Chapter 1: The Owl Lady's Daughter
Art by Crash X Fusion: Who's scarier, the ghosts or the girl?
Luz's time at Hexside School is shown, showcasing just how much she's become like Eda.
Tropes that appear in this Chapter:
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Being the first chapter of the series, everyone listed under Introdump counts.
- Adaptation Name Change: Since his real name wasn't confirmed at the time of the chapter's publishing, Prof. Hermonculous is named Prof. Blanc after his voice actor, JB Blanc.
- Affectionate Nickname: Jerbo calls Luz "Luzly" at one point. Doubles as Early-Installment Weirdness since it's the only time he calls her that.
- Armed with Pepper Spray: Luz doesn't use the spray herself, but rather tricks Boscha into using it.
- The B Grade: When Professor Blanc mentions that the ghosts coming out of Amity's cauldron might put a dot on her otherwise flawless grade-point average and gives her a B for the time being, Amity is devastated.
- Bitch Alert: Boscha shows up to mock Luz as she does business in the cafeteria. What sells this is Luz calling her "Bitchca".
- Black Comedy: When Luz demonstrates the animation spell she learned by bringing her toast to life, Eda eats it anyway.
- Blatant Lies:
- Luz tells Eda that she's in a "Special Track", when really she's in the Detention Track.
- Luz refers to her baseball bat as her "support stick", telling Amity that she has it as a Magic Wand to help her use magic.
- Booby Trap: When King tries to wake up Luz, he ends up getting snagged by the ankle from a rope trap when he enters her room.Luz: You shouldn't have entered a girl's room without permission, King.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The second he notices the narrator, Hooty attempts to tell his life story to the reader before the narrator continues.
- Call-Forward: The "Choosy Hat Incident" has a lot of importance for what's to come.
- Death Glare: Luz maintains one towards Amity during their entire conversation in the forest.
- Dope Slap: Downplayed. Eda flicks King on the forehead when he says she should be concerned about Luz being like her.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Four for Amity; Luz tends to call her "Minty" or "Little Miss Perfect". After Luz's prank, people take to calling her "Haunted Amity" and "Amity Horror".
- Eye Scream: Luz invokes this on Boscha by advertising pepper spray as perfume. Boscha only sprayed it in front of her face, but it got into her eyes; Luz then proceeded to splash soda into her face and in her attempt to throttle Luz, Boscha got tripped by the human and landed on a table causing a mustard packet to squirt said condiment into her third eye.
- Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: A platonic and familial example occurs in a now
Deleted Scene. Luz gives King a pat on the rear when he snarks she needs to shower before changing for school. - Foreshadowing: Again, the "Choosy Hat Incident".
- Hammerspace: Luz seems to hide several human items in the hood of her cowl and up her sleeves. It's unclear where she got them from when she starts selling them in the cafeteria.
- High-School Hustler: Luz shows herself to be a very effective one.
- Homeschooled Kids: Before Luz was enrolled in Hexside, Eda taught her what she knows at home.
- How We Got Here: The chapter ultimately leads up to Luz getting busted by Principal Bump for tricking Boscha into pepper-spraying herself, as mentioned at the end of the prologue.
- Humble Pie: Namedropped by Luz after seeing Amity being teased for taking the blame for the ghost infestation.
- Hurricane of Puns: The ghosts Luz bombed the abomination class with all speak in bad ghost puns."Why the look, sir? You look like you've seen a ghost!"
"Hey, what's a spirit's favorite fruit? Boo-berry!"
"Can you believe I've been ghosted by my own ghoul-friend?"
"Hey, at least her aim's getting better!" - In Spite of a Nail: Eda still enrolls Luz into Hexside in spite of this version of Luz sharing Eda's contempt for the educational establishment. In this case it's because her friends are students, she can make connections there and sucker the student body into buying human stuff.
- Eda also states she and King will go scavenging from the beached trash slug, but we don't see that happen onscreen.
- Introdump: Several characters (many of whom attend Hexside) are introduced here. In order: Hooty, King, Willow, Amity, Gus, the troublemakers, Professor Blanc, Boscha and her posse (who aren't named).
- Metaphorically True: Luz told Eda that she is now in a "Special Track" that keeps her late after school, omitting that it's the Detention Track and that the constant trouble she's in keeps her after regular school hours.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Luz markets a hairdryer as a weapon against snow sprites.
- Mythology Gag: Amity interacting with Luz here is a nod to how she was originally supposed to meet her in "A Lying Witch and a Warden".
- Noodle Incident: When Luz was enrolled at Hexside, she got herself thrown into the Detention track for something called the "Choosy Hat Incident".
- Not Helping Your Case: In another deleted scene, Luz denies being responsible for sabatoging Amity while using a light spell that creates a halo above her head. Willow simply told her it just makes her look more suspicious.
- Opening Narration: The chapter seems to start on one which Hooty interrupts, but whoever's narrating isn't described.
- The Pig-Pen: Luz is not a neat girl; her room is littered with dirty clothes on top of being filled to the brim with objects from the Human Realm.
- Point of Divergence
- In "I Was a Teenage Abomination", Luz doesn't talk to Willow until after Amity finishes talking down to her in the forest. Here, Luz intervenes halfway through her mockery.
- While in canon Luz poses as Willow's abomination, here Luz sabotages Amity's project before Willow is able to present anything, cancelling abomination classes for the foreseeable future.
- Luz didn't know about Eda's connection to the Secret Room of Shortcuts or her identity as "Lord Calamity" until the end of "The First Day". Here, she hasn't found out either. On top of that, she was placed in the Healing track when she was enrolled instead of the Potions track.
- Retcon: Following an update, Luz being in the Potions track is changed to her being in the Healing track.
- Right Behind Me: Luz only realizes that everyone stopped laughing at her prank on Boscha because Bump is behind her leading to an Oh, Crap! moment.Luz: "Oh, owl pellets."
- Shout-Out:
- The piece of toast Luz brings to life performs a Song Parody of David Bowie's "Starman".
- One of Amity's new Embarrassing Nicknames is "Amity Horror."
- Welcome Episode: This chapter is where Luz is officially introduced to the story, along with King, Hooty, and the students and faculty of Hexside.
- You Remind Me of X: After sending Luz off to school, Eda says she's just like her when she was Luz's age. King points out how that can be a bad thing...
