Alastor vs Sebastian (Hazbin Hotel vs Black Butler) | Ax'pire VS Blogs
“His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself” - Lao Tzu
Alastor, the radio demon.
Sebastian, one hell of a butler.
Throughout fiction, many times we have seen people sell themselves to the devil, rarer however, is when the devil sells themselves to you. Though these two manipulative servants may be shackled to their deals, the fear they instill is real, and you can be sure they have the power to back it up. But when devils come face to face, who will live to serve another day? Will hell’s overlord claim another soul, or will the Phantomhive butler fulfill his command? Here at Ax’pire we’ll answer who would win a DEATH BATTLE!
Before We Start…
The media list for these two is pretty simple. For Alastor we’ll be covering the 2 series from the Hellaverse, along with its accompanying comics, QnA’s, music videos, and whatnot. For Sebastian we’ll be covering the original manga, its anime adaptation, the DS game, and what we could find of the stage plays, but the anime is very weird in terms of usability so we’ll go over that later.
Another quick disclaimer that should be made is that as of now, both of these combatants haven’t shown anywhere near their full power or potential for various reasons, while we have no way to account for this in the blog, don’t be surprised if this becomes outdated.
Lastly, credit to G1’s Charlie vs Marceline blog for some of the feats and calculations used here, we’d link it but it’s not up anymore.
Background
Alastor
“Smile, my dear! You know you’re never fully dressed without one.”
Throughout the streets of the sin-ridden afterlife known as Hell, demons roam the streets of the Pride Ring. From the cruelest of murderers to poor souls dealt a terrible hand, it’s just the worst place you could ever imagine being in. Which is why the realm’s peppy and outgoing princess, Charlie Morningstar, opened the Happy Hotel, a program to rehabilitate the worst of humanity and redeem their souls. Given the nature of hell, they all laughed in her face about how stupid a program like this is on a conceptual level. It was clear above all that she needed a little bit of help. Lucky for her, it seems an answer to her problems came knocking at her door.
Upon opening the door, stood a smiling face known to her, along with the rest of hell for that matter, eager to help. This was Alastor, the legendary Radio Demon. His origin is for the most part, kind of a mystery. It is said that decades ago, he showed up in hell like any other sinner, and the trouble he caused spread his name around a fair bit. Before long, high ranking demon Overlords started going missing, and their screams were being played over the radio, earning him a very staggering reputation. Through his carnage he’s made his way up the ranks, and now he’s decided to come back from a strange 7 year absence to help Charlie succeed for the sake of his own entertainment. As the new host and facility manager of the newly named Hazbin Hotel, Alastor uses his resources to prop up talk for Charlie’s mission. Despite the invaluable help he provides, something more sinister is hiding behind that never changing smile. Perhaps we should check on who’s actually pulling the strings.
Sebastian
“I am the butler of the Phantomhive family. It goes without saying I can manage something like this.”
Born to the prestigious Phantomhive family, Ciel Phantomhive grew up in a beautiful home with a loving family. But all this would change upon his tenth birthday, on this night, invaders stormed his manor, killed his parents, dog, and their staff, burned the house to the ground, and kidnapped him and his brother. Ciel would become trapped in a trafficking ring and sold to a cult where he and his brother were to be used as sacrifices along with more unspeakable things. As Ciel helplessly watched his twin brother get sacrificed in front of him, the suffering had built up too much for the poor young boy, he turned his back on god and in turn, brought forth a demon.
This demon, accidentally summoned by Ciel’s desire for revenge and the sacrifice of his brother's soul, offered a contract to the helpless boy. Desperate for power, Ciel took the deal and formed a covenant with the devil, branding his eye with their covenant and killing all the cultists with ease. Using the three wishes offered to him, Ciel would make this demon his servant and fittingly give him the name of his deceased dog, Sebastian. Since then Sebastian has worked as the Phantomhive’s butler, as well as their chef, gardener, janitor, tutor, cleaner, entertainer, bodyguard, investigator, business consultant, and pretty much every other job they needed. No matter the task at hand, whether it be fighting grim reapers, taking down crime syndicates, or cooking the best curry you’ve ever seen, Sebastian is always ready to follow whatever orders are needed of him. It’s all worth it for him in the end though, he’s not doing all this work out of the kindness of his heart, he seeks nothing but Ciel’s delicious soul, which he will consume upon the completion of their contract. Though he may hide it well, he will always be a devil of a butler.
Experience & Skill
Alastor
Alastor has been in hell for decades, and he’s spent most of that time establishing his dominance over its populace. Almost as soon as he got there, he was able to take on high ranking Overlords who had centuries of experience, broadcasting their screams over the radio as he showboats his carnage to anyone who tunes in to his psychotic program. He has shown to be quite capable in combat, being able to hold his own against beings much stronger than himself like Adam, even if it’s for a short time. However combat isn’t Alastor’s forte, his skills primarily lie in deception and manipulation. He’s extremely cunning and a master at messing with people’s emotions, especially with the millions of souls he’s manipulated into making deals with him, shown best when he manipulated Charlie, one of the strongest beings in all of Hell into a deal with him.
