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that-ari-blogger · 15 days ago

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Father, Help (Thanks To Them)

Context is everything. In the case of Thanks To Them and more broadly the third season of The Owl House as a whole, this is the production history.

Put simply, there was a third season, then there wasn’t, then there was again but under the proviso that there was less of it. As a result, thanks to them is fourty four minutes long and contains enough material for about four hours of story. This is a dense episode of television. A mini picture in its own right.

Which adds a bit of complexity to my blog. I take things one episode at a time and have strategically chosen series with short episodes because my feeble ADHD mind is equivalent to a Tuna with a ball of string in everything but name. So, this post is going to be in three sections, because there is a lot to talk about.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (The Owl House, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, Critical Role: Campaign 2, The Odyssey)

Part 1: "Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer, it is my task to reveal it if I can."

Thanks To Them was released more than two years ago, and in that time, one element has stuck with me more than any other. Not something substantial or moralistic or showstopping. A single element that confused me. Willow’s Camera.

You would think that this is an insignificant little detail, but this episode doesn’t have those. Luz schoolbook is the Odyssey, the Giraffes are exiles, Cosmic frontier is used as a metaphor so blatant the characters within pick up on it. Everything in this episode has at least symbolic relevance to the story at hand or is a callback to previous moments. Everything, except the camera.

If you squint, the camera might be a reference to Understanding Willow, but as I discussed in my post about that episode, that isn’t about Willow, it’s about Amity and her guilt. The photographic memories don’t come up again in relation to these two, and this version of that metaphor doesn’t directly interact with Amity at all.

Nonetheless, it’s a good place to start.

That episode establishes a clear metaphor for the photograph. Memory. As such, the imagery can be examined here through the same framework.

I think it is crucial to start at the beginning, the first photograph that Willow takes.

Joy and love in the face of hopelessness. Absurdity, comradery, companionship.

It’s a tender moment. The abrasively upbeat intro music dials back for a second to show the rain. Simple to us, but in the boiling isles, rain is terrifying. The rules are different here, and our characters are showing joy in the moment. Not everything here is trying to kill them, not everything here is antagonistic, and if you don’t celebrate the little moments of good, you will only remember the bad. Hope keeps you going, light do not faulter.

This isn’t the first time photographs have been shown in this episode, it’s just the first time that Willow has taken them. If we look back a few moments, we see Luz’ coming out presentation, and we see this:

Again, joy and friendship and love. The photographs ground our characters and keep them moored in reality.

That’s why the intro cinematic is so janky. It doesn’t fit with the tone because life goes on anyway. You aren’t going to get anywhere sitting on your laurels. You have to look on the bright side. Sometimes that is the simple joys of companionship and laughter, sometimes that is the spark that will get you home. Both have their place.

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous is a series that I love and the next on the chopping block when I finish The Owl House. It is a series that thrives on dissonance, and part of that is its tone. JWCC operates on a sliding scale of humour and drama, and other than the first episode, never misses out on either. It is a series about balance, hope, and human horror.

The reason I bring it up, is because during the last episode of season three, the characters reminisce about times gone by, and one of them does this:

“Now smile, you two!”

This is Sammy, a character who exists to tacitly disprove every single statement any bad guy makes. She doesn’t mess with philosophy personally, but she is undoubtedly the heart of the group. Both emotional and moral.

Sammy has also had possibly the worst time of the main cast. The argument could be made for Yaz, but Sammy got blackmailed, shot at, bitten and stung more than anyone else in the series, and was mortally wounded four episodes prior to this scene. But when she is taking photographs, she remains upbeat.

“Do you really want my mental picture of this place to have you with your eyes closed?”

Treasure the good times, especially when they are dwindling.

Light, do not faulter.

I started this section with a quote from Yousuf Karsh, who, as implied by said quote, was a photographer. Born 1908 in what would become Turkey, he immigrated to Syria and then Canada. I guarantee you that you have seen at least one of his works before.

This is Yousuf Karsh. Or more accurately, a photograph taken by Yousuf Karsh of Albert Einstein, and I want you to take note of the defining characteristic of this piece.

Light.

