"Amity seems so... nice and smiley. Maybe I can befriend her like Azura befriended her rival."
— Luz
Original air date: 2/28/2020 (produced in 2019)
Production code: 107
Luz’s antics lead to unintended consequences while she’s checking out the library. Meanwhile, Eda and King get in over their heads babysitting for the Bat Queen.
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: After Luz and Amity briefly escape from Otabin thanks to the former's Indy Ploy, Amity asks what's next, and Luz responds that she didn't even think that would work, saying "I was just like 'BLAGH!'" Despite their dire situation, Amity can't help but smile and giggle at Luz's goofiness.
- Angry Cheek Puff: Edric demonstrates to Luz how worked up Amity gets by puffing his cheeks until his face turns bright red, before catching his breath and remarking that he almost passed out. A few moments later, Amity does indeed puff her cheeks and turn red.Amity: Whew! Almost passed out.
- Art Initiates Life: The Wailing Star causes all the books in the library to project their contents when opened, and any changes made to the books are reflected in the projections.
- Badly Battered Babysitter: Eda and King have their hands full with a trio of fire-breathing bat babies.
- Big Entrance: Luz dramatically shows up to rescue Amity by appearing in a cloud of purple mist dressed like Azura, having written in Amity's diary to conjure it all. A quick look at the diary shows she's written "cool entrance" into it with a picture of Amity being impressed.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: While babysitting, King comes up with an idea involving creating a TV network for ages 6 to 11, which is Disney Channel's primary demographic.
- Blatant Lies: Once she gets caught by Luz, Amity claims that she reads to the kids just for extra credit, despite her clearly enjoying it.
- Bookcase Passage: Amity's hideout is accessed by moving a certain book in the Romance section, causing the shelf to slide away and reveal the hideout.
- Breath Weapon: The bat babies can breathe fire, which is just one more annoyance Eda and King have to deal with.
- Cephalothorax: The Bat Queen and her children are basically heads with bat wings and legs.
- Chained Heat: Thanks to Otabin sewing their arms into a giant book, Luz and Amity have to escape while carrying the book around. Amity manages to tear herself free by grabbing onto a ladder while Otabin attempts to reel the book back in.
- Chekhov's Gun: One is being set up when the Bat Queen not only gives Eda the money for taking care of her babies, but also gives her an Aztec death whistle and says "she's owed one". The camera even focuses on the whistle.
- Closet Geek: Amity's library hideout has copies of the first four books in the Good Witch Azura series and her diary cover has fanart based on it.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Amity, after Luz's (overly-dramatic) initial effort to save her from Otabin goes south and both girls are sewn into his giant book.
- Conflict Ball: Played With. Luz comforts Amity in "Covention", but she continues to be mean, disregarding her kindness. Despite Luz's efforts to make things right, Amity's focus on her own perspective hinders their relationship.
- Crystal Ball: These show up in the library as the magical equivalent of a computer. They even get stuck buffering.
- Disappointed in You: In a hypocritical and ironic sense. When Amity catches Luz and her siblings in her secret hideout with Luz holding her diary, she angrily tells her siblings they're the worst, but for Luz, she talks to her in a disappointed tone and calls her a bully, despite her own behavior toward Luz and her friends, and wouldn't even let Luz explain what really happened.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Edric and Emira, frustrated with their sister Amity's behavior, plan to teach her a lesson by publishing her diary to the entire school. Luz criticizes the idea and refuses to participate.
- Doorstop Baby: The bat baby is found in this fashion, with a note from the Bat Queen telling Eda that she'll be paid well for babysitting the child for the day.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Edric and Emira bring Amity's lunch in a very childish pink bag, claiming that it was sent by their mom. One would think that Odalia is an Amazingly Embarrassing Parent, who ruins Amity's attempts to look cold and stoic, while that is as far from the truth as possible.
- Edric and Emira were straight-up bullies towards Amity in this episode. Later episodes portray them as more supportive of her, with their mischievous behavior being less mean-spirited.
- One of Amity's diary entries mentions that she's tired of Edric and Emira getting away with their behavior because she believes her parents favor them. However, later episodes show Amity to be Odalia's Trophy Child.
- Eats Babies: King's first thought upon seeing the bat baby is "meat", but Eda shoots him down because witches eating babies fell out of style back in the 1600s. (Thank goodness).
- Embarrassing Nickname: Edric and Emira call Amity "Mittens" which irritates her.
- Empty Nest: By the end of the episode, Eda and King start missing having to babysit the bat babies. Thankfully, Luz has picked up a book about dealing with Empty Nest syndrome.
