The Owl House/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.



These things about The Owl House are subjective - not everyone will agree with all of them.

  • Anvilicious: "Conformity is bad! Being a quirky free spirit is good!"
  • Author Filibuster: Dana Terrace has, in fact, admitted she intended Amity and Luz's relationship from the start, claiming she wanted the show to have a message of tolerance and normalizing of LGBT relationships, also noting she hoped the Disney label would ensure the message was seen by a wide audience. Simply viewing the episodes, one can see that none of the characters seem to view it as abnormal; Eda, for example, seems more confused by the fact that Luz can't garner the courage to ask Amity out than the fact that Luz wants to ask Amity out.
  • Base Breaker:
    • King. Fans are pretty split on if his antics and voice make him hilarious and adorable or just plain annoying.
    • Is Lilith worthy of redemption for cursing Eda, or is she an irredeemable monster who crossed the point of no return? Her actually getting redeemed split the base even further, with her fans appreciating the ensuing character development while her haters viewed her as an aggravating Karma Houdini. It does help her side, however, that she herself takes a long time to accept her redemption, working hard to prove that she can be trusted. The culminating points are when she squeaks, "Eda's going to kill me" when it seems Luz is doing a suicidal run on a girls trip, and when she offers to take Eda's place in the plan to undo the Draining spell.
    • Alador had the same problem as Lilith initially, as fans pointed out he was an enabler who looked the other way while his horrid wife abused their children. Most of his detractors did forgive him upon learning he was as much as victim as they were, his loyalty being the result of sparing Amity, Emira, and Edric from even worse.
  • Complete Monster: Given his past, Belos is not this, oddly enough, but Odalia is another story. An Abusive Parent, Abusive Spouse (not even close to the double standard type), Bad Boss, Corrupt Corporate Executive (all four overlapping in most cases), and willing accomplice to Belos due to little but Greed, she has no decent qualities whatsoever and is a Hate Sink both in-universe and out. Even other villains despise her.
  • Cry for the Devil: More so pathetic than sad, as these villains brought their fates on themselves:
    • There is something tragic about the fact that Belos was sincere that he wasn't going to invade Earth; he wanted a way back to his home and didn't actually need the portal for the Day of Unity. He could have gone any time once getting the damaged portal key from Hunter, and the implication that Caleb married into the Clawthorne family. Yet because of his dedication to mass genocide and wiping out the Demon Realm, he chose to stay for four hundred years, using magic to extend his life, and fear to become an Emperor. This doesn't justify any of his actions, as Luz points out defiantly during "King's Tide," but in the end, a part of him realizes that Earth has moved on without him and won't see him as the hero he thinks he is. He killed his brother, murdered the Grimwalker clones for questioning him, pushed Hunter away by trying to kill him, fired or condemned those blindly loyal to him, and proved to the only other human on the Boiling Isles that he can't be trusted. When Luz offers to be a guide as part of a plan to brand Belos, Belos notes that she doesn't trust him and wouldn't agree to endanger Earth to save herself; she would only do it to save her friends. In the end, Belos died alone courtesy of the Collector. Hunter, despite everything, is horrified when the Collector lays the killing blow to his uncle.
    • Kikimora is a backstabbing opportunistic witch and a Dirty Coward. Luz feels bad for her when she has to choose between her family disowning her or Belos executing her for disobedience, and in the season 2 finale, Kikimora finds out that even if she performed her duties perfectly, Belos saw her as disposable. King reaches out to her when hearing her mutter about how she gave up everything for nothing. In her only decent moment, she takes him to the Collector to "kick Belos's butt" and doesn't backstab King.
    • In "King's Tide", anyone who first lays eyes on the Collector knows that they are bad news. They were the being that captured the Owlbeast, turning it into a curse, and reshapes the Boiling Isles without consideration for his new "friends" potentially not surviving his Extreme Island Makeover: Witch Edition. Yet, as the child of the stars puts it, he's a kid who wants to have fun, and all the people with whom they interacted went back on their "pinky swear". When the Collector meets King, he says in Sincerity Mode that he was hoping they could be friends and play. King was the exception to the other deal-breakers; when the Collector reminded them of their deal, King forces Luz to leave him behind and stays to teach Collector how to play Owl House as per the bargain, and keep him from killing everyone carelessly. It says something that King feels bad for him while deciding to stay behind on the Boiling Isles rather than go through the portal to Earth and uses his sonic scream to push Luz and her friends through the door because he knows the Collector's not truly evil, just immature.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: In I Was a Teenage Abomination, a lot of Amity's fans felt that she was unfairly demonized by the writers because she was rightly upset about Willow cheating on her Abomination project. She did have every right to be upset, but those fans often ignore the fact that she was A-OK with letting Luz get dissected alive by the principal out of spite, which she obviously had no right to do so. Luz herself lampshades this in the next episode, apologizing to Amity for cheating but pointing out that Principal Bump nearly dissected her.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Tiny Nose, whose status as a funny little character that constantly spouts hilarious conspiracy theories won over plenty of fans. Her adorable speech impediment also helps, and she's voiced by Dana Terrace.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • Luz and Amity are an Official Couple and fans don't object, but many of them would like to see Hunter and Willow be the same. There is, actually, quite a few hints of this in the show, and has become Fanfic Fuel for the series.
