I got new posters! When a show is as consistently spectacular
as The Owl House, episodes like “Witches Before Wizards” tend to get lost in the
shuffle. IMDB currently ranks it 38th out of 40 total
episodes, and after Season 3 airs, I expect it’ll rank 41st out of 43. “Witches Before Wizards” essentially acts
as a second pilot for the series as well as a metatextual deconstruction of Chosen One
narratives that tend to dominate pop culture like Harry Potter, Star Wars, and my personal
favorite of this subgenre: “I’m Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. And you are?” Luz grew up reading similar stories like The
Good Witch Azura, so when she stumbles across the Boiling Isles, her first impulse is to
believe in predeterminism because she assumes that life and fiction operate under similar
pretenses. “Why am I here? What if I, Luz Noceda, average teen, actually
had a predetermined path of greatness?” This desire for purpose is quickly exploited
by Adegast, the puppeteer demon who sends her on fake quest in order to lure Eda into
a trap. I find this conflict interesting because in
the previous episode, Luz makes the choice to stay in a fantasy world instead of returning
to reality. In this episode, she faces the inverted choice:
she picks reality over Adegast’s fantasy. “It is beautiful…and you guys think I’m
special…But it’s not real,” After such a discouraging encounter, Eda gives Luz some
of the best advice I’ve ever heard. “Look, kid, everyone wants to believe they’re
chosen, but if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we’d die waiting,
and that’s why you need to choose yourself.” Eda’s advice falls along the spectrum of
existentialism, which is essentially the philosophical opposite of predeterminism. Whereas existentialism emphasizes the importance
of an individual’s free will, predeterminism argues that there isn’t such a thing as
free will because every event in the past, present, and future has already been decided
for us. Existentialism argues that we are defined
by our choices, and the notion that everything happens for a reason kind of invalidates any
and all of the choices we make. Meaning is a thing we construct brick by brick,
but if we refuse to make choices, then we become objects in the universe at the mercy
of its circumstances, and most members of The Owl House’s ensemble cast fit into this
category before they meet Luz. In a broad sense, every inhabitant of the
Boiling Isles has surrendered their free will to Emperor Belos and his coven system – they
aren’t allowed to practice magic as they’d please. “Only a select few can practice all kinds
of magic – that made no sense.” In an individualistic sense, each one of Luz’s
friends has an unhealthy attachment to a preconceived notion about themselves; to these passive
characters, identity is merely something that someone else ascribed to them. “This is why people call you ‘Half-a-Witch
Willow; I got the new prodigy to do it for me; Blights only associate with a select few;
I’m the golden guard; who dare disturbs I, the King of Demons?” Once these characters meet Luz, they begin
to edit their own self-perceptions because she inspires them to make more meaningful
choices. Willow Park – Half-a-Witch Willow
Willow starts the series with little to no confidence, and what’s interesting about
her lack of self-worth is that it was imposed upon her. “Willow was a late bloomer.” Late bloomers are only considered thus because
standardized education punishes children who fall outside of the predetermined norms. Willow is tremendously powerful, but her talents
aren’t given a platform to shine because she’s not in the proper school track. Her parents want her to study abominations
because that field of study offers better opportunities down the line, but she has no
aptitude for this type of magic, so she’s essentially trapped in a cycle of failure. “I have to go disappoint my teacher.” Luz immediately befriends her and offers to
pose as her homework assignment, and these shenanigans lead to Willow joining the plant
magic track at the behest of a deeply impressed Principal Bump. This is Willow’s first step towards self-actualization,
but she still suffers from intense insecurities because she’s under the impression that
Amity stopped being her friend because of her magical ineptitude. “Because you’re a weakling! You cant do magic so I don’t want to be
your friend!” In actuality, Amity never thought this – her
parents did. “Blights only associate with the strongest
of witchlings.” This is a lasting scar on Willow’s psyche
– one that’s agitated every time Boscha bullies her. Luz stands up for her best friend at every
turn, which eventually inspires Willow to put her foot down and make the definitive
choice to defend herself. Willow unfortunately doesn’t get many opportunities
to shine in Season 2. The one Willow centric episode we do get isn’t
really about Willow – it’s about Hunter – but there are still interesting aspects
