#after all the palisman he’s killed and for all the souls he’s trapped in his mind

[edoro]

I wonder how king reacts to Baby bel I mean he'll probably be happy having someone in the owl home being 'near his age'

that's an interesting one!

so i think at first he's probably very wary, like Eda. he may not exactly know what all went on or how mindscape stuff works or who this Weird Kid is, but he picks up pretty easily that this is some version of Emperor Belos, and he certainly doesn't like Emperor Belos. he doesn't trust Babybel at first at all, even as Luz is reasonably convinced this is kid!Belos and different from evil!adult!Belos.

i think that after distrust there would also be jealousy? we've seen King get jealous before - he's a kid who has some serious abandonment issues, due to a bunch of traumatic stuff that happened in his early childhood.

(another thing i love about the trauma in TOH - King's trauma might not be as big and flashy as Hunter's trauma, and indeed aside from the recent ep it's largely over with, and he's been raised in a stable, loving home by Eda, who is not the world's best parent but who has made sure he knows, 100%, that she will always be there to care for and support and love him, but it still affects him in a variety of ways because what happened - losing his essentially before birth, growing up alone/feral, being snatched from his home by a stranger - is something that really seriously affects a child's development!

he was toddler-age when Eda got to him, so he spent his first few years alone, with no real guardian to attach to other than an automaton, and then he got taken away from it - ultimately better for him, but it was a sudden and traumatic separation from the closest thing he had to a parent. that causes some pretty significant and long-lasting issues in being able to securely attach! which we see demonstrated in King repeatedly.)

he's a bit stand-offish to Luz when she first shows up, bc she disrupts his usual life with Eda. then he gets super attached bc she's great, and we see him start getting jealous towards her friends. even once that's resolved, he's still super clingy with Luz and very anxious and upset about the idea of her going back to the human realm. and that's persistent! it's not just a one-and-done King Learns A Lesson episode, he consistently dreads and fears abandonment by the people he loves even though he knows they love him.

so, anyway - i think King would be jealous of Babybel getting all the attention. classic youngest sibling suddenly getting a younger sibling story really - here's this even littler kid (who is maybe also the guy who tried to kill you and your mom?) who has some developmental and emotional issues, who therefore needs a lot of time and careful attention paid to him to figure out what he needs, what's going on with him, how to communicate with him, and whose behavior ends up being really disruptive.

(i'm sure King is not thrilled to be on the other side of one of his own tantrums, lmao! although at least Babybel's screaming can't shatter stone.)

however, i do think he'd end up enjoying having a kid his own age around. and in fact, once he got over the rude shock of no longer being the baby of the house, i think he might go a little mad with older sibling power (a kind he has not tasted before!) and try to lord it over Babybel - who is, in fact, a baby brother, and is therefore quite used to this dynamic.

(and knows how to deal with older sibling power trips in ways that are probably also going to be a rude shock to poor King. this is all so new to him, but Babybel has an advantage!)

so one thing i noticed about Hollow Mind, right, is that rope trap he makes for the palisman soul amalgam, and the fact that it's a clear callback to the same rope trope he made while playing witch hunters with Caleb - and we see that as an adult, Philip seems to have a knack for making contraptions and devices and such.

so i like to imagine that he had that type of mechanical/engineering bent, it was something he was good at and enjoyed even as a kid - coming up with weird devices and making traps for games (and probably repairing stuff around the farm/house and trapping animals etc as he got older) and all that - WHICH

well. you can see the obvious intersection of that interest + King's persistent interest in wargames, right?

so once King and Babybel start getting along, they just absolutely terrorize the entire fuck out of this whole house.

[darkcrowprincess]

apperntly people are saying Luz and Hunter parallels to Philip and Caleb???

how???

In the beginning (before hollow mind) there was some obvious parallels between luz and philip wittebane. Both with the belief of wanting to be the chosen one and wanting to be special. And how there choses made them different.

