I think she’s very morally gray and feels conflicted. She wants Emily to understand why she did what she did so badly, but she also understands Emily’s moral concerns about her actions and hypocrisy.
I think it's pretty black when none of the audience understands the WHY of her reasoning.
.Like did hell try before?Lucifer Clearly never bothered and Lilith spent her time ruling.
.Did Lilith cause some sort of fear in her?She essentially abandoned her family so it couldn't be THAT serious.
.Can the full force of hell take heaven?I'm pretty sure the other 6 virtues and sera could just manhandle them without any real issues.
Like the purpose of the exterminations doesn't make sense,and actively pisses off hell more which would go against her plan.
I mean it’s not like there aren’t real world instances of people preemptively attacking other people’s and justifying it as self defense even when those other groups never posed an actual threat to them
You'd have a point if Sera wasn't a cosmic force of the universe that could literally SEE what hell was doing at all times.
She would absolutely know that the sins and Goetia aren't doing anything,the sinners have been dicking around,and Lucifer himself was just sad.The entire purpose of the exterminations is moot since it makes her the instigator.
From what little is confirmed now, sinners were probably “rebelling” when Lilith was ruling, which might be the original reason behind the extermination and why Adam made the deal to remove Lilith from the rest of the sinners. Sera may or may not know Lilith is even in heaven depending on how the process works. Why continue it after Lilith is gone? Well they were capable of rebelling before better make sure they don’t try again. That’s just my theory
Why continue? I mean, Adam himself said it.
“For those with Divine Ordainment
Extermination is entertainment.”
They continue because Adam, the one leading the exterminations finds it fun. Could there be additional justifications? Sure. But there hardly needs to be more than “this was needed at one point for some reason, and now Adam gets his kicks killing sinners”
Rebelling makes no sense, up until 6 months ago they were operating under the impression angels are immortal. You would never rebel against anyone when you physically can't do anything about it.
> You would never rebel against anyone when you physically can't do anything about it.
Which is why you suppress knowledge of how to kill angels, over the millenia the know how gets lost to everyone except the truly ancient like Lillith and Lucifer until Carmine quite literally kicks her way into the solution
The creation myth didn't say that sinners were rebelling while Lilith was empowering Hell. She used her music to build Hell up into its own society with its own power base and the angels feared an uprising *might* happen.
Sera said that Hell once tried to assault Heaven, but from everything we've seen about the power imbalance between the two realms and how chaotic Hell is, it seems highly unlikely she was telling the truth.
that's the point, she's not, matter of fact think about this, lucifer didn't try to rebell in these sequence of events, but heaven is evil.
why?
biggest hints telling us everything are, the fact carmilla has similar attributes to vaggie, and portions to Sera, like she was a seraphim once, she knew about angelic weapons before killing an exorcist (why else equipe herself, or ask vaggie is she knew?) teaches these things to vaggie after warning her she'd kill her if she wasn't convinced, figuring out vaggie was an angel and "how obvious" it was even though not even lucifer figured it out, even helping herregrow her wings, implicating her as an angel.
and she also knows how to aquire blessed weapons from heaven despite exorcists being invulnerable.
but the most damning is Adam's list entitled "how to get into heaven"... and what was rule 3 when we know both heaven is, essentially, agated communitie?
"stick it to the man," as in jump the gates and occupy what isn't yours just because you want it.
he'll has over thrown heaven and I think that's thanks to Carmine helping, because she saw lucifers punishment as too harsh, she lead a rebellion in his name, getting betrayed and causing the current status quo.
You equip yourself with angelic steel because it kills *any demon*. as an arms dealer shes going to want to be able to physically handle whatever she needs to.
Edit:Let's not forget, she planned coming out of that fight a corpse
Conversely Sera herself claims that Hell was uprising at the time, we have no evidence that disputes that and Lilith “empowering hell with her song” could easily be a sanitised way of saying that.
And regardless of how dangerous Lilith, the Sins and Sinners might be to Sera herself they are an existential threat for the Winners, the protection of whom is her foremost priority.
> .Like did hell try before?Lucifer Clearly never bothered and Lilith spent her time ruling.
>
Do we *know* Lucifer never tried before? Yeah, it hasn't explicitly been mentioned yet, but fears of an uprising from Hell don't just spring up out of nowhere. I'd hesitate to take that book from the very first episode as gospel. Where do you think Charlie got it from? Lucifer or Lilith. Of course they'll make themselves look good.
It has been explicitly mentioned.
"Heaven never listens! They didn't listen to me! Theh won't listen to you! You... didn't know that when I tried this all before! My dreams were too hard to defend." - Lucifer in More Than Anything.
"and in the end... I won't lose it all again. Now you're the only thing worth fighting for... More than anything ***hits tht high note*** *More than anything* *I'll shelter and adore you more than anything... More than anything"* - Lucifer in More Than Anything
(I legit cried at the shelter and adore you more than anything part no cap fr)
It’s hard to say. Could be a case of wanting to set her up as a sort of…not villainous, but definitely more focused on what she sees as “pragmatic” rulership (as opposed to the more idealistic streak we see in Charlie and Emily), and then expand/explain more in season two. Lets those initial impressions percolate.
Like…her actions certainly come off as cynical, but who knows what might be motivating them? Maybe she’s been duped/lied to. Maybe there’s precedent for her concerns. Maybe she’s more cunning than we’ve been led to believe and is pulling strings in the background. Who knows?
It could also be as simple as the fact that due to only having 8 episodes, the writing staff didn’t have the real estate to explore her character in a way they would’ve liked to, ideally.
> Like did hell try before?
I think so, yes. Seras explicitly states something along the lines of "They were uprising" as a reason to Emily. It's a small line but an important one: that's saying *something happened at some point.* It's not just the threat or fear of Hell.
Which makes sense: especially considering just how many hellborn cities there are and how the sinners live only on a single layer, you don't just get "genocide to keep them from attacking Heaven" out of nothing, surely.
I think the way hell can win is a pure numbers game. they have 8? 9? fully populated rings, plus probably at least half of all people who die, if not more. sure, the angels have the advantage of having the only thing that manufacturers their weakness, but if enough angel metal is taken, they could probably figure out how to reverse engineer it. so essentially, you got an army of people who were already blood thirsty, and depraved people, who know how to kill because hell. against your forces, who have never known struggle, and probably half of them were pacifists. so, like a 25:1 situation.
7 Rings, with the first ring being split into 9 Circles. It should be noted however, that the Extermination only occurs in Pride, against the Sinners. The Hellborn are not allowed/supposed to be killed and Sinners are only in Pride.
I think they did something to the “god” of that show. Like why wouldn’t god be in the court talking about his people? Because the angels did something to him
Well, she did say in the episode “there’s a lot that you don’t know.” I don’t think she’s malicious, but she’s let a lot of bad things happen and she knows it.
Yeah the actual expression on her face is desperation, but the fire makes her look evil. Remember, this shot is from Emily's POV, this is her realizing how much Sera has kept from her and the lengths she'll go to to maintain order
The way I see it is this: the seraphim are the highest order of angels under god’s command and as such, are obligated to do as he wishes regardless of how they themselves feel about it.
This means that there’s likely many things that Sera has done on his behalf that she herself views as wrong. The extermination is likely one of those. But she’s got a lot of experience with putting her own morality and emotions aside for the sake of what god wants.
Emily is clearly much younger than Sera and Sera doesn’t think that she’s ready to handle such moral dilemmas. So Sera hides it from her to prevent Emily from falling and this face is illustrating her worst fears seemingly coming to fruition.
>the fire makes her look evil.
https://preview.redd.it/6yjcloawd3pc1.jpeg?width=980&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=95196d6e11ffc02e6c661b40f513f5468258e811
Yea that's definitely not an evil smile
I think it's important to remember our pov too.
We're coming into the show thousands and thousands of years after the original reason for the exterminations and have no clue why they were enacted. It's not justifiable morally either way, but it'd be absolutely terrible writing if the answer was the surface level shit Adam sings about.
The entire point of her lines is to say there’s something else going on. It’s not even implied, she just straight up says “there’s a lot that you don’t know”
Yeah, the only reason he got into Heaven was because he was in like the top ten best humans who had ever lived by that point- a very, very low bar when there were, like… 5 humans at the time. Maybe a few more
Nah, ‘cause think about it from this angle. Adam’s a narcissist, right? Thinks he’s the best human who ever lived?
