Throughout the movies, Hellboy expresses his desire not to fulfill his prophecy, but he never outright questions whether it's possible or not.
Credit: Sony
The Hellboy films deal with several interesting themes and tropes centered around good and evil. Perhaps the most apparent are the ways the films tackle choice vs. predestination, what defines being human, as well as the prophesied end of the world, a well known trope. We have already touched on some of these themes within the context of comparison to Lucifer. However, there is far more to explore in how each of these affect Hellboy and his journey throughout both films.
""What makes a man a man?" a friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don't think so. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.""
-Agent John Myers, Hellboy (2004)
Predestination
Beginning with the theme of predestination, the films are essentially Hellboy's fight against and journey away from believing in the concept. It is not an easy one, though, as he constantly feels the pull all the time of the prophecy and his dark side continually hanging over him. The fact that Hellboy is prophesied to become something shows that he comes from a race with a deep-rooted belief in predestination.
The Duality of Human Nature
Closely interwoven with this is the film's exploration of the duality of human nature. Even though Hellboy's not human, he's the perfect representation of how everyone has the capacity for both good and evil. For purposes of analyzing human nature, Hellboy is an excellent device despite ironically being a demon. He lives in the human world, he chooses to defend the human world, and he loves a human. That doesn't negate that he will never truly know whether he can change his prophesied fate.
The Prophecy
Throughout the movies, Hellboy expresses his desire not to fulfill his prophecy, but he never outright questions whether it's possible or not. He accepts that he's a demon, even though he doesn't behave like one. However, he still does terrible things in the name of defending humanity. The prophecy hangs around his neck like an albatross every day of his life. It is not something he can purge himself of. In Scott Poole's Satan in America article, he argues that humans would rather find a demonic scapegoat for the bad things they do rather than admit to the possibility of evil within themselves. Hellboy, as a demon, does not have that luxury. He actually has to grapple with the good and evil within himself every day. Hellboy never denies or questions the duality of his nature. The conclusion his struggles lead him to is very truthful, that none of us are entirely good or evil. That both exist within us, and with every choice we face, we must decide which of those forces we will lean towards.
In Hellboy (2004), Hellboy must confront his prophesied role when the evil Rasputin kidnaps Liz and forces Hellboy to commit demonic acts -- which would ultimately lead to his destroying humanity -- in order to save her. He agrees to this in exchange for Rasputin’s promise to spare Liz’s life. Hellboy chooses to submit to his evil side and predestined fate for the sake of Liz: an act of free will (his choice to save her) still fitting within fate (the prophecy that he will destroy humanity and the world). It is only through the intervention of Agent Myers, who tells Hellboy to stop and remember who he is, that Hellboy stops short of fulfilling the prophecy. In this situation, free will and predestination are intertwined, as Hellboy exercises his own free will and decides to stop the evil that Rasputin has forced him to undertake, but it wouldn’t have happened without Agent Myers. So it is only through Agent Myers’ act of free will that Hellboy chooses the good path. Hellboy wasn’t able to motivate himself to stop, but Agent Myers was. In essence, Agent Myers’ free will succeeded where Hellboy’s free will failed. What makes this so fascinating is that Hellboy is doing all this fighting for humanity, yet he also says to Liz that he would go against humanity for her, if she told him to. While Hellboy’s story arc is his attempted journey away from his destiny, we don't know what the end will be and it's clear Hellboy doesn’t know either.
Revealed to the Public
This uncertainty continues into Hellboy II: The Golden Army, as Hellboy further confronts his identity. Tired of being hidden away from the rest of humanity by the BPRD, Hellboy publicly reveals himself to the world at large in hopes that people will see he's on humanity's side because he fights against the monsters. The general public's reaction, however, is fear and mistrust. On top of this, Hellboy's relationship with Liz has become rocky. Part of this is because of their hotheaded and snarky personalities, while another is that Liz is concerned about what their future together will hold. Between Hellboy's demonic appearance and her inability to control her powers, Liz realizes neither will ever have a "normal" life.
The Human and the Demon
Interestingly, it is Liz that begins to resent humanity and the way things are, whereas Hellboy strives to be loved and accepted in the human world. Before, Hellboy has mentioned how he would throw everything away for Liz, but by the end of the second film, Liz says she will do the same for him. This time around, the human Liz is okay with being something less than human, while the demon Hellboy seeks to be accepted as one. Liz tells Hellboy that he doesn't need humanity, that he is better than them. This unexpected ending where both a demon and a human confront the good and bad in their respective identities serves as a fitting coda to the films’ thoughtful analysis of human nature’s duality.
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