Vox and Velvette's Views on Redemption, Morality and Domestic Abuse in 'Hazbin Hotel: Behind Closed Doors' & Their Critique of Angel Dust
Episode 3 shows Vox definitely has bone to pick with Angel Dust on a personal level beyond jealousy. He sarcastically snarks that Angel is "such a pleasant person to be around"... which, like... what? Why would he insinuate he's annoying personality-wise if he only really views him as Val's side piece?
And Angel has absolutely 0 strong opinions about Vox other than that he's a sadist and is connected to Valentino. He also feels comfortable spitting on his face and walking out in the scene where Vox jumps him. So...??? They've clearly not had an actual inciting negative interaction in the flesh.
Velvette seems to also be aware of the one-sided beef, considering she's not at all surprised and casually wrangles Vox to keep his head in the game when he starts revving up to go in on Angel.
Someone said that Vox and Velvette probably both have a problem with Angel Dust because they are dealing with Valentino's EXTREME freak-outs about him. And yk, they're problematic, so they would victim-blame rather than empathise with Angel. But I don't think it's just that either.
During 'Speedrun to Redemption', when Charlie asks "isn't he sweet?"... Vox and Velvette finally chime in. They're not even singing, they just genuinely are called to answer her. And they very half-heartedly go "...whatever you say,"; they're not paying attention. and are trying to kick back and enjoy themselves. They brought VoxTek brand loungers, swimsuits, and all (despite there not being a pool) 💀
Their contribution is pretty unnecessary, right? Could this not just have been a silent, visual moment...? Well, no, because after this, they start actively heckling.
Being invited to judge Angel's character puts a coin in them.
Suddenly, they're paying real attention, and Vox is delighted to give his two pence.
He jumps in to say the concept of Angel giving a dime to the homeless is ridiculous. A DIME. Vox and Velvette are cracking up at the idea of Angel Dust giving a homeless man a DIME. Not even a dollar. A. SINGLE. DIME!!!!
And then Vox chimes in again to reassert that Angel Dust is a shitty person who will never get to Heaven. That's not directed at Angel... it's an aside that not even Charlie responds to. I really think that he feels a type of way. This vim for Angel's immorality goes far beyond romantic rivalry.
Not to mention that romantic rivalry is absolutely not suggested at all, and can only really be extrapolated from Vox's slut-shaming later in the season.
But I think that his slut-shaming actually explains this "dime" comment. He does not respect sex work and, despite being the greediest motherfucker this side of the Pentagram, views it as bottom-of-the-barrel level money-grubbing.
Vox is not shown to be a promiscuous person at any point, outright proclaiming that emotional catharsis is better than sex for him. I believe that he would view sex work as a thing that he's happy to profit from, but sees the commodification of intimacy as morally bankrupt. He is someone who would lay his life down for a genuine connection, which gets very out of control and ends up being the world-ending threat that season 2 culminates in... so, while he'll sell anything for a check, he doesn't personally think it's something that should have a price tag. Love is worth a life, not currency.
(And I think this may also spill over into the fact that he's the least involved with Love Potion, and in his one endorsement of it, he is questioning whether it works, looking uncomfortable to be drinking it, and just generally making it look like a shit product...)
Charlie also infamously slut-shames Angel in this song, telling him to "dress more modestly" to get into Heaven.
As it happens, all three of Vox, Charlie and Velvette are slut-shamers, with Velvette being the one to criticise the Vees' victim in 'Trust Us' for going nude (at her male partners' pressuring 🥴). As aforementioned, she is a victim blamer, and this must include internalised victim-blaming, since she herself goes naked in her very beautiful martini Love Potion poster.
So they agree with Charlie on that... And in general, StaticDoll never actually question her ideas of what makes someone redeemable. Vox even aligns with her on doing the food drive thing to come across as a 'do-gooder' a couple of episodes before this. Additionally, while his view is distorted by power lust, he seems to agree with Charlie on Lilith's general idea that sinners (namely, himself lmfao) have an unfair shake.
But they surely find Charlie's approach juvenile and cringe right? The Western roleplay is really taking the...
Ah, nope – not cringe, sorry! Velvette and Vox are super down and got all dressed up so they could play along! Vox even reprises his cowboy hat later in the season and puts on an accent (like Charlie) when he goes to see Prick and Hatchet. And Velvette watches Val's outlaw pornos, and seemingly enjoys them enough to have them on the brain at Charlie's most generic of premises.
