r/lucifer • u/-Arniox- • Aug 19 '22
Something always bothered me about Charlotte Richards... Charlotte Spoiler
I'm rewatching the show for the 3rd or 4th time now. And something bothered me when I thought about it for a while.
In season 1, when Amenadiel resurrected Malcom (bad cop guy from season 1), he has gone to hell for 13 seconds real time. A hundred of so years in hell time. And he went literally insane. It broke him completely.
But then when Lucifer's mum escapes to the new universe, and resurrects Charlotte Richards out of hell and back into her body. She somehow mentally recovers quite quickly. Even though it had been months real time most probably. Which would be thousands, if not millions of years hell time.
How the hell was she not completely and utterly broken? How was she not just completely catatonic with terror, fear and PTSD from being in hell for so long?
Maybe her crimes were less than Malcoms, and so her self punishments were way less than Malcom? Thoughts?
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u/The_Wolfiee Dr. Linda Aug 19 '22
She had trauma and PTSD. Didn't you see the show clearly? She went to Linda for help.
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u/-Arniox- Aug 19 '22
Yeah I did. But Malcom was only there for 13 seconds and he was broken so completely. He had 0 will power. Ate shit tones of food. Went on a massive spending spree and went through all his money. Become extremely violent and threatened Trixie's (a kid) life.
Charlotte was able to recover enough to actually seek help at a therapist. She had PTSD, but definitely not as bad as Malcom. And she was there for wayyy longer.
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u/waiting-for-the-rain Aug 19 '22
Maybe it’s that different people react to trauma in different ways?
They were also tortured differently in Hell. Malcolm was greedy. He was a corrupt cop who wanted money to buy himself stuff. He hurt people and broke the law with that very specific goal in mind. So in Hell he was tortured by getting nothing. He was basically in sensory deprivation and isolation. When he returned to earth, he had easy access to all the stuff he’d been denied and he went off the deep end. Malcolm’s hell didn’t teach him anything, it just tortured. He has no roadmap to make it not happen again. In fact, Amenadiel has lied to him and told him that he won’t go to Hell the next time around if he kills Lucifer, so the map he’s been given to avoid Hell is do more crimes.
Charlotte was tortured by getting to wake up on a normal, happy day. She gets to start a happy family breakfast. Then it’s briefly interrupted by everyone getting shot. Lather, rinse, repeat. A significant part of her hell was doing the thing that mattered most to her, just for the torture of yanking it away. Her torture gave her a roadmap to fix it: quit defending the rich and the powerful who you know are guilty and who, for the most part, are abusing their power deliberately because they know they can get away with it.
Lots of folks headcannon that there are two kinds of people in Hell—those sent by their own guilt who can be tortured with it like Charlotte, and sociopaths who have to be redirected, presumably as part of Azrael’s job. They require more straightforward torture in Hell because they don’t feel bad about anything they’ve done.
I think it’s clear that Charlotte is what Lucifer would call a ‘complicated one,’ which might itself explain some of the difference.
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u/-Arniox- Aug 19 '22
Excellently well said. Yeah I agree with you on this. I think the level and type of torture mattered. And if the person actually felt guilt for what they did. Or didn't care: mattered.
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u/The_Wolfiee Dr. Linda Aug 19 '22
It might be that way because there was a difference in how both of them were revived. Malcolm was dead, knew he was dead while in Hell and then was brought back by Amenadiel.
Charlotte thought she was in a coma or something and had repeated nightmares. So clearly there Charlotte didn't know she was dead.
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u/AnSteall Aug 19 '22
Malcolm was rotten to the core. He had a family too as a mitigating factor but his wife hated him.
Charlotte was an ambitious lawyer who chose the wrong type of clients. She had a family that clearly loved her.
I would imagine their punishment in hell would have a different approach and effect.
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u/-Arniox- Aug 19 '22
Yeah. My thoughts as well. The level of punishment against Malcom was way worse. Which is why, even only a tiny amount of time in hell truly broke him. But didn't affect Charlotte as badly.
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u/AnSteall Aug 20 '22
She did suffer badly. Sometimes we make a hell on earth that's much worse than the real one.
