Fanfic / Lies That Bind

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Lies That Bind is a Hazbin Hotel Fan Fic by the_quiller that started in September 2024. It can be read "here on SpaceBattles.com as well as here on Archive of Our Own.

The premise takes the pop culture version of the setting and reintroduces more biblical and gnostic elements than you can shake a stick at. Instead of Heaven being an unfeeling Celestial Bureaucracy and Hell being a capitalist Vice City, they are two realms divided by irreconciliable differences of opinion on the nature of free will and the human condition, scarred by cosmic wars that rewrote the nature of reality as eldritch powers beyond human comprehension brought the full measure of their might against each other.

Despite her sunny disposition and good intentions, there's no getting around the fact that Charlie, as her father's one and only begotten heir, is the Anti-Christ. Though the prophecies in Heaven and Hell and Earth are a confusing jumble of far-fetched and often contradictory claims, they all tend to agree that her ascension will herald the beginning of the end.

Not that Charlie plans to follow that script. She's determined to help her people through the process of redemption, and crazy shit like conquering Heaven or destroying the world run directly counter to that their whole mission statement. Adam breaking the treaty and bringing the full force of the exorcists down on her hotel was a bit of a hiccup, but with the First Man no longer in charge, surely that only helps their chances of finding a happier, healthier, non-violent solution to Hell's overpopulation.

Except that Hell's overpopulation was never the real reason for the Exterminations. The treaty between Heaven and Hell was never just a simple ceasefire. And Charlie was never going to just be a cheerful hotel proprieter, not when her very birth was the first domino that set off the cascade of events that will snowball into the Apocalypse.

Charlie has forgotten - or perhaps she'd just simply never been told - what it truly means to be the Princess of Hell. And the world has forgotten what it means to be the heir to Lucifer Morningstar. Charlie's awkward, spastic, goofy dad is so much more than the diminutive shut-in he presents himself as - he is a being that predates Time itself, a fundamental cornerstone of Creation, and a force without equal that had broken the world thrice over - once out of love for his wife, once out of love for humanity, and once more out of love for his daughter.

Charlie herself has no idea the cost of her existence, and Lucifer has done his best to keep it that way. But with the broken treaty between Heaven and Hell, as well as the very first successful redemption of a sinner, old wounds begin to bleed anew and ancient grievances resurface into the light. Lucifer loves his daughter. More than anything. And those two statements, in conjunction, will spell the end of the world.

Alternatively: Charlie herself is Lucifer's greatest lie, because the truth was too terrible to bear.

Examples:

