ABH made me realize this franchise is nihilistic snuff

I‘m sorry, but someone has to say it, and I‘m dead serious.

Not because it keeps constantly one-upping itself with escalating displays of mass slaughter, torture and general grimdark vibes.

But because all of it has no functioning philosophical themes or conflicts. This was different in HS1, where the debate around half-breeds and the basic angel-demon conflict worked pretty well, but as of ABH, it‘s come fully unhinged.

• the story touches on themes but these are never fully engaged with or go anywhere
• as of ABH, no one even tries to argue that humans are good or redeemable, or that solidarity and love can win.
• in fact, the backstory of Astrea and Malek implies the opposite and no one ever challenges this notion—and the story fails to leave any opening for the story to act as anything other than a refutation of basic humanity
• Audreys position is endemic to this as she, while being a good person, does not insert any kind of moral or philosophical principles into the story or the Agency, and the Astreans only really bond with her because she‘s a girl and also nice to them.
• the same but opposite problem exists for Malek: despite his connection with Audrey, her goodness never serves challenge his own philosophy of evil and he is never made to reflect his actions even a little bit. -hence the main character, despite her agency and potential is never really more than a damsel and a sort of human MacGuffin for the endtimes,
• one pf the only elements of the story that work on the philosophical level is the Felonia Romance, exactly because you can support her through her morally grey acruons and this leads Felonia to then apparently rebuild her values into doing good. This is actually great.
• the other solid aspect is MCs Father, whose zealotry led him to serve the beast, lead his flock to damnation, torture girls and traumatize Audrey. 10/10
• but everything else is a mess. It doesn’t help that important factions like the Order are never shown to have a philosophy or position in the metaphysical struggle.
• this is a story where nature trumps nurture, but at the same time humans are consistently bad which implies they can’t be fixed because you can’t create a world where they‘ll be good.
• in the face of a corrupted humanity, the existence of the also-corrupt angels presents an insoluble metaphysical problem, since no agent exists for restoring goodness in the cosmos—unless the demons could become the good guys, which there is some groundwork for, but I‘m pretty sure won’t happen. Leaving us with a deeply cynical and beyond-rescue reality. Fun.
• at this point none of the sides or factions in the story have any sort of clear philosophy or consistent set of ideas they represent.

And before everyone copes and insists that the story doesn’t need any of those things…yes it does. It really, really does.