#wild witch genocide

[drachenfalter]

A new thought that came to me now.

Does the rest of the Bad Girl Coven even know that Eda's near execution wasn't the "first petrification in 30 years"?

Because it's not public knowledge and I don't think Lilith would have told them. The way she talks about her time in the coven in S2, you could easily get the false impression that she was just some paper pusher who knew nothing about what was going on in her coven.

(Sidenote: I'm not accusing Lilith of being intentionally deceptive. She probably just doesn't want to think about the bad things she did and thus doesn't bring it up.)

[sumeria]

anne rice somehow reaches levels of general bigotry racism xenophobia and antisemitism that are fucking staggering like im legit baffled. louis owning slaves in iwtv is literally tip of the iceberg and it is legitimately horrifying still! what about marius' entire chapter in the vampire lestat and the virulent xenophobia there. whatever shes done with the All Vampires Are White BTW. maharet and mekare. literally everything to do with akasha from what she does to her origins to. everything. i feel like im slowly driving red-hot pokers through my eyes. queen of the damned is making me Suffer fr.

[sepublic]

            I’ve already brought up how the loss of glyphs is deeply tragic for Luz on an interpersonal level, given her relationship with the Titan as being kinda found family in a spiritual successor to Manny sorta way…

            But on a larger, cultural level? It’s straight-up genocide. Because glyphs were an ancient practice; They were a tradition at one point, as Eda explains. The earliest witches used to learn glyphs from the Titan on her knee, and eventually stopped when that became redundant with the more convenient source of their bile sacs.

            But it was still an important part of their history; It was how witches and demons first communicated and interacted with the land and nature, and their ‘god’ in a mutualistic way. It was how they respected their world.

            So even if glyphs were evidently forgotten by the Deadwardian Era, they were still available for those who needed them… And in comes fucking Philip, the racist colonizer, and because of his possession of the Titan’s heart, she finally dies and glyphs can no longer work. They’re obsolete now.

            They still happened, but now that part of magic, of history and this world, is gone forever. It’s cultural erasure, it’s what Luz alludes to when she mentions how scars from Belos’ reign still remain, like the left arm being permanently shifted upwards; Who knows how many were displaced, how much the local flora and fauna and ecosystems were devastated, with the desert of Palm Stings now colder than even the knee itself?!?

            It’s just so deeply painful because Luz really helped to bring back an ancient, lost tradition and unlike Philip, breathed new life into it; Glyphs could be used to help people without bile sacs, who didn’t utilize spell circles as well. We actually saw Luz experiment with using individual glyphs, and figure out the combos; Things she did on her own. She shared knowledge of glyphs with her loved ones, like Eda, King, Lilith, Gus, Amity, etc.

            There really was going to be a return of something lost, but now it’s gone forever because of a bigoted old white man who was too bitter about things that are different and needed to feel big and important by standing on the shoulders of others. It’s cultural genocide. That memory where Belos' destructive lies about wild magic drive witches away from the knee that they still had the potential to learn from, leaving behind only ruins in the present-day? With some murdered via the coven sigils that cut them even further off from their own magic they forgot glyphs for? It's truly symbolic of the final nails in the coffin.

            And it’s also desecration of the dead, too; Caleb is not the only one to have had his corpse bastardized by Belos, misused against everything he stood for. Belos also misused that corpse, first by stealing the Titan’s name, then misusing her magic, her resources such as Palistrom wood… And finally possessing that body literally, which is what murders the Titan. It’s like colonizers bastardizing and salting the land that locals carefully maintained a proper relationship with, and keep in mind this fucker is a literal Puritan colonist. There’s no respect, not for the dead and/or past. Compare that to Luz, who lives on in Manny’s memory and makes him proud.

            I’m just imagining Caleb and the Titan watching, in agony, as their bodies are used to create a vicious mockery towards their actual kin, who remain totally unaware, and in the case of the Grimwalkers, it’s another lineage that is also abused. Meanwhile the Clawthornes remain unknowing of their past because colonialism erases history, hence Belos hiring Flora, and hell even getting Lilith to participate in her own historical erasure, as both Clawthorne and witch!

            Meanwhile, King remains oblivious and unconnected to his own heritage. And most of that can also be attributed to the Titan Trappers and Archivists, themselves perpretrators of genocide. So King and Eda go without knowing their heritage for so long, in Eda’s case she may never find out entirely, because it’s part of the many voices who are lost and silenced due to genocide, buried in the past to be forgotten.

            And you know one thing more that fucks me up? It’s that I genuinely suspect that Philip initially had it easier with glyphs than Luz, and that he made them more difficult for her. Because based on his dialogue by finding the Ice glyph in a snowflake, and his diary and memory portraits showing him arriving in the isles via Eclipse Lake, at the Knee…

            Philip was probably shown his first spell on his first day in the Demon Realm. And it makes sense; The first human, the precedent that the Titan would’ve known by this point, was Caleb; Himself Philip’s brother, who was also raised to be a witch hunter, yet learned better. We know people can view both worlds from that in-between realm, but the Titan still isn’t omnipotent and can only watch through a limited number of cubes at a time, while having to know what and who to look for.

            But even so; With Caleb’s precedent, there could’ve been hope that Philip would follow in his footsteps, that he would learn and be more, and actually choose to be better instead of defaulting to Puritan predestination and the like as an excuse to stay the same and absolve him of responsiability. But we know what happened; Philip started off easy, but then made things difficult by rejecting the Titan’s compassion, by misusing her magic for evil and murder and genocide. The Titan showed Philip compassion first and this was how he responded.

            I really feel as if there’s an implicit reluctance with how Luz is taught glyphs, one at a time, in separate scenarios, usually as a result of character development and/or engaging with the world around her, which are things the Titan would really need to see to start trusting another human again (and if he knew Luz gave Philip the last glyph, that would also add to the wariness that Belos caused by manipulating her). Luz didn’t learn her first spell until a few days into her journey, and Luz had already had a few perilous encounters by that point! But she continued to brave her way through everything, continued to accept the isles and its messier side.

            And so the Titan showed Luz her first spell, and only that, in response to Luz needing it, wanting to learn magic, and most of all humbling herself to be kind to the Titan’s own son, and listen to him; Because neglecting King was what low-key led to Eda’s transformation placing everyone in danger, since he only told Luz about the elixir and agreed to steal it for the sake of getting her attention.

