie I think itās important to remember Charlieās intentions with asking Vaggie to take over in the first place. In no way did Charlie do that to see Vaggie fail, itās just that Charlie has such unwavering trust in Vaggieās opinion and really does believe that she has skills that she herself lacks that Vaggie can bring to the table. Itās easy to forget sometimes but Charlie really does have some pretty impressive emotional intelligence. She just tends to run off without thinking a lot of the time and get carried away but when she allows herself to step back and look at a situation sheās very understanding of how exactly her actions are affecting people.Ā
Charlie recognizes pretty quickly that Vaggie is having a hard time with this and attempts to step in and take back control but Vaggie is stubborn in her desire to prove herself to Charlie. Vaggie thinks that if she lets Charlie take over again that sheāll have failed her and Charlie might see her as useless to the hotel. Of course Charlie would never think that and once again I must reiterate that Charlieās love is unconditional. It does not matter to Charlie that Vaggie was unable to immediately get everyone to be best friends, setting aside the fact that it actually did work in the end, all that matters to Charlie is that her and Vaggie work together and are there for each other no matter what.Ā
Charlie was just frustrated that things werenāt as simple as she hoped and Vaggie was frustrated that she couldnāt fix it. Both of them recognize this mistake by the end of the episode and acknowledge the need for them to be a team even when things are hard and neither of them have an answer.Ā
All of this combines together over the season to portray a couple who love each other but who are adults long since removed from a honeymoon phase where they canāt keep their hands off each other. This doesnāt mean they donāt still love each other and it doesnāt mean theyāre not loving on each other behind closed doors, it just means theyāre comfortable and understand each other.Ā
Not only that but I think it also exemplifies what Iāve been saying about Charlieās love: itās simple and thatās a good thing. To Charlie, loving Vaggie is easy. To Charlie Vaggie is a constant that has been there for years who loves her and would never hurt her or betray her. The only one who has stood there and supported her while her Mother runs off to god knows where and her Father isolates himself with his depression. Vaggie supported the hotel when everyone this side of Hell and up to Heaven thought she was an idiot dreamer who didnāt know when to quit.
To Vaggie, Charlie is the unconditional love that she never had in Heaven. Someone who quite literally picked her up while she was dying and put her back on her feet and loved her regardless of the fact that Charlie had no idea who she really was and honestly Iām not even sure that mattered to Charlie one bit. She trusted Vaggie to not hurt her and have her best intentions in mind just like she trusts everyone else around her to do the same and time and time again Charlie was proven right when Vaggie never left while she undoubtedly soothed a bit of Charlieās fear of abandonment by never leaving her side.Ā
And to Charlie that was enough. She doesnāt need huge grand gestures from Vaggie, she just needs her to be there and help her. Itās love and itās simple because itās Charlie.Ā
Of course it all inevitably comes crashing down as itās revealed that Vaggie has been lying this entire time. I donāt want to come off like I blame Vaggie for what she did. Frankly I canāt say that I wouldnāt have done the exact same thing in the same situation. The more that time passed and Charlie and her fell deeper in the love the harder it would have been to just come out and say it. The time to be honest would have passed months and months ago and now sheās just forced to completely live the lie as we can tell by how she barely reacts when Adam shows up at their door in Heaven. I think a part of her was so deep in this lie that even the presence of him and the lady that straight up maimed her doesnāt cause her to lose composure until he makes it clear that he definitely remembers who she is.Ā
Vaggie also has very little besides Charlie. She has dedicated herself so fully to Charlie and what she wants that to lose her would have been a blow to her soul so severe Iām not sure she would have recovered. I do think thereās something to be said about Vaggieās dependency on Charlie and how that fueled this lie to begin with. If Vaggie had other support systems then itās possible that she wouldnāt have felt the need to hold onto this lie for so long and I think we can see that in the way that she immediately tells the others in the hotel after they get back from Heaven. Whether she likes it or not they have become an extension of her family too and not just Charlieās. Of course itās obviously a lot easier to tell them because sheās not nearly as emotionally attached to them as she is to Charlie but I do still think that being able to tell someone at all is a step forward for her and most likely helped her better come to terms with it.Ā
Unfortunately while I understand all that, just like with Lucifer, we have to be honest about the ways in which this affects Charlie as a character. As I said before I really donāt think it mattered to Charlie one bit who Vaggie really was. If Charlie had known about who Vaggie was from the beginning, knowing who Charlie is as a person, I think she would have been livid at the way that Heaven treated one of their own but I donāt think in any way would she have hated Vaggie or blamed her for what happened.
