At worst, Darius seems to be a villain with principles; Which compared to the genocidal Belos and his constant gaslighting and manipulations, is too much even for him! And again that’s at worst. So it stands to reason that the previous Golden Guard (whom we’ll refer to as such, while Hunter is simply Hunter) was along those lines, given how Darius fondly remembers him, and judges Hunter by the standards of his predecessor. And what alleviates Darius’ disapproval is Hunter learning to think for himself, even at the apparent cost of the coven; Something Darius believes would make the Golden Guard proud.
And as others have pointed out, Darius doesn’t necessarily know of Hunter’s abuse, or at least doesn’t know he goes through more than that of the typical covenscout. And Hunter being the Emperor’s nephew might be a VERY recent reveal in-universe, or not; Lilith didn’t know, but with what we know of Philip, it makes even more sense for Belos to keep her in the dark about a lot of things as just a figurehead who has a ‘destiny’ to fulfill. Regardless, it makes sense for the Coven Heads to know more than your typical covenscout, but after Hunting Palismen, Hunter seems to have revealed his face to prevent another situation like that.
So from Darius’ perspective, he grows up in a coven system that believes in order but is still reasonable and has SOME principles, because Belos hasn’t tightened his control yet. It helps that his Golden Guard is actually a principled dude by comparison, and seems to have actual magic to an extent. But after Darius becomes Coven Head and the Golden Guard is put out of commission for unknown circumstances, Belos starts to tighten his grip on the isles. More and more witches are forcibly bound, and nobody’s speaking out against him.
Darius isn’t actively spreading the coven at this point, but he will do his job of at least defending it against direct traitors and the like. Then this freaking teenager shows up, the barest minimum age to even join a coven; And he’s higher-ranked than everyone else?! He doesn’t even have magic, and seems to be a pitiful yes-man to the Emperor, who is his uncle... Ah. That explains why he keeps being given the time of day. If Darius doesn’t know of Hunter’s abuse, then he has more reason to be critical of the kid as an unthinking brat who has literally nothing to deserve this title except his uncle’s nepotism.
Luz VS Eda is a tragic fight… But in a way, I’m also kinda proud of Luz over it? Remember how Eda said that Luz would have to earn her staff. How Luz fretted over being a witch and not even a fourth as capable as her mentor. But now here Luz is, able to keep up with Eda and even surpass her in some regards, effortlessly flying with Owlbert until Eda takes him from her; Because in the end, Owlbert isn’t for Luz, her own Palisman she’ll carve is!
Like it really does feel like a narrative milestone, to have the student face off against the teacher and show off all the skills they’ve learned and prove themselves this way. Which tbh Luz sort of WAS trying to prove herself in this moment, strong enough to fight with Eda; And it basically worked, as Eda realized Luz is just like her and will always find a way to butt in and help. So as Raine had to acknowledge this for Eda by letting her in, Eda does the same for Luz…
Luz finally earned her staff. She’s truly a witch now as Eda promised, as Raine recognizes, and now she can get that magic staff that she’s been working to for all this time. They say a teacher truly succeeds if the student can surpass them, and at least in some ways, even if you didn’t take Eda’s curse debilitating her magic into account (it HELPED in some regards like keeping track of invisible Luz), I truly think Luz did. And Eda certainlyagrees!
This fight really felt a culmination of the mentor-apprentice relationship these two had over magic but also life in general, a coming of age moment where Luz is strong and independent enough to actually contest with her parent and make decisions, make demands and have her own stake amongst the adults while still cared for as a kid, and I love it.
We see Luz use spells Eda helped teach her, the Light and Ice glyphs particularly, but also flex some of her own self-taught combos to prove Luz CAN innovate like Eda, and thus think and learn for herself as any teacher should desire out of an apprentice. Now I wish we got to see Luz use the Hover glyph combo too in this fight -there was a perfect moment for that when she falls- but this fight is so good in general I can live with it!
Just mentor and mentee showing off their skills. What Luz learned but also what EDA learned via Harpy mode, which can fly and hear Luz; A harpy mode Eda only attained because of the happiness her student taught her. And so the student teachers the teacher, the teacher learns from the student as well; And thus they both show off to one another what they’ve been taught and make the best of their lessons from the other! And Eda finally showed that when she agreed to let Luz in, after Luz taught Eda to open herself up…!