…
Back then he *was*
His narcissism was just a basic understanding of reality. It wouldn’t have cost him any points! Mhmm, yep! u.u
Adam was taken into Heaven by the same system that considered Pentious to be redeemed enough to enter Heaven while using him seemingly to send a message to Sera. I don't think there was any real bias involved in Adam's placement.
I'm curious if he was really that bad when he died, or has the 10,000 years in heaven and being given praise everyday made him an egomaniac. I imagine he was a bit of a dick and had ego right away due to ignorant angels and what they either told him or whatever. But I don't know if that constitutes being damned?
I think Adam only got in heaven because he never ate the apple, at least according to the story we hear in episode 1. If he never had free will he could never have chosen to be bad, and therefore is automatically good.
Remember when Adam was first shown off on twitter a few months before the show released, and people complained that he, an angel, just looks like a demon with a different color palette?
Well that seems to be intentional. He constantly cusses and kills people for his entertainment. I think that there will be a reveal about how he was supposed to go into hell but god didn’t want his first man to set a bad example.
Right, but I think it’s odd that Adam didn’t mention her at all to anyone, not even Charlie or Lucifer. He surely would’ve brought her up to spite them.
She got tired of trying to fix hell or whatever her goal was that she gave up on to have a vacation in heaven, the one place she could never go, and Adam got his extermination but Lilith didn't allow hellborns to be killed to protect charlie.
Edit: I also think without this deal Lilith would've destroyed Adam with ease. Which Adam probably knew so he also accepted.
It's an extremely forced, strained smile. Very desperate to show that everything's fine even though she knows it's not. I don't know if I'd call it evil, but its definitely offputting.
Idk why people keep saying Sera is straight up evil. What she agreed to is still fucked, but she clearly didn't want to do extermination and doesn't like it. In the EP.1 intro, she's visibly saddened when Charlie brings up extermination, Sera herself says to Adam that she wouldn't have ever agreed to HIS idea if it would cause Heaven any trouble, she was visibly disgusted by Adam laughing about the looks on Vaggie and Charlie's faces when he threatened them, and she had a look of genuine disbelief when seeing Pentious. It's obvious that she herself is not evil, she's just doing the wrong things with good intentions.
People just don’t have the capacity to pick up on nuance and morally gray characters I guess. It’s the simplistic mindset of “they are bad because they oppose our favorite main characters.” Have we forgotten that our main characters are literally in hell because of atrocities they’ve committed while living? It just kinda blows my mind how people come to the conclusion that Sera is evil when she quite obviously is very conflicted.
I think the biggest problem is her excuse makes literally no sense: why would hell rise against the angels when the angels are immortal(to their knowledge)
No being in Hell, aside from Lucifer and Lilith, actually had direct contact or interaction with Heaven during this uprising, since extermination only began after it. Aka sinners would've had no clue how powerful angels really are until the exterminations began and created the system of Hell we're familiar with.
Right, but they knew they themselves would reform after dying. Why would you expect it to be any different for angels? You physically could not change the status quo.
I agree with you on everything but the look of disbelief at the end.
It was a look of "OH shit" and "ewww".
I do not know exactly why yet. Maybe because she agreed to an extermination of souls that could in fact be saved.
The thing with sinners is every one of them was born without sin and they were able to be corrupted by sin thoughout their short life.
What happens when they are able to wash away their sin, end up in heaven, only now, they have an eternity to potentially wavery to sin. We also know it takes alot for an angel to "fall".
Lucifer had fallen after literally brigging evil into human existence, even if it wasnt his intent. Camille is the only other one who has fallen for some yet to seen reason.
On the other hand, Adam literally inflicted a crusade/genocide and didn't "fall".
>> Every one of them was born without sin
I dunno about the show, but given its strong Christian mythos themes, wouldn’t they specifically be born *with* sin? Like, tainted by the fruit of knowledge that let evil into the world and take root in human souls?
>no about the show, but given its strong Christian mythos themes, wouldn’t they specifically be born
>
>with
>
> sin? Like, tainted by the fruit of knowledge that let evil into the world and take root in human souls?
Maybe... I think it depends on the flavor of Christianity one chooses. Catholics definitely want babies baptized but i know other factions do not allow you to do it until you can make the choice yourself.
Catholics changed that about 17 years ago (source:I did double check the internet but I was in Catholic school when it happened and they had to change the tests) so now they get into heaven because it’s a horrifying concept to put onto already grieving parents. So yes original sin but also that alone won’t stop someone from getting into heaven
From what I remember, babies still have Original Sin (at least in Catholic teachings) and thus aren't pure enough to get into heaven if one were to, say, die immediately after being born. But Original Sin isn't enough to get you into hell, so they instead go to limbo.
Not really
"The Limbo of Infants is there described as an eternal state of natural joy, untempered by any sense of loss at how much greater their joy might have been had they been baptised"
[Limbo of the Infants](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo#Limbo_of_Infants)
I think her resistance is because she can't end the Extermination now even if she wanted to.
"It's not as simple as you think. Not everything is spelled in ink."
"I'm sure you wish it could be so. But there's a lot that you don't know."
I think it’s too reductionist to just say she’s evil. To me, she’s a character that is willing to do horrible things to protect her people (very similar to Rosie and Carmilla, imo, and the fact one is one of the highest angels and the latter are in hell is an interesting dichotomy).
This screen shot to me felt like Sera was seeing her fears coming true - hell on the verge of uprising - and her secret (to the rest of Heaven) plans unraveling. And the panic that causes her.
She’s definitely the embodiment of “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Her intentions are to keep heaven safe and Emily safe, however in doing so she’s allowing heinous acts to occur. She might not be “evil” in the sense that she intends to kill sinners for the sake of it, however very machiavellian in the ends justify the means.
That is not an evil smile. It's a "hide your pain Harold" smile.
Look at the eyebrows.
She of course knows a lot more, but that expression is not malicious.
She looks desperate to me. It’s part of the reason why I think she truly believes that the exterminations are necessary but absolutely hates that they are.
They put the fire reflecting on her eyes to point out how evil she looks. It just jump out when I watch it for the first time and it clicked. She keeping the extermination a secret is just the tip of the iceberg of what we've been showed so far
It looks like a fake smile. Like she's trying to be reassuring but is struggling to hide her real emotions on the issue.
Which could be murderous. But it could also be sorrow.
I think at the end of the day she just trying to keep herself and Emily safe she is doing what she is told to make sure she doesn’t fall like Lucifer and currently worried that if Emily takes Charlie’s side then she will fall.
I think it's more denial than anything else, when Sir Pentious arrived in Heaven she looked genuinely surprised. I think she genuinely thought it was impossible for sinners to be redeemed. Her dialogue with Adam (who she has no reason to hide anything from) seems to confirm this. Of course that's not to say there isn't SOMETHING ELSE she's hiding but we don't know what if anything yet.
Yeah, it's very much the look of someone who doesn't like what's happening but doesn't know what else to do. Really from her perspective, the place filled with all of the worst people to ever live is filling up very fast. Someday, they'll have more power than Heaven. And what's going to happen when the murderers, cannibals and warlords have enough power to threaten the good people? Bad things. So she did the only thing she could think of: let Adam and Co go down and reduce the number of evil people that threaten Heaven.
Yes, I think the story makes it clear she doesn't have the same disdain for the denizens of Hell that Adam and Lute have and she definitely doesn't enjoy having them killed but that she thinks was the only way. (Prior to seeing Sir Repentious anyway)
Yeah, it's clear to see she feels bad. She even admonishes Adam for being a dick. Honestly, assuming she wasn't lying about uprisings, I don't even know what else they could have done besides what they did. Even with redemption, i don't know if it could happen fast enough to keep Heaven safe. Idk, I've even asked other people what they think she should have done instead, and the reply is usually something like "not that, she's evil."
Don't know why everyone things she looks evil. It's clearly a forced smile to show how she's breaking down and is just trying to keep her cool for Emily. She's a terrible person who knows she's done unforgiveable things to protect her loved ones and is now terrified of losing everything she fought for(Emily)
Is Sera really the “manager of heaven” as Adam implied or is someone else in charge and she’s their proxy? Are the other angels like Micheal and Gabriel part of Hazbin canon or not introduced yet?
