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Character tropes found in The Silver Raven. For the original series, click here for The Owl House and here for Devil May Cry.
Main Duo
Nero
Nero Claudius Clawthorne
The son of Lilith Clawthorne and grandson of the Dark Knight, Sparda.- Adaptational Sexuality: In the games, he was straight by all appearances, given his Childhood Friend Romance with Kyrie and her being his only love interest. Here, as his light flirting with Hunter, the Author's Notes at the end of Chapter 18, and his discussion with Luz on past crushes in Chapter 20 confirm, he's bisexual.
- Adaptational Wimp: Zig-zagged. On the one hand, his witch side gives him access to magic that his canon counterpart lacks, giving him a greater arsenal of abilities. On the other, his sword skills are less refined due to being self-taught and not growing up trained by the Order of the Sword. As far as weaponry goes, he also lacks Blue Rose altogether. This is best displayed during the confrontation with Echidna, where he required help from his aunt, the Blights, and Luz to defeat her, while his game counterpart was able to send her retreating single-handed and with relative ease at that.
- Affectionate Nickname: His mother often lovingly refers to him as her "little raven".
- Bastard Angst: Downplayed. While it doesn't come up much, he does display some issues about never knowing his father, and Grom (while taking the form of his mother) calling him "bastard" greatly eats away at him. This implies that, despite appearances, he's more bothered about being a bastard than he wants to admit.
- The Big Guy: After he becomes part of the Owl House crew, he takes up this role in the group as both its main fighter and physical powerhouse. Fittingly, he's also one of its tallest members, as his height rivals his mother and aunt.
- Blood Knight: Growing up, he often snuck out to get a good fight in against the demons and other dangerous wildlife that dwelled in the forests of the Boiling Isles. When he confesses the truth to his mother, he makes it clear that he likes the thrill of battle and never knowing what the next fight will bring.
- Child Prodigy: He's a magical prodigy bored out of his mind at Hexside, as his mother's teachings blow past anything the school has to offer for him, which is furthered by his extremely high levels of magic due to inheriting both Lilith's power and the innate power of Sparda's bloodline. His interest and talent in so many fields also fuel his distaste for the coven system given how limiting it is.
- Cheerful Child: Throughout his childhood years, he was shown to be very upbeat and happy-go-lucky.
- Disappeared Dad: Discussed. Nero brings up at the Owl House that he never knew his father and was able to figure out later that he's the product of a drunken one-night stand.
- Dual Wielding: He briefly gets to do this with Red Queen and his mother's staff during his and Luz's fight with Belos.
- Extremely Protective Child: At the age of four, the sight of his mother almost getting killed by a slitherbeast caused him to awaken his Devil Bringer and crush said monster in a violent fury.
- Generation Xerox: He takes a lot after his aunt, Eda, in terms of personality, given their shared distaste for the coven system and rebellious natures. Keep in mind, this was well before he even knew he had an aunt.
- Giver of Lame Names: Downplayed. He displays little in the way of creativity naming things, having called sentient graffiti 'Graff' and a baby Selkidomus 'Selki'. The best original names he comes up with are for his sword (Red Queen) and its upgrades (Exceed and EX-Act).
- Heroes Prefer Swords: He prefers to use a sword in tandem with his magic, first swiping his mother's coven saber (which later becomes Red Queen) and borrowing a school sword (Alastor) to take on Grom.
- Heroic Bastard: He was born from a drunken one-night stand between Lilith and Vergil, but he's a fundamentally good person all the same.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: While shadowing his mom during her job, he muses that, while boring, things are at least less boring than if he was stuck at Hexside for the day. Immediately cut to Luz fending off the Basilisk to show that things at Hexside are indeed not as boring as he thinks.
- Jerkass to One: Inverted. While he's normally aloof towards everyone, Lilith, Edric, Emira and Amity are among the only people in his life (before he met Luz and his aunt) whom he's genuinely kind to (or in Edric and Emira's case, kinder than usual) and vice versa. It's because they're the only ones who knew the true him and don't merely see him as a steppingstone to be part of the Emperor's Coven. Even before her canon Character Development, Amity is always respectful and polite to him.
- Like Father, Like Son:
- Due to being in the Illusionist Track at Hexside, he can summon a spectral copy of himself to help in fights similar to his father's Doppelganger ability in Devil May Cry 5. And while normally he's about as opposite to his mother as you can get, both of them are notable for being incredibly vulgar-tongued.
- During the fight with Phantom, he displays the same sort of overprotective instincts towards Lilith (to the point of ignoring her wishes) that she typically has towards him.