Sebastian
Sebastian is an extremely skilled fighter, he has defeated martial arts masters with ease, killed trained groups of German soldiers, and can duel against experienced sword fighters. This great skill likely comes from his centuries of experience, he’s been around for at least over 100 years and has likely been around for over 3,000 years considering in the anime he says he knew the pharaoh Smenkhkare. He is also an expert manipulator and genius tactician, as he was capable of tricking an entire party and detective that he was dead while also pretending to be the detective that solved his own murder. This skill and experience aids him throughout his daily jobs, he’s worked as just about everything you could imagine from a master chef to a pristine decorator. This intelligence of his was so vast, he was able to pose and effectively work as a teacher at one of the most prestigious schools in all of Britain, all while still doing Ciel’s chores.
Equipment
Alastor
Staff
We all know he’s powerless when Caine snaps. Not much is known about Alastor’s relation with his staff as of now, but it seems to be tied to his magic capabilities along with having some degree of sentience. It’s often used to direct his magic and is linked to his radio voice, shown by him losing said voice when it was broken. The staff being broken hinders his magical abilities as well, though he is still capable of using them. Alastor can summon his cane to and from his person when needed.
Angelic Weapons
Provided by his fellow Overlord Carmilla Carmine, Alastor has access to weapons formed from angelic steel. Unlike most of his usual tools or abilities, these weapons can permanently kill angels or demons of the highest caliber. It even cancels out their regeneration, causing wounds made by these weapons unable to be healed.
Sebastian
Silverware
Don’t let their appearance fool you, the cutlery of the Phantomhive household is of utmost quality and more importantly sharpness. The countless silverware Sebastian carries on himself serve as effective ranged weapons, capable of taking out dozens of men at once, easily piercing through opponents, and even shattering stone.
Abilities
Alastor
Demonic Magic
Many demons across Hazbin can use magic, which grants them access to many different abilities across their time in Hell. Alastor’s a unique case, as while we’ve seen many kinds of magic, Alastor appears to possess many abilities that are otherwise unseen in the series. His magic is commonly portrayed as a green energy with mysterious glyphs for some abilities (though this is instead red in the pilot).
Tendril Creation
The Radio Demon’s bread and butter for slaughtering his foes. Whether launched from the ground or grown from his own body, Alastor can use these to grapple and throw opponents, crush or just plain rip and tear. His tendrils are even big enough to grab and overwhelm Sir Pentious’ ship (get used to this thing being destroyed).
Portal Creation
While not showing the same extent as other characters, Alastor’s shown to create portals within the pilot. They’ve been used for both bringing in several huge tentacles to grab Sir Pentious’ ship and contain an explosion from his thrown away engine.
Regeneration
As Angel Dust jokingly mocks in the pilot, sinners can’t really die, at least not by typical means. Sinners can be harmed and take significant damage, but they won’t permanently die unless killed by angelic weaponry. Alastor can casually snap his own neck, Vivzie has stated sinners could regenerate entire limbs, and Velvette says her assistant could pull themselves together from being torn apart. Velvette also reveals the main flaw in their regen here though, that being that it takes time. Sinners have never been able to regenerate mid battle and it likely requires extensive time for them to recover from injuries. Alastor himself showed this when he couldn’t heal from Adam’s swing after the battle, and only fully recovered potentially hours later when they finished rebuilding the Hotel.
Pyrokinesis
Like any demon in fiction, Alastor has the ability to create flames via magic. This includes creating flames from his fingertips, making fire in his hand to launch away and lighting a fireplace ablaze.
Explosion Creation
After tearing off a piece of Alastor’s coat, Sir Pentious was met with a gigantic explosion by the Radio Demon. While the type of explosion isn’t clear, it was powerful enough to send Sir Pentious flying far from the hotel. He also created a massive explosion when he destroyed his ship in the pilot while holding it in place.
Umbrakinesis
Alastor’s shown control over shadows numerous times across the series, such as creating and dismissing shadows on a whim. He’s sunk into his own shadow to traverse across the area, appear behind others, travel into existing shadows for hiding, or as an escape measure. For direct fights, Alastor can somehow use his own shadow as an attack. Alastor can also alter the appearance of his shadow for intimidation factor or to help with a music solo.
Barrier Creation
In the finale of Hazbin Hotel, Alastor was able to cast a barrier that covered the entire Hotel to trap several Exorcists to be picked off within. Alastor can combine this with his tendrils to create several large tendrils around the barrier that possess Angelic Weapons for extra protection. The barrier itself is highly durable, preventing any Exorcists from leaving and splattering those who tried charging into it.
Biological Manipulation
In his prequel comic, Alastor showed the ability to cause a rose to wilt just by grabbing and looking at it.
Sound Manipulation
He wouldn’t be called the Radio Demon without the ability to tinker sound, after all. Alastor’s used this to speak through a radio filter, cycle through different frequencies, and play sound effects from his microphone like laughter, drum rolls and clapping.
Limited Reality Warping
Alastor’s most perplexing showings of his demonic powers come from him having the ability to tinker with the world around him to his liking, such as rebranding the Happy Hotel’s sign from a lightning strike, making objects disappear, summoning in a film set while teleporting in other hotel members, and even merging separate spaces of reality together.
Though things get more interesting with his musical numbers. Alastor’s Reprise shows him having the ability to change clothes and hairstyles, alter the lighting or color of the scene, making characters glow, summon items, and warp stairs into a ramp. However, Hell’s Greatest Dad is where things begin to get crazy. While bickering with Lucifer, Alastor’s shown to interrupt and swap scenes like curtains or pull characters off screen into a new scene, create entirely new locations, summon up to four copies of himself, teleport himself and others which he uses for traps, and create items to drop on others. That being said, keep in mind that these particular instances are tied to musical segments and are much less likely to come up for a fight compared to his other showings.