            So that makes Luz listening to the Titan for the first time, intentionally, with her second spell –Ice, Philip’s first- so much more hard-hitting. The way she wanted to live out her dream so she went for the wand behind people’s backs, but then recognized and owned up to her mistakes. And she really was just a lonely kid in need of guidance, and not a stubborn adult committed to his cruelty; Luz always had an open mind! She always wanted to learn!

            And she got to! She learned each glyph at a time… And that’s all the Titan could do for her, something the Titan had already done for so many others, long ago, before they realized they had bile sacs and didn’t need to rely on the land around them as much. Luz still experimented even when she just had one glyph; She understood how intent mattered. She and Lilith built off of each other’s knowledge to collaborate and create combos. Meanwhile Belos, he agonized because he made things pointlessly difficult by refusing to adapt to the ways of another land, and only got his first and last glyphs by taking the compassion of someone who knew them and betraying it.

            Plus there’s what I said about Lilith, her whole thing as Caleb’s descendant, directly abused by Belos and belittled by him, made to participate in her own erasure loss of past, separated from that… Really, one could argue the Clawthornes are like the Boiling Isles equivalent to the Irish; Yeah they're white but that doesn't mean they aren't victims of British colonialism that sought to 'conquer the land' and all that.

The Clawthornes are generally known for big orange hair, with Lilith's curly hair being straightened and dyed dark-blue in an attempt to assimilate within the Emperor's Coven's (AKA Philip's) standards of conformity. They worked with the land via the Palistrom carving and began to lose that because of the trees being endangered by Belos' gluttony, as well as the curse disabling Dell; The very curse created by the Archivists, who also invaded this world, the very curse cast by Lilith because the coven system influenced her to feel shame over wild magic and embrace hierarchy instead.

The curse leads to Eda's loss of bile magic, something very important to her and witches in general, and Lilith loses her own trying to mitigate her own mistakes. So not just glyphs are taken from witches, but even their own bile magic they initially replaced them with, and the other resources of the land. And Lilith is cut off from her family, her real family, as she's taken in by an ancestor who has deliberately distanced himself and loathes her on multiple levels as something to be 'fixed'.

But Lilith gets her hair back and re-embraces it, she gets her family back. She still manages to somewhat retain her past; After all, Lilith gets to go to the Deadwardian Era herself! And she meets, as much as it loathes anyone to acknowledge it, an ancestor, and influences history in a subtle yet personally meaningful way. And Lilith helps re-establish contact with the lost practice of glyphs by figuring out how to combine them, which goes hand in hand with her passion of being a historian, and her additional function as both parallel and especially foil to Philip.

             Just… Luz and the Titan. And Caleb. And Lilith. There’s dead people and there’s history and there’s land, there’s bodies and respect. There’s compassion and actually working with people and finding no shame in that, instead of stealing and taking credit. And in the end, even though they manage to regain some things, a lot was still inevitably lost to genocide, and possibly gone forever.

            But the effects and legacy still linger, Luz still remembers and holds dear what the glyphs did; And she honors not just Manny’s legacy, but Caleb’s, by bridging the gap between humanity and witches, and showing both can co-exist in harmony. She helped his descendants, and even the last Grimwalker, find happiness and reconnect with their heritage, even if they don’t know just how close it is to them in particular. Luz honored the Titan by clearing his name, finding his son, and ensuring the last of the Titans is no longer alone and in understanding of his heritage. Luz even made amends with the Titan’s other greatest regret, harming the Collector, by making peace; And she proved glyphs were still useful, they were still kind, and that compassion wasn’t wasted.

            So even if the Titan’s glyphs are gone now, Luz still honored their memory by sharing them freely and helping, teaching, cultivating. The Clawthornes are rebuilding the Palistrom forests, among them is Hunter who as a Grimwalker was one of the purposes for which Belos devastated those natural resources for. And King… King is beginning to develop his own glyphs! And Luz is learning her first one, Light, from a Titan all over again, because she showed King kindness.

            That honors the Titan’s memory by keeping it alive through her son; Who keeps the memory of glyphs alive through the ones he’ll sustain and share with everyone else, and those glyphs will spread to those without and even with bile sacs. And a lost art is brought back, irreversibly different but still intact in the important ways. People are relearning old practices to apply to a new world, because the past is gone but it still lingers and is simply… reborn. Despite the scars and changes it survives and is still itself.

            And with how all of this loops back to Luz’s relationship with her father Manny, who passed away, and how all that was based on Dana’s own relationship with her deceased father, who left her a final gift in Pokemon Red that she chose to cherish to this day, and embrace her own creativity and keep it alive. It’s a story about things dying but still managing to live anyway.

[fawnandcardinal]

I had a wild desire to create some kind of au with this fandom and finally got around to doing it.

Au "Innocent".

Or another(?) Au about the good Belos.

But this is already straight to the extreme. It means that:

Evelyn here is Philip and Caleb's foster sister (in fact, they found her in the woods when they were kids and let her live with them)

Philip never killed his brother

Even though he was a witch hunter, he didn't quite understand the dislike for them

Philip has no desire to genocide witches and demons (despite this, he will not treat each of them positively)

For the life of you, if you look like a child, he'll squeeze you to death

Although this Au has not been fully worked out yet, I hope that you will like it

[cookiesaddict]

I feel like Belos never intended to murder his brother. His body position shows that he is not walking towards Caleb with the knife. His head, chest etc is not directly facing Caleb but facing the other direction. I believe Philip is walking towards Evelyn with the knife, and that he intended to kill her, not Caleb. And Caleb is just trying to defuse the situation. Masha did say Belos wanted to safe his brother and bring the witch that took him to justice.

Which left us with three options that I can think of happened:

1) Belos accidentally killed Caleb. He wanted to kill Evelyn, but Caleb got in between to protect Evelyn and unintentionally got the blow.

2) Belos wanted to kill Evelyn, but got himself lost in anger and he ended up accidentally killing Caleb instead.

3) Belos wanted to kill Evelyn at first, but then he realized that Caleb won’t be able to be saved because he was too far gone. So Belos decided it was better to kill them both.

Lots of people here on tumblr pointed out that Belos kept Caleb’s jacket. But may I add that not only did Belos kept Caleb’s jacket, but Caleb also carved him a mask during their childhoods, and decades later he used the same design for his mask as emperor.

Not only that, but he also kept the doodle of him and Caleb after the murder. Yes, it was after the murder because Philip’s beard is longer. He already had the titans blood, no need to keep it but he did. It doesn’t matter if Caleb drew it or Belos himself, he still kept if after the murder. He even made countless Grimwalkers to have some version of his brother with him, knowing full well they will all eventually betray them when they find out the truth.

