I'm watching a youtuber recap lore in Hazbin Hotel S2 and it reminded me of a post I've been meaning to make. I gotta say, as someone who loathes Word of God and Twitter-based canon, I am tested every single day...
There's no creator for whom I'm going to go out of my way to read all their tweets, watch all their streams/interviews, etc., and especially not so I can understand the media they made. I am basing my understanding off of what was actually shown/stated in the text.
Now, I do respect the artistry of the people who make my favourite things, and I can agree that understanding the author of a text, their circumstances, the time it was made in, their influences, and, yes, their own stated intentions can aid in analysis/understanding of the work. But I still refuse to abide by everything said in panels, tweets, streams, etc., being "canon", and it does not have to be part of interpreting the text. I personally prefer looking at media through a Death of the Author framework, I like to understand what the show from what I saw, not just what the author says they meant to do. It doesn't always matter what they intended to do, what matters is what they actually did, in this analytical framework.
This is, obviously, something I run into all the time with all kinds of media, but I find it's a really common thing in the hellaverse fandom in a way that can sometimes be detrimental to fun and theory-building. Like, people using the pilot or things that were said YEARS ago to insist upon certain things being canon.
The particular case that inspired me is in this youtube video, where KolkoCat explains that Vincent Whitman is shown with plans to help usher in the era colour television, which means that the earliest he would have died would be around 1953, but, it makes sense that it could have been as late as the 70s, with the 60s being when colour television actually became accessible to a lot of people. This youtuber also provides two more pieces of evidence, one, the cost of the newspaper is closer to what it would have been in the 60s/70s, in the 50s it would have likely been 5 cents. As well, the TV executive was apparently based on a real guy who died in the 1970s, which means Vox would have died after that (this, to me, I'm less sure about as it could just be a fun real life-allusion but y'know, it is still interesting to consider). I would also like to point out, Vince has "24 hour news cycle" on his posterboard, which according to google wasn't introduced until the 1980- he probably died before this was realized, but it makes more sense for him to have been pitching that in the 60s maybe even 70s rather than all the way back in the 50s if it was really that far off from being a thing?? And, his shark week idea also didn't launch til 1988 lol.
Meanwhile, the link on the Hazbin Hotel wiki to the stream where someone declares his death date being "the 1950s" leads to a youtube video that was taken down, but, from the Wayback Machine it looks like it was a stream in 2020 and it was actually on Faustisse's channel..... There is also comment on the youtube vid I'm watching that says "Vox died in the 50s, it was on a piece of merch, it makes no sense but it is canon" like, merch is not the TV show?? I can't even find the merch they're referring to, but, idk I don't look at merch to complete my understanding of a narrative.
Either way, the show itself depicts him dying!!! Therefore, now that it's released, we have all of the above details to analyze and look at and draw our own conclusions. He could have died in the 1950s, but it probabbbly makes more sense for him to have at least died in the early 60s if not mid-late 60s. And not that any of this matters, the difference is like, a decade or less, but it's the principle of the thing.
One other thing to note, some folks have pointed out that Vox says he and Alastor have been beefing for "70 years" which, presuming the show is set in 2024ish would, indeed, indicate he died in the 1950s. So, either the visual cues are hyperbolic (which is fine) or Vox himself is exaggerating the timelines (also fine). At least it's within the show itself, and the show itself is giving a bit of a contradictory story, so we get to decide which aspects are to be believed. Brighter and Vox's words are BOTH from his POV, so we are taking what he says/remembers and deciding what we believe the truth is.
And on that... isn't it sorta more fun to scan the actual text of the show for clues like this youtuber did (The newspaper, the colour TV advertisement, the real-world reference to a TV executive death) to come to the conclusion that Vox probably died in the 1960s than to just accept "Well, Faustisse in 2020 they knew he died in the 1950s, so, that's canon"? I (clearly) would rather engage in fan-sleuthing, read others' theories, and deduce things myself than ask on Twitter for a Definite Answer from Word of God. I know I'm screaming into the void and a lot of people don't agree with me but, pray tell, where is the joy and the whimsy and the analysis? That's part of the fun of fandom, looking at the text and coming up with explanations instead of running to Creator on High to ask for the answers.
Lastly, at the very least, if you're seeing someone do this level of analysis on the text, and you feel the need to comment "Um, Actually, Viv said it's actually This, to 30 of us in a bookstore one day, you can see the tweets about it at the time" or, y'know, something, don't be surprised if that op is like "i'm gonna base my understanding off what i can see on my screen from the show, thanks though!" because, y'know, deciding to analyze the text and not accept Word of God as canon is a valid way to engage with a story, even if it's not how you do it.