Other than the holding hands and crying in a circle, the only time Vox and Velvette are shown to genuinely disagree with Charlie's ideas about what makes a 'good' person is when she plans to fake the self-sacrifice element, and they go out of their way to undermine her.
It comes off as purely cruel that Vox would demand Angel take an angelic spear to the chest to prove his worth... umm, but Vox, unfazed when it's him, throws himself in front of the angelic spear the millisecond it's pointed at Velvette. I had to hit 0.5x speed to catch the frame. Read it and weep, I'm afraid.
Even Charlie is surprised by this. I think she notices here that Vox has the same redeemable quality that Pentious had that she's been so desperately trying to promote in others. Self-sacrifice is something that can't be acted out or faked, no matter how much Charlie tries.
But the Vees are intense: they don't fear violence, they don't fear death. And the first thing we learn about Vox is that he self-sacrifices for Velvette on a regular basis. It's simply a reflex for him to do this.
We see that Vox and Velvette are pretty ride or die for each other throughout season 2, and on top of catching strays from Valentino on account of Angel's 'misbehaviour', they may seriously be disgusted with his (past) lack of loyalty to the people close to him – his father.
StaticDoll look pretty peeved by Charlie's "if only there was a big strong man to save the damsel"... In their house, it's a little doll and the smaller guy saving each other FROM the "big strong man"... the one who goes by 'daddy'.
And Vox doesn't actually know why Angel killed his dad, but he assumes it's because he was abused by him, just like we do.
It makes no sense for Vox to be acting like "murderer" is some zinger, when his first crush was a serial cannibal, and he himself was a serial killer, and there's actually a whole town of cannibals in particular. It wouldn't really make sense for Angel, or anyone not fresh to Hell, to be bothered either.
The topic here isn't just murder; it's that it was patricide, the killing of a family member.
Charlie cuts Vox off at that point, but I think Vox is about to berate Angel for murdering his domestic abuser specifically... because Vox and Velvette stick it out with Valentino, and he's a ten-foot devil, so why shouldn't Angel have spared his blood father?
This line says more about their view and experience with domestic abuse than it does about Angel's backstory, which may not contain this element at all. In fact, it actually gives me hope that Angel will not just be Moxxie 2.0. We see that he is particularly afraid of betraying and hurting his loves to the point of turning himself in to the Tower at the end of season 2. I think a true betrayal may be a genuine theme in his story... And we have already seen that his sister is in Heaven... But we'll see. Have hope that it's not lame, people.
But back to Vox's desire to start preaching about how standing up to your abusive family members is betrayal:
Vox and Velvette would never scorn 'daddy' Valentino. They believe in unconditional loyalty/trust and view physical presence as evidence of that, rather than it being measured by physical safety and emotional security. They think that it is a moral failing to be a 'weak' person who cannot tank a hit, emotional or physical. When Valentino is trying to give himself a pep talk into not being so hurt by Vox's single-minded actions that he's considering abandoning ship, Velvette swoops in to tell him that it's absolutely not an option, that he should stop feeling his hurt, and channel it into resentful anger if he really can't manage (as she does), because he needs to stick it out, and just hope that the storm will eventually pass. That's what she always does with Valentino.
StaticDoll see standing up for yourself through physical retaliation or retreat as a betrayal and cruelty to a beloved.
Again, Angel and the audience are led to view the wire cutting as purely sadistic, but I think Velvette and Vox didn't just want to see Angel die. They specifically wanted to see him die by sacrificing himself for someone he cares about/that cares for him. They know that there's something between HuskerDust based on how fiercely he roots for Angel, despite their bullying.
If Angel died and they got evidence that he was redeemed by self-sacrifice, like Pentious, StaticDoll would have validation for their enduring of Val's abuse, and Vox's willingness to die for his loves. They would find that those are genuinely redeemable traits that they already possess.
In that case, it would only take an incident for them to reach Heaven, which they want, both for power/infiltration reasons, but also to have their personal codes of ethics validated. And as I showed in this photo post, the Vees' idea of pleasure is entirely aligned with Heaven's (through Emily's perspective). StaticDoll also especially align with Heaven through their holograms and sci-fi leanings.
Unlike Pentious, Angel or even Alastor, we have so many clues that Vox and Velvette would sincerely enjoy life in Heaven. Not to mention, of course, that their overarching goal is to "get up there".