- Like Father, Unlike Son: Well, "Like mother, unlike son" in this case. As much as he loves his mother, Nero is a naturally rebellious person who can't stand the rigid structure of Hexside and the covens. He doesn't want to join a coven because of how limiting it is and definitely doesn't want to become eternally indebted to the Emperor, heavily contrasting Lilith's loyalty and servitude towards Belos. For this reason, he quickly strikes up friendly conversation with Eda over their mutual distaste for the Emperor's rule even before learning that Eda is his aunt.
- Lonely at the Top: Despite being the most powerful witch of his generation, the son of the leader of the Emperor's Coven, and an incredibly popular student at Hexside, he doesn't have any friends to speak of barring Edric and Emira. This is largely because of his hate for how many of the students treat him less as a person and more as a meal ticket to easy popularity or as a way to potentially get into the strongest coven on the isles.
- Magical Weapon: Red Queen's a magic sword in this story due to Nero placing a spell on it to use its Exceed ability. Eda further enhances that spell by allowing the Exceed ability to be self-regenerative. This way, Nero doesn't have to reapply it when he runs out of charges.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: Downplayed. For much of his life, Belos has been one of the few things that truly frightens him, but after managing to visibly injure him in their fight alongside Luz, this diminishes. He later clarifies that he is still afraid of him, showing that one victory isn't enough to overcome nearly a decade of ingrained fear.
- Power Incontinence: While his Devil Bringer is incredibly powerful and can be used the same way as in the Devil May Cry games, any spell cast with it comes out too strong and tends to explode, with the blowback knocking him on his ass. This forces him to use his normal arm for magic. By Chapter 18, however, he's figured out how to weaponize this, using the blowback as a means of propelling himself forward at incredible speeds.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Even as far back as when he was a kid, he tended to be quite the potty mouth. About the only other character that can give him a run for his money in this category is his own mother, who's notably where he picked up most of his swearing from.
- Taught by Experience: While educated in magic by his mother, a majority of his fighting skills are self-taught from sneaking out to battle the demons and beasts of the Boiling Isles.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: When a Slitherbeast was about to kill his mother, his arm mutated into the Devil Bringer, at which point he promptly used his new appendage to crush the beast.
- Uneven Hybrid: He's a mix of witch, devil, and human.
- Unskilled, but Strong: While he has a formal education in magic from both his mother and Hexside, in terms of formal combat training, he has very little, with the bulk of his expertise being self-taught. This is shown in both how little sword technique he possesses and how his preferred use for combat magic is basic, if effective. However, thanks to possessing the blood of Sparda and the second most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles, he has immense potential and is a devastating physical fighter in spite of that.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Downplayed. Growing up, he was an adorable, exuberant Cheerful Child. As Nero entered into his teenage years, he lost his cheerfulness and became a vulgar tongued Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Played for Laughs. When he confesses to Eda that he stole his mom's sword to turn it into Red Queen, Eda expresses pride in his actions, much to his displeasure.Eda: I am so proud of you.
Nero: Please don't be.
Luz
Luz Noceda
A human who ended up on the Boiling Isles. After a misadventure with Eda and King, she's now learning magic as the former's apprentice.- Beware the Nice Ones: She's a sweet, kind All-Loving Heroine, but she easily mows her way through several coven guards in her effort to rescue Eda. Her wrath towards Lilith for cursing and capturing Eda promised a world of hurt had Nero not stepped in to let his mother clear things up.
- Cards of Power: As a human, she's unable to perform magic like witches from the Boiling Isles can. Instead, she uses glyphs that she draws onto sheets of paper, with her carrying several at a time for combat.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Her time on the isles and surviving the nightmares that inhabit it has led to her not having much reaction to whatever new horror threatens her. For instance, when a Rogue openly desires to decapitate her and use her head like a bowling ball, the most it gets out of her is a monotone stare. While traversing the inside of the Leviathan, she muses she'd be a lot more disgusted if it wasn't her first time being eaten by a demon.
- Damsel out of Distress: She gets captured by Echidna in Chapter 13, but after learning the Ice Glyph, she manages to escape with some resourcefulness and makes it back to her friends.
- Everyone Has Standards: She's desperate for a way to get back to the human realm and her mother, but if the methods involved require sacrificing anyone, she'll chuck it into the fire. She's at first interested in figuring out how the Leviathan made it to Earth, but then remembers how its arrival to Limbo required sacrificing the Selkidomus and refuses to entertain the idea as a means of getting home.
- It's All My Fault: She blames and berates herself for Eda's current circumstances, believing if she hadn't gotten captured by Lilith, her mentor never would have lost her magic trying to save her. This later extends to the death of the Selkidomus as well, thinking herself too slow to save it.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: Thanks to many of the chores she's had to do around the Owl House, Luz's developed a lot of physical strength despite being rather scrawny. She's able to drag Nero around despite the latter being much stronger and more well-built than her. She can even punch Lilith hard enough to knock her to the floor, with the experienced witch admitting that it really hurt. Chapter 20 even sees her carry around two massive bags of coins (each implied to have a million snails) without much issue.
