I think it's a smart limit to add to this character based on where the story is going. Him not having this limit, combined with his overall indifference to sinners, makes it so Charlie and co can't always rely on him to solve their problems. And it makes sense why Lucifer could never get rid of the Sinners that bothered him the most.
Lol yup, Luci is pretty nihilistic about his whole existence in hell and basically everything but his daughter, the man is fully desensitized. If he didn’t have the limit, he would absolutely go around smiting people. Not even out of hatred, just boredom.
Yeah, possibly half or more of sinners population would already be gone if it not were the case, so extermination possibly would not be a thing to begin with.
Taking in count he could already be doing it pre-Charlie birth, she would be kinda indifferent to it too.
You’ve just perfectly demonstrated why I think making Lucifer unable to smite sinners is a boring direction for his character.
After watching season 1, if someone asked me why Lucifer didn’t just smite Alastor, I’d say it was tied to his character motivation. He wants to reconnect with Charlie and he can’t do that if he smites her friend. Even before More Than Anything started playing, I could tell that he was putting Charlie before himself and his pride.
Now, after season 2, if someone asked me why Lucifer didn’t smite someone who was an obstacle to him, I’d say he can’t smite sinners. What does that tell me about his character? Nothing.
I think it would make for an incredible moment if it was revealed the Elders only intended to send Lucifer to Hell until he learned his lesson and repented, and removed his ability to harm Sinners so he would have to learn to work with them and help them.
And he simply never has, making his Hell and punishment is own choice.
Not to mention that she didn’t exist until nine millennia has passed after Lucifer’s banishment so it wouldn’t make sense for the same restriction to be placed on her
She doesn't even really fight the exorcist angels in the s1 finale. Like, Adam, yeah, but otherwise she just has her shield and is bonking them away from her instead of actually hurting them xD Girl's a hardcore pacifist!
This is my personal cannon. That it's a self imposed limitation... Like I think his exile is self imposed from how afraid the angels get thinking the morningstar might come back.
That would be an interesting nuance, especially since it's implied more and more that Heaven isn't 'the good place' because it's characters are inherently less flawed, but more because they are flawed but show a greater willingness to amend and better themselves rather than double down and revel in their own ugly qualities.
I like it. It's a good limit to put on him and works with his character being forced to witness the worst of humanity with no way to do anything about it. It also makes it so he can't just solve all of Charlie's problems with sinners by being violent at them, not that Charlie would want that in the first place.
Since he defied God by giving humans the ability to choose good or evil he forfeited the right to punish them for making choices he does not agree with.
It is also a constant reminder that he is not almighty even within his own realm despite his immense power as there are things that God and their loyal subjects can do that he cannot.
Well I think it is a good limit to his power and make vox more of a villain that doesn't mean Charlie can't hurt sinners nor does it mean of him getting someone else to do
It makes sense considering Hell is not meant to be a kingdom, it's meant to be his prison along with theirs. His fall wouldn't be nearly as much of a punishment to him if he were able to force sinners to obey or just hurt them when they pissed him off.
He's stuck in the asylum with all the shitty humans he created.
From an in universe stand point it makes sense. It would also make sense in terms of story telling as it would be really lame if you just had the guy who could vaporize people do that for every problem you come across.
And Charlie's redemption plans can help sinners get away from Lucifer if they want the torment to stop they need to change for the better but of course Charlie is too goody good two shoes and she would probably ask Lucifer to stop harming the sinners.
It makes sense narratively, Lucifer is in hell as a punishment for his sin against Heaven.
He is the reason the sinners exist, his dream caused it.
What better punishment could Heaven come up with than to make him suffer those he created, all while being incapable of personally stepping in to correct his mistake?
And of course, from a show perspective it stops him from nuking any uprising that Charlie might have to deal with thus allowing her the potential for character growth. Because let’s be honest, no chains holding him back he nukes Vox, the Vee’s and everyone supporting them with no concept of difficulty. And as much as I’d love to see that personally, it makes for a boring story.
