HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE
Now pass the phone to me.
GUYS.
There is no way these parallels are a coincidence.
I am 99% sure that Dana Terrace was referencing Kirby when making the Collector. For context, I've not seen For the Future yet, so please no spoilers beyond the trailer. I haven't seen anything other than Luz's palisman, that one thirty second clip from the owl club, and an irrelevant screenshot of Hunter.
Also plz don't spoil FTF in the comments or reblogs :(
That said,
TW: Discussion of Cults
Canonically,
Kirby:
god or godlike being
heavily associated with stars. As in, Hoshii no Kaabi (Kirby of the Stars)
ambiguous gender (referred to as he in American translations, gender neutral pronouns in Japanese)
rides on a star
The Collector:
god or godlike being
heavily associated with stars. "Child of the stars"
ambiguous gender, canonically a he/they
rides on a star
Still not convinced? Well I believe there was a specific game Dana was referencing: (MAJOR KIRBY SPOILERS AHEAD)
In Kirby star Allies, Kirby gains the ability to turn enemies into friends by launching friend hearts on them.
It’s an ability unlocked by a botched resurrection/rebirth of a dead god accidentally granting Kirby that ability.
No seriously, that's how it happens.
Here's a short summary for those not familiar with the Kirby franchise.
Basically, cult leader Lord Hyness and his closest followers once managed to stop an out-of-control being named Galacta Knight (shown below)
However, the people eventually began to fear LH and his ilk, so they preemptively tried to seal them away and erase their existence from history (rude). LH and his people survived and managed to obtain a vessel containing their Dark Lord (basically, an egg that housed a god or godlike being) Cult leader Lord Hyness then attempted to resurrect the god Void Termina.
But the ceremony went horrible wrong, shattering the vessel into friend hearts and dark hearts that were scattered to the stars. One such friend heart landed on Kirby, granting him the ability to quote-un-quote, "befriend" his enemies...
...
... by which I mean brainwash smaller enemies into doing his biddies while exorcising dark-heart-possessed individuals by beating the shit out of them until they were no longer usable vessels for possession. I'm not even kidding, this is actually canon.
Eventually, Kirby, with his amassed allies, confronts Belos, Hyness, who has this to say:
We are the masters of a power driven to the far reaches of the universe, and we have but one desire! Can one such as you possibly fathom how dearly we have clung to this dream across the aeons? How could you! You couldn't! Never ever ever! We who once faced those who were in such fear of our power that they sealed us away and banished us to the edge of the galaxy! US! As if THAT loveliness wasn't enough, they tried to erase our very existence from history! RUDE! Only through our magic were we able to overcome their science and achieve great prosperity! We alone were responsible for stopping that repulsive nightmare of a galactic crisis, yet this is how you repay us! This won't stand! It won't be forgiven! It won't be forgotten! Never ever EVER! Those who called us mad, are you listening? You left us at the edge of the galaxy to be forgotten, then went along your merry way, probably living somewhere pretty and peaceful! But know this! Your future is a farce! You have none! We, masters of a matter most dark, vow to be restored, as foretold in the book of legend, which everyone thought was just a fairy tale! It WASN'T! We have already obtained the vessel that contains our Dark Lord, and he will soon awaken and shower us in compassion! Look! The vessel of our Dark Lord is filling up even as we speak! Now the time for his greatness to enter our world has come! Welcome to a new history! A new age! The age of awesome! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARK LORD! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Grace us, Gloriously Dark Looooooord!
And when cornered, he drains the life source of his closest followers, his priestesses, and uses them as fucking battering rams.
Oh and btw they're all conscious when this happens. If you listen closely, you can actually hear their grunts of pain when they hit the ground.
When that fails, he forces the god-resurrection to fruition by tossing in the priestesses' bodies and his own into the alter, bringing foooooRTH!!!
VOID TERMINA.
A morally neutral being who also uses the same tactics as Kirby to defeat his enemies (except somehow Void doing it makes it evil or something *shrug*). Oh, and Void's implied to be born from the same material as Kirby (or vice versa).
Upon Void's defeat, it's said he may be reborn in another form and perhaps someday... a friend.
AND THEN THERE'S THE OWL HOUSE
In which The Collector, a god or godlike being, was sealed away by a Titan (probably because of their destructive, reckless nature - idk for sure I haven't seen the episode). As an act of revenge, the Collector made a deal with the inhabitants of the titan trapper witches: he would grant them (or more specifically Bill - not GF Bill btw) power in exchange for slaughtering the Titans. The blood of the last Titan (King) would then be used to revive The Collector from his prison.
Then along comes a scrunkly dunkly old human who winds up trapped on the Boiling Isles, a realm populated by witches and demons living atop a carcus. Convinced of the inherently evil nature of the inhabitants, he deceives them into aiding him in their own execution.
In order to pull this off, he enlists the help of The Collector. In exchange for promising to release them, The Collector teaches Belos magic "stronger than anybody's." That is, the Draining Spell.
Belos then professes himself to be able to commune with the dead Titan (the Boiling Isles itself) and thus convinces them to brand themselves with the sigils that would serve as their metaphorical nooses.
The draining spell works, but Belos breaks his promise by using up the last of the Titan's Blood to (attempt to) travel home, only to thwarted by Luz, who traps him in the draining spell.
Meanwhile, King makes a deal with the now-betrayed Collector: stop the draining spell in exchange for their freedom and a game of "Owl House." The Collector agrees, and King follows through on his promise. Well, part of it anyway. He frees the Collector, they stop the spell, but he attempts to escape with Luz to the human realm. The Collector stops this; Luz, her friends, and unfortunately Belos manage to escape to the human realm.
There, Belos goes around possessing and consuming various woodland creatures until he has enough sustenance to possess Hunter, one of his former second-in-commands.
This ultimately fails, which leads to him fleeing back to the Boiling Isles, where For the Future begins.
NOW LET'S TALLY UP OUR PARALLELS
WE GOT:
Horrifically misguided religious leader? Check.
Masked at some point? Yep.
Drains their closest followers and uses their bodies for their own gain? Yep.
Particularly brutally betrays their second in command?
OH YEAH.
Winds up sucked into that very spell themselves? Sorta.
Hyness intentionally sacrifices himself to the spell in order to resurrect Void Termina, whereas Belos is tricked by Luz into getting drained by the spell.
Not to mention we got the fuckin uhhhhh GODLIKE BEING WHO MIND CONTROLS FORCIBLY BEFRIENDS PEOPLE
This could be Void or Kirby paralleling the Collector depending on how you read it. However, Void and Kirby are definitely two sides of the same coin, and if my interpretation is correct, I believe The Collector is meant to be a parallel of BOTH. Neither good nor evil: simply raw power put in the hands of a child too young to comprehend or manage it.
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Now I'll admit, TOH doesn't follow the KSA story tit for tat. I believe that Titan-trappers take the role of the people who sealed away the eldritch power. The placement of Galacta Knight vs the Titan as who fits in what role is harder determine.
Despite this, there are definitely some pretty solid inspirations.
The aesthetic of FTF very clearly draws inspiration from KSA. Hell, KSA was originally released in 2018, around the time Dana was developing the series. It's very likely she drew inspiration from this video game, if not played it herself. There are simply too many parallels to count.
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