Hellaverse vs Disco Elysium. About proper balance of tones, proper mix of absurd and profound.
Now I know how this sounds from title alone. Really? Hellaverse vs Disco Elysium? A coughing baby vs Atomic Bomb scenario in terms of works of art? What are you doing? Why are you THIS much of a hater?
And I want to first explain myself. I know this seems at first as an unfair comparison, but I think you will understand once you read further in. I know it is strange, but I think both shows of Vivienne Meadrano and Disco Elysium created by Robert Kurvitz have quite a few things in common with how they approach storytelling because to me it feels very similar between both of them. Let's solve this case shall we? Warning. LONG post. Also full of spoilers for both Disco and Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel
What I want to delve into in this post is how one of those art pieces tries to do what the other does and fails quite badly at it and I want to somehow get into the 'how' and 'why' if only to maybe show a better way to approach this kind of thing.
And that something that I see being similar between Disco and Hella is tone. Or rather how both of those pieces of art try to balance their tone. Between absurd and profound. Between hysterical and harrowing. Between mind bending and thought provoking. From my perspective there is a big issue in Hellaverse overall when it comes to tone and how it balances absurd and serious. Not only with it's ideas, but also it's characters and the world. Into each one I will delve into in this post.
Let's start with the tone with how it approaches certain ideas.
And I think best example for how Hellaverse mishandles something of the sort is SA and on Disco side I choose problem of Racism that it tackles. And let's start with our favorite spider boi and his pimp.
Angel Dust thing has been a huge point of controversy and I think it is easy to see why. It is a very sensitive subject to A LOT of people and everyone handles it differently. Some relate to how it is handled in HH and some are VERY much not. And both I respect and if you got something out of HH version then good for you. I wont take it away from you.
But the issue I want to tackle is the tone of this idea because the big problem right away to me is how inconsistent the show is with how it tries to portray this issue. One moment it is meant to be a source of jokes and the other it's something we are meant to take VERY seriously. For Angel I say it works okay sometimes because his character is build on his defense mechanicsm being very unserious at first glance about his body and treating himself like an object, but where it falls apart to me is Valentino.
Who is by all accounts a joke. He is not threatening. He is actually dumb like a sack of bricks and ONLY in episode 4 is he treated as any sort of tangible threat, but even then he is constantly shown to still be a dumbass. And that to me is a big issue. On one side you try to treat Angel's struggle as something real, but then you make it into a joke because the one who abuses him is made to be a joke. On one hand you want people to be afraid of Val and be horrified by what he does to Angel and on the other you have him throw bitch fits and have him act like a 5 year old throughout most of the show.
There is no real consistency there. Because not only does it lessen the weight of what is going on with Angel, not only it makes Valentino an INCREDIBLY boring character who is pretty much copy and paste of every other villain Viv has ever made, but also the story doesn't make any sense because in no way does Val come off as someone who would ever get Angel to sign any sort of deal. They are too dumb for it to be plausible.
And I will say this. The fact that 'le contract' is what is used to get Angel to stay is so damn cheap to me. Imagine how much more impactful it would be if it was Angel being genuinely seduced and gaslighted by Val into feeling like he NEEDS to stay with him. How despite the abuse he receives Val always convinces him with promise of 'loving' Angel and making Angel believe they are at fault for the abuse they receive, maybe with Val also having HUGE anger issues causing him to be extremely violent towards everyone. That I think would immediately make this conflict feel far more real and Val actually interesting and scary while also not losing comedy with his anger possibly being the source of it. Not just pure idiocy.
And I think what buries even more how this show treats idea of SA is infamous Pentious scene from episode 6 where he is dragged away to be SAd as well and the show treating it like a hilarious joke. Where one moment you are meant to sympathize with one victim and then laugh at another. It tries to mix absurdity and seriousness in a very odd way, where it tries to make both scenarios have both tones instead of choosing one or another.
And I want to compare it with how Disco tackles idea of Racism and there is no better example of absurdity of it than Jean-luc, better known as Measurehead.
