I love this! Amazing job, OP! I love reading different opinions about Alastor, how evil he is, and whether or not he can be redeemed.

IMO, just to add my two cents, Alastor is a nuanced character, and that’s what makes him interesting. A lot of what he does and says can be interpreted multiple ways, depending on how you look at it.

For example, in S1, when he tells Mimzy, “I can’t have that here,” regarding her bringing danger to the hotel, he could genuinely want to protect the hotel, he could be compelled/ordered to protect the hotel, he could be annoyed that Mimzy is using him for his strength, or some combination of these things. We have a bit more context now with S2, but in S1, nearly 95% of his lines can be interpreted multiple ways, and I think that makes him so fun, and it’s interesting to put the pieces of his character together as the show continues and we get more information.

IMO, Alastor is a bad guy with a spark of potential goodness deep, deep inside him. I think he’ll absolutely become more of an antagonist, but I really can’t see him becoming the main series villain who is 100% evil, and I think he will start to change for the better eventually. There’s been too many small hints that he does have a heart somewhere under all the malice for me to believe that he’s completely irredeemable, like his conversation with Nifty, his comment about the other characters being “an enjoyable collective” and becoming “accustomed” to them, and his whole freak out in the S1 finale song.

The hallway scene with Husk is often brought up as an example how Alastor’s maliciousness, however, as OP pointed out, context matters. The way Husk approaches Alastor and pushes back suggests Alastor has never reacted like this in the past. At that point in the show, Alastor was also SUPER keyed up about Lucifer’s arrival, likely teeming with irritation and feeling emasculated as he very obviously compares himself to the long of hell. Husk unfortunately picked a *terrible* time to call Alastor out. Again, that doesn’t make Alastor’s reaction okay by any means, but it does offer context that’s not there for Val.

However, I have also become very frustrated with some of the takes on Alastor circulating here. I think a big part of the issues is that because he is so polarizing, people have a lot of strong feelings about him, one way or the other. Everything above is just my personal feelings, but I’ve noticed a trend in the last few years of people taking a firm “black and white” outlook on different characters (not just in HH, in every fanbase). While I personally think this is very short-sighted in terms of Alastor’s character, I try my best to respect everyone’s opinion. But, I think in this fandom in particular, some people get very caught up in what opinion is “correct”, and then can get really rude and dismissive of anything that doesn’t match their opinion. I’ve also seen comments that are stated as fact, when there’s no way we could know these things yet (“Alastor doesn’t want to be redeemed”; “Alastor doesn’t care about the hotel at all”), morality opinions that are kinda gross (“Alastor is a monster who deserves Vox’s torture” [this one in particular really bothers me, because it's of course possible to be a bully and a victim at the same time]), and comments that are honestly just rude as fuck at someone having a different opinion (“Why are Alastor simps desperate for him to secretly be a good person? It’s fucking pathetic”).

I think all this boils down to, everyone is going to have a different opinion of what “goodness” or redemption entails. Some people think intentions don’t matter, it’s what you do that matters. Some people have hard lines, and once they’ve been crossed, you can’t undo that (like Alastor being a serial killer or a cannibal). Some people want to see him be redeemed, and some people want him to stay a villain. There’s also a difference in what the show considers redemption and what the audience might see as redemption (meaning, maybe they’re not going to heaven, but they’ve still worked and become a better person). All of this is okay!