#belos being made to a villain whos just evil for the sake of being evil

[space--butterflies]

I've seen a lot of shows with lackluster finale, but never has the finale of a show actively ruined the rest of the series for me like Watching and Dreaming

[sepublic]

Manny Noceda Haunting the Narrative

We all speak of Caleb haunting the narrative, but what of Manny? Perhaps haunting isn’t the exact right word here, for its foreboding connotations; But he’s ultimately an unseen, unheard ghost whose influence can be felt. Whose absence is there, more clearly than others to be honest because we know that Luz had to have a father, it’s not ambiguous for witches like it is for humans.

From the very first scene, we have to wonder where Manny is if he’s not present during Luz’s conference but Camila is; He’s not even present for Luz to be sent off. He’s not mentioned or acknowledged.

But we have the book he gave Luz, the one that Luz is drawn back towards, and it’s what leads her to the Boiling Isles, and motivates her to stay there for her own sake. It’s what motivates Luz to think of herself, when by the second half of the show she begins to refuse that option as inherently selfish.

If Homesick had aired during S1B, we’d have gotten a glimpse of Manny, but specifically, curiously faceless; Until then, Luz sees a parental figure deteriorating from an incurable illness and is obsessed with handling it, offering medical advice to Eda at one point.

And in Yesterday’s Lie, there’s still no Manny or mention of him, but we see glimpses of his body without the face. And then finally, finally we get Reaching Out and realize; He died. There was no divorce, it’s not that Manny is dead to mother and daughter, only literally. He’s still very much alive to them, Luz is worried about paying tribute to him in that episode.

Camila mourns the loss of Manny, someone who was always better at her about being a weirdo, and without him she feels lost, falls back into what society demands of her, and in doing so hurts their daughter. She mourns that she misses him, but Camila can’t depend on Manny to be what Luz needs her to be; She’ll be Manny, for Luz but also herself too. And Luz herself struggles to be the unapologetic Manny as well, and must do it for herself especially.

It’s the way Manny recontextualizes everything about the Nocedas. It’s the way he haunts the narrative himself, because we noticed, we had to, we had to ask where he was. Why is he not there for Luz or Camila, would he support her, is Camila also struggling from his absence? We don’t need his face or voice or an outright flashback to feel and appreciate Manny’s influence (Though I would’ve loved one).

And in a way, it’s like Dana’s own father Thomas Terrace is doing the same; With it being confirmed that Dana’s dad gave her a copy of Pokémon Red before he died, you understand perfectly that Luz is Dana, Manny is her father. Dana still likes Pokémon to this day, she’s done crossover art with Pokémon and her own show.

When it came out, Pokemon was targeted by Evangelicals as evil, it was absurd; And we see the Conformatorium perform similar absurdities in the same first episode where Luz is shown to hold onto her father’s last gift, and her fight with the Conformatorium is her fight with the system that made Luz feel ashamed of Manny’s gift and the profound impact it had on her.

The villain of the show manipulates Luz and makes her think she’s just like him, something Luz acknowledges means being a selfish, destructive force; Unsurprisingly, the villain is a Puritan, the ancestor of evangelicals, who agrees on the similarities but not on these things being evil.

Manny is the invisible ghost unseen, for the same reason as Caleb; And between the two, perhaps Caleb is defined incorrectly when it comes to how he influences things. Because Caleb does not really motivate Belos, Belos always wanted to be a witch hunter before he could claim to be betrayed by Caleb, he did it for himself. He made Grimwalkers but still continues the harm unto and through them that Caleb stood against. Caleb failed to do anything with Belos, tbh, and all that is passed on are empty genes that a racist would obsess over, but never the spirit as Luz did with Manny.

But what about Caleb’s child? Manny is defined as a father to Luz. What about someone Caleb was a father to as well? His unborn child, the ancestor of Eda. Caleb was a wood carver who loved Flapjack, and the Clawthornes had a tradition of carving Palismen. Could it not be implied that Evelyn carried on his unseen and unheard, yet felt love to their child, born after the death? And this love for the isles and magic and Palismen was passed all the way down to Dell, and then Eda.

And it’s Eda who helps Luz, another human, embrace her love for the isles and magic and Palismen. Evelyn’s descendant helps another human. Luz sees Eda in Manny, she’s his successor as someone who’s present for Luz when Camila can’t always be. Eda loves wild magic and her Palisman, gives Owlbert more autonomy than other witches, and helps the Bat Queen arrange Palismen to find new partners. And what goes around comes around when Caleb’s contribution to Palismen, started by Flapjack, helps Flapjack find a new friend and set in motion events that would lead to the Clawthornes’ injustice being rectified.

I’ve seen people argue that Hunter being with Willow makes him a copy of Caleb, but in addition to Hunter’s arc being him not caring what he does or doesn’t resemble… I think maybe the true parallel to Caleb and Evelyn is Manny and Camila; Both came to Gravesfield, the father was a weirdo with an open mind. He died, the mother mourned, but he passed on something to a child, who would eventually pass it on to Luz herself as both stories and families converge.

So Evelyn and Caleb’s child haunts the narrative; They’re Luz in a sense. Manny haunts the narrative too, since the start. He is Caleb, and so he is Eda who carries that spirit. And he is Eda because she carries the spirit for Luz. Manny is Dana Terrace’s own father, who inspired her to keep being a weirdo, which led to this show. So not only is Manny more important to the narrative’s framing and focus as the main character’s father, whose absence motivates both a disconnect between mother and daughter that leads Luz to the isles, but also motivates Luz to stay?

In a way, Manny represents the father of the series, the father of the show that reflects Dana’s own experiences and beliefs. One could say he haunts Dana’s own life, except… Perhaps the word ‘haunt’ is incorrect. Because it has a negative connotation. Perhaps the word is Inspire; Manny may be dead, we may know little of Mr. Terrace or Manny himself. But we can say that Manny lived, because of his impact, his life had meaning and it always will. Something is in motion, so we all know and understand ask what, or who set it that way.