    • Some between Eda and Camilla too, as this fanmade comic/animatic shows.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: King claims in his debut episode that he's an evil overlord trapped in a "cute" body, while talking to a rubber duck. Eda hasn't believed it in ages, and Luz is more open-minded but repeatedly demonstrates, with squeeing, that King is too cute to be evil. In "Echoes of the Past," King himself realizes he's been delusional when Eda is forced to confess that she rescued him from what she thought was a deserted island and she doesn't actually know who or what he is, only that she loves him like a son. Close to the end of the season, "Edge of the World" eventually reveals that King was right, only he isn't a King of Demons per se. He's a Titan, probably the last one in existence, and the one whose bodies create more demons and life when they develop into islands. The Lost One is basically a god in child form. Also, as Hooty eventually asks, are Titans technically evil? King ends the episode sadly processing this, that he was right but it means his real family has probably been slaughtered and he may have been living on top of his parent the whole time, since a Titan skeleton makes up the Boiling Isles.
  • Heartbreaking in Hindsight:
    • Luz becomes thrilled when Eda accepts her offer to become an apprentice and stay for summer break, rather than go to summer camp. She lies to her mom via text. She wakes up nearly the next morning looking for witch clothes. Then Dr. Noceda finds out the truth during "Yesterday's Lie" when Luz blows her cover story to save Vee, and she breaks down. She asks if Luz gave up her life on Earth to pursue a "witch fantasy".
    • Eda tells Luz that the reason they stole a paper crown from the Warden was to make King happy because she and King are the only family that each has. This leads to a lot of moments where we find out why Eda is estranged from her family, including that her own sister is hunting her down to make her join the Emperor's Coven. Then of course King has a breakdown when he learns the truth about his origins in season two; that is, that Eda rescued him from what she thought was a robot monster on a deserted island, and she accidentally planted the idea of him being a king while commenting on how he played with his toys. Eda apologizes to King for leading him on, saying that she didn't want to break his heart by admitting she doesn't know who or what he is.
    • Eda saves Lilith from a spider monster during "Sense and Sensitivity", jokingly saying that she's the only one allowed to kick her big sister's butt. Then the season one finale happens, where Eda fights Lilith more seriously to rescue Luz, and comes close to mauling her in Owlbeast form when they're locked in a petrification cage together.
    • Luz finds a kindred spirit Philip Wittenbane when reading his journals, as another human that explored the Boiling Isles. She affectionately tends for the Echo Mouse that can play back his journal entries. Then she meets the guy in-person during a time travel run with Lilith, who proceeds to use her and Lilith as a sacrifice to secure an ancient artifact. Luz can't believe he's actually a big jerk, and apologizes to Lilith for trusting him. She doesn't even know that he's Emperor Belos, four hundred years older, until he reveals himself in "A Hollow Mind" and breaks Luz.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight: In "Eclipse Lake," Amity attempts to reason with Hunter that if Belos truly loved him, Belos wouldn't execute him for failure. It doesn't work, and she laments that Luz is better at this sort of thing. In "Labyrinth Runners", Amity shows no hesitation in working with Hunter when he pulls a proper Heel Face Turn, rescues Gus from Graye as well as the Emperor's Coven, and identifies a Willow impostor about to trick Gus into letting his guard down. She has a visible look of pride and relief when Hunter comes clean to everyone about the Day of Unity and that it's mass-genocide.
  • I Knew It!: Many fans had theorized that Hunter was a Grimwalker many episodes before this was confirmed in "Hollow Mind".
