Echo

In the show, Lucifer talks about how the sinners took their free will for granted and ruined it. Multiple times he talks about how it's pointless to give sinners chances because they'll "always disappoint you no matter how well intentioned you are". Somehow I got the implication that even after he was banished he still had faith for sinners and may have even tried giving them chances to redeem themselves for their past wrong doings. For one reason or another, he stopped and I want to guess he stopped because of Heaven.

And the whole sequence of him not wanting Charlie to go to Heaven for fear of what Heaven would do to her really cements this idea that Heaven holds SO MUCH power over him, his ambitions- even his outlook on his own people and his daughter's dream.

I believe that its because of the past when he was banished and also because of the present with Heaven's ever looming presence that he feels it's... pointless. Pointless to continue trying because sinners are just horrible people who cause chaos, ruin everything, and are "irredeemable violent psychopaths". Faced with the fact that "Heaven never listens" to the degree where he fears that one wrong move will inevitably lead to Heaven intervening and correcting it (like the exterminations). I'm not shocked Lucifer would eventually stop giving a crap and stop trying especially if you learn over and over that Sinners will hurt you and Heaven will not help you and will even ACTIVELY be against you and everything you believe in.

Perhaps him stopping may have correlated when the exterminations started or maybe sometime before. Maybe he stopped when Lilith disappeared. There isn't enough information to make a definite assumption for WHY he gave up on sinners (or when) but I can infer myself that it has something to do with Heaven and how they treat him and the sinners.

Lucifer is far from being perfect as a person. If he was perfect he'd be... well, bland and unrealistic. I agree that while all of this can cause him to be uncaring towards his people it does not make it right nor does it make him a good leader. This however does not mean an unfair expectation should be held for his character or for how he should be as a person.

What a character is on the surface does not mean that is who they are at their core. People in the real world mask all the time whether because of trauma or because you're in a professional setting or because you might not like someone (or because of ADHD/Autism or a mixture of both)- Lucifer seems like one of those characters who masks and is meant to be deceptive at first glance AND HE IS. The introductory scene for him even shows that: everyone gets this idea that he's mean and evil and brooding and maybe even cold... and you're smacked in the face with this eccentric, bubbly little circus fellow who has an obscene amount of ducks and tastes in tacky circus décor. This does not mean he isn't lacking: in the parenting aspect he has failed Charlie in being present and supportive. He's not been a great dad by any means and the fact he's unaware that he's been a bad dad DESPITE wanting so desperately to have a father/daughter bond with Charlie really sells to me that Lucifer is a good person with flaws that he can indeed work on.

He's absent minded to the point it actively hurts people (and honestly he gives me HUGE auDHD vibes because that screams object permanence) and he seems sooo detached from his people and everything around him. He doesn't understand certain slang terms and seems out of touch at times when it comes to social interactions.

This same flaw bleeds into him not being a good leader to the other Sins and Sinners, too. Who knows for how many hundreds of thousands or even millennia's he's tried to play the optimist only to be shut down time and time again. Charlie has only just started in this dream of hers and it can't possibly compare to how long Lucifer may have tried to do the same (in the instance that I picked up on the right implication).

I feel Charlie is such a perfect perspective for him to have. She's the mirror to him for who he was when he was younger: ambitious, optimistic, and driven. They are two different sides of the same coin and I feel Lucifer can provide insight that could assist Charlie in her endeavors and Charlie can provide that new spark for Lucifer to well... be himself again. To have that pride not just for her or himself but have pride in his people.

The shit he's been through is unimaginable and NO ONE is prepared to have to run a kingdom full of sinners after being banished from paradise and STILL having to answer to your oppressors' after the fact.

Do I think he cares about sinners? Not really. At least not currently in the first season. But I'll be damned if he doesn't ever learn to have the capacity to care for them like Charlie does. Yes, his people see him as an uncaring ruler. Yes, his people see him as this looming figure, King of Hell and ruler of the other Sin's. But that's what Lucifer masked himself to be as. A cold, ruthless King of hell.

I realized this post unintentionally left out some important information about Lucifer (thank you memory issues) and it ended up making it look like I was ignoring the wrongs Lucifer caused— so, to clarify Lucifer is a good person not only in dire straits but also a good person who did some really fucked up shit.

He put himself in this situation and is now paying for it because he let his pride cloud his judgement and ended up leading humans down a path where Sinner’s and Winner’s became an actual concept wherein if he never gave Eve that apple, none of this would have happened and Sinner’s never would have existed.

He earned the title of King of Hell and Sin of Pride because HE created Sinners and because of that HE was the reason Hell was even created. So like… you made your bed, now lay in it.

This doesn’t mean he’s evil. He did this because he felt he knew more than what Heaven had warned him about and he thought by giving the apple to Eve, free will would be granted and this “Evil” was either just a hoax that Heaven told to keep humans from gaining it, or that Evil WAS free will and Lucifer may have believed that Heaven thought free will was Evil. There are many possibilities for why he may have disregarded the warnings of Evil being introduced if a human consumed the apple, but most likely Lucifer probably thought Heaven was lying or there was more to it that just “Evil” (the pride of a man who thinks he can do better than Heaven).

And thus, cast down into the Hell he created with Lilith, he must now see with his own eyes what his hubris earned him. Sinner’s who take the free will for granted and he will never get to see the Winner’s who didn’t.

So, cast down and shown the brutal truth of his actions: how would a prideful angel react? Denial. He would try to prove that these sinners were only led astray and they could be redeemed— not because of his actions causing them to be evil but because something led them to sin. And I believe he tried to prove this and tried to prove these sinners were redeemable… but, he was proven wrong.

As stated above: “They will always disappoint you no matter how well intentioned you are”. He’s been disappointed despite the well intentions he had to prove they could be good. The sinners would throw his kindness in his face and make him a fool for Heaven to laugh at. Perhaps his pride being bruised even further was what really made him despise these sinners, or maybe he really was coming to accept that he was the reason these sinners existed and that evil humans were ever a concept to begin with.

All this to say Lucifer, with all this great power he had, abused it. He wasn’t responsible with it and let his pride tell him what was right and wrong instead of what was actually right in front of him telling him EXACTLY what would happen.

Lucifer is a man with bruised pride constantly in denial of his acceptance that Hell is his fault and Heaven was right about what would happen if he gave Eve that apple. Again, he tried to prove redemption but he more than likely went about it in a way where he did it to soothe his wounded pride. Hence why he failed. Again. And Again.

Charlie isn’t redeeming sinners for pride. She’s doing it because she genuinely cares about her people. She sees them as people— not just things made by God that can be used to prove points or used to push a message.