User blog:Multeyes/PE Proposal: Master of Hell

This is my first PE proposal. As you can see I have barely over 500 edits at the time of making this, so I was really looking forward to proposing the Master of Hell.

What's The Work?
He is the main antagonist of the anime series Hell Girl. The show follows Enma Ai who is hell girl. Through a mysterious website that can only be accessed at midnight, its possible for someone to summon her. If that person has a grudge and bears hatred against someone else Ai gives them the choice to then send that person to hell immediately. However the person will also be banished to hell, but only after they die. The series is mostly episodic and each episode follows a new victim and a new tormenter. The formula is generally the same but there are some fun twists. Only at the end of each season things get story-heavy and this is also always when the Master of Hell finally shows up.

Who is he?
He is the master of hell (duh). He's a powerful entitiy (perhaps even the supreme being) and has complete control over who is banished to hell and oversees their eternal torture. In the series he appears as somewhat omniscient as he always observes Ai and strictly watches her. He is the sole reason that the hell girl even exists and thus causes the entire plot. In the second and third season he's also directly part of Ai's "crew" while posing as a little girl. He doesnt seem to have concrete goals except damning as many people as possible by finding someone to do the hell girl job and strictly enforcing her work.

What has he done?
He sends people to hell and tortures them for all eternity. Now that's already pretty bad. Even though most of the people sent there arent good, the implied punishments that the show hints at seem incredibely gruesome. But still, thats his job, so he cant really be blamed for that. HOWEVER, there were cases when a truly innocent person was sent to hell due to some misunderstanding. He didnt care at all however and still banished them. In fact, it gets clear that he wants as many people to suffer in hell. As mentioned before, he joins Ai's crew and is directly involved in carrying out and helping the victims in the real world.

But since he can interact with them, he often enforces their decision and convinces those victims to send their hated person to hell. Since the victim will also fall to hell eventually, the show makes it very clear that revenge is BAD! Yet the MOH directly causes hatred and conflict between people and is just generally sadistic. Its small things, but he is still casually stomping anthills, tripping people over, stuff like that. The climax of his doing was the finale of season 2. He managed to stir up hatred and mistrust in a small town and caused everyone to hate each other. This led to the ENTIRE town sending each other to hell. And he was just smiling while neighbours and friends turned on each other and innocent people were banished. Yep, just an entire town in hell!

Those were his direct crimes, but I didnt even mention yet, how he created the hell girl and kicked off the entire series. Back when Ai was alive, she was to be sacrificed for the mountain gods. She escape but was eventually found and the entire village buried her alive. She came back as a vengeful spirit and killed all of them. The MOH sees this opportunity and forces her to become hell girl as punishment. While she would have accepted simply going to hell, he threatened to send her innocent parents to hell as well. So thats how she had to carry out the hell girl duty for hundreds of years, leading to thousands of people getting sent to hell. Ai was also not allowed to show any emotions herself and she had to send people to hell and watch so much suffering over the years. Eventually she snapped and tried to act out of her own will. But the MOH instantly appeared and banished her to hell. She managed to escape and he let her off the hook at first.

Then at the end of season 2, he did the same thing again. After the whole town banished each other he revealed that he will send Ai to hell, because she refused to send ONE innocent boy to hell. Ai's companions pled with him to let her rest in peace. He agreed and turned her into a human again. But since she had an immortal body for hundreds of years, all those years started to wear on her body at once and she started to wither away and became incredibely weak. He laughed and then left her to her fate. She then saved that boy and disappeared (its unclear what exactly happened) and her parents souls were released. Eventually she returned as hell girl, because there was another season so yeah,

But the MOH wasn't done yet. He wanted to put two other girls through the same horrible stuff he put Ai through. In season 3 theres Yuzuki. She and her mom became ostracized by their entire town and even the hospitals refused to treat her sick mother. Yuzuki was maybe 8 or something and witnessed her mother die. Since she was all alone, she also died soon after. But Yuzukis will was strong and she managed to live on. The MOH didnt like this and fated her to be the next hell girl. Yuzuki accepted. But then she decided to send someone to hell (who was a really bad person), but since it was out of her own will, the MOH wanted to again send her to hell as well. But Ai sacrificed herself to stay hell girl, so that Yuzuki could move on. The MOH didnt care and agreed. And all of that happened once more with Michiru in season 4. Another girl with a really tragic backstory but since she came back as an evil spirit she must be hell girl forever.

Mitigating Factors
He could be considered a villain by proxy, since he is the master of hell, so sending people there is his "job". But he still went above and beyond to punish people and sent enough people there who didnt deserve it, which goes against the idea of hell. So that doesnt really count. It is not 100% clear if he has a moral agency, but he probably does since the whole point of hell is again based on the concept of good and bad.

Admittedly, he does somewhat keep his word when it comes to his deals. They are incredibely unfair deals, but at the end of season 2 he did release Ai's parents and said something like: "good job". He also accepts Ai sacrificing herself for Yuzuki. He thought Yuzuki deserved hell but let her go to heaven and let Ai take her place. Though that seemed like he just didnt care who did the job, as long as someone did it.

Heinous Standard
In every episode there are people being sent to hell by Ai, but that is pretty much his doing anyway. Although, some of the one shot human characters are really bad as well. There are rapists and murderers etc. But the MOH repeatedly (not just one episode) causing suffering and putting Ai, Yuzuki and Michiru (and probably many before them) through horrible fates makes him the worst villain of the show, that really has significant impact.

Final Verdict
In my opinion, he is Pure Evil. He caused pretty much all the suffering in the show, has sent countless innocent people to hell and has even directly incited mass destruction. He is a deal maker so he did hold up some parts of the bargain, but apart from that he doesnt feel any sympathy at all for the many tragic lives of the characters.