Alternative Character Interpretation / The Owl House

The Owl House

Alternative Character Interpretation in this series.

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Luz

• In "Lost In Language", Luz ends up blushing when the Blight twins both winked at her. Was it because of attraction to one or both of them, or was she just feeling shy and giddy that two cool upperclassmen were hanging out with her or something?
• After the events of "Enchanting Grom Fright" a few theories/speculations have popped up about Luz apparently being oblivious to Amity's romantic feelings towards her.
  • Some fans believe that Luz is also oblivious to her own feelings towards Amity and is confusing it as a close friendship. All while believing the other girl likes someone else that's not her.
  • Others say she's possibly subconsciously suppressing her own feelings since she knows she's gonna have to leave the Isles soon and she didn't want to form a too strong of an attachment to anyone by falling in love, lest risk hurting both herself and the other person.
  • A few Tumblr users have theorized about Luz's line "that's what friends do." sounding strained when she said it, while also claiming her smile also looked somewhat forced. This implies that Luz herself, is aware of her own possible romantic feelings for Amity, but doesn't think she's Amity's crush, for other reasons, such as being unattainable and such.
  • Luz's Friendless Background before she arrived at the Boiling Isles brings forth yet another perspective: Is she oblivious also because she's been rejected and outcaste by her peers so many times for being the "weird kid" at school, that she eventually believed that no one would ever be attracted to her in that way?
• In her fight with Lilith, after they enter the human world, Luz faces Lilith then attempts to cast a fire glyph. Was she aiming for Lilith, or was she aiming for the house? To strand Lilth, herself and King on Earth? Considering that Luz isn't the sort of person who would ever give up on rescuing Eda, the former looks more likely.
• Luz' video diary in "Thanks To Them" reveals the first Good Witch Azura book she ever got was from her dad as a final gift before his death. Is Luz an Azura fanatic because she loves the stories that much or because she wants to keep Manny's memory alive?

Eda

• Eda is dismissive of traditional teaching, especially about the magic school. Could she have been put on the wrong track, the way Willow was? Or she is against the Emperor’s system which limits people’s magical skills unless they join his coven. "Once Upon A Swap" reveals that Eda originally wanted to join the Coven with Lilith when they were children before something caused her to rebel.

Amity

• Did Amity really mean to be mean when she first appeared, or was she merely doing all of her actions out of necessity as per expectations of her mother to make the family look good? She may've been trying to keep her status as a top student to avoid facing the wrath of her mother, and when that didn't work, her mother found out and very harshly and severely punished her for such a failure. Perhaps that's also the reason she initially held a grudge against Luz, and didn't tell her the truth, because she doesn't want anyone to know the truth about her personal life at home, and tries to cover up her insecurities with a facade.

Lilith

• Lilith's reasons for overriding the Warden's arrest orders and insisting that Eda must join the Emperor's Coven and forcibly trying to brand whom she thinks is her sister. Is it just the Emperor's orders, a case of For Your Own Good since being an attack dog is better than being in the Conformatorium, or an Obliviously Evil attitude as to what Eda wants? Not to mention when she sees the swap spell happened, she brushes off the fact that Eda was in someone else's body and she nearly branded a (relatively) innocent person.
• Lilith's Oh, Crap! reaction to the revelation that she cursed Eda. Guilt over what she'd done, or simply panic over the fact that she'd accidentally admitted out loud what she'd done? Fandom's already taking sides.
• In general, how much of Lilith's mindset is a result of growing up in a Social Darwinist society where she was taught to be willing to make sacrifices to rise to the top? While she obviously has flaws, is she a conniving monster who sabotaged her sister to get ahead or just another victim of Belos' brainwashing?

Emperor Belos

• Can he really speak to the Titan? Or is he delusional or lying? And if he actually can, is he really carrying out the Titan's will like he says he is? "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" even hints at the possibility that the Titan was actually working against Belos back when he was Philip Wittebane and that what he's doing is against the Titan's wishes.
• While he tries to dissuade Luz by insisting that the Titan doesn't want anything boorish like invading the human realm, this is possibly sketchy given how he has a habit of lying like when he promised Lilith that he would cure Eda of her curse only to sentence her to be petrified instead. Turns out he really was telling the truth to Luz because he's actually a human who wants to get back home... after he finishes killing all the inhabitants on the Boiling Isles.
• His reasons for letting Luz test her mettle against him: genuine amusement that a child-human was that bold, or pragmatically letting her waste her strength and then bargain to take the door? He does seem impressed that she lands a blow on him, but warns her that was a one-time thing.
• Does he truly love Hunter (the Golden Guard)? While he usually speaks gently to him and refers to their deceased family, he does lash out at him went he fails to retrieve the palismen and judging by Hunter's resigned tone about speaking "out of line", it was not the first time.
• Most of all, is he truly evil or just misunderstood? The latter could refer to him being little more than a product of his time period, which pretty much is a major part in how evil he became either way.

