#and when you see them do something normal you shouldn't treat them like dangerous criminals

[i-love-hobbies]

The biggest criticism Lilith's redemption arc gets and Eda's biggest strength

(ft. me getting completely side tracked and wanting a Hooty redemption arc)

Ok, so firstly I wanna talk about real life and then say how it was done in the owl house.

I hate the words "Everyone should get what they deserve." Cause firstly this never happens, secondly, the words are very vague and it opens a window of miscommunication and thirdly, cause in Lilith's case they are focused at, she needs to be hurt in order to change.

There are even people that have said that they are looking forward to watching Lilith suffer (I don't know if I've said it on the internet but I was one of them.)

Revenge has been proven to not make people feel better. And a lot of therapists usually say you need to forgive people. That doesn't mean fix the relationship, it means try to stop wishing they get hurt. Cause the feeling is only hurting you.

Also it's a normal human feeling to be angry, so no I'm not calling people monsters for this. And forgiveness is a hard process that takes a lot of work, but it usually isn't helped by hurting others.

The words people usually use to defend this sentence are:

"Consequences change people's minds or at the very least make them scared of doing it again."

Ok so how about we use this sentence instead, it's short enough and the main mission now is keeping ourselves safe Instead of it being hurting someone, you're still wishing it but it's not the main goal, it's a secondary one.

Well, cause it immediately shows two issues both statements have.

Firstly a friendship with someone that wants to hurt you but is scared of doing so is not a healthy one, cause they'll just try to be sneaky. You can only do it with people that aren't close to you like how the authorities do it towards criminals.

Secondly punishments rarely change people's minds. They've never worked on me, especially when you attack my identity, cause this way you make it even worse. And expecting that you can change someone usually means you're about to fail.

"But we can't get rid of punishments, people will hurt us."

I'm not saying we should. I'm saying our main goal should be our safety and hurting them may happen but it shouldn't be important.

Or better yet:

"Building healthy boundaries to the point where you're not getting hurt anymore, but not going overboard."

Examples:

- You have a friend you see Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. But on Wednesdays, after work, they usually are very ignorant of your feelings and sometimes joke at your expense. So you stop going out at Wednesdays.

They might never ask why you did it and that's ok, cause you're not getting hurt anymore.

But usually they do ask why? You explain to them the issue with respect, don't call them names.

Some people will change after this and you can get rid of the boundary later on.

Other people may acknowledge this and say it's a good idea, cause they are overwhelmed, but never change.

Other other people may start hurting you even more. You build the boundaries even more, sometimes to the point you cut them out of your life, even if they weren't hurting you intentionally.

Which is completely ok if you can't maintain contact without being hurt.

- Eda's handling of Gwendolyn's cures is another good one. She never called her names or anything. She just made sure that Gwen can't hurt her anymore. Cause it wasn't only the cures. Eda's feelings were always getting ignored. She literally couldn't talk with her about anything other than the curse. Her emotions were getting neglected.

- Eda's handling of Tibbles is also an interesting example.

At first after the scamming she just left him. She couldn't see how he could hurt her.

And in episode 14 she killed him. Cause he showed that he would do anything to murder her dump kids and knew their address. Almost same story with Adegast.

Yes murder in this extreme cases can be a healthy boundary.

Lilith's relationships with the owl fam

King:

King didn't know Lilith was living with them and knows about her neglect.

Luz:

Luz would only stand up for others never for herself which is very unhealthy. I don't know if she forgave Lilith, but I can see her not mentioning it if she hasn't and playing along as a teacher.

"The real mystery is how she can be both so smart and yet so wrong at the same time. Academics, am I right?"

The closest one to her she has roasted like this, is her mentor, who firstly makes people feel safe.

"EDA, You're embarrassing me Infront of my crew." - Raine, after thirty years of not seeing her.

Secondly, she was being a jerk, she was teaching Luz about cards while she was begging for magic lessons and was not getting it for weeks.

"Cards, the paper rectangles that old people think are fun."