• Almighty Janitor: Gabriel prefers the title of "God's Messenger" and, as far as most Winners know, is effectively Heaven's mailman and delivery boy. The reality is far more complicated, as his actual role is the Archangel of Revelation: he's the bearer of Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, the oldest of the Archangels, and the previous ruler of Heaven before Michael.
• The Antichrist: Charlie herself, though she doesn't know it, or even know of the concept; the irony is that she herself is a very explicity Messianic Archetype (see below).
• Awful Truth: The real reason for the Exterminations, which Lucifer goes to great lengths to hide from Charlie, is because Lucifer is dying. He is Hell itself, and every sinner he holds up from falling into oblivion takes some energy from him. He used to manage fine, until Charlie was born as a Tragic Stillbirth; he ripped out part of his own soul to bring her to life, and now no longer has the strength to both sustain her and hold up the countless souls of sinners. He had to either offer up a portion of Hell's population to take the weight off, or let Michael kill her to restore his power. And he can never, ever let her find out, because she would blame herself.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Charlie herself. She abhors violence and wants to be loved, rather than feared, by Hell's populace. But even she has her breaking points, as Vox finds out after killing Angel Dust just to discredit her.
  Charlie: The only misunderstanding is that just because I didn't want anyone to be afraid of me…doesn't mean they shouldn't be.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: To an extent, all of the Archangels, including Lucifer. They're all defined by their purpose; Michael's to provide safety, Raphael to provide healing, and Lucifer to provide freedom, and they take those concepts to their logical conclusions. They're not completely alien in mindset, but they do struggle to understand perspectives outside their own and will take actions that can seem immoral to others. It's implied the war happened because Lucifer's ideology was just irreconcilable with his brothers'.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Lucifer sadly muses on Adam's insane overconfidence to think he could raise a hand to the Devil's daughter in his own domain and not expect horrific consequences; even if he has been too clinically depressed to do anything but mope for ages and basically lets Heaven do whatever they want, he thought they understood what would happen if they pushed their luck that far.
    Adam had always been a bit short on self-awareness even back in the Garden, but he had never been full-blown delusional. In a more forgiving mood, Lucifer might have even described the man as dutiful and diligent, and rightly wary of divine wrath. So what had happened since Eden? How could Adam even think that he could raise a hand against Lilith's daughter in Lucifer's domain without grave consequence?
  • Alastor has a habit of mouthing off to entities vastly more powerful than him, who could end the Radio Demon in a heartbeat. Lucifer even finds it somewhat amusing how much Alastor insists on denying he has any real fondness for Charlie when the fact of their friendship is the only reason Lucifer hasn't killed him yet.
• Due to the Dead: In spite of everything, Lucifer feels the need to give Adam some shred of dignity in death, rather than leaving his body for Hell's cannibals.
• The Evils of Free Will: Discussed; a major theme of the story is that free will does come at a cost, one that every character in both Heaven and Hell is still paying to this day in one form or another. The core of the ideological conflict between Heaven and Hell being whether that cost is worth it. Lucifer, as the embodiment of God's desire for his creations to "be free", has no choice but to believe that it is. His brothers, while not actively wanting to remove free will, find it troublesome, as it gets in the way of their own purposes.
• Fallen Angel: Lilith explains in detail exactly how Fallen Angels come to be: contrary to what many angels like Emily believe, Falling is not a punishment for disobedience akin to exile or execution; if it were, the Archangels would call it that. They're called Fallen because they literally fell, for lack of the ability to fly. An angel's powers, including their ability to fly, is powered by their faith in the purpose they were created to fulfill. If they ever lose faith in that purpose, they lose their ability to fly, and literally fall out of Heaven, eventually crashing into Hell because it's the only thing between them and the oblivion underneath it. When Emily falls, they're even shown to phase through the ground of Heaven as soon as their wings fail as if they were an Intangible Man. Implicitly, the Archangels would welcome them back, but unless the Fallen regain the faith that lets them fly, they physically can't stay in Heaven, and even the Archangels don't have the power to keep them there.
• Genius Loci: Lucifer is Hell.
• Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: Heaven has the "Paradise Protocol", which is implied to do this to Winners, putting them in a state of perfect, heavenly bliss and complete peace. It's considered a Godzilla Threshold, however, as this violation of free will would break Heaven's treaty with Lucifer, though the Archangels, or at least Gabriel, hate the idea of actually using it already.
• Grandparent Favoritism: Lampshaded; Charlie has a much easier time drawing on God's power to perform miracles than her father does, once he shows her how. Lucifer muses that the most authoritarian parents often become doting grandparents, with a little bit of bitterness.
• God Is Good: Implicitly; the Big Man has yet to appear, but from how others describe Him, it's implied He's this trope. Raphael says He's the only being in existence capable of completely selfless love, and of giving endlessly without any expectation of reward, and Word of God states that the idea that "God is Love" was a core part of this story's cosmology.
• Godzilla Threshold: At one point in the past, Seraphiel proposed reinstating the Paradise Protocol temporarily, due to a massive influx of severely traumatized human souls (heavily implied to be World War II and the Holocaust) overwhelming the Celestial Bureaucracy.
• Happiness in Mind Control: According to Gabriel, this is the biggest problem with the Paradise Protocol; Winners, having experienced that state of supreme cosmic bliss and perfect contentment struggle to cope with the weight of eternal consciousness after it's lifted. It's implied that part of why Adam was so willing to commit to Bullying the Dragon by attacking Charlie is a consequence of having experienced it in the past.
• Hell of a Heaven: Downplayed; Heaven is a plenty nice place to be, but Sir Pentious finds it terribly lonely because he misses all his friends; he would spend all his time using the viewing portals to watch them if Emily didn't put a limit on how much time anyone is allowed to use them.
• Hell of a Time: Discussed; Lucifer explicitly has no interest in punishing sinners for their crimes, so most of the suffering is inflicted by its denizens upon each other. However, the fact that nearly all sinners are completely uninterested in Charlie's offer of redemption and relocation to Heaven proves that, even with Exterminations, Hell isn't that bad, or is at least tolerable enough that most sinners would rather put up with it than put in the work to better themselves for a shot at Heaven. It was actually fairly peaceful for a while, back when Lucifer and Lilith took a more direct role in ruling and kept the various demons and sinners in line, and fell into the current state of anarchy after Lucifer drew into seclusion and Lilith left.
• Humanoid Abomination: The Archangels might look as humanoid as any sinner, demon, or angel, but they're something far, far vaster, piloting human-like bodies as a way to interact with people. Charlie is too, though it takes a while and some tutelage from her dad to realize it.
• Jesus Was Way Cool: Per Word of God, he was way, way, way cool, though he doesn't appear in the story proper. Evidently, his sacrifice on the cross is the main reason Heaven has no population limit while Hell still does.
• Literal Living Hell: It's revealed that Lucifer is Hell. He used to manage fine until Charlie was born as a Tragic Stillbirth, which made him rip out part of his soul to bring her to life. No longer having the strength to both sustain Charlie and hold up countless Sinners' souls, he was forced to choose between letting Heaven cull some of Hell's population or have Michael kill Charlie to restore Lucifer's power; he chose the former, leading to the Exterminations. It's an Awful Truth that Lucifer does not want Charlie to learn about.
• Messianic Archetype: Charlie in the extreme; she's an All-Loving Hero with a strong desire to save everyone and remake the world into a better place, and despite the cynicism of those around her, they can't quite help but find themselves taken in by her idealism. Ironic, seeing as she's the Anti-Christ and the Beast of Revelation.
• Necessarily Evil: Lucifer created a wide range of horrific monstrosities during the first war against Heaven with the help of Ruin; he wasn't then and isn't now happy about it, and has kept them sealed away ever since, but still maintains that it was necessary at the time. Though as Lucifer himself states, "things that have to be done" and "things you will regret for eternity" are not mutually exclusive.
• Race Against the Clock: The agreement Charlie manages to reach with Michael. Lucifer will die in ten years if the Exterminations stop completely; she has that long to begin redeeming enough sinners for Lucifer to survive, which at current rate, means about ten million in that time. If she can't, the Exterminations will resume at that point.
• Tragic Stillbirth: Charlie was born dead. Lucifer fixed that at severe cost to himself.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Maybe not sweet, but Lucifer remembers Adam in Eden as being diligent, dutiful, and wisely wary of divine wrath; he wonders what could've happened in the millennia since to turn him into the self-righteous, homicidal lunatic with delusions of grandeur that attacked Charlie. Gabriel implies that experiencing the Paradise Protocol, and then having to endure eternity without it due to the treaty with Hell, broke the First Man mentally.