[redbusters]

hopefully this is the last long post i will ever have to make about hit disney show the owl house but I am so sick of people posting paragraphs of lukewarm takes on philip's death so. one last rant for the road, i suppose.

belos's death wasn't unsatisfying, nor was it purely physical. first of all, philip is a representation of greater societal problems (which are notably still there, remember, there's people who want to reestablish his order for their own gain). he is a plague and parasite on the world and a demonstration of humanity's worst cruelties, and his pathetic death by boiling rain and stomping as the most true and good character, who does her best to do right by everyone and believes in second chances, in the entire show, looks at him with no emotion in a way that directly parallels the way caleb's ghost looks down upon him, and he claws at her feet in a desperate attempt to use another person's good nature once again to get what he wants, and fails and dies, is INCREDIBLY symbolic.

and TWO. the point ISN'T that philip is an Evil Liar Who Lies and his backstory is being shafted for simple evil, he is an incredibly realistic depiction of how many people are consumed by their fear of what they don't understand and their hatred, let it fester into a desire to harm, and then elaborate lies to not only manipulate others but trick themselves by their own rhetoric so they don't have to feel bad for it

throughout the show philip is paralleled to cult leaders and militaristic dictators, and he is LITERALLY a puritan colonizer. philip is white man ego in its purest form. yes, the awful society is 75% the fault of Just One Guy, but this is a cartoon. he represents every man who has tried to build a world like this, who burns what he doesn't understand and makes up lies to justify it and trick his own guilt into not eating him alive.

people keep bitching that philip didn't truly face his own lies and realize how awful he was before he died, or that he wasn't given any chance to change, but philip has run the fuck out of chances. the point is he will never learn because he chooses not to. philip had to die because he'd rather lie and rot and take everyone down with him than EVER admit he's wrong. he killed his brother because he tricked himself into believing that caleb betrayed him, romanticized the idea of Caleb in his head and delusionally convinced himself that he tried to save him, while his knife hangs over his brother's ghost eternally, symbolizing the shoved down guilt he'll never truly outrun.

he made hunter believe it was his fault that philip repeatedly harmed him, he told the people of the isles after slaughtering them over and over that it's better if he rules them because he is better than them, he eternally victimizes himself over and over because he is an abuser. his lies are not just to others but to himself. he makes himself believe that the ends justify the means, when the ends are nonsensical rhetoric and the means are horrific violence. because philip is a person who may have had the capacity for good, but he chooses to live in his own hatred and rot everything around him, taking advantage of hunger for power and good natured kindness in the same breath, and he chooses to turn away from the mirror every time, to refuse to acknowledge the monster he's become because he's a coward.

the titan said it themself. his motives aren't genuine, not because he's evil for evil's sake but because he'd do anything to continue to live in his own delusion of heroism and perpetual victimhood. philip is someone you can find in the behaviors of dictators and colonists and evangelical christians and run of the mill abusers all throughout history. this doesn't make him a cookie cutter villain, it makes him a REALISTIC villain, or as realistic as you can get in a cartoon on the disney channel. he wants power and he wants admiration and he wants death and suffering to the people he's scared of, and he'd rather kill himself and take everyone down with him than ever face who he is.

not all villains need a redemption arc to be complex. he doesn't love to rub his hands together cartoonishly and watch the world burn, but some people do actually enjoy harming others. but the realism comes from how he lies to himself and others about it.

sometimes someone can be truly evil, not because they were born that way, but because they choose to be, and because they choose to live in denial about it until they're rotting in the ground.

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

Aren't you kinda glad that Dana didn't write / touch The Wittebane Backstory? I sure am. Sorry for assuming, but being that she hates Belos and favors Hunter, I have a feeling she would have written it as a "Good Brother, Bad Brother" thing. I mean, look how she made Belos evil for the sake of being evil in the finale. And you know the fans wouldn't question or look further into it because her word is God to them and they all hate him (Belos / Philip) too. I don't know if she likes Caleb as much as she likes Hunter, but being that they look alike, she probably would have made someone who looks like her favorite character only good for the sake of being good with no flaws. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. Sorry for sounding salty, but it would have been favoritism at its finest.

I guess every cloud has a silver lining. What I can't figure out is if the creator supposedly hates the character that much (and from what I've heard, she mostly hates the process of writing him, I could be wrong though) then why even bother giving him a sympathetic backstory? The point could be that no matter your excuses, you crossed the line and lost any sympathy you may have had and now have to pay for your crimes, like what Centaur World did with the Nowhere King.

But there's no acknowledgement from the show about Philip's trauma and why he made his decisions. The characters don't use any of the information they learned on Masha's hayride to defeat Belos, it feels more like it was for the audience, like the show was saying, "here is your Belos backstory, now we can move onto the rest of the plot." But then we actually see "Caleb" and the show goes as far as to suggest that Belos feels guilt. He denies that guilt obviously but it's there. And there is absolutely nothing done with that.

I don't doubt that the show would have used the Good Brother/Evil Brother dynamic, because it's consistent in keeping its villains one-dimensional, while the hero characters just make mistakes they feel bad about later. But the fact that they built up Belo's backstory so much only to omit it entirely from the finale is a baffling writing decision.

But as you say, perhaps it was a good thing we didn't find out more so at least fans can have their own head canons and nothing in canon could contradict that.

(Also, never worry about sounding too salty with me, the show had so much potential and wasted dang near every one of them!)

