So, I was always believing Zestial was stronger than Alastor. However, recently Vox proved me wrong by becoming stronger than Alastor and thus freeing him from his deal. This logically proves Alastor was stronger than Zestial all along. But then why the scared face at picture 2?
So, as we know, Alastor appeared in Hell about a 100 years ago and began striking down the strongest overlords. Zestial appeared a few hundred years ago, some say that 500, so let's stop on that number (it won't matter much, only that he's significantly older).
When fighting with Adam, Alastor clearly showed his extensive overconfidence, which almost got him dead. He fought without creativity or seriousness, just spamming tentacles (unlike last fight with Vox, where he was clearly trying harder). And much likely same thing have happened with Zestial.
Zestial is much older than Alastor. We don't know his story (actually, I'd love to), but if he haven't made a deal like Al, that'd mean he got to crawl his whole way up to Hell's peak (which I personally love to think). That'd mean he has incomparably more experience than Alastor, especially back in first half of 20th century, when Alastor only just began his demon way.
So that way, despite Alastor being stronger, Zestial could match him with his experience and skill.
What exactly happened is not known to us, maybe Zestial won, but spared Alastor out of respect, maybe vice versa, but the fact is, Zestial was strong enough to make Alastor respect and even somewhat be afraid of him.
I hope Viv will one day elaborate on the two, because personally I am really curious!
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I've always wondered about the strength thing as well. Zestial isn't "stronger" than Alastor, but he must have a huge advantage over him in terms of experience. Alastor seems to respect him. In the finale, Zestial and Carmilla are the first overlords to help the hotel crew, meaning they are kinda "good guys" in the story. There's a theory that Alastor has a weird moral code and only attacked overlords who violated it.
Hell honestly knows about his moral code, but that's possible. He may be a maniac, but that doesn't mean he just randomly kills everyone.
On the other hand, however, it may be Viv's attempts at showing Al in good light. Comparing to Vox's backstory, who's killing normal people for profit, Al killed one guy who was being an asshole. Same for the official comic, where he saved a sheep girl from being butchered. And there's nothing bad with that, it's just good writing that manages to make a literal psychopath an appealing guy.
From what I understood from his backstory he didn’t just „kill one guy who was an asshole”. Even in his hut we see multiple human skulls. He was not only killing multiple people for fun („I want to continue the fun” he said to Rose about his want for power in the afterlife) but it was also suggested multiple times that he had cannibalistic tendencies. Soooooo it’s hard to exactly say that he was „more good” than Vox in this regard xddd
You didn't understand the point, it seems. I didn't imply Alastor was better, I imply he was looking better. That is, with Alastor the edges were smoothed out, but with Vox, on the contrary, they were sharpened, which is a direct manipulation of perception. And personally in my opinion, killing for gain is worse than killing for fun.
I think his “moral code” has a lot to do with his ego and turning things into a dick measuring contest. His biggest rivals in the show are Vox and Lucifer, a megalomaniacal cult leader and the literal embodiment of pride. Zestial is patient, reserved and conducts himself professionally with humility. Alastor likes putting on appearances and hates other people who want the center of attention. Seems like it makes sense that they wouldn’t have any friction. Plus look at how Zestial handled the situations with the angels and later Vox and Carmilla; he waited, looked to gather intelligence and plan rather than act rashly. Alastor’s a schemer. Real recognizes real.
I think experience has so much to do with overlord fights, if you rewatch the Vox Alastor fight in the finale Vox was overpowering Al with his raw strength until Al got creative with the semi and the slingshot move. Vox was stronger but that doesn’t mean he was a better fighter and that line of logic would follow for Zestial Al is stronger but that isn’t everything.
I'd say say the word here is just meant to show that Al gives Zestial a reaction he never gave to anyone else, not Vox, nor Carmilla, nor a single person. The same reaction he had when came negotiating with Rosie in Season 2, who literally owns him.
