Chapter 90: The Steve Chapter
Steve's past comes to light and may aid him in deciding if his future still remains with the Emperor's Coven.
Tropes that appear in this Chapter:
- Adaptational Explanation: Steve never really gave any explanation for how he became disillusioned enough to leave the Emperor's Coven. Here, it's because of the multiple instances the EC didn't really help people unless things were dire enough, witnessing several scouts being butchered before his eyes, and being ordered to capture a teenage girl who had been branded a wild witch.
- Adaptation Expansion:
- Mattholomule's birthday, which had only been referenced in "Labyrinth Runners", is shown here.
- Amity admitting her desire to choose her own path in life and bonding with Ghost, which had only been mentioned in "For the Future", is properly shown on display here.
- Adaptation Name Change: Mattholomule already had a downplayed case with his last name being "Storms", but his official given name completely qualifies for this.
- And Then What?: Asked by Steve during his fight with Leonte over Hikari's fate;
Steve: And then what? If she refuses, you force her to join a coven or you petrify her, right? For Titan's sake, Leonte, she is but a child!
- Berserk Button: Steve doesn't take too kindly to Barie implying that Sunny is a harlot who went to town on Eberwolf and Calypso, calling her cannon fodder.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- The Clawthornes arrive help free the palismen from the Emperor's Coven by scaring the scouts with an illusion and knocking out their mission leaders.
- Before Emily can do any serious harm to Luz, in comes Hunter teleporting behind Emily to kick her in the head before freeing Luz from her frozen confinement.
- Bilingual Bonus: When welcoming Ghost, Camila says "Bienvenido de nuevo, pequeño gato de nieve!/Welcome back, you little snow cat!"
- Birthday Episode: The chapter is set on Mattholomule's birthday, and follows Steve working before attending the party.
- Bookends:
- The chapter begins and ends with the quote "every hero has an origin story. This is one of them".
- "Deserve Nothing" ended with the Bat Queen's trust in Luz lost after Maya was destroyed and Luz giving up her palistrom wood to her with both of them believing she shouldn't have a palismen. Now, the Bat Queen has forgiven Luz for what happened after seeing the results of her and Maya's efforts to co-exist and gives Luz back the palistrom wood.
- Broken Pedestal: Leonte admits to Steve that he's disappointed in Lilith for giving up her career and everything that came with it.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Leonte, the captain who spoke at Scooter Crane's funeral in Chapter 78, returns to have a major role in this chapter.
- Nazgul the Marauder, the bounty hunter Calypso was friendly rivals with, shows up in present day after being seen in the past in the sidetrack, "How Calypso Saved Krampmus".
- Baum, Emily's former palisman who was last seen in "What is it Good For?", is the first palisman captured by the EC. He's later freed and selects Steve as his new witch before being given to Matt.
- On another note, the Bat Queen returns after a 36 chapter absence following the events of "Deserve Nothing", not counting her flashback appearance in "Going Through Changes".
- Call-Back:
- The chapter ends up paralleling "Deserve Nothing", ultimately culminating in Luz regaining the Bat Queen's trust and her palistrom wood after accidentally destroying Maya and absorbing her essence.
- As Luz and Amity relax together Luz offers Amity some choco-crickets, which Anu Bist/Jack was seen eating in "Grom: The Musical, Part 2".
- While dueling Luz as the Golden Guard, Emily uses the ice glyph to turn Luz into a Human Popsicle just as Luz did to her in "A Coven Day Disaster", which hints at her bearing the mantle now.
- Emily remembers how Hunter called the Emperor's Coven to Glandus during the school war, calling him "the scout who ruined everything she worked for."
- The Cameo:
- Vina is seen at the Covention in the Distant Prologue.
- Dr. Bride and Glinda appear hauling a wheelbarrow of body parts while Steve and Sunny are traveling in Latissa.
- Grimhilde also appears in Latissa while in disguise, Dr. Facilier also being shown.
- King, Camila, and Acorn, are only seen in the two scenes at the Owl House.
- Though unintentional, the illusion Amity creates to scare the coven scouts resembles the Horned King.
- Willow, Gus, Bo, Eileen, Elliot, Skara, Amelia, Cat, Viney, Jerbo, Barcus, Morty, Summer, Simon, Oskar, Beth and Jerry all appear at Matt's birthday party. Everyone says "happy birthday", but only Gus and Bo have additional lines afterward.