[izunias-meme-hole]

One Villainous Scene - Cruelty vs Restraint

Fire Lord Ozai, no matter how pathetic he is as a person, is still one of the most chilling villains in any animated series (Outside of like Emperor Belos, Bill Cipher, DCAU!Joker, Slade, and Professor Pericles). Despite only appearing in the flesh in season 3, his buildup through both the Fire Nation and his own family is amazing. We see that he scarred his son for both speaking out against him and not fighting back, we see that he basically groomed his daughter into a killing machine, we see that he's authorized so many war crimes, we see the crimes of his ancestors, and they all showcase one thing. He is unbelievably cruel. Born evil? No. Cruel to the point of disgust? Absolutely. Ozai, as the head of an imperialistic system, believes that he has a "Divine Right to Rule" and that "strength is all that matters", though his idea of strength is pure relentlessness and remorseless cruelty. In his eyes, if you're unable to burn whatever stands in your way with zero hesitation, then that makes you weak. It's a simplistic ideology for a villain, but its effective because of the type of villainous force the Fire Nation is (The fckin' Axis Powers), and the type of protagonist that The Avatar, Aang is.

Aang is an Air Nomad, a monk to put it simply. He lived a simplistic life before his people got eliminated by the Fire Nation 100 years ago, and part of that simplistic lifestyle involved zero killing. It's literally ironic since previous Avatar's have never hesitated to outright execute someone if they had to for the sake of peace. Since Aang is the current Avatar, and the current Fire Lord is literally threatening the world with the most brutal breed of fascism possible... you can see where this is going. Aang wants to stop Ozai, but he isn't willing to betray the beliefs of his long dead people. So when this inevitable fight starts, it got ugly really quick.

After stoping Ozai's attempt at turning the Earth Kingdom into a wasteland, Aang gets his attention and tried talking him into surrendering, but as expected Ozai doesn't back down. Aang does indeed fight this bastard, but consistently spends the fight restraining himself. He has opportunities to just snuff out Ozai's life, but chooses not to because of his beliefs. Meanwhile Ozai isn't hesitating at all. This is a man who burned his own kid for speaking out against him and showing weakness, so he has no qualms with killing this child who froze himself for 100 years.

Aang continues to restrain himself, while Ozai keeps trying to go in for the kill, taunting the last airbender while doing so and making him run. The Fire Lord continues showing absolutely zero mercy towards Aang, even as the boy is hiding, and this ultimately became his undoing. Thanks to his literal inability to show mercy, Ozai forced Aang into the Avatar State, and from there he is shown a power far beyond his own.

Now that he's literally pissed off the most powerful entity on the planet, Ozai begins getting completely and utterly washed. He is getting stomped out, and there is not a single thing he can do about it. He cannot fight back, and running is definitely not a luxury that he's being afforded. Now he's the helpless one while Aang is the one showing zero restraint, and it's made all to clear when Aang literally pins Ozai down onto the ground, getting ready to kill this man with all four elements.

Except, Aang doesn't do it. He regains control of himself, and regains that restraint, that desire to hold onto his people's beliefs, and shows Ozai mercy. Despite literally everything, Aang doesn't want to end it all like this. Ozai on the other hand is pissed.

"Even with all the power in the world, you are still weak."

Ozai was shown the immense power of the Avatar, and he was afraid of that power. Then he is shown mercy by this being who could decimate him in one shot? As scared as he was in that moment, Ozai would've rather died to someone that could overpower or at least have the will to kill him than be spared. So naturally, he wastes the mercy Aang gave him in an attempt to kill him, but ultimately gets pinned down, and unfortunately for him Aang remembered a little trick he learned before this fight. The ability to remove one's bending. So just like that, Ozai doesn't die, but rather is is powerless, humiliated, and shown for what he truly is... a small man pretending to be a big bad wolf.

Ultimately for all of his thoughts on what makes one "strong" and "weak," for all his talk about how he has a "right" to rule, and for all of his cruelty and ruthlessness, Ozai is ultimately just an pathetic human being using the past of his bloodline and his nation to become more than what he is. Meanwhile a literal CHILD MONK, the last personification of restraint and simplicity, not only kicks his ass, but proves that him wrong on so many levels and exposes him for what he really is. Fire Lord Ozai is a simplistic villain with minimal screen time, but what carries him is indeed his buildup as this purely monstrous figure, his constant presence, his cruelty, and the payoff that is this phenomenally done final fight.

[mdhwrites]

If you really don't like Amity having bad parents being a reason why she became antagonistic initially, what do you think would've been a better reason for why she acted the way she did initially? After all, no one is born mean.

So first: Sometimes kids are just mean. Not everyone comes from a broken family or has some sort of trauma that caused them to be an asshole. My twin brother is a narcissistic, abusive dick while my sister is incredibly selfless and caring and SHE is the one who has gone through real abuse and a failed marriage while my brother's biggest whine to make is... Honestly not much. Hell, I don't have some big trauma to explain why I have depression. I just hit adulthood and my brain's reaction to the stresses and changes was to shatter like glass. Humans are complicated like that

BUT to be fair, in a narrative no one needs to be evil just for the sake of evil. It's part of why Belos is boring. Even with Sasha, she's made more interesting by the fact that she doesn't think she's in the wrong for two entire seasons. So what could have been a better reason for Amity to be antagonistic?

Easy: The reason they gave in Covention and then expanded on in Lost in Language. It's actually the Willow stuff, the stuff that is more tied into her parents, that sucks way harder for Amity's character. Amity, early on, is an overachiever who deeply cares about her craft and takes things very seriously. That is just generally opposed to who Luz is in general. The fact that Luz wants to be a witch when there should be no way for that to be possible, made worse by how Luz treats it like something that should be fun. The fact that Luz is constantly messing around while she's working herself into an aneurysm. These are very natural conflicts that could have been explored more by the show but they made a severe mistake.

They made Amity an over the top, practically OOC, villain when she first shows and they show this by having her bully Willow and say this is what she normally does. The problem for Amity is that now she NEEDS an explanation to be such a bitch. It's not something a little understanding can deal with because it's not friction that causes her to be mean or standoffish, it's that she just straight up enjoys torturing this one girl. And mind you: It was still her choice because she only had to stop being friends with Willow. She didn't have to target her for extra bullying as we see is the present status quote.

