✧ THEORY: ON ABEL & ADAM'S FAVORITISM ✧
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This post contains confirmed canon information from Hazbin Hotel S1, as well as discussion of leaks & narrative implications that may hint at future plot developments. Proceed with caution if you’re avoiding spoilers or unreleased material. Please keep in mind this is all speculative <3
In a nutshell, here is what I’m arguing: Abel is not Adam’s biological son, & his existence reframes everything we understand about Adam’s legacy. If Abel came from Eve & Lucifer, then Adam’s claim to moral authority collapses. Sin came from his line.
It’s been confirmed that Abel was not Adam’s favorite son... that he’s nothing like him, he’s pleasant & ‘is his own rockstar’. In the leaked episode, we see that he’s also soft-spoken, polite, & generally more joyful. In contrast, Adam is a narcissist: vulgar, sexist, fanatical, disgusted by sinners, & fully willing to kill them for sport. He displays a restrained yet persistent fixation on punishment [ I say restrained because I don’t feel he’s as obsessed compared to Lute. ] He doesn’t merely fight sinners: he enjoys it, & he makes that clear to Charlie in S1E1 [ “And for those of us with divine ordainment, Extermination is entertainment!” ].
In the same [ leaked ] episode, Abel shows very little concern over his father’s death. He acknowledges it, makes a cross gesture, & says “Rest in Peace” during Sir Pentious’s trial, but… that’s about it. In contrast, Lute is visibly shaken & furious. Adam’s death is clearly destroying her both mentally & emotionally. When she snaps, “Adam never even fucking liked you!” Abel simply agrees, saying “I know 🥺” before quickly redirecting the conversation to Sir Pentious, showing more interest in how a sinner was redeemed than in processing the loss of his father. Later, he even joins in singing with Emily & Saint Peter during Sir Pentious’s introduction to Heaven, behaving as if nothing is wrong. This boy gives no care about his father's death [ in my opinion ]
It’s worth noting that Abel is formally named the new commander of the Exorcists [ effectively demoting Lute. A decision made by both Emily & Sera since he is seen as more fair, ] & he seems just a little smug when confirming this to her. [ There’s also a brief, strange smirk before he departs, which might support the circulating rumor that he’s “a little shit,” but more on that another time. ] Later, he casually asks for one of Adam’s guitars “to remember him by,” but the tone is so nonchalant, calm & even pleasant, like Adam’s death wasn’t something that affected him in the slightest. [ Lute screams at him to leave, which he does. She performs her song, & when she looks toward the door, she catches Abel watching who looks shocked, likely because, from his perspective, she’s destroyed Adam’s office like a crazy person while singing along with a hallucination. ]
Despite the fact that we don’t have the real Adam around [ seemingly, ] we can tell by Abel’s behavior & general attitude that their relationship was strained to some degree. There’s no grief, mourning or reverence. When he agrees that Adam never liked him, there’s no bitterness either. It feels like he accepted long ago that he was never truly wanted, & now that Adam’s gone, he’s simply moving on, maybe even relieved. He doesn’t carry Adam’s wrath, fire, or ideological rigidity. There’s irony in that: the new leader of the Exorcists doesn’t care about punishment or vengeance. When Sera asks how Heaven should respond to Hell, Abel says: “I don’t much like confrontation, so I don’t love the idea of going down for revenge or anything… buuut they did sorta kinda kill my dad a little bit so… maybe? I’m pretty okay with either option to be honest.” Lute’s hallucination of Adam reinforces the point: “I never liked that kid,” before calling Abel a “major pussy.”
One theory suggests that Abel is the product of Eve & Lucifer. There are religious texts & interpretations, particularly in some strands of Jewish mysticism & early Christian apocrypha, that suggest Eve slept with the serpent [ Satan ]. In some readings of the Zohar & Talmudic Midrashim, the serpent isn’t just a deceiver, he’s a sexual tempter, implying Cain [ or by extension, Abel ] may have been fathered by a corrupting, external force. Notice the ‘eating out gesture’ Lucifer makes when referencing Lilith… but when it comes to Eve, he switches to the other gesture & that’s when Adam gets really mad. Lucifer is often not given enough credit, in my opinion. Yes, he’s nicer, he’s trying to be a good father to Charlie, & he’s painted as good, kind, & “misunderstood”… but he’s still the literal devil. Fandom often prefers to uphold the previously established dynamic between him & Lilith [ that they’re like Morticia & Gomez, that he’s only ever fallen for her & wouldn’t cheat on her — which, he didn’t have to in order to sleep with Eve, but I digress... ] & that’s exactly why many dismiss the idea that he would ever sleep with Eve in the first place. But I don’t personally believe that gesture was truly random or simply a provocation for its own sake. Perhaps Lucifer is implying something Adam refuses to acknowledge. He hit a sore spot, & I don’t think he’s referring to the fruit.
Another popular theory is that Adam didn’t eat the fruit [ “I’ve never made a mistake in my fucking life!” ] But if that statement is just an attempt to paint himself as untouchable & unfallen, then his hatred of sinners may stem from personal failure. The first true sinner after Eve wasn’t an outsider; it was Cain, a child from his bloodline, & if Abel was indeed not his child, then Abel’s existence becomes more than a disappointment, it becomes a direct challenge to Adam’s authority over creation, legacy & spiritual purity. In that context, Adam doesn’t hate sinners simply because they defy Heaven; he hates them because they reflect his inability to enforce control. They remind him that sin began inside his own house.
Abel being Lucifer’s son reframes everything. Adam was never the sole architect of mankind, nor the moral gatekeeper he claims to be. The order he fought to preserve was already fractured. There’s a reason he calls Charlie & her group, “You ungrateful, disgusting, fucking LOSERS!” with such vitriol, such hate & disgust. That wasn’t just him lashing out in the moment; it was absolutely personal & full of genuine contempt. It also exposes a contradiction: if Adam truly despises sin, if his hatred for impurity is so absolute, then why would he favor Cain, the first true sinner after Eve, over Abel, who was pleasant, joyful, & seemingly harmless? Unless what truly enrages him is the fact that sin came from his bloodline, while that true / genuine goodness Abel possesses may have come from Lucifer, who he calls “the most hated in all of creation!” While mankind, which he furiously reminds everyone “came from these fucking nuts!” turned out disgusting, sinful, & imperfect.
Abel is the reminder that Adam may have been the beginning, but he was never meant to be the blueprint. Why did Adam reject him? Why would a man obsessed with purity favor a murderer over the brother who did nothing wrong? Why would he call Abel a coward, when he was the one murdered by a sinner? Maybe Adam didn’t reject Abel because he was weak. Maybe he rejected him because he wasn’t his. He claims dominion over all of humanity, yet speaks of it with nothing but contempt. Maybe he never had control. Maybe that’s why he’s so desperate to erase the reminder [ sinners, ] & why Exterminations are “fun” for him.
To recap: Abel is confirmed to be nothing like Adam — he’s calm, soft-spoken, pleasant & generally uninterested in punishment. He doesn’t inherit his father’s wrath or fixation on judgment. If Abel isn’t biologically Adam’s son, it implies that sin, violence, & control may be tied to Adam’s bloodline, while empathy, grace, & the capacity for redemption could stem from an outside force, potentially Lucifer. Maybe that’s part of why Adam never accepted him: not necessarily because he was weak, but because he was never his.