Technology Manipulation
Being the fan of radio he is, Alastor doesn’t take kindly to those who try recording him with modern technology. Attempts at recording him, such as through a video camera, cause distortions with its intensity depending on how much the Radio Demon is on frame, even scrambling the device should it get too close to his face. Alastor can also manually manipulate other electrical devices, such as turning on a watch or causing lights to flicker out of anger. He’s also got a limited ability to interfere with other’s broadcasts, as shown when he disrupted Vox’s own.
Deals and Contracts
A devil isn’t a devil if they aren’t making deals. And Alastor LOVES making them. Forging a deal or contract between demons allows those who make it to be granted what they desire in exchange for typically ownership of one’s soul, though it can be for other things. The more souls a demon controls, the stronger they become. Alastor can manifest chains upon anybody whose soul he owns, rip their souls apart, and can summon them regardless of location with just a snap of the fingers.
However, despite the number of souls at their possession, the ones they owe alongside their own are still susceptible to being taken should the respective Overlord fall under a deal, primarily shown from Husk, a former Overlord now under contract by Alastor, who forfeit the souls in his possession along with his own from losing many times to the Radio Demon at gambling. Alastor himself is revealed to have wound up with his soul under a contract, though the details of how it happened have not been shown for the time being.
Clairvoyance
Alastor can perceive those under his deals from a distance, such as perceiving Husk before he summons him to his side.
Sebastian
Devil Physiology
Being a devil of a butler, Sebastian has a far different physiology then the rest of the beings in his world. His typical human appearance is just a facade as he has no permanent physical body, instead his true body is composed of a highly malleable black substance, sometimes resembling smoke or a thick liquid, that is able to change itself into whatever form suits him best, even entirely new bodies. This black “substance” for lack of a better term can extend far beyond his typical human size, capable of spreading across rooms and separating itself from his main body. Along with this he is able to fully control said substance, typically having it take the form of tendril like appendages he can use offensively and to restrain opponents.
Shapeshifting
Thanks to his highly malleable physiology, Sebastian is capable of changing his body’s shape in many different ways. He can form weapons from his limbs, grow multiple eyes, increase his size, change his appearance on a whim, shift his nails into claws, form a large number of black tendrils, and even create furniture? His favorite usage of this ability however is changing parts of his form into various animals, he’s taken the shape of a lion, wolf, fly, snake, bat, goat, octopus, and a hawk too, but he can theoretically shift into any kind.
Covenants
A devil isn’t a devil if they aren’t making deals. Sebastian is able to form covenants with any poor souls looking for power, the terms of this covenant can really be anything that both parties find acceptable, as long as they aren’t “indefinite” or “unreasonable” conditions such as “serve me forever”. Being a mutually beneficial deal, Sebastian must get something out of the deal too, and unbeknownst to the contractor, his reward is their soul. Once the terms of the covenant have been fulfilled or broken, Sebastian is able to claim the soul of the victim and consume it.
Regeneration
Even aside from his physiology, Sebastian is a very hard butler to put down for good. He’s regenerated from being riddled with bullets, stabbed clean through the stomach, having his chest slashed open, stabbing himself with a rapier, getting stabbed all across his body for a party trick, and can even restore his main body from complete destruction as long as some of his true form still exists.
Fire Manipulation
One of Sebastian’s most commonly used abilities. He is able to conjure fire with a simple snap and manipulate existing ones, he can control their shape and is capable of turning the small flame of a candle into an enormous blaze that can burn down an entire building.
Enhanced Senses
Fitting to his superhuman status, Sebastian has excellent senses. He can smell buried corpses from hundreds of feet away and can hear conversations from extreme distances, even during a heavy rain.
Clairvoyance
Beyond his already superb senses, Sebastian has shown the ability to sense the souls of others. He’s also capable of sensing Ciel’s whereabouts and even whether he’s asleep or unconscious, though this is likely exclusive to those he’s formed covenants with.
Summoning
Sebastian is able to summon items out of nowhere to his side, in this case a nice decorated cake.
Non-Physical Interaction
Darkness Manipulation (Anime)
Sebastian is able to shroud an entire room in darkness, blinding his enemies while still being just as capable himself. While his ability to creature darkness from nothing is exclusive to the anime, he can achieve a similar result by spreading his true self over an area.
Disease Creation (Anime)
While being tortured, Sebastian reveals that he was responsible for the creation of the Black Plague, this is never acknowledged again.
Surface Scaling(Anime)
I don’t really know what else to call this, but Sebastian is capable of walking and standing on water, as well as running up buildings.
Forms
Alastor
Demon Form
When Alastor wishes to intimidate or cause some real damage, he can morph his body in a bigger and terrifying form. This typically results in his antlers growing, his limbs and neck extending grotesquely, his body growing larger, and an X appearing on his forehead. While this doesn’t seem to grant him more power than he already has, it’s helpful if he wishes to swallow somebody whole.
Sebastian
Deer-Man
He is one hell of a deer.
Support
Alastor
Minions
When Alastor by himself isn’t enough, he has a plethora of minions he can bring in to help out. He’s got hordes of small imp-ish creatures, bulkier workers, a varied assortment of shadow creatures, and two more notable ones listed below. His support is never far away either, as he can bring them out with just a simple snap.
Husk
A former Overlord that lost everything from a failed gamble against Alastor, Husk now works as the Hotel’s Bartender. While not having much in the way of magic, Husk carries an assortment of cards he can throw for quick, sharp projectiles (being accurate enough to cut through several firearms at once) and explosive dice to blow up foes. He’s also got a pair of wings for flight.