- Token Human: She's the only human among the members of the Owl House, though it's slightly downplayed in that Nero's 1/4th human (though none of the characters are aware of this fact).
- Underestimating Badassery: Due to being a human on the far more dangerous Boiling Isles, she tends to get underestimated a lot. Echidna clearly thought she was easy prey, only to be caught off guard when Luz escaped and set up a trap for her. Even Eda admits that she tends to doubt Luz's abilities every now and then, but despite that, is proud to always be proven wrong.
The Owl House
Eda
Edalyn "Eda" Clawthorne
The most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles, Luz's mentor in magic, and Nero's aunt.- Always Someone Better: To her older sister, Lilith, who admits that no matter what she tried, she could never match Eda in magical prowess.
- Brought Down to Badass: Losing the ability to use magic hasn't deterred her fighting skills, as she can still craft weapons like potion bombs and is physically capable of grappling/killing demons with her bare hands.
- Cool Aunt: It doesn't take long after their first meeting for her to become this to Nero, with him being able to better open up to her about his problems and her providing a positive outlet. She even kicks ass alongside her nephew against Mega Scarecrows in Chapter 12, and they work together to face off against Echidna in Chapter 13.
- Detachment Combat: Thanks to her curse, she's able to remove her limbs and re-attach them with ease. As such, she's learned how to weaponize it, as seen in Chapter 18 where she throws her arm and legs at her opponents to punch and kick them from afar before whistling them back.
- Everyone Has Standards: She may despise Belos and want to see him stopped, but the depths the Rogues are willing to sink to in order to kill him (i.e. sacrificing the Selkidomus and killing off scores of innocent people) leave her utterly disgusted.Eda (thoughts): Okay, I'm all for taking down Belos, but these bastards are going too far.
- Mama Bear: Though not actually her mother, she is a maternal figure to Luz and is highly protective of her. The entire reason she lost her magic was because she sacrificed it in an effort to rescue Luz. When they were trapped in the Leviathan, she immediately rushes into danger to save her from a Gigapede.
- Younger Than They Look: She looks like an elderly woman, but as she points out, she's only 45. It's a result of her curse accelerating her age.
King
King
The self-proclaimed "King of Demons".- Adaptational Badass: A small example, but he does help Nero fight the Golden Guard during the events of Separate Tides by way of distracting him. In the canon episode, he was captured the entire time.
- Disappeared Dad: He has no clue who his father is, admitting as such when Nero explains how he never knew his own father.
- Miles Gloriosus: Despite all his boasts as the "King of Demons", he can't really fight very well, easily being intimidated by Lilith and trying/failing to attack Nero when he assumed him a traitor. That said, he's good at supporting others in fights, as seen in Nero and Hunter's bout, where he helped the former by jumping on the latter to distract him.
Hooty
Hooty
The cheerful, yet off-putting, Owl House himself.- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite being overly cheerful and a bit of a ditz, he has defeated both Nero and Lilith in individual fights.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Despite being the Owl House himself, his own occupants tend to get easily irritated with him, with the sole exception being Lilith following their heart-to-heart. Lilith herself hopes that this will eventually be averted and that the others will eventually see his Hidden Depths.
- Hate at First Sight: The instant he sees Graff, he immediately starts attacking them for getting on his walls. As seen in later interactions, this hatred never went away and he still loathes Graff, often snarling at them.
Graff
Graff
Living graffiti created by Eda during her Hexside days. Thanks to Nero, they now live at the Owl House.- A Lizard Named "Liz": They're living graffiti, whom Nero named Graff. Eda wastes no time lampshading it.Eda: Graff? Really? That's the best name you could come up with for graffiti?
Nero: You try naming sentient hall art. - Non-Human Non-Binary: As living graffiti, they don't physically have gender and prefer to go by they/them pronouns, with the characters referring to them as such.
- Spared by the Adaptation: They were just a one-off gag in the show that was erased by Eda, but they live to become a member of the Owl House here.
- The Voiceless: They're living hall art, so they don't exactly have a mouth to communicate with. They mostly talk through changing into different shapes and words.
Lilith
Lilith Clawthorne
The former head of the Emperor's Coven and the mother of Nero.- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When Belos gives her only a day to bring Eda in, lest both her and Nero be cast out as Wild Witches, she desperately begs the Emperor not to punish her son and insist that she shoulder all the blame.