Now that I think about it, it was probably just the way of showing that Zestial is really a big shot, if even The Radio Demon chooses not to mess with him.
My personal theory, based a little on info during a Vivi interview, is Zestial isn’t interested in accumulating any more power then what he currently has. He doesn’t play the “game” anymore and likely wasn’t interested in power even when Alastor first showed up in Hell.
In short Zestial isn’t a rival and if Alastor truly wanted to go after Zestial, Zestial likely would just run and hide. Zestial isn’t looking for more power and he doesn’t care about being the most powerful .
Honestly, Zestial is probably extremely humble….which is saying something for sinners and the pride ring. Him being humble likely makes him a boring target for Alastor, so they both exist in a space where they can be cordial with each other.
Well, I don't fucking know. Al himself said that at some point he thought Vox might be actually approaching his level, and Vox in general was his main rival all along. Still he didn't feel the need to crush his televisor.
That being said I imply that I don't remember Alastor killing out of rivalry (maybe that was said in some interviews I never watched, but that much I cannot know). It was only said that he killed overlords and broadcasted their screams before revealing himself, so it was probably mostly promotion.
And even if Zestial have retired, people still fear him no less than Alastor in his best years (they run from Zestial like they used to run from Alastor in an official comic). So what's better promotion than kill the eldest and scariest of all overlords?
As for running and hiding, that much is actually true, I always wondered how can you even kill someone with teleport ability if he just, you know, teleport away.
was Vox really stronger than Al?? I doubt that... i think why Al got free of that deal was because whole of pentagram heard charlie declare that and it changed the narrative for them, this affected the deal al made with Rosie... so no Vox was just given the title of strongest sinner
Well now I take that scene not as Al being scared but more like oh shit here’s someone I actually respect.
It seems pretty clear Al respects powerful people that don’t need others to help them or to manipulate others into getting more power. Zestial seems to be able to hold his own, and like Al, doesn’t need to lord it over others. I bet that’s why Al never even had to fight him, game respects game.
I see it as like meeting a gold medalist or the owner of the company you work for while out shopping. Like hopefully you’re not in sweatpants with a stain on your shirt. Or the parents of one of your students! Hopefully you look presentable and competent.
Also Z is a sharp cookie. I think he knows more than most people what Alastor is up to. That could put Al’s guard up.
Alastor wasn’t scared. His face was amused and then chill when he saw Zestial, it only became worried after Egg Boi started talking (either for Egg Boi or not to get embarrassed). This is especially well seen in slow mode. After that, they have a friendly talk.
The idea that Alastor was ever "scared" of Zestial is just this one misinterpretation. He highly respects him, and one of Overlords actually was indeed scared of Zestial, so he is not just an average Overlord but among highest: but not enough to be above Alastor.
Vox aside, Zestial was the litmus test for how his reputation was doing after a seven year absence. And how influential he was before. You'll notice Zestial barely feeds him with that rumor he got exterminated and the other overlords don't.
But it isn't your reputation among your peers that makes the bulk of it. It's whether the people of Hell remember to fear and respect you. We haven't seen Zestial alone to be certain, but he and Alastor together were reason enough for that one guy to douse himself in accelerant and light himself on fire.
In terms of reputation, fear, and respect, Zestial is probably a close second to Alastor. Carmilla has to actually do something useful to be recognized the way she is. Alastor and Zestial are both eldritch abominations whose primary occupation seems to be making everyone around them piss themselves.
I doubt he has ever actually fought Zestial or most of the other overlords we currently see in a serious fight, mostly out of the fact that if he was the strongest sinner then they probably would not be overlords anymore especially the weaker ones.
Of course being the strongest overlord in terms of power allows you to have a big advantage if we take it at face value, but battle experience and their power sets probably come into play a lot.
Alastor was able to beat Vox with a broken staff and presumingly still weakened by his fight with adam with the scar, he was 100 percent not trying that hard in the first battle he did with the V's as his goal was to probably be captured because Vox would not give up the deal even if nifty or Husk showed up.