Yousuf Karsh’s understanding of light was incredible. He used it to guide the eye and reveal, but he also used it for detail. In monochrome, the only contrast is between different shades. Everything is affected by the light, it controls how you see the image.

But the darkness, that was key. Darkness exists as contrast. For the light to be special, it must have something to be shined upon.

“Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.”

But there is something else. Photographs are a history. They say that we are here, they provide evidence.

In the context of The Owl House, which was cancelled for (in my opinion) suspicious reasons, this is evidence of queer folk. We have always been here and are here, even when people try to pretend we are a fad or a social experiment. We are history, and history is still happening.

Yousef Karsh died in 2002.

Shrek and Monsters, Inc. both came out in 2001. Yousef Karsh and Mike Wazowski existed at the same time.

This man photographed Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemmingway, Martin Luther King Jr, Marian Anderson, and George Bernard Shaw, amongst many others. All of whom shaped modern life but are icons of history gone by. The eyes that shone a light on them were still seeing that light in 2002.

Willow’s photography exists to show that life kept moving, and continued to do so. But it shows what she chose to remember. Small moments of joy and light.

Light, do not faulter.

Part 2: “It is a unique and exquisite complication, family.”

Thanks to Them doesn’t start with Thanks To Them. It starts with the end of King’s Tide.

Those opening shots are mostly a replica of the final moments of the previous season. We miss the zoom out to the rain and Luz opening and reopening the door, but other than that, these are those shots.

The first piece of new story that we get in season three of The Owl House is this:

I would like to use this to frame a conversation about family as it is presented in this series.

Not every story has a moral, and that isn’t a bad thing, but The Owl House does have a thing or two to say about what makes a good family unit. In this context, good family is defined by acceptance, bad is control. Empathy is paramount.

For example, Camilla’s first response upon her daughter’s return isn’t victorious or reprimanding, there aren’t any thoughts about what will happen next, it is immediate “my child is in pain, I must do something about that.” There’s that empathy.

Acceptance is letting people be who they are, control is the opposite of that. But this isn’t a binary, and Camilla spends this episode and the series at large moving along the spectrum.

Camilla’s first response to the kids is to seek understanding, and it’s clear that she is always far from her comfort zone in this episode. Her response to Bellos is bafflement, she reacts to the summary of the previous season with the exact same energy as anyone having a show explained to them, and she has a clearly overstuffed book explaining how to keep track of the kids.

I will get back to that book.

But she was introduced in season one as a controlling figure. She was the antagonistic parent who inadvertently kickstarted the series. Summer camp.

Not counting Grom, because that was Luz’ fear, Camilla’s next appearance was in season two, when she evolved significantly as a character.

I wrote a post on that episode, and in it I mentioned the dichotomy of this character. She was someone who was fundamentally kind and accepting, but who was antagonistic to Luz because of the perceived lack of that kindness.

Camilla also inspired in Luz’ guilt character development in the previous season. She begged Luz to stay back because she blamed herself for sending Luz away. Although, looking closely, Luz’ memory of that is faulty.

Nevertheless, Camilla controls Luz, intentionally or not, and that control has a negative impact on her.

Then we get the dream, which establishes Camilla’s angle, and it’s the same as her emotion now. Uncertainty.

Camilla was out of her depth, so she made decisions based off advice she was given by people who refused to understand. She has seen the consequences of that, so she changed. She learned.

Knowledge and ignorance are another key theme in the series. Camilla plays into that here.

Interestingly, this is where she contrasts with Eda. Both are maternal figures for kids from a different world. But Eda’s journey was a downward spiral brought about by the stress of the end of the world. Her strategy for finding food for Luz was sticking with what she knew, Camilla has evidently been experimenting and learning, as shown by the number of notes in the book.

Eda wilfully stayed with what she thought she knew out of a desire for safety. Camilla sought to understand fully.

Pictured here, a man who believes he can do no wrong because he is human. Look at the eyes though. He has so many eyes, but he can't see what is directly in front of him. He cannot see that he is wrong.

Contrast Camilla with the two main negative parental figures in the series, Odalia and Bellos.

Odalia isn’t in this episode, so I won’t dwell on her too much. But her main motif in the show is a desire to control and command her children and husband. She wants to be in charge and is used to power, so she limits Amity’s choices down to those she may spend time with.