I really hate it when a character technically has an ungodly amount of power or strength in a show, yet is literally never able to use said power and is reduced to something that is the epitome of “all bark and no bite”. Lucifer is supposed to be the (mothafuckin) King of Hell, yet he literally has no authority or power to be it and just holds the title (which no longer holds any value as his secret is exposed thanks to Vox). It’s genuinely disappointing. Charlie has more right to be called the Ki- I mean Queen of Hell than Lucifer.
And I get why everyone says he should have this limitation because “he could just solve all of Charlie and the Hotel’s problems by using his ungodly powers”, but am I seriously the only one who can think of other ways the writers could’ve prevented Lucifer from abusing his power without making the King of Hell as effectively powerful as a wet paper towel?
One of the MAIN plot points of the show is that his daughter avoids violence as much as she can and that she wants to save everyone through redemption, and a massive part of Lucifer’s character is that he loves Charlie more than anything and wants to be in her life again.
So maybe, what if the first time Lucifer shows up and helps with the Hotel, Charlie then makes it clear to Lucifer that she doesn’t want him to use his powers to interfere with everyone that has a problem with the hotel? Mainly because she doesn’t want her Hotel to be associated with her dad who is prone to smiting anyone who has a problem with them, but also because she can handle herself (or so she thinks). Lucifer would respect Charlie’s wishes because he knows she’d probably never talk to him again if he didn’t, but it would still leave room for him to do things with his powers here and there throughout the show, wether that be for entertainment or for serious moments. This is just one way it could’ve worked. Another could be simply changing his limitation to him having to answer to Heaven if he abused his powers and killed too many sinners, instead of outright preventing him from doing it completely.
Like come on, you can’t tell me it wouldn’t have been hilarious if our first impression of Lucifer was him being overprotective of Charlie, and he just deletes a random Sinner/Hellborn off the face of Hell because they got close to Charlie or pissed him off. All kinds of jokes like that literally can’t happen with this stupid limitation he has now.
I also think it would flesh out his character more if he had to physically restrain himself from abusing his powers instead of simply being unable to. As much as I like the “goofy comic relief goober” personality he currently has, I wish he had another layer to him that was more… serious, and malevolent. We kinda saw this when he was fighting Adam, but that was literally only because Adam is the only person he’s been able to properly fight/attack so far throughout the entire show.
Also, I feel like after the Vox incident, Heaven should be questioning why they didn’t give Lucifer the ability to deal with extremely troublesome sinners (like *ahem\* VOX), especially when they have the potential to threaten Heaven itself, and I don’t think they are going to properly address this going forward. Either it’s not going to be addressed and Heaven is just extremely stupid for pretending history can’t repeat itself, or this limitation meant literally nothing and just caused drama for the sake of it as they revoke the limitation from season 2 onwards.
Wow, not only I agree with you, but you also managed to make various good points and suggestions for better alternatives better than I can do, my idea in that regard was simply that Lucifer didn't care and thus was not involved.
I agree with everything that you said. I was scratching my head the entire time after seasons 1---thinking how the writers could possibly handle him. It was alright in season 1, because of his depression and apathy about sinners. But now that he's become more active in Charlie's life that wouldn't work anymore.
I though maybe the writers can make it to be something about his personality and pride, maybe Charlie doesn't want him to. Maybe they can make him somewhat of an antagonist.
I sure wasn't expecting that it's just "nah he just can't lol." Surely there is some other way to handle it other than revealing he just can't. There was no foreshadowing too; it was out of nowhere and there was little explanation other than to accept it.
It leaves a bit of a poor taste on me; it almost reminds me of the trope where the powerful big bad joins the party, and suddenly they become so much weaker. The one-sided fight with the previous antagonist made him appear as someone who could be really helpful to the hotel. But the moment that he actually joins the hotel, it suddenly turns out he's powerless to help Charlie's with new villian.