It's also bad for Luz. Part of why I don't buy that she's some tortured outcast who has been mistreated is because she doesn't blink when it comes to Amity. One moment of cuteness and Luz is immediately going "Let's live out my fantasy and befriend her!" despite Amity being the absolute epitome of the sort of girl who supposedly would have made Luz's life hell back home. By the end of Lost in Language though, their third major episode together, they're effectively friends.

Honestly, with how little of characters Gus and Willow are, mostly serving to let Luz into Hexide and closer to Amity, alongside the fact that Dana herself said she wanted a queer romance as fast as possible... I just wouldn't have given them an antagonistic relationship. Bare minimum, not enemies to lovers (not that the show really tries that hard). Their personalities are enough to make an interesting, classic dynamic without making them hate each other at first.

Honestly, if I were to try to suggest a rewrite: Make it so that Covention is the third episode, Luz forces Eda to take her there because she sees a sign and tortures Eda like in the episode, Gus and Willow don't do anything besides exposition and introduce the concept anyways and then have the episode go the way it was originally but instead of it being because she's comically evil that she steps on King's cupcake, have it be for King's actual personality. She doesn't like the freeloader who she sees as mooching off of things and so stomps his cupcake. Gets across her serious attitude and that she is a pretty severe person. Luz makes her challenge, they have their duel where Luz finds out about Eda's sister and Amity being Lilith's pupil and after their heart to heart (because Luz in S1 had no reason to chase Amity in Covention anyways besides empathy for a crying girl), Luz gets an idea: She's going to befriend Amity and in the process, mend the rift between Lilith and Eda. This gives an actual plot purpose to getting closer to Amity.

Then you don't have the episodes wasted on Gus and Willow, nor the episodes wasted apologizing for Amity's behavior but instead can focus on Luz breaking into Hexide to say Amity. While Amity doesn't like the methods, she appreciates hard and dedication and doing it so as to be nice to her? That... That touches her and she's willing to see what the human does, especially if maybe she can learn some of that glyph magic to supplement her own? Make her a better witch too achieve her own goals?

And as they grow closer, it becomes less transactional. Grom can still happen like it did with Amity expecting Luz to want something for helping but nope! It's just because Luz is nice. And then for the finale, Luz doesn't have to be alone in her heist because while it puts her future in jeopardy, Luz has taught Amity enough about being a good person and doing the right thing that while she'll still want a disguise, she'll come with to try and save Eda's life. An act of early rebellion against what she believed in, the morals taught to her, so as to be able to properly show she's changing to not just blindly accept the EC as the best option. This also allows for the betrayal of Lilith to mean more to Amity if their mentor and student relationship has meant more to the series. Suddenly, her dance with anarchy becomes more fervent because her teacher, the one she saw as the best proof of how great the EC is, was lied to and tricked by the Emperor and now against the coven.

And for S2, if her parents aren't the main pressures on her, if it's just because she's a kid who cares about success, you don't need Escaping Expulsion and can spend half of that episode and the entirety of Looking Glass Ruins exploring Amity trying to figure out rebellion, potentially not wanting to put Luz at risk after she almost died in the S1 finale, but justifying it as her always doing things on her own. They have a big adventure climax against Belos that's also exploring rebel Luz and afterwards, Amity gives Luz a peck on the cheek for always being there. Always helping her figure things out when she'd be too stubborn to see clearly herself. Then go into Knock Knock Knocking with little changed if you want to keep that moment of them getting together the same.

It's not a perfect outline but it's what I came up with while writing this. And if you're thinking this is too much time spent on Amity, you need to remember that she already consumes a third of Luz's time during episodes in S1 and 2. Sure, TOH claims to not be a romance but then the original way it's written is unjustified because Amity already has more time dedicated to her as a pure romance without ANYTHING to do with the plot and barely anything to do with the themes at best.

But I will also admit that this is with hindsight and a more indulgent rewrite than I normally allow myself to. After all, I removed two entire characters for this. Characters that hardly matter to TOH anyways but if I was really trying to keep to it, I wouldn't get rid of them. The deck is stacked in my deck regardless to make it 'better' and that's not fair to the show.

But I hope that my point stands clear that Amity didn't need to be a real villain, even if only for an episode. She could have been a light antagonist, if she even needed to be that. Nothing is really gained by it in the grand scheme of TOH besides the Twitter posts who make shallow claims on her arc by using the angry face in episode 3 versus her smiling with purple hair and going "Can you believe this is the same person?"

And my response every time because of how shallow her villainy is, which makes her arc shallow, is why should I care? Because blaming her parents doesn't make me care.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[meanautisticenbian]

Fuck it, I'm gonna dissect all the bullshit in that one Lilith post bit by bit

TW// Lilith hate, victim blaming, abuse, cult mention, ableism towards Autistic people, sexualization of minors (briefly mentioned)

I'll be putting my text in bold just in case it's hard to distinguish between the pictures and my commentary

Here's the post I'm referring to in case you're curious

Moving on and starting with this bit

People pay attention to Eda all the damn time, she's literally one of the main characters. Funny how you only mention tik tok and nothing else. Is that the only other social media you have? Because fans on different social media platforms act much differently; on IG and Reddit stuff like the sexualization of minors and fucking ODALIA AND ALADOR STANS are normalized, where everywhere else it's pretty much universally agreed that that stuff is bad. I don't know a lot about what toh Tik Tok is like just because I don't usually go on tik tok, but even if it is like this, it's not the same for the rest of the fandom. A lot of the fandom still hates Lilith and blames her for her abuse and not being able to leave

You say that like she's a bad person, she's really not. The curse she placed on Eda wasn't intended to be permanent and probably wasn't even supposed to take the effects that it did. She was most likely scammed. I mean look at how she reacts when Eda transforms for the first time. She also feels guilty enough about it to throw herself into an abusive situation and spend almost her whole life trying to make up for it. Lastly, yes she hurt Luz, but let's not forget that Belos threatened her life upon Eda's capture and Lilith was running out of time and had no other option. Obviously what she did was wrong but she's not the real monster here.