Symbolically, this is expressed through Amity’s choice of hair colour and the fact that Odalia has such a large say in this.

In addition, Alador’s path to redemption starts not just when he stops being complicit in Odalia’s behaviour, but when he starts making an effort to understand and empathise with his daughter.

Bellos on the other hand, possesses his child.

For all intents and purposes, Bellos is Hunter’s parental figure. They have a familial relationship that is nominally uncle and nephew but gets more complicated when you factor in Grimwalkers and generations thereof. So, for the sake of argument, Bellos is Hunter’s parent.

I don’t believe it is controversial, however, to say that Bellos is a pretty awful parental figure. He is blatantly cruel and manipulative. He’s also just bad at it in relation to competence.

The control thing is obvious. He literally possesses his child, taking their body and using it as a tool. He literally overrides Hunter’s freedom over his own actions and changes the boys’ appearance to do so.

“You know what I'd like, Belos? I'd like to leave the Emperor's Coven and never step foot in that throne room again. I'd like to study wild magic, and learn how to carve palismen. I'd like to attend Hexside as a regular student and play flyer derby with my friends. But most of all, I'd like to make sure you never hurt anyone again!”

There are three things to note here.

First, Hunter expresses his rebellion against Bellos by asserting his will. He is expressing that he is, in fact, a person.

Bellos exists on dehumanisation; his power is a claim that free-will doesn’t exist. Hunter’s way of breaking free from this is simply pointing out that free will does exist. Absolute statements crumble with a single outlier.

Which is another theme of the series, the dichotomy of nuance and simplicity. Bellos represents simplicity, Luz is the personification of nuance. I will come back to this.

Second, this is a weirdly soldierlike way of dealing with the problem. Even weirder, it evokes fairytale and mythological imagery.

“I miss knowing who I’m supposed to be.”

Hunter is a character who is almost always scared out of his wits, but he is an impeccable tool in Bellos’ arsenal because of his ability to focus. Repeatedly, when Hunter is given a single objective, he blocks out any fear and gets that objective done. He is efficient, and competent, when he knows what he is doing.

Eclipse Lake and Hollow Mind show Hunter at his frailest because he doesn’t know what he is supposed to be doing. He has relied upon others telling him what to do for so long, that an unclear objective leaves him floundering.

But in both cases, he shows his own resourcefulness and strategy for adapting. He finds a small-scale objective. He is struggling to win the favour of the Emperor, so he finds a thing that the Emperor needs and objectively clears every obstacle through guile or brute force to claim that. He goes on the run from the Emperor and is shown to have turned that focus to surviving and finding food in Labyrinth Runners.

In Thanks To Them, Hunter reutilises that strategy. He decides upon a goal and shuts out everything else. He finds his coping mechanism and weaponises it. He wants to stop Bellos from hurting people, so he removes Bellos’ goal from the equation. It is that drive that frees him.

But, who gave Hunter the skillset to accomplish this feat? Who trained the child as a soldier? Who taught him to shut out the fear?

Bellos. The Emperor created his own weakness.

In world Mythology, this is a common trope. King (or parent of some kind) hears prophecy of doom surrounding his close relative and, in his attempts to avoid said prophecy, accidentally gives the relative the exact skillset and motivation to defeat him.

Here, that descendant is Hunter, who is a clone. Every clone before Hunter has rebelled against Bellos, but he keeps going because… maybe this one will be different? Like I said, Bellos ain’t good at this.

Bellos created someone he knew would one day rebel, then gave that person the exact skillset necessary to subvert his magic. Then he abused the kid and forced him to try and escape.

Although, there is a cruel twist to the formula. Bellos, when he realises that Hunter is winning, decides to take the both out together. He won’t let Hunter escape, even when he does. It is cruelty, and it’s needless.

Bellos has shown that he is cunning. He could have tricked Hunter into opening the portal or he could have WAITED FIVE MINUTES FOR LUZ AND CO TO DO IT FOR HIM.

But no. Once again, Bellos chose to be cruel, and it nearly got him killed.

Nearly.