But honestly that theory fell rather quickly do to two things. Philip didn't come to the Boiling isles willingly. He was trapped there. Assuming he came to find his brother and "save him" who he then murdered. There is a theory I have that Evelyn cursed him and he somehow couldn't leave. Or she destroyed the door and he couldn't leave. Either way, Belos was trapped there. Luz on the other had may have came by the boiling isles by accident but she chose to stay there, she wanted to stay there. Second thing it's kinda messed up to compare a Hispanic afro-dominican( I hope I said that right, I apologize if I didn't. Correct me if I'm wrong) bi female who is just lonely and dealing with grief of her father to a 500 year old white purtian man who is obsessed with witch hunting and has delusions of genocide. The one thing you could say is they have grief over a loss family member and use glyph magic but thats where the similarities end. Luz developed feelings of guilt, and not wanting to be a burden to anyone after her fathers death. Belos on the other hand murdered his brother and now has this constant obsession with killing witches and creating a perfect brother who wont "betray him". He has grief, but over the idealized version of who he believes his brother was than the actual person. Luz is kind and giving, always trying to help, and feels like a lot of the time she is a burden and a outcast. Belos see himself as this grand savior of humans and beings souls. That he and his idealized version of his brother were ment to finish their work and kill all the witches and demons that plague this world. You can see the differences clear as day. And Hunter and Caleb with this? Basically just because Hunter is Calebs grimwalker and that the Fandom sees luz and hunter as siblings(obviously I do not view them as such).

If I were to make a Luz and Hunter parallels( and I know I'm bias but shipping aside it's obvious writing wise) it would be Caleb and Evelyn. Theres many common connections between these two couples.

I mean its obvious; witch and human, human and monster(yes witches and grimwalkers I see them as monsters and that's not a bad thing in this context) one from the human realm one from the boiling isles. Connections with the families wittebane and clawthorne. Evelyn led Caleb to her world with Flapjack, Luz led Hunter to using Glyphs, entering her world of wild magic with Flapjack. Evelyn made Caleb question everything he was taught and abandoned it. Luz made Hunter question everything he was taught and he did abandoned it. Both Evelyn and Calebs lives being destroyed by Philip. Both Luz and Hunter's lives being repeatedly destroyed by Philip. Gravesfield both towns were their familes have connections. Taking a Wittebane to another world and them loving it(Caleb the boiling isles, Hunter the human realm) but not being able to stay do to Philip. Luz having a Palisman egg and waiting for it to hatch. She is expecting. Evelyn having been pregnant. She is expecting. The only difference between Luz and Hunter with Caleb and Evelyn is that lunter haven't lost each other(yet). And they lost Flapjack, Flapjack sacrificed himself to save them.

[lampmanliveblogs]

One of the memory portraits shows that Wittebro was apparently a woodcarver, or at least quite skilled with the trade, as he's shown carving the wooden mask that child Philip wears and replicates the shape of with emperor Belos' own. Child Philip wearing said mask whilst playing witch hunting games with Wittebro clearly has him cast as the 'hero' trapping and slaying the 'witch' wittebro's playing as. Though faint, you can see Wittebro is standing in a 'binding circle ' made of rope in said portrait, the same getup inner belos uses to trap and destroy the palisman amalgamation within his mind.

This informs much of Philip's character and actions ever since arriving in the demon realm - on some level, he's still playing the same game, still delusionally seeing himself as the 'hero' of the story out to protect humanity from witches, just like he did as a child. 'emperor belos' is as much a role for him to assume in this duty as it was when he wore the wooden mask in his youth, a way of feeling 'special ' and important and wrapping himself further in his own comforting lies. He mocked Luz that she should 'go play the hero' when rescuing Eda because he thinks he's the real hero of this story, akin to the Doomslayer being locked in hell with hordes of demons, and a duty to kill them all to protect his homeworld. He was pleased at first by Luz's defiance of him because she swore that she's stop his supposed 'invasion of earth', which to his twisted perspective of events, was confirmation that they both ultimately wanted the same thing, and were ultimately on the same side.