of her character on display. Willow’s confidence has been steadily growing,
but deep down, she still feels inadequate – like she’ll always be half-a-witch. “I’m just Half a Witch, Willow.” The abomination teacher is unwilling to greenlight
her club because he views her as a quitter, when in actuality, she just wasn’t well-suited
for his curriculum. This makes Willow’s choice to assemble a
team of other underestimated students all the more fitting. “Now I’m only scarred emotionally.” I would cosplay Viney in a heartbeat if I
ever actually left the house. Willow’s only other subplot in Season 2
is relearning how to be friends with Amity, which is something I deeply appreciate. “Willow, you were never too weak to be my
friend. I was too weak to be yours.” Amity’s initial apology doesn’t fix everything. The two of them still have years’ worth
of baggage and pain to process, and by the time Luz helps them reconnect, they’ve grown
into very different people. They still care about each other, but they
have to relearn how to demonstrate that. “I don’t want your protection. I want you to see who I really am!” Writing this script has helped me develop
a whole new appreciation for Willow’s character. Forgive the pun, but we get to watch her bloom
right before our very eyes, and I think that’s pretty awesome. Gus Porter – The Prodigy
Gus is a burnt-out gifted kid waiting to happen, hence why I love him. His talents were evident from a very young
age, which resulted in him skipping several grades in school. This move resulted in two major consequences. Consequence #1: Gus struggles with making
friends because people want to use his innate abilities for their own gain. “And all I had to do was pretend to be his
friend.” Consequence #2: Gus lives under constant,
self-imposed pressure to live up to his status as a prodigy, and this pressure causes him
to develop a crippling fear of making mistakes. “I let myself get tricked…again.” Mistakes aren’t a reflection of our self-worth
– they are merely choices that didn’t pan out as intended – but manipulative and
abusive people will make you think otherwise; more on that when I get to Hunter’s section
of the video. It’s almost like gifted kids are taught
that mistakes are a luxury we aren’t allowed to make, which is painfully ironic because
mistakes provide the best learning opportunities. “Finally, I can learn how to be my best
self.” “You’re always your best self.” Gus’ fear of making mistakes is fully fleshed
out in Season 2, but the way it presents itself in the earlier episodes is kind of brilliant. I’d argue that in Season 1, Gus’ defining
trait is his hyper fixation with humans. He’s the president of the Human Appreciation
Society; owning a human bucket is on his bucket list; when he meets Luz, he immediately adopts
a human nickname. “I knew an Augustus back home – we called
him Gus.” “Gus? Nickname? Human nickname?!” He is a self-proclaimed human expert, and
the word ‘expert’ should be considered noteworthy here because people on the Boiling
Isles know very little about humans, so there’s no one to challenge his expertise. Thus, Gus’ hyper fixation with humans isn’t
really about humans: it’s about being ‘right and knowledgeable’ about something that
no one can correct him on – it’s a field of study where he can’t easily make a mistake. “Being younger than everyone else is hard. You’re overlooked – ignored – but at
the H.A.S., I matter.” Genuine self-worth can’t come from external
sources, and if you didn’t experience the luxury of learning this lesson at a young
age, you might look a little bit like Season 2 Lilith! “Watching the ink dry is the best part.” Gus eventually grows out of this mindset because
he develops friendships with people who value his personhood above all else. You’re always worthy of love, regardless
of what your talents are. Amity Blight – Little Miss Perfect
Oh, God, where do I even start with Amity? Amity identifies with like ten different monikers
because she grew up believing that she had to justify her own existence with a constant
stream of achievements and accolades, hence why she clings to the title of ‘top student’
when we first meet her. “It’s just like mine…but much smaller
and meaningless!” I miss feral Amity. By no means was she happy or fulfilled, but
she sure was a ton of fun! Amity is the character who is arguably furthest
away from her authentic self at the start of the series because her parents have curated
every aspect of her identity. They’ve hand-picked her friends, they’ve
chosen her future coven, and her mother dye’s Amity’s naturally brown hair green because
she wants her three children to look like a matching set. “A Blight always upholds their end of the
deal.” I love the irony of Amity’s last name. The Blights are a well-respected family on
the Boiling Isles, but the word blight has two definitions, both of which are connotatively
bad. The first is ‘a plant disease,’ which
alludes to Amity’s broken friendship with Willow, and the second is ‘a thing that
