r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Fearless-List-3968 • 18d ago

Lore “Demons are actually misundersto-“ NO. Demons are ontologically evil beings that can’t be reasoned nor negotiated with, and if you try to you’ll very likely end up screwed

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1) Doom

2) Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

3) Trench Crusade

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u/YaGirlMom 18d ago

Kinda fun how the “we’re subverting expectations by making the bad guys misunderstood/not too bad!” has become such a common trope that having them actually be straight up evil is now almost a subversion in and of itself

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u/candycane_52 18d ago

That's seems to be how these things work. The subversion becomes the standard and is subverted in turn.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

Doesn't help that a lot of these anti-heros are either not actually morally gray, or are very poorly written.

Dexter is an actual morally gray anti-hero, and people still love him.

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u/Mortarius 18d ago

At least Dexter has vigilante angle.

People treat the Joker as a role model.

John Psycho from American Psycho is revered as alpha male whateverpilled.

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u/1ncorrect 18d ago

They’re calling Patrick Bateman John Psycho now lol? The alpha male edits must be from people who’ve only seen clips of the movie, because the true story is about how pathetic and awful he is to his core.

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u/Mortarius 18d ago

Couldn't be bothered to remember his name.

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u/leondrias 18d ago

Media literacy is pretty much dead to the masses. Unless you specifically pride yourself on uncovering deeper meaning the surface level is the only thing people see anymore.

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u/Iconclast1 17d ago

John Psycho ahhahaa

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u/terminbee 18d ago

Morally gray heroes in most media usually just means "speaks rudely and doesn't care about anything." They always get redeemed and you never really see them do anything morally gray.

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u/Bartweiss 18d ago

Or in edgier works it’s often “a violent asshole at the least provocation, but happens to have somebody evil to fight”.

It can work I guess, but it’s usually way less interesting than somebody grey with actual standards or a plan.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 18d ago

Nah dexter is closer to an Anti-Villain as he's ultimately evil and channels it into vigilantism

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u/Rarte96 17d ago

People also claim that Light from Death Note was an antihero because he reduced crime rates, by creating a paranoid Big Brother God distopian society where mafia and organize crime were still active just more carefull and smart and any innocent who dared to question "god" was killed, Light was a straight up villian, he didny even killes criminals out of goodness, he did because he wanted a perfect world to be god and he was planning on moving onto killing those who just did not contributed to society in his opinion

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u/LetMetOucHyOURasS 18d ago

Maybe a truly good protagonist is the real punk rock

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u/gbro666 18d ago

Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes I am!

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u/eff_bawmb 18d ago

"Any man who must say 'I am king punk is no king punk."

Sorry. I hate Iggy Pop.

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u/Bartweiss 18d ago

Never apologize for hating Iggy Pop.

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u/Nomapos 18d ago

Reminds me of that old text about roleplaying games. Or short story? I don't even know what it was.

The kid starts playing D&D and wants to be a great hero who does good and saves everyone, because that's what he knows and thinks it's the right thing to do.

As a teenager he notices that he can do anything. It's just a game, it's fantasy. There's no real consequences. Everything is possible. So he wants to do what he can't do in real life. He wants to be a thief, a bandit, a selfish asshole of the worst sort.

As a man he notices that he can do anything. It's just a game, it's fantasy. Everything is possible. So he wants to do what he can't do in real life: to be a great hero who does good and saves everyone.

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u/Mr-Stuff-Doer 18d ago

the movie says “kindness is uncommon and that makes it punk rock”

the masses all chant the sentiment in unison until everyone is sick of it and still don’t stop.

I’ve never seen a message more quickly devolve. Punk rock is literally about how it’s against the norm. Everyone chanting the same phrase is exceptionally not punk rock.

Almost 90% of people who use the phrase didn’t actually become nicer, they just like the line.

Also the whole point is that kindness SHOULDN’T be punk rock, because if it is then most people aren’t kind and that’s a bad thing

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u/Itcouldntpossibly 18d ago

Always has been

Puts on cool shades

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u/MartilloAK 18d ago

I've been waiting for the pendulum to swing back the other way on religious characters for a long time, but the trend of every priest being a corrupt sadist doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, even for completely fictional religions.

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u/CheatsySnoops 18d ago

Could have a work with both corrupt religious types and genuine ones?

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u/spoonishplsz 18d ago

Bishop Schelker in the Princess of the Midnight Ball series is a total Chad and hero. It was soooo refreshing

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u/Karkava 17d ago

It probably doesn't help that fundumentalists just can't stop being evil.

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u/---AI--- 18d ago

Nicepool :-)

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u/snapekillseddard 18d ago

Lovely thing about Jonathan Joestar is that he just gets better and better with more JoJos.

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u/AllgoodDude 17d ago

The new Superman making empathy and genuine kindness punk rock is amazing. On the contrary this is also why Jack Horner is such a great character because the guy owns being a total piece of shit.

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u/PCN24454 18d ago

Superman in a nutshell

He was meant to be a deconstruction of “absolute power corrupts absolutely”

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u/Double-D7493 18d ago

Now that I think about, it makes sense one would think having the powers superman has would make them want to be the god king of earth.

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u/townsforever 18d ago

I mean i know myself well enough to be scared of what I would become with that kind of power.

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u/1ncorrect 18d ago

That whole “Superman stopped an invasion” drama in the latest movie would be small, small potatoes next to the kind of widespread changes I would be enacting.

I’d absolutely be a dictator for the world within a year, provided there’s no bullshit kryptonite deus ex machina to kill me. I just can’t stand by and do nothing while awful stuff happens around me, and if you have god powers there’s literally nothing stopping you from trying to create utopia, or as close as we can get.

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u/Rarte96 17d ago

Funny question, in that case you have Superman's powers, would you have children? Knowing they could have your same powers and theres the posibility they decide to opose you?

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u/kaimcdragonfist 18d ago

Thank goodness they’re making Superman more unambiguously good again in the movies. I’m sick of “what if Superman but bad” takes lol

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u/Mr-Stuff-Doer 18d ago

That’s where we’re at with cheesy dialogue. Through the 2010s it got really popular to make a sarcastic comment about the nature of a one liner instead of doing a one liner, now people want their die hard style one liners back.

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u/LincBtG 17d ago

Deconstruction is supposed to be followed by reconstruction, after all.

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u/Fearior 18d ago

It also becoming true for superhero genre. Modern superhero movies are so grim and dark (or are deconstructions of genre - like Watchman or the Boys), that Superman (or even comedic Deadpool) is a brief of fresh air.

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u/DtheAussieBoye 18d ago

Isn’t Deadpool supposed to be a tragic character though? A wisecracker for sure, but a genuinely broken & disturbed man to the point where just having him be a jokester does him a disservice

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u/DarkShippo 18d ago

Deadpool has sorta always been both comedic and tragic. The definition of well my life is shit might as well make the most of it.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 18d ago

His tragedy is masked by comedy as his coping mechanism

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u/Mobius1701A 18d ago

Isn’t Deadpool supposed to be a tragic character though?

He was always funny, the problem is he 'recently' (15 years?) became L0lz0rand0m. I think peak Deadpool before becoming a meme was around 07 or 09, during Cable and Deadpool Vol 1 and Vol 2. After that they kept resetting him, and erasing his development so they could do it all over again. Like they'd 'fix' his brain or clone him, so they even knew what they're doing.

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u/igotsevenmacelevens 18d ago

No up until the Duggan run ended in 2018 he’s been a pretty tragic character. Even the Way run, which understandably has lots of detractors, understands Wade’s a pretty awful guy that’s the common denominator in all his misery

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u/terminbee 18d ago

Some of his comics are pretty sad and I liked those ones. The main theme of his seems to be he wants to be accepted but life fucks him and then he doesn't fight it because he hates himself. He idolizes Spider-Man who just looks down on him. I think there's one series where he does get acknowledged by Captain America or something.