"I do like Lilith" this entire essay says otherwise.

Literally none of us ignore any of the bad shit she's done, stop lying about us.

Yes, Lilith did mock her for her curse, which was messed up, but we don't actually know for sure if the curse is basically canonically a disability in that world, so if that's the case then for now it's technically not ableism until we get confirmation otherwise.

"it was an accident and I forgive Lilith" no you fucking don't. First of all this entire essay is you talking about how evil you think she is and secondly, if it really was as bad as you view it, you wouldn't be that forgiving.

Ah yes the victim blaming, the one thing that almost everyone does to Lilith and barely anyone talks about.

There is literally not a single Lilith stan out there who blames Eda for getting cursed. You're just mad that your victim blaming towards Lilith got called out so you silence us by lying about how we do the same thing to Eda.

No one is making Eda out to be the villain either, the only example I can find of this is a few fanfics where she treats Lilith a lot more harshly than she should, and even then, scenes like that are written in a positive light as if you're supposed to be on Eda's side, so with that in mind, the writers of these fics are clearly not even Lilith stans. In terms of how actual stans treat Eda, the worst they do is make her slightly ignorant of Lilith's trauma, kinda like the fandom, minus the "slightly", until she grows as a character and learns to see the red flags. If that's the problem you're talking about, then breaking news: Eda's not perfect either. She has flaws too just like literally everyone else in the show and people are allowed to write about them

Tell me the truth: are people making playlists for Lilith that include a lot of sad and angry songs because she's not a happy person anyway so there wouldn't be a point in having any happy songs, or are they making "trauma" playlists? There's a difference

I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me that people recognizing Lilith's trauma is victim blaming Eda? That's not how it works sweetycakes

There is far more Eda angst out there than there is for Lilith, where are you finding so much Lilith angst? LILITH is the one who's traumas are being ignored while Eda's gets all the attention. You're acting like one of those white cis gays on twitter who see black people talking about the anti blackness they experience daily and accuse them of being homophobic because "there is so much homophobia in the world and they still manage to make it all about race".

No one is saying that Lilith has worse trauma, we're only saying that her's is also severe and that it definitely exists. Also funny how you're allowed to be mad at us for comparing Lilith and Eda's trauma (once again lying about us), then you go on to do the exact same thing and say that EDA'S trauma is worse. Even if, hypothetically speaking, Eda did have it worse, that doesn't mean Lilith doesn't have the right to be traumatized. Both of them have trauma, both should be recognized. Also, Lilith had far more going on in her life than just the guilt of her actions, she was was implied to have been psychologically and maybe physically abused, and was probably even tortured. Stop ignoring all the red flags and condemn the actual abuser (Belos) before you criticize anything the abused (Lilith) has done.

We're not making everything about Lilith, like shut up.

Please don't say that autistic people "have autism", it implies that it's something that can be removed from us. For example: you don't say "a person with blackness" when referring to black people or "a woman with homosexuality" when referring to Lesbians.

Oh yeah I'm also autistic so here are MY thoughts

Amity and Lilith are not antagonists anymore, hcing them as Autistic is not villainizing autism.

The autistic Lilith headcanon was made by autistic fans, allistics only latched onto it because they either wanted to be supportive or they saw that she actually had a lot of autistic traits

You're not the only autistic person alive, just because you're not like Lilith or Amity doesn't mean none of us are or they're not autistic. I mean, I know I am

You're not fun or funny

"not all Autistic people are like this" remember that line, dear readers

Actually, I prefer the autistic villain trope MUCH more than the grown ass autistic adult that acts like a five year old trope. At least we'd have less stereotypes associated with us.

Autism is not supposed to be portrayed in only fun and happy characters, that is literally the epitome of stereotyping and infantilizing. You literally just said that not all autistic people are the same, doesn't this count as being all the same? Does this mean I don't exist anymore? Am I just not autistic? Are you even aware that a flat affect or monotone voice is literally a very common autistic trait? You can't just say that we're stereotyping autistics and then just go on to stereotype us, like what the fuck are you even on? Is it only ok when you do it?

Amity is not edgy for fuck's sake

Literally no one is headcanoning Lilith or Amity as autistic because they're mean, we headcanon them as autistic because they actually show traits of it

Oh, our harmless headcanons are making you feel uncomfortable because they don't fit into the stereotypes you made up about us? Good to know our plan is working I guess

Last thing I wanna say regarding this post as a whole: why are you acting like liking Lilith and feeling sympathy for her is a bad thing? If you find this then don't say "I don't think that's a bad thing", answer HONESTLY

Well that's all I have for now, thank you for reading, I need to go to bed soon

[sepublic]

Do you hate Belos' fans?

If you want my honest, nearly unadulterated thoughts? Well, hopefully this is the last I'll speak on the subject. But in regards to the question; In theory? No. In practice? Well...

They've ignored the actual onscreen characters, dynamics, and themes that the show focused on in favor of building this elaborate fanon and AUs and fics and art of their dead white guys who were never meant to be the focus, hyped themselves up on this entirely offscreen dynamic, and then when the finale didn't deliver on their expectations they gnashed their teeth and turned on the show as a whole because they never cared about the show, just their white favoritism-fueled fanon for it. Because apparently their engagement with TOH hinged entirely on Wittebros, which makes me wonder how they even began watching the actual show to begin with.