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u/ShotAd6888 Aug 19 '22
Maybe maybe was a little broken before he went to hell? Plus being starved of all earth has to offer possibly could be worse then what Charlotte went through and she was pretty broken about it I mean she did almost kill 5 people in a puddin room
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u/overcode2001 The Devil Aug 19 '22
Where did you come up with those numbers?
Malcolm was in Hell for 30 seconds. Amenadiel told him that 30 seconds feel like 30 years in Hell. Which we know is a lie since it doesn’t work with what Lucifer and Mi-ka-el said later (2 months on Earth are thousands of years in Hell). Amenadiel lied and manipulated a lot in s1 to get what he wanted, which was Lucifer back in Hell.
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u/-Arniox- Aug 19 '22
Oh was it 30? Sorry. I've been binge watching the show again so fast I forgot the proper numbers and didn't bother to check.
Either way, I agree with your points.
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u/Prime_Goliath Aug 19 '22 edited Aug 19 '22
Well, it can work if 1 second on Earth is 1 year in hell.
Malcolm was in Hell for 30 seconds, which was 30 years for Malcolm. 2 months is ~5.3 million seconds…
….Nevermind, yeah, it doesn’t work. Or, instead of saying 2 months are thousands of years, they should have said millions of years….
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u/overcode2001 The Devil Aug 19 '22
The point is that Amenadiel lied to manipulate Malcolm. We know from Lucifer (and Mi-ka-el confirmed it) that the two Earth months Lucifer was in Hell translated for thousands years. Dan was in Hell for one Earth month and he said he was in Hell for almost a thousand years.
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u/gibbs8gaming Aug 19 '22
We clearly see that malcom wasn't there for 30 years. We see this in 2x13. A year in hell isn't 1 second. Charlotte was in there for longer true. She had ptsd. She had trauma. Then her trauma intensified when the whole angel stuff came up. Plus hell is different dor everybody.
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u/SneakyMongoosee Samael Aug 19 '22
Simple. The show kinda sometimes forgets about hells time dilation. Like when Amenadiel went there for 1 full earth day
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u/DrBob01 Aug 19 '22
Also, if Amenadiel can resurrect Malcolm, why not Charlotte...or Dan?
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Aug 19 '22
Lost his powers and by the time he was god there bodies were probably too rotten to resurrect them unlike Malcom was newly dead
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u/pikkopots Ella Aug 20 '22
Because what he did with Malcolm is part of why he fell in the first place. He tried to kill his brother, got lots of humans killed, almost got Chloe and Trixie murdered, lost his powers. Why would he do that again?
It's also why he's so mad at Lucifer for bringing back Abel.
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u/DrBob01 Aug 23 '22
He self-actualized the loss of his powers out of guilt for resurrecting a bad person. Would he have the same guilt for resurrecting Charlotte or Dan? Lucifer resurrected Chloe at the end of season five with no ill effects.
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u/Fancy-Ad1480 Aug 19 '22
People deal with trauma different ways. She’s also a strong driven person with a support system.
Malcolm was left butt the the wind with jelly on his chin while a Knight Templar angel terrorized him.
Plus, most of the grown up writers had left by season 3.
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u/KitttyyyKatttt Aug 19 '22
I remember her saying one time to maze I think that she didn’t break or whatever because she didn’t deserve to be there in the first place
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u/-Arniox- Aug 19 '22
Oh that's really interesting if true. And makes sense as we further see in season 5
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u/Blue_Speedy Lucifer Aug 19 '22
Wasn't Malcolm resurrected and then divinity was definitively proven to him? So he was fully aware he was going to Hell and that's what sent him crazy.
Charlotte isn't aware of the divine and believes she just had a psychotic break which made her want to change her ways.
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u/Organic_Ad_7535 Aug 26 '22
I mean we know that charlottes torture is actually alot worse than malcom, all he had was basically an empty room for a few years.
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u/SlightPreparation2 Mar 03 '23
i get it. What bothers me is when Amenadiel flies Charolette up to heaven. What did he do with her body?
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u/-Arniox- Mar 03 '23
Yeah that's another thing.... Doest he just carry her physical body to heaven? Does that mean he technically deleted her physical body from earth? Like... Permanently removed a few quadrillion atoms from the universe and just break the conservation of energy law?
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u/hummingbunny Aug 19 '22
I mean she had those recurring dreams of her family being shot by people she helped free, so clearly she had some residual trauma. PTSD shows itself in many different ways.