Chapter 49: Grandmother Knows Best
Art by Crash X Fusion: Lilith only wanted her mother's attention. She needed her grandmother's validation.
No one in the Owl House is pleased when another Clawthorne comes to visit, causing one of them to try and show her the strife she's giving her family.
Tropes that appear in this Chapter:
- Adaptational Explanation: Gwendolyn's distain for potions is because she doesn't trust the Coven System, having been part of the generation before Belos' reign during the Savage Ages.
- Adaptational Karma: The gremlins behind Master Wartlop got off easy in canon when Gwendolyn scared them into running away. Here, Amity hits them with a fire spell and traps them in an abomination cage, telling Gwen to call the Emperor's Coven to arrest them.
- Affectionate Nickname: To make things easier for Luz, Gwendolyn tells her to call her "Gwendma" instead of "Grandma Gwen".
- Bait-and-Switch: Willow tells Luz and Amity not to get angry and go after Dolly. She then follows it up by saying she wants first crack at her.
- Battle Butler: Max acts as Dolly's muscle, taking on Willow, Viney, Amelia, and Cat for her.
- Being Watched: Amity tries to follow Gwen on the way to Wartlop's cave without being seen. This doesn't work as Gwen is quick to tell her she knows she's there.Amity: (pops out of some bushes) How did you know I was following you?Gwendolyn: I raised Eda. She'd always try to sneak up and scare me when she was a young witchling. I'm used to it.
- Big Eater: Implied. To help sustain Skara's condition, Slasher buys a lot of meat for her to consume. When her friends visit Skara, she's tearing through a steak.
- Bill... Bill... Junk... Bill...:Eda: Chain mail, bill, bill, junk mail, letter for Amity, bill-
- Call-Back:
- Luz and Amity speak from their own experiences about why Keeping Secrets Sucks when telling Slasher not to keep secrets from his daughter's friends.
- Amelia brings up Skara attacking Boscha last chapter. Amity also starts talking to Lilith again.
- Cat remembers the bad feeling she and Amelia got around Dolly while working on the petition in "Blindsided".
- Amity also mentions defeating Dolly in the semester exams, realizing this was why Dolly helped Boscha humiliate her and Luz.
- Alador's parents being neglectful to him and Odalia taking care of him is brought up.
- The Baron reminds Lilith that he saved her from death back at the Forest of Fear so she could answer for her past sins.
- Calling the Old Man Out:
- Skara is not pleased when her father tries to avoid telling Viney, Amelia, Cat and Bo about their condition.
- Amity lays into Gwendolyn for focusing on just Eda and ignoring the rest of her family, especially Luz.
- Luz attempts this after Eda and Lilith's curses consume them and she hears that Gwen indirectly caused it only for Amity to stop her.
- Came Back Wrong: Dolly's butler Max seems to have shades of this, his stitches bringing to mind Frankenstein's Monster.
- The Cameo:
- Barcus, Eve and Celine appear in the Oracle track trying to help Luz make a new portal to the human realm.
- Larry sees the fight between the Clawthorne sisters in their cursed forms and orders the rest of the coven guards to protect the citizens instead of going after the Clawthornes.
- Combination Attack: To subdue Owl Eda and Raven Lilith, Luz activates a light glyph made from Amity's abomination goop, creating a giant purple light spell.
- Continuity Nod:
- Amity hears the voice in her head once more, this time when she leaves the Oracle Track homeroom. Beforehand, she mentions she was fired from the library.
- Eda and King hunt for hunduns again and thanks to Lilith, they succeed this time.
- Lilith brings up her besting the Inner Demon.
- A Day in the Limelight: Things lean heavily on Lilith and to a lesser extent, Gwendolyn.
- Dirty Coward: The moment Max is taken down, Dolly tries to run away. She gets caught by Willow's vines immediately.
- Distant Prologue: The chapter begins 11 years ago on Luz (age 3) trying to show Gwendolyn a drawing she made of her family during her annual visit.
