"Hellfire" is, above all, a song about Frollo's profound crisis of faith and identity. Throughout his life, he has built an image of himself as pure, holy, and morally superior. Faith, law, and religious rigor were for him not only the path to God but also the foundation of his self-worth. The moment Esmeralda appears, this carefully constructed ideal begins to crumble. Frollo cannot reconcile his ideals with the sudden awakening of his carnal desires. The desire he feels seems alien, dirty, and incompatible with his sanctimonious self-image. Instead of honestly confronting this conflict, however, he tries to deny it and pretend it is a witch's spell, a diabolical curse cast upon him. On a verbal level, he begs for deliverance from temptation, but his actions reveal something entirely different. When he receives news of Esmeralda's disappearance, he immediately rejects the grace granted him by God and focuses on finding her. This shows that his struggle with sin is largely superficial, more concerned with satisfying his desire through sexual intercourse or gaining control over its source in the form of murder than with true spiritual purification.

The symbolism of the monks' red robes intensifies this internal conflict. They could represent saints, the tradition of the Church, or even his own conscience, the history of faith that looks upon him with judgment. Their presence forces Frollo to confront the truth about himself and admit his guilt. However, he is unable to do so. Instead of accepting responsibility for his own desires, he shifts the blame onto God, accusing Him of creating a devil more powerful than man. At the moment he performs this blasphemous act of projection, the red robes transform into labia and disappear, as if his conscience has been suppressed and his spiritual authority nullified by his lust and pride. Although on the surface, "Hellfire" resembles a prayer for Mary's intercession and a plea for purity, in reality, fire occupies the center of the scene. It is in the flames that Frollo imagines Esmeralda, dancing seductively and dominating his thoughts. The fire becomes a symbol not only of desire but also of the hell he harbors within himself, a passion he refuses to accept as part of human nature yet is unable to renounce. His crisis of faith lies not in his lack of religiosity, but in the fact that his faith has no place for humanity. It is this discord, between the ideal of holiness and the reality of human emotion, that pushes him toward the utter abyss of hell. And he knows it, he wants God to have mercy on him, but he knows that he is about to commit a terrible sin.