  • Inferred Holocaust: Both the season one finale and "Hollow Mind" show the extent of how far Belos's Wild Magic campaign has hurt witches. Many have been petrified, which is a final death.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Hunter, the Golden Guard. He makes a a bad first impression on Luz and Eda by threatening to boil them alive and kill King unless they do the Emperor's bidding on their behalf. Luz finds out later that he's a witch without powers, and that wild magic users wiped out his family. What's more, he's worried about his uncle dying and only surviving by eating Palisman, but Belos will lob a fireball at him if Hunter even suggests finding alternative remedies. She describes him to Eda as a "bad sad boy", much to his chagrin. Hunter then goes from Jerkass to a straight-up Woobie on learning that Belos isn't his uncle, and they aren't related. No, Belos cloned Hunter from a long line of Golden Guards, and decides to dispose of him as he disposed of the other clones when the poor kid sees in his memories that Belos is a human witch hunter who has spent centuries lying about his identity to commit genocide. A few episodes later shows Hunter on the verge of a nervous breakdown about his identity crisis, choosing to live on Hexside leftovers from the garbage rather than stay in the Owl House or return to the castle. Gus has to snap him out of it by offering him his first decent meal in a while, but even so Hunter is understandably traumatized. Then Luz, who has been his enemy for most of the season, selflessly switches places with him using Gus's powers so that Kikimora grabs her, because the mere thought of seeing Belos again causes Hunter to enter panic mode. He spends most of "King's Tide" running on guilt that Luz made such a sacrifice when they weren't even friends.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Let's start with the Big Bad, Emperor Belos, who has a lot of potential candidates for this:
      • Sentencing Eda to irreversible petrification (as if to display her like some trophy) after promising Lilith he intended to cure her was bad enough. To make this worse, he used Eda as a bargaining chip for getting the portal from Luz.
      • Then comes "Hollow Mind" where we discover he's been a witch serial killer for four hundred years, during which he torched entire towns in False-Flag Operation, killed all the predecessor Golden Guards for disobeying him, murdered his brother for loving a witch, and created a series of clones that he disposed of callously when they rebelled against him. Hunter is the latest model, not much older than Luz and technically younger than her. When Hunter finds this all out and asks Was It All a Lie?, Belos proceeds to try and murder him before taunting Luz that she helped him achieve his goals in the past.
      • And of course, the Day of Unity itself. Disregarding - for a moment - that this is genocide, he breaks his deal with the Collector (which he never intended to keep), "rewards" Kikimora for her Undying Loyalty by throwing her aside like she was garbage (of course, she is, but that's beside the point) and plans to abandon the Boling Isles as it dies behind him. The only thing that keeps him from killing Luz at this point is when Luz tells him the human world is not likely to believe his story, something that debunks all his claims of "protecting humanity", and validating that he ultimately only cares about himself.
    • Worst of all, in season 3, when he realizes that his goal has become pointless and can no longer even pretend he is doing so for the good of humanity - nobody in the modern human world would appreciate his work or even acknowledge it - he decides to wipe out the Boiling Isles for no reason other than to prove to himself that he is not a failure. Meaning, his motive has become nothing more than spite.
    • Way back in "Witches before Wizards," Adeghast crosses this by kidnapping Luz as bait for Eda, all to get rid of a rival potion seller, and proceeding to strangle her as a bound Eda and King beg for Luz to fight it. And to make matters worse, he did it by using her Chosen One fantasies against her, making her think that she was the hero of the Boiling Isles. No one mourns when he's reduced to a tiny cephalopod and Eda swallows him; Luz just seems mildly grossed out by the sudden death. 
    • Odalia Blight had already proven herself a wicked woman in "Escaping Expulsion" where she was more than willing to kill Luz as part of a product demonstration of all things. When "Clouds On the Horizon" airs, it shows she is one of the few Boiling Isles resident not oblivious to Belos' true plan, making her an accomplice to his genocidal plans, something that truly cements her as irredeemably evil.
    • Kikimora had gained the reputation of a cowardly little creep long before she did anything that qualified for this Trope, but her plotting to have the Golden Guard killed out of nothing but petty jealousy sent her firmly on the road to damnation. And she got there in "Clouds On the Horizon" where it was revealed she also knew what the Day of Unity’s true purpose was, but didn’t care so long as she gained revenge against Hunter. While she did offer King some valuable information in “King’s Tide”, it’s hard to fathom that she did so for any reason other than to save her own worthless hide.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: Hooty's voice is this for two different reasons: for his fans, his high, squeaky voice is hilarious while for his detractors, his frequently-heard "-SHEESH!" specifically is a joy to hear because it usually follows him being hurt or annoyed.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This is an unfortunate side effect of season three being reduced to three specials and previously planned episodes being hinted at in the prologue, though we do see some snippets of the kids' adventures while on Earth:
    • Jacob manages to pinpoint accurately that Gus is a witch when Gus playfully crashes the reenactment. Unfortunately, not much comes of this revelation because he gets kicked out of the party for assaulting a child and the kids go back to the Boiling Isles that same night.
    • Belos spends a few months hopping around Gravesfield, possessing animals before finally moving onto Hunter near Halloween. It's never shown what he thought of the fact that Luz was right, how the Earth had moved on without him and if he found anything that interested him.
  • Ugly Cute:
    • The Bat Queen's nestlings are kind of adorable, if a little... hyperactive.
    • King is lovable, despite wearing a skull over his face.
  • Word of Gay: See Author Filibuster above.
  • Word of God: Who is the older twin, Emira or Edric? According to a National Siblings Day Instagram post by Disney Television Animation, it's Emira.
Back to The Owl House
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/The_Owl_House/YMMV?oldid=2017089"