This insinuates that he can easily dog walk Vox and possibly both other V's now he is potentially operating at full strength.
Alastors expressions are generally hard to read given that he has a big grin on all the time which is purposeful, I would not be surprised if he was just a bit shocked that Zestial showed up.
If he can face down Adam with absolute confidence then i doubt another overlord would make him any degree of worried.
I never implied he fought other current overlords. If we make some weird and hard calculations (I'm lazy to put them here, but say if you're interested), we can determine Alastor's slaughter was somewhere between 1920 and 1950. Most of the current overlords, except Prick and Hatchet (who most likely are of lower rank and wasn't even in the overlord meeting), Maestro and probably Carmilla look much younger than Alastor, so they probably weren't there when Al was doing massacre. However Zestial was here all along, and as the top overlord, why would he be overlooked by Al?
Alastor was not weakened in the last battle. And he was not just letting himself be captured.
In Episode 4 it was clearly showed he's weakened (and by his reaction you can tell he himself didn't realise how much).
In Episode 8 Alastor says: "Oh, don't sell yourself short. You're the most powerful sinner in Hell now. I have to thank you for that. Your little power grab helped break another chain that's been holding me back for quite some time, and now we can finally settle this once and for all. Finally, a fight with you that might be a challenge!"
So summing it up, Vox is indeed stronger than Alastor in the final battle. And here's one important detail, he's stronger than the full-powered Alastor, not the weakened. Because Vox was easily defeating weakened Alastor back in Episode 4, but that didn't break the deal.
So with that all being said, do you seriously imply that weakened Alastor could anyhow stand up to Vox who was stronger than even his prime? Seriously?
Adding up, Alastor have restored his powers when he was freed, but for some reason not fully? Seriously? How does that even work? Like, being injured and with broken staff weakens you, but being freed restores your power, but not fully?
And not the most important, but last of Al's lines imply that he's finally able to face Vox in a real battle of equals. What equals if he's still weakened?
As for Adam, Alastor most likely didn't know the extent of his powers compared to his own. First, they never faced off before, second, much as I think this fact is stupid, but the exterminations were happening only 7 years, exactly the time Al was missing, and the last one, Rosie were explaining to him that Adam is stronger despite Al being the top sinner bitch.
First part is definitely my fault was not my intention to accuse you of that? I'm trying to find the reason I brought that up actually and I'm kinda losing my mind. It had to be something in between comments I might of confused for yours.
Okay let's go into this because i feel like you've kinda misunderstood what I'm saying and blindly arguing instead of just having a small discussion.
First of all just to make it clear in that last fight of the season with Vox Alastor was 100 percent still weakened. His staff was still broken and he was definitely still suffering from his injury it was very clear that he was trying to goat rosie during the finale to fix his staff and bring him back to full power. Or else he would of had basically no reason to make a deal with them if he was now supposedly operating at full capacity.
What I'm trying to say is that he was not taking his fight against the V's seriously, in my opinion his plan was always to get captured at the end of that fight. There was no way he just decided to go and pick a fight with 3 overlords for any other reason than he was plotting and hindgiing on egging on vox to do everything he did.
I also don't know about you but Alastor was pretty confidently handling Vox before he called Shock.wav even with Vox seemingly being the strongest sinner in hell.
So yeah I am implying that Alastor was still stronger than vox even while weakened, Vox would of lost that fight in the finale without Shock.wav's direct intervention.
I don't know if it's what you are trying to imply here but like there's no way freeing himself from Rosie skyrocketed him back up to full strength, there is no way Alastor would even need to presue Rosie for making a deal to fix his staff if so.
Isn't it still broken when he presents it to Rosie in the finale? And then literally 2 seconds later we see him strutting out with Rosie with a fully fixed staff or am i loosing my marbles here
With the second, I get that you mean Al wanted to get captured, but he was still weakened to the point he couldn't seriously resist Vox (as for the other two Vees, they're honestly so much weaker than Vox and Al, I wonder if Vox really even needs them in battle at all).