Whereas luz, the story's real hero, has taken a somewhat passive role in shaping events in the boiling isles, focusing mainly in her own self-discovery and confronting the status quo mainly when it interfered with her social circle, letting the story guide her, Philip has actively twisted and pushed events across the isles towards serving his selfish narrative for entire generations, such that the demon realm is almost unrecognizable by the present compared to what it was before he arrived there.

Though he assumes the child's form to deceive them, it is genuinely reflective of who Philip is deep down - a child who still clings to his self-serving narrative in defiance of reality. He never removes the mask of the hero in this form, such that it appears to be his actual face, reflecting how his mad obsession has consumed Philip's original humanity and left him as a hollowed shell of a bygone era. The mask should allow one to see Philip's eyes, but the blank voids there instead give the impression that he has none, just dark voids in his head. Eyes are sometimes said to be the Windows to the soul, and lacking such gives the impression Philip's true self no longer has a soul after centuries of eating them for sustenance. And the child re-creating the binding circle to permanently destroy the palisman monster works because of how deeply he still believes in the 'rules' of the game and how intrinsic it is to his current identity. As they're inside his head, the childhood game has deadly power because of his sincere belief in it. And this game is also partly why he can't imagine witches and demons as being anything less than monsters to destroy - because that's all they were in the game. You didn't reason with them, you didn't spare them, and you certainly didn't fall in love with them. You just killed them, or you lost, and Philip hates losing as much as he loves winning and savouring his victory. Literal centuries of time spent living amongst them, and Philip has never once seen witches and demons as multi-faceted beings like humans, only simple monsters that he will ultimately obliterate for the 'good of humanity'

The interpretation of Belos' plans basically boiling down to him playing a grand game with the world at stake makes me think that maybe that's why he vibes with The Collector. Because Belos seems like this very serious-minded person, whereas The Collector is more of a silly boy/eldritch god who talks about playing games. Yet in the scene where they talk about the Day of Unity and Hunter, they seem pretty friendly. Belos almost seems fond of The Collector's shenanigans. Maybe that's because they're more similar than they first appear, both of them toying with people and playing elaborate games with lives at stake. Both of them very childish at their cores.

(i love the idea of Inner Philip's weird trap working purely because he believes it would work because that's how the game worked when he was a kid)

(i also love the idea of the symbolism behind the dark voids where young Philip's eyes should be visible in the mask because in some way, that mask is his true face)

I think I've said in the past that Belos might've had some kind of liking to Luz not just because she managed to stand up against him during their first confrontation, but also because she is in many ways similar to himself; a human trapped in the Demon Realm. That they were in some ways alike.

This was before Elsewhere and Elsewhen revealed more of Philip's backstory, motivations, and most importantly, that he had actually met Luz (and also Lilith) in his past.

I feel something could be said about Philip and Luz both in some ways being obsessed with fiction and more specifically stories about witches. The big difference is that Philip was raised on stories of evil witches whereas Luz read stories of the Good Witch Azura. Who knows, if Philip hadnät been taught witches were all evil and deserved death, maybe he would've turned out slightly better. I doubt he'd be a truly good person, he obviously has some issues beyond just how he was raised. Wittebro turned out fine after all, so it's clearly not just a question of nurture, but nature as well.

[ghostymallows]

more on hollow mind but gosh. do you ever think about how the catts almost got themselves killed TWICE

like I've already talked about eda's requiem but. they almost got destroyed in hollow mind

like assuming that belos knew before this point what has happening (if you look at the pit of potions he uses to trap the palisman souls, 3/9 of the potions are actually arrows. and actually look like the way he changed the cats positions during the draining spell) he could have been anticipated this

i see him still choosing his child form to trick them all, because it's the only one that would work, but it's likely darius whips out an Abomination child leash (like the ones with a harness) and is like 'wonderful, show us around' and belos just. let's it happen. the humiliation will be worth it when he gets to traumatise darius

once they're exposed to the palisman souls, eber probably takes charge because they're the head of beast coven, and while it leaves to find supplies to properly trap 'belos', raine and darius are left to find anything about the day of unity, with darius left on babysitting duty :]

they're probably trying to find a way to reverse sigils, or the source of their power, so while they are both present for the memories of the previous golden guards (the collared ones), for plot convenience they are both in the collector memory but raine leaves after we see the collector but BEFORE he mentions the grimwalkers.