Niffty
Another servant of Alastor, Niffty’s works an assortment of jobs at the Hotel, but none of that compares to her enjoyment for violence. She may be small, but makes up for it by being incredibly nimble on her feet while finding anything she can to stab unsuspecting foes with. During the Exorcists’ invasion, Nifty was given a dagger made from Angelic Steel, which let her of all people be the one to kill Adam for good.
Resistances
Alastor
Hot Temperatures: Alastor can hold fire in his hand, and is comparable to Niffty, who shrugged off being dropped into a fireplace and being stuck in an oven.
Electricity: Alastor’s tendrils course electricity, yet he’s unaffected.
Sebastian
Hot Temperatures: Sebastian has walked through walls of flames perfectly unscathed.
Soul Damage (Limited): Has taken multiple hits from Death Scythes, which target a person's soul, although they did mess him up a bit.
Toxins: Can shrug off highly venomous snake bites and was unaffected by mustard gas, so much so that he could inhale an entire room's worth of it.
Feats
Alastor
Overall
Slaughtered countless Overlords since arriving in Hell
Helped Charlie further the development of the Hazbin Hotel™
Defended the hotel from many attacks by other Sinners, exorcists, and briefly Adam
Power
Blew up Sir Pentious’ ship with his tendrils which left a huge crater (1.03 Kilotons of TNT)
Easily held back and tilted Sir Pentious’ ship with his tendrils in their second encounter
After Sir Pentious ripped his suit, caused a huge explosion that sent him flying
This guy can’t catch a break
Impaled and tore apart several Loan Sharks with his tendrils
Created a barrier large enough to encompass the entire hotel
Speed
Durability
Sebastian
Overall
Has successfully stopped the Phantomhive family from crumbling on numerous occasions
Defeated angels, grim reapers, hundreds of zombies, and entire cults
Invented curry bread
Solved his own murder
Power
Speed
Could make a trip significantly faster than a train (Mach 1.5)
Saved Ciel from a point blank gunshot (Mach 22)
Durability
Tanked a blast from a tank (hehe)
Scaling
Alastor
Vox
Being Alastor’s rival, these two are naturally comparable. While Vox has defeated Alastor in the past, it was a fight he almost lost and it’s clear he considers Alastor a big threat, thus the scaling here is pretty clear.
Caused a city-wide blackout (83 Kilotons - 181 Megatons of TNT) (Inapplicable, See Before the Verdict)
I.M.P
Same as before, Alastor scaling to I.M.P is pretty self explanatory, as imps are the lowest class in hell without even access to magic, an overlord like Alastor should obviously be far superior to them.
Could fight Andrealphus, who should be comparable to other Goetia. (See Before the Verdict for all of this)
Sebastian
Fellow Servants
Sebastian being the butler of the Phantomhive, obviously compares to his fellow servants who he is frankly far better than in every conceivable way, they’re still goats tho.
Finny shook their entire manor (Anime)
Grim Reapers
Sebastian has encountered Grim Reapers on numerous occasions, and while they cause him much more trouble then the typical enemies he faces, he’s still managed to keep up with them in their many fights and the only one he’s actually lost to is Undertaker.
Undertaker cut the titanic in half, creating a large explosion (0.4 Tons of TNT)
Grim Reapers watch an entire person's life with the cinematic record (1.08c - 3.7c) (See Before the Verdict)
Weaknesses
Alastor
While Alastor’s reputation in Hell is most certainly earned, he still has his weak points. Starting with the obvious, Alastor’s powers are tied to his cane, and it being broken drastically reduces Alastor’s potential with his magic, as when Adam broke his cane he reverted back from his Demon form immediately. This isn’t to say Alastor can’t use his magic, but not to the same capability as with his cane intact.
Alastor’s other weakness is his own hubris. His reign across Hell has brought with him quite the ego, which can be a problem in fights should he underestimate his opponent. Like when against Adam, he took the time to taunt throughout and underestimated how strong he was, leading to him getting one shot the moment Adam got serious. This your GOAT?
Sebastian
Though he is nearly undefeated in the series, Sebastian has his handful of shortcomings. Despite his nearly unkillable physiology, Sebastian can still very much be damaged and hindered by his wounds, especially from weapons like Death Scythes that affect more than just the physical body. Additionally, his covenant with Ciel can be detrimental to him at times, such as when Undertaker used Ciel as bait to land a significant blow. His biggest weakness however is cats, no matter the task at hand, if a cat appears before Sebastian that task is nearly immediately made second in importance, he really likes cats.
Before the Verdict
Does Alastor Scale To Stolas?
No. But also yes, it’s weird.
At the start of this blog's production the answer was a pretty simple no, Alastor just had nothing suggesting he’d be comparable to Stolas or his fellow Goetias and he had no feats even close to the level they were operating at. Despite what many may think there isn’t actually an official Hellaverse hierarchy, the ones you’re thinking of are all fan made, yet the narrative still supports Stolas being above him. Compared to the Goetia, overlords are generally far less important to the grand scheme of hell, keep in mind that an overlord isn’t a special or unique person or anything, they’re just typical sinners who have a bajillion souls under their control. This doesn't mean overlords are weak or anything obviously, but it shows the difference between them (regular sinners) and the Goetia (demon royalty). Goetia also interact with higher beings like sins far more and have more important roles in the series. There’s also the fact that when asked who’d win between the two, Vivziepop sided with Stolas, albeit it wasn’t a very serious answer. All this is to say there’s pretty much nothing supporting the idea of Alastor scaling to Stolas
But then Sinsmas came out, and all of this went straight out the window.