- Door Slam of Rage: Implied. When Gwen visited 2 years back, Luz slammed the door in her face after warning Eda she had arrived.
- Epileptic Trees: In-Universe. Since King hatched from an egg, he and Luz consider the possibility that his father is a dragon.
- Everyone Laughs Ending: Almost everyone, anyway. While Amity looks at her grandparents' letter, everyone at the dinner table laughs at King's happy squeal over Gwen acknowledging him as her grandson.
- Eye Color Change: Amity's eyes change color again, but this time they turn pink.
- Flashbacks: Four are shown to Gwen's past visits; the first is the Distant Prologue, before that was seeing baby Luz 14 years ago and writing her off as a pet, then her trying to give Eda a cure and disrupting Luz's 7th birthday party, and lastly one to when Luz was 12.
- Foreshadowing: When discussing who his father is with Luz, King expresses hope he's a dragon. At the time this isn't much, but the Clawthornes would be shown to have a connection to dragons later on...
- The Ghost:
- Odalia, Alador and his parents are mentioned when Amity receives a letter from the latter two.
- After seeing Gwen at age 12, Luz decided to go visit Dipper.
- Dell is referenced when Amity asks Luz about him.
- The Inner Demon is brought up several times, Lilith even accusing the Baron of being him.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Willow's eyes turn green when she and her group face Dolly, who senses how dark Willow's aura is.
- Improvised Weapon: Amelia uses a clipboard made out of mahogany for a weapon while facing Max.
- Innocently Insensitive: Eda sees Gwen as "unintentionally insensitive" for being so ignorant to the fact that in all the years she visited Eda after she adopted Luz, she never even acknowledged the fact that she had gained a granddaughter.
- In Spite of a Nail: Luz begins trying to build a new portal, Eda has her Significant Wardrobe Shift, Gwendolyn has Hawksley steal all the elixers which causes Lilith and Eda to transform and fight each other in their cursed forms and she helps Luz and King turn them back.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Luz tries to assure Lilith that Gwen ignoring her doesn't bug her anymore only for her scales to start popping up.Luz: That means nothing.
- Internal Reveal:
- Viney, Bo, Amelia and Cat learns about Skara and her father being werewolves.
- Skara tells the above mentioned girls, as well as Luz, Amity and Willow, about her meeting the Inner Demon and Dolly giving Boscha the memory photo.
- Along with the truth about both her daughters being cursed, Gwendolyn learns about Luz's cambion state.
- Irony: Amity openly questions how Gwendolyn fell for Wartlop's scam despite raising Eda, a well known con artist.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Dolly gets pounded to a pulp by Willow, Viney, Amelia and Cat for hurting Luz, Amity & Skara then trying to pin it on Boscha. When they're done, Dolly is left hanging from a vine in a tree.
- Monster of the Week: The Baron, seeing as he forces Lilith's first transformation into the Raven Beast because she couldn't tell Luz the truth about Camila's Accidental Murder.
- Must Make Amends: Seeing that she caused so much emotional damage to her daughters and her granddaughter, Gwen acknowledges Luz as such and begs to let her help cure Eda and Lilith.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Skara tells her father, who tries to keep everyone but Luz, Amity and Willow from learning about their condition, that she trusts all of her friends to keep their secret, even Viney. In her defense, Viney's the only one of the girls she hasn't interacted with often.
- Mythology Gag: Amity making the light glyph out of abomination goo as an attack is based off this Moringmark comic
released prior to the time of publishing. - Noodle Incident:
- Hooty once ate the mailwitch while getting the mail.
- The only time Luz asked Eda about her grandfather Dell, Eda shut herself up in her room to cry.
- Obviously Not Fine: Luz isn't as apathetic to Gwen's visit as she wants Lilith or herself to believe.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Eda's response to Gwendolyn arriving for her latest visit is to say "Crap-apples".