darius hears the conversation and when raine agrees to split up to find more information on the collector, darius takes kid belos aside to be like '...show me where he is'

meanwhile, eberwolf has found out that the palismen souls are not belos and they both RUN to contact raine. raine starts preparing the exit spell while eber runs to get darius

meanwhile, darius and belos have been seeing all the grimwalker deaths, and they finally land at the darius's golden guard. blah blah belos reveals himself and monologues, darius tries to kill him on the spot, and belos starts like. mocking him on his impulsiveness

as in, darius appears to be cold and calculating, but he's really an emotional guy (see him staging a fight with raine but getting genuinely upset when they ruined his cloak, and him making an excuse on the spot JUST to take hunter's cloak bc he can't bear to see his golden guard's name disrespected like that) and it's probably what this golden guard killed!

darius only stops fighting when belos says that if he's murdered without a fair trial, what's going to happen to hunter? there would be a MASSIVE power vaccum, and while raine and eber could definitely hold their own, hunter's only political strength comes from his relation to belos. the coven heads would tear him apart.

darius pauses, but wuh oh! he's right in front of the petrification device!! the palisman souls swoop in to save him last second, but get petrified in the process, achieving the same effect for Belos as in the original hollow mind

raine activates the return spell and begins to drag them back to reality, belos says something snarky like 'see you at the day of unity :]' and boom! they're back at reality!

JESUS CHRIST YOURE ON A ROLL

[klatchshy]

[sepublic]

Hollow Mind.

           Oh god oh fuck.

         HUNTER WASN’T THE FIRST. The Collector outright mentioned predecessors, and Belos mentioned he killed them. He called them GRIMWALKERS, which means Hunter already IS one. And he said it… A ‘better’ version of an old friend. We can see glimpses of his brother in the memories, his nose slashed, BUT WE KNOW…!

         Did the previous Golden Guard have a bile sac? And Belos made Hunter WITHOUT one, so he couldn’t rebel as easily? Is that why Darius remembers him as having magic, or did the previous Golden Guard have no magic, he just did a better job at hiding it?! Belos… Belos KILLED them. And the Collector, he called out Belos on it; Did he ENJOY it??? And even to the Collector, Belos claims it hurts every time… But he could still be lying to him and himself.

         And I was right! The Collector is some kind of demented, immature, godly child that wants to play games all day, and he’s looking forward to the Day of Unity! Is the Collector manipulating Belos, or are they mutual allies? Luz suggests the spell is going to commit mass genocide on all life in the Demon Realm… Or does the Collector plan on collecting it? He mentions he’s ‘in the bones’, what if he really IS the Titan??? Or a spawn of the Titan… The Titan’s Spawn, remember that book title from Understanding Willow???

         (Do appreciate the recognition of Willow have two inner selves due to strong emotions... Boy did she have those.)

         Oh my god… The ‘curse monster’ isn’t a beast that Belos got trapped in his body, at least I don’t think… IT’S THE AMALGAMATION OF ALL THE PALISMEN SOULS BELOS ABSORBED, TRYING TO DESPERATELY BREAK OUT!!! Oh fuck… Oh god, and Belos ABSORBED THEM TOTALLY. And he said he couldn’t do it without having people in his mindscape to distract the Palisman beast…

         Oh god, DID BELOS LET THE REBELS ENTER HIS MIND?!? So his inner self could use them to distract the Palisman beast, but then it ended up being Luz and Hunter… And Belos adapted??? DOES BELOS KNOW WHO THE REBELS ARE!??! And he’s just letting them get away with it, because he needs them, doesn’t want to alert them that HE knows, so they stay close by? Hunter mentions Flapjack’s name while inside Belos’ mind, Belos def knows by now if he didn’t before!

