Chapter 30: Understanding Amity
Art by Crash X Fusion: You made a big mistake Inner Demon, when you underestimated me, Amity Blight, Warrior of Peace. SO PREPARE TO EAT IT, SUCKA!
Luz and Willow travel within Amity’s mind to fix her burned memories, unaware that the demon in her mindscape won’t let it be that simple.
Tropes that appear in this Chapter:
- Accidental Misnaming: Eda calls Skara "Skaba" when addressing her.
- Adaptational Explanation: Part of the reason Amity's annoyed by Edric and Emira is because they dropped her after taking a picture together when she was four.
- Admiring the Abomination: Inner Amity is angrily hunting down Luz and Willow (mostly Luz) for knocking down the memory shelves and after she takes the bell they need to call Eda to get them out of Amity's mind, Luz becomes attracted to how she shushes them.
- Asshole Victim: The Inner Demon's paid back for his actions when Inner Amity shows him the mental door.
- Badass Boast: Inner Amity gives one to the Inner Demon before blasting him out of her mind.Inner Amity: You've spread your poison for too long! As the Good Witch Azura would say: Those who trespass and taint this mindscape, shall be faced with the wrath of its guardian! So eat this, sucka! (blasts him with a fireball)
- Break the Cutie:
- Skara doesn't take it well when she realizes she and Amity were never really as close friends as she believed.
- Amity comes close to becoming a shell of herself thanks to the Inner Demon forcing her to rewatch the memory of when she ended her friendship with Willow.
- Call-Back: King's story about him and Luz conning some rich kid back in "Regretful Decisions" is revealed in greater detail here.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Kid!Amity realized she was conned by Luz when she sees King is perfectly fine. When Luz begins attending Hexside, Amity immediately confronts her, having not forgotten that day.
- Character Development:
- Rather than giving into the Inner Demon's manipulation and leaving Amity in his clutches, Willow chooses to forgive her former friend and start anew like she did with Luz.
- Having come to see how wrong she was to blow off the rest of Boscha's posse (minus Boscha herself) instead of trying to get along with them, Amity also starts over with Skara.
- Skara asserts with newfound resolve to be friends with people who will help her grow to be a better person.
- Continuity Cavalcade:
- Luz and Amity's entire relationship since they started getting along is revisited by the former and Willow.
- The memory of Amity getting buried in snow that was mentioned in "Blighted by the Light" is also seen.
- A Day in the Limelight: Willow and Amity act as the dual focus with the history of their former friendship getting expanded.
- Dope Slap: Willow smacks Luz on the head with the book containing the memory of Luz scamming Amity after watching it.
- The Dragon: Inner Amity, under the influence of the Inner Demon.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Thanks to his aura-reading skills, Barcus is the one who tells everyone someone's messing with Amity's mind.
- Fantastic Racism: Whether it's human or witch, the Inner Demon believes people are as selfish and cruel as they were in the 17th Century.
- Flipping the Bird: Luz did this after Amity confronted her at Hexside when they met again.
- Forgiveness: Instead of listening to the Inner Demon and abandoning Amity to him, Willow decides to forgive her for ending their friendship after learning the truth and both girls strive to be better to each other.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Averted as contrary to what Amity believed, Luz does remember the first time they met.
- Freudian Excuse: Amity's limited patience with her siblings is due to them dropping her right after taking a picture together.
- The Ghost: Boscha and Odalia's brother receive mentions but otherwise don't appear.
- Hammerspace Hair: Luz finally demonstrates having this ability by hiding the book with the memory of the birthday party in her hair.
- Hidden Depths:
- Willow's more mischievious side as a kid is shown in greater depth, showing that she was a bit of a rebel when she was still friends with Amity.
- Alador had a poor relationship with his parents since they never bothered to try and understand him in his youth.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Inner Demon fully expects Willow to act as selfish as he predicts, only for her to not just reject his offer to let Amity suffer at his hands, but convince the Inner Amity to shake off his influence before she kicks him out of her mind.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Once the girls learn how to fix the memories, Luz declares nothing's gonna stop them from fixing Amity's mind. Then she opens a bad memory that flusters her so much, she decides the Inner Amity should repair the more personal memories.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Skara bursts into tears upon realizing she and Amity weren't as good friends as she thought, and Eda joins her after she makes her think Luz may have been inflicting Self-Harm on herself.
- In Love with Your Carnage: It's implied with Luz's Strangely Arousing moment towards Inner Amity hunting her and Willow down.
- Internal Reveal:
- Willow discovers the entire story behind Luz and Amity's friendship turned romance, along with Luz's condition.
- Luz, Willow and Gus learn about Amity's mugging with Skara getting the full story.
- In Spite of a Nail: Luz still travels into the mindscape of one half of the Amity/Willow duo with the other half, tries to find out why the two stopped being friends and helps get them to become friends again. Skara also invites Amity to her birthday party.
- Instant Costume Change: Once free of the Inner Demon's influence, Inner Amity takes on the appearance of Azura.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Odalia shoots down the idea of putting Amity in counseling saying she's fine as is. Julia immediately counters by asking why Amity would destroy her mind if she was fine.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Luz and Willow take the plunge into Amity's mind to restore her memories and save her from the Inner Demon.
- Karmic Thief: Luz treated her scamming Amity out of her money as kids as this until they started dating.
- Kick the Dog: To complete his plan, the Inner Demon forces Amity to watch the memory of the birthday party on loop until she's completely drained.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: As kids, Willow and Amity snuck into a horror movie about giraffes; Willow notes they had a lot of nightmares afterwards.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: With Inner Amity hot on their tails, Luz tosses Willow her bracelet to take on Inner Amity in her alternate form.