Enter Andrealphus, a Goetia who should naturally be comparable to Stolas, even if you want to say Stolas would be overall stronger, at minimum their physicals should obviously be comparable since Goetias don’t buff themselves with magic like that. In I.M.P’s battle against Andrealphus, they survive multiple attacks, damage him and his constructs, and dodge attacks of his, more importantly though, before they even fought him Stolas beat the ever living shit out of Andy. Considering Stolas was depowered at this time and they make jokes about how weak he now is, there’s no reason to assume he’d be above the other members of I.M.P. This obviously messes with previous notions about hellaverse scaling a lot since it means pretty much everyone in the verse is gonna scale to Goetias due to imps being the lowest of the low in hell.
So while Alastor should absolutely scale to the Goetias, and more importantly Stolas, the question now is how much? This episode implies pretty hard that the Goetia’s physicals and their magic are vastly different in terms of power, Stolas was destroying Andrealphus physically but once he used his magic he immediately ended their fight, plus when Andrealphus started increasing the firepower, they needed help from Octavia to stop it with her powers. I.M.P and by extension Alastor should blatantly scale to their physicals at the very least, very hard to deny Loona ripping out Andy’s throat and dodging multiple attacks as scaling, plus previous examples in series like Striker catching and severely damaging Stolas back this up. But scaling to their magic is a little weirder, you can certainly argue it considering Blitzø could cut through Andrealphus’ ice construct and Millie took a hit from one, but once he starts getting more serious they get put on the back foot pretty quickly. Additionally, depowered Stolas was unable to break out of Andy’s ice constraints despite very clearly scaling to him physically. Narratively speaking it would also make sense for them not to scale to the magic, Goetia may be glass cannons but they're still supposed to be far above simple imps and sinners in terms of power, saying one could just face tank a full on attack from a Goetia definitely feels weird even if there’s feats that could debatably support it.
You can make an argument for them scaling to their magic, but the narrative and fight showings suggest it’s more consistent that they don’t. As such we’ll only be scaling Alastor to the physical feats performed by Stolas. Speaking of his feats.
Cosmic Stolas?
Befitting of the watcher of the stars, Stolas has many feats on a cosmic scale. A lot of these feats are pretty contentious so we’ll be going over them all and whether they are valid or not.
Stolas creating dimensions:
These have already been covered to death but we’d be remiss not to mention them here given the nature of the section. Stolas has two moments of him possibly creating dimensions, both coming from songs of his.
First off, in his lullaby to Octavia he portals into a solar system, we know this can’t be somewhere in hell as they do not have other planets or stars in that dimension. While we cannot directly confirm that he didn’t make this area, it’s most likely that he didn’t. There’s nothing suggesting he did make the space as he’s never shown such abilities, and we know his portals are capable of traveling to the mortal realm, the more likely explanation is that he simply traveled to a random solar system in said mortal realm.
Secondly, in Look My Way (peak song btw), we get sequences of Stolas walking around a cosmic looking space with numerous stars that he seemingly has connected to his house. On paper this could be valid, we know this isn’t a pre-existing space as again something like this can’t exist in hell and he doesn’t go to the mortal realm. Unfortunately though, the ending of the song reveals that all of it just took place within his imagination and he never actually left his desk, meaning that both dimension creating feats are invalid.
Stolas moving planets:
The big one. In the same lullaby as before, we see multiple planets move towards the incoming supernova. There is a lot of discussion for whether or not Stolas’ telekinesis is actually responsible for the planets moving so we’ll take a look at the cases for both sides.
For starters, the effect around the planets is completely different from the wavy blue look of Stolas’ telekinesis, which we actually see right before the song. Though the aura around the planets does notably change from before, and earlier in the song we see Stolas with a similar aura around him when he is seemingly using magic. It could be a change for stylistic purposes, but given we never see his telekinesis or magic shown like this again, it's unlikely that the intention is for it to be his telekinesis.
However, another aspect to mention is how the planets move in the shot, which is very clearly not how they were moving before and not how they should be behaving normally. Supernovas can turn into black holes, which could explain the planets getting pulled in, but that’s clearly not what’s happening here. So the likely explanation for the planets’ sudden change in movement is the act of an outside force on them, and given the only outside forces around are Stolas and an asleep child, the culprit seems pretty obvious. Though if the intention was that Stolas moved the planet’s, it definitely isn’t conveyed well, the planets movement happens as he has his back turned to them and is putting his child to sleep. Granted, it is absolutely in character for him to do so just for an over dramatic pose, but still very visually confusing.
Put simply, there’s a lot of points you can make here for either case, and we feel neither side really has a superior argument to it due in part to the vagueness of the feat, so we think it’s best to leave this one as debatable.
Stolas surviving the supernova:
This is the one Alastor and other characters would actually be able to scale to, and luckily for us it’s pretty simple. Going back to that same lullaby one last time, when the star goes supernova, Stolas is just fine despite being in the wake of its resulting shockwave. While his lack of reaction can make this questionable, it’s very likely he was hit by the explosion.
