My loneliness

I found it very interesting that Pentious' song with Sera "Live to Live," a song where Pentious specifically talks about how humans are constantly afraid, comes immediately after "Brighter."

Humans are afraid All of us All the time Mortality's a blade Swinging with no reason, no rhyme When you're that scared Teeth are that bared Ready to say anything Do any sin to any man

Vox says that he has been waiting to defeat Alastor for 70 years. If we assume the show takes place in 2024/2025, that means their fallout happened in 1954/1955. We don't know how long Vox had been in Hell at this point but it can't have been long since we know he was alive during the 1950s.

We also know that Vox is supposed to be somewhere between 30 and 40 years old when he dies. For the sake of my sanity, I'm just gonna say he's 35 for this theorizing. If we go with his death taking place in 1954 at the age of 35, then that would make his birth year somewhere around 1919.

Do you know what this means?

It means Vox would have been around 10 years old when the Great Depression hit.

The Great Depression kicked off in 1929 and lasted until 1941. That is a huge chunk of Vox's most formative years and he is spending those years surrounded by desperation, suffering, anger, and fear. Safety, security, and control would have been completely foreign to him. People starving, businesses collapsing, death. Scraping together what you could to survive. Many well-off families lost everything. Vox could have ended up working in a factory himself even as a child. Every aspect of life would have been a struggle.

And then you have World War 2 starting in 1939.

Vox would have been 20 years old at the time the war started, meaning just a year later he would have been old enough to be drafted. He also could have enlisted of his own free will. There is a distinct possibility he could have been serving in the military during WW2 and even if he wasn't, he would have still been around for the horrors of war. Maybe he lost people in the war—friends, family. This guy is coming out of the Great Depression and dropping right into one of the worst wars in American history.

I also want to point something out here. Now this part is pure speculation, but I found it interesting so I'm gonna chuck it at you guys. We know Vox's full human name is Vincent Whittman. Aside from the fact that his name is literally "white man"—which I find hilarious—the way Vox spells it is rather interesting. Normally this surname is spelled "Whitman," with only one "t". That's the Old English spelling anyways. There is also "Wittmann" however—the German spelling. It is quite possible that Vox, who is entering his adult years at this point, is going into the throes of WW2 with German heritage. You can only imagine how well that would go for him. Life was not good for German-Americans during WW2. I won't give you a whole history lesson, but Vox would have faced a lot of challenges and suspicion and discrimination just for being German. I think it is possible that Vox started spelling his surname differently to hide the fact that he was German (this was very common). It would have been his only chance at a better life. Also, fun fact, VOX is the name of a major German TV channel.

Television starts to rapidly gain popularity in 1940 and throughout this decade it becomes more commonplace in peoples' homes. By the 1950s, it has become the main form of media for influencing the public. With WW2 ending in 1945, I can see this being the point when Vox tries to pursue a career in television. The war is over, television is sweeping the nation, and things are starting to calm down. Finally. Finally things can be calm. His life has been nothing but chaos for the last 16 years. Everything will be alright now...

Right?

In 1947, the Cold War begins. It begins and it will not end until 1991. People will live in fear of a nuclear war outbreak for decades.

This man has never known stability. By the time he dies at 35, he has gone through most of his life in a constant state of fear, uncertainty, and desperation, stuck in survival mode. So when he sees others—people with more power, more control, more safety—well, he'll do whatever it takes to get it.