This man is dealing with unresolved grief and guilt in an unhealthy way, desperate to cling to anything that links to his brother and his past. “Because of you, we can finish our work as witch hunters together”. Belos says, while possessing Hunter, which is a Grimwalker of his brother. In his mind, he’s in Caleb’s body now. He is now together with his brother. This line shows that Belos desires for normalcy and that he can’t let go of the past, he wants things to be how they where when he and Caleb were still witch hunters. Before Evelyn, before the boiling isles, when it was just him and Caleb and no one else. Which is why I think he created grimwalkers of Caleb, it’s the desire for normalcy and return to the past but also the grief and guilt he is experiencing.

According to Belos, he committed genocide because he wants to safe humanity. It looks like that he has a god complex? But I think Caleb might have played a role in it as well as to why he did it? “Our family is gone because of wild magic”. I won’t be surprised that if Belos blamed the witches for Caleb’s murder rather than taking full accountability. I think he has that if these witches didn’t brainwashed Caleb, I wouldn’t have killed him mindset. And what better way of revenge is to destroy the world and everything in it that took his brother away from him?

I’ve seen fans wondering why spending decades around witches, Belos still sees them as evil rather than good. Well, he feels guilty for murdering his brother and is hiding behind his beliefs as an excuse I think? Like I said, he is blaming his death on witches. Admitting that witches are good, is admitting you’re brother was right and that it is your fault he is death. I think deep down he knows witches are good and that he’s in the wrong for murdering Caleb, he is just being a hypocrite?

Belos has complicated feelings towards Caleb. He is angry with Caleb for abandoning him for witches (in his eyes he did), but at the same time I think he loves him. He has good memories of them together which he is unanable to let go off. Like I said, he is grieving him. Remember, Belos and Caleb are orphans. Belos lost his parents, his brother was the only thing he still had. The one who raised him. The one who didn’t abandoned him. Caleb wanting to stay the boiling isles must have hard for him.

All of this what I just described. The guilt, grief, clinging to anything that links to his brother and past, such as his coat. The grimwalkers, the desire for normalcy, I think option 1 and 2 is more likely rather than option 3. Especially if Evelyn is pregnant, which she seems she is. Caleb was about to have child with a witch. Most likely in his mind, he wanted to kill Evelyn and it’s offspring, take his brother home, and unbrainwash him so they can be witch hunters once again. So yeah, I believe Caleb’s death is more of an accident rather than intended.

Take what a wrote about Belos with a grain of salt. So please be nice! This is how I view Belos, and I’m aware that I could be wrong. Season 3 is still going on, and everything that I have written can still be disproved. Belos is a complex character, which makes it difficult to analyse him. Which is why I love Belos, because of how complex, interesting and well written he is. I always feel I should add this whenever I write about Belos: even though I like Belos, I do not condone his actions. And I’m not excusing his behavior in any way. What he has done is by all means not okay, and plain out disgusting.

[mdhwrites]

My Frustration With Belos

As a presence, Belos is fantastic. He actually has probably some of the best animation in the series and arguably the best voice actor in the entire cast. He sells every line Belos has with a gravity and menace that the emperor might otherwise not have. He sells his anger but also his control and even after I stopped liking the show, I found my attention demanded when he desired it.

Unfortunately, as a character he absolutely fucking sucks and is almost impossible to take seriously.

He only functions as Belos. Not even Emperor Belos because once you bring in that title, you have to tilt your head and ask "Well, what is he as an emperor? How does he use his minions to enact his will? What is his will?" In that order:

He is a kind, stately emperor who only asks for one rule to be obeyed. Even if you stayed out of the fold, if you come to him willingly seeking forgiveness, you will be granted it and absolved of your crimes, like with the wild witch friend in Hollow Mind. He revolutionized the Isles, turning them from seeming small towns to a now interconnected nation (his rise to power is literally impossible with news being able to spread so people can fact check him) and brought safety and regulation to a land that has none (Terra acts like the Safety codes in Them's the Breaks are new or something so beneath a proper witch as to be able to be entirely ignored and no one cares.) No one faces persecution except those who flaunt breaking his one rule but you may be of any race, skin color, belief, etc. and he doesn't care. You are all equal in his eyes.

He uses his minions weakly. They are bumbling fools who are honestly better at party planning than they are at combat (look at... Literally any fight with the EC scouts frankly. The literal only wins they get is raiding an empty, unguarded house and attacking two exhausted, distracted witches who are out of power.) They are seemingly not punished for this though except supposedly at the higher ranks. Even then, they are merely demoted. Those who wish to leave also show no fear in doing so, as proven by the EC scout who says fuck this and goes off to join the cute cat coven. This displays a lack of interest in power or enforcement.

His will appears to be to bring order to a land of chaos. To bring structure and unity to a land that didn't have it. He will go to any length, including manipulation, lying and threats in order to obtain this. He keeps mystique about him, seeming to believe that being feared is stronger than being loved, fitting with his claims that the Titan speaks to him and wishes for a rather extreme societal change. One he will see to no matter what.

These are... Actually interesting. You know, until you remember his actual goal is the genocide of literally every living being on the Isles. Then they come across as incredibly stupid, inept and backwards for what ANY of his goals should be and that's without getting into how his plan explicitly left out the entire child population of the Isles. This means he didn't even actually want to get the job done properly before he fucked off.

That is befitting Philip and Belos though as actual manipulators. They both are on easy street as far as it goes. The one manipulation we see from Philip is by using two people who clearly want something from him and are interested in helping him so so long as he doesn't literally start throwing fists, he's fine. Belos meanwhile leverages Eda's curse against Lilith, an entire fake backstory against Hunter, and just being Kikimora's boss to get what he wants. Anyone not in the EC though he never manages once to actually convince of anything and he is pretty bad at actually keeping up his deceptions.

This is of course made worse by knowing that 400 years ago, that commanding presence that is Belos... Was actually just a whiny British bloke who couldn't even wait until after his victims were dead to gloat about it. I tooooootally still fear him, especially as S3 commits narrative contrivance after narrative contrivance to A: let him be ALIVE and B: to let him win, CONSTANTLY, without also murdering the main characters. Like he literally tells a group of witches and a monster "I'm saving your souls," while he has them all at his mercy, having already shown he was more than capable of beating them all... And leaves. Because he is REALLY bad at his goal.