spoils or damages something;’ being a Blight is both literally and metaphorically damaging
to Amity. No matter how hard she tries, she can never
live up to the image her parents have of her because of that image is distorted and incomplete. We as individuals are reflected in the people
around us, so the road to authenticity starts when we surround ourselves with people who
embody the qualities we truly value. “I know you’re in there! You can’t hide from me! What are you, who are you? I want answers!” “Amity Blight!” The fact that this is their first interactions
will never not be funny to me. Amity initially seems like your standard cartoon
bully character – the Pacifica Northwest to Luz’s Mabel Pines – but the writers
quickly show us Amity’s hidden depths. “You think it’s so easy being a witch? I have been working my whole life to get to
the top. You lost. You cheated! Say it – say you’re not a witch!” You see, Amity’s problem with Luz is that
Luz challenges all of Amity’s preconceived notions about her life. A human who wants to be a witch would naturally
appear threatening to a girl who’s had to grind for every accomplishment, and since
her sense of identity is tied to those accomplishments, she doesn’t want them to be invalidated
or devalued. “Humans have no magical ability, but I doubt
that will stop you.” Amity’s only alcove for authenticity is
the library, and it’s here where Luz gets her first glimpse at the real Amity. “Looks like this lemon drop has a hidden
sweet center.” Amity keeps her softer side locked away, which
isn’t exactly a rare character trait. Most people protect their authentic selves
with a lock and key. It’s a preservation instinct – we don’t
want to get hurt. The problem is that people misinterpret this
lock and key metaphor when it pertains to love. The Pont des Arts is an infamous Parisian
pedestrian bridge where tourists attached thousands of padlocks to the bridge’s sides
from 2008 to 2015. Couples thought that throwing the keys into
the river below was a romantic gesture that represented their commitment and devotion
to one another. According to existentialist philosophy, nothing
could be further from the truth. Skye C. Cleary’s 2018 article “Advice
on Love from Nietzsche and Sartre” gives a great explanation for this thought process:
“A free individual shouldn’t lock him or herself down in a relationship that may
grow to be an uncomfortable cage. Throw away the key, and you throw away your
freedom. To be free is to have the possibility to change
course, redefine yourself, and overturn others’ images of what you should be.” Love is not a lock. Locks are rigid, cold and inflexible. Rather, love is the key that opens us up to
a world of new possibilities. Luz’s unrelenting affection and belief in
Amity is what allows her to unfurl and make real choices for the first time in her life. “Willow, Luz and Gus are my friends. They’re nice to each other. They listen to each other. They make me think about the kind of person
I really want to be!” One of the most interesting choices she makes
is dyeing her hair purple. The in-universe explanation is that purple
is a color associated with abomination magic, which is a detail her emotionally distant
but ultimately well-intentioned father picks up on. “I like your new hair color. It’s abomination colored.” Amity’s hair is actually shade of lavender,
which is something I find particularly interesting because lavender is a color that has been
associated with the LGBTQ community since the early-20th century. A lesser-known aspect of Joseph McCarthy’s
Red Scare is the Lavender Scare, which was the normalization of persecuting homosexuals
through the bureaucratic institutionalization of homophobia; in 1969, Betty Friedan coined
the phrase “Lavender Menace” to describe the threat she believed associating with lesbians
posed to the women’s rights movement; and a lavender marriage was a marriage between
a man and a woman in which one or both parties were assumed to be gay. The term has since experienced a positive
reclamation of identity, one that Amity both relates and contributes to. Her lavender hair is fitting because Luz and
Amity’s relationship is one of the most beautiful and earnest pieces of LGBTQ representation
ever put to screen. “You always find a way of sneaking into
people’s hearts.” Y’all, I could gush about these two for
hours – they’re so freaking cute! In many ways, “Eclipse Lake” is the culmination
of Amity’s primary character arc. Luz falls ill with the common mold, and since
they just started dating, Amity feels the need to prove her worth and earn the title
of ‘awesome girlfriend.’ She still believes that love is transactional
because that’s the toxic definition her parents ingrained in her head, but Luz showers
Amity with affection freely and often because love if selfless and undiscerning. “There are people out there who won’t
make you feel worthless.” Years of psychological abuse won’t vanish
overnight. It takes time to retrain your brain and form