         Philip was a witch hunter. Is Jacob Hopkins his descendant?! Was his brother a witch hunter too, but he renounced this?! And so by ‘better’ version, ‘Hunter’ is a version of his brother that actually fulfills the role they were given?! The witch who brought them to the isles… Were they trying to KILL that witch, and fell in after them!?

         Oh fuck… Still, that theory is looking more likely; That maybe Belos might die with all of the palismen within him bursting forth, as a NEW palistrom tree grows from his body, consuming him this time… Or not. Is Belos no longer plagued by the palisman monster? Did he truly, totally digest what was left of the palismen’s souls, fragments merged into one Frankenstein soul, and they’re ALL dead??! It’s like Fullmetal Alchemist… Father having the souls of those he absorbed fighting within him, lashing out; Only for Father to absorb and crush their consciousness regardless!

         HE KILLED THOSE WITCHES. They were ‘alive’, but disabled, without staffs, stranded at the knee and their city in ruins. Oh god… Those ruins weren’t OLD, they were RECENT! The Knee ruins were recent! The bodies… OH GOD THE SKULLS! Did the Slitherbeast’s skulls come from its own victims, and/or those witches?! Did it EAT those vulnerable witches?!? And there’s confirmation that Belos wasn’t applying sigils back in Eda’s childhood, because he hadn’t perfected them yet; They immediately paralyze witches and JUST that, which is a hard sell.

         And that’s why he cloned the basilisks, to study… So he could actually DRAIN their magic, instead of causing paralysis; And withhold that draining. While still restricting the bile sac…

         And PRIM! Seeing her join a coven out of fear was heartbreaking… And Raine! AND DARIUS, we saw how he MOVED forward when Hunter was mentioned! Were the rebels still in the woods when Hunter ran out, will they find and take him in!? DAMMIT HOOTY, you should’ve caught Hunter! And does Hooty recognize Raine, given he calls them a secret admirer, or was it just a play on the flowers as an ingredient?! Uncle Darius confirmed but at what cost…

         Raine clearly wants to help Eda is probably starting to realize that their secrecy, meant to protect her kids, is actually backfiring after all; So hopefully we get that revelation soon! Eda’s gonna be mad… AND THE TITAN’S BLOOD! No more; Which as King pointed out, Luz was gonna die without it. And Belos… GOD, the way he plays his own memories as Philip to make Luz say his name again, that was so DARK and clever! And I was right; Belos can manifest in his own memories because of how powerful he is!

         Which makes me think/wonder if he deliberately set this all up to catch the rebels AND the palisman monster… Or he doesn’t bother shielding his mind too well, because in his mind, he’s invincible. Belos can absorb people as he pleases; So if anything he WANTS people trapped in his mind, where Belos has full control and power! Raine, Darius, Eberwolf… GET OUT NOW! And damn… Hunter even notices that Darius is sad at his knighting, because he’s just bitterly reminded of his mentor. Hunter doesn’t know what happened but Belos KILLED them! He killed them all!

         Right now there’s still room for the time travel theory for Belos by the way; We only see him introduce himself as ‘Belos’, so unless he erased records of a dude named Belos from centuries ago… He only started that recently. And he says he used the name because EVERYONE knew Philip was a messed-up dude and had heard of him… Was he wandering for centuries as Philip?! And his brother, the childhood photos…!

         And Hunter. Hunter’s freakout. But he still does the right thing and saves Luz with HER glyphs… And Luz! Does she have proof, she doesn’t; And while her friends will trust her, while Raine and the rebels will obviously believe, what proof does she have? A recording on her phone, what?! And the hypocrisy of Belos dismissing Luz as ‘can’t reason with CRAZY’ like bitch look at yourself!