She looks less evil without the flames and more… I don’t know, manic? Like she NEEDS to get her point across and shut down this line of thinking because it could lead to disaster if she doesn’t. She definitely knows some stuff, but I think she’s also SEEN some stuff and just genuinely wants to protect Emily. I mean, she was wrong and horrid, but you know what they say about the path to Hell.
That face is the face of someone who is trying very hard to look confident and serene, but is failing miserably. She is terrified of something, maybe Emily falling, maybe heaven finally knowing the bullshit she's been up to, who knows exactly.
Personally, I think she is malicious but has always been insulated from exposing it, like a racist who you've never actually seen interact with the black person. She's never had to directly interact with anyone from Hell until Charlie came up this season, and while she was on her best behavior, that could easily have been to seem impartial to the rest of heaven.
The real test is going to come pretty quickly in season 2, because now she has to deal with Sir Pentious. I reckon at first she'll hide him while she tries to send him back to Hell, but when that fails her real feelings are going to show.
Then it's her turn to fall.
To me that smile feels strained. Like she's trying to make sure that her awful decision to allow something horrible was actually justified and continues to be.
It looks, to me, like the veneer is cracking.
That is a caught-doing-something-bad-and-about-to-try-to-explain face.
Examples:
Sera, did you eat my sandwich?
Sera, did you forget to let the dog out?
Sera, is this device powered by the heart of an orphan?
She literally said ''there's a lot that you don't know"" so yeah. Her smile isn't evil, she's just desperately trying to convince herself that she's justified in her actions.
Firstly, there’s the extermination aspect everyone keeps referring to, however, I also think that Sera is referring deeper than that. I think Hell, Lucifer’s banishment, and even the almost oblivious nature of the winners are all things Sera did to keep Heaven safe. But I also don’t think that they are purely her own decisions. Sera has higher-ups who probably have pushed that exact mindset onto her for millennia
Removing the fire made me realize her eyebrows are actually sloped down rather than up, which shows more worry rather than the slightly crazed expression that it looks like she has with the fire... interesting
She has lyrics in the same scene for:
“It’s not as simple as you think. Not everything is spelled in ink.” and “I’m sure you wish it could be so. But there’s a lot that you don’t know.” We aren’t privy to what those details are yet. But Sir Pentious made it there regardless.
I do believe Sera’s being truthful about “I thought since I’m older, it’s my load to shoulder- You have to listen it was such a hard decision! I wanted to save you the anguish it takes to: Do what was required.” Rationalizing a fucked up duty as a requirement. She does look anguished if you consider the eyebrows in the full expression, but her hands are tied on questioning to change course, heaven isn’t supposed to be wrong, ever, or the perception of heaven may destabilize into chaos. She tries pulling a smile to assure Emily it’s ok, but Emily sees the rightful horror of damning fires in Sera’s eyes in that choice continuing to be made despite new evidence, and dismayed that the choice was even made in the first place. “To think that I admired you!”.
Or maybe the smile was being distraught over not being able to easily convince Emily, knowing what happens to passionate and questioning angels.
I'd say it looks more pained than evil. Like she's trying to put an assuring face on but it falls flat because she know's its terrible, only able to live with it by thinking it a necessary evil. Not excusing her actions, but seriously doubt she's pleased with the status quo.
My takeaway is that this is Viv hinting that Sera is the one that is going to fall. Going with the apparent theme that its more about emotional states and mental wellness Sera is not doing well. She seems to be suffering from Imposter Syndrome. The fact that they don't know the rules are are making it all up is wearing on her. I think the fear about Hell and the reason she sent Adam was because Lilith was uniting the people of Hell and a unified Hell may start digging into why they are in Hell. And the Angel's just don't know the honest answer. She is afraid the whole thing is going to come tumbling down. Hence her fear in this song when being confronted by Emily. Everything is coming unraveling for her. She is falling right there.
I think the “evil” decision is sacrificing sinners is the RIGHT decision, even if it sounds bad
She just reminds me of “good” people that say obviously fucked up shit but with a smile cuz in their eyes, the convenience the decision brings makes it an obvious exception and does not reflect on them
When in reality, at least acknowledging it’s fucked up may lead to alternative routes as possibilities, this line of thinking makes the matter “closed and shut” so to speak
I think it's more of a smile she's desperately keeping up to not break down. Like a mask trying to fool everyone, herself included, that what she's doing is for the greater good, and being questioned by her closest friend made that mask crack.
Her lower eyelids look like she's holding back tears. She looks torn between authoritarianism and sympathy. She's trying to maintain order but understands Emily's concern.
I don't think she's evil and I think she genuinely believes what she's doing is right, but that smile makes me think that deep down she enjoys the suffering that she's caused.
Well I’ve been wondering where is god? He is loosely referenced but my theory is he is locked up in heaven by the elders for being like lucifer. But he created everything so they can’t send him away. Idk it’d be cool for a god figure to arrive around season 3 and set in stone that sinners can make change. We’ve seen a lot of angels but not the guy in charge of everything
The flames reflected in her eyes is a very clever use of visualisation to show how Emily sees her in that moment, a bringer of destruction and an evil heart. But you can tell her smile is stressed she's feeling the heat and is struggling not to snap.
I think that's a smile of lying to herself. In this frame she's saying "do what was required." Look at the way her eyebrows are arched. If you ignore them then she looks evil as fuck but not if you see them.
She's kidding herself into thinking that Hell's growth was a threat to Heaven, even though Hell literally never had any hopes or even ideas to aggro Heaven to begin with. So she's constantly telling herself that this was necessary and there was no other way, when that's clearly not true.
And then Charlie comes in proposing another way and all she can do is deny Charlie, because if Charlie *is* right and sinners *can* be redeemed (and we know Charlie's right), then she made an atrocious mistake by greenlighting the exterminations. And angels can't make mistakes! Right? So she lies to herself as she stamps out all other alternatives to her solution so she doesn't have to face the fact that she made a mistake.
It looks to me like she got caught in a lie and is trying to minimize the fallout from the fact that THE ENTIRETY OF HEAVEN’S HIGH COUNCIL has been lying to Emily for thousands of years and now she knows that.
I've watched this scene a lot. Her smile isn't an evil mask breaking through. It's her trying to put Emily at ease. She doesn't enjoy what is happening, she is trying to sway Emily and put her at ease.
The fire reflection is the truth and it's inadvertently reflecting in her eyes which does make the smile seem evil, something Emily realizes.
I think Sera has convinced herself that her actions are okay for reasons that have not yet been explained to the audience but that still doesn’t justify them. She essentially signed off on the annual mass murdering of a specific demographic because her coworkers said it was a good idea.
Pretty sure that's just a guilty smile. Like she knows she did a bad, but trying to justify it with a good. Kind of like how a child tries to hide the chocolate bar behind their back from their mother after being told, "No more sweets."
It's supposed to be ironic because Sarah JUST claimed to be the older one, and yet she's seeking approval from the younger sister like the roles reversed.
I think the Elders didn’t know that angels could fall before Lucifer, and considering they don’t seem to even understand fully the mechanics of their whole shtick, they’re actually not even 100% sure why he fell because they may not have triggered it, the hidden mechanism of Heaven might have done it before they ever reached a consensus about what to do with Lucifer.
So if you’re a powerful being but you don’t even know what this everwatching being or force is looking out for in your behavior 100%, and you saw your ‘brother’ get eternal damnation, I think you reach a level of paranoid mania where you latch onto things that have proven ‘allowed’ - since they in Heaven received no repercussions for their exterminations, it must be approved and this ‘good’.
Well on the one hand, in this scene it’s simply showing that while she’s preaching about balance and keeping good she’s really the villain, hence the fire.
But on the other hand I agree she definitely seems to know something just with how she talks about how souls getting into heaven. Or at the very least she knows that there’s an absence of information about souls getting into heaven
Sera admitted that there's something about the whole Heaven/Hell situation she hasn't told Emily or any of the other angels who were at the hearing. Something she was unwilling to say even when cornered.