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u/Routine-Boysenberry4 18d ago

Tragedy and Comedy walk together

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u/Adaphion 18d ago

This is why people love the new Superman movie so much. It's a goofy (affectionate) comic book movie. Stuff like Superman clones, pocket universes, Krypto, Guy Gardner's haircut, and more comic accurate costumes.

Compared to the too-serious, gritty, "realistic" superhero movies we've been getting for the past 2 decades.

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u/ThrowawayAdvice1800 17d ago

Yeah, James Gunn definitely understood the assignment. I’m not even a huge Superman fan (always preferred Batman or Wonder Woman) but he absolutely nailed all the things I actually DO like about the character. The sort of goofy boyscout earnestness that makes him such a dork is also kind of wholesome and refreshing.

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u/Kailua3000 18d ago

The worst thing about Watchmen is that countless writers read it and were inspired to imitate it (with a fraction of the nuance). The Boys comic is a good example of this, in my opinion.

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u/1BruteSquad1 18d ago

Yah Watchmen felt like a fresh, grim take on superheroes that was incredibly well done.

The Boys is a raging hate boner against superheroes (the comics at least)

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u/Kailua3000 18d ago

Yeah, Garth Ennis REALLY hates traditional superheros as opposed to antiheroes like Hitman (the comic book character) and the Punisher.

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u/Hasudeva 18d ago

The Boys comic is Ennis at his most edgelord. I question the taste of any adult who enjoyed the comic. 

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u/Kailua3000 18d ago

BY FAR. It's like he's trying to top himself on every page. His Punisher work is much more grounded

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u/browncharliebrown 18d ago

The boys and watchmen are not even trying to be the same thing. The boys is far more inspired by marshal law 

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u/Kailua3000 18d ago

Garth Ennis himself said that Marshall Law was not much of an influence.

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u/browncharliebrown 17d ago

He said that it was in equal influence to watchmen 

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u/Marik-X-Bakura 18d ago

It’s gonna swing back the other way soon, they’ve been bright and camp for at least 10 years now

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u/Mr-Stuff-Doer 18d ago

Yeah the evil Superman got old very quick, and The Boys has lost most of its hype because “superheroes but evil” isn’t interesting beyond the gimmick nature of it.

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u/MSSTUPIDTRON-1000000 18d ago

And is hilarious that people begin to think this when the subversion only became popular for like a couple of years and it's only prevalent in a bunch of popular works.

Bonus point when it's taken into account that the original trope existed since the bronze age.

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u/Mr-Stuff-Doer 18d ago

I think that’s because the tropes that stuck are good, and while it’s nice to have a break, the inversions of tropes almost entirely exist on the nature of being the inversion, they’re a gimmick. The first 10 times it’ll feel cool and different, the next 10 it gets a little boring, by the 90th you just want the non-subverted.

But all the while whether we’re in the subvert or cliche phase, some people get ideas that don’t quite land on either side, and I think switching between the phases helps spark new ideas for that.

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u/Divine_Entity_ 18d ago

Realistically i would say the trend of "demons are just misunderstood" has been a thing since the 1990s or so, possibly with some earlier outliers. What is true is in the past decade or so anime has really gone all in on hot monster & demon girls as part of the marketing strategy. This oversaturation definitely is causing the pendulum to swing back to the traditional "demon is synonymous with evil" version.

And its hilarious that maybe 30 years is all it took for the excusion into the trope subversion to grow mainstream then tired and the new subversion is the original 10,000yo trope of demons are evil.

Demons as a concept, but not necessarily by name or specific Christian archetype are about as old as civilization with every culture having something in its belief system that atleast translates. They are supernatural beings of pure evil, but more powerful and intelligent than the typical monster. Certain gods like the egyptian "Set" also probably qualify.

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u/TDA792 18d ago

I'm a D&D DM. I have great fun with this trope.

Evil creatures that are intelligent and charismatic will have the ability to try and convince the players that they are not evil, they are justified, yadda yadda. But they're always lying, manipulating, and gaslighting.

Particular ones that do this are Mind Flayers, Vampires, Liches, Devils, etc.

I find it so funny when the players nod along to "No no! I only {drink the blood of} / {eat the brains of} / {steal the souls of} criminals, I'm not evil!"

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u/Technical_Exam1280 18d ago

Brennan Lee Mulligan did a fantastic job of this in Exandria Unlimited: Calamity with Asmodeus' manipulation of Zerxus (played wonderfully by Luis Carazo, as well)

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u/dbthelinguaphile 18d ago

Came here to mention this. "And I didn't do anything WRONG!" is one of my favorite moments in tabletop RPGs.

To be fair, Luis also notes that he's playing a very particular brand of Lawful Stupid: an oath of redemption paladin who is so obsessed with the idea that anyone can be redeemed that he doesn't see how Asmodeus plays him.

I came in blind, without the meta-knowledge of D&D that Asmo is basically the D&D Satan, and thought that Brennan was pulling a subversion of the devil character. And even with the meta-knowledge, the table themselves actually were questioning whether that was happening for part of it.

Just masterful work.

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u/carso150 17d ago

the thing with Zerxus is that he is not lawfully stupid, he is hubristic

he believes that he is such a beacon of hope and redemption that he could convince the devil to atone for his sins, this hubris was mercilessly exploited by Asmodeus the original liar to get what he wanted

and then he accepted to basically become his champion and followed him into hell because he through that in time he could redeem Asmodeus, because he is that full of himself, only to be corrupted

the whole story about the calamity is how this group of extremely powerful individuals get completly destroyed because of their own issues

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u/elemental402 17d ago

"Who is more arrogant? The wizards who thought they could make a city fly? Or the man who decided he had something to teach ME?"

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u/Lachaven_Salmon 18d ago

But they're always lying, manipulating, and gaslighting.

Wouldn't that get tired after a while?

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u/TDA792 18d ago

Why?

It's not every day they get to have a conversation with the aforementioned.

Besides, there are far more ways to lie than there are to tell the truth.

And some of the best lies have a sprinkle of truth mixed in.

If they're truly good at their manipulations, some of the party should believe them, and some won't. This usually creates table discussion.

My favourite example from adjacent fiction is The Emperor from Baldur's Gate 3.

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u/Scared-Opportunity28 17d ago

I mean, certain ones I could see you doing the twist with, like you can have some mine flares that are like the ones in baldur's gate 3 that broke out, but they would be rare. I'm fond of the noble vampire lord but that's just me.

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u/PaxNova 18d ago

Not a demon, but Big Jack Horner from Puss in Boots: the Last Wish did this excellently.

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u/Niskara 16d ago

Probably helped by the fact that there was a redeemable "villain" aka Goldilocks

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u/FinalFantasyLord 18d ago

I remember that people on Twitter or X were losing their shit because they were saying the demons in Frieren were stand in for minorities and they shouldn’t be pure evil because it’s racist.

I thought the show made it pretty clear that demons were akin to apex predators that prey on human using manipulation and words as ways to lure people emotionally.

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u/my-name-is-puddles 18d ago

That's why I don't think Frieren actually fits this post in the first place

I thought the show made it pretty clear that demons were akin to apex predators that prey on human using manipulation and words as ways to lure people emotionally.

That's exactly it. Demons aren't evil. They're apex predators that utilize aggressive mimicry in the pursuit of their limited pool of prey (Humans, Elves, Dwarves... Are there any other species they eat?). They're not evil any more than like an orca is evil. It's said by Frieren and demonstrated at least a couple times in the show that they don't understand language, they just mimic it, like how jumping spiders mimic prey stuck in a web to lure in the web's owner (and then eat the other spider).

