The Prince in Exile

It’s another prime example I can think of is similar to how Octavia pushing Stolas away in Sinsmas visually echoes Blitz pushing Stolas away earlier in the series. The action is almost identical, but the emotional engine underneath is completely different. Octavia is acting from fear of abandonment, while Blitz is acting from fear of rejection. Same visual language, different storytelling purpose.

So for me, I wouldn’t use repeated poses by themselves as evidence that a character inherited a trait. They’re often just part of the show’s visual vocabulary.

If I were looking for a shared trait between Stolas and Octavia, I’d probably look more at recurring character behaviours instead. For example, both of them tend to express overwhelming emotion through singing. Whether that’s meant to be hereditary a shared family characteristic, learned, or simply a deliberate parallel is open to interpretation, but I think it carries more weight than a hand pose that we also see on unrelated characters like Lucifer.

One of the hallmarks of the Blitz/Stolas power dynamic is the relationship to their personal and positional power in their own spheres. Let's explore!

Some terms to know:

Personal Power: a combination of traits and behaviours that give a person influence

Positional Power: The power that comes from having a title, rather than traits.

The relationship between our favorite imp and owl is built on a foundation of misunderstandings about what the other can control. Specifically, they are inverse from one another:

When he is at his best, Blitz has a lot of personal power. He's charismatic, persuasive, charming and knows what he's doing. It generates respect and commitment from his group.

Stolas, on the other hand, has tremendous positional power, because he's literally a prince.

He can command armies, has special powers from his grimoire, and is insulated from a lot of the problems that plague Hell's population.

They misinterpret the motivations and capabilites of the other in not-so-shocking ways.

Blitz believes that Stolas inherently lives a charmed life, and that Stolas only keeps Blitz around to treat him like a living fuck-toy. Stolas thinks that Blitz has the world at his feet and is free to do whatever he wants to support his family, and that their sex-for-book arrangement is getting them BOTH what they want with equal input.

Spoiler, it's NOT.

Blitz puts on a great show of being self-assured and capable, but it's partially overcompensation for his lack of positional power. It's not JUST because imps are bottom of the rung socially, either-- he's been marginalized in all points of his life.

He comes from poverty and (I think) there are holes in his education that are played off as funny (like his near-illiteracy and not knowing the alphabet)

He is massively traumatized. Like, I cannot overstate this. He is NOT OKAY.

He is physically disfigured in a way that is obvious when you first meet him.

He lost his entire family, best friend and home in one evening, and was forced to build a life for himself from the ground up all alone.

When you peel back the layers, he has a LOT to be angry about. It was bound to bubble up to the surface eventually. Stolas put Blitz on a pedestal that was so high up, it conveniently allowed him to be uninvolved in the messy, broken parts of Blitz that needed looking after...and that sucked for Blitz.

But Blitz has gotten some things wrong about Stolas too.

Stolas was born into a life bereft of personal power, and whatever he HAD has eroded further over time. This is a guy who is part of an extremely powerful and wealthy family, and their grasp of power has everything to do with moderating the members of the family. That amount of wealth and power seems like the ultimate key to freedom, but it's the "gilded jail" he's singing about in Stolas Sings.

Stolas has never been afforded personal power in any arena of his life:

He is expected to live in a huge mansion and be isolated from others in a performative way.

He's not allowed to socialize with any lower-class groups.

He is not allowed to choose his partner.... Plus the one that got chosen for him is not a good fit for him in any way.

There was no choice in the matter of children, he was expected to produce an heir immediately (...in a partnership marked by mutual repulsion.)

In short, Blitz doesn't have the full picture of how lonely and bleak Stolas' life is. He figures that Stolas can just snap his fingers and get whatever he wants, including happiness and contentment. Stolas really just has Octavia and his plants to keep him company.

To me, this has been the number one source of conflict in their story. Add the fact that Stolas is...a little out of touch about the working class, and you have a pretty interesting dynamic to work with.

Edit: I improved the image below:

My gut instinct is that Stolas is going to be the one who experiences the most significant character growth in the upcoming season--he just has further to go to meet Blitz.

Blitz's growth is going to come from letting down his walls a little bit and finding a way to come to terms with his past mistakes. I made a post about it before, but the dancing on the balcony scene makes for a really powerful image of equity between them.

They are literally on the same level. I think things are gonna work out for these bozos.

Meanwhile l, I'd love to see Stolas use his knowledge of the Goetia and magic to build up I.M.P. into a company capable of bestowing considerable positional power to Blitzø. A force to be reckoned with in the political eco-system of hell. He already has the fame (since the trial) and the contacts (Ozzy, Bee, Stolas), he just needs to know how to use them.

I can’t wait for the moment when Stolitz finally sits down and starts untangling every misunderstanding that’s piled up over the series.

Not in a therapy session kind of way.

More like they’re solving a puzzle.

Every memory is a piece. Every assumption they’ve carried for years gets turned over to see whether it actually fits.

It would be less:

“Let’s talk about our feelings.”

and more:

“Wait… that’s what you thought happened?”

Because they’ve both spent years interpreting the same events through completely different lenses.

Imagine Stolas discovering Blitz didn’t abandon him during Striker because he didn’t care, but because he was dealing with Loona and still made sure Moxxie and Millie went.

Or Blitz finally explaining why his texts looked so dismissive, only for Stolas to realize they weren’t emotionally short, they were literally written by someone who shortcuts words because spelling has never come easily.

Neither of them was trying to hurt the other.

They were just missing different pieces of the same picture.

That’s what makes the idea so appealing to me. It isn’t about one person apologizing while the other forgives them.

It’s watching two people slowly realize that the story they’ve been telling themselves about each other was never the whole story.

Every answer would reshape another memory.

Every revelation would make them look back and think,

I mean, he had full control over what he did at Loo Loo Land. And though it wasn't his intention to forget about the stars, he didn't handle the situation the best. But Stolas getting banished as a consequence from saving Blitz's life? That was completetely orchestrated by Stella and Andrealphus and the only alternative was letting Blitz die...

(Literally every single "fix" I've seen people come up with for Mastermind files under "in hindsight". Yeah, obviously Stolas could've come up with an actual masterplan if he had all the time in the world, but the entire point is that Stolas didn't even know it was happening and only had literal seconds to act or else Blitz would've died.)

I’m so glad someone said this because honestly I’m getting a little tired of Stolas being vilified (as if he doesn’t get that that enough from Stella) just because he actually SAVED Blitz’s life when he didn’t have to; rather he CHOSE to due to ethical reasons not JUST because the man is the love of his life (but also a tiny part of that too)

Does Stolas make mistakes—like ANY human—as a parent? Yes absolutely (even then we should give him a break considering Octavia is his FIRST child; which means of course he’s inexperienced)

Just Stolas and all us other fic writers just dipping into the same sauce over here.

Also, baby bird, stop being so CUUUTTE. 😭

I actually prefer the term “erotica” vs “porn” as well

Which is actually the same problem when people thinks Stolas “forgot” about Blitz’s poor spelling in Western Energy and then they criticise him for not remembering when the illiteracy was brought up again in I.M.P Training Video when he asked

Conclusion:

I can now freely admit honestly that Helluva Boss is much better than Hazbin Hotel; and I’m only there for both Huskerdust OTP and Angel Dust as my favourite character 😭

I also wonder if it’s because of the different structure of the main pairing (Stolitz vs Chaggi)

Or is it because Charlie is just REALLY annoying as a protagonist ~ like I understand she hasn’t undergone character growth yet but still and I do hope she does in S3-S4

Like hello????