- Always Second Best: For pretty much her whole life, she's lived in her sister's shadow, with Eda having always been better than her at magic no matter what she tried. It gets taken up even further when Nero starts hanging out with Eda and opening up to her, smiling more in the short time he'd met his aunt than in the past few years with his own mother. Even as a parental figure, she winds up outdone by her sister, which she bitterly remarks about in Chapter 13.Lilith: No matter what, it seems I'm always in your shadow, Edalyn.
- Brought Down to Badass: Even stripped of her magic, the battle with Phantom shows that she's still a very tough fighter, even gouging one of the demon's eyes out after off-balancing him with glyphs.
- Character Development: After defecting from the Emperor's Coven and reconciling with her family, she makes an active effort to be more open minded in general, as well as less smothering towards Nero.
- Easily Forgiven: In regard to her cursing her sister:
- After she confesses to her son what she did to Eda, he simply asks how they're gonna save his aunt. When Lilith questions why he doesn't despise her, Nero admits that while he's angry, he genuinely doesn't have it in him to hate her.
- Downplayed with Eda, as while she's willing to forgive Lilith for what she did, given that she helped rescue her and sacrificed her magic in doing so, she also makes it clear that she hasn't completely done so and tells her sister that she's still got a lot of making up to do (which entails her handling chores around the Owl House from then on).
- Everyone Has Standards: She greatly enjoys activities such as documentaries on balusters, watching paint dry and generally things most would consider chores. However even she finds the sheer amount of paperwork her position as head of the Emperor's Coven entails to be incredibly exhausting and nothing more.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Played with in the first chapter. At first, she contemplates getting one done when she realizes she's pregnant, but ultimately can't bring herself to go through with it, instead settling on setting the child up to be adopted after they're born. However, upon seeing her son for the first time, she instead decides to raise him as her own.
- Guilt Complex: She's got a massive one revolving around her cursing Eda when they were children. Almost all of her POVs throughout the story show that she never forgave herself and is very prone to self-loathing as a result.
- Hypocrite:
- At the Covention, Lilith tries to get Nero to curb his swearing, while Nero wryly remarks that Lilith is just as bad as him about cursing.
- More seriously, Nero angrily calls Lilith out on how she always taught him to work hard and not be underhanded, only for herself to completely go against this by secretly cheating on Amity's behalf in the witches duel.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: As seen in one of Nero's flashbacks, her idea of "fun" involves watching a boring multipart documentary on how ink dries. Chapter 20 even mentions that she also finds joy in counting dust motes.
- I Resemble That Remark!: She tells Coronis that she's not jealous about Nero's relationship with Eda. She then proceeds to start listing all the ways that Eda's influence on his life has been better than hers...before immediately saying that the whole thing doesn't matter (understanding it's counterproductive to her point).
- Lady Swears-a-Lot: Despite her efforts to seem like a proper woman, she's prone to a lot of cursing, especially when sufficiently angered. It's to the point where she's actually the main source for much of Nero's colorful vocabulary.
- Like Mother, Like Daughter: She's an overprotective, overbearing mother to her son, much like her own mother, Gwendolyn, was with her children. Eda even lampshades that she had to get it from somewhere.Eda: Oh believe you me, I know what a smother is like. Hell, maybe that's where Lily gets it from.
- Mama Bear: She's very protective of her son and will respond to any threat on his life or insult of his person with violence.
- When Kikimora insulted him for being a "meaningless, bastard child", Lilith responded by pinning her to a wall and threatening to both burn her alive and eat whatever was left of her corpse. Then there's the Slitherbeast that slashed his right arm, which she burned to ash in unbridled anger.
- Subverted, however, when Belos orders Lilith to get Nero to join the Emperor's Coven or else he'll be petrified like all wild witches. Though internally outraged that he threatened her son, Lilith knows better than to try to resist the Emperor and so agrees to the demand.
- When she sees Hunter/The Golden Guard attack her son during Chapter 14, she goes completely ballistic on him and would have done worse had Belos not prevented her.
- My Beloved Smother: She can be just a touch overprotective when it comes to her son, to put it mildly. When Nero was selected to fight Grom, she vehemently refused to let him fight, and after he managed to convince her, she made him wear several layers of enchanted armor (and by several, we mean enough to the point where he looked like, in Emira's words, "a giant ball of metal"). Nero even calls her smothering to Edric. Eda notes that she most likely inherited the trait from their own mom.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: After learning that Nero has been named Grom King, she angrily refuses to let Nero fight Grom, causing him to ask her if she thinks he can't win. After repeatedly asking her, Lilith finally explodes that no, she doesn't—which she immediately regrets after seeing that she's hurt Nero's feelings and she finally relents.
- Parents as People: While she very much loves her son and wants only the best for him, she often struggles to relate to him due to their differing personalities and has a tendency to be overly protective of him.