Built like a truck Semenese Supremacist who talks like the biggest parody racist imaginable. Spouting dumb shit he heard on the radio about haplogroups and how he is so defensive about his semen that he is not going to impregnate any woman which means he wont ever continue his 'superior' bloodline. He is a walking contradiction. A joke that no one takes seriously beyond the physical aspect of him. And that is what he is... but there is something more beneath.
And that is a person who ALSO believes in idea of moving forward, about not delving in the past and living for love you can find today, someone who works for the Union because his mother did. Someone who could inspire others to self improve, but once again, he is a walking contradiction. And that one hint of complexity just adds to the comedy here.
His character is made to be absurd. The absurd side of all the Fascists out there. Of the racism itself. The writers know what kind of character Measurehead is and what he represents about the issue they tackle and they stick with it, but also add enough to him to make him not just an absurd parody, but a real human being.
But then you may ask yourself where is the serious side? It's simple... It's in you.
Or rather Harry. Because I think the most serious this whole story is about racism is not when you hear random comments about Kim. Or when he talks back to a racist lorry driver. It's the moment when YOU say something HORRIBLE to him. Which you can see below.
And I want to notice how the tone changes when WE are the ones at fault. Because throughout the game racism is not dispalyed as a MAJOR issue or rather not something to put at the forefront. But when it comes down to you insulting Kim. The closest person to you in the game, this story KNOWS that it has to stay serious. It is not a huge moment, but it feels earned with how it build up this issue through casual and absurdity. It uses the absurd that was build into something that hits you VERY deep. And that's the thing about this. Spacing this idea.
You have to know when to linger on the issue in one way or another. You have to know when to make it more absurd and in what way. Knowing what part of this issue is meant to be absurd and what is meant to be serious. Measurehead is by all accounts not meant to be serious and any racist remarks from him would probably be met with little reaction from Kim and the game itself because it knows he is a joke. But when it's something intimate and close then it feels earned to feel serious. And it's one of MANY ideas that this game tackles.
And I feel like in HH it would work well if maybe with Pentious in that scene after he is dragged we see that he is not in fact being abused and instead being given genuine advice from sinners there who are tired of him making a joke of himself. Making comedy out of our assumption of what was going on.
And I think that nicely leads to another thing. Tone of the characters.
Which is also extremely out of wack in both shows. Good examples of it I say are characters like Crim and Blitzo.
Crim is obvious one. We all remember the 'dildos in walls' scene. How the show makes Crim to be some serious threat and then just goes on to make him into a parody in the same breath. Which doesn't work and makes his character feel very confused. Some people it makes him '3 dimensional' and I disagree. To me it feels like he is whatever writers need him to be at a given moment if they need a joke. Because a proper 3 dimensional character would not contradict itself like this and instead all those aspects add unto themselves.
Or how Blitzo is meant to be a turbo piece of gargabe who treats people around him mostly like trash over his own problems, but then the show tries to paint him as always in the right badass who everyone stays with for some reason. He is meant to be a fuck up, but the show cannot commit itself into having him actually be at fault for anything unless it involves Stolas. Because he is frankly a writer's pet and Stolas is a larger one. I think it is nicely shown in Oops where the show tries to make Blitzo's 'sins' to be completely accidental while also having him act as if he actually did anything. Going as far as to just throw the blame for him never visiting Fizz unto his 'le bad dad'.
And compared that with the main fuck up of the Disco Elysium. Harry Du Bois. Tequila Sunset, Raphael or whatever else you choose him to be. He is a great detective, but also a horrible drunk who did A LOT of terrible things during his countless drunk escapades. And it is interesting to me how both HB and DE go for the same kind of 'pushing everyone away to destroy themselves' protagonist, but one clearly knows how to commmit to this tone. Because Harry while he is a good detective is NEVER given easy answer to any of his problems. Everything in the game SCREAMS at you, you are a very big problem and you need to start thinking about fixing yourself. Or getting worse until you reach rock bottom.