- Cannon Fodder: This is the ultimate fate of Barie and all the other coven scouts who fell for the Bat Queen's traps except for Steve. It turns out Osran anticipated this, foreseeing only one scout surviving.
- Character Development:
- Over the course of the day's events, Steve comes to no longer see the Emperor's Coven as the job he believed he wanted since Belos has never really cared about his people's well-being, quitting when Leonte expects him to arrest Hikari despite her being a child.
- It turns out Maya has come to forgive Luz for accidentally destroying her and testifies in her defense to the Bat Queen, having made peace with it.
- Cool Mask: Luz, Amity and Eda all wear cat masks as part of their disguises during the raid, Amity crafting a mask resembling Catwoman's out of abomination matter.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: A disguised Grimhilde tries to give Sunny an apple, but Steve leads her away. Grimhilde honestly doesn't know why she did that when Dr. Facilier questions it.
- A Day in the Limelight: If the title didn't spell it out, Steve is the main point of focus as he returns to coven duty now that Amity and her friends have come home.
- Didn't See That Coming: Osran apparently didn't predict the possibility of the Clawthornes intervening with the Emperor's Coven kidnapping the Bat Queen's palismen or the illusion they cast to scare the scouts away from the Bat Queen's forest.
- Distant Prologue: Things open on Steve and his mother Carol attending the Covention, where Steve first became interested in joining the Emperor's Coven.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Eda calls Emily "Emilimabeans" when telling her to surrender.
- EMP: The Boiling Isles equivalent, the "Abomagnetic pulse", is the only way to shut down all the abomatons Emily sicced on the Clawthornes. Lucky for everybody that Amity knew how to re-wire the batteries of an abomaton in order to set one off.
- Expy: All of the coven scouts who debut in this chapter along with Hiraki are based off of Total Drama characters;
- Clé is based off of DJ and named after his voice actor, Clé Bennett. He has a strong love of animals.
- Bowen is Owen if he was a bear. He's also close friends with Carter, similar to Owen and Noah's friendship.
- Carter is based on Noah and named after his voice actor, Carter Hayden.
- Thunder and Joana are based on Lightning and Jo, their rivalry being a mirror to that of both jocks.
- Skrap is based on Scott, with his phobia of Fang being referenced by Skrap getting attacked by shark demons.
- Scarmeron is based off Cameron, with his fear of spiders being alluded to through his immunity to spider venom.
- Hugh is Cody if he was part beaver.
- Barie is a stand-in for Sugar if she was a cow demon, and her hatred towards Sunny is a nod to Sugar's one-sided rivalry with Ella, who Sunny is based off of.
- Hikari is based off of Dawn, being a pale-skinned blonde girl who dresses in green, is rather short for her age, and has Aura Vision. Her name is also based off of the Japanese name of the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl character of the same name.
- Eye Color Change: Luz's eyes turn white right before she learns she has ice powers.
- Eye Scream: Captain Leonte has a scar over his left eye, a reminder of when he got attacked by a teacher while saving a student.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the raid, the new Golden Guard notices Baum among the palismen and turns away as they capture him. Later in their fight against Luz, the Guard creates an ice glyph on the ground and Luz steps on it, being frozen up to her head. The Guard turns out to be Emily, meaning she used Luz's own trick against her.
- Flashback B-Plot: How Steve became interested in joining the Emperor's Coven is shown through flashbacks.
- Foreshadowing:
- For bad mouthing Sunny, Steve calls Barie "cannon fodder". Later, Barie gets killed by a trap.
- The new Golden Guard mentions they've saw through Amity's illusion when confronting Luz and conjured illusions of themselves during their fight. And then there's the Five-Second Foreshadowing...
- As Hunter looks at the unusual abomination, he senses something odd about it and when it leaves, he notices it left behind orange fur.
- Forgiveness: After what Ghost told her about Maya's situation, seeing Luz and Maya working in tandem to save the palismen, and knowing neither of them wanted to be stuck together, the Bat Queen forgives Luz for what happened to Maya, even giving her back her palistrom wood and telling her she's earned having a palisman. Right before this, Maya confesses that she's already forgiven Luz for the accident.
- Fun with Acronyms: The Boiling Isles Guardians", or B.I.G., the future superhero team sponsored by the Emperor's Coven.
- Gender Reveal: Baum is revealed to be male in this chapter.
- Get Out!: Once she sees Steve's part of the raid, Amity turns around and tells him to leave the forest before he gets hurt.
- Girls Love Chocolate: While watching grudgby at home, Luz offers Amity a box of "choco-crickets", which she accepts.