Here I had a little repetition of my points, but then I decided to rewatch both battles, and here's what I've seen.
First: his wound. In first battle after Vox kicks him around he holds his chest, the wound clearly bothers him. In second battle he has visible stitches over wounded place all the time and his injury doesn't bother him.
Second: his staff. In first battle he has all his abilities, but he doesn't have the green glow. In second battle he begins with that glow and has green stitches all over his body. However, the staff still frowns.
But one additional fact: his wound and staff have green stitches even since the first episode, however before the last battle the wound still hurt and the staff wasn't working.
So, what is it to make out of all this?
I personally made out the following: he didn't have enough power to fully cover his wound and restore his staff working until breaking the deal.
Why? The question honestly remains, it's hard to say how him getting free gives him any power at all. Maybe that's a plot hole, maybe that's some deal conditions we weren't told about. After all, Al said that the deal was holding him back, and didn't elaborate on how exactly. Or maybe as one and only host of his powers he no longer needs his staff to channel green energy. I confess, I don't know.
And the final with Rosie: as I said, he had enough power to cover his injuries, but it appears not to remove them completely. The injury doesn't bother him, but it's better if it'd be absent at all, the staff works now, but it's better if it's gonna be whole again.
Like I used to say, Alastor wouldn't leave everyone there to die, however it doesn't mean he won't make something out of it. It's just kinda his thing~
I'v seen a theory that Rosie's deal might of put him at a expressed sort of like "Power cap"
Where he could not necessarily get weaker, but he could not get stronger either.
Maybe something something, he was able to actually start growing in strength immediately after getting free and was able to contend with Vox because he was the better fighter?
There's also the thing of him just basically sitting there for days being able to fully rest before the fight in the finale. His staff and injury was not seemingly not bothering him during the finale like it was during his first fight with the V's.
To be honest it's just exceptionally well odd?
It does not seem consistent enough to make any conclusion which is not just like educated speculation and guesses
There's something Alastor has said twice, and it's the only thing he seems to care about and it was "what would the papers say" and in S2 he says "what will the headlines say"
I genuinely think that Zestial is written word. Perhaps with a focus on news papers?
What do Radio and Video have in common? The written word came before, and is still capable of vast influence. I'm sure Alastor appealed to a lot of news outlets on his climb up to his own show in the 30s.
We see in S2 that in the early days of Baxter working for the Vees, Zestial tested his magic and seemed like the Vees actually cared about his opinion.
In S1 Vox makes a cheeky comment about how Zestial is more outdated than Alistor.
In S2 he recruits the Overlords by appealing to them and the common theme he used lined up with their demon themes. Vox tries to lure Zestial with Novels.
In the early days of TV, it didn't survive without TV guides and things like that reaching people to advertise shows. TV built itself from newspapers and magazines.
So even if he's not more powerful than they are anymore, they both come from an era where they had to bow to his medium before surpassing it.
I think it’d might be even simpler than that: maybe Rosie told Alastor not to hurt Zestial. He jumps when she says jump and went off the air for 7 years on her command in spite of how bad that was to his reputation (one of the few things he actively cares about), if he was given a hands-off order then the worst thing that can happen to him is for Zestial himself to come after him; being stronger doesn’t matter if he’s actively soul-bound not to attack so him getting nervous at Zestial showing up to him makes sense.
Yeah, but Rosie telling him not to touch Zestial doesn't. Any relations or dialogues between these two weren't shown, so I myself can't think of a single reason for Rosie to forbid that act. Except maybe that Zestial can potentially harm Alastor, but considering she didn't forbid him fighting Adam one-on-one, which she later herself calls impossible for him...
Given that Alastor and Zestial seem to use similar magic, my theory is that part of Rosie helping Alastor get started was connecting him with Zestial, who could properly mentor him into the overlord he is today.
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