The third element of this sequence is how quickly Camilla reacts, and how similar that reaction is to Hunter's. She has been out of her depth, but she sees something she can do, and she dives in. Camilla doesn’t understand magic, but she understands drowning and how to save a kid from that.

Bellos tries to kill Hunter, and Camilla stops that. The good parent prevails.

But family isn’t just about parents and children. Hunter has a found family in Flapjack, who also sacrifices himself for the boy, as well as in Luz and co.

“Gonna make sure you're safe too, Hunter. You're family now.”

I want to point out that, as I have stated, Hunter’s confidence doesn’t come from the mask, it comes from having a clear task ahead of him.

More importantly, however, is the fact that this scene breaks him. Family looks after each other, and Hunter is receiving that love and compassion and understanding from those in the Hex Squad.

He has a kindred soul with Gus, he has a sibling dynamic with Luz, and he has the romantic connection to Willow. He has people who show him empathy, and behind an expressionless mask, we see him cry.

The title of this section comes from the second campaign of Critical Role. Specifically, the episode entitled The Threads Converge.

The episode builds up to a meeting between one of the protagonists, Jester, and her mysterious father figure, known as the Gentleman.

To be clear, the two have met prior, but have been unaware of their connection. Then the information was made available to both of them, and tension ensues.

Jester runs the situation through with her friends repeatedly, scenario after scenario, unsatisfied with all of them, while the Gentleman avoids the subject entirely.

Until who should step up to the plate but Caduceus Clay, humble cleric and wise man.

“My family had to... I don't know where they are, and I don't know if they're okay, and it's been a long time, and there is a part of me that is very lonely.”

You won’t always have your family. So, treasure them while you have them.

The conversation revolves around a rare tea only found in one place. It’s delightful and a thing to share with people, and the only place it can be found is the Blooming Grove.

On the one hand, the Blooming Grove is a graveyard, and the tea comes from flowers on those graves, perhaps hinting at hindsight as a blessing and a curse.

On the other hand, the rarest of tea comes from a place Caduceus calls home. It comes from the symbol of his family, and they have run out, maybe soon, so too will the tea.

Again, treasure your family.

In The Owl House, family is explicitly not a guarantee. The Hex Squad is trying to get home, but they don’t know if they will. But also, they don’t know if there will be a way to keep getting through. Either Luz will have to say goodbye to them, or to Camilla.

Part 3: “My Name Is Nobody”

The book that Luz is reading in school is The Odyssey, and it is important to me that she misses the point entirely. Yes, yes, it’s technically called The Plight of the Mariner. But come on. It’s The Odyssey.

The Odyssey is the journey of an eejit who is the smartest man in Ancient Greece by process of elimination. I say the smartest “man” because there are women in the story who I would argue are more intelligent than him, and there aren’t any non-binary friends in the book to my knowledge.

Nevertheless, Odysseus is a trickster trying to get home after he made the brilliant decision to directly annoy the god of the sea while firmly in that gods domain, dooming him to arrive ten years late.

The point I am making is that Odysseus is a betrayer who makes mistakes constantly and yet is still able to come home. He is a doofus, but he learns, and he evolves, and he finds a way to succeed.

Luz’s reading of the story is a little different.

“Who cares about the ripple effects? He was just a pawn in someone else’s game. And he was never smart enough to realise it. If his friends and family knew about his mission, they’d know that their lives would have never been in danger if it weren’t for him. They should hate his guts, and it would have been better if he literally never existed!”

Clearly, The Plight of the Mariner is slightly different to the Odyssey. The Odyssey doesn’t have a clear mission given by an external force. But it does have a few other things.

I find it very funny that the chalkboard has the themes of the story written on it. “Fate vs free will. The _ of the hero”. I know authors who use subtext, and they are all cowards.

Interestingly, the blank left by the teacher’s head. It’s a pretty key part of the sentence. The something of a hero. The peril? The destiny? The choice? The path? All different meanings of the book.

Which leads to the open ended nature of Luz’ story here in her mind. There is a dichotomy of free will and fate, and she has been conned, but the meaning is clear. The teacher has written up the thesis for everyone to see.

Luz is just obscured by where she is sitting. Her view of the theme is changed by her perspective.

