I'm not even an Alastor stan like that and the fuck-ass dragon statue still gets me fuming every time I think about it. I'm angry again. What are you people (the hotel crew) DOING.
and yes, I know, I know, "oh but Husk and Niffty could have told everyone off-screen that Alastor was still alive and well because their soul chains didn't break"
we did not get 2 seconds of screentime to have either Husk or Niffty, both of whom were fighting alongside Charlie, turn around and say anything to that effect. Even to make some offhand comment about Alastor being scrappy or fine to hold his own when the shield fell and Adam went to the roof. And yet we did get like 5 seconds of screentime to cut to Vox being pissy that Alastor escaped, so do not tell me this was a "cut for time" bit of animation, I will not believe you.
I don't think Husk or Niffty said any of that. I think if they did, we would have gotten 2 seconds of screentime for them to say it, the same way we got 2 seconds of screentime in season 2 for Vaggie to be like "well obviously Charlie, Alastor is scheming and not actually an unwilling hostage."
And just -- in terms of plots and themes. In a media literacy sense instead of a fandomhead sense, which I know is a lot to ask from poeple nowadays --
I don't think you're supposed to assume that Husk and/or Niffty cleared everything up about Alastor off-screen.
I think the whole evolution of Alastor's attitude at the hotel between the end of S1 and the beginning of S2, combined with the fact that no one at the hotel seems to know that he's seriously injured while we in the audience are shown him miserably suffering, is supposed to indicate to us that this whole incident has driven a wedge between him and the possible "found family" that the hotel represents because they let him fall the way they did. And I think in terms of future plot points, it is driving Alastor to be a worse person and to fall back on his damaging hyperindependence. Possibly to set him up as a problem for Charlie in the future.
I also think it's supposed to go to a broader theme with Charlie's attitude that connects things like her ignoring Vaggie's advice and not being a good partner in S2, Charlie dropping Lucifer like a hot potato when he is hurt in the S2 finale, and Charlie mistreating Angel/mishandling his redemption arc. I think those all tie together to a potentially interesting character beat for Charlie in the future.
But unfortunately every time I talk about this, people keep trying to explain away with logic and reason every time Charlie falls into this same pattern in the show. Even when it is shoved in your face like with Angel Dust's and Vaggie's entire character arcs in Season 2.
In the same way that every time I talk about post S1/early S2 Alastor, there is some kind of elaborate explanation about why the hotel crew was right to start rebuilding and not asking after him one bit. But the thing is, no matter what she thought happened to him, Charlie didn't do the right thing.
If she thought he was dead because it would be crazy to assume someone survived an angelic wound like the one he got, then there should have been some acknowledgment of that like there was for Pentious. If she thought he was injured but got away, she should have gone looking for him. This should have been a priority before a major construction project. And if she thought he was physically fine and got away, she still should have gone looking for him because he is her friend and vanished in the wake of a major battle for which he provided almost all of the resources.
It literally doesn't matter for Charlie's character if she thought that Alastor was alive, dead, or in the middle. And this is like THE central Charlie character flaw. It's one of the things that I think makes her really interesting. She is a profoundly kind person, she has infinite empathy for people who have done the worst things imaginable, she thinks everyone deserves a second chance and a bunch of other ones after that -- And at the same time, she is really really bad at focusing on those people as individuals. And she gets distracted by things like her own reputation and her Vision and high-minded concepts about Redemption and Goodness. Her really positive and admirable traits are in direct conflict with her worst traits. That makes her such a good character.