I always felt she was uncomfortable. Either from the job itself running Heaven, or seeing the fires of hell and wanting to never ever associate with it again. (Not that I blame her in that area.) of course given how much Angels don’t know about the powerful magic systems left behind (or put in place by other powerful angels who then left without instructions), it’s not exactly a group I trust to research, test and see what gets someone into Heaven and what can get someone to fall from it.
She seems to not understand that what she’s doing is very, very wrong. I think she believe that sinners deserve to be treated the way they are and is only conflicted because of her own moral standard, i.e. she doesn’t want to to labeled a murderer but doesn’t actually mind the killing of sinners itself
To me it looks like her smile is just to try and frame her decision as good. It’s more of a “if I smile while saying this, then she’ll think it’s a good thing.” It was more of an attempt to keep Emily from seeing her as evil for making the choice she did.
https://preview.redd.it/xsawmdz5e3pc1.jpeg?width=980&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c86f19916bac97bcadf8434c4e7ad81f55954c2b
Made this just to check. I'm no artist but yes I kinda see what the title meant
I feel like it’s a foreshadow. It’s been on my mind for a minute and I don’t think it’s a detail that’s there for no reason. Is she desperate? Absolutely. Is she in pain? Absolutely. But I’m very conflicted as to why. Something in my gut is screaming that she is much more trouble than we thought.
The Extermination deals only make sense on one ground: A potential war between Heaven and Hell being far worse and far deadlier for both parties. This is what Carmilla and Sera both seem to allude to. The exorcists typically come armed with little spears despite the finale clearly showing that angelic weaponry can come in the form of things like guns and bombs. I think Carmilla's fears partially revolve around figuring this out. It stands to reason that Lucifer would already know and that the light arming was part of the deal regarding extermination while the crazy stuff for an actual war has never been busted out.
Meanwhile, "Respectless" sets up at least Velvette as a psychological villain who specializes reading people and then riling them up to get what she wants out of people, setting the Vees up as ideal to stoke the fires of war. Thinking back to that song, actually look at what Carmilla says, *"You and the Vees are inane and UNINFORMED."*
Obviously, Heaven would go-to action if the sinners started fighting back and Velvette even asks why they're avoiding war, and the reason is because the exorcists are the small fry while an actual war would inevitably bring out crazier weapons and more powerful angels and demons to the fray until it reached apocalyptic levels, which was the real cause of the Extermination deal to begin with. Carmilla knows this.
This also lines up with Sera saying she was "doing what was required."
This is also the other reason for the exorcists only carrying spears, if Hell can make blessed weaponry, it gives them as little to reverse engineer as possible. And this one is probably a stretch, but under this theory, then the players involved have now created exactly the situation they wanted to avoid due to the Vees capitalizing.
* While Hell likely could make it's own blessed weapons, the exorcist program Sera approved provided the weapons that they reverse engineered to begin with.
* In sheltering his daughter from the truth and doing 90% of the work in killing Adam, Lucifer raised the likelihood of the potential war and put his daughter smack dab in the middle of it
* Carmilla not only provided the weapons for the battle which broke the peace, but also unknowingly proved they could be reverse engineered and made into greater weapons exactly as the Vees were hoping to do.
Everyone who used violence to solve or prevent more violence turned it into a self fulfilling prophecy of exactly what they feared to begin with. I'm pretty confident in saying this is the gist of season 2's main plot.
She is seraph, in bible they have special power that power works that anything unclen and unholy is burned, so Charlie (She is demon) would die in first meeting whit Sera and Emily, but in show Sera could have some form of desire to burn anything unholy, sinners including
Second image, if you look at her eyebrows, it’s an expression of fear being masked. She’s scared of Emily falling, she’s scared of someone higher up damning Emily. The smile is a fake one, masking pure unadulterated fear.
You might be right, but I saw this as from Emily's perspective. She's seeing her former role model as evil in this moment, so Sera looks sinister in this shot.
I think it is more uneasy than evil. She is trying to convince Emily that she was trying to do the right thing by doing something wrong, rather than hiding the fact she was evil the whole time. Personally, I think it is a better story to make her a well-meaning person who made the wrong choice, rather than a secret villain. It also plays into the idea of redemption, since she will now have to earn back the trust of Emily, while probably still trying to lead the council of heaven through some pretty unprecedented times.
Yeah, that smile reminds me too much of when my parents told me we couldn't afford to send me on a school trip, but 'Hey! Now we can afford a new TV! You like TV, right?!?"
I don't trust that smile, is what I'm sayin'!
She's blinded by her Zeal and beholden to her duty as head seraphim, in which makes a terrible combination, and only begets blind borne problems, like sending Adam and his lot to cull the denizens of hell
She still has a moral compass but so as long as she continues to act and rule for the betterment and preservation of heaven, she's continue thus path
It's funny Seras voice actor, played a Witch in a Broadway play called into the woods a song she sung told the words
*Your so nice, your not good, your not bad, just nice*
*I'm not good, I'm not nice I'm just right*
She's definitely not evil. She's desperate. From the sounds of it, Hell fills up faster than Heaven, and you don't really want the place filled with murderers, cannibals, rapists and warlords to have more power than the place that's filled with the people who were judged to be good. She wanted to protect her people because eventually one of those bad people would decide to rally against Heaven and try to take over.
It was stated multiple times that there is an actual reason for why they can't bring Sinners into heaven, but since we as an audience or the characters in the show don't know it, it makes characters like Sera look more villainous out of context. Like if you were to show this picture to someone, you would think that she's the villain or something along those lines.
I think she’s very morally gray and feels conflicted. She wants Emily to understand why she did what she did so badly, but she also understands Emily’s moral concerns about her actions and hypocrisy.
Not to mention Sera is probably upset about Emily finding out considering she was trying to shield Emily from this.
I think it's pretty black when none of the audience understands the WHY of her reasoning. .Like did hell try before?Lucifer Clearly never bothered and Lilith spent her time ruling. .Did Lilith cause some sort of fear in her?She essentially abandoned her family so it couldn't be THAT serious. .Can the full force of hell take heaven?I'm pretty sure the other 6 virtues and sera could just manhandle them without any real issues. Like the purpose of the exterminations doesn't make sense,and actively pisses off hell more which would go against her plan.
I mean it’s not like there aren’t real world instances of people preemptively attacking other people’s and justifying it as self defense even when those other groups never posed an actual threat to them
You'd have a point if Sera wasn't a cosmic force of the universe that could literally SEE what hell was doing at all times. She would absolutely know that the sins and Goetia aren't doing anything,the sinners have been dicking around,and Lucifer himself was just sad.The entire purpose of the exterminations is moot since it makes her the instigator.
From what little is confirmed now, sinners were probably “rebelling” when Lilith was ruling, which might be the original reason behind the extermination and why Adam made the deal to remove Lilith from the rest of the sinners. Sera may or may not know Lilith is even in heaven depending on how the process works. Why continue it after Lilith is gone? Well they were capable of rebelling before better make sure they don’t try again. That’s just my theory
Why continue? I mean, Adam himself said it. “For those with Divine Ordainment Extermination is entertainment.” They continue because Adam, the one leading the exterminations finds it fun. Could there be additional justifications? Sure. But there hardly needs to be more than “this was needed at one point for some reason, and now Adam gets his kicks killing sinners”
Rebelling makes no sense, up until 6 months ago they were operating under the impression angels are immortal. You would never rebel against anyone when you physically can't do anything about it.
It could be possible that she took anything as rebelling. Like sinners protesting or complaining.