Firstly, while he was back in Octavia’s room at this point, the portal to the solar system was still open during the explosion, and thus the explosion would still be capable of reaching Stolas. Secondly, given the vast distance between them, you could question if the shockwave would’ve even reached him in the time before the portal closed. However we can actually prove that it would! In the basis for both of the calcs used, the supernova’s explosion alone covered the distance Stolas did and then some, covering between 2 to 4 times the distance he traveled within just a second. While it’s clear the main explosion itself didn’t fully reach Stolas given the lack of fire in Octavia’s room, if just the explosion can cover the distance horizontally in a second, then the shockwaves and thus some of the force of said explosion should absolutely be able to reach him within the 6-ish seconds he has that portal open. Granted, Stolas is extremely far away from the supernova and so the surface area would significantly lower the amount of energy he’s receiving, but even a fraction of such a cosmic explosion hitting him would get big numbers as seen in the calculation. While it does fall short of actual “cosmic” levels of power, this feat is ultimately valid.
Vox’s Blackout
One of the more known Hazbin Hotel feats is Vox causing a black out towards the end of his song with Alastor in episode 2. Vox loses his cool and causes a citywide loss of power, this is backed up further by Viv confirming in a stream that he’s capable of such.
Calculations for this have ranged from kilotons to megatons and it’s generally considered a good feat for the verse, but the issue is that this really isn’t a feat. The calcs here both scale the blackout to the amount of energy pentagram city would produce in a day, ignoring that Vox’s blackout didn’t last even close to a full day, this is not how blackouts work. The energy you’d need to cause a power failure through a given area is significantly less than the energy that would be needed to actually power it, because to cause a blackout all you need to do is disrupt the supply and travel of electricity through a given area, not overpower it. This can be done through many methods such as faults in power plants and substations, overconsumption of electricity, or damage to electrical transmissions like power lines, things as simple as bad weather and animals can cause these, and it’d be quite silly to say a squirrel is overpowering the energy generation of a neighborhood to chew through wires.
While we don’t know specifically how Vox caused the blackout, based on how it’s presented the most likely explanation is damage to an electrical substation or transmission given he connected himself to a series of wires, but regardless of method, all normal causes of blackouts are very low scale and should be nowhere near as impressive as these calculations have it.
Cinematic Record Scaling
Considering Black Butler is otherwise capped at bullet timing, a feat such as this can seem quite doubtful but it actually makes sense once you break it down. Let’s start by explaining what a cinematic record is. When a grim reaper goes to retrieve the soul of a human scheduled to die, they must discern whether or not that person deserves to die or keep living, they do this with their ability the Cinematic Record. By striking a person with their death scythe, reapers can essentially watch a person's life on a long film reel to judge them. Thus in order for grim reapers to be able to watch these reels for judgement, they’d need to be able to react to them and their content, which becomes a feat.
As for the cinematic records themselves, we know they do contain a full person's life within them. We see examples in series of the reels going from birth all the way to death, and given the purpose of the records is to judge a person's entire life, leaving out parts would defeat the whole purpose. We also know they show the full scenes and not just the pictures we see on the records, shown when Grell uh, watched Sebastian have sex on them… yes I know incredible evidence. While we the viewer typically only see still images on the records, this is just a visual limitation, the manga and anime just can’t take the time or money to show the billions of images necessary to play a person's entire life on a film reel, but that is clearly the intention here, especially when these film reels can be the length of entire mansions.
As for why it’s a reaction feat and not just a perception feat? Simple. It’s shown multiple times that grim reapers have to watch the records themselves, the information isn’t just automatically put into their head, an easy example is them being surprised when certain things come up later in the reels. This means the grim reapers would have to consciously watch and react to the records in real time, and thus the ratio from perception to reactions would not be used. All this makes the scaling pretty simple to understand, grim reapers use the cinematic record to view a person's entire life and react to it in real time, in order to be able to react to such vast amounts of information so quickly, their reactions would need to be extremely high, which in this case grants them faster than light reactions.
What’s The Deal With Black Butler’s Anime?
Putting it bluntly, Black Butler’s early anime adaptation is not the most faithful. This is due to the insane amount of filler/non-canon additions found in its early seasons. Season one is majority filler and season two is entirely filler, it gets so bad that non-canon additions start intruding on and being involved with actual canon parts of the anime, and it sometimes even kills characters that are canonically alive in the manga.
Though to give it some credit, while the amount of filler is absolutely absurd, we do know that the author Yana Toboso is directly involved with the anime, and has designed multiple of the new characters added, she’s even designed characters for the DS game, bet you didn't know Black Butler had one of those. Additionally it’s likely that Toboso worked with them on story beats as well, while we have no way of directly confirming this, the anime did accurately predict multiple story reveals before they were ever revealed in the manga, such as the servants’ full backstories or the Undertaker being a grim reaper, so it’s definitely possible she helped on that end as well.
Does this outweigh the anime’s obscene amount of changes and non-canon additions? Probably not. This all leads to the anime being very unreliable to use and should likely be ignored, buuuuut ultimately for this blog we will be including it. We want this blog to be as in-depth and broad of a coverage on Black Butler as possible and ignoring the anime would go against that goal, plus I watched it all so I want to talk about it okay. To avoid any possible confusion from this decision, we’ll be marking all the anime exclusive stuff so that those who do and don’t want to use it can tell the difference.
Also for the record, the DS game unlike the anime, is hilariously likely canon given we have a set time for it between chapters 13 and 14, and we know the story was overseen by Toboso.