- Pervert Revenge Mode: During a previous week of Samhayne, she spent a few minutes beating several ghosts within an inch of their unlives when they tried sneaking up on her while she was taking a shower.
- Properly Paranoid: Her parenting towards her son, while smothering and overprotective, is well-founded given how much of a Death World the Boiling Isles are, and that's without factoring in the demon lords out for his blood thanks to him being related to Sparda.
- Rejected Apology: She tries to apologize to Amity for using her to one-up her sister, but she won't have it and yells at her to leave.
- Relative Button: Harming or insulting Nero is a major way for her to start threatening and brutalizing people. Kikimora, the Slitherbeast, and Hunter/The Golden Guard found this out the hard way.
- The Resenter: She greatly resents her sister out of envy for the latter's greater magical prowess, and this later goes on to include how her own son prefers spending time with Eda than her.
- Surprise Pregnancy: The entire story begins when she unexpectedly winds up pregnant from a drunken one-night stand.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: As seen in her POV during Chapter 16, her going to confront Eda over her influence on Nero is definitely because she wants to ensure her son's safety, and not at all to do with her being jealous of how much more easily the two have bonded.
- Wacky Cravings: She gets these as one of the symptoms that she's pregnant—of course, being a witch, her cravings involve her eating more live birds than usual.
Selki
Selki
A baby selkidomus who lost her mother to a group of demon summoning rogues. Feeling guilty over the failure to save the kid's mother, Luz decides to bring her home, hoping to help her find a new family.- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: She and her mother were able to escape and live happily ever after in canon. Here? Not so much, as the mother is horrifically killed to summon the Leviathan.
- Ascended Extra: She and her mother only ever appeared during "Separate Tides" and never again. Here, she becomes a regular member of the Owl House.
Hexside
Edric and Emira
Edric and Emira Blight
The eldest son and daughter of the Blight family and Nero's closest friends, whether he likes it or not.- Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed, but Edric does display a few compunctions regarding the prank the twins were going to pull on Amity, even if he still goes along with it. Canonically, there's nothing to suggest that he wasn't as willing to do so as Emira.
- Big Brother Bully: Initially, as they were willing to humiliate their little sister to get her to lighten up and stop butting into their fun. After both of them witness the consequences of their actions and get called out on it, they start moving past this, becoming much nicer, if still teasing, older siblings.
- Big Brother Instinct: Both of them are horrified when Otabin takes Amity captive and work with Nero to save her and Luz. They don't hesitate to defend her from Echidna either, yelling at the demon lord to stay away from their sister.
- Everyone Has Standards: According to Amity, they're big on gossip, but the events of Nero's fight against Grom is something they absolutely refuse to discuss under any circumstance.
- Gold Digger: They're tasked by their mother to get close to Nero, whose pedigree as the son of the head of the Emperor's Coven would be a boon to the Blight family. The twins go along with it, but only half-heartedly, as they find Nero's anti-social behavior to be grating to deal with. By the time they're in their teens, Nero isn't on bad terms with them, but he's not especially close either.
- Lonely Rich Kid: They're members of one of the Boiling Isles' wealthiest families, but whatever friends they had were all fakes, only really being interested in them for the benefits of their name. This is something Nero comes to realize in Chapter 19, where he recalls how forced their smiles were when they had to interact with other, snobbier rich kids at a party.
- The Not-Love Interest: They're Nero's first friends (despite his initial protests), have a fallout and reconciliation, and generally act as the people closest to his age that he has the easiest time confiding in, providing advice and emotional support regarding his issues with his mom. He even offers to accompany both of them to Grom when their dates stand them up. Despite this, both the narrative and
Word of God make it clear that they see each other as friends, and nothing more. - Shipper on Deck: They're both pretty supportive of their younger sister's feelings for Luz. Chapter 20 sees them trick Amity into going to the Owl House to help Luz study, when in actuality they wanted to help her spend time with her crush.
- Tsundere: They tend to act like condescending pranksters who love messing around with Nero, much to his annoyance, but when he gets selected to fight Grom, they show that they're genuinely worried about him and care about his well-being more than either of them wish to admit.
Amity
Amity Blight
A gifted student in the Abomination track and the younger sister of Edric and Emira.- Amazon Chaser: As seen in her POV, she's notably enthralled watching Luz face off against Grom.
- Crush Blush: The more exposure she gets to Luz, especially when she gets close, the more likely Amity is to turn into a green-haired tomato.
- It's All My Fault: She starts blaming herself when Luz gets captured by Echidna, in large part because Luz pushed her out of the way when the demoness attacked. This happens again during Grom, where the monster runs free from the school, and she blames herself for being too afraid to face it herself.