So when the angel jumps in to save Angel Dust, and prevents them from getting an answer on whether they are redeemable, and also denying them the catharsis of watching the unwitting bane of their existence, who is also, by their standards, genuinely evil, bite the (Angel) dust... They're genuinely disappointed.
And when Charlie pipes up about how she won't allow her friends to be pushed around, on top of not taking seriously the trait he considers the pinnacle of morality – self-sacrifice – Vox flips from lowkey being on Charlie's side, letting her take a crack at actually proving redemption is possible (although he has 0 faith in Angel), to thinking she's full of shit. Suddenly, she's bullshitting about not letting her friends get bullied when she selfishly invited wolves to Angel's door just to improve her public image.
But Vox is someone who is generally shown to be in for a penny, in for a pound (e.g. Alastor), and willing to give people a chance (e.g. Pentious, Baxter). He gives Charlie one last attempt, on a personal tip, to prove that she is genuine about the redemption and morality thing.
He tests her with a single question: Does she think he can be redeemed?
If she says no, that's all the evidence he needs to write her off as having no morals, not just for propaganda but from the bottom of his heart. Because, in his mind, he does have redeeming qualities. He knows very well the lengths he's willing to go through for his loved ones. That's a good thing, he'd say (though his masochistic devotion spirals out of control into being destructive by the end of the season).
But Charlie says she thinks anyone can be redeemed.
She gives no caveats or winding list of conditions. Maybe the ease with which she says this comes from the fact that she noticed how Vox shielded Velvette from Vaggi's spear.
This is not what StaticDoll were expecting: when they asked the questions they prepared for the interview, Velvette pressed her on what they understood to be the Morningstar standpoint. Based on Charlie's desire to change/redeem, her personal aversion to sinners (she is Hell-born, her father is an angel, her girlfriend is an angel) and Lucifer's neglect of Hell, StaticDoll perceive the hotel's message as being that sinners need to be fundamentally different people to be worthy of paradise. And that can't be right, because they wouldn't change much about each other, and we have known since 'Once We Get Up There', they feel entitled to life in the clouds.
...And Charlie, not knowing it, confirms that she agrees with them. She passed Vox's test, and he even praises her, saying he sees why Alastor likes her.
It's interesting that he thinks of Alastor in that moment. We don't know it yet, but in the next few episodes, it's revealed that Vox was cutthroat and heartless before death, yet was made quite the softy in his friendship with Alastor. It's only through his love for Alastor that he became that way. Most notably here, this view that betrayal and abandonment are the worst things someone could do comes from the feelings Alastor's rejection stirred. That was the worst thing that someone ever did to Vox, as his heart would tell it.
In life, he was gung-ho to step on and betray anybody to get where he needed to go. Now, he won't speak a bad word against the man that breaks his face until nobody else is around.
Along with their shared moral outlook and both having loud inner-children, Charlie reminds Vox of himself – the younger, less jaded version that Alastor considered a comrade. So... of course, he can see why Alastor would like her. And even if she's not quite on his level of real, Vox himself is impressed that she's sincere about her wild, altruist dreams.
Meanwhile, all Velvette sees is people judging her for her exterior, similar to what happens at the overlord meeting. She's not a sappy type, doesn't mince words, and believes actions speak louder than words anyway.
These allegedly open-minded and accepting people, who claim they don't judge, shove a blade her way when, in her eyes, she really hasn't done anything other than engage with this redemption project in her own unique way (very Disney Descendants-core).
She emphasises 'Hazbin' when saying not everyone is welcome at Hazbin Hotel because her assessment is that they only accept people who are unable to mask their pain and keep their head up.
And this feeds a lot into her demon form being a doll with the capability of putting herself back together. She has the aesthetics of perfection and is unbreakable/a masterclass in mental fortitude, but does that mean Velvette doesn't deserve softness and consideration? And does the grace her strength grants her loved ones mean nothing, and deserve to go unthanked?
Vox is the only other inorganic demon on the cast (...unless Alastor's radio element counts...). They're kindred in that, and I think them of all people, seeming perfectly glossy and without a (reasonable) care in the world, going to the hotel served as a test too, more from Velvette's side of the critique.
Where Charlie passed Vox's test, she fails Velvette's: the hotel is not prepared to deal with people who are largely satisfied with the lives they have made in the Pentagram and have high self-esteem.