And as always, they’ve always got more to learn, and thus always have more to teach!
I do want to talk about some theories I have to do with King and The Collector, but I need to gather those thoughts into something cohesive first. So, for now, it’s Belos analysis hours! Where I look at Belos and completely miss the point as I overanalyse everything! Woo!
But really, there is something so interesting about the way he acts this episode. It’s so different from how inner Belos acts, and how he’s acted in the past, especially around The Collector.
His expressions here are, as pointed out by the collector, nervous ones. He doesn’t look eager or completed, rather empty and somewhat hesitant. This is everything he’s worked for, everything he’s dedicated his life to for centuries, and yet he can’t even muster up a smile. He’s tired. He’s nervous. And that can also be seen in the way he grabs onto the key.
He clutches it tightly to his chest. In the end, he’s still Philip Wittebane, he made this key years ago, and it’s the key home. I pointed out in Hollow Mind how for a brief second Belos’ eyes light up at the sight of the key, and again we see how much it means to him. Clutching things like that is also usually a sign of protectiveness, fear or nerves, and Belos’ emotions tend to be given to us through music cues and also subtle gestures, so that adds up well. Returning home has never seemed so real before, and there are those lingering anxieties that come with it. He doesn’t know what it’s like now. He hasn’t seen green trees in so long. Will he even be able to recognise it?
After that, we see that The Collector is right on another one of his observations. Belos is struggling to keep his human form. This is just a still image but in the scene you can see his hand shake as he tries to pull it back together. It’s also interesting how the attack is so sudden, so impulsive, almost as if he doesn’t think first, sort of like how he was with Hunter.
The reason that’s odd is because while we’ve only seen Belos interact with The Collector once, we see he has a lot of patience with them and their comments, and he smiles at their company too, seemingly fond. Of course, that could just be an occasional thing for all we know, but I feel like they’d establish that side of their relationship if it was.
As well as this, Belos is generally acting different around them all together. Whether as in the Hollow Mind memory, we see him smile, see him be amused even at The Collector’s suggestion he enjoys killing the Grimwalkers, here he’s visibly annoyed with The Collector - losing his patience.
Belos waved his hand dismissively at him, and his expressions in general depict annoyance or blankness. It reminds me a lot of how blank Philip’s expressions would become sometimes, but even then Philip would carry on pretending. Here, Belos doesn’t do that. He doesn’t care to.
The Collector’s Grimwalker suggestion is foolish to him which contrasts with how casual Inner Belos is about it. In fact, all this behaviour contrasts with inner Belos even though they’re what? Six days apart. Where Inner Belos is completely devoid of feeling and callous about everything, Belos is wary in his approach and honesty, paired with how his musical theme has changed (it appears to be played with a different instrument but I’m not sure what - not a musician so don’t take my word on this) Belos really does just seem more tired and sad than anything. Hm, I don’t know if sad is necessarily the word actually but my brain is unfortunately scrambled at the moment so no fitting word comes to mind.
Altogether, this really does add up with what he said years ago: “I just need to live long enough to see this through.”
okay so here’s some owl house meta: i LOVE the statement that the owl house is making on childhood. so often in culturally christian media the depiction of childhood is this state of innocence that we all get kicked out of. you are a WORSE person because you’ve grown up. if you stayed a little child and followed like a little child then jesus would love you more.
and if i may add on: there’s kinda actually *two* seemingly opposite stances that christians seem to have on children
1: like you said, that they’re completely innocent and naive and need to be protected at all times and controlled by an adult who “knows better” and who will only get tainted with sin as they grow up
2: born inherently wicked because of “original sin”, needing to be “trained up” by an adult who “knows better” by any amount of force necessary in order for their wicked souls to be saved
and king’s story ALSO goes against that second idea. king’s brattiness isn’t treated like it’s evil, it’s simply treated like immaturity. and when king matures, it’s never because eda or some other adult trained him up like an obedient dog and forced him to behave “properly” or punished him for being understandably immature. no, king matures when adults trust him with the truth, when he gets to make his own choices and learn through experience, when people explain life lessons to him in ways he understands and he gets to use his own brain about how to apply those lessons
anyway the final stage of belos’ character is probably going to be the complete collapse of every lie he’s ever convinced himself of.