- Little Miss Con Artist: Luz is proven to have been a very effective one at age 9.
- Locked Out of the Loop:
- Willow realized how much she's missed during her break from Luz after seeing all of Amity's memories about their relationship.
- Discussed by Skara, who points out how she was the last person in the Owl House living room to learn about Luz and Amity's relationship along with knowing little about the latter in general.
- Luminescent Blush:
- How else would Luz react to seeing one of Amity's more private memories?
- Amity flushes red during "In Loathing".
- Made Myself Sad: Eda tries not to consider the idea that Luz has been hurting herself but eventually ends up crying alongside Skara.
- Mama Bear: Odalia's very hysterical when she gets the news about Amity hurting herself, storming into Principal Bump's office and demanding to see her baby girl. Lilith also strays into "godmama bear" territory again when she bear hugs Amity after she comes home.
- Monster of the Week: The Inner Demon, of course.
- Multi-Part Episode: This is the third and final part of the arc covering the events of "Really Small Problems" and "Understanding Willow".
- Noodle Incident: Boscha once forced Skara to skip a suicide prevention seminar to get fake animated tattoos.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Luz showed signs of this when Amity confronts her for her previous con as payback for how she treated Willow.
- Piggyback Cute: Luz has to carry the amnesiac Amity to the Owl House piggyback style, during which the girl pulls on Luz's mouth and plays with her hair.
- Pet the Dog: Along with inviting Amity to her birthday party, Skara invites Willow, Gus and even Luz.
- Playing with Fire: Inner Amity bombards the Inner Demon with fireballs to kick him out of Amity's mind.
- Point of Divergence: The chapter is basically the second half of "Understanding Willow" with Amity and Willow having Swapped Roles and an actual villain causing said events.
- Precision F-Strike: Willow wastes no time dropping one on Luz upon learning she conned Amity out of 390 snails when they were younger.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- Principal Bump allows Willow, Gus and the twins to skip school and go with Luz so they can be Amity's support when she recovers. He also makes sure Cat, Bo and the multi-trackers will get the schoolwork they miss to them.
- Calypso also requests that Skara go with them since she'll be feeling too guilty to focus on schoolwork.
- Alador agrees to consider having Amity take counseling from Ms. Traveler for the sake of her mental health.
- Lilith chooses to release Amity from the Everlasting Oath after learning what happened to her. Unfortunately, she doesn't tell Amity.
- Principal Bump allows Willow, Gus and the twins to skip school and go with Luz so they can be Amity's support when she recovers. He also makes sure Cat, Bo and the multi-trackers will get the schoolwork they miss to them.
- The Reveal:
- Luz first met Amity when they were 9 years old. Luz was attempting to con a coven guard out of snails for running over King in a Staged Pedestrian Accident, only for Amity to pay her instead out of sympathy. She soon discovered she was conned and eventually attempted to confront Luz when she started out at Hexside.
- The Inner Demon has existed for over 300 years.
- Willow was a fan of the Azura movies as a kid and got Amity the first book in the series as a present for the birthday party gone wrong.
- Alador has a poor relationship with his parents because they gave up trying to understand him when he was Amity's age. This is what inspires him to have a different relationship with his children.
- Shout-Out:
- Luz casually brings up the first movie Eda took her to see: Rambo: First Blood.
- The Song Parody is a cover of "In Loathing/What is This Feeling" from Wicked.
-
Word of God says the Inner Demon is the LC version of Freddy Krueger and resembles Sigmund Freud if he were a vampire.
- Skewed Priorities: Ms. Traveler outright points out to Odalia that she's putting what she thinks is best for Amity over her daughter's well-being.
- Staged Pedestrian Accident: Luz and King attempted to pull one on a coven guard years ago but when he tried giving Luz a small bag of snails as compensation which she refused, Amity gave her her recently acquired allowance in sympathy. Luz reveals she isn't proud of what she did and knows she'll have to make it up to Amity.
- Strangely Arousing: Luz becomes attracted to Inner Amity shushing her after taking the bell.Luz Ok, sinister yet attractive.Willow: You have issues, Luz.
- Tears of Remorse: Both Odalia and Lilith shed these after seeing Amity when they admit they know what happened.
- Totem Pole Trench: Luz is surprised to learn Willow and Amity pulled this when they were kids to see an R-rated movie. It worked on the ticket vendor, but not on the usher.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Realizing what the Inner Demon has done, Inner Amity throws up black ooze freeing herself from his influence.
- Wham Episode: Willow forgives Amity, whose inner self defeats the Inner Demon: Amity decides to restart her friendship with Skara: Odalia and Alador agree to put Amity in counseling for the sake of her mental health; and Lilith releases Amity from her oath while she's asleep.
- Wham Line: "The oath is unbound", which Lilith says after she releases Amity from it.
- Wham Shot: Lilith releasing Amity from the Everlasting Oath, allowing her to tell Luz about their agreement when she's ready.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Emira attempts to lay into Skara for not doing more in stopping Amity from burning her memories with Edric, Willow and Luz stopping her.
- Willow does this to Luz after seeing the memory where she conned Amity, who's now her girlfriend, out of her money.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: For the first time since "The Talk", Emira addresses Amity by her name instead of by "Mittens".
"Now that the oath is unbound, you don't have to suffer with it, Amity. And though I still don't want you to tell Luz about our agreement, if you do... I just hope that she will understand when the time comes..."