         A lot of theories confirmed, but still more unseen, or at least obscured; It’s confirmed for the audience, but Hunter and Luz don’t quite know he’s a clone of Wittebro. Just that he’s yet another clone of SOMEONE dear to Belos… Which, Luz might remember the drawing of Wittebro she saw in Philip’s journal and make that connection. My poor girl has so much to process… And just UGH that rancid ‘solidarity’ Belos tries to invoke with Luz, being glad to have a human say his name, as if it really matters that much! 

        But we still haven’t seen Wittebro, nor do we get a full confirmation on how Belos survived so long, aside from palisman essence perhaps… But I think we know his motives now, and it’s that he was ALWAYS like that. He always wanted to kill witches because he was raised that way; No tragedy besides ‘upbringing’ I suppose. Only his brother realized the truth… And for this ‘betrayal’, Belos killed him.

        Oh god. Oh fuck.

[speakwithsympathy]

Ok, hear me out for a very long Owl House theory since I have become obsessed with this show lately and just watched episode 10 of season 2 earlier today:

Spoilers, btw:

Okay, so I'm starting to piece together a theory about Emperor Belos, Phillip Whittebane and his unnamed brother, Hunter and the Day of Unity.

So, for this theory to be plausible we need to assume what the fandom has been theorizing for a while now: that Emperor Belos is Phillip Whittebane in some form. So, with the information we learned in episode 10 we can guess that Phillip and his brother discovered a portal to the Boiling Isles, and went back and forth a few times because we see them shaking hands with a witch and holding a potential glyph paper and there's a bird perched on one of their shoulders (Rascal, the cardinal palisman Hunter has gotten close to?). Perhaps an accident occurs one day while they travel and the portal breaks/doesn't work leaving the two brothers trapped in the Isles with no idea how to get back.

At this point, from Phillips diary entry we saw in Eclipse Lake the two brothers and a party of demons go in search of titans blood to get back home, at which point they mistake fools blood for the real deal and a tragic accident befalls their group, leaving only Phillip alive.

Perhaps the accident was Phillips fault, he feels guilty that he killed his party and his brother, so in his grief he swears to find a way to bring his brother back using the magic of the isles (and possibly gets the idea planted in his head from the Titan, but that's a whole other theory) and tries so many spells and rituals that don't work. He finds one that he thinks will work, only it curses him with the ailment we see on his face and his shadow in Hunting Palismen, leading him to develop a distaste and hatred for what he calls "Wild Magic" and this discourages him until he discovers something that he thinks might work to bring his brother back: Grimwalkers, the Day of Unity and the magical power that comes with an eclipse.

At this point, the idea to become a ruler over the Isles enters his mind, and so he sets out to conquer the land and the people who live there, and once his empire is established and he instates himself as ruler, he takes the name Emperor Belos, at which point he now has access to literally all the resources on the Isles and nearly unlimited knowledge.

Now he is free to orchestrate the Day of Unity using the coven system to siphon the magic out of witches for the ritual set to occur on that day. He sets out to make a Grimwalker in the likeness of his brother (who looks very similar to the other brother in the statue of the two brothers one of which is probably Phillip/Belos) and creates Hunter.

Now here's where the theory can go so many different ways, but my primary thoughts are that Hunter is meant to be a potential vessel for Phillip's dead brother (after all, if we think the Bone of Ortet is an actual bone from Phillip's brother then Hunter literally has Phillip's brother's DNA) to return to when the Day of Unity comes and Belos gets to summon his brother's soul/spirit? magical essence? and shove it into Hunter's body. Belos would then have his brother back. There's still more stuff to get back to on the day of Unity though, so I'll return to that later.

