Filbrick Doesnt Have To Be A Mustache Twirling Bad Guy To Be An Asshole

This Belos Essay is Gross

I fully admit I did this to myself. I voluntarily went HEY you know what animates me like a vengeful eidolon to the point where I could chew solid stone while laughing? Ragging on the history of Christianity in America! Oh look! A cute gay show about disabled witches sticking it to Puritan Cult-Peddling Murder Grandpa (also known as Ash's personal bugbear)? SIGN ME UP? Lets dissect this dreadful son of a bitch in the context of his theological bullshit!

But then I get to the parts where I have to think about Belos and all the Grimwalkers and its sicker the more I think about it. Everyone knows of course its just. The depth of the violation and desecration and depravity in its own context is Beyond Grotesque.

I'll elaborate more on this later, but Puritans were obsessed with how a person's remains were kept. This scabrous donkey's bastard was mutilating the unburied remains of the brother he murdered for 400 years. The thing that makes me insane is that any attempts to tell himself "I'm saving your soul, Caleb" had to have petered out pretty quick in that process. He discards the Christian name. Starts calling them all Hunter. Witch Hunter, a title, a job description, a fucking factory tag. He even started branding them after a while, which we know now is a death sentence no matter how perfectly obedient they could have hoped to be. He knows he's not saving Caleb. He's farming the experience of his death.

"I'm starting to think you make those things just to destroy them."

Belos demurs, "Of course I don't, Collector. It hurts every time he chooses to betray me."

The fact they included this line from the Collector--someone who has observed and gleefully enabled this sick fuck for centuries--seems to suggest Belos' denial here is a weak one.

He does enjoy it! They show us! As soon as Luz and Hunter enter the mindscape, he goes out of his way to sabotage Hunter's loyalty. He gleefully drags the kids around, building up the reveals that will make Luz crumple to her knees and destroy Hunter's entire world. The timing. The showmanship of it all. He smiles when he flicks Hunter's little forelock.

"What a shame. Of all the Grimwalkers, you looked the most like him :)"

These are the words he intends to kill this kid by. The dude has been playing this game for CENTURIES and still enjoys the process of torturing them before he slaughters them. How many Grimwalkers died with some variation of "What? Who is Caleb?" on their lips--but the part that haunts me are the ones who lived long enough to say "Sorry" before they were killed. Phillip isn't saving Caleb's soul, he's punishing him over and over.

So why does he do this? How does the Puritan part factor into it? Other than the pleasure of murder that is. It makes me think of how the main purpose of missionaries is to experience rejection. Particularly when it comes to sending kids out from the church. The purpose of the whole affair there is to reinforce that The World Bad, and Rejects the Word of God, and the Only REAL community you have is the Church. They understand you. This creates not just the insulation that gives them a chance to practice the script of the Rejected Religious Warrior, but create distance from reality.

Belos has been working on the worlds most horrible DIY project. He's been doing it for 400 years. What on earth can sustain that laser focus, him working while his body monsterizes and turns to evil Ghibli goo around him? Man hasn't eaten real food in 400 years.

His brother's death! The point of no return in Phillips villain origin (inciting incident: the moment Caleb fell for Evelyn). Each incarnation is going to to have a witch's pointed ears and the Grimwalkers pink eyes, wear different scars that Belos himself stuck there, but it's still his face. Sure it's a younger face than Caleb had when HE died, but at this point it hardly matters. Phillip is farming Caleb's death to re-inspire the moment where genocide entered his heart. These witches have taken you from me, Caleb. I'll make them all pay.

But first, I'll make YOU pay.

This bitch was going to take time out of the Day of Unity to kill Hunter if he got him. My god. Given that he was pressed for time I like to think it would have been quick but god if this is any indication...ugh.

I feel gross! 8)

I’m so unwell,, they could never make me hate you Stan

TW Child abuse/manipulation general Belos shenanigans. No spoilers past 3x01, please don’t add spoilers for 3x02 to this post.

Sometimes I think about how Belos targets kids and why, because he knows that kids are still developing and don’t always understand right from wrong, and also it seems like he just likes being around kids more because he feels like he can control them. He’s very aware of what’ll upset Luz, what’ll make her mad, and what to say to her to get what he wants. He’s even more in tune with Hunter, he kind of trains Hunter on certain words like “replacement” that set him off. Hunter’s backstory that he gives in Hunting Palismen is probably almost word for word what Belos taught him to say (he always highlights how Belos gives him the staff which would be important to him as a half-witch but Belos also highlights that himself which feels… interesting, as well as the fact that it sounds rehearsed a bit, because Hunter trails off and then he remembers where to go next with “And then Belos found me”), and Belos definitely taught Hunter to respond to physical violence specifically from him with the freeze reaction which is fucking awful (ex. Eclipse Lake, Hunting Palismen- Belos makes a sudden movement and in both of these Hunter goes silent and still, and then in King’s Tide, Hunter freezes up and goes silent when Belos addresses him). Finally, the Collector he has less control over but it kind of seems like the Collector looks up to him and Belos uses that against him. The Collector gave Belos secret magic, and helped him create the Grimwalkers, in exchange in a lot of ways for Belos’ friendship. Belos and the Collector even pinky swore that Belos would let him out, and Belos abuses that and uses his position of having something the Collector wants to force him to help him. 

I don’t have anything to say about Darius because we haven’t seen them interact directly or alone and we don’t know much about their relationship other than their vague past when Darius was likely a minor so. Yeah. Probably won’t get elaboration on that at this point but this is a History.

💓💓💓

Designs for Caleb and the witch because uuuuh yeah

so. how is everyone doing

Those who understand understand.

It's still sinking in that The Owl House was about a girl running away to a fantasy world, all because of the ripple effects of losing her father at an unfairly young age — only to eventually learn that the fantasy world itself was made of the bones, and the flesh, of a loving father who'd protected his child with one of his final actions, before dying and giving life to that fantasy world. And eventually, in his truly final action, even giving life to Luz herself. Luz ran away to the Boiling Isles, all because of a single book that her dad gave her — and unknowingly, she spent every day walking over ground that embodied parental loss. A world that was born from a parent's death, a parent who had to leave their child far too soon — and not just any child, but Luz's own new best friend, in all of this new magical world. And King and Luz were only ever brought together because of their fathers' deaths — before they even realized they had anything in common to grieve. Before they realized a reminder of that grief had been beneath their feet this whole time.

But, at the end of the day... their fathers both gave them parting gifts. Their fathers both gave them the key to come of age in a world full of people who'd care about them — maybe not the only world where they could've been happy, but a world they wouldn't want to imagine missing. Their fathers gave them the chance to meet each other. To understand each other. And, ultimately, to heal and grow up together. Until the ground beneath their feet stops feeling so heavy, like grief — and starts feeling lighter again, like a gift, and a happy memory.

Thinking and watching thanks to them again has made me so aware of just how fucking chaotic Willow is— she’s so down for bullshit. She stuck a pitchfork into a random persons ass! She stole her bat costume and gave the clerk a single snail like that would have bought anything on the Iles??

When she and Hunter get together she’s going to be so fucking chaotic and tease him like crazy. Like she would be the person to blow a raspberry while kissing her boyfriend. She totally pokes his ass while walking up the stairs. She’s definitely the “bite you” girlfriend but like it actually hurts. Indents and everything. She would lick his ear randomly just to fuck with him.