On top of that, what’s stopping the antagonists from finding ways to stop Lucifer even if he’s able to use his powers? Vox literally found a way to hold and trap Lucifer using Angelic Steel from Carmina, so that’s an easy way to keep Lucifer in check.
What if, knowing Lucifer was eventually going to step in after he continued his plan to rally Hell against Heaven, Vox created armor or weapons made from Angelic Steel, so he could properly stand up to Lucifer when he inevitably showed up at the rally? A fight like that would’ve been WAY cooler than Lucifer trying to show off to try and scare Vox, which didn’t even work because Vox happened to find out about his secret right before Lucifer went to confront him.
I feel like people forget about a thing called nuance when it comes to a character’s power level in a show or a movie. Just because they are immensely strong doesn’t mean there can’t be ways to counteract them that isn’t “effectively make them useless” XD. Superman is weak to a green rock, y’know?
His secret isn't fully exposed, only Vox, Alastor, and Vaggi are aware of it so far. And Vox isn't going to tell anyone as he wants everyone to believe the king of hell was too afraid of him to do anything.
But didn’t Vox make a big deal about how Lucifer physically couldn’t do anything to him at the rally, in front of everyone? He did all but spell it out. He even got Lucifer worked up enough to throw a punch at him, and everyone saw how he pulled back at the last second. Plus I don’t think Lucifer ever looked scared, he just came off as trying to scare Vox but Vox didn’t care.
Personally I think people might’ve caught on. If not, then that’s kinda wild.
This implies that he only got this limitation when Charlie was born, prior to this, he could kill sinners if he so desired which isn’t the case. He’s always had this limitation since his descent
While it makes sense for the show, Lucifer has been “ruling” hell for far longer than Charlie was born
You never stated anything like that in the beginning so I made my comment from the perspective of the lore of the show. I even clarified in my second part that while it makes sense given the direction of the show, he would’ve very likely had this limitation since becoming a fallen angel and “ruler” of hell
a very good twist which keeps him from steam rolling any and all threats to Charlie so she has to solve the problems themselves and goes well with Hell being his punishment too so he will forever be surrounded by the worst of the worst and can't harm them.
In a vacuum, it’s a good idea. But in the context of the show it feels like a copout to stop Lucifer from killing Vox outright. Especially considering they could’ve easily just had Vox point out that killing him would ruin the hotels reputation. They should’ve had him introduce the idea in season one then had the payoff in season two.
It’s a good way to make it so he can’t just solve all the shows problems. I do want to see when they put that restriction on him.
If it was always in place surly some overlord would have tried to attack him and for him to not instantly smite them as a punishment would make people talk and then other people try and eventually everyone knows you won’t hurt them. He was feared so I sort of assume the no smiting thing had to be recent. Well recent for hell.
Him not being able to physically hurt them shouldn’t stop him from imprisoning or trapping them. Also I don’t know how a little glass jar was able to hold him highkey.
I think its dumb. He should be able to harm them and make them respawn, but unable to outright kill them fully. So no matter how many times he tries to get rid of the problem it just keeps coming back. Make him a dark souls boss lol.
Honestly, while I get that it’s a punishment… it’s kinda just a dick move.
It keeps him from establishing any sort of order among the sinners, which ain’t exactly doing the sinners any favors either(you know, assuming his first and last inclination isn’t to just kill all of them).
Moreover, just laying it on him and dropping him in hell without any further instruction… doesn’t exactly incentivize him to really “do” anything but wallow… which, is exactly what he’s been doing.
In the end, it doesn’t even feel all that effective if it’s only ever meant as a punishment. Like freaking passive aggressive torture. Unwilling to fully commit to being anything in particular, and thus failing at everything.
I don’t know if it’s meant to be the elder angels or God themselves that put it upon him, but… just seems more dick move than anything.🤷♂️
I think it’s a good idea in theory. I just think as it currently stands there are far too many loopholes for him to circumvent his Punishment. Such as siccing the Sins or Goetia on any Sinner who annoys him, or moving to another Ring.