And honestly, him being so bluntly tied to a movement, time period and ethnicity that all bluntly say he's Christian without saying he's Christian... Actually just kind of makes him worse. Knowing his beliefs makes his behavior BAFFLING. He has none of the actual zeal and fury of a crusader, who were so bloodthirsty as to have peasants march on their own as they screamed Deus Vult, nor does he have the actual politics and methodologies of colonizers. The closest he is is a missionary and that's not even the case because he's not interested in conversion, only genocide. He is just an asshole who has the label "Christian.

It says nothing. Most of his character says nothing. They slam you over the head saying he should be saying something, that his backstory should be deep and that he had grand plans but if you interrogate these claims, no he doesn't. He says nothing except "Christianity bad" and essentially condemns the ENTIRE RELIGION because of how little nuance there is to him, his backstory makes him look pathetic, whiny and potentially sympathetic which makes no sense with the rest of his character, and his grand plan was literally DESIGNED to fail because he never gave it any real thought or else he would have baptized witches into being in covens so they had the sigils from birth and he'd get ALL OF THEM.

He is perhaps the personification of what is wrong with TOH in this way. If you look at any one scene, it seems to promise so much. The animation is correct. The voice acting is correct. You can see what themes he's supposed to be talking about and can make a Twitter post very easily about it. But... These are all surface level and only function as moments.

As a whole story, as a whole character, it falls to tatters as you see there was nothing there except conflicting promises and basic fantasy tropes.

======+++++======

I'm trying to not blog about TOH as much anymore because I'm just kind of tired of it but Belos has always been a thorn in my side because there are so many scenes that are so effective with him but when I think of him as a whole, I have nothing but boredom and annoyance. So I wanted to properly explore that and highlight how little sense his character makes and why just consuming him like popcorn is functional, even good, but if you try to have him for dinner, you'll find only bones.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

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And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[waywardsunlight]

Covens

The way the Owl House coven system has been used in fanon is kind of gross. There’s nothing wrong with the magic categories (ei. I like bard magic, this person does Abomination magic) but labelling them as “which coven would you be in” comes off extremely hollow. Textually, the covens are part of a genocide plot against the witches and it’s very clear that the covens are a bad thing, that they’re kind of like a semi-self imposed separation that causes infighting so the actual awful person can quietly kill people. Seeing “which coven are you” posts, especially when they don’t include the option of being a wild witch, are... yikes.

Ultimately this doesn’t have many real world applications. The infighting with the witches reminds me of how people in power intentionally spark infighting in queer communities and pit people against each other on topics that ultimately don’t matter while we get legislated away. I think, when you’re considering how to interact with any media, you should be aware of what exactly you’re representing because the show itself is extremely straightforward. The main plot of season 1 is Eda trying to keep Luz away from the covens and refusing to join one herself, and we see characters who did join like Raine showing extreme regret and horror at everything happening. Using the magic system is fine, nobody cares. But like... talking about the covens like they’re a major or a h*gwarts house is kind of wild given the actual context.  The show itself is asking you not to use the categories and actively encourages wild magic and fighting against imposed labels. So uh... go ahead and multitrack and do whatever you want. You don’t need to put everything into a category, you can just let media be sometimes.

[dude1818]

Witch King

Last week I read Martha Wells's new fantasy book, Witch King. It was super good. A lot of the same authorial voice from The Murderbot Diaries came through: the main character is an unkillable but highly destructible fighter (which icks out everyone around him), is a snarky asshole to maintain emotional distance, but collects collateral humans to protect with his life. Plus there's weird gender stuff sometimes

I didn't expect the parallel story structure of this book. About two-thirds of the book take place in the present, following Kai and his best friend Ziede's quest to rescue their missing compatriots after they were all betrayed as part of a larger political scheme. The other third of the book takes place in the past and tells Kai's backstory, including the major war that led to the contemporary political climate and how Kai met Ziede and the others

The story arc in the present was very fun. Like I said, it had a similar vibe to the Murderbot books but with magic instead of robots, leading to a great action adventure story. There were at least three separate magic systems in play, plus a whole ton of wild worldbuilding details, and it felt like it could easily fill out a whole fantasy ttrpg source book. I'd play that system

The story arc in the past wasn't as much my thing. Like I've said in some recent reviews, I'm less a fan of time skip and downer stories, which is how it starts. Kai starts out a happy demon kid, and has to be broken by the genocidal war before he becomes the person in the present arc. At least you know that the past arc has to catch up to the present by the end, and it aligns in narrative tone relatively quickly, so after the first few chapters I warmed up to it

Overall the book was great. The amount of worldbuilding and fleshed out characters really makes me hopeful for a new series in this world

[dejaroze]

Big fat rant about nothing, just me yapping about TOH’s ending under the cut🦟

Okay so obviously I have massive witterot but like it’s so severe like I’m so ill about 2 fictional dead guys and one has committed serval acts of genocide but HES HOT SO HEAR ME OUT

I wish we got more content regrading the trio ( Caleb,Philip, and Evelyn ) because all we got were the pictures in hollow mind, and even that wasn’t much. Like yeah, we know what happened, partially. And that’s only Philips POV too, so this part of the fandom is literally just living off of scraps

Call me crazy but, I think TOH would’ve been better if there wasn’t a happy ending. I am so tired of happy endings in shows, like if they’re executed well then I enjoy them, but if TOH was for a slightly older age group and didn’t end in sunshine and rainbows, I would’ve been so happy. Please let the villain win for once, that’s all I ask.

That’s not even me being biased about Belos and stuff, just genuinely, how did this man with centuries of experience get overthrown by a 15 year old girl who didn’t even have to do that much to earn it? Luz found out about glyphs like a week into the demon realm?! Excuse me?! Like I do sort of understand since Eda is a wild witch n all, she might’ve practiced this stuff before hand or May have books about it, but it’s clearly stated in s1 ep4 that she doesn’t know how witches used to do magic?

And even then that raises questions, did Belos completely erase the existence of glyphs from the public eye? Are there no books about this stuff? Did he just destroy all records of this stuff? And how did he do that? Was it before or after he became emperor? Because all we know is that he’s been in power for a little over 50 years out of the maybe 350-400 he tried to recruit people to his cause. How do people not question how this man stays alive?! We don’t know for sure how long witches live, and even if they do live that long in the sense they don’t questions Belos’s age, then wouldn’t some people from the 1600-1700s still be alive to call him out on his bs?