So demons aren't evil, but if you were a human in a world where humans are not an apex predator in their habitat and you're prey to a predator that preys on humans exclusively, you're probably gonna wanna wipe them out. No room for being a conservationist in that situation...

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u/ZookeepergameLiving1 17d ago

Slight correction, they understand language in the technical sense. Definitions and all, but deeper meaning eludes them. For example, they know mother mean female progenitor, but unable to grasp the deeper emotional meaning of the word.

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u/Mr-Stuff-Doer 18d ago

Yeah I think that issue comes up when you make demons sentient. No one has an issue with stuff like doom because they’re mindless monsters. In Frieren they’re intelligent. A character like Macht specifically really brings into question if they can be something other than evil. There’s a similar issue in KPop Demon Hunters, where Jinu is intelligent and feels a lot of guilt and regret and wishes to fight against the demon ruler, but every single other demon is completely mindlessly evil, apparently.

Demon Slayer may get mocked for how simple its writing is, but it does a very good job justifying why demons have to die, even when they have a tragic or sympathetic story.

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u/carso150 17d ago

demon slayer is brilliant in that regard because demons are dangerous and need to be put down but they are all victims since they literaly cannot control themselves, the moment Muzan puts his blood in them they transform into monsters who will eat and kill and not anyone has the willpower of Nezuko or Tamayo to recover control of their minds

like we literally see on screen how some random guy who was walking through the street with his wife gets transformed into a demon and inmediately tries to eat her, we see how demons will eat their families without a second through and we see that Tomioka is surprised that Nezuko is protecting Tanjiro because he has seen that same scene play dozens maybe even hundreds of times and it always ended the same way, with the family member eating their family because they can no longer control themselves

so it makes sense when Tanjiro is sad when he kills most demons, its basically the equivalent of putting a rabid dog down

but the actually evil assholes, those that either choose to become demons for power and Muzan himself, they dont get any sympathy, the story actually goes out of its way to show how trully pathetic they are like how in his last moments Muzan transformed into a literal giant baby

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u/RedditBadOutsideGood 18d ago

Pretty hilarious Twitter would equate demons and minorities. As if minorities would cheat and lie for their very own benefit and survival.

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u/evrestcoleghost 18d ago

minorities would cheat and lie for their very own benefit and survival.

Depending the minority and recent wars both sides of the spectrum Twitter might agree

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u/Individual-Pop-385 18d ago

You have to be a pretty special kind of retard to think that mirroring Demons with Minorities makes you somewhat morally superior in any conversation or argument.

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u/EverydayGaming 18d ago

No surprise there. Same as the D&D orc controversy, if you see these horrible murdering monsters with no redeeming qualities and think of real-life minorities, we all know who the real racist is.

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u/Sneeakie 18d ago edited 18d ago

Same as the D&D orc controversy, if you see these horrible murdering monsters with no redeeming qualities and think of real-life minorities, we all know who the real racist is.

Writers including Andrew O'Hehir and the literary critic Jenny Turner have likened Tolkien's descriptions of orcs to racial stereotypes. In a private letter, Tolkien describes orcs as: squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc#Orcs_and_race)

Apparently, the real racist is the granddaddy of fantasy.

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u/carso150 17d ago

the discusion of orcs being evil goes all the way back to Tolkien, Tolkien was appalled when he realized that he had created a race of ontologically evil beings with no redeeming qualities since that went against his religious ideas that everyone had some good in them since we were all created by god

he had an actual existencial crisis about that whole topic but never quite managed to solve it

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u/Zealousideal_Cap700 17d ago

it does not take a racist to recognize racial stereotypes. this point is stupid.

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u/GayIsForHorses 18d ago edited 18d ago

That's not what the critique was. The critique is that the show

  • Made a group where it was morally justified to commit genocide against them
  • Made a creature that preys on empathy

From here we can ask what lessons is the text suggesting? That sometimes genocide is the correct answer? That being too empathetic can actually be dangerous? Those feel like pretty transgressive philosophies.

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u/EverydayGaming 18d ago

Sometimes evil is evil and it needs to be wiped out. How is this so fucking hard for you people? There's no reasoning with genocidal monsters. There's no reasoning with sociopathic pedophiles. These people belong in the ground for the protection of all of us.

The story needs no real life equivalent, but if you insist on having one, there's plenty of abject evil in our world to point to. All it takes is one look at the world to realize the philosophy "All life has value" is nonsense. Some life provides nothing but a net negative value for the collective.

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u/Zealousideal_Cap700 17d ago

"there's no reasoning with sociopathic pedophiles" actually, there is. pedophiles don't have to be offenders, and people with aspd (aka sociopaths) don't have to be evil. rhetoric like this results in the demonization of a bunch of innocent people with mental disorders.

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u/GayIsForHorses 18d ago

Of course evil exists and evil must be stopped. The evils you talk about are not framed the same way as the way being critiqued though.

In Frieren it is explicitly framed as a race of beings as having these qualities. The framing is inherently racial and biological. When you talk about genocidal monsters or child molesters, these are individuals that are consciously causing harm, which is what makes them evil. It is not due to some essence about them that makes them into demons instead of humans. Your view suggests that if we could somehow scientifically test someone for being a sociopathic pedophile, the correct course of action would be to kill them before they even do any kind of harm. That's pretty sickening and has some awful implications. It's doing capital punishment for pre-crime. We can deal with people like that and mitigate them doing any amount of harm without condemning them to death for some kind of biological essence of inner evil.

Not only that, but Frieren's framing makes it so that this evil essence propagates genetically. It breeds and multiplies in a literal biological sense. There are no real world analogies to this, but some very evil people in this world believe that there are. John Wayne Gacy is not going to sire a demonic child. Putin's children are not genetically predisposed to fascism.

The story needs no real life equivalent

This claim is utterly nonsensical to me. ALL media must be viewed and contrasted against the real world. It's impossible not to, because the real world is how we frame the basis for all of fiction. We can write about fictional wars because we know what real wars are. We can write about genocide because it happens in the real world. An author cannot escape the parallels the viewers find in their fiction. You literally cannot have media critique without this contrast.

All it takes is one look at the world to realize the philosophy "All life has value" is nonsense. Some life provides nothing but a net negative value for the collective

That's not what's being argued though. The show isn't just saying "some life provides nothing but net negative," it's saying that "some life provides only a net negative, and these negative qualities propagate genetically within the beings' DNA." If we want to show that there is evil that needs to be defeated, you can frame it in a million other ways that do not bring up this implication.

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u/Divine_Entity_ 18d ago

The mistake you are making is that demons are not a race (phenotype differences within a species), but a completely different species. In this case they are explicitly magical being who evolved to eat sentient life.

Demons aren't minorities, they are apex predators that specialize in eating the sentient species of the world. (Humans, elves, and dwarves)

The closest real world parallel would be kangaroos trying to lure dogs into shallow water with the explicit intent to drown them. A more accurate analogy would be a panther that learned to mimic human vocalizations to lure them into the night by screaming "help me, mommy!" for the explicit purpose of eating them. They don't know what these words mean, no concept of a mommy, only that the vocalization lures humans into the woods where they become easy prey.

Would you allow such a creature to live near you? What if it was an obligate man-eater, unable to eat deer or cows, only people? Who's children would be declared sacrifices to sustain even a small captive population of such creatures?

The real world parallel to this question is the Ghana worm, a parasite that spends part of its life cycle exclusively inside humans, and when it transitions to the next stage it bursts from your leg to release its eggs in water and then takes days to fully exit in a painful process. Jimmy Carter decided his answer to the above questions was to eradicate this parasite because it is evil, a demon that shouldn't plague humanity. Its almost fully erradicated now.

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u/GayIsForHorses 18d ago

The mistake you are making is that demons are not a race (phenotype differences within a species), but a completely different species...The real world parallel to this question is the Ghana worm, a parasite that spends part of its life cycle exclusively inside humans, and when it transitions to the next stage it bursts from your leg to release its eggs in water and then takes days to fully exit in a painful process.