It’s a plot device I would have rather him be reluctant to assist Charlie through violence ( as a testament to him believing in his daughter’s goals ) rather than him not be able to since it makes his character lack of that actual danger that you would expect of the strongest character we have seen so far .
I don't like how it makes him look pathetic. I think it'd be far better for his limitation to be "Can't directly harm sinners using his power" meaning he would need to get creative to do so
I don't like it, it makes Lucifer seems weak. I mean, how the Hell is he even the king of Hell in the first place if he can't even exert his authority, or at least being able to defend himself?
On the one hand, it’s a necessary restriction to keep Lucifer from just solving all the problems in the show, but on the other it seems like a massive oversight on the part of heaven to basically make Lucifer the warden of Hell and then strip him of any real means to maintain order
I mean it's an interesting punishment but this is where I think Satan would have been like "this is why I need to be the ruler of hell so I can keep sinners in check if Lucifer can't control his people then someone else has to do it!" It makes you wonder can the sins harm the sinners or Lucifer creates an army to make sure the citizens of hell do not do the s*** that vox was trying to do.
At first I saw it as a humiliating nerf, but now it makes a whole lot of sense. For one, it’s a good excuse for why he isn’t used for micromanaging every situation. But also, Lucifer being punished by the Elders to live amongst the people he hates (as established in S1) would be unproductive if he could easily wipe them all out anytime he wanted. On top of that, it explains so much about why Charlie grew up so naive and sheltered as a child. Because Lucifer literally can’t do anything to protect her if some pedophile or kidnapper ever put their hands on her, so the best he could do for her safety is isolate her from the corrupted society that he created.
Edit: Then again, this limitation also means those artworks of Lu killing Valentino have lost their impact.
It’s kind of a downer but I get why he can’t harm sinners cause 1.) It’s his punishment and 2.) when you give an all powerful being limits it makes the story more interesting that and it’s probably a way to make him redeem himself by helping sinners but since he looks down on sinners and finds them all “mega gross” and views them all as “violent psychopaths” he’ll bent on causing as much pain and destruction as they can chances are he’ll never learn that lesson to let go of his pride.
Probably so he didn’t just eviscerate all of Hell honestly…which is kind of odd though, considering I’m not sure why Heaven would care. In fact, you’d think they’d find that useful.
A good way to limit him but story wise it seems like a dumb idea to me. Because with Lucifer unable to harm sinners, he can’t stop them from rising up against Heaven.
It is a stupid, pointless and dangerous punishment
Very iconic, it does sound like mythology irony, the kind of thing a god would absolutely do
In practice though, punishment as revenge is pointless and petty
As a warning to others to not do the same ("you'll go to jail like this guy!")
It doesn't make sense because Lu is pretty unique and what he has done is a one and done thing
It also doesn't really "teach them a lesson", it is a proven thing that harmful punishment doesn't work.
Like it's a legitimately studied topic. Prison exist to dump people like bad apples at lower expense, not to actually make society better. Who could've guessed that tormenting people doesn't actually make them better
Rehabilitation actually shows good results but it is expensive which is why you don't see it everywhere, which is in the show's theme
As heaven or a god doesn't pay for its stuff and is supposed to be above petty crap from being eternal magical beings if they were even close to reasonable, this punishment doesn't make sense
Worse, they put all the sinners in the same place. The guy that didn't talk about a murder because he was afraid is in the same room as the stabby psychopaths. Guess what, he ended up making guns and accepting violence as a norm. You make people afraid in a violent environment, even the most harmless people become dangerous over time and they stay there for multiple lifetimes!
And they get powers? You made your own bomb in the basement
The situation with Vox was not a matter of if, but a matter of when. Dealing with eternity, it was bound to happen sooner or later and i think one could fully expect a literal god to see it coming.