- Fall Guy: When Amity accuses Luz of reading her diary, Edric and Emira do nothing to correct this and allow Luz to take all the blame.
- Fire-Forged Friends: While the friendship's not "official" yet, Amity does grow fonder of Luz after they end up fighting for their lives alongside each other.
- Foreshadowing:
- As Luz reads about a door swinging open, the actual door to the house opens, causing King to believe the book has come to life. Later, the Wailing Star actually does cause a full library of books to come to life.
- Luz tries to hide from Amity by pretending to be a book. Otabin later tries to make her part of a book permanently.
- Amity is first seen reading a book about Otabin, a small, goblin-like creature buried in his work who just wants to make a friend. The episode makes it clear that Amity identifies with Otabin.
- Forgot About Her Powers: When Otabin captures Luz and is about to sew her into a book, the newly free Amity rams him with a book cart rather than summon an abomination like in "Covention". Possibly justified in that it was a high-stress situation and/or that magic could have easily caused great collateral damage to the library — where Amity volunteers.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- The librarian's desk has a framed picture of Eda giving two thumbs up with the words "LIBRARY CARD REVOKED" on it.
- In Luz's drawing of herself as Azura, she also drew Amity looking starry-eyed.
- When the Bat Queen flies out of the house, there's a strange mark on her foot which will be important later.
- Friendship Denial: When Edric tells Amity to stop being a jerk to her friend, Luz, she tells him Luz isn't her friend. This saddens Luz, but Emira jumps in saying that makes sense because Luz is too cool for her.
- Glass-Shattering Sound: The bat baby's screams are able to shatter glass.
- Guilt Complex: When Amity accuses her of getting her in trouble when she's around and the twins bring up Amity's previous misfortunes to Luz, she doesn't clarify that Amity tried to have her killed by Bump or maimed in a witch's duel along with nearly being forced to give up learning magic, she just goes along with it thinking that it really is her fault.
- Heart Drive: Thanks to Luz dropping Otabin's book face down, Otabin grows in such a way that it ends up embedded in his chest face-out.
- Heel Realization: When she finally realizes that Luz's kindness is sincere and that all the times she "humiliated" her in the past were accidental, Amity concedes that she wasn't helping matters with her mean attitude and says that she will try to improve on that.
- Her Own Worst Enemy: The episode depicts Amity's emotional isolation due to her siblings and her desire for a friend. Her refusal to "show weakness" and grudge against Luz hinders her connection with someone who genuinely wants to be her friend. She starts to realize this at the end of the episode.
- Hidden Depths:
- The narrative function behind Amity's diary entries is to show that there is a lot more to her that she's keeping beneath the surface. And even outside of them we see that she is far kinder to younger children than she is to her peers, and is also a fan of the Azura book series.
- Eda proves surprisingly adept at being a caregiver despite her professed distaste for having to act motherly.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: When Luz catches Amity reading to children, Amity quickly claims she's only doing it for extra credit despite clearly enjoying it. This is further reinforced by one of her diary entries, in which she admits she doesn't want to show "weakness".
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Eda sends Luz to the library so she'd be unable to help care for the Bat Queen's baby, and thus not have to share the reward with her. Right as she's leaving, the baby starts a wailing fit to wake the dead and Luz uses the excuse to bail herself out of helping.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Despite saying she figured out Luz's deal and calling her a bully, Amity then says that she doesn't get her when Luz tries to talk to her and explain herself, highlighting that she doesn't really know Luz at all and implying that she's barely putting in the effort to do so.
- Indy Ploy: When Otabin has Luz and Amity partially sewn into his book, Luz is able to get them both away from him by tipping the book over to hit him and running while still being attached to the book. When Amity asks Luz the next part of her plan, Luz admits she didn't think the first part would work and doesn't know what to do next.
- Insane Troll Logic: Amity believes that Luz's mere presence is what gets her in trouble, even though the situation was more complex and at least partially if not largely her own fault while Luz continuously apologizes, comforts her and tries to explain her perspective, talk to Amity, and offer basic kindness.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Edric mockingly imitates the face Amity makes when mad, his face turning red until he has to take a breath while saying "Woah, almost passed out." A moment later, Amity makes the same face for real, then has the exact same reaction and line of dialogue afterwards.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Edric and Emira are clearly just looking to get back at Amity for constantly ruining their "fun", but they are completely right that she's awful to other people, something Luz agrees with them on and opposes their prank more because it goes far beyond what she -- or anyone -- deserves.
