Helluva thoughts
Apr. 6th, 2025 03:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shamanicshayminSo the other day, I caught up on Helluva Boss. I have mixed feelings about Stolas and Stolitz, but it's too big and complicated to try to make a BlueSky thread out of, so Dreamwidth it is!
At the beginning of the series, I didn't like Stolas. At all. I thought he was an obnoxious creep who kept harassing Blitzo (and the cringy nicknames like "Blitzy-pooooo~!" did not help) and I really wanted him to leave him alone. He seemed to care more about mooning over Blitzo than actually paying attention to his daughter's feelings in the Loo Loo Land episode. I even once cracked a joke that he was what Michael Crawford looked like to people who hated Michael Crawford. I was way more invested in Millie/Moxxie--they're cute and adorable, destroy all heteronormative conventions, and it's just a joy to watch how much they love each other. Whereas with Stolitz, I felt nothing but annoyance.
Things changed a little with "Ozzie's." For once, I actually felt bad for Stolas--here he was actually genuinely trying to have a relationship with Blitzo outside sex/their Grimoire exchange, and Blitzo only used him as a key to spy on Moxxie and Millie. The flashback to Blitzo and Stolas's childhood friendship didn't help much--again, Blitzo only seems to care about the Grimoire. Funnily enough, Stolas comes to that exact realization by the end of "The Circus." He stops being annoyingly lovey-dovey with Blitzo from then on, much to my relief.
I have a lot to say about Stella and her missed potential. I don't mind that she's 100% evil--hell, I think the show agrees with me that her being a horrible abusive spouse is the only way to justify Stolas's cheating on her. However, she's also cartoonishly evil in the way Adam from Hazbin Hotel is, in that it actually hurts the story and her character more than it helps. Like Adam, there's a tiny bit of depth there that could be really fascinating to explore--her entire life being bound to an arranged marriage and giving birth to an heir, for example. The resentment from that is probably what motivates her into being who she is now, and abusing Stolas is her way of gaining what little control she has. She could also be like Mother Gothel to Olivia, but more on that later. The show unfortunately doesn't seem much interested in giving Stella any depth, which ironically makes Stolas look even worse. Like wtf, if Stella's this evil, why isn't he doing everything in his power to gain custody of Olivia and get her out of dodge? Wouldn't he try protecting her from his power-hungry wife? Stolas is not beating the Bad Dad allegations here.
Then Stolas starts getting Consequences for his actions. By once again putting Blitzo before his daughter (even though he actually had good reason to this time, trying to save his life), he loses his royal status and he's spat on by all of Hell. Stolas is forced to confront his naivety and lower-class biases now that he's lower-class himself. Octavia chews him out and disowns him. For the first time, Stolas and Blitz have actual chemistry now that they're living together. Despite that, I still have gripes with the finale, as copypasted from BlueSky:
Olivia calling out Stolas and disowning him for lying to her, breaking his promise to never leave her, and generally being an unreliable father? Fine. But being upset he takes anti-depressants and believing he takes them because he hates her? W. T. F. Like being pissed at Stolas for seeming to care more about Blitz than her makes sense. But why on earth would she believe that her father despises her so much he'd take anti-depressants? Olivia knows her parents have been fighting constantly. She knows Stolas's stress and ire is coming from her mother and not her. It's not exactly subtle either. Stella is so obviously evil she probably spent an entire month cackling about Stolas's banishment and suffering. Olivia even walked in on Stella and Andrealphus laughing their fucking asses off that they blocked all of Stolas's attempted calls. Yet the conclusion she comes from "lolololol her dad tried sooooooooo hard to contact his daughter, but we blocked her every time!" is "Daddy hates me. 😢"? WHAT?
Like not once did Olivia ever think that Stolas's misery might be connected to her gleefully abusive mother? We're shown no evidence if she has ANY sort of relationship with Stella either, which might give us reason to believe she'd give her mom the benefit of the doubt. Of all the things Olivia could've chewed Stolas out for, it's the ONE thing that actually isn't his fault: the meds. "Weh, you take drugs because you hate me, Dad. 😢" is the most forced contrived bullshit ever, since it relies on Octavia somehow being oblivious as fuck to her Evil Cartoon Mom. The writers didn't even *need* to come up with the "daddy takes anti-depressants to put up with you" thing because Olivia already has all the reasons to disown Stolas. It feels like it was just thrown in for ~*~extra drama~*~ and arrrrrrrrgh! It's so goddamn unnecessary!
If we got scenes of Stella pretending to care about Olivia while feeding her tons of lies about how Stolas never loved her, that would’ve made it so much more believable. Turning loved ones against their victims is a common tactic of toxic parents. Unfortunately, this would require Stella to have more depth than just being the female version of Adam from Hazbin Hotel, and blegh. Such a missed opportunity.