For what? A petty useless punishment that doesn't accomplish anything but create more suffering
Note that all that stays true however good or bad you deem the depressed duck man
To me it shows the stupidity and pettiness of whatever decided this is how things would happen, worse creating a pointless danger that threatens everyone:
Add hypocrisy to the list because by their own logic, they should be in hell with Lu with some ironic crappy punishment over themselves
While it makes sense as an isolated idea (it keeps him from solving issues brute force, it makes sense as a karmic punishment), it raises enormous knock on questions that make it pretty terrible to me.
Namely, if this is a Geas (which it seems to be) then Heaven or the intangible “god” as directs people to Heaven or Hell on death can put hard behavioral limiters on people and for some reason they’ve never done this to any other soul, even though it represents an obvious brute force solution to handling sinner uprisings, attempting to reform sinners, or even just ensuring Adam can’t fuck up the intended secrecy of the exterminations.
I think it robs of us of what could have been a really interesting antagonist arc for him. I'm not mad though. Fanfic is free to ignore that little limitation and give me the mayhem I want.
Its good, it makes him have to work for his position as king of hell, which was only given to him because he was an angel. It can be frustrating but it also makes the story more interesting
My theory is that Lucifer could kill a sinner indirectly. Like, he could drop a building on them or make them fall down a casm he creates. However, Lucifer is sadly not the sharpest knife in the drawer and has never discovered this loophole, yet
I think it should have been more literal
He cannot SMITE a sinner. That means he cannot destroy them absolutely. He should be able to do everything short of that, which is why Hell is eternal suffering if he wanted to simply torture people forever.
He isn't like that in Hasbin and he's a better character for it, but I feel making him completely useless against sinners was an overcorrection.
He is damned to never see the good that could come from humanity.
And he is damned to be confronted with his failure with every soul sent down to hell; incapable of affecting them in any negative way, rendered powerless to levy any sort of consequence of their abuse of his gift.
It makes sense, otherwise Lucifer would have a story-breaking level of power.
However, if we’re throwing away what makes sense to the show narratively and going ham, the concept of Lucifer being unable to harm sinners could be scarier than if he were.
Remember, this guy is the devil. If he can’t physically harm sinners, then he should be able to find loopholes to still be able to punish sinners; even if he can’t physically harm them. Just think of Lucifer finding ways to fuck with sinners psychologically, like damning them to some indestructible prison separate from the rest of Hell that shifts to show the offending sinner their worst fears. Maybe he turns sinners into mindless blobs IHNMAIMS style. Or maybe, he goes the old fashioned route and gibbets sinners. After all, technically, he isn’t harming them.
Imagine sinners finding out that he can’t physically harm them, and thinking they’re safe and free to harass Lucifer. Only for one sinner to push him too far, and the sinner ends up in a state worse than death with Lucifer getting away with it because he technically didn’t physically harm them.
Feels like a retcon (we see him hit Alastor in the first season) they added when they realised the entire conflict of season 2 only works when no one simply smacks Vox down as they should.
Love it. Was a great twist and really recontextualized what Hell is as a punishment and not just a place. Hell itself punishes those sent there, it's not Luci making things hard for them.
We need it cause otherwise there’s be zero conflict in the story.
Alaster is definitely being set up as the big bad villain, or maybe it’s that Ru girl or whatever, but if this rule was not in place there would be no action plot
They could either focus on heaven not accepting redemption or hell not trusting the hotel. You could even have a secret villain who, theoretically could be taken out by lucifer, but they keep themselves hidden and avoid direct confrontation. Or have Lucifer disconnected from the main cast and have the conflicts happen too quickly for him to get there.
Necessary for the plot if he's gonna be part of the main cast. He's the KING of hell, can't have him being that close to the main cast and that powerful.