These same people viciously turned on the actual protagonists because they never appreciated them as their own characters but as devices to prop up Belos and the Wittebro dynamic, so when they couldn't fulfill that purpose, they were deemed useless and badly written because these people who wrote essays about Belos being left-handed blatantly ignored Luz's explicit onscreen arc and then had the audacity to be baffled by the finale's narrative decisions, and just dismiss Luz as 'badly written' because they refuse to actually engage with Luz for Luz's sake and appreciate her as the main protagonist, who stands more than easily on her own without having to rely on Belos.

These people just genuinely can't seem to comprehend why the show would celebrate this compassionate brown girl over their racist white man, so they went out of their way to disparage Luz, downplay her and her achievements, act like they're spewing some hot takes by claiming Belos is a more interesting character, using whatever convenient excuses they can find; But while the excuse always changes for the situation, in the end it's always because fandom just looooves their bigoted white guys.

So then you have crappy AUs and redemption fics that lightheartedly torture Luz at her expense to explore Belos, or reduce Luz to Belos' sidekick that he secretly cares about, and/or portray Luz's anger towards him as some obstacle towards his ~healing and redemption~ (and you don't need the finale's explicit message to understand why this is so grossly tasteless because fandom hates women and PoC, especially when the two intersect as one character). It's genuinely abhorrent how Belos fans just choose to undermine the entire point of the finale and the show and even Belos himself for the sake of their made-up fanon version.

Like maybe if they actually paid attention to the show and engaged with it on a general level, I might take their complaints a little more seriously; But it's telling how Belos fans just ignored characters who weren't directly relevant/connected to the Wittebanes, until they were. So it's why I can't take it seriously when they disparage the crew for having different priorities because you can just tell they refuse to consider other angles, or go in with the predisposed notion of hating it. The Belos fandom hyped themselves up, and then blamed the crew for leading them on instead of accepting that their speculation on a mysterious character was wrong.

In fact, they're in such refusal to accept this, that some of them even go out of their way to peddle the stupidest behind-the-scenes theories I've ever seen; Particularly, the one arguing that Belos was originally meant to be a sympathetic and tragic villain and was written as such during the first half of the show's run... But when the crew opted to include the Collector in response to TOH being shortened, they just transferred all of Belos' sympathetic qualities to the Collector and left him a pure evil antagonist.

Because obviously, the crew never considered writing two sympathetic villains, right??? It's not as if we don't already have two former members of the Emperor's Coven who unlearn their abuse yet still have different personalities and backstories and dynamics and storylines. No, Belos was supposed to be sympathetic but they deemed that redundant with the Collector, so it's the Collector's fault and it's time to disparage their writing out of jealous resentment.

The criticisms just come across as in bad faith; These people aren't actually interested in critiquing the show. It's all insincere when they discuss how Luz needed to understand how people can become villains (they ignore her dynamic with the Collector and other characters), or how villains need to be humanized because yadda-yadda. It's not because they actually care about these things, it's just a convenient justification for why their white guy deserved better.

Because these viewers are otherwise more than willing to suspend their disbelief and analyze all of the little implications for Belos to understand him, but then refuse to exercise even a little imagination in discussing characters like Luz or the Collector, because it's easier to just dismiss it as inconsistent writing that didn't have any planning behind it. Because they resent these characters for 'taking away' from Belos' spotlight, and with baffling confidence declare any defenses or explanations of the point they're missing as 'stupid takes'.

They talk of how Belos needed to be humanized and have his motives explained, but they were; It's just that these motives weren't framed in a flattering light so that pisses off their sadboi narrative of someone who's afraid of being wrong for the sake of others, rather than only for the sake of his ego (Note that Belos doesn't hallucinate the witches and demons he murdered because he still doesn't care about them). I don't think we can have a meaningful discussion about how Belos was written without first acknowledging a lot of things, such as what is even your stake in trying to argue stuff like how he should've been able to survive, or joking about the protagonists being too dumb to finish Belos off???

I just find it telling how when people criticize how Willow and Gus were handled, or how the Collector went off into space at the end, I can actually understand where they're coming from... But with Belos fans, I'm just utterly baffled to the point where I genuinely wonder how they can think this and if I stepped into some alternate timeline. They claim fandom is guilty of the puritanism that Belos himself displays, but it's not about 'problematic' characters (I'm quite the fan of villains myself), but rather fandom double standards in weeping for Belos while demonizing characters like Lilith as 'getting off easy'.

People understand perfectly that Odalia is meant to be viewed under the lens of a capitalist upper-class suburban white woman who views her family as a status symbol, but then see how Belos is a satire of right-wing conservative white supremacists and the like and just sorta... sweep it under the rug in favor of re-framing Belos as a victim of these mentalities who was brainwashed, rather than someone who gleefully embraced them (regardless of any downsides he may have encountered) because the ideology ultimately benefitted his sense of self.

At first I reasoned that the favoritism towards Belos over Odalia is because one is more fleshed out and whatnot; But after seeing how Belos fans turned on Luz and other characters, I actually do suspect a lot of it is misogyny. It's not as if fandom has ever relied on canon to flesh out faves, these people are proof enough. I remember being baffled by the intense energy there was for Wittebros after Yesterday's Lie aired, wondering where that same energy was for other aspects of the show; At the time I didn't think much of it and figured it just wasn't for me, no judgment, but now? Ugh.

The lack of self-awareness for fandom's obvious habit and tendency with white dudes is just utterly baffling. I'd apply Hanlon's Razor to it, even; Sufficiently advanced ignorance is indistinguishable from malice! These people prove they're more than clever enough to understand and engage with it on a sincere level, but they don't because they don't want to because they're just salty!!!

In the end, it's all just fandom entitlement; Someone else compared Belos fans to those for Kylo Ren and Billy Hargroves and I can't un-see it now. The key difference is that the source material for Belos didn't bend over backwards to coddle and make everything about him; Which means canon didn't feed the beast, and that led to Belos fans not being as obnoxious as the aforementioned groups.