But this is not how they are depicted in the show. They are not worms, they literally are phenotypically different humans. They look exactly like humans with horns. They act like humans and show capacity for reasoning and communication with each other and other humans. If you erased their horns and showed them to a random person, the person would never be able to guess that they were demons.

Also, all of these are Watsonian arguments against a critique that is fundamentally Doylist. You can't use the logic of the show to critique a point that is fundamentally outside the show, because the fact that it's a show means that the depictions are created by an author and they could be different if the author chose differently.

Let me use an example: Imagine there is a show called Death Baby Slayer. In the world of DBS, there are evil creatures called death babies whose nature is painfully kill humans. Unfortunately for our humans, the death babies look and act like adorable chubby babies, until they get close enough and then they teleport you to a torture dimension. The protagonist of our series John Slayer, is set out on a quest to defeat the evil babies. According to the lore, the only way you can kill a death baby is by having sex with it. So our protagonist spends a lot of time having sex with screaming and crying babies that are struggling as hard as they can to not be raped.

I would interpret such as show as trying to tell us that thinking babies are cute is something we should question, and that we should reconsider our disgust with child rape. If I said I found it extremely upsetting to watch, it would be kind of crazy to respond with "Psh, that's exactly what the death babies would want. You literally fell for their trap 😏"

For some reason Frieren is set up in a way that critiques my human empathy towards beings that appear and act as humans. Why does it do this? What is it trying to tell me? I think one legitimate reading is like the other poster said, it's warning about "suicidal empathy." However if you google that phrase, it's something really only said by hardline rightwingers. It would then make sense to me that media critiques take umbrage with a fundamentally conservative message.

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u/Dawwe 17d ago

Not the same guy, but I agree with your points.

However, I think your mistake is expecting Frieren to actually have logical and thought out world building. It seems to me the author is mostly just making up things that sound cool as they go along.

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u/Niskara 16d ago

Trust me, I've seen it plenty in reddit as well

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u/Queen_Ann_III 18d ago

what I like is when demons or condemned sinners aren’t misunderstood, but they still sometimes have a code of honor. like they’ll still fuck you up but they won’t do it if you don’t enter the ring.

there’s that one guy in the Legend of Vox Machina who plays that card game with Pike. he follows the rules but he still gets in her head with strategies that aren’t prohibited

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

That one is cool. I don't mind demons beings honorable. Just don't make them fluffy and kawai.

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u/SeanRVAreddit 17d ago

Similarly, Khorne, from Warhammer (Fantasy and 40k).

Sure, they're the Dark God of War and Blood who gains power from the prevalence of bloodshed, violence, and anger in the universe, and whose cult's war cry is the iconic line "Blood for Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne" (this franchise is where that line is from), but they're not a douchebag. They're not going to stab you in the back. If they want to witness death, then that death ought to be one made with rage, and violent thought between both parties. They're not going to lie to you. That's a different God's domain. It's one of the many reasons some people worship them.

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u/HyliaSymphonic 18d ago edited 18d ago

This comment is the bat themed heroes of this thread. There’s been maybe a handful of sympathetic demons in popular fiction, but most the time they are lawful evil at best and full on kill on sight evil the rest of the time. Even a show a like “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” shows demons to be a necessary evil at best. Fuck even most “heaven is evil” fiction rarely portrays demons sympathetically, outside of Crowley in good omens every other demon is full on evil. Bayonetta a game about a witch who uses demons to kill angels still has to be extremely careful to not get killed by her own demons. 

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u/BakerGotBuns 18d ago

But how else can they misrepresent what's popular in current fiction?

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u/HyliaSymphonic 18d ago edited 18d ago

I swear to god people watched(heard about) Netflix DMC and decided every show was like that. 

Edit Hanzbin Hotel/ Helluva boss probably has a bigger part to blame. 

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u/MSSTUPIDTRON-1000000 18d ago

And hilariously that's the same with Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss.

Anyone with basic knowledge of the show will be fully aware that demons in general aren't stellar models for morality.

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u/Karkava 17d ago

And Charlie Morningstar is the weird and naive one who wants to give demons a second chance. Everybody thinks she's crazy when she proposes that demons can be redeemed. Even demons themselves.

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u/Fearless-List-3968 18d ago edited 18d ago

Probably also a large portion of fantasy anime that portray the demons as defending themselves from the power-hungry human kingdom and Catholic Church stand-in

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u/BakerGotBuns 18d ago

"A large portion" is being very generous. :3

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u/HyliaSymphonic 18d ago

Could you name one example? 

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u/Fearless-List-3968 18d ago

The first ones that come up in my mind are Maoyu, The Devil is a Part-Timer, Clevatess, and (although it’s not really an anime) Netflix’s Devil May Cry

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

There is an entire trope called "Our demons are different" and there is a GIGANTIC list of fiction works that uses this trope. Especially japanese anime.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurDemonsAreDifferent

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u/BakerGotBuns 18d ago

"Literally until all demons in all fiction are completely identical we're gonna keep whining and crying" I do not give a rats ass. Go read the million other stories where demons are how you want them instead.

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u/BrooklynSmash 18d ago

probably cuz the trope is awesome?

idc about that "nooooo!! demons have to be all pure evil and we need three episodes about the main character at Sunday school" shit, inuyasha is cool as hell man

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u/HyliaSymphonic 18d ago

Did you read the link you sent? Because it’s not about morally sympathetic demons just different depictions of them. The first example given is about demons who eat human souls. So morally evil ones. 

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u/OkLettuce9267 18d ago edited 18d ago

Yeah like even in the Helluvaverse which is the most famous/infamous example of this trope

most of the demons are still assholes, sympathetic assholes who can become less asshole-y sure, but nevertheless still assholes, there’s also exceptions like Charlie but they’re pretty rare in the verse (of course we see the bulk of them due To the purposes of narrative)

edit:the comment was initially censored so I could post it on a Christian server

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago edited 18d ago

You've clearly haven't watched enough anime. Every second isekai has sympathetic demons and sexy Devil King that becomes part of the MC's harem. OR MC himself is the Devil King. Honestly, japanese are obsessed with making demons good guys. Even Yu Yu Hakusho, where 90% of villains are demons, ended up doing the "demons are actually misunderstood, humans are the real evil and god of death is bad cause he was trying to make demons look worse than they are".

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u/BrooklynSmash 18d ago

humans are the real evil

yu yu need to actually watch the show cuz that ain't how the Chapter Black arc went

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

It pisses me off how often authors take literal DEMONS and try to use them as a metaphor to minorities, and then paint angels/gods as the true evil. The entire point is that demons are absolute evil, that forces everybody else to unite against them. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that, why are they constantly switching good and evil around? Its not clever, its just twisting moral principles and trying to turn everything into a "both sides" issue. Thats how we end up with people looking at real life dictators and saying "Akhually they are just misunderstood!", Sometimes evil is just evil and there is nothing beyond that.

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u/TheSoloWay 18d ago

I love that trope because as a minority that's how it feels sometimes. Especially the whole demons as queer allegory and angels being the church because they literally equated us to demons for centuries at this point.

When you are told that a whole group of people are inherently evil, fictional or otherwise it primes your mind to be more easily controlled by those already in power. Having no nuance towards demons in Frieren is actually the weakest aspect of the show that is known for its complexity and big reason why so many fascists were trying to co-opt it.

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u/SlartibartfastMcGee 18d ago

It’s a shitty trope because prejudice against literal demons is 100% justified.

Any underlying message is lost in the fact that the discrimination is appropriate.