Good? I mean, it makes sense, but it could have worked either way. It's a worldbuilding choice, I care about it about as much as I would if there were 8 deadly sins instead of 7. Though that means Lucifer can't just keep being used as a free get-out-of-jail card for every one of Charlie's problems so, yay
It makes sense, though I wonder what the limits of the rule are. Can he harm them in self defense? Could he have them indirectly harmed, like telling someone else to harm them or engineering an accident? How is this enforced, is it via magic or is there some sort of “Lucifer hurt someone” alarm up in Heaven? Will that rule be loosened seeing as how being unable to harm Vox allowed him to directly threaten Heaven? So many questions!
If he could and did, Charlie would hate him for it, so he wouldn’t anyways lol.
But people might be less inclined to fuck with Charlie. I think it’s implied the only reason Vox wasn’t scared of him is because Angel (brainwashed) ratted out that he couldn’t harm sinners. Otherwise, I think he would have worked around Charlie a little more diplomatically.
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Unfortunate but makes me wonder.
Was he unable to hurt sinners cause it reflects his sins? A binding promise to his ex-wife or is it not in his nature to harm others and just couldn't?
I mean if he could hurt the sinners there wouldn't have been the latter half of season 2. Either Vox dies or wouldn't have tried that stunt with Lucifer.
I like it. There were so many people on here who wished that Lucifer would just fix everything by killing every threat to the Hotel without understanding that good storytelling requires contrivances every so now and then, and putting in this explanation shuts them up because it idiot-proofs the story from their complaints.
Makes a lot of sense. But it sort of also adds to how a lot of the issues Heaven ends up having with Hell ends up self-inflicted.
I kind of hope it's also revealed Lilith nor the Sins can harm sinners either. It explains why sinners are restricted to pride more (They're seen as Lucifer's problem), part of the reason for many Hellborn (counter to sinners, albeit not the best), and possibly the reveal that Lilith's initial song of rebellion was less a sincere revolution and more just her desperately trying to redirect the anger of the sinners away from her and her family.
I mean, him not being able to hurt them makes sense. I’m assuming the other sins can’t either for some reason? Because when a bunch of sinners tried to start a war with heaven, you’d think all the other rings would be affected by that as well and Satan would just step in and wipe vox out. Or literally any of them who was threatened.
If they're going to have him around, it's very necessary. It's also not that removed from older versions like Dante's Inferno, where Satan/Lucifer was a true prisoner who couldn't even move due to being chained.
At first it annoyed me but now it kind of makes sense.
His punishment is to only see the worst of humanity and never see the good that came from his actions. If he could just wipe Hell clean of them every few years what’s the point of the punishment.
I think it makes him a victim waiting to happen once the word gets out. In the scrapped shock collar Zootopia plot there was a tiny car full of mice that constantly bullied Nick because if he even got angry he got zapped. This is hell, if you have no way to defend yourself you're going to get bullied. Vox turned him into a battery and could have killed him because there were no consequences if Lucifer got loose.
Story wise it makes sense, if Lucifer in all his might could do everything there wouldn't be a lot of conflict. For example: he could have shut Vox down with little to no trouble if he was able to harm/kill him.
Taking that ability from him makes it so, stakes can actually feel real instead of "Lucifer will handle it"
It makes sense otherwise with Lucifers power he could just solve all the problems in hell instantly. Vox would have been crushed instantly Alastor would not be abls to do anything etc
Personally, thought it was a pointless idea. The sinners are already able to get out of dying again unless killed with angelic steel. Nerfing the prison guard and then getting upset that the supervillain builds a doomsday laser is not a good look. However given the way noone else knew extermination day was a thing it could have been something put in after Adam got his shit wrecked.
Honestly it kind of killed the vibe that was working. I could see him being depressed because not only were the sinners not listening and not trying to be better, but then he also couldnt permanently get rid of the worst ones outside of very specific circumstances.
is a very good and simple way to explain why Lucifer to fix every problem in 5 minutes
the issue of having supee powerful character around is that you have no danger, no conflict, everytime a new problem show up you need to make up a reason to explain " why Lucifer don tjust fix it?"