This is why if we had info on how long witches live, it would help plan the timeline out so much more.

Witches seem to age like humans do though, so I assume they would live 80 years on average like humans? Because Edas mom, depending on how old she was when she had Lilith, is actually the age most people would be when their kids are 40 or so.

ive had this in my head for awhile, I might be overanalyzing this quote but in s1 ep13, Principal Bump says “Only 300 years till retirement” but in the finale, 4 years later, he’s seen being retired. So maybe time runs differently in the demon realm? Or that quote could’ve been a joke, but still, that’s a thing.

Back to Luz’s magic development though, in the matter of like 2 months, she learned all 4 of the main glyphs meanwhile Philip learned them way later. Now yes, I know Philip did say “it’s almost as if the Titan wanted to keep them hidden from me.” BUT this raises another question!

Did Philip only start learning glyphs AFTER CALEBS DEATH? Because we know the Titan can look over the isles through the middle realm, and maybe he knew Philips intentions weren’t pure so he hid the glyphs, but also how does he still have the power to do that if he’s assumably been dead for thousands of years? I mean clearly it didn’t work, but it still hid them to some extent.

And when did Philip change his identity? We can assume it’s after he met the collector, but did the collector tell him to do all of that? HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN PLANNING THIS? Has he been planning this even before Caleb’s death? You would assume so.

My god this whole timeline is fucked

[drachenfalter]

Just had a disturbing thought.

The reason that Lilith Clawthorne is accepted back into society so easily after everything is that her victims* usually didn't survive.

(*victim meaning the people most hurt by Lilith's actions as a member and eventual leader of the Emperor's coven. Almost exclusively so called "wild witches", like the people we see at the beginning of Agony of a witch.) (Also, Eda is the exception to that rule, but only because she's Lilith's sister. We have every indication that Lilith did not treat any other wild witch like that.)

[the-owl-house-takes]

i have heard people compare hunter to zuko frequently, but they forget that zuko is intrinsically a good person, and hunter is not.

hunter is fundamentally violent and cruel. he willfully facilitates the murder of sentient palismen. he betrays his coworkers frequently. he threatens his inferiors and revels in the power his position endows him. he kills wild witches. he kidnapped and imprisoned innocent civilians. he only cares to leave the EC when belos is threatening to kill him. he only bothers to fight belos' possession when his palisman (aka, his only link to magical power) is directly harmed.

he is callous and selfish. he served a genocidal emperor and doesn't feel one ounce of regret; in fact, it's never even brought up again. everything "good" he does, seemingly of his own free will, is out of self-preservation. save willow so she doesn't strangle him with vines. work with luz so he's not murdered by kikimora. break from belos' possession so his access to magical power isn't destroyed. carve another palisman that looks exactly like flapjack so he can replace him and pretend nothing happened.

he is rewarded for (or despite) all of his ill behavior. he is given uncritical friends and peace of mind. he is never asked to make things right, never required to own up for his misdeeds. his victims are expected to be okay with hunter's destructive behavior, just because he's young.

but zuko was young too. in fact, they were the same age. zuko hunted aang, burned villages, burned katara. but then he changed, and he worked to earn forgiveness and trust because he cared that deeply. zuko often floundered, and made a thousand mistakes just to get himself on the right path, and he had to pay for each and every one of them. he suffered and fought for what he thought was right no matter what. in short, he had a moral code of his own making.

hunter has no moral compass. by the end of the show none of his attitude has changed; he just doesn't have the capacity (or the direct incentive) to hurt and kill on that scale any more.

-

[mmikmmik2]

It must have hit Raine so hard when their coven sigil was removed. It’s a mark of how Belos and the coven system dominated their life. It was turned against them to capture them, and then to force them to be an instrument of genocide against their own people. To be free of it, and to have complete control over their own body and magic for the first time in decades, and fully live as a wild witch for the rest of their days, and know everyone else and every new generation is going to get that chance as well… that has to feel good.

They didn’t tell Eda when they were going to get the mark removed, so they could surprise her with the skull-face illusion prank.

[sepublic]

Jokes aside, I’d argue Belos isn't openly homophobic because there's no point to it; There's no point in trying to 'redeem' witches and demons by changing their lifestyles if he's convinced himself they're all going to Hell anyway, so the only thing he needs to do is kill them. "Why bother teaching them anything if you can just wipe them out?"

Belos only changes aspects of witches' lives that are directly necessary to his plans; In this case, applying sigils by justifying the lack of them as 'wild magic', and then keeping magic divided with different covens so they can't easily rebel against the system that's applying sigils, thereby allowing it to keep doing that and marking as many targets as possible for the draining spell. It's really quite simple. That's why he'll refuse to replenish the Palistrom forests but then promote women like Hettie and Terra to coven heads; Because Hettie and Terra will be killed by the draining spell anyway, but Palismen won't be.

And let's be real... He's a Puritan white guy. He absolutely believes that queerness is inherently a threat to society not just on a spiritual level but a biological one, because it discourages people from making babies because they're more focused on partners of the same sex they can't reproduce with. He probably thought Boiling Isles queerness was contributing to an inevitable decline that he merely hastened and that's why he allowed it. And Belos can't be openly bigoted because people wouldn't listen to him that way.

He's also definitely racist. Belos making an 'exception' for Luz is totally meaningless because white racists make exceptions for brown and gay folk all the time, while still clinging to their beliefs. Luz just happened to be the only human around since centuries, and that's better than no humans because the lowliest one is still above the greatest demon. And he still tried to murder Luz when she didn't flatter his white savior complex, and didn't adhere to his idea of what a proper human should be.

Even if Belos didn't try to kill Luz... Genocide isn't just murdering people. It's also erasing a culture, such as when white people assimilated Native American children, forcing them to convert to Christianity and dress like white people and speak only English, under the claim that they were 'civilizing' them. So even if they were alive, it was still genocide and it was still racism in the form of the White Man's Burden.

He was a white boy raised in a colony, everyone would've taught him that the indigenous people were 'savages' and Philip not only devoted his life to exterminating an entire culture he deemed evil and demonic, but actively enjoyed it too. Why would he stop at brown humans, unlike Caleb who already unlearned one major prejudice of his. If he never learned of the Boiling Isles, he'd have gone after women in Gravesfield (which would've been misogynistic in practice regardless of Philip's intentions), and probably Native Americans too because his witch hunting games are no different than Cowboys VS Indians.

