#Episode Discussions

[koalathebear]

Video: Maxton Hall - Scene Discussion: The Dance (episode 3, season 1)

I've been doing a few short videos to discuss why I liked certain scenes in the series.

I did a really short one for when James sees Ruby at Cyril's party .. but this is a slightly longer one about why I really liked their actual dance scene together.

The dance scene in a teen drama is such an overdone trope and can be super cringe and awful .. but I really liked this one and thought it was done really engagingly and in a way that progressed their relationship.

Spoilers for episode 3 and a reference to episode 6.

[cursed-appleblood]

S1-E1: A Lying Witch and a Warden Analysis

A Lying Witch and A Warden demonstrates one of the most crucial aspects of The Owl House; Getting across a lot of information in a short amount of time.

This is the first of what will hopefully, eventually, cover every episode of the series. At least for now, this will be about interpreting each episode on their own, as one would a short story, and seeing what it has to say.

The opening scene shows Luz remonstrated by her mother and principal for a chaotic presentation about her favorite book, conveying how her passion for fiction and creativity are in conflict with the expectations from authority figures in her life.

This episode hinges on key symbols, as is traditional good storytelling in the medium of 20 minute animated shows. Creators want to express what the character is going through visually, and create literal situations and objects to represent internal and abstract conflicts. Gravity Falls did this too, almost to a formula, in a way that I find useful as a baseline. But I digress.

The book the presentation was about, The Good Witch Auzora, is a symbol for everything positive and joyous about fantasy and fiction. Throughout the show, Luz embracing Auzora are linked to moments of empowerment, liberation, joy and freedom (see: NOW EAT THIS SUCKA!!!), whereas discarding it is meant to show Luz giving up, her depression and resigned conformity. Luz is emotionally attached to the book, and it played an important role in her development. We learn later in the show that the book was a gift from her late father, which both re-contextualizes the book as a link to her father, and subtextually states that her father understood and nurtured his daughter's creativity. What Auzora represents throughout the series is really rich, and I appreciate its symbolic use throughout the series.

The other main symbol in this episode is the Reality Check summer camp Camilla intends to send Luz to, which represents, quite blatantly, the pressure to fit in to the crowd, abandon uniqueness, whether inherent or purposeful, and keep one's creativity in check. This serves both as a plot device to explain why Luz can disappear from the human realm as well as symbolizing the main problem in Luz's life. In the climax of the episode, the Conformitorium is a parallel to Reality Check camp- the logical extreme of that idea, a literal dungeon where individuals are incarcerated for harmless but unconventional traits.

"None of you actually did anything wrong, you're just a bunch of weirdos... like me." / "Let this be a lesson to all of you: There's no place in society for you if you can't fit in."

The climax of the episode allows Luz to battle a literal manifestation of her conflict, and in doing so proves her belief of the intrinsic value of weirdness and sticking with other outcasts. She then literally chooses between the two symbols, freedom of expression and authenticity vs the conventional route and pleasing the people who don't understand her.

In summary, I think this episode showcases how effective metaphor and symbols can be in short form storytelling. It allows the audience to understand what meaningful decisions Luz is making in a simple and deliberate way.

In the first minutes of the episode, it's showed through montage and dialogue that Luz does not fit in with her peers due to her weirdness. I would say it is not just that Luz is "weird", but it's a combination of these personality traits: Out of the Box Thinking, Commitment to the Bit, and Lack of Social Awareness. She gets an idea ("what if I made a baby griffin model?"), commits to it completely ("well, it'll need spider breath to be anatomically correct- I should fill it with living spiders!"), and doesn't understand/see what will make others uncomfortable (this point is just apparent in the entire montage- she doesn't consider a spider infestation might upset her class, like how she doesn't understand flipping her eyelids will gross people out, because she's so interested in what she finds interesting about it).

So Luz uses the escapism of fiction to deal with her social ostracization, because it's an outlet that 1. aligns with her passionate interests and 2. is free of judgement.