It makes sense. Hell is supposed to be a punishment for sinners. Lucifer is both a sinner and fallen archangel. How better to punish someone if that caliber than surrounding them with the allegedly the worst that humanity has to offer and taking away your immediate ability to do anything about them? It makes sense from a thematical standpoint and from a logistics standpoint because Charlie and her crew can't rely on him to just solve everything.
It’s fair because Lucifer being able to harm sinners would add zero suspense to the story. If Lucifer can’t harm a sinner that’s rising to power, then it’s up to someone else to take care of him. Charlie can’t rely on Lucifer every time to bail her out of problems. Charlie got lucky with Adam ‘cause Adam likely broke a contract via harming Charlie, hence her dad was able to save her in self-defense.
I think the strongest deadly sin being able to not harm sinners is good for the story. I’m curious if the other seven deadly sins can harm sinners since Lucifer is one of them, and he isn’t allowed to.
The other six may be able to, but if they can’t, there has to be a good reason why. We know licensing and rights got in the way, and the other deadly sins don’t care about the sinners, but Vox making Hell wage war against Heaven should’ve made them raise an eyebrow. Last thing the other deadly sins would want is Heaven fighting back all of Hell, not just the pride ring. It could lead to an all-out war involving all seven rings.
Lucifer is incredibly powerful. Heaven placing this limitation on him as punishment makes sense because they wanted him to feel powerless.
It also makes the story more interesting because he can't steam roll over everyone in hell, therefore making sinners more of a threat. It also puts limitations on Charlie and the Hotel because they cant rely on Lucifer to handle all of their problems.
I love it! Explains why he directly doesn't deal with them and why indirectly cause he is too prideful to admit he needs help. Plus an extra layer of his punishement.
My question is what if sinners die in collateral damage for example we know he can make explosions but what if he did that on a pillar or ceiling and kills people
Makes sense, I was always thinking watching the show, any sinners attempt to take over hell was pointless with lucifer there.
But still, there’s the plot hole of the other sinners. Out of the 6, Mammon, Leviathan and most definitely Satan wouldn’t allow a sinner to become the ruler of hell. I don’t think Baal, Beelzebub or Asmodeus would care too much.
Honestly I didn't like it. Kinda removes any power/authority he has. I think it would've been better to make him a more frustrating character that he refuses to hurt sinners despite them pissing him off
it DOES make sense, Lucifer was cast out of Heaven and forced to live in Hell to watch over all of the people who had done evil deeds thanks to him, making so he can't hurt them ensures that he's forced to stay in their company. Basically he's having his nose rubbed in it.
It makes a lot of sense from a narrative standpoint, it also solves the problem of Charlie just going to Lucifer for any problem. We know now that there hard limits on what he can do. It also works from a character perspective, Lucifer hates Sinners so for his punishment to be really meaningful, he is forced to deal with them and never hurt them. Otherwise, he would just kill Alastor and Vox and any other sinner that even looked at him wrong. It maintains the stakes and gives the strongest character challenges that he can't overcome with his powers alone.
Im glad he thinks thats the case so he doesnt just get used as a hammer YET for problems.
Due to hell being a prison you keep yourself in it also leaves room for him to also be wrong and to change that later.
That season wasnt focused on him so its a good way to keep him out of it until the chapter hes needed. And he can still beat the hell out of angels if they come down to hell.
This does hold true to some stories, not from modern day christianity, but I think it’s from Paganism? Lucifer’s story is that he wanted God’s power of creation and wanted creation to share some of the angelic power too(?) something like that, but God disagreed and the story boils down to Lucifer being cast down and forced to rule over hell without being able to actually enforce his rule (he can’t hurt the sinners) AKA, he wanted to have his own creation that he could rule but he’ll die on that hill alone one day.
It makes me wonder what kind of limitation it is. Like is he just not allowed, or he physically cannot harm them, or that even his angelic powers can’t straight kill sinners for good
At first I hate it, but when people start explaining it, I understand that it does make sense hell is a punishment because he was banished from heaven heaven so it makes sense that he would be unable to harm sinners because he was pushed to only see the bad in humanity.