Heck, she might even be scared of Lilith. She almost got killed.

So far I don't have a reason to think she likes her. She hasn't really talked with her or about her much.

Eda:

Eda has already shown that she can handle conflicts in relationships. Like in episode 9, where she got Luz into Hexside and everything I already said.

I made an entire post about Eda being too emotional and I still stand by it, but serious situations that have to do with relationships, she usually is very rational and good at handling them. Probably because of the curse making her afraid of her anger and countless people attacking her.

At the beginning of the series Eda probably was expecting that the worst case scenario would be for Lilith to catch her and if Lilith isn't given the time to realise what she did, she'd be killed and best case scenario Lilith changes.

Episode 5, where Lilith burned down her wanted posters, episode 8 where Lilith was gonna get her straight in the coven instead of arresting her, episode 11, where Lilith said she wanted for Eda to join on her own and episode 17, where they played grudgby.

Proved to her even more that Lilith cares a lot for her and maybe she will change.

Then episode 18 happened and King wanting hugs and Luz's "Let me die!" Suddenly the worst case scenario became not her dieing but her dieing and the trauma the kids will experience. The fact that they won't have her in their lifes.

Lilith says "Then why were you so easy to curse?!?" This does not sound like "I accidentally did this and I'm sorry." No, Eda thought Lilith did this on purpose. And now her kids might get killed by her own sister cause she was too naive to trust her.

From now on I don't think she was trying to kill her cause Lilith isn't dangerous without raw power like Adegast and Tibbles, but to disable her is a possibility.

To add to this Eda wasn't rational almost throughout the entire finale. She probably didn't pick up on the line "If you would just let me explain." Just like she didn't question why Lilith was thrown in a cage.

Then she learns that Lilith commited treason together with her kids and started feeling like she doesn't know the full story, but Lilith is still a caring person. So she jumps Infront of the beam to save both Lilith and King.

Afterwards Lilith shares the curse and has nowhere to go if she gets kicked out so there is no reason to believe that she would hurt them physically.

I know in a post I said I don't think she fully processed the situation with Lilith. But now I think I was only half right.

She didn't fully process how much she was hurt but she understood Lilith's situation. Forgave her as soon as possible, not immediately. But that doesn't mean she rebuilded the relationship as soon as she forgave her.

First of, the forgiveness part happened after episode 1. The entire episode she was guilt tripping her, which I don't think was helping the situation. It makes Lilith more emotional which then makes it harder for her to face reality.

I'm not calling Eda a bad person for this but I do think it was a mistake.

What wasn't a mistake but a good thing is Eda wasn't the one to listen to her problems, it was Hooty. Cause her emotional health matters too and standing in one room with her sister is challenging.

And now I'm wondering does Eda know about how Lilith was treated by both the coven and their parents.

Eda calling Lilith a tool, seems to me more of them competing with each other rather than the recent events. Also Lilith forcing her rules without saying why they are there.

I'm glad the episode ended with them switching roles, where Lilith is now more powerful. Though I'm pretty sure the roles are getting switched again.

So what about the rebuilding of the relationship or should I say trust.

Well they didn't show us much, but I think the trust isn't fully back.

Cause she has only been proving that she can be physically trusted like when she saved King's life.

Eda never opens up, which is unhealthy. But in this case it's a healthy boundary, cause King did it and he got Lilith projecting onto him.

Lilith isn't good at being mentally supportive and still has bad habits.

Lulu and Hootsifer

Hooty helping Lilith was something, she really needed and didn't take for granted, cause the only one to ever even consider this is Eda.

They are buddies that look out for each other. I wouldn't say they talk a lot about feelings as they have no idea how to do that, but there are examples where they do.

Like "What kind of a witch am I?" and Hooty's letter.

Her letter for Hooty, was supportive, but ignored the issue of Hooty always being in people's personal space.

Which led to Hooty drugging Eda, kidnapping three children and almost killing said kids when his plans didn't work the way he wanted. He also ate the letter for King.

I want a Hooty redemption arc, now!