- Dolly realizes she's in trouble the moment she sees Willow's aura.
- Pillar of Light: The abomination-light combo is implied to have been this.
- Point of Divergence: To "Keeping Up A-fear-ances": Amity replaces Luz in joining Gwendolyn to see Master Wartlop, seeing through his disguise since she saw the imps' wanted posters on the bounty board, and laying into Gwendolyn for her neglectful nature; Lilith gains lightning powers while in her Raven Beast form; and Lilith decides to stay at the Owl House instead of leaving with Gwendolyn, who also decides to stay for the time being. Also, Eda never gets around to explaining how she found the portal.
- Police Are Useless: Subverted. Larry leads the Coven Scouts into protecting the populace from the rampaging Owl and Raven Beasts.
- Precision F-Strike: Amity and Luz both use "fuck" when they learn Gwen stole the elixirs.
- Punny Name: Gwendolyn decides to let Luz and King call her "Gwendma".
- The Reveal:
- Slasher's ancestors were born with lycanthropy when Were-Fever was still rampant, so the vaccine developed by the Healing Coven had no effect on them.
- Calypso joined the Beast Keeping Coven to do damage control on her husband's condition with the Emperor's Coven. They also believed that the condition skipped Skara's generation, not that it was dormant.
- Lilith told the Owl House residents about her godmotherhood sometime ago offscreen, given their lack of reaction when she introduces Amity as her goddaughter to Gwendolyn.
- Gwendolyn doesn't trust the Coven system because she grew up in the Savage Ages and knows how things used to be before Emperor Belos took control.
- Luz apparently went through a Goth phase when she was 12.
- Amelia's specialty is wood magic.
- Sand In My Eyes: King tears up while watching Luz and Lilith have a moment.King: (sniffles, wipes away tears) I-I'm not crying over this. I'm not, but I am.
- Sequel Hook:
- Because of her condition, Skara decides to mix-track in Beast Keeping to learn how to control it. Luz, choosing to finally accept her own offer, decides to join her; they briefly toy with the idea of starting a band together.
- Slasher seems to be getting curious about the Inner Demon.
- With Gwendolyn staying at the Owl House for awhile, she brings up having the chance to join Luz on an adventure.
- The chapter ends with Amity deciding to visit her paternal grandparents and form a relationship with them after seeing Luz and Gwendolyn make amends.
- Shock and Awe: Lilith, despite having her magic weakened, is able to shoot lightning bolts through the streaks in her hair (at least in her Raven Beast state.)Luz: Holy... Since when can you do that?!
- Shot in the Ass: While fighting Max, Viney shoots some powerful blow darts into his backside.
- Tempting Fate: In a Meta example, the chapter ends on the sentence "What's the worst that could happen?" if Amity went to visit her grandparents.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The trailer for Book 2 gives away the twist that Lilith would choose to stay at the Owl House.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Luz and Amity get seriously TO'd when they learn Dolly sabotaged their relationship, but Willow stops them from taking action against her... because she wants Dolly to suffer at her hand for letting Skara believe it was her fault.
- Amity later gives Gwendolyn a piece of her mind for ignoring Luz her whole life, refusing to let anyone disregard her self-worth.
- "Well Done, Daughter!" Gal: Besides Lilith wanting Gwendolyn's attention, a "Grandaughter" case shows that Luz had wanted Gwen's approval and acceptance, especially after the slayground incident. Eventually, Luz gave up since Gwen never paid attention to her.
- Wham Episode: Gwendolyn chooses to stay at the Owl House instead of returning home to make up for lost time with her daughters and her adopted grandchildren. Dolly is beaten up for her past actions, Luz and Skara decide to dual-track in Beast-Keeping, while Amity considers reaching out to Alador's parents.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Bo doesn't join in on the gang-up on Dolly: either she stayed with Skara or went home.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Lilith assures Luz that she's lucky to have a mother who shows her so much love and support, earning a hug.