- Precision F-Strike: She almost never swears, but she drops an f-bomb when she sees her older siblings interacting with Luz. When Luz gets taken by Echidna and everyone expects her to stay back, she outright says that she doesn't "give a damn" what they think. She also almost lets out an f-bomb when Hooty invades her personal space, but unlike previously, she's able to stop herself.
Emperor's Coven
Emperor Belos (Spoilers)
Emperor Belos/Philip Wittebane
The Emperor of the Boiling Isles, who in reality is a human witch hunter.- Abusive Parent: He's this to Hunter. Aside from being a Parental Substitute, he's actually Hunter's creator, due to his true nature as a Grimwalker. However, he's also incredibly abusive to the poor kid, and, as his POV shows, has every intention of killing him when he's run out of uses, much like all Hunter's predecessors.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Considers Hunter asking him to stick to his original deal with Lilith enough to start considering killing and replacing him with another Grimwalker.
- The Dreaded: Many characters are shown to find him terrifying. Lilith considers disobeying him to be tantamount to suicide, and even Nero, who's more than willing to throw down with demon lords, is deathly afraid of him thanks to the childhood trauma caused by encountering his monstrous form.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Well, the person he's talking to isn't exactly good in this sense, but as his talk with the Collector shows, he finds the idea of not punishing someone for the actions of their predecessor to be baffling.
- Evil Is Petty: During his fight with Nero, he spends a lot of time terrorizing the young witch for no reason beyond petty prejudice.
- Fantastic Racism: He's a human witch hunter from the 17th century who despises witches and demons, with his endgame being to see them all wiped out. This is reflected in his battle with Luz and Nero. While he's shown to admire Luz's capabilities and even seems impressed when she manages to get the drop on him, he's nothing but contemptuous and petty towards Nero, taking the time to terrorize him and flying into a rage when he manages the same thing Luz did.
- Never My Fault: He's created so many Grimwalkers that he's picked up that them protesting his crueler actions is typically the first step in their inevitable rebellion, already considering offing Hunter when he does the same. Yet he still continues to make them and considers it their fault that he's 'forced' to do so.
- Really 700 Years Old: His POV at the end of Chapter 17 casually states he's been around for centuries at this point.
- Slouch of Villainy: How he sits on his throne when Luz and Nero encounter him. Luz even lampshades how it's the same as "about half-a-dozen evil overlords" from books she'd read.
- Willfully Weak: He holds back tremendously throughout his fight with Luz and Nero, in large part because his plans still require them alive.
Kikimora
Kikimora
Belos' personal assistant and Lilith's former immediate superior.- Dirty Coward: She's smug and haughty to everyone beneath her station, yet the second she's confronted, she'll quickly back down. As seen with Lilith and Luz threatening her, it doesn't take a whole lot of force to get her to shut up.
- Evil Is Petty: According to Lilith, she's been sneaking more paperwork into the coven leader's already massive workload for no reason beyond her own amusement.
- Height Angst: She gets notably twitchy eyed when the then four-year-old Nero accidentally calls attention to her short stature.
Golden Guard
Hunter/The Golden Guard
The nephew of Emperor Belos and his right-hand man.- Anti-Villain: While he's greatly devoted to Belos and naturally opposed to the heroes, he's not a bad person by any means, being openly friendly outside his work as the Emperor's right hand. He's dedicated to protecting the isles and its people, being more than willing set aside whatever immediate grudge he has with someone in favor of defending the innocent.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He's absolutely loyal to Belos and follows all his orders unquestionably, but even he apparently balked at Belos shortening Lilith's deadline to convince Nero to join the Emperor's Coven or be branded a wild witch from the Day of Unity to tomorrow.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Downplayed. Despite being one of Belos' most loyal supporters, he's not evil and has many moral lines he won't cross. However, his horrid upbringing under his uncle has heavily affected his ability to understand things like supportive relationships. When he saw the other Owl House members hug and reassure Luz over her failure to save the Selkidomus, he's left utterly baffled as to why they weren't punishing her and doesn't recognise what a hug is.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: He's refuses to curse no matter what and can only manage substitutes, such as saying "Fudge" instead of "Fuck" and "Darn" rather than "Damn".
- Light Is Not Good: His primary colors are white and gold and, though not a bad kid, his servitude to Belos makes him an antagonist.
- Sour Prudes: He can't stand swearing to the point where when he tries to quote Nero, he's unable to finish due to the vulgarity in said sentence.
Steve
Steve
A coven scout and friend of Lilith.- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's a complete goofball, but Nero openly considers him to be one of the few competent members of Emperor's coven (to his own bewilderment).
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He tends to come across as overly exuberant and bumbling to most, but he does prove tougher than anyone expects. He was able to fend off Echidna's Chimera while most of the other Coven soldiers were killed, and he even survives the fight against the Hellbats, casually sitting atop one of their corpses.