Art
(By Schroneko)
(By Adam天)
Verdict
Stats
Starting with strength and durability, Alastor’s explosions can generate a force of 1.03 kilotons of TNT, and he’s perfectly fine being at the center of these so it’s clear he scales physically. However surprisingly to us, Sebastian actually had him beat in terms of explosions. In his climactic fight against Ash, Sebastian generates an explosion worth 1.3 kilotons of TNT, just barely edging out over Alastor. Though this quickly changes once we factor in Alastor scaling to Stolas. Stolas surviving a portion of the supernova gets from 509 teratons of TNT to 1.9 petatons of TNT, completely eclipsing Sebastian’s strength by over a billion times.
Speed follows the same story. Sebastian initially takes the edge with the cinematic record feats getting from 1.08 to 3.7 times faster than light, while Alastor’s best scaling to Vox traveling as electricity only gets to relativistic ranges. But then we factor in scaling to Stolas, and Alastor is back to taking the edge with Stolas’ space travel getting up to 15 times faster than light, making him roughly 5 times faster. Granted, Sebastian still should have superior travel speeds due to being able to move at supersonic speeds. Nowhere near the same gap as strength, but thanks to Sinsmas giving him the scaling he needs, Alastor should comfortably take the edge in both stats.
Skill
Skill meanwhile is clear cut in the other direction. While Alastor has spent decades in hell and defeated similarly experienced overlords, Sebastian’s centuries of experience dwarf his and he has consistently fought far more skilled and experienced opponents. He not only fights more experienced people, but fights people in general a lot more consistently than Alastor does and uses far more strategy and planning in his fights. Sebastian is also a lot smarter than Alastor, while Alastor certainly isn’t dumb and very cunning when he needs to be, compared to Sebastian’s extensive knowledge on almost any job and his insane displays of manipulation such as when he faked his own death, he has a lot more showings of his IQ than Alastor.
While this naturally means that any close quarters exchange would have Sebastian be superior in, it is also extremely important when it comes to both making deals. While it is unlikely for either to actually accept a deal from the other considering they’re in the middle of a fight and Sebastian does not like making multiple covenants at once due to his aesthetic, these deals are a wincon for both as they’d give them an easy route to damaging the other's soul. If a deal were to go down, Sebastian is the far more likely one to come out with the better position. He is a better manipulator than Alastor, and considering Alastor’s shown to let his emotions and ego get the better of him, Sebastian would have no trouble manipulating this himself, especially because unlike Alastor, Sebastian is allowed to lie during his deals and withhold information such as the fact he can eat your soul afterwards. Even aside from deal making though, Sebastian’s skill shows clear superiority.
Abilities
But while stats and skill are important, what this debate truly comes down to is both’s abilities. At first this seems like an easy point for Alastor, his abilities are far more versatile and numerous, provide him a lot better ranged potential, and with stuff like his reality warping, he’s capable of controlling the battlefield far more. However, the issue is that Alastor’s versatility is ultimately useless here thanks to Sebastian’s physiology and regeneration. Since Sebastian’s true form is that of a malleable liquid/smoke like substance, physical damage methods like crushing, stabbing, tearing, etc wouldn’t have any effect on him, it’d be like trying to punch away a wave of water. Even if any damage is done to his true self, Sebastian can easily recover from it considering he can reform his entire body as long as a bit of him is left over, and said body is already resistant to physical means of attack, which are the only kind of abilities Alastor has outside of deals. Because Alastor’s typical methods of attack are made useless, his advantage in stats matters significantly less.
With Alastor not being able to use his superior stats to simply end the fight immediately, the debate instead shifts to whether he has the means to actually put Sebastian down. Alastor’s angelic weapons seem like an easy answer but they wouldn’t work, while they would negate Sebastian’s regeneration, they would still have no way of truly damaging his physiology and he could just reshape himself over any damage he takes. His biological manipulation would also be unable to work around his physiology as it’s clear Sebastian doesn’t operate under the usual laws of biology. Tearing Sebastian’s soul apart would be an easy way to bypass his physiology, but Alastor can only do that after owning someone’s soul, and as established earlier, Sebastian would be more likely to come out on top if a deal is made. Ultimately, Alastor’s only answer to Sebastian’s physiology would be to destroy every last bit of him, leaving nothing to reform from, which he actually does have a way to do with his explosions, but landing that wincon is a lot easier said than done.
However, before we discuss that, we should see if Sebastian has any viable methods of bypassing durability besides tricking Alastor into a Covenant. If he does then he’d pretty reliably win - after all he’s smarter and would resort to such methods to win before Alastor would. However, the answer is probably not. The best thing you could argue is his non-physical interaction being able to pull out a ghost possessing a body. Would he be able to do the same to a normal soul? Not likely. We don’t really know if he could apply this to a normal soul or if it just applies to possession, and Sebastian has literally never used this on another person so we have no real way of knowing if it’d be applicable. It’s not super reliable to argue this as a result, as we can’t really prove that he’d be able to just take Alastor’s soul like that, especially considering the amount of rules and loopholes he has to go through in order to take Ciel’s. This win-condition as a result is pretty unreliable at best, or just… not one, at worst. And as for his disease creation, we don’t really know anything about how it works or what it does, and the black plague wouldn’t kill Alastor quick enough to end the fight - and that’s assuming they’d even work given sinner’s immortality, rendering Sebastian’s other theoretical win condition worthless.