I find one line that Eda says particularly interesting: "Every myth you humans have is caused by a little of our world leaking into yours." Initially, PARDON? The canon implications of that are astounding-- but taking it on a narrative level, this kind of means Luz literally stepped into fiction itself, the place where everything fantastical originated from. And this makes sense, as The Boiling Isles allows her to live out her dream of being a witch.

I want to say I'll get better at writing these as I go, but for now this post is like a test of concept. Future episodes will also have more to talk about, of course. But generally, if I can do this for every episode, I'll have a cohesive interpretation of the entire show on stand-by. That's the goal for this project- The Owl House is dense and deliberate, so by looking at it piece by piece, I can see look at what it says without holding a massive amount of information in my mind at once. It will probably take a long time, and probably with long gaps between.

DEVELOPMENT ART:

Interestingly, The Warden's went through a lot of different versions before his final design. They seemed to generally know they wanted a big, broad shouldered, looming guy, but look at all the different mask types and different fashion styles. I think the design + voice combo in the final episode was really effective, as imo he's a really memorable character for such a short appearance. And I think the simplified outfit makes more sense given what he represents.

Scene Art:

losing my mind at these. they're so intricate!! The Boiling Isles art has so much in it, it conveys what I appreciate about the setting- It's not just a random land of various fantasy elements disconnected, it's it's own world with it's own verisimilitude to uphold. The composition of these shots too, really just show the knowledge and skill of the artists on this show.

I also really like that the title of this episode, because yeah, Eda lies constantly in this episode, and I like that it's foreshadowed in the title. I think that's neat.

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[essektheylyss]

the visceral gut drop of "—and in his place is a gently floating male drow—" vs the absolute giddy high of "—who is no longer Seth. Instead you see, a dark elf—" like, Essek Thelyss really is narratively That Bitch and he sure knows how to make a fucking entrance

[bob-com69]

Ok what the fuck was today's dungeon meshi episode!?

We get hit with Senshi's is he a cannibal or not arc which was a roller costar in of itself with playing the guessing game of is he or is he not then the great wave of relief when it's revealed he isn't a cannibal

But then they had to hit us with this guy

...

WHY IN THE BLOODY HELL DID STUDIO TRIGGER PUT FUCKING ELF SENSHI IN THE SAME EPISODE AS THE BLOODY CANNIBALISM ARC!?

MY HEART HAS FUCKING RISEN TO HEAVEN AND THEN PLUMMETED STRAIGHT TO HELL 20X OVER FROM ONE EPISODE PURLEY FROM SHOCK! WHY SUCH A DRASTIC CHANGE OF TONE!? I'M DYING!!!

[preacherboyd]

House M.D. | 2x19 House vs. God

[spicyvampire]

He sure was using his mouth the whole time [Tharn's version]

THE SIGN (2023) EP. 10 + EP. 9

[theweeklydiscourse]

Some Atla fans are deeply unwilling to engage with the fact that their beloved series may bear the marks of being written by two white men in the early 2000s. They can’t conceive that the show might’ve been anything less than perfect and that there are certain problematic elements within it that are consistently overlooked by the fandom at large.

[jaggedjot]