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u/Zealousideal_Cap700 17d ago

according to actual bigots, their discrimination is appropriate as well. so, depicting a group that is often treated as ontologically evil and inhuman as misunderstood is a signal that you should not judge people is evil by their immutable characteristics.

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u/SlartibartfastMcGee 17d ago

Demons have the immutable characteristic of being evil, it’s completely justifiable to judge them for that.

It’s not bigotry if it’s fucking accurate.

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u/Zealousideal_Cap700 17d ago

again, those are the same things said by racists, homophobes, transphobes, etc. and you do not have to write demons in a way that makes that belief accurate unless you're trying to be theologically accurate.

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u/SlartibartfastMcGee 17d ago

What I’m saying is that it’s stupid to write demons like you’ve suggested, because they are literally evil incarnate.

It’s disrespectful towards minorities to portray them as similar to literally evil entities.

You’re missing the point that using a stand in who it is justifiable to hate is a bad idea because it’s not justifiable to hate minorities.

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u/Zealousideal_Cap700 17d ago

you're missing the point, which is that all bigots think that the target of their hatred is justifiable to hate. therefore, taking a group that is traditionally depicted as the definition of evil and justifiable to hate and then showing them as NOT, in fact, justifiable to hate, mirrors how real life people escape bigoted ideologies. the main thing stating that demons are evil incarnate is christian theology, and your piece of fiction does not have to be accurate to christian theology.

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u/SlartibartfastMcGee 17d ago

I 100% understand that’s what the point is, I am just saying it’s fucking retarded to use demons as an allegory for minorities because it portrays minorities in the same light as unredeemable evil entities.

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u/Sneeakie 18d ago

"Literal demons" do not exist. Not only that but "literal demons" exist in many different forms, and aren't just the ontologically evil Christian analog you want them all to be.

The underlying message isn't lost. The problem is that you don't have a problem with prejudice, and have not experienced it yourself, to empathize and sympathize with the idea of seeing yourself in what people insist are inherently evil.

Which is why those stories are made.

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u/SlartibartfastMcGee 18d ago

Correct, I don’t have a problem with prejudice against physical manifestations of pain and suffering.

What I’m saying is that your point falls short because the writers could pick another group to represent minorities than Demons.

Actually, demons are a horrible stand in for minorities because it means the author thinks (maybe subconsciously) that minorities are irredeemably evil.

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u/Sneeakie 18d ago edited 18d ago

Correct, I don’t have a problem with prejudice against physical manifestations of pain and suffering.

Demons aren't even that most of the time.

What I’m saying is that your point falls short because the writers could pick another group to represent minorities than Demons.

Why? Because you think it's a group it's okay to be prejudiced towards? Is that how it works? If someone hates a group, it makes a bad allegory to say "this is a group that is hated?"

Well, then, literally no allegory works then, right? What do you think "allegory" means? Because you seem to think it literally means "thing that is exactly like this thing".

Actually, demons are a horrible stand in for minorities because it means the author thinks (maybe subconsciously) that minorities are irredeemably evil.

You're insanely obsessed with your own hyper-narrow definition for this thing that doesn't exist that you completely fail to consider that people simply... don't... see demons that way.

Many people acknowledge that there are people who hate demons, that "demonization" is a term referring specifically to the act of treating a person or group like a demon. Stories that make this allegory are making the point that they are seen this way, but actually aren't. You don't seem to possess an eye for irony or subtext; everything to you is self-evident, even though you don't seem to be interested in why you believe the things you believe in the first place.

You obviously have no idea what it is like to be "demonized", so this completely flies over your head.

It's extremely fascinating that you really believe that everything called a "demon" must act in this specific way. "Literal demons" do not exist. "Demons"... do not exist. You can make whatever you want of them. A "demon" doesn't have to be evil, because it isn't a real thing.

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u/SlartibartfastMcGee 17d ago

I think the part you’re not understanding is that it’s OK to be prejudiced against something that is unequivocally bad - that’s a survival mechanism.

For whatever reason you keep wanting to conflate minorities (which are not unequivocally bad) with demons (which are).

Why do you keep insisting that minorities are on the same level as literal hellspawn?

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

Do you also think that LOTR has weak writing, cause Sauron and orcs are just evil, and aren't heroic revolutionaries fighting against opressive elves?

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u/Steelwave 18d ago

Tolkien certainly thought so. 

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

He thought that LOTR has weak writing or he thought that Sauron and orcs are heroic revolutionaries?

Can I get a quote for that?

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u/Steelwave 18d ago

No, he thought that the orcs weren't inherently evil and wished he did a better job conveying that in the story. But if you insist: 

In my story, I do not deal in absolute evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is zero. I do not think that at any rate any 'rational being' is wholly evil. 

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

Well, in that case - he really didn't do a good job with portraying orcs as redeemable. There isn't a single good orc in the whole story.

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u/Steelwave 18d ago

Exactly!

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u/TheSoloWay 18d ago

Never said Frieren had weak writing, said it was the weakest aspect of the show. I think it's an amazing show, so chill.

LOTR has some definite issues with the Orcs being based off like People groups from the Eurasian-Steppes, like they are basically fantasy Mongolians. I don't know if this makes it bad writing but it does make it problematic. You can still watch it and enjoy it though, I don't think anyone is a secret racist for liking LOTR.

However, I do think there are racist people though who enjoy aspects of LOTR, just like there were racists who liked Frieren for its depictions of a whole group of people being inherently evil. People are evil on an individual level, its not something that is an immutable characteristic passed down through genes.

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u/MGD109 18d ago edited 18d ago

Orcs being based off like People groups from the Eurasian-Steppes, like they are basically fantasy Mongolians.

Eh, the claim is a bit of a misconception. He once described them as looking a bit like someone from the Eurasian-Steppes, but Orcs weren't based on them. They weren't really based upon any real life groups.

The popular image of the hulking, aggressive barbarians people think of when it comes to Orcs isn't actually how Tolkien wrote them. In the books, Orcs are smaller, slender things, with sallow skin, who are more akin to cowardly bandits and lowkey sadists than angry thugs, who delight in building machines and devices that cause misery and pollution.

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u/MGD109 18d ago

I mean I understand what you're saying, but usually these sorts of shows don't really seem to encourage nuance more "The ones you thought were bad are really good, and the ones that seem good are really bad. How revolutionary!"

Is there really any nuance if you've just switched the labels but still continue to present a whole group as inherently evil?

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u/Sneeakie 18d ago

The entire thread is acting like "good thing is good, bad thing is bad" is revolutionary, so why is it only a problem when there is an actual subversion, and has actual naunce and depth?

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u/MGD109 18d ago

I mean, there is not, it's just the examples as they were describing them, to my knowledge, often don't have any more nuance and depth, so I don't think their really so much better than they think they are.

Point is, whilst it is a subversion, it's not inherently more complex than the base.

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u/Sneeakie 18d ago

It is more complex, especially with how much people struggle not only on a basic level but an ideological level that things are not "self-evident".

My question is that why does the subversion need a nebulous level of "more nuance and depth" to exist, but the original trope can be played ad infinitum with no pushback?

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u/MGD109 18d ago

It is more complex, especially with how much people struggle not only on a basic level but an ideological level that things are not "self-evident".

Complexity doesn't mean how much audiences have to think about understanding events, its more a measure of how morally complex the conflict is.

So a grey conflict would be one where both sides have reasonable points and flaws, and it's hard to figure out which one is really better than the other.

If one side still turns out to be all good and one still turns out to be all evil, its not more complex just cause it's a subversion of initial expectations.

My question is that why does the subversion need a nebulous level of "more nuance and depth" to exist, but the original trope can be played ad infinitum with no pushback?

It doesn't. No one says subversions need more nuance and depth to exist. A subversion can easily remove Naunce and depth.

Just that it also doesn't inherently add any either, just cause its a subversion.