But their portrayal of this guy really is the same as people who put Kyle Ron in flower crowns. It's just this watered-down milquetoast dude they made up in their heads. And without any self-awareness they blame canon and the writers for not adhering to their personal RP headcanons for the character. These are the same people I've seen complain that the show didn't portray Belos' grief over murdering Luz, because it's the whole Oppenheimer effect where if we talk about white people's violence towards minorities, we always gotta make it about the white guy's angst and guilt while brushing past the actual victims and their feelings! Because you know what?

It's clear how much this fandom sleeps on Luz! She's such an incredibly compelling character, the show really is about her, and yet people sleep so much on her depth to talk about others! This is not exclusive to Belos fans, but I find them particularly symptomatic of this problem. Because again, we all know from fandom history (in addition to the explicit onscreen writing) that any claims of Luz not being interesting, or annoying, or flat, is just wrong; And even if it were somehow true, it's not as if that has ever stopped fandom before.

They'll see a female protagonist who is compassionate and say that nice characters are boring, unlike their guy; They'll see a problematic woman and call her an irredeemable bitch, while lamenting how nice characters are underrated and misunderstood as 'basic'. It's all the same. This kind of veers into my complaint about the fandom in general sleeping on Luz despite her being so fascinating, and it's abundantly clear that it's the racism and/or misogyny, maybe even ableism because intersectionality exists!!!

That's why you have people sweeping over Luz's trauma from Belos; They'll obsess over Hunter's because it's more 'intense' or whatever but again, that's never stopped anyone. People deeply understand, Belos fans especially, the psychological layers to Hunter's trauma and how Belos wormed his way inside his nephew's head... But with Luz, they just sorta dumb down their dynamic to whacky enemies on equal footing at times.

There isn't any of that same weight, that same appreciation, for how Luz suffered, and so there's none of the tact, none of the consideration of how they're portraying this, even in jokes or AUs; And that's why people have no problem with making Luz the bad guy for not understanding Belos, even though she did try, and got so terribly hurt for it. And she didn't even need to try to not owe Belos anything. It's why people make cutesy AUs where Belos is Luz's father figure, which is incredibly gross given everything Belos stands for and what he did to her; Because they just don't care about Luz's trauma, nor how gross and creepy Belos was to her. Because they don't care about Luz unless she can prop up Belos.

That's why you have comics taking a scene from Turning Red about a girl of color coming to a new understanding over her immigrant mother's pressures and expectations, and making it about Luz sympathizing with Belos. That's why you have people taking the heartbreaking moment between Camila and Luz in Yesterday's Lie, and making it about Philip and Caleb. It's why you have people insisting more on the parallels than what the two are opposite in, because they're oh so eager to mold Luz into Belos' (and Hunter’s, for that matter) platonic Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and then get angry and lash out at her when she doesn't fit their placid, palatable role; Just like Belos.

Seriously, Belos fans have a fucking victim complex and seem to genuinely think they're being subversive, oppressed underdogs for liking the violent white guy and writing essays about how he's actually femme-coded and neurodivergent and whatnot, and actually in deep pain and misery and needs guidance!!! They think they're oppressed for engaging with darker content and not for fandom racism and white favoritism and just being annoying, so then they come up with things like #BelosFansTakeOver like it's a fucking pride flag. They're Snape fans.

And as I've said before; A part of me was, earlier on, confused about all of the hype and energy. And I think people are drawn to that sort of energy because they see people having fun, and want to participate; So yes, I myself DID end up buying into it, at least a bit. Honestly I think I also had the problem of not fully letting go of my sympathetic Belos speculation, AKA what I personally wanted and not necessarily what fit the narrative the writers were going for; And so I ended up being a bit obtuse in misinterpreting some moments that are obvious in hindsight.

And I think it's partly because, again, the Belos fandom at the time still seemed so reasonable and chill, because they were still hinging on the expectation that their fixation would pay off, and thus had no reason (yet) to resent the show and its focus on Luz and co., and could even be charitable in their interpretation and portrayal of these characters; They liked Luz plenty until they blamed the show for throwing Belos under the bus for her sake, and then proceeded to do the fucking reverse.

And like. I DID actually consider why the finale was written the way it was, and apply that in reorganizing my understanding of Belos; Apologies if I'm patting myself on the back but like. It becomes so much more fun when you work with things. It's baffling because these people are more than willing to put in the thought for wondering why X is a thing with Belos, but it has to be in this way that flatters their blorbo that they demand.

And some of these people certainly seem chill at first, but again I think part of the reason for that is because, like a lot of stuff in regards to fandom racism and misogyny and the like, they don't really seem to register what they're doing as aggravating, so they aren't bothered by it. But even when they are being 'calm' and chill, the way they portray the show through their redemption AUs and whatnot just reveals how they think, because they might not be approaching from some place of intentional malice, but from a willful 'ignorance is bliss' perspective. They haven't been on the receiving end of these constant fandom issues and then wonder why people are getting so heated over something reflective of real-life biases, when fiction was supposed to be a reprieve from all that; So they just act like it’s fandom stans needing to go touch grass.

So these fans come across as soft and comfort-oriented, and then in the same breath express concern over what a terrible person Luz is or whatever without any awareness, because some people are just way too lax about their fandom bigotry. Sorry but if you actually cared about these characters and their themes, you would realize that Camila would rightfully have only murder in mind towards the man who physically and emotionally scarred her daughter, and Masha -whose sole justified takeaway from the Wittebane story was that Philip just fucking sucks- wouldn't tolerate Belos' crap.

And you know what also really fucking sucks? I actually really enjoy Belos as a character and narrative, always have and still do; So it's agonizing to see people get him so wrong, in addition to everything else. In theory, I don't mind the concept of liking Belos, and there are still some people I'm chill with over this! But holy hell I've seen so many Belos fans and Belos fans particularly post all sorts of madness, to the point where I've developed this Pavlovian association between Belos fandom and psychic damage.