- Karma Houdini: Edric and Emira receive no punishment for their actions, leaving the library before Luz and Amity are attacked by Otabin.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Amity insists the library adventure with Luz never happened, though she at least promises to try to be nicer after Luz insists upon loaning her the fifth Azura book, having noticed Amity only had the first four.
- Long List: When Luz returns Eda's books, the librarian sighs and says he'll put the late fees and damages on her tab, summoning a scroll two feet long so he can pencil in the new additions.
- Luminescent Blush:
- Luz blushes when Edric winks at her and does so again later when Emira calls her "cutie" and winks at her.
- When Edric first calls Amity "Mittens", her entire face turns red.
- Magical Library: Considering the setting, the library in the Boiling Isles is obviously this. The Wailing Star makes it more magical by making all the books glow green and project their contents when opened.
- Maternally Challenged: Eda isn't just clueless about taking care of the bat baby, she actively dislikes the idea of acting maternal. That said, she proves surprisingly good at it when she has no other choice.
- Meaningful Name: If the letters are rearranged just right, Otabin's name spells out "Obtain". Not only does it reflect how his story is about "obtaining friends", but it foreshadows how he'll be turned into a monster who obtains prisoners.
- Moral Myopia: Amity accuses of Luz being a bully, while ignoring her own past bullying behavior, including demeaning Willow, belittling King, and endangering Luz's life for her own superiority. Luz recently offered to help with her job and apologized, but Amity refused to listen to her. At the end, Amity admits to being wrong about Luz and decides to improve herself.
- Never My Fault: Amity says that she doesn't want to be around Luz because every time they meet, Amity gets in trouble or embarrassed. With that said, in every instance, Amity only got in trouble because in each of those instances she was the one who turned what were incidental moments into conflicts because of her hostile and entitled behavior.
- No Listening Skills: When Luz tries to offer to help with the kids or explain herself for what happened with her diary, Amity just ignores it, accusing Luz of trying to bother her and telling her to go away instead of hearing her out, convincing herself that Luz's presence will just make things worse for her.
- Noodle Incident: One of the books Luz returns has coffee, grass, and blood stains on it.Luz: That was a crazy night.
- No Ontological Inertia: The books in the library come to life because of the Wailing Star, but any creatures or effects only appear when the books are open. Closing them causes anything that came out to vanish.
- Not Helping Your Case: Amity comes to realize that most of the problems she has when Luz is around is always either because of her own cold behavior or a misunderstanding about what Luz is doing rather than Luz deliberately screwing with her, and she resolves to work on her issues.
- "Not So Different" Remark: The episode reinforces this about Luz and Amity, as both of them view the other as a nuisance and a bully respectively due to negative first impressions, only for both to concede that there is more to each other than meets the eye and that they both have things that they need to work on.
- Not So Similar: Edric and Emira clearly see a kindred spirit in Luz, but the similarities between them end when it comes to compassion and empathy toward other people, which Luz has in abundance while they... don't.
- Not What It Looks Like: When Luz tries to get Amity's diary away from Edric and Emira, pages from her diary falls out and Luz tries to pick them up. While gathering the pages, Amity comes in and sees Luz with her diary, making her believe Luz is stealing it and calls her a bully.
- Paper People: Otabin tries to "befriend" Amity and Luz by sewing them into his book, turning them piece-by-piece into part of the pages.
- Percussive Maintenance: A library patron lightly whacks a crystal ball that's stuck buffering a video.
- Pet the Dog:
- Edric and Emira genuinely take a liking to Luz and want to include her in their fun, even trying to keep her involved after their planned prank on Amity fails and don't hold a grudge when she tries to stop said prank or turns them down to go help Amity.
- Amity reads to little children and treats them kindly. She claims it's for extra credit, though.
- From Amity's perspective, Luz lending her a copy of the fifth Azura book after noticing that she only has the first four. While already developing a softer view of Luz when fighting alongside her, it's this act that really pushes Amity to reconsider her opinion on her and start looking to improve her own faults.
- The Bat Queen dumps her child on Eda without so much as a heads-up, apparently aware that her reputation is enough for Eda to do the job without complaint, but she pays extremely well and even gives Eda a whistle to call on her for a favor in return.
- Poor Communication Kills: Part of what fuels the conflict between Luz and Amity is the latter's refusal to listen to what Luz is saying and her perspective.
- Rage Breaking Point: Amity reaches this when she sees Luz with her diary, mistakenly assuming that she was trying to reading it herself.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Otabin speaks this way, since he is from a children's book that is written in verse.