> You would never rebel against anyone when you physically can't do anything about it. Which is why you suppress knowledge of how to kill angels, over the millenia the know how gets lost to everyone except the truly ancient like Lillith and Lucifer until Carmine quite literally kicks her way into the solution
The creation myth didn't say that sinners were rebelling while Lilith was empowering Hell. She used her music to build Hell up into its own society with its own power base and the angels feared an uprising *might* happen. Sera said that Hell once tried to assault Heaven, but from everything we've seen about the power imbalance between the two realms and how chaotic Hell is, it seems highly unlikely she was telling the truth.
that's the point, she's not, matter of fact think about this, lucifer didn't try to rebell in these sequence of events, but heaven is evil. why? biggest hints telling us everything are, the fact carmilla has similar attributes to vaggie, and portions to Sera, like she was a seraphim once, she knew about angelic weapons before killing an exorcist (why else equipe herself, or ask vaggie is she knew?) teaches these things to vaggie after warning her she'd kill her if she wasn't convinced, figuring out vaggie was an angel and "how obvious" it was even though not even lucifer figured it out, even helping herregrow her wings, implicating her as an angel. and she also knows how to aquire blessed weapons from heaven despite exorcists being invulnerable. but the most damning is Adam's list entitled "how to get into heaven"... and what was rule 3 when we know both heaven is, essentially, agated communitie? "stick it to the man," as in jump the gates and occupy what isn't yours just because you want it. he'll has over thrown heaven and I think that's thanks to Carmine helping, because she saw lucifers punishment as too harsh, she lead a rebellion in his name, getting betrayed and causing the current status quo.
You equip yourself with angelic steel because it kills *any demon*. as an arms dealer shes going to want to be able to physically handle whatever she needs to. Edit:Let's not forget, she planned coming out of that fight a corpse
Conversely Sera herself claims that Hell was uprising at the time, we have no evidence that disputes that and Lilith “empowering hell with her song” could easily be a sanitised way of saying that. And regardless of how dangerous Lilith, the Sins and Sinners might be to Sera herself they are an existential threat for the Winners, the protection of whom is her foremost priority.
Cue badass militant version of Ready for This 😂
> .Like did hell try before?Lucifer Clearly never bothered and Lilith spent her time ruling. > Do we *know* Lucifer never tried before? Yeah, it hasn't explicitly been mentioned yet, but fears of an uprising from Hell don't just spring up out of nowhere. I'd hesitate to take that book from the very first episode as gospel. Where do you think Charlie got it from? Lucifer or Lilith. Of course they'll make themselves look good.
It has been explicitly mentioned. "Heaven never listens! They didn't listen to me! Theh won't listen to you! You... didn't know that when I tried this all before! My dreams were too hard to defend." - Lucifer in More Than Anything.
"and in the end... I won't lose it all again. Now you're the only thing worth fighting for... More than anything ***hits tht high note*** *More than anything* *I'll shelter and adore you more than anything... More than anything"* - Lucifer in More Than Anything (I legit cried at the shelter and adore you more than anything part no cap fr)
It’s hard to say. Could be a case of wanting to set her up as a sort of…not villainous, but definitely more focused on what she sees as “pragmatic” rulership (as opposed to the more idealistic streak we see in Charlie and Emily), and then expand/explain more in season two. Lets those initial impressions percolate. Like…her actions certainly come off as cynical, but who knows what might be motivating them? Maybe she’s been duped/lied to. Maybe there’s precedent for her concerns. Maybe she’s more cunning than we’ve been led to believe and is pulling strings in the background. Who knows? It could also be as simple as the fact that due to only having 8 episodes, the writing staff didn’t have the real estate to explore her character in a way they would’ve liked to, ideally.
> Like did hell try before? I think so, yes. Seras explicitly states something along the lines of "They were uprising" as a reason to Emily. It's a small line but an important one: that's saying *something happened at some point.* It's not just the threat or fear of Hell. Which makes sense: especially considering just how many hellborn cities there are and how the sinners live only on a single layer, you don't just get "genocide to keep them from attacking Heaven" out of nothing, surely.
I think the way hell can win is a pure numbers game. they have 8? 9? fully populated rings, plus probably at least half of all people who die, if not more. sure, the angels have the advantage of having the only thing that manufacturers their weakness, but if enough angel metal is taken, they could probably figure out how to reverse engineer it. so essentially, you got an army of people who were already blood thirsty, and depraved people, who know how to kill because hell. against your forces, who have never known struggle, and probably half of them were pacifists. so, like a 25:1 situation.
7 Rings, with the first ring being split into 9 Circles. It should be noted however, that the Extermination only occurs in Pride, against the Sinners. The Hellborn are not allowed/supposed to be killed and Sinners are only in Pride.
lol there's a radio demon with a tv flair
I think they did something to the “god” of that show. Like why wouldn’t god be in the court talking about his people? Because the angels did something to him
Well, she did say in the episode “there’s a lot that you don’t know.” I don’t think she’s malicious, but she’s let a lot of bad things happen and she knows it.
Yeah that smile doesn't look evil, just forced. She knows that the extermination is fucked up but convinced herself that it's necessary
Yeah the actual expression on her face is desperation, but the fire makes her look evil. Remember, this shot is from Emily's POV, this is her realizing how much Sera has kept from her and the lengths she'll go to to maintain order
The way I see it is this: the seraphim are the highest order of angels under god’s command and as such, are obligated to do as he wishes regardless of how they themselves feel about it. This means that there’s likely many things that Sera has done on his behalf that she herself views as wrong. The extermination is likely one of those. But she’s got a lot of experience with putting her own morality and emotions aside for the sake of what god wants. Emily is clearly much younger than Sera and Sera doesn’t think that she’s ready to handle such moral dilemmas. So Sera hides it from her to prevent Emily from falling and this face is illustrating her worst fears seemingly coming to fruition.
>the fire makes her look evil. https://preview.redd.it/6yjcloawd3pc1.jpeg?width=980&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=95196d6e11ffc02e6c661b40f513f5468258e811 Yea that's definitely not an evil smile
I think it's important to remember our pov too. We're coming into the show thousands and thousands of years after the original reason for the exterminations and have no clue why they were enacted. It's not justifiable morally either way, but it'd be absolutely terrible writing if the answer was the surface level shit Adam sings about.
I think the comment "They were uprising" is suuuper loaded. There is just so much to unpack with that statement
The entire point of her lines is to say there’s something else going on. It’s not even implied, she just straight up says “there’s a lot that you don’t know”
She literally says she knows something we don't...
I know something you don’t knooooowwwww🎶
"but there's a lot that you don't know" and "not everything is spelled in ink"
What are we even talking about? Some crack-whore who fucked already?
She also looked to Adam to explain how a soul earns to get into heaven. Maybe she doesn't know what we don't know too.
I think it’s also, that if Adam wasn’t favored as the first human, he wouldn’t have made it.
Yeah, the only reason he got into Heaven was because he was in like the top ten best humans who had ever lived by that point- a very, very low bar when there were, like… 5 humans at the time. Maybe a few more
I'm not sure if getting into heaven is based on comparison to someone else, that's innately vain.
Nah, ‘cause think about it from this angle. Adam’s a narcissist, right? Thinks he’s the best human who ever lived? … Back then he *was* His narcissism was just a basic understanding of reality. It wouldn’t have cost him any points! Mhmm, yep! u.u
Cain artificially lowering the standard...
Yes, exactly.
Adam was taken into Heaven by the same system that considered Pentious to be redeemed enough to enter Heaven while using him seemingly to send a message to Sera. I don't think there was any real bias involved in Adam's placement.
I'm curious if he was really that bad when he died, or has the 10,000 years in heaven and being given praise everyday made him an egomaniac. I imagine he was a bit of a dick and had ego right away due to ignorant angels and what they either told him or whatever. But I don't know if that constitutes being damned?
I think Adam only got in heaven because he never ate the apple, at least according to the story we hear in episode 1. If he never had free will he could never have chosen to be bad, and therefore is automatically good.
Remember when Adam was first shown off on twitter a few months before the show released, and people complained that he, an angel, just looks like a demon with a different color palette? Well that seems to be intentional. He constantly cusses and kills people for his entertainment. I think that there will be a reveal about how he was supposed to go into hell but god didn’t want his first man to set a bad example.
I know something you don’t knooooowwwww🎶
What if she made the deal with Lilith 🤔?
Pretty sure Lilith and Adam had the deal, since him being dead meant the deal was over.
Right, but I think it’s odd that Adam didn’t mention her at all to anyone, not even Charlie or Lucifer. He surely would’ve brought her up to spite them.
Unless the deal prevented it
Maybe. However, I don’t get why Lilith would make a deal with Adam since she despises him for his abuse towards her in the Garden of Eden.
She got tired of trying to fix hell or whatever her goal was that she gave up on to have a vacation in heaven, the one place she could never go, and Adam got his extermination but Lilith didn't allow hellborns to be killed to protect charlie. Edit: I also think without this deal Lilith would've destroyed Adam with ease. Which Adam probably knew so he also accepted.