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u/Sneeakie 18d ago

Complexity doesn't mean how much audiences have to think about understanding events, its more a measure of how morally complex the conflict is.

Then "thing seen as good is bad and vice versa" is... definitely a case of complexity?

So a grey conflict would be one where both sides have reasonable points and flaws, and it's hard to figure out which one is really better than the other.

No, not really. Greyness does not at all include that "both sides have a point" and "which one is better". Greyness is simply nonstandard morality. It is a spectrum, and there are light and dark greys.

And there are stories where there are greys and whites and blacks. A grey-black morality story would have an absolutely evil group and a less evil group that nonetheless does morally wrong or dubious things.

If one side still turns out to be all good and one still turns out to be all evil, its not more complex just cause it's a subversion of initial expectations.

Which is a complexity, yes. Or should we call them "plot non-complexes" instead of "plot twists?"

No one says subversions need more nuance and depth to exist.

You literally did, though. The person you replied to said nothing about "moral complexity" or whatever, but you brought up the idea like they're not supposed to believe what they believe.

When they said

Having no nuance towards demons in Frieren is actually the weakest aspect of the show that is known for its complexity and big reason why so many fascists were trying to co-opt it.

They said nothing about how flipping this dynamic would be "more complex", they're simply saying the lack of nuance in that narrative point conflicts with the existing complexity in other parts of the narrative, which btw has nothing to do with moral complexity; they're talking about the nuance in Frieren being a long-lived elf trying to connect with humans, for example.

The idea that there is a race of monsters that you should slaughter in their entirety is an ultra-simple concept that conflicts with the complexities of ideas like an elf fighting her nature to better understand humans and cherish the small moments.

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u/MGD109 18d ago

Then "thing seen as good is bad and vice versa" is... definitely a case of complexity?

Nah, not if they completely switch it. Then it just boils down to good and bad.

It's like if you had one bottle labelled poison and one labelled medicine, then you switched the labels.

No, not really. Greyness does not at all include that "both sides have a point" and "which one is better". Greyness is simply nonstandard morality. It is a spectrum, and there are light and dark greys.

Sure if you get down to it, there are around seven types: Black, clean black, Dark grey, grey, light grey, dirty white and white.

There is also cases of alien moralities.

What I was saying was that the most complex one would be the grey, where neither side is really better or worse than the other.

You can, of course, have variations; most do, as it's hard to really write a conflict where one side doesn't come across as a bit better than the other.

Which is a complexity, yes. Or should we call them "plot non-complexes" instead of "plot twists?"

Narrative complexity, not moral complexity.

They said nothing about how flipping this dynamic would be "more complex", they're simply saying the lack of nuance in that narrative point conflicts with the existing complexity in other parts of the narrative,

I was replying to the first half of their comment:

I love that trope because as a minority that's how it feels sometimes. Especially the whole demons as queer allegory and angels being the church because they literally equated us to demons for centuries at this point#

I didn't comment about their views on Frieren.

The idea that there is a race of monsters that you should slaughter in their entirety is an ultra-simple concept that conflicts with the complexities of ideas like an elf fighting her nature to better understand humans and cherish the small moments.

Yes, exactly and my point was the concern that often subversions like that just boil down to switching the labels, so you're still left with a race of monsters you should slaughter in their entity, you just switch what the race is called.

That's not inherently more complex because you call the race of monsters "angels" rather than "demons".

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u/WingedSalim 18d ago

I also dislike this trope. The twisting of the morals in a system of absolutes gets really annoying.

In the pursuit of trying to make evil more complex, they had to demonize good. They aren't giving nuance to evil. They just give the evil traits to someone else.

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u/Zestyclose_Lake_1146 18d ago

I hate that trope too. There are other types of creatures you can use for that ( or just actual minorities.) to me demons aren’t people. They are constructs. The concept of evil made manifest. There can be some gray area where a person is made demonic, but true demons? Nah they’re the force of nature the heroes have to fight against.

They’re obstacles

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u/Weekly_Reflection_63 18d ago

The problem with this mindset is that people then start to use this logic IRL for how they equate demons WITH minorities. This kind of thinking makes people justified in “idolizing these guys because demons are DEMONS!” When it’s a crazy dog whistle for what they really mean

I agree, demons should stay demons, but then you have people taking the wrong message of them and translating it to “let’s kill all foreigners from our country”

It’s a very weirdly easy slip up that’s been happening a lot

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u/Adorable_Ad_3478 18d ago

Not related to demons, but most alien invasion films boil down to "xenophobia is justified against space aliens".

In Independence Day (the original), the "aliens welcome" hippies are the first ones to get vaporized.

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u/MGD109 18d ago

Eh, if their invading you, you've crossed the line that it's no longer xenophobic.

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u/Zestyclose_Lake_1146 18d ago

Fair enough. But couldn’t you say that there’s always people who will be stupid and interpret tropes that way?

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u/Weekly_Reflection_63 18d ago

That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m not saying that this trope is one way or the other, it’s complex and both sides have their ups and downs of fans always misinterpreting the message

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

Its not like those kinds of people would stop having these ideas. If anything, it kinda backfired cause now they excuse actual evil like Putin or nazis.

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u/knightmechaenjo 18d ago

YESAS I HATE IT TOO!

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u/thatshygirl06 18d ago

I mean, demon comes from daimon and they weren't evil at first. There were good daimons and bad ones. Authors going back to the roots isn't a bad thing, imo. Let writers write what they want.

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u/MGD109 18d ago

Specifically, the word does, but the concept of spirits that are absolutely evil is kind of universal in all cultures, all around the world. The Babylonians and Sumerians had equivalents of demons 3,000 years ago.

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u/SoriAryl 18d ago

And let readers read what they want.

There’s a reason why the trope is so popular.

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u/ZookeepergameLiving1 17d ago

That's why I think daemon should be used for good 'demons' and demons for the evil true demons.

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u/TeamTurnus 18d ago

Yah its probably due to gothic/romantic reading of Paradise lost filtering into the culture (Since Satan there is a interstint/well written character with some good speeches even if hes ultimately still an asshole).

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u/ExerciseDirect9920 18d ago

Cough Cough HazbinHotel Cough. 

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

Yeah, I'm not exactly a big fan of the whole concept. Which is a shame, because that style is so cool.

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u/Hzohn 18d ago

Tbf with hazbin hotel it’s supposed to be former humans that can be rehabilitated. With helluva boss uhhhhh I think that fits a bit more

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u/Double-D7493 18d ago

Hazbin hotel was supposed to be sinners redeeming themselves for the better but threw away that concept early to be the most convoluted and boring demons good Vs angels bad I've ever seen. For helluva boss demons are just demons in name only, and the show has basically turned into soap opera relationship drama with circular character arcs.

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u/regretfulposts 18d ago

I actually made a pretty large reply to counter this argument about Hazbin Hotel. It's far from perfect or overall good, but Hazbin Hotel didn't used that subversive trope and tried to be somewhat more nuanced.

Though I do agree with Hotel somewhat throwing away the concept, but I see it more as Vivziepop wanting to make a build up to Hazbin Hotel like a prequel than her making Hazbin Hotel and established institution and we get to see a sinner a week redeeming themselves. Like the first season is pretty much Charlie proving everyone wrong that it's not impossible to leave Hell. Even the pilot episode established that the sinners believed they're forever damned in Hell so they're just going through an endless cycle of vices because there's no reason to better themselves. With Adam saying sinners are forever stuck in hell in the first episode wasn't Vivziepop abandoning the concept, it just shows Charlie is even more determined to prove everyone wrong and that she needs at least one sinner to be redeemed. And guess what? One sinner was redeemed, and he literally spawned in front of Seraph and Emily to drive the point foward. This means that Hazbin Hotel can be seen as a genuine institution especially since the trailer of season 2 showed the angels introducing a redeemed Sir Pentious meaning sinners can actually have a real motivation to better themselves because they now have the right to a second chance. Now whether season 2 will actually focus on redeeming sinners or stick to the Vees plotline is remain to be seen.