Now we have to talk about Belos and his abuse towards Hunter (my poor child get away from this man) because this throws a potential wrench in my theory. You would think that if Belos/Phillip has spent this whole time (centuries at this point) trying to resurrect his brother that he cares deeply about him. You would think that someone so dedicated to bringing his brother back to life wouldn't want to harm a hair on Hunter's head assuming he looks nearly identical to his brother right? So why is he hurting Hunter so much, mentally and emotionally (possibly physically if that scar on Hunter's cheek doesn't have another explanation)? I'm wracking my brain on a reason for Belos to be so abusive and terrible to Hunter, and I can think of three reasons. First being Belos/Phillip is taking out his anger at himself and his brother/situation on Hunter (which in no way excuses his actions (fuck him) but is a real and horrible thing that abusers do) and can justify it to himself because one day Hunter is not going to exist once Phillip's brother takes control of Hunter's body. Second being that Hunter is a flawed Grimwalker, and the reason Belos is gathering the resources to build another is because Hunter is only a last resort vessel that probably won't have to be used but might just in case (hence the word replaceable), and since he's a failed experiment Belos feels he has the right to treat Hunter however he pleases because he made him (evil man fuck him). Third is that he's just a horrible person who only cares about his brother everyone else be damned.

Belos is an enigma to me because I just don't understand his motivations with the information we've been given so far. Everyone has motivations (good or bad people alike) so all I can do is speculate like I've done above the reasons in which he behaves and acts the way he does, which just confuses me because he treats others horribly but if he is trying to resurrect his brother then he is capable of caring? I don't know what to think about him, he just puzzles me when I'm not actively pissed off about how much of a douche he is (which is putting it lightly).

To get back to the Day of Unity and to wrap up this theory, it looks like the Day of Unity is going to occur on a day in which a solar eclipse occurs (this seems to be a very common trope in fantasy media nowadays), and will merge the Boiling Isles with the human realm. I'm guessing this is a unwanted/exploitative side effect of the spell or ritual Belos/Phillip is trying to use for the resurrection if we take Belos at his word that he doesn't plan to conquer the human realm in the season 1 finale. This would be a horrible thing that would cause so much death and destruction (cough the Star vs the Forces of Evil finale was so badly written cough) but at least Belos has his brother back?

The more I type this theory out and put it into words the more nonsensical it starts to feel but I feel like some of the fandom's theories have to be partially possible right? Then again the crew have been very good with unexpected writing choices and developments that really work and are great so who knows maybe all of our theories are completely wrong. We'll just have to see!

Thank you for reading this essay I wrote (lmao) and if you feel like it let me know what you think of my piecing together of theories!

[sepublic]

Did. Did this fucker style his outfit after the Palisman amalgam inside his body. So that if they ever emerged and took over his body, turning it into a reflection of themselves (as the Owl Beast did with Eda), people would recognize Belos in this cursed state and not kill him?! Or, since he had this as a childhood mask... Did the Palismen take that face as a reflection of their tormentor who ‘fused’ them???

Guess we were still right... Belos’ body IS host to another entity, whose emergence transforms his body; But that entity isn’t just a victim like the Owl Beast... But Belos’ victim, someone he made, just as his ally the Collector made a curse out of the Owl Beast! He very much MADE this tragedy and imprisoned it inside of him to absorb, rather than the other way around... And he eventually succeeded.

At least the poor things are out of their misery... And for all we know? This isn’t the first Palisman amalgam. These things could be created over time, as fragments of Palismen souls build up and conglomerate together... For Belos to clean out and ‘digest’, time and time again. And in the time it’ll take for another Palisman amalgam to form, the Day of Unity will have already happened...

It’s like if Eda opted to ‘conquer’ the Owl Beast and used her mindscape to absorb and kill the creature with no conscience... And maybe Belos did something similar to this principle to restore her mind, during Young Blood, Old Souls; He’s had practice quelling the creature trapped inside of him, he can do the same for Eda.

Maybe Eda COULD do the same to cure herself, but it’d be killing an innocent creature; And Eda’s too compassionate to do that, especially after making peace with the Owl Beast and acknowledging it as a fellow victim. She’d never... But I can imagine a dark AU where Belos convinced her to, and actually DID follow through on his promise of curing the curse.

I hope Lilith doesn’t entertain the thought with her Raven Beast... Even if she’s clearly wizened up to Philip’s schemes and won’t take HIS personal guidance, she might still be inspired to do the same after hearing it yields results from Luz. But Eda would be there to prevent that, as would Luz.