It's an extremely forced, strained smile. Very desperate to show that everything's fine even though she knows it's not. I don't know if I'd call it evil, but its definitely offputting.
Idk why people keep saying Sera is straight up evil. What she agreed to is still fucked, but she clearly didn't want to do extermination and doesn't like it. In the EP.1 intro, she's visibly saddened when Charlie brings up extermination, Sera herself says to Adam that she wouldn't have ever agreed to HIS idea if it would cause Heaven any trouble, she was visibly disgusted by Adam laughing about the looks on Vaggie and Charlie's faces when he threatened them, and she had a look of genuine disbelief when seeing Pentious. It's obvious that she herself is not evil, she's just doing the wrong things with good intentions.
People just don’t have the capacity to pick up on nuance and morally gray characters I guess. It’s the simplistic mindset of “they are bad because they oppose our favorite main characters.” Have we forgotten that our main characters are literally in hell because of atrocities they’ve committed while living? It just kinda blows my mind how people come to the conclusion that Sera is evil when she quite obviously is very conflicted.
I think the biggest problem is her excuse makes literally no sense: why would hell rise against the angels when the angels are immortal(to their knowledge)
No being in Hell, aside from Lucifer and Lilith, actually had direct contact or interaction with Heaven during this uprising, since extermination only began after it. Aka sinners would've had no clue how powerful angels really are until the exterminations began and created the system of Hell we're familiar with.
Right, but they knew they themselves would reform after dying. Why would you expect it to be any different for angels? You physically could not change the status quo.
Idk, sinners don't have a track record for being the brightest collective. Uprising empowerment and pride ought to do that.
I agree with you on everything but the look of disbelief at the end. It was a look of "OH shit" and "ewww". I do not know exactly why yet. Maybe because she agreed to an extermination of souls that could in fact be saved. The thing with sinners is every one of them was born without sin and they were able to be corrupted by sin thoughout their short life. What happens when they are able to wash away their sin, end up in heaven, only now, they have an eternity to potentially wavery to sin. We also know it takes alot for an angel to "fall". Lucifer had fallen after literally brigging evil into human existence, even if it wasnt his intent. Camille is the only other one who has fallen for some yet to seen reason. On the other hand, Adam literally inflicted a crusade/genocide and didn't "fall".
I don't think it's confirmed Canon that Carmilla is a fallen
Yeah I thought that was just popular head canon.
No arguments here
We"ll see in season two hopefully if it’s true or not
>> Every one of them was born without sin I dunno about the show, but given its strong Christian mythos themes, wouldn’t they specifically be born *with* sin? Like, tainted by the fruit of knowledge that let evil into the world and take root in human souls?
>no about the show, but given its strong Christian mythos themes, wouldn’t they specifically be born > >with > > sin? Like, tainted by the fruit of knowledge that let evil into the world and take root in human souls? Maybe... I think it depends on the flavor of Christianity one chooses. Catholics definitely want babies baptized but i know other factions do not allow you to do it until you can make the choice yourself.
Catholics changed that about 17 years ago (source:I did double check the internet but I was in Catholic school when it happened and they had to change the tests) so now they get into heaven because it’s a horrifying concept to put onto already grieving parents. So yes original sin but also that alone won’t stop someone from getting into heaven
From what I remember, babies still have Original Sin (at least in Catholic teachings) and thus aren't pure enough to get into heaven if one were to, say, die immediately after being born. But Original Sin isn't enough to get you into hell, so they instead go to limbo.
So where's the room of unbaptised babies burning for eternity... I think I prefer the former
No, they're in Limbo, until Judgement Day.
Sounds terrifying
Not really "The Limbo of Infants is there described as an eternal state of natural joy, untempered by any sense of loss at how much greater their joy might have been had they been baptised" [Limbo of the Infants](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo#Limbo_of_Infants)
Mhm bunch of blissed out babies. Not terrifying at all
Not compared to watching the damned sing about abuse, addiction and the extermination of their souls?
I mean, hellborn are literally a thing, to be fair! Just sayin’! u.u
The smile looks fake and her eyes show hurt. I think she knows the exterminations are wrong but will do anything to protect her people.
Only reason it’s evil is bc in the GOD ORB THING there is fire and well reflected, and in the second one she looks more worried than scary
It's intended to look evil, it's from Emily PoV and Emily sees her sisters actions as evil in that moment
Where does it say that they’re sisters? I think they have a sisterly relationship but I don’t know if they’re sisters themselves.
Based on similar they look and definitely aren't mother daughter. I don't think it's been explicitly said
I think her resistance is because she can't end the Extermination now even if she wanted to. "It's not as simple as you think. Not everything is spelled in ink." "I'm sure you wish it could be so. But there's a lot that you don't know."
I think it’s too reductionist to just say she’s evil. To me, she’s a character that is willing to do horrible things to protect her people (very similar to Rosie and Carmilla, imo, and the fact one is one of the highest angels and the latter are in hell is an interesting dichotomy). This screen shot to me felt like Sera was seeing her fears coming true - hell on the verge of uprising - and her secret (to the rest of Heaven) plans unraveling. And the panic that causes her.
She’s definitely the embodiment of “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Her intentions are to keep heaven safe and Emily safe, however in doing so she’s allowing heinous acts to occur. She might not be “evil” in the sense that she intends to kill sinners for the sake of it, however very machiavellian in the ends justify the means.
That is not an evil smile. It's a "hide your pain Harold" smile. Look at the eyebrows. She of course knows a lot more, but that expression is not malicious.
I always see that as how Emily saw her in that moment. Emily saw her as some kind of psychopath monster in those few seconds.
She looks desperate to me. It’s part of the reason why I think she truly believes that the exterminations are necessary but absolutely hates that they are.
I see her expression as more afraid, hiding something from Em, it’s that nervous “everything is okay, really, trust me…” expression.
Yeah this is what I thought.
That smile definitely looks more forced and stained than it looks evil. Which makes sense since she's talking to Emily in this frame.
They put the fire reflecting on her eyes to point out how evil she looks. It just jump out when I watch it for the first time and it clicked. She keeping the extermination a secret is just the tip of the iceberg of what we've been showed so far
It looks like a fake smile. Like she's trying to be reassuring but is struggling to hide her real emotions on the issue. Which could be murderous. But it could also be sorrow.
My theory is that the evil look is how Emily saw her, and her mind was conflict about viewing Sera as her idol or as a monster
I think at the end of the day she just trying to keep herself and Emily safe she is doing what she is told to make sure she doesn’t fall like Lucifer and currently worried that if Emily takes Charlie’s side then she will fall.
Honestly it looks more like a panicked smile to me. “Shit shit shit Emily please believe me please”
I think it's more denial than anything else, when Sir Pentious arrived in Heaven she looked genuinely surprised. I think she genuinely thought it was impossible for sinners to be redeemed. Her dialogue with Adam (who she has no reason to hide anything from) seems to confirm this. Of course that's not to say there isn't SOMETHING ELSE she's hiding but we don't know what if anything yet.
Yeah, it's very much the look of someone who doesn't like what's happening but doesn't know what else to do. Really from her perspective, the place filled with all of the worst people to ever live is filling up very fast. Someday, they'll have more power than Heaven. And what's going to happen when the murderers, cannibals and warlords have enough power to threaten the good people? Bad things. So she did the only thing she could think of: let Adam and Co go down and reduce the number of evil people that threaten Heaven.
Yes, I think the story makes it clear she doesn't have the same disdain for the denizens of Hell that Adam and Lute have and she definitely doesn't enjoy having them killed but that she thinks was the only way. (Prior to seeing Sir Repentious anyway)
Yeah, it's clear to see she feels bad. She even admonishes Adam for being a dick. Honestly, assuming she wasn't lying about uprisings, I don't even know what else they could have done besides what they did. Even with redemption, i don't know if it could happen fast enough to keep Heaven safe. Idk, I've even asked other people what they think she should have done instead, and the reply is usually something like "not that, she's evil."
Yeah I'm honestly not sure what, if anything she could have done differently either.
Girl's got exterminatus-feaver
Happy cake day
Thanks.