healthier connections. Love doesn’t solve everything, but it certainly
helps with the healing process. Hunter – The Golden Guard
Ah yes, everyone’s favorite bad but sad boy. Hunter is officially introduced in Season
2, which simultaneously makes analyzing him easy and extensive because this kid gets a
significant portion of screen time. Hunter’s mask hides his face during his
first two appearances, which contributes to his air of confidence and self-importance. He takes great pride in his status, and why
shouldn’t he? After all, he’s the youngest scout ever
to earn the position of Golden Guard. He's the Emperor’s right hand man, which
means he experiences the brunt of his uncle’s abuse. “Please, be careful. Our family is gone because of wild magic. I can’t let the same happen to you.” Belos doesn’t love Hunter – he wants to
control him – and he does so by limiting Hunter’s exposure to the real world and
gaslighting him at every turn. Manipulative and abusive people craft scenarios
where their victims can’t make meaningful choices. If Hunter makes a mistake, then it’s a weapon
Belos can wield against him, and if Hunter completes a task, then he’s merely done
the bare minimum Belos expects from. Hunter can never make the correct choice because
nothing will ever satisfy his uncle. “I know you can do better, Hunter.” Luz, Willow, Amity and Gus take turns trying
to befriend Hunter like it’s the world’s funniest group project, but Hunter doesn’t
accept the helping hands extended to him because Belos has warped Hunter’s view of reality. He’s under the impression that wild magic
wiped out the rest of his family, and he thinks that he’s in his uncle’s debt because
Belos took him in and taught him artificial magic. It takes an accidental trip into Belos’
mind for Hunter to finally see what kind of person he’s truly following. “Of all the Grimwalkers, you looked the
most like him.” Wow, who could’ve guessed that Hunter was
a clone? I did…almost immediately… it’s still a cool scene, though. Hunter has a bit of an existential crisis
after this reveal, which is to be expected since existential crises pertain to the reactionary
despair someone experiences after they lose a defining aspect of their identity. Wikipedia’s example of this phenomenon is
a singer who loses their ability to sing. In Hunter’s case, it’s learning that his
that his uncle keeps cloning him in hopes that he’ll get a version of his brother
that follows his every command, but every version of Caleb betrays Belos, so Belos always
kills him and makes a new version, perpetuating their brotherly feud across the centuries
in an unending cycle of abuse and torment. “Give me just half a second…What the fuck?” Every aspect of Hunter’s identity is cut
from someone else’s cloth. As wholesome as his bond with Flapjack is,
Flapjack originally belonged to Caleb, which only makes it harder differentiate the two. Then there’s Darius, who was the mentee
of one of the previous clones. He only thinks Hunter is worthy of the title
“Golden Guard” after he sees Hunter display qualities that his predecessor possessed. That’s not to say that Flapjack and Darius
don’t care about Hunter, but their connections to other versions of him are worth noting
because it begs the question: where does Caleb end and Hunter begin? “I don’t know.” What we do know about Hunter is how he relates
to each of Luz’s friends. He has an inadequacy complex like Willow,
he suffers from anxiety and self-imposed pressure like Gus, and he thinks he needs to prove
his worth in order to receive love like Amity. Whereas those three have undergone major character
transformations, Hunter is still growing because he’s only recently broken free from his
uncle’s torment. “Have you told them about helping Philip?” In this scene, he wields Luz’s mistake like
a weapon because he doesn’t know any better. If anything, Luz helping Philip is the most
in character thing she’s ever done because she wants to see the best in everybody. Her unyielding support encourages people to
self-actualize, and Hunter is no exception to this phenomenon. King Clawthorne – The King of Demons
King is my favorite character in the entire show, thanks in no small part to the fact
that he reminds me of my dog. “I am not your cutie pie!” “Yes you are!” Sigh. “I know.” His character arc is exceptionally engaging,
which is impressive because he’s only eight years old at the start of the series. King conflates his name with his identity,
and the melding of these two concepts happened when he was very, very young. “A king amongst his subjects.” “King…King!” When we first meet King, he is a lonely child
whose visions of grandeur are not unlike Luz’s. “I was once the mighty King of Demons. I was beloved almost as much as I was feared. Then one day, an evil spell was cast, transforming
me into…this.” Predeterminism dominates the philosophy behind
monarchies – people used to believe that rulers were handpicked by God himself – so