- Given Name Reveal:
- Matt's full name isn't "Mattholomule Storms": it's "Mattholomule Tholomule Storms".
- Matt and Oskar's father is named Murray Tholomule and Steve's mother, who Murray had an affair with, is named Carol.
- Gossipy Hens: The scouts show themselves to be these, mostly Barie who's been hearing rumors of the Blights potentially undergoing a divorce, Odalia supposedly having an affair, and Sunny being a harlot. That last one makes Steve snub Barie for spreading lies.
- Human Popsicle: Luz becomes one during her duel with the new Golden Guard.
- An Ice Person: While Emily has learned how to use the ice glyph, Luz gains access to innate ice magic, being able to freeze things in blocks of ice.
- It's All My Fault: Steve feels some responsibility towards not being able to protect Amity, even though he knows quite well there's nothing he could've done.
- Kicked Upstairs: Being Adrian's apprentice got Emily her freedom, but now she's apparently been given the mantle of the Golden Guard and access to a battalion of abomatons at her disposal.
- Killed Off for Real: Barie and her team of scouts are offed by the traps protecting the entrance to the Bat Queen's forest.
- Loophole Abuse: Emily has orders not to attack Luz, but since her allies all left, there's nobody who can stop her.
- Master of Illusion: Captain Leonte has skills in illusion magic, a flashback showing how he disguised an abomination balloon to give him the appearance of flight and having taught Steve how to turn invisible.
- Mythology Gag: For the first time since "Shaping Up or Nothing", Moringmark comics are referenced: the Bat Queen instructing her babies to hide during an Emperor's Coven raid (which was crafted from teaching them how to play hide and seek) comes from A New Beginning... as well as an end
" if it had a happy ending. - Never Be Hurt Again: Ghost's reason for trying to leave Amity is because she fears going through what happened with Adam all over again. While Amity can't guarantee she isn't at risk of being lost that way or change Ghost's opinion about Luz reminding her of Philip, she alleviates Ghost's fear by asking to trust her so she can see Amity choose her path in life, which leads to Ghost officially becoming her palisman.
- Next Tier Power-Up: To symbolize her ice powers emerging, Luz's irises turn white and her cambion scales ice blue.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Venoma's decision to not capture Ghost when she escapes leads to her bringing in the Clawthornes as reinforcements to help free the palismen.
- No-Sell: Everyone but the Golden Guard falls for the Clawthorne's spirit trick and runs away. Given that it's Emily behind the mask, it makes sense since as she would obviously see through an illusion.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Luz tries to play dumb and deny who she is to the new Golden Guard. It doesn't work.
- Oh, Crap!: Acorn when she learns that Ghost has come back to the Owl House for good.
- Out of Focus: The Clawthornes show up midway through the chapter, and while all of Luz's friends appear at Matt's party, only Gus and Bo have speaking parts.
- Point of Divergence:
- Steve leaves the Emperor's Coven five episodes earlier than he did in canon. He also spends the day exploring the Isles using his motorcycle with Mattholomule instead of King.
- Luz has found the wind glyph before "Them's the Breaks, Kid", and she actually gets to use it in the field.
- Red Herring: Cross turns out to be one for the Secret Identity of the new Golden Guard.
- Refusal of the Call: Baum asks Steve to accept him as his palisman, but Steve refuses because he'd be forced to give him to Belos. As a compromise, Steve gifts Baum to Matt.
- Relationship Upgrade: Bo drags Matt away from the party to give him her present: a peck on the cheek. This leads to them admitting they like each other and hooking up.Matt: Best birthday ever.
- Ret-Canon: Oskar, Matt's teenage brother who was mentioned back in "No Dancing Around" and retconned into Steve after the confirmation that he's Matt's canonical older brother, becomes the middle child and biological full brother Sandra had with Murray.
- The Reveal:
- Emperor Belos has decided to create a group called the "Boiling Isles Guardians", where six coven scouts will join a team led by the Golden Guard to protect the Isles.
- Captain Leonte was Steve's mentor in the Emperor's Coven. Since Steve struggled with his magic, Leonte trained him near the Forest of Fear so he could fight under pressure.
- Steve graduated from Hexside and was in the Construction track.
- Captain Leonte is an alumni of Glandus High and got a scar while saving a fellow student from a teacher.
- Sunny is an orphan, her parents having died when she was young. She was raised by her stepmother and stepsisters.
- Emily is the new Golden Guard, which means Cross was a Red Herring.