Like I dunno man these white racists do have fellow white people they care about, and are willing to make exceptions and humor brown women too. But they're still racist and will refuse to listen to those people when called out over their bigotry, and ultimately choose that. Any argument that Belos wouldn't be guilty of other human prejudices is purely wishful thinking, and fairly contradictory to his characterization and whole narrative.

And we can wax poetic about why Belos doesn't openly disparage Luz for being brown, queer, and/or a girl, but we know the real reason why; It's because Disney censors would throw a conniption over portrayals of bigotry, and the show was already shortened for 'not fitting the brand'. Look at how Texas banned critical race theory. They think discussing racism is inherently racist, kinda like Twitter users. But with the added difference that they know it's a callout of the people running corporations and the government and investors (AKA themselves) and they hate that.

This kinda gets me back to an earlier point I made; I think the fundamental disconnect fans have with the show over Belos is that Belos stans (not necessarily fans) recognize their character's backstory and motives are something gross that can't be romanticized, and that's why they work so hard to reframe the focus towards Philip's dynamic with his brother Caleb, emphasizing codependency, and religious suppression and guilt. Because they can romanticize that, but not the intentionally pathetic core of Belos' character (itself a satire of certain subgroups).

They're seething over the reminder that their sexy aesthetic will always be second-banana to a 4channer complex, and salty that the crew chose to discuss something topical instead of making a sexyman villain, because their complaints can be boiled down to tastes and preferences, not actual objective critique. That's also why they claim the finale 'retconned' Belos and stripped him of nuance, because all the show really did was just frame and acknowledge his desire to be right as cowardly and selfish, instead of flattering him with tortured abandonment angst over a brother he never cared enough for. As if we didn’t have the ghosts in the previous episode for that purpose.

[aleck-le-mec]

Pagan ways to honor Palestinians

Like every other respectable human being these days I feel absolute terror, sadness and guilt seeing what’s happening to the PEOPLE of Gaza. Paganism has always been a way for me to deal with emotions and difficult things so I’m here to share what I’ve done and what I will continue to do to honor the people we have lost.

Of course donating funds, signing petitions, voting, protesting, talking about the genocide and boycotting is all a given but these are my spiritual/ grieving ceremonies. It’s important to balance both activism and the human need to grieve/ process in order to keep one’s humanity, avoid burnout and desensitization to this kind of violence.

Veiling

Veiling is a thing that some pagans do for all of their own reasons but I’ve found it to be a good way to honor others. If you veil with a kufiya, a historic scarf of Palestine this is also sending a message of exactly what and who you're standing for. I veil with a scarf that I inherited from my grandmother, like the martyrs of Palestine I never got to meet her, I never got the chance to know what she feared or what she loved. That symbol of loss and what could have beens’ remind me that we are all united in loss, we all are losing something through this genocide family, friends, lovers, coworkers, doctors, students, peers. Because of that loss we have to keep fighting we don’t have a choice, this genocide is everyone’s problem, it’s evryone’s loss.

Veiling in public spaces as a pagan can also help others feel more comfortable and like they have a friend in otherwise foreign places. I’m always reminded of what I heard a Sikh man say about his turban. He said that he wears it to let others know that he is there, someone you can pick out of a crowd at a glance and find easily if you’re in need of help. I always thought that was a simple beautiful sentiment that anyone can follow regardless of religion or spirituality.

Conscious grieving and candle light practice

Sometimes all you need to do is to sit down and think about things, cry a bit and be angry. Candle light visuals are important in almost every culture, they’re a universal sign of grieving and honoring someone so why not hold your own? If you have a coven/ group to do one with that’s cool but it isn’t any less honorable to do a private visual, hold that space to remember what you’ve lost and what you’ve seen. Think about what could have been, think about it and let it burn, let it hurt then promise yourself never again. Promise that this will never happen again, not if you have anything to say about it. Promise that as long as you live you will not stay silent as anyone feels this pain no matter their race, religion, or beliefs. Decide once and for all that this isn’t fair.

Displaying the palestinian flag and having one with you

It’s not uncommon for pagans, especially witches, to carry charms with them or on their person, it can be a sign of devotion or protection. So if you keep a symbol of Palestine with you it will remind you gently throughout your day that this will not go away. It's also a call to others to remember. Personally I have a bracelet that I made at the beginning of the genocide and I haven’t taken off since. I’m 50% irish/scottish and follow a lot of celtic paganism, knots are really important in celtic beliefs they’re strong, complex and can symbolize an everlasting devotion or connection. Having a knotted bracelet I made specifically with the intent of remembering Palestine in the flag’s colors is important to me and I will not take it off until I see a free Palestine.

Offerings to the wild/ learn

In general a lot of pagans make offerings to the wild without it being for a certain reason but it can’t hurt to put an intention around it. By offerings I’m not talking about blood sacrifices or anything crazy, tough people do that sometimes and honestly respect that level of commitment. I’m just talking about food scraps or planting seeds in your garden, you must remember to take care of your local wildlife too. Plant some wildflowers and as they grow remember that life finds a way, remember that the people we have lost live through you. Try and learn about Palestine before the occupation, learn about what they loved, what they feared and carry that with you, share it with other people. As long as you live and as long as you continue to speak, let it be for those who couldn’t make it, say their names and never stop growing your garden.

[bestworstcase]

Can you elaborate on what Salem meant with the "[...]when we could replace [these humans] with what they could never be?" bit of your recent post comparing her with Ruby? Because I feel like you either didn't address that or the point sort of flew over my head. Like, what else does she mean by replacing them?

my reading of the line is “why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans [before the gods] when we could replace [the gods]”—ie her proposed alternative to fulfilling the divine mandate is rebellion.

this is something i’ve talked about a lot before (<- if you poke around in my archive you’ll find it pretty easily) but in the essentials my argumentation for this reading is:

first, that “replace the gods” has much stronger congruence with salem’s characterization than does “replace humans.” she founded her rebellion upon the idea of humankind usurping their “old masters” in order to “perfect their own design” and told ozma very directly that they could supplant the brothers. this has been her driving ambition for quite literally millions of years!

in contrast, even now, salem thinks of humanity as “strong, brave, and resourceful,” recounts the discovery of dust as proof of human “passion, resourcefulness, and ingenuity,” calls the capacity for hope humanity’s greatest strength, etc. and she also doesn’t seem to value ancient magic, particularly: she spends V4-5 coaching cinder to “remember that [magic] comes with a cost,” she used dust rather than her own magic to make monstra fly, she leverages her power over the grimm expansively but we can count the number of times she’s used ancient-human-magic on one hand.