Like, I'm not Stolas's biggest fan and I'm glad he's being called out, but... do it for the right reasons, man.
I'm trying not to approach the show in bad faith. We got one season left so a lot of things could change. I have a feeling Stolitz is meant to be a dysfunctional trainwreck between dysfunctional people that slowly gets better over time (especially with the emphasis on Blitzo being terrified of love and ruining his previous relationships because of that), so I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Fandom has gotten so bad regarding nuance in media that all LGBTQ ships have to be portrayed as healthy and squeaky-clean (ex. Heartstopper) or else it's "problematic" and/or "homophobic" representation. Helluva Boss's writing isn't perfect and I'm still on the fence about Stolitz itself, but I want to wait until the show is over before giving my final judgement.
As long as they don't mess up Millie/Moxxie and Asmodeus/Fizzarolli. Those are my favorite ships. ;;
At the beginning of the series, I didn't like Stolas. At all. I thought he was an obnoxious creep who kept harassing Blitzo (and the cringy nicknames like "Blitzy-pooooo~!" did not help) and I really wanted him to leave him alone. He seemed to care more about mooning over Blitzo than actually paying attention to his daughter's feelings in the Loo Loo Land episode. I even once cracked a joke that he was what Michael Crawford looked like to people who hated Michael Crawford. I was way more invested in Millie/Moxxie--they're cute and adorable, destroy all heteronormative conventions, and it's just a joy to watch how much they love each other. Whereas with Stolitz, I felt nothing but annoyance.
Things changed a little with "Ozzie's." For once, I actually felt bad for Stolas--here he was actually genuinely trying to have a relationship with Blitzo outside sex/their Grimoire exchange, and Blitzo only used him as a key to spy on Moxxie and Millie. The flashback to Blitzo and Stolas's childhood friendship didn't help much--again, Blitzo only seems to care about the Grimoire. Funnily enough, Stolas comes to that exact realization by the end of "The Circus." He stops being annoyingly lovey-dovey with Blitzo from then on, much to my relief.
I have a lot to say about Stella and her missed potential. I don't mind that she's 100% evil--hell, I think the show agrees with me that her being a horrible abusive spouse is the only way to justify Stolas's cheating on her. However, she's also cartoonishly evil in the way Adam from Hazbin Hotel is, in that it actually hurts the story and her character more than it helps. Like Adam, there's a tiny bit of depth there that could be really fascinating to explore--her entire life being bound to an arranged marriage and giving birth to an heir, for example. The resentment from that is probably what motivates her into being who she is now, and abusing Stolas is her way of gaining what little control she has. She could also be like Mother Gothel to Olivia, but more on that later. The show unfortunately doesn't seem much interested in giving Stella any depth, which ironically makes Stolas look even worse. Like wtf, if Stella's this evil, why isn't he doing everything in his power to gain custody of Olivia and get her out of dodge? Wouldn't he try protecting her from his power-hungry wife? Stolas is not beating the Bad Dad allegations here.
Then Stolas starts getting Consequences for his actions. By once again putting Blitzo before his daughter (even though he actually had good reason to this time, trying to save his life), he loses his royal status and he's spat on by all of Hell. Stolas is forced to confront his naivety and lower-class biases now that he's lower-class himself. Octavia chews him out and disowns him. For the first time, Stolas and Blitz have actual chemistry now that they're living together. Despite that, I still have gripes with the finale, as copypasted from BlueSky:
Olivia calling out Stolas and disowning him for lying to her, breaking his promise to never leave her, and generally being an unreliable father? Fine. But being upset he takes anti-depressants and believing he takes them because he hates her? W. T. F. Like being pissed at Stolas for seeming to care more about Blitz than her makes sense. But why on earth would she believe that her father despises her so much he'd take anti-depressants? Olivia knows her parents have been fighting constantly. She knows Stolas's stress and ire is coming from her mother and not her. It's not exactly subtle either. Stella is so obviously evil she probably spent an entire month cackling about Stolas's banishment and suffering. Olivia even walked in on Stella and Andrealphus laughing their fucking asses off that they blocked all of Stolas's attempted calls. Yet the conclusion she comes from "lolololol her dad tried sooooooooo hard to contact his daughter, but we blocked her every time!" is "Daddy hates me. 😢"? WHAT?