- Undying Loyalty: Subverted. At first, he seems like a highly zealous coven member, but he becomes more vocal with his issues regarding the coven as time goes on, much to Lilith's surprise.
Lower Circles of the Underworld
In General
- Always Chaotic Evil: Unlike the demons of the Boiling Isles, the demons of the Underworld are largely malevolent in nature and more in line with the typical Christian description of them.
- The Dreaded: The denizens of the Boiling Isles are rightfully afraid of them, given their incredible power and ruthlessness. Amity's left completely terrified when she learns that Echidna is a demon lord.
- Fantastic Racism: They absolutely hate humans, as well as the witches and demons who live on the Boiling Isles. The latter of which they regard as "parasites atop the Titan's corpse."
- Sins of the Father: They despise Sparda and all his kin, seeking to kill the latter simply for the "crime" of carrying his blood. This includes Nero as well, thanks to him being Sparda's grandson.
- Underestimating Badassery: A recurring problem they have is how often they underestimate the witches and demons of Limbo. Since they see them as little more than insects riding the coattails of the Great Titan, they're incredibly dismissive of them as a threat and it frequently bites them in the ass. Berial lost to them centuries ago, and both Echidna and Bael get their asses kicked, the former shocked that a mere "witchling" could best her.
- Villain Respect: They seem to have this towards the Great Titan. They openly consider the witches and demons of the isles as parasites riding his coattails, as if to imply they aren't worthy of the Titan's power. Berial is definitely the most overt about this, as he considers the isles' inhabitants as "desecrating [his] corpse".
Berial
Berial
The lord of the Fire Hell.- Badass Boast: His dialogue before he throws down with Lilith is comprised of this.Berial: When I last stepped foot on the Titan's body centuries ago, I sought to slaughter those who desecrated his corpse. But I was pushed back. Forced to retreat by the witchlings of the isles then, for despite being parasites who fed off his body, their might was formidable, I shall grant them that. But my blade was sharpened with the bones of your ancestors. Its flame fueled by their bodies. I may have lost then, but I've slain many a witch before you. More than I care to count. Show me if the witches of this realm still have the might to challenge I, Berial! Conqueror of the Fire Hell!
- BFS: One of the things Lilith makes note of when she first encounters him is the gargantuan, burning sword he carries around.
- Playing with Fire: He's called "The Conqueror of the Fire Hell" for a reason, as he emits powerful flames all over the place during his battle with Lilith.
- Villain Respect: After Lilith manages to impale him on a giant pillar of ice, he compliments her cunning.
Echidna
Echidna
The ruler of the Green Hell.- Adaptational Badass: In the games, she was very easily defeated by Nero and Dante in their respective battles. Here, she puts up an impressive showing against Lilith during their one-on-one bout, with her second appearance requiring the combined efforts of Nero, Eda, the Blight twins, Amity, and Luz to defeat her.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Inverted. During her isolation on the isles, she developed a hobby of counting the threats, excuses, and swears her victims told her before she fed them to her children.
- Sanity Slippage: When she reappears in Chapter 13, it's shown that the many years she spent isolated on the Boiling Isles have driven her insane, as she acts completely maniacal and her POVs show that she's taken on some Cloudcuckoolander tendencies.
- Starter Villain: She's the first demon lord encountered by one of the main characters in the story and serves as the first major boss battle overall.
- To Serve Man: Whilst hiding at the Knee, she'd spent her time trapping and devouring anyone, including the witches of the isles, who stumbled near her home. This applies to her Chimeras as well, since she'd been feeding with them her victims.
- A Twinkle in the Sky: Her fate at the end of her fight with Eda, Nero, Luz, and the Blights, as they manage to get her hovering over Luz's large ice glyph, with Nero slamming her down. Contact with his right arm super charges the glyph, which then causes the summoned ice pillar to launch her with enough force to reduce her to this.
Bael
Bael
A frog-like demon lord who is one of the masters of the frozen waste.- Dies Differently in Adaptation: In Devil May Cry 4, Nero killed him via knocking him all over the place with a powerful punch using the Devil Bringer. Here, he uses the Devil Bringer to fire an overcharged, point blank spell into his mouth, incinerating the upper half of his body.
- An Ice Person: Much of his abilities revolve around ice. When he's first summoned, he creates a geyser of snow, and manages to freeze Nero for a bit during their battle.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: He starts throwing a lot of fucks and shits around like they're periods when he first appears.
- Starter Villain: He's the first major demon lord Nero faces in the story, serving as this for him.