the first time ozma came back, he found her living alone in a rotting hovel with a fairly well-maintained path leading right to her doorstep. he heard frightened whispers about a witch who “commanded dark powers” and lived in the wilds, but this was also an era when faunus were hunted down and kept in cages—that’s important context to hold in mind when we evaluate where those stories about salem came from. everything we see in the lost fable suggests that salem just kind of… existed on the outermost fringes of civilization and mostly wanted to be left alone.

so, for salem to express a sudden interest in… what, genocide? some kind of fucked up breeding program using the one of their four daughters who ended up with magic neither salem nor ozma expected her to inherit at all? strikes me as startlingly out of character.

second, that grammatically the line does make sense to read as salem stumbling over her words. the verb ‘redeem’ implies a subject to whom the verb’s object is redeemed. in order for redemption to occur, there needs to be a debt owed to somebody; in this case the creditor is the gods. ozma’s mandate is to redeem humanity on behalf of the gods. reading salem’s meaning as “replace the gods” requires only that she have the implied antecedent of “redeem […] before the gods” in mind. (in much the same way that ruby clearly had jaune’s usage of the phrase “make-believe” in mind when she spat that in his face!) given her long-standing, passionate hatred of the brother gods, i find this much more plausible than not.

and third, salem is profoundly upset in this scene. she’s rattled from the second ozma says “this isn’t what she asked of me.” and while he reveals everything he’s been keeping from her—reveals that the cause she supported on his behalf for years was all secretly in service to the gods who cursed her to eternal suffering and annihilated humanity out of spite—she curls in on herself (arms tightly folded, face tense, leaning back into the desk) but hangs on his every word. she’s upset! she’s pressing it down as hard as she can, but it’s clear that this hits her hard—so it makes sense emotionally that she’s not able to articulate herself with perfect clarity in the moment. and then of course ozma just walks out without asking for clarification or giving her a chance to explain herself, so if she did misspeak it’s not as if she has the opportunity to elaborate.

and then ozma either took her literal words at face value or (i think more likely) heard what she really meant and, forced to choose between staying with her and remaining true to his mandate, chose the mandate.

[mdhwrites]

Do you think it's a bit odd how muddy the premise of TOH is?

I can sum up the premise of other similar shows I've watched in one sentence to any hypothetical viewer going in blind. SU: A chubby boy struggles to master his own power, identity, and goodness while navigating complex family dynamics, old wounds, and sick sci-fi technomagic. Amphibia: Three girls search for each other, stretch their friendship to its limits, and find a way back home in a wacky land populated by amphibians. She-Ra: An imperialist soldier turned rebel fights to free her homeland from occupation whilst struggling with the unique bond she shares with her frenemy.... etc!

I'm just not sure what I could say for TOH. A girl runs away from home to be mentored by a wild witch? But she doesn't really get mentored, and she didn't exactly run away either (she just... didn't go home until it was too late.) A girl leaves her home dimension to enroll in a magic school - hm, but that wasn't really something she super duper cared about, it was just part of the witch gimmick for her.

What else?? A human enters a land of witches, only to discover sinister scheming from the only other human to genocide - which - he's 400-ish too, so, uh, that proves that... colonialism... um.. religion... Let's restart. A human enters witchland and discovers things are not as they seem - no, things are pretty much as they seem-

A closeted girl is thrust into a new world in which she can be herself, and catches the eye of a popular rich girl? Hey, that's not too bad, except it ignores a whole lot of other shit that went down.

How about: A girl enters a wacky land that fulfills her dream of living a fantasy to a T, including the unpleasant parts of the genre.

...Yeah, I guess that's the closest I'm getting. Anyway, what d'you think about TOH's premise? Is it clear to you?

So when I bring up that TOH has a split personality problem, this is what I'm talking about. It effectively is trying to tell three different stories, with three different tones. Any one would be good on its own. Any two would need some finesse but they had plenty of time. All three? Well, even disregarding time constraints, you would have had to be really smart in mixing all three elements in order to make something cohesive as keeping them all separate for longer would simply create the same problem as keeping them apart for a short time does.

And TOH doesn't even fucking try. The literal only element that consistently ties all three story ideas together is Luz. I'll get into it more in a second but this is part of why when you pitch the show to someone, you kind of just have to focus the entire description on Luz in one way or another. To mention any of the other elements causes you to inherently imply one is more important than the others and TOH never chose anything to prioritize.

But of course, what were the three stories trying to be told and with what tones? And I'll talk about how it handles each of them weaving into one another once I've just established a baseline for each.

Well, first we have the slice of life, comedy, coming of age story that is Luz, Eda, King and Lilith. Especially in S1, most hijinks with them are focused around blunt morality, hijinks and just dealing with a problem of the day. It is the most bluntly kid's show of any of them, adopting a lot of the tone of Amphibia. This is why we get so many B plots with King that are the same thing over and over again. It's why Lilith and Eda are on opposite sides of the law but they don't fight until the end but instead are just nice, silly sisters here for hijinks. It's also part of why Lilith is made into a joke in S2 because that is more keeping in line with the tone of this storyline than if she were to actually what happened to her seriously and mixed in with:

The second is a fantasy epic about the corruption of a world by hate and prejudice. Of one man's corrupted beliefs of religion and want for control ruining a land. It is a much darker toned story, meant to reflect the horrors of the real world and its prejudices. This is the plot of Belos and Hunter. It is also the plot that is the smallest part of TOH but should have been the most omnipresent due to how so much of it is tied strictly into the worldbuilding. A lack of world building easily makes this sort of story, like most dystopians, fall completely apart. It also is the one that requires the most adherence to it as conflicting elements makes this story feel all the weaker each time someone treats this existential threat as nothing to be worried about.

The third is the most obvious: The school drama/romance story. This one is probably the one actually trying to be the most concise due to how almost every element for a season and a half of this plot is dedicated just to the weird girl/serious girl romance. It's a classic and one I've iterated on multiple times myself as it's just a fun concept to handle.

So there you go. Three ideas that are each on their own a good story but have their own complications. Each one of these could have easily taken two seasons to properly explore and tell. With more efficient storytelling, any of them could have taken a single season or less.

But then you get the exponential problem of mixing them together. Because mind you, tonally you have a comedy slice of live, a romantic drama, and a dark epic. Those are VASTLY different genres for each tonally and in narrative intent.