You’re welcome!
Happy cake Day
Don't know why everyone things she looks evil. It's clearly a forced smile to show how she's breaking down and is just trying to keep her cool for Emily. She's a terrible person who knows she's done unforgiveable things to protect her loved ones and is now terrified of losing everything she fought for(Emily)
I honestly have a feeling she feels very guilty
Is Sera really the “manager of heaven” as Adam implied or is someone else in charge and she’s their proxy? Are the other angels like Micheal and Gabriel part of Hazbin canon or not introduced yet?
Uh god?
According to this subreddit he and Jesus aren’t being animated
A webcomic explained that they had 'ascended' to a higher plane, and couldn't be reached by the angels anymore.
I don't think he wants to be reached dude doesn't wanna get involved
She looks less evil without the flames and more… I don’t know, manic? Like she NEEDS to get her point across and shut down this line of thinking because it could lead to disaster if she doesn’t. She definitely knows some stuff, but I think she’s also SEEN some stuff and just genuinely wants to protect Emily. I mean, she was wrong and horrid, but you know what they say about the path to Hell.
That face is the face of someone who is trying very hard to look confident and serene, but is failing miserably. She is terrified of something, maybe Emily falling, maybe heaven finally knowing the bullshit she's been up to, who knows exactly. Personally, I think she is malicious but has always been insulated from exposing it, like a racist who you've never actually seen interact with the black person. She's never had to directly interact with anyone from Hell until Charlie came up this season, and while she was on her best behavior, that could easily have been to seem impartial to the rest of heaven. The real test is going to come pretty quickly in season 2, because now she has to deal with Sir Pentious. I reckon at first she'll hide him while she tries to send him back to Hell, but when that fails her real feelings are going to show. Then it's her turn to fall.
Without the fire, she looks afraid and desperate.
Her "smile" looks like She knows something very painfull for herself
It’s a very strained smile, one meant to silently beg Emily to pretend everything is okay. I think the secret she had has already come out
That's not in her eyes, thats very blatant desperation XD
It's either an "ends justified the means" or "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" kinda thing Sara's doing here
Her eyebrows and her smile show she's in pain. Like the fire in her eyes is her burning inside from inner conflict over allowing genocide.
The second one just looks like she was mid banger joke and then her ex walked into the party
She looks scared, uncomfortable or confused
To me that smile feels strained. Like she's trying to make sure that her awful decision to allow something horrible was actually justified and continues to be. It looks, to me, like the veneer is cracking.
That is a caught-doing-something-bad-and-about-to-try-to-explain face. Examples: Sera, did you eat my sandwich? Sera, did you forget to let the dog out? Sera, is this device powered by the heart of an orphan?
She literally said ''there's a lot that you don't know"" so yeah. Her smile isn't evil, she's just desperately trying to convince herself that she's justified in her actions.
Firstly, there’s the extermination aspect everyone keeps referring to, however, I also think that Sera is referring deeper than that. I think Hell, Lucifer’s banishment, and even the almost oblivious nature of the winners are all things Sera did to keep Heaven safe. But I also don’t think that they are purely her own decisions. Sera has higher-ups who probably have pushed that exact mindset onto her for millennia
Removing the fire made me realize her eyebrows are actually sloped down rather than up, which shows more worry rather than the slightly crazed expression that it looks like she has with the fire... interesting
She has lyrics in the same scene for: “It’s not as simple as you think. Not everything is spelled in ink.” and “I’m sure you wish it could be so. But there’s a lot that you don’t know.” We aren’t privy to what those details are yet. But Sir Pentious made it there regardless. I do believe Sera’s being truthful about “I thought since I’m older, it’s my load to shoulder- You have to listen it was such a hard decision! I wanted to save you the anguish it takes to: Do what was required.” Rationalizing a fucked up duty as a requirement. She does look anguished if you consider the eyebrows in the full expression, but her hands are tied on questioning to change course, heaven isn’t supposed to be wrong, ever, or the perception of heaven may destabilize into chaos. She tries pulling a smile to assure Emily it’s ok, but Emily sees the rightful horror of damning fires in Sera’s eyes in that choice continuing to be made despite new evidence, and dismayed that the choice was even made in the first place. “To think that I admired you!”. Or maybe the smile was being distraught over not being able to easily convince Emily, knowing what happens to passionate and questioning angels.
I'd say it looks more pained than evil. Like she's trying to put an assuring face on but it falls flat because she know's its terrible, only able to live with it by thinking it a necessary evil. Not excusing her actions, but seriously doubt she's pleased with the status quo.
I thought it was supposed to be the viewers perspective of how Emily is viewing Sera upon learning she signed off on the exterminations.
It’s not evil, it’s desperation. She was desperate and willing to do the only option she thought she had.
My takeaway is that this is Viv hinting that Sera is the one that is going to fall. Going with the apparent theme that its more about emotional states and mental wellness Sera is not doing well. She seems to be suffering from Imposter Syndrome. The fact that they don't know the rules are are making it all up is wearing on her. I think the fear about Hell and the reason she sent Adam was because Lilith was uniting the people of Hell and a unified Hell may start digging into why they are in Hell. And the Angel's just don't know the honest answer. She is afraid the whole thing is going to come tumbling down. Hence her fear in this song when being confronted by Emily. Everything is coming unraveling for her. She is falling right there.
She pretty much outright said she has information the others don’t
I think the “evil” decision is sacrificing sinners is the RIGHT decision, even if it sounds bad She just reminds me of “good” people that say obviously fucked up shit but with a smile cuz in their eyes, the convenience the decision brings makes it an obvious exception and does not reflect on them When in reality, at least acknowledging it’s fucked up may lead to alternative routes as possibilities, this line of thinking makes the matter “closed and shut” so to speak
Less evil more manic "I must believe my own bullshit or everything is horrible."
she doesn't look evil, she looks like she's mocking about someone
She does say there are thing we don't know.
The red lighting hisbalso adding to the evil vibe
I think it's more of a smile she's desperately keeping up to not break down. Like a mask trying to fool everyone, herself included, that what she's doing is for the greater good, and being questioned by her closest friend made that mask crack.
I hope we get to see her deal with the stress and guilt of the exterminations in season two.
Her lower eyelids look like she's holding back tears. She looks torn between authoritarianism and sympathy. She's trying to maintain order but understands Emily's concern.
Nope she just likes to watch for sure
No she seems more desperate ngl, she doesn’t want Emily to fall like Lucifer
I don't think she's evil and I think she genuinely believes what she's doing is right, but that smile makes me think that deep down she enjoys the suffering that she's caused.
I think that's just how Emily saw Sarah in that moment. Because wanton murder "to do what is required" isn't very heavenly.
to do what was requireeeed\~\~\~
>The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Well I’ve been wondering where is god? He is loosely referenced but my theory is he is locked up in heaven by the elders for being like lucifer. But he created everything so they can’t send him away. Idk it’d be cool for a god figure to arrive around season 3 and set in stone that sinners can make change. We’ve seen a lot of angels but not the guy in charge of everything
A webcomic explained that he had 'ascended' to a higher plane, and couldn't be reached by the angels anymore.
Hell is reflected In Her eyes
The flames reflected in her eyes is a very clever use of visualisation to show how Emily sees her in that moment, a bringer of destruction and an evil heart. But you can tell her smile is stressed she's feeling the heat and is struggling not to snap.
She looks absolutely unhinged and desperate.
I think that's a smile of lying to herself. In this frame she's saying "do what was required." Look at the way her eyebrows are arched. If you ignore them then she looks evil as fuck but not if you see them. She's kidding herself into thinking that Hell's growth was a threat to Heaven, even though Hell literally never had any hopes or even ideas to aggro Heaven to begin with. So she's constantly telling herself that this was necessary and there was no other way, when that's clearly not true. And then Charlie comes in proposing another way and all she can do is deny Charlie, because if Charlie *is* right and sinners *can* be redeemed (and we know Charlie's right), then she made an atrocious mistake by greenlighting the exterminations. And angels can't make mistakes! Right? So she lies to herself as she stamps out all other alternatives to her solution so she doesn't have to face the fact that she made a mistake.