Even so, everyone needs their own time and space to cope with such intense revelations about people. If Vaggie was going to tell Charlie the truth after so many years the only way to do it and even remotely soothe any of the grief and shock Charlie would have felt would have been to do it in private very quietly and then give Charlie the space to try and come to terms with it.
Regrettably that is most definitely not how Charlie found out. Instead she found out in probably the worst possible setting at probably the worst possible time. Forced instead to deal with the horror of it all while in Heavenly court of all places, out of the mouth of the man who had a hand in casting her own Mother and Father to Hell. Humiliating both Charlie and Vaggie in a desperate attempt to shift some of the heat off of them for admitting to genocide.Ā
With all that though, Charlie still doesnāt blame Vaggie. She would have every reason to hate Vaggie after this but that would also go against everything that Charlie stands for. So that just leads Charlie to instead blame herself. Instead of blaming Vaggie for lying to her, Charlie just asks herself what is so wrong with her that sheās unable to be trusted. Instead of hating Vaggie she just hates herself. This causes Charlie to spiral down a bad mental path where the fear of abandonment from her parents and her need for validation rear their ugly head.Ā
If the one person who has stood by Charlieās side this entire time doesnāt even believe in her then who does? The woman sheās loved for years and has trusted with everything from dark secrets to petty grievances doesnāt even trust her enough to tell her who she really is and what actually happened to her. Charlie is terrified that Vaggie doesnāt think sheās worthy of this secret. In that moment of pain she fears that sheās not worthy of the same unconditional love that she has given everyone else this entire time because she thinks that Vaggie must think there are conditions to her love. That Vaggie thinks Charlie will not love her if she knows she used to be an exorcist is all that runs through Charlieās head.Ā
Deep down I think these are worries that Charlie has relatively often. She doubts herself immensely and uses her love of others as a way to fill the hole in her own heart but so far these worries were unfounded with Vaggie. To have them suddenly come true is like having your worst fears validated to you and Charlie is so lost in her own grief that she doesnāt stop to think why Vaggie would have done this in the first place. This causes her to lash out at Vaggie and accuse her of keeping even more secrets when deep down Charlie probably just wants to break down and beg Vaggie to love her anyway even when sheās the one unworthy of love. Just in the same way she probably wants to beg her Mother to come back and love her again.Ā
Fortunately for all of us Rosie is able to swoop in and help Charlie realize what she knew all along deep down but was in too much pain to admit to: that Vaggie wanted to tell her this whole time but was deeply ashamed of the things she had done. It would have gone against everything that Charlie and her hotel stood for to not forgive her and this is seemingly before Charlie even knows the real reason that Vaggie was cast out of Heaven. She has no idea that Vaggie was damned for sparing a child but even so, the act of turning against the genocide and saying enough, regardless of how it happened, is all it takes for Vaggie to be deserving of forgiveness. Just in the same way that Pentious was deserving of redemption when he was vulnerable about his feelings and allowed himself to love, Vaggie is deserving because of allowing Charlie in to love her, even filled with guilt and grief over the things she had done.Ā
She could have run from Charlie and let that grief and guilt consume her and become just another one of Hellās sinners lost in their own pain and unwilling to change, but instead she decided to let Charlie in and do whatever it took to make Charlieās dreams a reality while also seeking her own redemption, albeit in a different way from how Charlie has been trying to redeem people.