And I think it comes down to DE being far more daring with it's approach. It does not shy away from Harry being in many cases ABYSMAL human being, but it also reinforces his better aspects like how his relationship with children, love of sports, his talents, passions and heartbreaks. You feel why some people care for him, but also feel fed up with him. You feel why some people genuinely hate him and are NOT in the wrong for it. Because Harry fucked up a lot and people like Sylvie are not wrong for hating him.
DE commits to Harry being a broken human being and because of that he feels so human. He has faults, but he is not defined by them. He has his good sides, but he is not put on a pedestal for them. And compared that to Blitzo who's bad sides are mostly swept under the rug unless it involves Stolas and his good parts are pretty much making him out to be pinnacle of his race who everyone either has to love or be a villain or someone who 'doesn't understand'.
Because HB with this feels reactionary and therefore there is no consistency with how characters are portrayed.
And last aspect I want to focus on is 'The World' and the tone of each. Because tone in HB and HH in terms of it's world building is also very confusing because you have it be set in Hell, but at many points it feels like this setting is not really used for anything beyond just being a wacky looking earth. But it still has immortal demons and class system dividing htem, but it is confusing as to where it comes from because the main people in power like Sins mostly do not seem like characters that would create such a world in the first place like Beelzebub, Asmodeus or Lucifer.
It's idea of being set in Hell is not explored enough to be meaningful part of those shows. Like yeah, characters in HH are sinners, but we never explore their past from mortal lives. HB is meant to explore Hell, but it just makes it look like again... wacky earth with nothing really noteworthy to make it feel different. There is no unique cultures, no examples of art being made in Hell. How Hellborn think of humans, unique ways their society works. It's all... nothing. And then there is Disco.
And I think it is the MOST unfair comparison here because world building in that game is simply amazing with so much history being written in it, but I think a big part of it is how consistent it is. It feels familiar, almost too familiar to the point where you may ask yourself why it's set in a different world, but then you peel away deeper and you realize why. It's a world where nothing exists. Where end is coming in the form of the Pale. It's a world where everyone besides you knows it all will end one day (unless you go on to be Apocalypse Cop).
You feel why the world is the way it is. You feel it with every dialogue spoken in this game. With how it presents different ideologies and how all of them can be seen as their own reaction to the Pale. Some focus entirely on themselves and ignore it. Some take everything in face of oblivion. Some try to contain it and others to repel it. Hope is big part of it as well. Especially with Moralism and Communism. One's slogan is 'for a moment there was hope' and another needs hope to exist and is build on hope of a better tomorrow.
It all feels very consistent and I think it is largely because the author of that game and novel sacred and terrible air thought very hard about this world. So I will stop with it here, but I want to point out here how consistent world building is here. And how much more detailed it is despite world of Elysium being so similar to ours in many ways while HB barely uses anything unique despite being a completely different realm, Hell itself and feels more like our world than anything else despite what it tries to be.
Sorry for long ramble. I recently also came back to Elysium and I also started to to see some things from HB like this
And I had to get something out of my system that I thought of for a bit about HB/HH. It is messy I know, but it is something I wrote... mostly for me. VERY late in the night as well so yeah. Nothing like sleep depravation in the name of hyperfixation.
And I think the moral of this whole thing is that... HB and HH are clearly reactionary. Their tones in anything they do is VERY inconsistent because the author herself doesn't seem to really be able to stick with an idea if it starts to feel bad for her. Or stick with a tone if she gets bored or uninterested with it. Also inability to kill your darlings, but it is something that Disco also doesn't do and yet it clearly is better off for it. And I think it also comes down to how each spaces their content, how each one spaces those darlings.
Because Viv clearly has little patience for such things. She wants something done, she will do it NOW. Now or never. While DE has far more patience and let's certain things stay hidden or be left until the end. Disco Elysium is a GREAT game that I think all of you should experience. And if anyone here played it and wants a proper discussion about it I highly recommed this video by Last Minute Essays. He delves into this game in a way that I think is the most appropriate. It's not about politics. It's about humanity of this game (and politics).
Hope you all enjoyed this aimless ramble of a sleepy weird polish man