Back to Alastor’s wincon, while Alastor’s explosions could finish the fight, it’d need to encompass all of Sebastian’s true body. Sebastian can spread himself across entire rooms and even split parts of himself off from his main body, a quickly thrown out explosion would be very unlikely to capture all of his body. This is especially the case considering how fast Sebastian is traveling, while Alastor may be faster in reactions, Sebastian’s faster than sound travel speed is significantly higher than anything Alastor’s had to face before, and with Sebastian’s true body being the way it is, restraining it wouldn’t be possible either. So when you’re facing an opponent who’s moving around significantly faster than you, can’t be restrained, and you need all of their body in one spot, what do you do? Simple, you call in some help.
Enter Husk, who is a cat, something Sebastian is consistently very distracted by… yes this is the wincon. It may seem silly, and it is, but Sebastian has been distracted by cats numerous times, even to the point where it could put him in harm's way or jeopardize his objective, something he values even above his own safety. It is very likely Husk would distract him, and a moment of hesitation is all Alastor would need to blow up Sebastian to a point he can’t return from. Plus let’s be real, Alastor would absolutely use Husk as a decoy lol. Though while Husk is Alastor’s easiest method of landing his explosions, he doesn’t necessarily need him given he’d win the war of attrition. While Alastor’s wincon is difficult to land, it’s better than Sebastian who has no reliable wincon here, and since we know Sebastian can get tired, it would only be a matter of time until Alastor’s superior abilities gives him the chance to win.
Conclusion
Alastor
"And we’re doing it with a smile!"
Advantages:
Massively stronger
Faster
Significantly more versatile and useful abilities
Better range and control of battlefield
Explosions could kill Sebastian
Numbers advantage with summons
Has the best songs in the show
Hasn’t fucked (we love an ace icon)
Disadvantages:
Far worse regeneration
Would get destroyed in CQC
Less skilled and experienced
Cane is an exploitable weakness
Can be defeated through a covenant
You already know what happened in the finale
Sebastian
"Yes. My lord."
Advantages:
Takes stats if Stolas scaling isn’t used…
Physiology makes him insanely difficult to kill
Greater skill and intelligence
Superior dealmaking would give him an edge if it comes down to manipulation
More experienced
Way better showings in close quarters combat
Hypothetically could use NPI to take Alastor’s soul…
Surprisingly has more musical numbers
Has fucked
Disadvantages:
…but slower and far weaker if it is
Significantly more limited abilities
Explosions would be capable of fully destroying him
Husk would probably distract him unironically
…but he’s never actually used this on anything besides a ghost, rendering it theoretical and unreliable at best
Can be defeated through a deal
British
In conclusion, Alastor has everything he needs to win this fight, while Sebastian’s absurd physiology and survivability make him a much tougher foe to beat than anyone Alastor has faced before, his lack of a way to reliably end the fight holds him back here. Meanwhile, although Alastor’s wincon would be difficult to land, his stat advantage, superior abilities, significantly better battlefield control, and Husk give him the edges he needs to eventually land his winning move and put Sebastian down for good.
Sebastian put up one hell of a fight, but Alastor dealt him a losing hand, leaving him tonight’s biggest Hazbin. The winner is Alastor.
Final Tally
Alastor (3) - Cabbage, CadenDaMonkay, Trashy
Sebastian (0) - Was one hell of a butler.
After Note
Hey yall it’s Caden, before we get into that next time I wanted to take the chance to talk about this matchup a little bit more. I’ve grown to appreciate it a lot through this blog's extremely lengthy production(mostly thanks to my procrastination lol) and definitely believe it to be best for both. Alastor is in a weird place in versus where he’s often put into intentionally one sided matchups against him, and as a fan of his character I’ve always hoped to find a matchup for him that was not only good but treated him with more respect. Then Sebastian came along, we at Ax all liked the sound of the idea which led to this blog and subsequently me researching all of Black Butler and most of the Hellaverse. These are two series I not only really enjoy but ones I think pair really well together for obvious reasons. Two comedy shows about demon/s running an establishment and dealing with the worst of people that are targeted towards an audience of, well let’s be frank edgy losers(complementary). The pairing writes itself, hell it’s already a popular combination online, with Alastor and Sebastian especially being compared. It’s not hard to see why either, thematically the two work of each other perfectly, devils who sell themselves to you is just a very fun theme along with more specific connections that get more into their personalities like their focus on aesthetics and deal making.
I think this matchup really shines in terms of interactions though, there’s just so many fun ideas you can do here. These two have a very similar banter and comedy style, focusing on their constant formality and lowly view of others. These similar styles lead to great conversation potential like both criticizing the others manners, constantly claiming their superiority, acting like the other is far less professional, or a personal favorite of mine, both getting upset about minor damage to their suits, something that has happened to both characters. This egotistical formality contrasts perfectly to the fight dynamic, where both become more and more unhinged as their professional facades start to drop. In terms of dynamic, while Alastor may be a lot more versatile, Sebastian’s shapeshifting gives him a lot of potential ways to match him along with more specific interactions you can do, like tendril clashes or manipulating each other's shadows and fire. There’s a nice contrast in fighting style as well, with Sebastian trying to close the gap against Alastor’s far more ranged abilities to utilize his better close quarters skill. Plus there’s obviously the sick climax of both in their true demon forms just tearing into each other, you could definitely get super bloody with this fight thanks to both of their physiologies. I always pictured this dynamic being similar to Dio vs Alucard in a way.
Anyways I’ve yapped for long enough and hopefully you get the appeal of the matchup by this point, before we move on I’d just like to give a quick thank you for reading this to the end and I hope you enjoyed the blog. But with that, let’s get into our next time, because we’ve got something real super cooking up at Ax.
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