- Rhyming with Itself: Otabin rhymes "friend" with itself while sewing Luz and Amity into his book. Luz immediately objects to his rhyme abuse.
- Rule of Symbolism: Amity's secret room is in the Romance section of the library, representing that [[Irony she honestly wants to be loved and have companionship]].
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Eda's first attempt to be motherly:Eda: Rock, rock, maternal gesture...
- Seen It All: When the librarian sees one of the returned books has coffee, grass, and blood stains on it, he immediately assumes Luz is returning them on Eda's behalf.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the library patrons is watching Keyboard Cat.
- The large sword Luz conjures up from a magazine looks exactly like Cloud Strife's Buster Sword.
- The silver-haired witch depicted on said magazine's front cover looks a lot like Cloud's Arch-Enemy, Sephiroth.
- The cover of the manga Luz opens depicts a character who looks a lot like Utena.
- Sidetracked by the Analogy: Amity says she doesn't "bother" Luz at the "Owl Shack" where they "fry up owls", pauses for a moment, then concedes she isn't actually sure what Luz does there.
- Skewed Priorities: Luz shows up to rescue Amity while wearing an Azura costume and, upon making her entrance, asks Amity if she thinks she made the costume correctly. Amity simply shouts "LUZ!", making Luz remember that she should be focusing on the rescue mission at hand.
- Snowball Fight: Luz, Edric, and Emira have a snowball fight by using a history book on snowballs to launch multiple snowballs at each other.
- Speech Bubbles: When Luz opens a graphic novel during the Wailing Star's influences, speech bubbles appear above Luz, Edric, and Emira's heads when they talk.
- Stab the Salad: When the baby bat coughs up two more, Eda says there's only one solution and whips out a knife... which she uses to cut some apple slices while preparing to read them a story.
- Stalker Shot: After Amity gets the librarian to kick Luz, Edric, and Emira out of the library for causing a ruckus, Edric and Emira invite Luz to come back to the library with them at midnight because they "forgot to check-out" a certain book and to see the effects of the Wailing Star on the library. After Edric and Emira leave, Luz is the last to leave and as she runs off, Amity is revealed to be hiding in the back and gets angry when she hears what they're going to do.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Luz opens a witches' fashion magazine that transforms her appearance to a warrior with an enormous sword on her back, she ends up falling over due to the weight of the sword.
- Tragic Monster: Otabin just wants a friend, and he only tries to sew Amity and Luz into a book because Edric drew over him and turned him monstrous.
- Tsundere: Amity obviously enjoys reading to kids, but when Luz mentions it, she tries to claim that it's just for extra credit.
- Unexpected Kindness: Due to all their past interactions ending in her getting in trouble or being publicly humiliated (which was mostly her own fault anyway), Amity is left confused by Luz's attempts to befriend her.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Edric and Emira are more bullies and trouble-makers than they are villains, but they still able to use their charisma to get away with their bad behavior. In her diary, Amity cites frustration about this and how she seems to be the only one who knows they aren't perfect.
- Wham Shot: Downplayed but it's revealed that Amity is also a fan of the Good Witch Azura books... which were supposedly only from Earth...
- What the Hell, Hero?: Amity chews Luz out for seemingly trying to steal her diary (she was actually trying to stop Amity's siblings from stealing it and initially didn't know what the twins were planning). Luz is quick to mend fences, though, getting Amity to realize that she misjudged her just as Luz misjudged Amity.
- When She Smiles: Luz is shocked when she sees Amity giving a genuine smile while reading to kids, since the closest she had seen up to this point was a smug grin.Luz: Amity seems so nice, and smiley!
- With Friends Like These...: While Edric and Emira truly do consider Luz to be a friend, they then gleefully allow her to get blamed for helping them steal Amity's diary when she was actually trying to stop them from doing so. They seem nonchalant as to why Luz doesn't want to hang out with them any further.
- Worldbuilding: The Good Witch Azura series is also popular in the Boiling Isles, rather than something that's just found on Earth.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Played with; Luz expects she can make her rivals friends like Azura does. While Amity does get closer to being Luz's friend, it only happens once Luz backs off and gives her space rather than attempt to force the friendship to happen, which only causes Amity to misinterpret the motives this human has behind not leaving her alone.
- Wrong-Name Outburst:
- One of Amity's diary entries recalls of a time when she accidentally called a teacher "mom" (and not for the first time either).
- At one point, Luz inadvertently blurts "Mittens" before correcting herself when tells the twins she needs to go talk to Amity.
"Maybe you aren't a bully. I haven't exactly been the friendliest witch either. I'll think on that."