we saw beginnings of this in clouds on the horizon, where they make a point of showing belos’ nervousness and how badly he reacts to the thought that the human realm has changed, and then again towards the beginning of king’s tide when luz straight up tells him that no one hunts witches anymore and his drip is trash. it’s pretty clear that, to belos, the idea that the human realm has at all deviated from his idolized fantasy version of it is a Bad and Unacceptable thought that he’d rather just ignore. he doesn’t want to think anything’s changed and he refuses to think he’s changed, either. the man is literally a goo monster playing pretend with human skin and he still believes that he is a regular human. he gets violent towards luz and the collector when they tell him he’s changed because he cannot bring himself to consider the perfectly reasonable idea that they’re right.
and then we have the scenes in which gus pulls up his worst memories and belos calls hunter “caleb”, which are like a minute total combined and also i think the most important scenes Of All Time for belos’ character.
his rationalizations for the murder of his own brother are so flimsy that literally just thinking about the event itself is enough to make him flip his shit. he knows what he did was unforgiveable and he knows there was no real reason for it and he knows the grimwalkers are not caleb, will never be caleb, he’s been playing god with his brother’s body for centuries when he KNOWS that caleb is gone and he will never get him back. and then, right off the heels of belos finally being forced to confront what he’s done, we see him calling hunter “caleb”. he looks at hunter, the grimwalker that looks the most like caleb, the one now holding caleb’s palisman, and suddenly he doesn’t see hunter anymore. he’s watching caleb “betray” him again, and he doesn’t want to see because it’s forcing him to think about why caleb did it. he was never corrupted or lost or in need of a merciful death, he just wanted something different than philip and that was unacceptable.
and finally: the collector! belos thought he could use the collector and then throw them away when they weren’t useful to him anymore, just like he has for literally every single person he came across for the past 400 years. the man has been acting essentially consequence-free ever since he murdered caleb, and then the collector is freed and immediately shows him that the manipulation is not going to work anymore. for once in his life he is facing the consequences of his actions, both in the past and in the now.
what happens now that belos is a small pile of slime on a completely different earth? what happens now that he can’t deny that luz was right, that he isn’t even human anymore? that his home is a place unrecognizable to him? that the childish goals he’s built his life around are considered a joke? is he going to double down or is he finally going to have to realize that he is a joke? that everything he’s done was for literally nothing? that caleb died for nothing? that maybe, just maybe, he could have led a happy life had he not been so obsessed with his own warped sense of righteousness and revenge?
the walls in belos’ mind are going down and brother, they are going to go down hard.
tl;dr: the show is making a point of showing thatbelos’ worst fears and memories are actively being brought to the surface in ways he can’t rationalize. he finally has to face what he did to his brother and the fact that he’s in a form that can’t even pretend to be human anymore. this man is going to try desperately to hold on to anything he can before the walls come crumbling down and we get the third-act breakdown we’ve been waiting for.
God there’s just… Something melancholy to me about these parallels. The fact that after all these years, it’s Hunter who ends up opening the door; Hunter, who is spiritually in a sense Caleb. How Caleb probably didn’t care to go back while Philip did, and yet for all of Philip’s monstrous deeds to return home, to fix the portal…
It’sCaleb’s son who actually opens the door and arrives home. It’s in a sense Caleb who actually gets to return home to the rain that Philip so fondly missed, as essentially a human who will be accepted and welcomed. And in a way, Caleb can finally show his other kid the other home his family came from, allowing Hunter to connect to that estranged part of himself he never really knew. Hunter can’t even miss what he never had but he gets it while Philip doesn’t…
(But if we’re being real, Philip is going to get that too, sort of. He’ll be a monster feared and despised in his ‘home’ however, and if home is where he belongs… With how much it’s changed, that familiarity truly is gone.)
Something I love about the villains in this show, is that they’re a cult with an in-group mentality, where literally no one was actually in the in-group.
Like,none of them, not even the leader. He thinks he’s in the in-group, but he’s not, the in-group died out hundreds of years ago, and even if it didn’t, he could never fit in there due to his beastly form. He knows this deep down, but can never admit it to himself.
