So far in this series, I wrote about romantic relationships. What makes these couples great. In the introductory article I described different kinds of ships, and I think it’s time to pay attention to a great BroTP.
What better show to choose your first BroTP from than the one that had one hell of a year. Excuse the pun. I’m obviously talking about the Netflix pick up Lucifer. (I was upset after Fox canceled the show it even resulted in an article).
One of my favorite relationships of the show is the one between Lucifer and Maze. And let me tell you it’s one heck of a relationship. Complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it.
The characters
Ladies first. Let’s talk about Mazikeen. She’s a demon who followed Lucifer from Hell to Los Angeles. She’s not only keeping him company. She also kind of keeps him in check and reminds him that he’s the devil.
One could argue that Maze often enables Lucifer’s reckless behavior. It’s understandable since she’s a demon.
I talked about Maze (especially the Maze of the first seasons) in a previous article
The demon is a fierce warrior who doesn’t care for anyone except Lucifer. That changes slowly as she befriends Linda, Trixie, and even Chloe and Dan. Even though she starts making friends Mazikeen is still the ruthless demon we know. She loves a good fight and torture. As the show progresses Maze becomes more and more human. She starts to empathize with others, showing real concern for their well being. She goes as far as trying to help them.
And then there was the devil himself. If you took the supernatural aspect out of it Lucifer is just a good looking guy with daddy issues.
At least, that’s who he seems to be at first glance. Also you can’t take the supernatural out of him because that’s what shaped him as a person.
Lucifer is funny, charming and most of all honest, at least with other people. He claims never to lie but… he’s often lying to himself.
What he also does frequently is jump to conclusions. Especially during his sessions with Linda. Thankfully he later finds the right answers.
Something that defines Lucifer as a person is his role or job to punish wrongdoings. He’s devoted to accomplishing this goal. But it weighs heavily on him. People think he is the cause of evil and everything bad. When in reality he only delivers the consequences of their own actions.
It’s somehow comforting that such a powerful being could be so insecure and have so many problems
Their story
As stated before, Maze followed Lucifer to L.A. when the devil left hell. That’s when we meet them and start to get to know them. With that being said these two have hundreds of years of history between them. They know each other well. There are a lot of things we don’t know about this relationship. We can only observe what’s happening in the present.
Even though we don’t know their history one thing is clear from the beginning. The relationship between Maze and Lucifer isn’t black and white. The waters are muddy and they more often than not find themselves in the gray area.
During the course of the show, the relationship has its ups and downs. It also changes when Maze learns to be more independent. Even though it may seem that they drift apart if one of them is in need the other will be there. With that being the case, they also often play their own agenda and plot against the other. Maze in season 1 when she desperately wanted to go back to hell but didn’t want to leave Lucifer. Lucifer in season 2 when he promised Amanadiel they’ll go back to heaven which would result in leaving Maze behind. Their selfish agendas are often the reason why they hurt each other. But somehow they manage to repair their broken relationship.
Their flaws
While dealing with a demon and the devil it’s obvious that the characters will be flawed, and that will make the relationship flawed. So let’s talk about what I don’t like in the characters and in the relationship.
Let’s start with something that I agreed had to happen but I didn’t think was solved well. I’m talking about making Maze a little bit more sociable. I enjoyed her friendship with Linda and how the older woman brought out the softer side of the demon out. I became annoyed with it when it started to become the sole or main purpose of the story for Maze. As if she wasn’t capable of holding interest without the psychologist. The producers tried to force this mellowed down and soft Mazikeen instead of the badass demon we fell in love with. I liked it in small doses but then it became too much.
What irked me the most about Lucifer is ironically also his relationship with Linda. Somewhere along the way she stopped being his therapist and became his friend. That change in their relationship wasn’t bad necessarily bad at first. But then it deprived Linda of a meaningful role because it was the relationship between a therapist and patient that made these interactions fun and special. Also isn’t there some kind of rule about being a friend with your patient during treatment?
Lucifer didn’t seem to notice that his therapy started to become useless. Or at least it seemed so to me.
What also was a total flop for these characters were the love triangle storylines. They didn’t seem to accomplish anything besides drama. Maybe some emotional growth and human emotions but that could be achieved with more original plots.
With that being said the characters have flaws like being hot-headed or jumping to conclusions. These defects of character didn’t bother me as much. Furthermore, I expected them from beings that are thousands of years old.
Why I ship them
There are a lot of reasons why I enjoy this pairing but the 3 main ones are:
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the dynamic relationship
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the unpredictability of the relationship
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the steadiness of the relationship.
I’m aware that the first two may seem to exclude the last one but let me explain. I enjoy the relationship between Maze and Lucifer because it constantly changes. It’s never the same. It offers possibilities to explore the characters as individuals and their history.
The unpredictability of their friendship is fun to watch. It stems from their unpredictable behavior and reactions. It offers entertainment. I’m always curious how far from society’s norms their reactions and actions can be.
Lastly, the steadiness of this relationship is what’s keeping it together. Because I’m sure that no matter what they’re going to be there for each other. They may sometimes be a little late or cause the hurt to begin with but they’ll literally go through hell for each other.
The relationship between Maze and Lucifer is an eclectic mix between best friends and frenemies, brother and sister, boss and employee. It offers an interesting perspective on friendships between women and men. Let’s hope we’ll see more of the duo in Lucifer’s last season.