Louis and Claudia are not just identifiable as American by way of their speech (“American? Your French is ugly.”) and movement (“You could tell from his walk, he was an American.”), but are posited by the narrative to be symbolic representations of postwar America itself (“The American vampires appeared to be as dull and plain as their tourists and soldiers were.”, “Do American vampiresses all wear pastels?”, “And are all American vampires as alluring as you?”). The pair set themselves up in France as “moneyed Americans”, described by Armand as having a “velvet-heeled arrival” despite the pair coming to the city on the back of a truck. That Paris has been left by the war with deep physical and societal wounds is treated as an inconvenience that they have to impatiently endure. Santiago picks at these stitches during the performative execution of the pointedly foreign Annika, invoking the paranoia of occupation with his line “[...] the next time you're in the pew, you turn to your neighbour and say, ‘Peace be unto you.’ They'll give you up... in a wink!”. It is telling that the only explanation Armand gives for his choice of victims to the coven is that they are profiteering from the suffering of postwar France (“Whilst their countrymen clutch ration cards, they've made quite a killing manipulating the black markets.”), a statement which seems to deepen their appetite for the ensuing slaughter. These are not resentments and histories however shared by Claudia, who may revel in the massacre but has already knowingly associated with a woman branded as a collaborator, or Louis, whose attempts to engage with the world through photography only further positions him as an outsider. This detachment is what causes Louis and Claudia to be regarded as interlopers, suspected to believe themselves to be too important to heed traditions, manners (“It's custom and practice for traveling vampires to make themselves known”) or the welfare of their temporary home (“We were constantly cleaning up for them.”). Though American soldiers played a role in the later stages of the liberation of Paris, the increasing presence of Americans in the city is framed as another more insidious occupation (“[...] our Anglican friends now invading Paris postwar”, “My dear American friend [...] who has dominated my mind”). As Americans, Louis and Claudia are granted more privileges in society than other black ethnics groups (“But I wasn't an Algerian. I was an American”). It is not just that the French theatre troupe composed of multinational actors now has “five out of every seven” of their performances in English, but the coven has been instructed by Armand to remake itself as “an English company” and speak the language offstage too. Armand’s welcoming attitude to increasing American influence in the city, how it creates a “more receptive” and “optimistic” audience, is not a simple or universal one. There is a distinct bitterness belying the fanfare accompanying Louis and Claudia’s arrival, particularly from Santiago (“I ask you, Maitre, was it worth the wait?”), but it is also notably still present in Armand’s lighthearted teasing (“Seventy-seven years and it still feels like a slight.”, “Five months removed [...] the Americans were finally coming to Pigalle.”). At least during these early months, Louis and Claudia seem to view Paris more as a static backdrop against which they can discover themselves and heal their relationship. This is a mistake that they will likely only realise when it is already too late, for this fragile and volatile setting is entwined with the tragedy that awaits them.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

another note on the premise of dot and bubble being a bait and switch: the black mirror episode nosedive (one of my favorite tv stories ever) has a protagonist named lacey pound, who is a young white woman with bangs. dot and bubble features lindy pepper, who is also a young white woman with bangs. both episodes include pastel colored and highly stylized clothing and environments. nosedive constructs a powerful satirical critique of influencer culture and social media; but in dot and bubble’s case, the criticism is a shallow and gimmicky imitation.

the point of dot and bubble is for you to expect a nosedive and a lacey pound—but instead you get an actual fucking white supremacist. and that is what the episode is really trying to say. whether you’re a person of color or not, whether you had any suspicion about the lack of poc in the utopia or the way lindy treated the doctor and ruby, you are forced by that ending to reckon with the complete dissolution of the story you expected to experience. and i am white! so i don’t want to assume the experiences of people of color. but i do have to wonder if that dissolution is even just a fraction of the betrayal so many people of color could have felt, how ncuti gatwa could have felt, how freema agyeman could have felt, when the fandom suddenly decided that their stories weren’t worth their respect or attention.

[911lonestarrewatch]

Episode 1x07 Bum Steer Discussion Thread

Please feel free to use the comment thread and tags of this post throughout the week as a place to liveblog while watching the episode, discuss with friends, post your metas and thoughts etc. Anything you’d like to discuss while watching the episode is welcome!!

Please reblog this post for visibility!! 

[recurring-polynya]

rip twitter, if it weren't for you i would never have known about the only good moment from the bleach dub

[sheryl-lee]

anyone else find it a little fucked up that gifsets/edits only get more than 1k notes if they’re concerning a brand new piece of media (film/tv episode/trailer) and if the edit is posted within like 10 minutes of said media releasing to the public??? and if it’s not, it’s basically ignored and dies or takes days/weeks to amass notes??? so most people will only deem creators “worthy” of a like/reblog to spread an edit around if it’s only relevant to whatever brand new thing has released, and if you’re even like a week late that’s not good enough and fuck you <3

[urghblergh]

Star Trek TOS Screenshot Redraw V, but make it gay(er). 🌌

[lastofthe20thcenturygirls]

graduated from the shah rukh khan university of yearning pining and staying in love for decades with a specialisation in the language of the eyes

[annabelle--cane]

oh mate you absolutely deserve those ecology lectures martin gives you