"Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less."

You know what?? Nobody I know cares about both Hazbin Hotel and A Song of Ice and Fire, but since these two series live in my brain rent free I'm going to be the one to say it: Alastor is so intriguing to me because he's a LOT like Varys. Like, take Varys, make him an arrogant narcissistic serial killer and put him in hell.

Not the HBO "Game of Thrones" version of Varys - I'm talking about BOOK Varys.

Varys is an enigma. He appeared out of nowhere and clawed his way to power not with brute strength, but with wit, manipulation and mental warfare. NOBODY knows where his true intentions lay, nobody trusts him, but everybody needs him and fears him. He grew up in a troupe of actors, and we know that throughout the ENTIRE series he is putting on an entire persona to disarm people and pull all the strings in the background. His soft, powdered, simpering persona is his "smile". Yet, in the brief moments he allows his mask to slip, it's clear that his intentions are insidious. Sound familiar?

SO MANY PEOPLE seem to think of Alastor as this all-powerful being, but he isn't. He is a powerful overlord, sure, but he isn't the MOST powerful overlord - and at the end of the day, even if he was, overlords stand zero chance against Goetic demons, against the deadly sins, against Lucifer or any of heaven's top dogs. Overlords are not all that. Alastor is so overpowering and overwhelming because he analyzes every single person he interacts with and maneuvers himself in a way where he APPEARS much stronger than he actually is. He even tells Charlie his most useful trick straight up.

But it isn't his ONLY tactic. He observes his surroundings and pinpoints any and every mental weakness he can find. Yes, the obvious example is Lucifer, somebody who threatened Alastor on SIGHT, so Al targets his insecurity as a father by buttering up Charlie and rubbing his face in their bond. But he also does this with Zestial, who I suspect is also much stronger - Zestial from what we've seen is a bit of a gossip, he seems to enjoy and insist on being in the know. Alastor *deliberately* acts even more aloof than usual, like you go girl give us NOTHING. He makes a point to hit Vox directly where it hurts him the most - trashing his public image. The list goes on.

Even with somebody like Pentious, who is objectively weaker than Alastor, who just wants to be noticed and acknowledged - is constantly prodded with stinging remarks like "Who are you?" "Do I know you?" "Thanks for another *forgettable* experience!". He positions himself in a way where people see his power and influence, but are never quite sure exactly how powerful he really is, so they err on the side of caution and don't test him to find out. Him losing to Adam was NO surprise to me in the slightest.

Varys does the non-hellish, non-murdery equivalent of this. Despite not being a lord of anything at all, everybody calls him "Lord Varys". Despite having no army to speak of, nobody dares to touch him. Nobody knows what kind of information Varys is hording, what kind of influences he may have behind the scenes. Yet he is a part of everything, in everyone's confidence, adjusting his mannerisms and behaviour to the individual in order to manipulate their actions and move them about the board... only to reveal in the very last chapter of A Dance with Dragons that he's been the mastermind sowing division in the realm all along.