Curate, connect, and discover
Feeling insane about Lucifer in Hazbin Hotel bc you could read so much into the apple motifs truly everywhere around him. And I will.
Obviously the instances that draw the most attention are the staff and the tophat. But if you look deeper into lore about Hazbin Hotel and the Hellaverse you find lulu world and loo loo land and OTHER Lucifer themed amusement parks/circus shows. All whose mascots are garish, but they are also APPLES. And to have the apple, which is so obviously representative as being THE GIFT he gives to humanity being so prominent in all designs that even allude to Lucifer, is such a strong and loud choice. For it to be so vividly called upon and referenced is so very interesting, because it ties this fallen Angel to one single defining choice that is widely suggested to have doomed the entire earth to suffering.
But those aren’t even close to the most interesting instance by far. Because it has to be the coat, right? It has to be the act of physically cloaking yourself in the symbol, therefore making YOU the gift. But it’s not quite an apple, though, is it? His coat, though the imagery is more subtle than other apple references, is deliberately designed to visually liken itself to an apple CORE.
A physical manifestation of leftovers, the common conclusion to what happens after an apple is given as a gift.
The trash.
To have a character that has the baggage that Lucifer already has; an entity attributed with the fall of first himself and then all of humanity, dress himself as the used and useless part of the apple, is so wildly coded for tragedy. And it works for me. Because Angel or not, Lucifer is a man who is so violently defined by everyone in the context of a single action that he, himself also defines himself by it.
It is a statement, though he may not understand what he’s actually saying—I might even be inclined to believe that this particular claim is entirely unconscious, but even subliminally it is bold.
He’s saying he’s the gift. The gift of knowledge and dreams and free will. He is saying “The snake might be the usual emphasis but what I really am is the apple. I am the gift that was accepted and used and cast aside. I am the thing you regret and repent over. I am the apple core.”
And wow is that such an interesting statement to make about the actual serpent that doomed mankind(I’m not religious in the slightest but I still think this concept goes hard) because it showcases such a level of loathing directed directly at himself, and his choices, and everything he represents. It proves that he looks at his gift to humanity and sees only the pain it’s brought. He doesn’t believe in his cause anymore. He gave humanity knowledge and hope and dreams and joy and pride and the will to strive for all of those wonderful things, and he is regretful. He is downtrodden. He views himself, the king of hell, as the trash leftover after the greatest mistake in all of creation.
That’s so insanely tragic, but it can be looked at in a different light as well.
Because the core of an apple hosts something very important; the potential for great and lasting growth. The thing that makes Lucifer so dangerous to heaven that they had to crush him, and beat him down, to banish him, and to kill his people, and to keep him separated from the good in the world, is that his very being fosters growth. And they wanted him to forget that.
And they almost succeeded. But they made one mistake. They underestimated his daughter. And the second that Lucifer decides to support her dreams, what does he say????
He says “looks like the apple doesn’t fall far”
And well. I just think that’s neat.