And there’s something so satisfying about that, seeing this never ending line of backstabbers getting backstabbed themselves, watching their selfish ambition lead to their own doom. Even the ones who thought they were doing something good for the world, like Lilith and Hunter, were still somewhat selfish about it, like “it has to be ME at the top, ME that captures Eda, ME that gets the Titan Blood, etc”. Their organisation primarily ran on the promise of supremacism.
I can’t wait to see the human realm reject Philip, that will just bring everything full circle.
Did anyone else notice that Luz’s glyphs weren’t working like normal during this latest episode?
Like, these are both screenshots from O Titan, Where Art Thou and as per usual, her glyphs activate on the paper and create their intended effect.
However, during Clouds on the Horizon, Luz’s glyphs are making spell circles like how other witches have to draw them!
And you know what the only thing that’s really changed between these two episodes is?
Luz has her palismen! I’m willing to bet that just having them in her backpack while they pick their form is giving Luz a power boost! Which is why she’s suddenly making spell circles with her glyphs!
what i’m worried most about is Hunter’s sense of identity, and how for the entirety of his existence it was so fully determined by Belos’ manipulation and abuse. he literally cannot conceive of a life that is not of use to his abuser -> if he cannot be of service he might as well just die. he barely has anything inhis life other than his duty as the Golden Guard, and the purpose he was told he had in the grand scheme of the entire world
i cannot even begin to comprehend how much is going through his mind right now, and do not know how able he would be to process the overwhelming degree of Belos’ mistreatment, how much he’d be able to actually Rightfully blame Belos for. so i’m just really dreading the possibility of him processing some of this immense traumatizing revelation by instead absorbing the idea that there is something wrong with him, not the man who’d hurt him and every prior incarnation of him for centuries. that, knowing that every other Grimwalker that came before him ended up betraying the man he’d learned to be so, so loyal to, that the original person he “comes” from did the same, Hunter will internalize it as being, cosmically, a failure. that in his eyes, he is just another failed attempt at the end of a long chain of failed attempts, with, undoubtedly, some fatal flaw that makes him unable to just do what he’s here for, to ever properly serve any real purpose
so yeah, can’t begin to explain how glad i am his world finally started expanding beyond just his service to Belos just in time for ALL OF THIS to happen. especially with his deep connection to Flapjack, a creature with a real, living soul that, like Hunter, was made instead of born, but still needs and deserves to be handled with love and care, instead of being used and then discarded
Interesting detail: the palisman souls in Hollow Mind look remarkably like this 15th century depiction of the devil.
I stumbled on the image while looking for tarot art references, so I’ll add:
The Devil tarot cardcan refer to an individual’s dark or hidden impulses, and has connotations of bondage, violence and fear. It is a card signifying strong attachments and toxic relationships. The symbolism could not be more fitting.
I think that Eclipse Lake does an incredible job to show how deep Belos’ influence affects Hunter
He gets told he can be replaced, he wants to be useful, safe for him to assume that his position, and by extention Belos’ love, is in danger.
“There’s nothing worse than dissapointing someone who thinks you’re special” he wants to please Belos more than anything, and with that validating the thought that he IS special to someone, that Hunter isn’t replaceable (which makes the reveal in HM of all the lies about Hunter being special hurt even more)
“Hey, a chance to make up for that! But i cant go back empty-handed! Not again. Long story short, this is my grave.” Lilith also said the same thing in season 1, as well as Kikimora’s behaviour in Eclipse Lake echoing that sentiment. As he said, “come back with results or, you can figure out the rest”, if you don’t bring something back, if you aren’t successful, it’s better to not even come back at all.
“But there are people out there who won’t make you feel worthless” His worth is placed on what he can do, not on what he is. It does seem like he did hold on to that suggestion, even if his attitudes after that were focused on trying to please that exact person who made him feel worthless. That wasn’t going to solve his problems right now, so it got shelved for later. (He doesnt feel good basically immediatly after he gets the key, he regrets what he did. And later he is staring at it. He got his position secured, so now he can think better about what he did)
His desperation to get the key to the point of fighting and even threathening Luz’s safety, he didn’t think about the consequences at the moment, he had to get the key and nothing else mattered.
Hell, even the soundtrack in his fight with Amity has Belos’ theme instrument in the middle of it, because that fight was caused because of the seed of fear he planted earlier on Hunter’s head.