it makes sense that a kid would find this kind of narrative appealing. King wants people to pay attention to him,
and he doesn’t care if that attention is negative. Aside from Eda, Luz is the first person to
give King positive attention, and the ramifications of that attention cannot be understated because
it helps him grow up. He learns how to put someone else’s needs
before his own; he sets his jealousy aside when he sees the resulting collateral damage;
he makes new friends who love and care about him; and that’s just in Season 1. In Season 2, King discovers the truth about
his mysterious history. He isn’t a deposed monarch – he’s the
last surviving Titan. This realization shakes him to his core and
forces him to confront what he truly wants out of life. “I don’t want people to see me as a big
scary monster anymore.” We’ve all experienced that phase where we
have to try and make sense of the world around us and ultimately redefine what our place
in it is. As hard as that period of time can be, at
least you didn’t have to do it atop the decaying corpse of your long-dead relative. “Uh...hi.” Neither King nor the audience understand what
being a Titan entails, but he does know what being part of a family is like. He may never know his blood relatives, but
he has chosen Luz as his sister and Eda as his mother, and in their greatest moment of
need, King makes a rather noble sacrifice to save them. Luz Noceda – Luz the Human
In a show full of colorful characters with larger-than-life titles, Luz’s moniker has
remained the same since episode one: she consistently identifies herself as “Luz the Human.” “For I am Luz, the Human.” This is in direct opposition to her stated
goal – she wants to be a witch, but she doesn’t really know what that means, and
the show actually calls her out on this because The Owl House is always asking its audience
to recontextualize the meaning of labels. “I chose to say here because I want to be
a witch/but what does that even mean? Did I think I was going to be a witch back
in Connecticut?” Being a witch means more than casting spells
and wielding power. Eda was the most powerful witch on the Boiling
Isles, but when she took Luz under her wing, she unknowingly let light back into her life
– light she previously denied herself out of fear that her curse would hurt her loved
ones. “You’ll run out of magic!” “It’s my power, kid, and before I met
you, I spent my whole life wasting it.” Life is just more meaningful when we make
loving connections. This begs the question: what does it mean
to be human? Philip Wittebane believes it entails an inherent
sense of superiority, which makes him the perfect foil and antagonist for Luz. Philip is the worst of what humanity has to
offer, and Luz is the contrasting light to his never ending well of darkness. Phillip is a textbook narcissist; Luz doesn’t
have an egotistical bone in her body. Luz wants to be a witch; Phillip wants to
kill them all; Luz builds people up out of love; Phillip builds them up to exploit them. “The compliments, the confidence. He says everything you want to hear.” Phillip is such a perfect foil to Luz that
it actually made me question why The Owl House bothered introducing The Collector as the
show’s ultimate antagonist, especially since Disney unfairly shortened Season 3. And then it hit me:
“Mija, I love your creativity, but it’s gotten out of hand.” The Collector is yet another foil to Luz. He’s a chaotic neutral who doesn’t care
about the resulting carnage, not unlike how Luz’s creativity was a destructive force
pre-Boiling Isles. Luz’s character arc is all about balance:
fantasy and reality, human and witch. Her identity lies somewhere between these
extremes. No one is fully one thing. We are multifaceted and complex beings. Simple titles can never encapsulate our complete
personhood. If we want to self-actualize, we have to make
definitive choices and learn how to confront our preconceived notions about the world around
us. In an ideal world, The Owl House would have
a full third season to explore remaining loose threads and themes. I can only imagine how frustrating it is as
a creator to not have control over the situation, but instead of complaining about the unfairness
of it all, the show’s crew chose to give us the best they had to offer within the constraints
they were given, and that’s incredibly inspirational. I am reminded of a Stanley Kubrick quote:
“Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to
experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow
older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly
erode their joie de vivre, their idealism – and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain
everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But, if he’s reasonably strong – and lucky
– he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s elan… he
can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of
wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining…However
vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
