Hellaverse’s female character writing is impressively bad.
The character writing for most these characters is pretty bad regardless of gender, but for the female cast it’s genuinely baffling how much the show does not want to do anything with them outside of having three functions:
- Supplement the male cast (support them, worship them, make them look good, etc)
- Be obstacles for the male cast
- Be there to give male characters internalized conflict.
There is only three characters I can think of that don’t fit this role and one is a deeply unsympathetic character that show treats as this moralistic badass (Carmilla) and the other is one of the worst female characters in both shows (Vaggie). I think Rosie is an acceptable character (if a bit bland) though the leaks kind of hurt her character for me. Overall I find the writing of the show pretty misogynistic and for a show that badly wants to be seen as this progressive piece of media for a queer audience, it sure doesn’t seem very fond of women.
Also to clarify, female characters are allowed to have relationships and motivations that involve a man, my issue is that these female characters feel like supplemental material over actual characters.
There’s also a very passively misogynistic vibe these shows have that I’ve noticed that bled into the fandom. There are things male characters are allowed to do that female characters aren’t. Male characters would frequently make misogynistic remarks but you rarely see the inverse from female characters. Cheating is wrong if a mother does it, it’s perfectly fine if men do it though. Lucifer, who’s meant to be seen as a better person compared to Adam, uses sleeping with Lilith and Eve as a way to get back at Adam and rile him up. Isn’t Adam supposed to be the misogynistic jock character here? Both Stella and Stolas are in an arranged marriage and yet Stolas is framed as the only victim despite Stella being the one who had to give birth to Octavia and will literally lose everything if she leaves him.
Charlie is the main character but she feels like a side character to her own story. Vaggie (awful fucking name btw) has no personality outside of “I love Charlie” and “I hate Adam/Lute” because what a shock the only lesbian character is the most lacking in any attempt at nuance or depth. Millie still has no personality outside of being a wife, had one pseudo episode for herself and then two episodes later her conflict is about being pregnant (bonus was her being completely rational about Blitzo abandoning the plan but the show blaming it on hormones). Lute and Sera have potential but judging by the leaks I doubt it. Emily is just Charlie 2.0. Stella is just an excuse for Stolas to justify cheating on her and the show is so desperate for the audience to side against her they had to invent a strawman character to drive the point home further. I also find it very weird that her brother only exists to steal her role as the villain and make constantly sexist remarks towards her (but it’s okay because we all hate Stella). Loona’s backstory was there to give her FATHER a panic attack and overall straight up skipped her actually slowly building up more confidence. Octavia is just there for Stolas angst and despite appreciating having someone really hold him accountable, was it not obvious to anyone else that this was just Full Moon all over again and we’re meant to view Octavia’s outburst as irrational. Barbie Wire only exists to give Blitzo internalized conflict. The show overly relies on dead/missing mothers for character drama. Sallie May is just there to be someone’s self insert and sell horny merch. Verosika actually did have a bit of personality before the show stripped her of any of it to make her a mouthpiece for Stolas and then pretend like we didn’t see her sexually assault Moxxie.
I also find it kind of frustrating as a lesbian myself that it feels like we need to be told the female characters are queer from outside sources, compared to the male cast where we actually see them have sex on and off screen. Charlie and Vaggie had so little chemistry that people didn’t pick up on them being girlfriends until episode 5. I didn’t know that Verosika was pan, Loona was bi or Sallie May was a lesbian until the pride month art came out.
It’s just not good and I don’t think it’ll get any better.