A Refresher on Character Point of View: Hazbin Hotel Edition
- Sapphire Luna
- Nov 7, 2025
- 4 min read
CONTENT WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THE FIRST EPISODE OF SEASON 2 OF HAZBIN HOTEL. THERE WILL ALSO BE MENTIONS OF PHYSICAL AND SEXUAL ASSAULT.
On October 29, the first two episodes of season 2 of Hazbin Hotel were released on Amazon Prime. It became a streaming success and one of the the most watched and anticipated season premieres on the platform. However, as expected, the controversy began almost immediately. The biggest controversy that was brought up the almost the second the first two episodes dropped was a joke involving a montage of Valentino hitting Angel Dust.
For context, before the montage starts, Vox has a meeting with the other two Vees in regards to the extermination that happened the previous episode. He mentions to Valentino that, to save their reputation, to stop hitting Angel. A montage is then played of times Valentino has hit Angel, one clip involves him spanking Angel with a paddle that says "YAOI" on it. This joke was met with mixed reception, with some saying that the joke was insensitive because the fourth episode of season one portrayed Angel's abuse as something that was meant to be taken seriously. Other see a different perspective of the joke and why it was portrayed as comedic in the first place; that reason is character point of view.
In a literary context, character point of view a narrative perspective from which a story is told, determining who is narrating the story and how much exposition the reader receives. As a writer, the first thing you need to think about is what point of view is the story being told in. That can give the story the voice you want and can give the reader a deeper understanding on the character's personality, if written in first person. When it comes to television, the character point of view can change, depending on what character is being focused on in that moment. In the case of this moment of Hazbin Hotel, the character's point of view was the Vees. As was already established in season one, the Vees are powerful overlords and antagonists in the series. Anything that is considered to be violent or serious to us is hilarious to them.
With that information in mind, that means it makes sense that the montage is portrayed as a joke. If the joke was in Angel Dust's perspective, we would be having a completely different conversation right now. The joke would have been as insensitive as everyone was saying. As we know, Angel being abused by his boss is something that Angel himself takes seriously, because he is on the receiving end of the abuse. Since Valentino is on the giving end, and we see this is a conversation between the Vees, the abuse will be portrayed as a joke because the darkest and most sadistic things are funny to them. This is what the character's point of view is and where it comes into play.
Now that we see how character point of view is important and how it comes into play in Hazbin Hotel, it's time to see how it is important to understand character point of view whenever we are consuming any other media. Understanding the point of view of the character can make the media we consume have the voices they need to be interesting, watchable, and readable. Simultaneously, understanding which point of view the story is being told in, or in this case, which part of the story, can help the general public understand the story being told better.
The most critical part of understanding the character's point of view is the fact that a lot of nuance comes to play when we see these kinds of jokes on screen. As someone who tends to have a lot of trouble with binary thinking, seeing nuance in everything is crucial for me to understand stories on a deeper level, and seeing that a lot of people in this day in age have trouble with that worries me about the future of our media literacy skills. Understanding nuance and the character's point of view is a part of media literacy, and with all the current buzz about our current media literacy crisis, it is important now more than ever to address the nuance in the media we consume. Refusing to see nuance is a form of anti-intellectualism, and with the current rise of anti-intellectualism, this was the perfect time for this blog to be published.
Before I get to the conclusion, understanding the point of view a joke is told in is not the same as finding the joke funny. Humor is subjective, and I understand that not everyone is going to find the joke funny. However, saying that you did not find the joke funny and saying that the joke was insensitive because we were supposed to take Angel's abuse seriously are two completely different things. That is why the people who understand the character's point of view, but still do not find the joke funny are the ones I can take more seriously.
As the season quickly comes and goes, we need to make sure that we understand character point of view in all the media we consume, be it book, movies, or television. When we see which character's point of view a certain point of the story is told in, we can understand the tone of certain scenes are why they are a certain tone in the first place. While I am not a complete expert on these topics, I do hope to give another perspective on this joke to those who need it.
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