Like not once did Olivia ever think that Stolas's misery might be connected to her gleefully abusive mother? We're shown no evidence if she has ANY sort of relationship with Stella either, which might give us reason to believe she'd give her mom the benefit of the doubt. Of all the things Olivia could've chewed Stolas out for, it's the ONE thing that actually isn't his fault: the meds. "Weh, you take drugs because you hate me, Dad. 😢" is the most forced contrived bullshit ever, since it relies on Octavia somehow being oblivious as fuck to her Evil Cartoon Mom. The writers didn't even *need* to come up with the "daddy takes anti-depressants to put up with you" thing because Olivia already has all the reasons to disown Stolas. It feels like it was just thrown in for ~*~extra drama~*~ and arrrrrrrrgh! It's so goddamn unnecessary!
If we got scenes of Stella pretending to care about Olivia while feeding her tons of lies about how Stolas never loved her, that would’ve made it so much more believable. Turning loved ones against their victims is a common tactic of toxic parents. Unfortunately, this would require Stella to have more depth than just being the female version of Adam from Hazbin Hotel, and blegh. Such a missed opportunity.
Like, I'm not Stolas's biggest fan and I'm glad he's being called out, but... do it for the right reasons, man.
I'm trying not to approach the show in bad faith. We got one season left so a lot of things could change. I have a feeling Stolitz is meant to be a dysfunctional trainwreck between dysfunctional people that slowly gets better over time (especially with the emphasis on Blitzo being terrified of love and ruining his previous relationships because of that), so I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Fandom has gotten so bad regarding nuance in media that all LGBTQ ships have to be portrayed as healthy and squeaky-clean (ex. Heartstopper) or else it's "problematic" and/or "homophobic" representation. Helluva Boss's writing isn't perfect and I'm still on the fence about Stolitz itself, but I want to wait until the show is over before giving my final judgement.
As long as they don't mess up Millie/Moxxie and Asmodeus/Fizzarolli. Those are my favorite ships. ;;
no subject
Date: 2025-04-06 06:16 pm (UTC)That's probably why I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet re: Stella's potential. I have a feeling we're going to be getting some backstory for her soon (iirc Viv mentioned it in an interview) and I think you're right on the money that a lot of her behavior is going to be tied to the resentment and lack of control she has in her situation.
I didn't get the impression Octavia believes Stolas takes antidepressants because he hates her. The way I interpreted it was that (despite her verbally claiming otherwise) she knows Stolas loves her, but the reality she's being confronted with is that, despite her father's claim that she's the happiest thing that's happened to him, that alone wasn't enough to assuage his own misery. The antidepressants were evidence of that misery, and with or without taking them, he was still miserable even with Octavia in his life.
To be clear: I don't think this is a sound or "fair" logic on her part, and I don't think it's supposed to be. But from Octavia's perspective, as a child born out of royal obligation, caught in the middle of a divorce between two parents who never loved each other (and she's known this, she's implied in Loo Loo Land to have known this long before their divorce), who's been proven "right" about her father's happiness with a total stranger superseding the happiness he has with her--it makes an unfortunate amount of sense. It's a flawed logic that doesn't take into account Stolas's own struggles and nuances, but I think everything presented in the show has built up to this moment.
I don't think this necessarily means Octavia is going to throw herself into her mother's arms and take her side, either--she's seen firsthand how gleefully horrible she and Andrealphus are, she's seen what a danger her uncle is and the inevitable consequence of her having retaliated against him she's going to face (my current prediction is she's going to avoid that altogether by fleeing from her family and using the Grimoire to go to the human world and live a new life there in human form).
That said, if I'm wrong and she does take her mother's side, I think she'll be staying with her not because she thinks Stella's "right" (again, she's witnessed how Stella actively sabotaged Stolas's attempts at reaching out to her), but because--and this is going into total, not-supported-by-text speculation on my part--she takes a sort of comfort in the straightforward narrative of her outwardly, predictably awful mother versus the messier, complicated one of her loving but flawed father.
Wouldn't worry about the future of Millie/Moxxie and Asmodeus/Fizzarolli. I imagine there's going to be tension and struggles between them--but their strengths as couples are undeniably going to win out in the end. :) (They wouldn't be making so much merch of them saying things like "couple goals" otherwise!)
no subject
Date: 2025-04-08 03:53 pm (UTC)I didn't get the impression Octavia believes Stolas takes antidepressants because he hates her. The way I interpreted it was that (despite her verbally claiming otherwise) she knows Stolas loves her, but the reality she's being confronted with is that, despite her father's claim that she's the happiest thing that's happened to him, that alone wasn't enough to assuage his own misery. The antidepressants were evidence of that misery, and with or without taking them, he was still miserable even with Octavia in his life.
That makes sense. I get the feeling if she stayed with her mom and uncle, it'd be because she has nowhere else to go. :( Maybe she'll try running away, but we'll see what happens. Her going back to the human world could be interesting. :o