Philip Wittebane’s brother is the Owl Beast theory
So I was trying to sleep at night, and suddenly something occured to me. Somehow, I wanted to put all my thoughts that I had in a post. So what if the owl beast, Eda’s curse — is actually Philip Wittebane’s brother? I’ll call him William, because that’s how this fandom calls him.
A might delete this later? I also apologize for possible grammar mistakes, I’m not a native English speaker.
Do you guys remember the code message from season 1?
“Two Witches Torn Apart
Now Alone
Two Hearts Of Stone
A Curse Of Feathers And Mud
A Betrayal Of Blood”
“A Curse Of Feathers And Mud”! “A Betrayal Of Blood” Okay, at first I thought it was about the Clawthorne sisters. With Eda having the curse of feathers — and blood is her having a kinsman, a sister who betrayed her by cursing her. But then in “Hunting Palisman”, we saw that Emperor Belos, like Eda — is also cursed. His curse is extremely similar to that of mud.
Not only that, he has a kinsman too, a brother. Why else would Hunter call Belos uncle? What if it isn’t about the Clawthorne sisters, but about the Wittebane brothers? With Belos being Philip, having de curse of mud — and William having the curse of feathers?
We don’t really know very much about the owl beast. All we know is that the owl beast was once a living being who roamed free in the demon realm — for God knows how long, before it was captured by the collector — and turned into a curse. It ended up at the night market after being lost at sea for a long time, until Lilith found it.
Although the backstory of the owl beast is pretty sad, it’s strange that it first had a normal life before it was turned into a curse. It’s just weird that it even has a backstory in the first place! Somehow, It feels like the owl beast is important besides just being Eda’s curse — and that we were going to learn more about its previous life.
William Wittebane being the owl beast sounds pretty important to me. It could also explain the backstory of the collector — and to who she is as a whole. We’re definitely not done with the backstory of the owl beast — and the collecter, there is more to it.
What’s interesting to me is that William’s palisman was Lil’ Rascal. And yes, Lil’ Rascal was William’s palisman, not Philip’s! If you look at the picture of the Wittebane brothers from Hopkins’ book, Philip’s coat is unbuttoned up — and he’s wearing a belt, just like his statue! William however, you can see that Rascal is on his shoulder. Which means Rascal was his palisman. William’s coat is always buttoned up — and he does not wear a belt, just like his statue! Etc…
William’s Palisman represents the desire for freedom! The desire to be outside, exploring the world and the desire for knowledge. But also the desire to escape control — and to be free of any responsibilities! That’s why Rascal is Hunter’s palisman in the first place, but also because he and William looked identical — not just personality wise!
So what makes it so interesting that Lil’ Rascal is William’s Palisman? Why am I mentioning all this? Well, If the owl beast is indeed William, it’s pretty sad for such a free spirited person like him to be imprisoned for centuries — while he has always longed for freedom. I’m sure it must be terrible for him to be imprisoned like that. I don’t know, I felt like it was something I should mention. Dana also said that birds are a Clawthorne thing. Could Rascal symbolize William’s connection to Eda as her curse?
But why didn’t Belos recognized his brother when he met Eda in the finale of season 1? I don’t really know, perhaps there is a logical explanation for this.
The only counter argument is that William could not be the owl beast — is if Hunter is a grimwalker, cloned after William. You need a bone of ortet to clone someone, so William must be dead for that. Maybe you just need a piece of dna — like a strand of hair for example? Perhaps there is a logical explanation for this too?
We don’t really know much about the Wittebane brothers and their past, nor about grimwalkers. So this theory about William being the owl beast is still on the table, for now at least.
If this theory is true, I can’t help but wonder, how did these two brothers got cursed? Only time will tell.
Conclusion: William somehow transformed into the owl beast, got later transformed into a curse by the collector — and now lives inside Eda.
no because i just. can’t get over belos wearing his dumb fucking pilgrim outfit and insisting on being called “witch hunter general” like. idk just how… childish it all is. how he’s so wrapped up in this game of hero he’s created for himself that he doesn’t have an ounce of self awareness. he’s created this idea of himself in his mind of the destroyer of evil, the savior of the human realm, and he has to believe in it because if he doesn’t then all of the sins he’s committed will drive him mad (this holds even more weight now knowing that him killing his brother and creating the grimwalkers stand out as his worst memories). just. he is so so completely detached from any semblance of reality, completely unable to self reflect, to see not only how horrible but how ridiculousthis all is. how he’s doing this for nothing. he’s just an old man that time has moved past who is so deep into the sunk cost fallacy that his only way of moving forward is further deluding himself. just. thinking.
“Steve, kindly put those here and close the mail box I believe that I’m drowning in all these queries”
“You got it,Boss!”
// Hi!! Closing the inbox for now because there are just too many questions hahaha I will open it up once I have more elbow room again. Thank you so much for all this support! I’m honestly very flustered at the amount of people that follow this blog ^^)/
Phillip represents conformity and trying to enforce standards of “normality” on the non-conforming and the proudly abnormal.
But I guess the Collector runs too far in the opposite direction: unbound imagination, working outside any rules or any care for the wellbeing of others.
Because while sending Luz to a conformity camp was an absolutely terrible thing, she did release snakes into a school, which is bad in it’s own way.
I love that a big part of what brought Philip’s downfall is just the fact that he’s a DICK to everyone. Kikimora might not have lead King to the Collector if he’d just been polite to her for ten seconds. The Collector might have believed Belos had helped free them (or at least not been so eager to backstab and murder) had Philip not gloated about how he gets to go home while the Collector is trapped. Even trying to deceive Hunter only to completely snap at “Caleb” as soon as Flapjack was in the picture.
You can see it even in the flashback when he deceived Lilith and Luz to use as sacrifices after they offered to help him. Philip Whittebane was always willing to hurt others for his own ends, or just his own satisfaction. And that was what spelled his downfall.
No but Luz and Philip’s last proper conversation was everything to me.
Philip had centuries in the Boiling Isles. By the end of it he had the universal love and respect of everyone there, all the power and control his abusive ass could have dreamed of. And still he couldn’t be satisfied with it, couldn’t see it as a home.
But Luz, whose journey had so many bumps and twists, who fought and struggled to belong and build a place as a human witch, chose the Boiling Isles with almost no hesitation. She doesn’t want to leave her mother, but…Luz is more at home in the Demon Realm than the human one. Because she wanted to make it work there, and was willing to put the work it.
Luz was disappointed that the Isles weren’t the PG Fantasy world she dreamed of. But she made herself at home there anyway, while Philip only ever sought to destroy it.
This can be seen in their (one-sided) conversation about Glyphs, too.
Philip is so obsessed with the idea that he struggled with these Glyphs because something got in his way — insisting the Titan was hiding it from him.
Generously putting aside the fact Philip wanted to kill everyone on the Isles — like, obviously the Titan would hide Glyphs from you??? — he cannot even fathom that Luz learning so much faster than him would be for any reason besides external interference. (She isn’t better than him, she can’t be, she’s wrong to care about this place.)
Whereas the reasons Luz learned as fast as she did were 1. Out of necessity — something that goes just as much if not more so for Belos. (Luz had more severe battles to fight, but she also had fellow witches who were willing to protect her, while Philip drove everyone away with his rancid vibes.) 2. Out of desire. Luz WANTED to belong on the Isles, to understand and appreciate it.
Luz learned about the Isles and was accepted by it because she was willing to. But Philip rejected it right up until the end.
biggest plottwist if this kid who had like 1 second of screentime in the “trailer” is actually young Belos is that we were all duped into thinking Belos had blonde/light colored hair
ALT