This part of The Owl House is the most traditional when it comes to storytelling. It is the darkest hour, so it leans really hard into the depressive feeling.

A large part of The Owl House is that sense of freedom and expression. It deals with archetypal storytelling through subversion. Wizarding school? Witch school. Rival? Love interest. Protagonist? Bisexual.

I have stated before that every character has an analogue in the Harold Potts books. Willow is the troubled student and friend who specialises in plant magic, Eda is the mentour inflicted with therianthropy, etc. The only character who doesn’t have an analogue is Luz.

Luz is fundamentally her own person, that is her greatest strength. She is someone who cannot easily be defined.

So, in her darkest hour, Luz becomes like everybody else. She even wears a costume that literally dresses her up as another person. She leans into the depression, she gets all sullen and declares that she knows what must be done before the scene cuts away. These are stereotypical darkest hour beats, and they are being played straight. It’s jarring. We have seen this story before.

Luz feels like she is a traitor. She helped Bellos, she was conned, she got manipulated. It is her fault for being weak. Bellos does his best to reenforce this when he confronts her at the end of the episode.

“See, this is why you're so useful, Luz. You're so desperate to help people, you even helped me meet the Collector.”

I want to stress something. Being kind is not a flaw. Luz got conned, the emphasis is on the got. Someone conned her. Someone manipulated her. Someone very specific.

Bellos is deflecting the blame here, and we have seen him do this before with significant success in Eda.

Eda blamed herself for getting cursed and getting captured and exiled, instead of the people who cursed her and captured her and exiled her. It is a shifting of the blame from the abuser to the victim. How dare you stand where I was swinging my fist.

Camilla kept the snakeskin, specifically storying it in the form of an ouroboros. Symbolically, this is rebirth and renewal, which corresponds with Luz' take on the conversation.

“Mom, why aren’t you mad at me?” “Oh baby. Come here. I’ve been terrified, sure. But believe it or not, I do understand what it’s like to want to run away.” “I’m so sorry.” “But the point is, you came home, and everything is okay now.” “But it’s not. It’s my fault that everyone’s trapped here. And I don’t even know if King and Eda are okay. I wanted you to meet them so bad. But I keep messing up.” “Hey, everyone makes mistakes. What matters is that you learn from them.”

Luz misinterprets this conversation as well, taking the “learn from mistakes” to mean “stop trying”, which is not at all what Camilla was saying.

But also… you don’t think there was anyone else more responsible than you for what happened? Not one person who’s direct fault it might be for everyone getting trapped in the human realm?

Bellos is right there, girl, you can just point at him.

There’s a distinct sense of powerlessness on display here. Bellos has convinced everyone that they are responsible for their own hardship and that nothing they can do will escape that. But he is wrong, and not to be trusted.

Odysseus gets home.

Luz can find a way to get back to the Boiling Isles, and her friends are finding that as we speak. Willow has been taking photographs of all the happy moments, but Luz is too worried about what they might say when they find out she got tricked.

“I couldn't hate you, Luz. The fact that you still stand up for us means enough to me.”

Amity doesn’t care. Love prevails. She brings a different perspective to Luz’ mental block and helps find a way round.

But it is Hunter who returns the favour. Luz saved him, so he points out what I have been saying this entire time.

“You were tricked. That's what Belos does. He tricks people. But if it weren't you, it would have been someone else, and then there'd be no one left to fight back. So let's do that. Let's fight back. Please? For Flapjack?”

There is hope. It is feint, but it is there and will always be so. It is in the very fact that time keeps moving on. Luz is still here, look on the bright side. Think positive thoughts. Grit your teeth and keep going.

Light, do not faulter.

Final Thoughts

To pull back the screen here, I usually take two days to write a post. I set out time a week in advance so I have a buffer surrounding my work and ADHD, but overall, two days is enough.

I started writing this post a week before it went up, and as I write this, it will go live in just under eleven hours. I am yet to put in pictures.

I have so many thoughts about the final season of The Owl House, and especially Thanks To Them, but I think my next posts are going to be even longer than this one.

Specifically, because my next post, that of For the Future isn’t going to be analysis per say. Stick around if that interests you.

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