The easiest combo is actually the first and second. This is actually what Amphibia is effectively. The show starts in a somewhat isolated part of the world so its lighter tone can not contrast with the darker epic that is to come, giving it a safe space for character development, relationships, etc. Then with each threat, it gets a little more serious with its tone. There's a reason Hop Pop buries the box in S1 but the confrontation about what that means isn't until S2. There's a reason why S3B of Amphibia is MARKEDLY more serious than anything that came before it. The strength of this combo is that when the darker elements show up, the contrast of what came before makes them hit all the harder and makes you care about the stakes.

So what about how TOH handles it? Well, Lilith and Eda are theoretically a blend of the two but Lilith is never treated quite seriously enough. Also, rather than it being ideological, it comes across more personal with those two and it kind of leaves Belos out of it for the entirety of the first season, especially due to how wishy washy the show is about the covens being a big deal. Then in S2, Lilith absolutely SHOULD be the connective tissue. Her and Luz share a similar anger towards Belos and the two acting on that anger is a way to show that hate in any form is destructive, playing on the grander themes of the epic side of it while bringing in The Owl Family.

Instead, Lilith is just kind of flicked away, rendering any connective tissue from S1 to just evaporate, especially as no one actually seems to have cared about Belos almost murdering Eda. Rather, Raine is the connective tissue for the two plotlines. You know, the character who never gets to meaningfully interact with Luz or King, nor actually has a role in potentially pulling Luz to different ways of learning like Lilith might have, meaning they don't interact with the mentor side either. Even in their first episode, Raine is entirely self contained away from the other two. Eda and King's closest contribution to the plot before S3 is honestly in trying to get info out of Warden Wrath and that's really it. Otherwise, they're entirely divorced from Belos, his philosophy and his machinations.

So next easiest combo: The grand epic mixed with the school setting. This is how you get things like S3 of RWBY, My Hero Academia or Harry Potter (Though HP sucks dick at it too because good old Joanne sucks both at being a good person and actually writing anything serious.) The school setting is used as a kind of safe space for drama, romance and teenage shenanigans while the dark elements allow those things to come to a fever pitch as well as a way to test the bonds made at school versus the grand threat's hate and evil. It's hard to make smooth though, if the fact that I listed two things with... questionable plot writing to put it mildly isn't indicative. It at least has been done before. Oh, Naruto pre-Shippuden could possibly also be counted as this.

And TOH mixes these two by... Hunter? That really is the closest it ever comes to mixing them. The school is easily the part that obliterates taking Belos' regime or themes seriously as it constantly, CONSTANTLY undermines the worldbuilding of the show and struggles to actually feel like a part of the grander society. None of the Hexside Squad members ever properly face what being a wild witch or ditching the coven system actually means after all. Amity literally treats it as something that will mildly disappoint her parents but isn't a big deal.

So all you really have is Sport in a Storm and Labyrinth Runners as at least those episodes are using the school setting to give Hunter a chance to make friends and become a better person, theoretically, and he's important to the epic storyline so that kind of counts. If you REALLY want to stretch it, Eclipse Lake is another point of crossover before all three plotlines are mashed together starting at Clouds on the Horizon but the only justification there is that Amity is from the school stuff, though it's closer to fitting the tone and tropes of the mentor's storytelling than that of the school's.

But that is still three... In almost 38 episodes.

The last one is easily the most awkward and the one I don't have examples for: Mixing the Mentor and School plotlines. It's actually pretty easy to see why this would be hard. Both are about teaching the main character but in different ways. I think you could claim some works have done this by having a specific teacher be the primary teacher/mentor for the main character while the school is just where that mentor is accessed.

So how does TOH mix the-

Error 404.

Huh...

I'm not over exaggerating that much. Besides Teenage Abomination, VERY WEAKLY, the two never actually mix. Eda comes to Hexside once. King interacts with the Hexside kids a couple times but always in episodes or B plots that are much closer to the silly slice of life stuff than anything trying to mix the two tones. Even when it does, you get Really Small Problems where neither story is progressed and it all feels bad. Remember the closest that Eda comes to ever being a part of fixing a school problem is in Understanding Willow where she's just a spell dispenser before then being an idiot for Gus. It doesn't make her look better or play with any of the themes. The next closest is during The First Day where she is isolated entirely in her own plot so it's not actually mixing it besides the fact that Eda is at the school.

And for all three?

Well... I think the best way to point this out is that the best example of all three plots coming together is Edric deciding to expand his knowledge of magic. He actively chooses to reject what society has told him, tries a new method endorsed by the mentor figure but does at least acknowledge that his old schooling didn't prepare him for it. It's not strong and it's still hamstringing the epic storyline because he's already practicing two types of magics and so is mostly just nervous about being any good at this but it's SOMETHING.

But otherwise? The three shall never meet. Even once Clouds on the Horizon happens, they never meet. Eda literally never spends time with the Hexside Squad, especially as a whole. King is barely a part of the mentor stuff by then and is purely in the Epic territory and he's still not interacting much with them. Even in the final episode, the Hexside members are entirely on their own while Luz, Eda and King properly take out Belos, rather than everyone trying to protect Luz or having to fight by her side.

This sequestering of characters, themes, plotlines, etc. causes the show to waste a LOT of time and never have a proper focus. You never know what the point to a scene is because what it's serving is unclear, if it's serving anything at all. The show, by the end, can still have cut Amity and Hexside out entirely and lost literally nothing except much of what made the fandom engage with the show. And a reminder: Disney SUGGESTED Hexside. Dana said yes. It wasn't forced on her.

And that fits the show's entire storytelling ethos. It never feels like it is actually focusing on a single point. Instead, individual episodes will present interesting ideas or statements that immediately conflict or need to be retconned by other episodes because nothing is properly congruent. It is all conflicting against each other because each part is acting entirely independent of the rest.

It is an ever growing leviathan but rather than bringing in more of what is around it to make it stronger, it only ever hurts itself more and more as the details that once shone on its surface are made murky and unclear by all it has piled upon it until there is nothing but a rancid sludge. Unclear, unfocused and hard to describe except in the most blunt way possible. So what is the most blunt way to describe TOH?

The only factor that gets to cross all three storylines: Luz. So the only way to describe the show is "A story of a teenage girl going into a fantasy story." What type of fantasy story? Who knows. The writers didn't seem to after all so why should we?

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