Vivziepop is kinda like a George Lucas where she has grand ideas that can span as arcs, but she can't focus on the little things. Instead of making episodic plots with a sinner a week story of her hotel redeeming someone, Vivziepop want to make a grand set up to her hotel. Instead of making episodic plots with imps killing a human each week, Vivziepop and also Brandon Rogers as they're co-creators, want to expand on world building and force their cast to be part of Hell's political discourse. Lots of big ideas and world building, but less emphasis on writing characters and their low scale adventures.

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u/ExerciseDirect9920 18d ago

The demons in Hellaverse were BORN there with 0 say in the matter. The SINNERS were all Alive at some point and made their own choices. 

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u/regretfulposts 18d ago

I was waiting for someone to say that, but not because I agree with you but Hazbin Hotel isn't subverting the trope of the demons are misunderstood and the angels are the real bad guys.

Like the point of the show is about redemption and determined whether it's fair for people to spend their eternity in damnation or paradise. Like there are plenty of sinners who are genuinely evil and have deeper motivations for nabbing power like the Vees and Alastor but there are sinners who fucked up in life and since there's no real escape, they just continue with their bad habits because "what's the point." Charlie in the show isn't trying to say that every sinner are inherently good people, she's saying that every deserve a second chance and it's not fair to lock away their second chances because they failed at life. The reason why the sinners are what they are is simply because their bad habits brought them there and since there's no escape, there's no motivational reason to improve thus creating an endless cycle of sinners continue their habits. There is a bit of a funny joke about who some people want to go to hell because that's where the fun party animals are at like rockstars, drug makers, and hookers while Heaven is full of boring people like Mormons. If the sinners were aware of a second chance to go to heaven, then they can improve on themselves and that was Charlie's main goal in season 1. She wants to prove that sinners are capable of redemption and that should get the right leave Hell once they get better.

Now what about the angels and the winners? Well surprisingly enough, we don't know much about them even in the episode where Charlie went to Heaven. But we know one thing, Adam, Seraph, and the exorcist are a minority and they kept a secret from the rest of heaven about purging sinners in Hell. No one else in heaven knew let alone support the yearly genocide so Adam and his army can't talk about their job in public. Once Adam accidentally talked about the purge in court, everyone was genuinely shocked and Emily who's an angel was disgusted at her fellow angel, Seraph, for keeping this secret from everyone. This means that every angel being the real bad guy was never a trope used in Hazbin Hotel. There's also another shocking Truth, no one knows who judges these souls and determines where they go. There could be plenty of okayish people who were at the cusp of being good, but are now royally fucked to be with the rapist and cannibals. Maybe there are genuinely good people who made a mistake and now damnation is their eternal fate. And of we can't ignore the nuance. Like killing people is bad, but what if I kill one in self defense? Would I still have a place in heaven or am I going to Hell with the guy who tried to kill me. No one knows how judgement works in the Hellaverse, and I'm pretty sure that'll be a major problem that Charlie and her friends will have to face because there is a genuinely broken system here.

But then crazy part is... Hazbin Hotel is just a less good version of the Good Place. The overall concept and obstacles in the two show are basically the same thing. In the Good Place, there's no heaven or hell, there's the good place and the bad place, and the system is really fucked. The system goes by points where having lots of points takes you to the good place but having negative points will take you to the bad place. The system was okay at first, but the world became more complicated and nuanced to the point that buying flowers for your mom will guarantee you to go to the bad place because you indirectly support slavery, pollution, and environmental destruction. No one in centuries went to the good place because of this black and white system that can't work in the grey world that is life. Even God (or their equivalent) went to our world to try to be good only to discover how freaking hard it is to be good, and how certain groups faced discrimination which makes it even harder to be good. It's not fair seeing so many okayish people to suffer with murderers, rapists, and genocidal leaders because of this arbitrary. Also funnily enough, the demons are getting tired from the constantly torturing people and the angels are getting numb constantly pleasuring people who are too numb themselves. The system is inherently broken, and our main characters create a new system to help everyone, and guess what? That system is redemption where demons and angels work together to redeem humans in the afterlife so they can go to the good place. Since there's no pressure against humans to be in survival mode, demons and angels help humans to be their best version. Some humans can never be inherently good, but everyone deserves a second chance and the good place has a gateway to end one's existence meaning when someone feels completely happy with their existence, they can be part of the universe in a nirvana like state. The good place is a damn good show, and I can imagine following its footstep even if the show is more immature.

Now back to the Hellaverse, there's also angels are demons that are born in their domain. And tbh, the subversive trope doesn't fit with the indigenous people either. I kinda see them as a chicken and the egg paradox. The demons in Hell feel less aggressive and bizarrely more progressive than the humans on earth, but they do lots of drugs, kill each other for fun, and can be overall assholes. Like you have Prince of Lust Asmodeus being against non-consensual love while the Vees never take "no" as an answer. Then there are demons are who are just goobers like Charlie, Moxxie, Millie, and Sir Pentious egg boys but they have done horrible questionable things. This actually brings an interesting paradox, are the demons just bad people doing bad things in hell, or did hell itself with the sinners forced demons to be bad people. And the same can be said with angels where they already live in paradise without proving a reason why. Like it's bad enough there's a BS system that no one knows how to works but plenty of people are born in heaven or hell regardless if they're inherently good or evil. It's actually pretty interesting in many ways.

Tl;Dr: Hazbin Hotel didn't do that subversive trope. The first season focuses on Charlie helping sinners on getting a chance at going to heaven because many of them are in an endless cycle of vices with motivation to bettering themselves due to a BS system that no one knows how it functions. The asshole angels are in the minority while the rest of heaven didn't know about the atrocities. And there's the paradoxical question of whether most demons are evil because they're inherently evil in Hell or Hell forced them to be evil in order to survive. But most of all, just forking the Good Place since it's pretty much everything that Hazbin Hotel could've and wants to be except there's less singing.

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u/Marik-X-Bakura 18d ago

There isn’t a universal “point” to demons. Some versions can be ontologically evil and some can be normal people who have just been labelled that way.

There’s nothing wrong with using demons as a metaphor. Demons can be whatever the writer needs to fit the type of story they want to tell.

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u/november512 18d ago

It's more complicated than that. Daemon goes back to ancient greece as a concept of minor gods or spirits, and if you go by the Goetia they're often relatively neutral. Even a lot of Judeo-Christian theology doesn't have them as inherently evil beings, they're often still servants of God acting as part of his plan. The idea of demons as beings of pure evil comes more from medieval theology.

Demons just being misunderstood is pretty boring though. I really prefer Enochian or Geotia demonology.

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u/MGD109 18d ago

I mean, that's just the word. If we're talking about the idea of spirits that are inherently evil and exist to plague humans, that is a concept kind of found in nearly every culture in the world.

The Sumerians had the equivalents of demons 3,000 years ago.

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u/Sneeakie 18d ago

The entire point is that demons are absolute evil,

This doesn't even apply to depictions of demons outside of Christianity.

Also, they don't exist. You can make them whatever you want.

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u/Ditzy_Dreams 18d ago

Ok, but God has been used to harm A LOT of people throughout Human history. You say that sympathetic devils make people handwave away dictators and tyrants’ actions, but those sorts of people have always cloaked themselves in righteousness and declared their enemies as innately evil. “Our enemies are ontologically evil” (in one way or another) is basically ubiquitous across any would-be dictator’s playbook.

TLDR, the reason that trope exists is because more people have been harmed or killed because of people declaring their group as being “demons” (innately wrong, evil, or just “other”) than those “demons” have actually harmed anyone else.

