What does being a good person mean? That’s the lifelong question philosophers all around the globe tried to answer for centuries, but is there an answer? Both The Good Place and Hazbin Hotel are shows surrounding that question and the possibility of redemption and change.
“The Good Place”: Starving for moral perfection
In the show, the creator Michael Schur crafts a whimsical yet profound exploration of ethics and human behavior. We follow Eleanor Shellstrop, our main character, who just found out she has passed away and ended up in the “good place”. Eleanor has led a life filled with selfishness and greed, so she feels unworthy of this. That’s when she meets Chidi Anagonye, a moral philosophy professor, who accepts helping her, teaching her ethics so that she can go on with her quest to become a “good” person and fit in.
The characters in the TV series are flawed individuals who must confront their past actions to strive to become better versions of themselves. Through trials and tribulations, they learn the value of empathy, selflessness, and genuine connection. It shows how, even after death, four people who didn’t know each other in life can grow because of their human connection, and even the most flawed individuals are capable of growth.
“We choose to be good because of our bond with other people”
So, in the end, even the idea of moral perfection is proven to be impossible, and they all learn that their love for each other and their willingness to change and improve is more important than the so-called “perfection”.
“Hazbin Hotel”: A retreat of self-improvement
On the other hand, Hazbin Hotel, created by Vivienne Medrano, offers a darker and more chaotic depiction of the afterlife. The series follows Charlie, the princess of Hell, where the story is set, as she endeavors to rehabilitate sinners and offer them a chance of redemption through her establishment, The Hazbin Hotel. It explores the messy and complicated nature of redemption in a world defined by sin and suffering.
The characters in the animated show are deeply flawed and morally ambiguous, reflecting the complexities of human nature. Through their struggles and conflicts, the series challenges traditional notions of good and evil, highlighting the gray areas that exist within each individual. Despite their sins and shortcomings, they strive to prove that eternal doom isn’t the only outcome for sinners, suggesting that salvation is attainable even in the darkest of circumstances.
What It Means to Be a Good Person
Both shows take a stand against the standard stigma of what being a good person means, against the ideal of traditional society. In The Good Place we see that, to get into said place, something with a similarity to heaven, there is a point system of all good and bad things that you do on earth, but the system is flawed, because even if you do something with good intentions, if it remotely effects on somebody else’s life, that’s a negative point, so in modern society, where everything is so nuanced and complicated, being a good person is getting harder and harder by the minute.
Moral Particularism, is a concept by Jonathan Dancy, that states that certain actions are not universally good or bad, because there’s no set of fixed rules that work in every situation, for example, lying is something highly frowned upon, but sometimes not telling someone the truth can actually help them. So lying itself is a bad thing, but using it to protect someone can be good, therefore, characterizing actions as black and white is extremely dangerous. Proving that just counting deeds as a set in stone way to determine goodness, is not an effective method.
In Hazbin Hotel heaven is also depicted in having a very strong sense of what makes someone a sinner and that everyone who counts as that, needs to be punished for eternity or cease to exist, but the angels that should be a beacon of purity and goodness go down to Hell to exterminate the sinners and think that they are doing the right thing, some, even seem to enjoy it, so is it good to do bad things to bad people? Or does that make you just as bad as them?
There are two songs in the show that parallel each other, the first being “Hell is Forever” which is sung by Adam (Alex Brightman), who’s one of the leaders of heaven and represents Adam, in Christianity the first man created, where he sings:
‘Cause Hell is forever, whether you like it or not
Had their chance to behave better now they boil in a pot
‘Cause the rules are black and white
There’s no use in tryin’ fight them
They’re burnin’ for their lives until we kill ‘em again
Stating the point that the rules are simple and that there’s no nuance whatsoever in what it means to be deserving of eternal bliss, and who doesn’t fill all the criteria is deserving of pain and extinction. The second song is “You didn’t know”, sung by Charlie (Erika Hennigsen) our protagonist and Emily (Shoba Narayan) a young seraphim, and the only one who sides with Charlie and her ideas of redemption, where they sing:
If Hell is forever, then Heaven must be a lie
If angels can do whatever and ramin in the sky
The rules are shades of gray
When you don’t do as you say
When you make the wretched suffer just to kill them again
In this song, Charlie and Emily are confronting the leaders of heaven about these rules, and the hypocrisy of it all, since it only seems to count when it’s not them doing the bad things. They state that, despite claiming the rules are black and white, heaven uses a lot of gray areas when deciding who is or isn’t deserving of life and peace.
So, the meaning of being a good person varies a lot, it doesn’t intake just a set of moral codes to make you good, intention, awareness and the context of where and how a person lives are crucial to determine their moral integrity. The point isn’t if a person is good or bad, but if they are trying to be better today than they were before.
The Good Place and Hazbin Hotel offer compelling and nuanced explorations of morality, redemption, and the complexity of being a good person. Through their distinct narratives and character arcs, they challenge the views to reflect on their own values and beliefs, prompting us to contemplate the nature of goodness and the potential for change in ourselves and others. In a world filled with uncertainty and imperfection, these series remind us that changing is possible, and that the journey towards being a good person is one with undertaking, no matter how difficult or challenging it may be.
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The article below was edited by Fernanda de Andrade Silva.
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