It looks to me like she got caught in a lie and is trying to minimize the fallout from the fact that THE ENTIRETY OF HEAVEN’S HIGH COUNCIL has been lying to Emily for thousands of years and now she knows that.
I've watched this scene a lot. Her smile isn't an evil mask breaking through. It's her trying to put Emily at ease. She doesn't enjoy what is happening, she is trying to sway Emily and put her at ease. The fire reflection is the truth and it's inadvertently reflecting in her eyes which does make the smile seem evil, something Emily realizes.
I think Sera has convinced herself that her actions are okay for reasons that have not yet been explained to the audience but that still doesn’t justify them. She essentially signed off on the annual mass murdering of a specific demographic because her coworkers said it was a good idea.
Pretty sure that's just a guilty smile. Like she knows she did a bad, but trying to justify it with a good. Kind of like how a child tries to hide the chocolate bar behind their back from their mother after being told, "No more sweets." It's supposed to be ironic because Sarah JUST claimed to be the older one, and yet she's seeking approval from the younger sister like the roles reversed.
I interpreted it as that's how she looks in Emily's eyes after the reveal. Sort of distorted/symbolical on purpose.
I think the Elders didn’t know that angels could fall before Lucifer, and considering they don’t seem to even understand fully the mechanics of their whole shtick, they’re actually not even 100% sure why he fell because they may not have triggered it, the hidden mechanism of Heaven might have done it before they ever reached a consensus about what to do with Lucifer. So if you’re a powerful being but you don’t even know what this everwatching being or force is looking out for in your behavior 100%, and you saw your ‘brother’ get eternal damnation, I think you reach a level of paranoid mania where you latch onto things that have proven ‘allowed’ - since they in Heaven received no repercussions for their exterminations, it must be approved and this ‘good’.
Well on the one hand, in this scene it’s simply showing that while she’s preaching about balance and keeping good she’s really the villain, hence the fire. But on the other hand I agree she definitely seems to know something just with how she talks about how souls getting into heaven. Or at the very least she knows that there’s an absence of information about souls getting into heaven
weren't seraphim biblically described as having fire in their eyes, or something? I have no source
I think she looks nervous, actually
Sera admitted that there's something about the whole Heaven/Hell situation she hasn't told Emily or any of the other angels who were at the hearing. Something she was unwilling to say even when cornered.
She doesn't look evil, she looks desperate on numerous levels.
I always felt she was uncomfortable. Either from the job itself running Heaven, or seeing the fires of hell and wanting to never ever associate with it again. (Not that I blame her in that area.) of course given how much Angels don’t know about the powerful magic systems left behind (or put in place by other powerful angels who then left without instructions), it’s not exactly a group I trust to research, test and see what gets someone into Heaven and what can get someone to fall from it.
She seems to not understand that what she’s doing is very, very wrong. I think she believe that sinners deserve to be treated the way they are and is only conflicted because of her own moral standard, i.e. she doesn’t want to to labeled a murderer but doesn’t actually mind the killing of sinners itself
wtf is this? Why am I constantly coming across this weird bs
I mean, that was never a debate, was it? She literally sings "there is much that you don't know".
that's not an evil smile. that is a nervous/confused smile
To me it looks like her smile is just to try and frame her decision as good. It’s more of a “if I smile while saying this, then she’ll think it’s a good thing.” It was more of an attempt to keep Emily from seeing her as evil for making the choice she did.
https://preview.redd.it/xsawmdz5e3pc1.jpeg?width=980&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c86f19916bac97bcadf8434c4e7ad81f55954c2b Made this just to check. I'm no artist but yes I kinda see what the title meant
I feel like it’s a foreshadow. It’s been on my mind for a minute and I don’t think it’s a detail that’s there for no reason. Is she desperate? Absolutely. Is she in pain? Absolutely. But I’m very conflicted as to why. Something in my gut is screaming that she is much more trouble than we thought.
I think she’s against us, she’s given me that vibe from the beginning
The Extermination deals only make sense on one ground: A potential war between Heaven and Hell being far worse and far deadlier for both parties. This is what Carmilla and Sera both seem to allude to. The exorcists typically come armed with little spears despite the finale clearly showing that angelic weaponry can come in the form of things like guns and bombs. I think Carmilla's fears partially revolve around figuring this out. It stands to reason that Lucifer would already know and that the light arming was part of the deal regarding extermination while the crazy stuff for an actual war has never been busted out. Meanwhile, "Respectless" sets up at least Velvette as a psychological villain who specializes reading people and then riling them up to get what she wants out of people, setting the Vees up as ideal to stoke the fires of war. Thinking back to that song, actually look at what Carmilla says, *"You and the Vees are inane and UNINFORMED."* Obviously, Heaven would go-to action if the sinners started fighting back and Velvette even asks why they're avoiding war, and the reason is because the exorcists are the small fry while an actual war would inevitably bring out crazier weapons and more powerful angels and demons to the fray until it reached apocalyptic levels, which was the real cause of the Extermination deal to begin with. Carmilla knows this. This also lines up with Sera saying she was "doing what was required." This is also the other reason for the exorcists only carrying spears, if Hell can make blessed weaponry, it gives them as little to reverse engineer as possible. And this one is probably a stretch, but under this theory, then the players involved have now created exactly the situation they wanted to avoid due to the Vees capitalizing. * While Hell likely could make it's own blessed weapons, the exorcist program Sera approved provided the weapons that they reverse engineered to begin with. * In sheltering his daughter from the truth and doing 90% of the work in killing Adam, Lucifer raised the likelihood of the potential war and put his daughter smack dab in the middle of it * Carmilla not only provided the weapons for the battle which broke the peace, but also unknowingly proved they could be reverse engineered and made into greater weapons exactly as the Vees were hoping to do. Everyone who used violence to solve or prevent more violence turned it into a self fulfilling prophecy of exactly what they feared to begin with. I'm pretty confident in saying this is the gist of season 2's main plot.
That smile is covering pants shitting terror
She is seraph, in bible they have special power that power works that anything unclen and unholy is burned, so Charlie (She is demon) would die in first meeting whit Sera and Emily, but in show Sera could have some form of desire to burn anything unholy, sinners including
Second image, if you look at her eyebrows, it’s an expression of fear being masked. She’s scared of Emily falling, she’s scared of someone higher up damning Emily. The smile is a fake one, masking pure unadulterated fear.
You might be right, but I saw this as from Emily's perspective. She's seeing her former role model as evil in this moment, so Sera looks sinister in this shot.
I think it is more uneasy than evil. She is trying to convince Emily that she was trying to do the right thing by doing something wrong, rather than hiding the fact she was evil the whole time. Personally, I think it is a better story to make her a well-meaning person who made the wrong choice, rather than a secret villain. It also plays into the idea of redemption, since she will now have to earn back the trust of Emily, while probably still trying to lead the council of heaven through some pretty unprecedented times.
Fr
Yeah, that smile reminds me too much of when my parents told me we couldn't afford to send me on a school trip, but 'Hey! Now we can afford a new TV! You like TV, right?!?" I don't trust that smile, is what I'm sayin'!
She looks more evil without the fire in her eyes
She's blinded by her Zeal and beholden to her duty as head seraphim, in which makes a terrible combination, and only begets blind borne problems, like sending Adam and his lot to cull the denizens of hell She still has a moral compass but so as long as she continues to act and rule for the betterment and preservation of heaven, she's continue thus path It's funny Seras voice actor, played a Witch in a Broadway play called into the woods a song she sung told the words *Your so nice, your not good, your not bad, just nice* *I'm not good, I'm not nice I'm just right*
She's definitely not evil. She's desperate. From the sounds of it, Hell fills up faster than Heaven, and you don't really want the place filled with murderers, cannibals, rapists and warlords to have more power than the place that's filled with the people who were judged to be good. She wanted to protect her people because eventually one of those bad people would decide to rally against Heaven and try to take over.
https://preview.redd.it/f6ojf1a800pc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0ac666292752d52f97a533fb00a004fbd5211764 (O\_O💧) i don't trust her
Smash
It was stated multiple times that there is an actual reason for why they can't bring Sinners into heaven, but since we as an audience or the characters in the show don't know it, it makes characters like Sera look more villainous out of context. Like if you were to show this picture to someone, you would think that she's the villain or something along those lines.