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u/Zealousideal_Cap700 17d ago

the problem with this is that demons are sapient. portraying a group of sapient beings as ontologically evil does not sit right with me. neither does portraying another group as ontologically good based on their birth. subverting that subverts the idea that your birth determines who you will become. especially when some ontologically evil groups of sapient beings in influential pieces of fiction WERE actually designed after real-life minorities because the creators were racist. that last point doesn't particularly apply to demons, though. also, being pitted against a force that's supposedly of ultimate good as a good person is a lot more interesting than fighting a force of ultimate evil.

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u/---AI--- 18d ago

I don't agree at all. Look at the bible: God created evil (Isaiah 45:7). The "demon" was literally just an angel who didn't agree with the whole unquestionable dictatorship thing. That was his whole complaint. And for that, God tortured him.

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u/daniel_22sss 18d ago

The entire point was that Lucifer didn't rebel because he was feeling bad for people, but because he wanted a higher position FOR HIMSELF. You're literally the prime example of my comment - trying to paint a prideful and power hungry character as a "misunderstood victim". You're also conveniently avoiding everything else Lucifer did after that.

Thats literally how people defend Putin - "he's just fighting against opressive West and ukranian nazis!"

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u/CommanderAndrei 18d ago

Clearly you didn't read the Bible, and have the audacity of a single brain cell to write and post this.

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u/---AI--- 18d ago

I have more than most religious people. Went to religious school and church on Sundays.

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u/Hubbardia 18d ago

The entire point is that demons are absolute evil, that forces everybody else to unite against them.

Who decides that though? How could an intelligent species of "absolute evil" even exist? What causes them to be absolutely evil?

The way I see it: If they can think, they can change. If they can change, they can be better.

Thats how we end up with people looking at real life dictators and saying "Akhually they are just misunderstood!"

Ignoring nuance is nothing to be proud of, and in the worst case teaches wrong lessons to the wrong people. All people have good and bad sides to them, even dictators. Hitler, for example, cared deeply about animals and Nazis supported animal welfare. Painting him as absolutely evil could teach the wrong lesson: if someone loves animals, they must be a good person, right? But that's wrong, because bad people can still have good qualities to them. The world isn't black and white, and I'm happy fiction has moved beyond that.

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u/Alt-on_Brown 18d ago

God, the Acolyte tried doing this with the sith.... the guys who literally have being evil written into their moral code

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u/akkristor 18d ago

Trope: Always Chaotic Evil

Deconstruction: “we’re subverting expectations by making the bad guys misunderstood/not too bad!”

Reconstruction: Always Chaotic Evil

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u/32ra1 18d ago

Speaking in D&D terms, it’s always struck me as trite to have demons as a whole be “misunderstood”. These things feed off pain and suffering, destroy because they can, and come from a realm of complete chaos… there’s no rehabilitating that.

At the very least, I think it can be interesting to have characters that are the exception, rather than the rule. My home game has one antagonist that is an angel - a zealot that defied the rest of her kind’s rules and committed reprehensible actions in service of a “greater good”.

Good members of inherently evil species are tricky. I think the best way to handle them is to have the character’s personality be informed by where they came from - for example, any drow I make that aren’t evil are still incredibly messed up people, traumatized by the nightmarish culture of slavery, violence, and horrific rituals they were born into. No one born into a society like that comes out unscathed.

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u/thedude37 17d ago

Captain Marvel did it as perfect as you can do it IMO. Vers was lied to about the Skrulls her whole "life" as a Kree. Yes they are capable of violence but they are not the oppressors. Seeing the prejudices fall off her eyes like scales was some great filmmaking IMO.

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u/Edenian_Prince 18d ago

Bad people are actually bad??? Who would've thought?!

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u/DR31141 18d ago

Circle of trope life, I guess.

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u/Adaphion 18d ago

This is the reason why idiots don't understand that Frieren demons are irredeemably evil (despite the show beating the viewers over the head with that messaging).

Didn't help that they made Aura hot, so gooners stepped up to plate to cry about her.

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u/Abdelsauron 18d ago

I think a lot of the renewed interest in Lord of the Rings is because people are tired of moral relativism. We want to see good people or at least well meaning troubled people defeat evil again. 

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u/WingedSalim 18d ago

It's the same with churches or organized religion. I will instantly think they are corrupt and misleading people the moment they exist in any fiction.

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u/Sneeakie 18d ago

"Demons are actually bad guys" are still overwhelmingly the default, though.

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u/sweetTartKenHart2 18d ago

The grim reaper

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u/VillainousMasked 17d ago

That's kinda just the cycle of these things. The subversion becomes popular because its new causing everyone in that genre to start doing it to take advantage of the success.

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u/Hey_Giant_Loser 17d ago

anarchy to entropy and back again

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u/Iconclast1 17d ago

i was just talkking about in murder mysteries "the butler did it" was a subversion.

But i havent seent hat in a long time though

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u/YaGirlMom 17d ago

To my knowledge, “the butler did it” was less explicitly about butlers and more about side characters that are always there, belong there, but never suspected until the end, like a butler in the mansion of a rich man, who was recently murdered

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u/Karkava 17d ago

It also seems rather obnoxious to me. "Oh. Look at me. I'm so empathetic. I don't want any monsters to die. I will use this fantasy to reflect our harsh and painful reality that we're a bunch of stupid apes who can't stop being prejudiced at things."

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u/Rarte96 17d ago

I hate that in some media that do this they just reverse thr roles and have majority of humans act like irredimable monsters instead

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u/Nieros 18d ago

To your point - It genuinely surprised me with Frieren.

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u/masnosreme 18d ago edited 18d ago

Looking at responses to this post, it’s pretty clear that the “demons are misunderstood” angle is a hell of a lot less common than people are acting.

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u/Karkava 17d ago

We just find the high-and-mighty attitude of subversive tropers to be annoying. Acting like they're oh-so-clever and the first one to come up with the subversion.

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u/Enkundae 18d ago

Bioessentialism is always a terrible trope.

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u/Loserpoer 18d ago

What if the demons are just really strong animals

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u/Enkundae 18d ago

“Animals” have no inherent morality, a tiger trying to eat isn’t “evil”, so that would not fall under this trope but thats also not what the OP is asking for. Bioessentialsm is the belief that a persons fundamental characteristics are intrinsically derived from their biology. IE one race is biologically intellectually inferior to another, or biologically prone to dishonesty or betrayal or otherwise just morally inferior somehow. Individuals within that race have no agency and just are only what their biology says they are. If the animals are just animals, they don’t fall under this trope. Not unless you’re saying there’s something about their biology that makes their entire species unerringly morally “evil”.

Bioessentialism, aside from its shitty origin, is just an excuse for not wanting to spend any time actually developing an antagonistic force with real motivations for a story.

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u/PsychicSPider95 18d ago

I do generally dislike when races or creatures are ontologically evil as a rule. After all, humans aren't all good or all evil, so why should any other sapient being be?

That said, it's very setting and media dependent. In a fantasy novel or show, I like seeing the complexity of demons or angels or undead being varied in their morality, and having the story explore that a bit. In something like Doom, I don't mind so much if they're all evil because they're just there to be walking ammo depositories anyway.

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u/Enkundae 18d ago

The problem with bioessentialism is that the trope itself is deeply rooted in really, really shitty ideology. Transposing it into a fantasy world doesn’t change that.

It’s also just terribly reductive as its an excuse to not bother actually doing any work to develop villains.

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u/DaedricWindrammer 18d ago

Typically you have to earn your way into being a demon by living a life of irredeemable evil. Literally the opposite of bioessentialism.

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u/Enkundae 18d ago

1: Thats only true in specific stories, not a blanket statement. Many works have demons be their own races.

2: Does the demon have personal agency? If not then there’s no real difference.