If someone likes Wittebros it's pretty much all they post/reblog about. I instinctively brace myself every time I come across such a blog, and I often end up being proven right. It used to be a part of the fandom I could enjoy but now it just feels so hostile towards canon’s themes and celebration, and it’s aggravating when people try to portray the fandom’s callout of this behavior as ‘both sides’ being toxic when what we’re discussing is fandom racism and misogyny, as well as a general refusal to engage with themes that contributes in a negative feedback loop to poor reading comprehension.

I guess I'm so passionate because I've been holding onto these grievances for so long, keeping it bottled for the sake of keeping the peace, but now I'm just tired so why the hell not? It's all reflective of my issues with fandom in general so it's still relevant even if you don't care for TOH. Maybe I should devote my energy into something more useful, I dunno. But as I said, I guess this whole thing is just reflective of societal bigotry and biases, and the lack of reading comprehension as a whole. At least I got the chance to vent!

[mdhwrites]

Is Belos the only Owl House villain with a fandom that's giving him more depth than the show?

Edit: I just noticed that you said TOH villain specifically. *smacks self* But also Kikimora exists... Or literally any fanfic about the S1 villains probably. TOH has a lot of dry puddle villains when it comes to depth. As someone who literally ever did King Sombra fiction for the My Little Pony, no. No it is not. In fact, I actually highly doubt that it's really that uncommon. A lot of pure evil villains will be warped and shifted as they hit a fandom so that they are more useful for shipping or can be more complex in their villainy than what was shown in the show. After all, when you start from rock bottom, it's hard to really not go up.

I think the big thing about Belos that makes him bizarre is that where as a lot of other fandoms will just agree that the villain was shallow, the fandom is split on him. There are those like me who believes he's incredibly bland and doesn't care about his backstory elements because, you know, backstory is not a personality. A boring character with an interesting backstory is still a boring character.

There is a side of the fandom though who are REALLY upset about Belos' treatment in the finale because of all those crumbs of backstory that they see as what could have been. Hell, because people linked me a recent review of TOH, I saw people in the comments effectively being split on the reviewers main complaint about the show being that Belos is just bluntly, boringly evil. Some thought he was right on the money, others talked about the shortening and some argued that he was actually complex, you just had to dig for it. (No I won't link the review because of issues surrounding the person who made it. It's also pretty bare bones anyways and what you'd expect from a 12 minute, positive review of TOH.)

This is demonstrative of the issue with Belos though, isn't it? Compelling concepts that are all in service for someone who can be boiled down to "Narcissistic, genocidal, racist moron." Someone betrayed by family who abandoned him and his loneliness and pain lashed out upon the world? A ruler who believes that the oppression of his own people is for their own sake due to religious fervor? A human who believes the other world to be a hell that he must crusade against? Each of these is actually not a bad concept on its own but they're not all compatible together. Maybe any two can do it but these are only three of the like half a dozen concepts you could read into Belos through his backstory and actions, minimum, and pretty much all demand that he actually have more than two braincells together because he is really rock stupid. Remember: He never planned for how to murder the children of the Isles, only the adults. In fact, he made sure to ADD protections on the children rather than making it more dangerous for them which could have led to an actual decline in population.

I will always prefer how Belos presented himself in S1's finale, a portrayal that does NOT work with his actual goals. His statement of "I do not seek conquest, only unity," is just bullshit. Murdering an entire race isn't unity after all. Also why bother lying to the human here? Why not try to get her on your side? Be honest with her? Or trap her so as to make sure not to allow her to backstab you like your brother? I know people say time loop stuff but he is still trying to convince her to work with him and is disappointed when she refuses, while also MURDERING LILITH which is a bit of a big deal if he actually remembers them after so long, so I don't buy it.

That portrayal has always been my favorite though because it makes Luz and Belos have similar goals but differing ideologies for reaching those goals. Belos believes that unity can be found through order and control, even if it restricts expression, while Luz promotes radical expressionism and the idea that it is our differences that make us stronger. It's great theming and makes it so that anytime Luz doesn't make a friend because they're simply too different, she has to question if he's potentially correct.

But then the show does the weird decision that each characters individuality, besides one or traits, is slowly eroded away over the course of the show. Everyone is just a nice person. You get a jock added eventually with Willow but that's about it. You don't have anyone overly serious, minus when Hunter is putting up a front and defaulting to trained behavior, you have no goths, punks, pure balls of sunshine who are annoying, etc. like that. Not amongst those that the show doesn't frame as mostly a joke, like how Lilith's hyperfixations are treated.

It's an awkward element of the main cast that makes Belos as the grand villain really awkward. You can't have a villain who is still seeking unity like that without him potentially being able to point out how those around Luz have lost their personal desires and goals, their interests, besides Willow (and kind of Gus with his human interest that is still... awkward to put it mildly), and so genuinely how different are their methods when she isn't as inclusive as she claims to be?

Even Kikimora, perhaps the most alternative person when compared to Luz's comfort zone, is only brought into Luz's range when she presents herself as capable of being a strawman for Luz and Luz gets an in to say "Look! She's a person! At least in my eyes." Before, you know, she ditches Luz to continue to be ambitious and care about her own goals, evil as they may be.

I've gotten kind of off topic but I guess my main point is to also discuss how you get a villain like Belos to some extent. I can absolutely like a pure evil villain btw. I don't think Ozai is a detriment to Avatar as his pure evil nature matches the fact that the war he is committing is just as much a force of nature, destroying the land, as it is some asshole's desire to conquer, capstoned not with his fight against Aang but his literal attempt to annihilate a CONTINENT. At that point, your goal isn't conquest, it's total destruction. A literal scorched Earth.

But Belos? Every attempt to pretend Belos was nuanced or the like just brought him lower and lower.

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