Leviathan
The Leviathan
A gargantuan demon summoned to the Simmering Shoal.- Adaptational Badass: Sort of. While a giant threat in canon, it was never fought directly, nor did it display any combat abilities of its own. In this story, it showcases some combat capabilities via a Breath Weapon and is directly fought by Nero and Hunter.
- Animalistic Abomination: Looks like a giant, demonic four-eyed whale, with the skies above being the sea for it. Unlike past demons from the lower circles summoned to the isles, it's much more like an actual animal, as it displays no intelligence and doesn't even talk.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: It's easily the largest demon encountered thus far, as its corpse can almost blanket the ridge of the Simmering Shoal.
- Eye Scream: Both Nero and Hunter destroy two of its four eyes. The former accomplishes this by slashing one with Red Queen, while the latter blasts away another from afar with his staff. The empty eye sockets are also how Luz and Eda escape it.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: This thing's practically invincible on the outside, as none of Nero or Hunter's attacks can do any significant damage to it. The only vulnerable parts of its body are the eyes and its insides. It isn't killed by Nero or Hunter doing enough damage, but by Luz and Eda destroying its heart cores.
- Womb Level: Luz and Eda get eaten by this thing, forcing them to navigate its stomach/intestines before eventually destroying its heart cores.
Monster of Lake Lacuna (Spoilers)
Phantom
A former General of Hell's armies, brought back to life and dumped on the Boiling Isles after being tortured by Mundus.- Back for the Dead: He's resurrected by Mundus following his death in the first Devil May Cry only to be killed by Nero and Lilith in the chapter he's introduced.
- The Bully: This is what Phantom is at his core: a petty, selfish jackass lashing his pain out at those he deems weaker than him and taking twisted joy in doing so. Even his insults to Nero sound like something a schoolyard thug would say rather than a General from Hell.Phantom: Why don't you let mommy handle all your fights? Little deadweight.
- Handicapped Badass: He's missing a pincer claw and a few eyes, with Lilith downing him of another one, but he's still tough enough to give both her and Nero one hell of a fight.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Back on Mallet Island, he was going against Dante, a master devil hunter, the Son of Sparda, and World's Strongest Man. Suffice to say, not someone he could really hope to contend with even at his absolute best. During his time on the Boiling Isles, however, he becomes The Dreaded, as he spends years slaughtering countless witches and Coven soldiers, none of them anywhere near Dante's level. Even when he faces those that would eventually kill him (Nero and Lilith), he still puts up a much better fight against them than he did with Dante despite his handicaps, as he's battling a neophyte devil hunter and a de-powered witch respectively.
- Parental Abandonment: His POV mentions that his mother ditched the egg he hatched from right after laying it.
- Plot-Irrelevant Villain: Zig-zagged. On the one hand, he isn't tied to the Rogues at all, meaning he wasn't summoned for the sake of waging war against Belos like the previous demon lords. As such, he isn't connected in any way to the ongoing conflict with the Emperor. On the other hand, the battle against him forces Nero and Lilith to start working on overcoming their issues, giving them a dose of much needed Character Development. Plus, his POV has one massive revelation: Sparda didn't kill the Titans like the heroes first believed.
Others
The Collector (Spoilers)
The Collector
A mysterious, ancient entity sealed away, whom Belos promises to free on the Day of Unity.- Narrative Shapeshifting: They use their shadow form to play out certain events for the sake of clarity and amusement. When they meet with Philip after his bout with Luz and Nero, they shapeshift into a comedic exaggeration of Belos during said fight, followed by turning into Eda (in beast form) and the Owl House occupants escaping. They even turn into a caricature of Sparda before crushing it under their hand to demonstrate that they won't let either him or his descendants imprison them again.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: They were imprisoned a long time ago by Sparda, and are helping Belos in the hopes that they will be freed.
- Sins of the Father: Subverted. Despite Sparda's role in sealing them away, they express no anger regarding Nero in their chat with Belos, much to the latter's confusion.
Sparda
Sparda
The Legendary Dark Knight and savior of humanity. He is the father to Dante and Vergil, as well as grandfather to Nero.- Ambiguous Situation: Exactly what happened to him is left up in the air, as he just disappeared without a trace. Phantom's POV in Chapter 20 reveals that not even Hell knows what happened to him.
- The Dreaded: The Legendary Dark Knight is highly feared by the lords of Hell. Echidna getting a whiff of his scent from Lilith (actually Vergil's scent), she has a complete freak out and runs away as fast as she can.
- The Ghost: He gets mentioned a lot by demon lords, and both Lilith and Nero are trying to learn more about him, but he doesn't appear at all, due to having vanished under mysterious circumstances.
- Un-person: Belos went the extra mile to hoard any and all knowledge of Sparda's existence for himself. As such, despite his name being widely known by the lower circles, no one in the Circle of Limbo has any clue who he is or that he even exists.