- Ghost left the Owl House to avoid experiencing what happened with Adam and Philip through Amity and Luz.
- Matt's brother Oskar works in tunnels, which is why he isn't home often.
- Baum has been living with the Bat Queen since abandoning Emily.
- Rule of Symbolism: Steve burns his coven scout uniform and mask in a campfire, the physical embodiment of the life he left behind.
- Scars Are Forever: The scar on Leonte's eye from his youth is used as motivation to be better, so nobody ever ends up under the same circumstances that he was.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- With Osran and Captain Wolffe knocked out, the scouts make a hasty retreat to not invoke the wrath of the "horned spirit".
- Seeing that she's all alone and facing the Clawthornes, Amity, Hunter and the Bat Queen, Emily summons all the remaining Abomatons to kill them in order to escape.
- Sequel Episode: The Clawthornes' roles in this chapter ends up being this to the plotlines from two previous chapters:
- The Bat Queen judging Luz of being unworthy to have a palisman in "Deserve Nothing" over Maya's destruction has Maya stand in Luz's defense over sharing her body while Maya's soul inhabits it, and the Bat Queen revokes her decision and returns the cambion's palistrom wood.
- To a lesser extent, Ghost leaving Amity in "A Tale of Two Palismen" because of both Amity's indecisiveness over her future and Luz reminding Ghost of Philip comes to a close as Amity bonds with Ghost because she figured out her Goal in Life.
- Ship Tease: Sunny asks Steve to escort her to Latissa to retrive Calypso's package, he saves her from muggers, and she asks him out after the mission.
- Shout-Out:
- The Boiling Isles Guardians are a superhero team made up of people in color-coded suits and animal-themed masks meant to appeal to a younger demographic and led by someone dressed in gold. Basically, it's the Isles' equivalent of the Power Rangers.
- To disguise herself during the raid, Amity makes a Catwoman mask to go with her abomi-suit.
- Steve battling Leonte to protect a girl which ends with the mentor yelling at his apprentice for straying away from the path he was groomed for has some undertones to Darth Vader and Obi-Wan's duel in Revenge of the Sith.
- Side Bet
- Take That!: Barie being Killed Off for Real in the chapter she debuted in reflects the authors' hatred of Sugar and how she ultimately ended up being the main antagonist of Pahkitew Island who nearly reached the end by sheer dumb luck.
- Tap on the Head: Sam knocks both Osran and Captain Wolffe out with a tree branch and they show no signs of significant pain later on.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Maya helps get the Bat Queen to forgive Luz for her fate, and she earns back her palistrom wood along with the right to have a palisman.Luz: (smililng) Thanks, Maya. Really.
Maya: (sharing the smile) Well, I thought you needed a break from all the angst. - Took a Level in Badass: Emily was already a tough opponent before, but now that she's had training with the Golden Guard's mechanical staff, she's able to use spells in different types of magic despite being in the Illusion Coven. On top of that, she learned how to use the ice glyph thanks to her last encounter with Luz.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The Bat Queen being attacked by the Emperor's Coven and Luz and Hunter dueling the new Golden Guard were both scenes shown in the third quarter teaser in "The Book of Marcy Wu".
- The Un-Reveal: What was in the package Calypso asked to be delivered to Nazgul and vice versa are never revealed.
- Visual Pun: Luz takes aim at an Abomaton and uses her new ice powers to freeze it. It signifies that she literally put it on ice/iced it.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Barie debuts in this chapter, and is one of— no, the first, of the many scouts who were killed by the traps in the Bat Queen's forest.
- Wham Episode: Steve defects from the Emperor's Coven to protect Hiraki, Baum becomes Matt's palisman, Matt and Bo become an Official Couple, Maya and the Bat Queen forgive Luz for Maya's destruction and she is given back her palistrom wood, and Ghost officially becomes Amity's palisman.
- Wham Shot:
- The new Golden Guard uses the same trick Luz used on Emily the day of the Coven Day parade: once Luz is frozen, the Guard unmasks herself, revealing it's Emily.
- Luz's eyes turn white when she starts feeling cold, and when faced with an Abomaton, her scales turn ice-blue before she casts a spell circle and encases the Abomaton in a block of ice.
- Would Hurt a Child: Hikari may almost be 18, but she's still too young to join a coven and Leonte has no qualms over putting her to sleep and arresting her. This is what leads to Steve fighting him to help her escape and officially defecting.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Said word for word by Luz (but with "fucking" as part of it) when she falls for the same freeze trick she used on Emily.
