#*bangs pots and pans together* PLOT HEAVY EPISODES ARE NOT NECESSARILY BETTER THAN CHARACTER DRIVEN ONES

[likeabxrdinflight]

I feel like a lot of people didn't really give The Owl House its due credit until season two brought in a lot of really plot-heavy, story driven elements and I really think that's a shame.

Not that serialized storytelling with a set plot is a bad thing. it's absolutely not. but the plot of The Owl House was really basic fantasy fare. For as much as the show acted like it was deconstructing those fantasy tropes, it really kinda...wasn't. Girl gets stuck in magic fantasy world and has to defeat the big bad emperor (who is a pretty basic villain tbh y'all have just been overexposed to redeemable villains lately) with the help of her quirky group of friends and hey wouldn't you know it, the primary morality play of the story has something to do with love, what a. what a shock. I have never seen a fantasy story do any of this before.

I'm just saying, the story structure itself really isn't that deep. it's a kids fantasy show and that's okay. that is not why The Owl House was good, and that is not why it stood out.

what made The Owl House unique were two main things, I think. One was the setting- the story may not have been a massive deconstruction of fantasy tropes, but the Boiling Isles as a setting absolutely was. Most magical fantasy worlds, especially those made for children, tend to be ethereal, colorful places with an air of whimsy and fun. Think places like Wonderland, Neverland, parts of the Harry Potter universe (I bring that up because TOH made jabs at it, fuck jkr). Even more seriously toned stories tend to have some of these elements- Lord of the Rings is a good example of a fantasy that can get quite dark but still has some classic fantasy world whimsy to it- the Shire is still a beloved setting for a reason.

The Owl House, however, played around with this idea a lot by making the Boiling Isles much more of a horror setting. And that was what was fun about it- they took a classic fantasy plot and laid it on top of this horrifying, hellish world. The characters are literally living on the corpse of one of the main characters' undead father the entire time. Everything is dangerous- the magic school has a detention that tries to eat you, Luz is constantly getting scammed and tricked, the wise old mentor is a cranky middle aged woman who turns into a demon owl, hell, even half the food is completely inedible. This world is inherently dangerous to Luz in some ways, above and beyond Belos' influence.

The other thing that sets this show apart are the characters and their relationships to each others. Luz first thinks of Eda as a potential "wise old mentor" in the veins of Gandalf- she ends up finding a complicated woman with her own difficult past who becomes more of a mother to her than a teacher. The cute animal sidekick starts off as a megalomaniac and turns out to actually be the son of a god who just wants to play catch. The three leads are weird, outcasts of their worlds who find community and companionship in each other. Most of the side characters fall into this basic theme too- Lilith is a history nerd hiding behind her coven head persona, Raine is a secret rebel and a bard with stage fright, Amity doesn't fit in with her family's expectations, Willow was bullied for being "half-a-witch", Gus is obsessed with humans and younger than his peers, Hunter was an abused kid hiding a love for wild magic, even Camila was a secret nerd. That was always the heart of the show, that was what made it good and different from other fantasy stories.

And none of that would have been nearly as apparent without the groundwork season one laid. Yes, season one was more episodic. Yes the tone was much lighter compared to later seasons. Yes some of the adventures were a bit goofy. But they were the foundation the show was built one. They were the reason you cared about saving this world once the plot started kicking in. The show didn't "get good" in season two, it was already good. Season two is full of plot contrivances and conveniences that get the characters from point A to point B, and season three is even worse (though Disney shoulders a lot of blame for that).

But take an episode like Hollow Mind, for example. The lead up to how Luz and Hunter end up in Belos' mind is not well written. It's rushed, it comes out of nowhere, and frankly it's an extremely convenient plot device to get us to the big Belos-is-Phillip reveal. There is nothing clever in the actual plot of that episode.

And nobody cares. I don't care, because that episode is still really good. Why is it good? Because of the characters. Because we care about Luz. We care about Luz's impact on this setting, because we love Luz, we love the friends she's made, we love the way she cares about them. And we love the Boiling Isles- we love this weird, creepy demon realm, and so we care when Belos reveals that he's a witch hunter out to destroy it. We've come to care about Hunter too, after seeing him bond with Willow and Gus at Hexside, so we care about him finding out the truth about Belos. So it didn't matter that the plot points were contrived and convenient- the character writing was so strong that it overrode all that.

But again, none of that would have hit as hard without the foundation that season one laid. This show was special because of season one, not despite it. Season one is not the weak link, it is an essential part of the show's core DNA, because it is there that we fully explore this setting and really get to know and love our characters and their bonds with each other. Season one is the heart of this show, and without it, the whole thing would have fallen flat.