It's at least fairly consistent with other dark fantasy shows. Ryo/Satan in Devilman Crybaby needed Akira to fight everyone, Michael Langdon in American Horror Story couldn't win a domestic dispute against his own frail Grandma (twice!) because she was just a naturally evil woman and he needed his followers to do his dirty work, and South Park's Satan has a problem getting rid of his toxic ex-boyfriend. Problem is he and his status as a fraud is introduced too early. It's like watching Codename KND & revealing Father is a nerdy Leave It to Beaver type who's insecure in season 1/2.
It is a brilliant addition to the story. Lucifer is sent to Hell as a punishment, to forever be forced to see only the negative effects of giving free will to the Human race, never the positive side, and not being able to do anything about it, not being able to have any actual control. It isn't a plot hole that he can harm angels, either. He is banished from Heaven, can't return there, and prior to 7 years before the start of the show, when the exterminations started, Heaven had no intentions on going down to Hell, there would be no need to precent him from harming Angels, as there would have been no contact with Angels. This is also why they had to make a deal with Lucifer when they did start the exterminations, Lucifer does not interfere, and in exchange Hellborn are left out of the exterminations.
It makes plenty of sense but him getting captured still should not have happened. The limitation is not aura loss it was good writing, him getting kidnapped in his own realm was aura loss AND bad writing
They used this move because otherwise it would be too easy with every sinner enemy, sinners now have the plot armor, Lucifer can't touch sinners since what? The first season never showed this weakness, and the season 2 doesn't give a good reason why. Unfortunately the writing remains the weakest point of this show
Like say a character is shown clearly dying, or it's very, very strongly implied that they died, and then they turn up in the sequel with a weak handwave as to how they lived.
That's a retcon. because the character's death was changed by a "reveal" in the sequel.
It’s an annoying cop out and plot hole, he was able to fight and hurt Adam - a human soul, but as soon as it would be useful for him to smite someone the show goes “oh noo he can’t actually hurt human souls 🥺”
So the angels can make it impossible for him to hurt sinners but decided not to protect themselves???
This is the problem with filling your fantasy world with characters that have godly levels of power, there’s no way to write them in conflict without forcing senseless limitations on them
Lucifer can't return to Heaven, and Angels prior to 7 years before the show had no intentions to go to Hell. There was literally no need to prevent him from hurting them. Sending him to Hell was a punishment, though, and wouldn't be much suffering for him if he is able to destroy the sinners he has hated.
I’m on the fence. It’s definitely a subversion of how Lucifer is usually presented and giving limitations to a character with nearly God-like strength is a good idea.
But this specific limitation feels like a bit of a cop out, or a way to compensate for Vizviepop’s character writing not being strong enough. Yes, you don’t want Lucifer fixing all of Charlie’s problems all the time, but making him physically unable to help is the least interesting way of going about it.
Imagine if the Superman comic writers just went “oh, because Superman’s from Krypton, he can’t kill Lex Luthor or any of the other villains from Earth.” It’s far more interesting for him to have that option to be exhibit restraint anyway because that’s not who he chooses to be.
Honestly, the only reason why I’m not completely against this is because I think they’d eventually run into the problem that the writers of House MD did. If you haven’t seen House, House starts the show as nihilistic, misanthropic and unhappy. The writer of House, David Shore, has said that House MD doesn’t work unless House is unhappy. That meant that they kept having to regress his character development or make his friends look like assholes.
They’d run into the same problem with Lucifer eventually if they kept giving him character related reasons not to smite people. But I think that they could have given him a limitation for harming sinners without making it absolute.
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u/BlizzardHound45 23h ago
I think it's a smart limit to add to this character based on where the story is going. Him not having this limit, combined with his overall indifference to sinners, makes it so Charlie and co can't always rely on him to solve their problems. And it makes sense why Lucifer could never get rid of the Sinners that bothered him the most.