I think all that Vaggie truly wanted from Charlie was to be forgiven for her actions but was so afraid of not receiving it that she hid it instead, forgetting that in turn all Charlie wanted to do was love her and forgiveness would have come from her as easily as that love. The only way that Vaggie could have ever gotten her redemption was by being honest, laying it all on the table and then allowing Charlie to continue to love her.Ā
So thank goodness then that Vaggie accepted her unconditional love and gave it right back, amplifying it and putting it back out into the world to maybe do a little good for once and frankly Vaggie doesnāt need Heaven for that to be true redemption for her at last.Ā
So thatās that. Hopefully I at least got my points across somewhat competently. Iām slightly out of practice with this kind of writing but Hazbin Hotel has enraptured me in a way that I have not felt about a piece of media in a long long time. On that topic though, if youāre like me and cannot get enough of fictional Gods and media that tackles religion in interesting ways I would like to be self indulgent one last time and recommend some books with themes that you might vibe with if youāre also obsessed with Hazbin in the ways that I am.Ā
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell about first contact with an alien race that turns into an exploration on the nature of God and what it means for us if God truly exists but is indifferent to our suffering.Ā
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins about a bunch of kids training to be Gods that also features a fucked up father figure if youāre into that.Ā
Kingdoms of the Wall by Robert Silverberg about the dangers of encountering an alien race so early in their development that they can only see our superior knowledge as God-like and worship humanity as deities.Ā
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr about the cyclical nature of history as humanity crawls back out of a nuclear fallout only to succumb to the same mistakes centuries later simultaneously clinging to and denouncing their new religion that got them so far in the first place.Ā
Midnight, Water City by Chris McKinney about how a person comes to be deified and the horrible consequences of making a human a God.Ā
And if you know of anything similar I am always open to suggestions, itās about 95% of the media I consume at this point.Ā
But legit y'all anime irl like just fucking makes my damn day every time. I retweet every single photo I see of like billboards with anime on it and shit so like anime in fucking government of all things just has me completely losing my shit and boy am I happy to be alive
A furry gamer known as SonicFox streamed the video game Mortal Kombat and did a fatality on a character whike calling it a TERF, so british MPĀ Joanna Cherry printed several copies of a meme featuring trans anime idol Lily Zombieland Saga telling TERFs to shut up while holding GUN to show at the british parliament during a discussion about hatefulness against women.
Sure, why not??
This lady on the right literally laughing at an official copy of the meme while Joanna Cherry, a real british MP, unironically says the lineĀ āitās a real hand holding a real gunā¦that adds to the sinister nature of thisā.
My fav set is also the knights one! I have Kuro, Hikari, Karen and Kaoruko. I know I should be satisfied with having this many of them, but damn it I want Mahiru so badly I could cry. With Junna at least I pulled the musketeers one, but I don't have either Mahiru (TŠ“T) She looks so cute in both sets and I want to complete Mahikaren AND I'm in desperate need of a support girl, so... MAHIRU FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THE GODDESSES PLEASE COME HOME! ( ļ¼āļ¼)
yo fuck I want the Mahiru knight so bad, and the Kaoruko one, those are the only 2 that I still donāt have and of course theyāre my favs so like rip me. I did get the musketeer Mahiru so Iām really happy about that but dammit I need the knight one.Ā
Please keep us updated on your knowledge on scary Michii Akira doesn't deserve this ;_;
well, Iāve seen up through chapter 10 of Siegfeld and boy oh boy my dude. Honestly I think Michiru is fascinating, especially for an anime girl because not only is a character like her so rare in anime its also so rare for characters like her to be girls and that makes me kind of scared that people will just write her off as a bitch and be done with it but I havenāt really seen it yet so Iām hopeful.Ā
But I think it also does really well to differentiate Akira from Maya because I was also slightly worried that she was just gonna be Maya mean version but in reality sheās kind of an idiot whoās being fully and wholly manipulated by Michiru into doing whatever it is that Michiru wants of her, to the point that sheās practically gas lighting her and thereās just so much they can do with that and the rest of Siegfeld. Especially now that we know that Yachiyo is aware of all of this on some level, you take that combined with Shioriās innocence and Mei Fanās love of Akira as she knows her and you have a situation thatās just barely being kept under control and could explode at any second.
It makes it even more interesting when you realize that Michiru isnāt like some dumb villain whoās doing this because she wants people to suffer or whatever, Michiru is one of the good guys, sheās a stage girl, sheās doing what sheās doing solely for her own benefit and its still unclear if she actually cares about the other girls outside of how they can help her with what she wants. At that point she almost has more in common with Maya than Akira does, if only because they both wants others to work harder and strive higher because of them but they go about it in completely different ways. Maya is so kind and truly loves her friends whereas Michiru doesnāt seem to care about them in the least.Ā
Part of me kind of wants a second season of the anime to focus on all these new characters and their dynamics cause holy fuck thereās so much you could expand on.Ā
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