Hooty

• We find out he's a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass when The Emperor's Coven comes to attack Eda; he curbstomps all of them while casually talking about how he likes dancing with new friends. So is his talking Casual Danger Dialogue, Obfuscating Stupidity, or is he just that ditzy and competent at the same time?
• To a lesser extent, do others find him annoying because he's clingy, or is he clingy because others find him annoying? And is that quality programmed into him, as shown when he fights the Emperor's Coven while being himself? If Hooty can't help his personality traits, then that is saying something.

Principal Bump

• Was he really going to dissect Luz, or was it a Batman Gambit to get Willow to admit that she was cheating on her homework? After all, he insisted on Willow making the "first cut" rather than attempting it himself and all he did afterward was put up a "Wanted!" Poster for Luz when Willow booted her out of the school to save her skin (and her guts). He then later transferred Willow to the plants track.
  • On a similar note, did Amity genuinely believe that Bump was going to dissect Luz, or did he assure her that it was just to scare Willow into confessing?
• Is he as generally sinister as he appears to be, or is he yet another victim of behaving the way that the Emperor's Coven expects him to act? As he states he is "not a stooge" for the Coven, but gladly serves as a hype man for the Coven during the Covention and runs a school that forces witches to conform to the system. What complicates the matter is how he actually accepts Luz entering Hexside, but in exchange he needs Eda to come clean about her antics, yet is willing to hide the fact both are involved with the school from the Emperor's Coven.
• It's been implied that he is hundreds of years old, meaning he was around long before Emperor Belos took power. Perhaps a part of why he is so willing to accept Luz into the school and not rat her and Eda out to the Emperor's Coven is because he secretly misses the way things were in the old days, and is using his authority as Principal to rebel ever so slightly against Belos.
• In "Escaping Expulsion," he's reluctant about expelling Luz, Gus, and Willow, knowing well that Odalia is enforcing a power play. Yet he reinforces the ban, even threatening to fire on the trio with a crossbow while turning away to cry. Was he bluffing, since he knows if they keep trying he may have more extreme means to keep out troublemakers?

Edric and Emira

• Are they Obliviously Evil about their trouble-making and bullying, with their Lack of Empathy causing them to simply not understand the wrongness of their actions? Or are they completely aware of their own immorality and use their charming personalities to manipulate people? Or is it dependent on the situation, where the first is true in some cases while the second is true in others? Being advanced specialists in illusion magic (as opposed to a rookie like Gus) doesn't help, as it implies that you can't be certain what is true about them and what isn't. Later episodes seemingly lean toward them being more oblivious toward the harm their actions cause then outright malicious.
• Both twins wink at Luz in "Lost in Language", causing her to blush. Do either of them actually like Luz or were they just messing with her?
• "Enchanting Grom Fight" has Emira claim her worst fear is being stuck with Edric forever. Was Emira lying and just wanting to make a characteristically mean joke? Or was she actually serious? If it's the latter, could it be because like they did with Amity, the Blight parents interfered with Ed and Em's friendships, preventing the twins from forming meaningful relationships outside of each other, making Emira resentful? Adding to this, the twins have yet to be shown interacting with any peers outside of Luz, who they seem to attach pretty quickly to, which could support the idea that they have few, if any, friends.
• How does Luz feel about the twins after "Lost in Language"? While she does say that they are cool at the end of "Lost in Language" and seems to want to impress them in "Adventures in the Elements", Luz never seeks out or hangs out with them unless Amity is with them. Does she think of them as Jerkass bullies to Amity or mostly harmless pranksters?
• They agree without hesitation to help Amity, Gus, and Willow sneak into the Abomination demonstration to rescue Luz. Was it just a case of Everyone Has Standards, or wanting to stick it to their parents for using them as test subjects? Why not go inside to provide backup? Did they know that Amity could handle herself, was it Tough Love to help "Mittens" stand up to their parents or a case that they won't openly cross Odalia?

Boscha

• Is Boscha a true Alpha Bitch or, like Amity, someone who uses a Jerkass Façade to hide insecurities that any teenager has, obsessed with status and being popular hiding some Hidden Depths? "Wing it like Witches" strongly implies the latter.
• Is Boscha's antagonism towards Luz and Amity in "Any Sport in a Storm" caued by simple annoyance, or jealousy? Amity did use to be one of Boscha's friends, and this episode also has Skara leave to hang out with one of the girls they used to bully, making it easy to read the "I still have more friends than you" as jealousy that Amity is happier than she ever was before, while Boscha is steadily losing friends.
  • On top of that, the "You guys are not cute!" could absolutely be read as jealousy because Boscha wants what Luz and Amity has.
• "For the Future" added a slew of new interpretations to Boscha's actions in that episode.
  • Does Boscha genuinely miss Amity? While she certainly seems sincere, and it's hard to imagine Boscha acting this desperate unless she is genuine, a more cynical take is that she's merely treating Amity as a "last option" after losing Amelia and Cat. Her being willing to let Amity go seems to suggest the latter, while the fact that she is much more insistent with Amity than with Skara (who also used to be part of her possé) implies that she really does miss Amity specifically.
  • On top of that, does Boscha have a crush on Amity, or has she simply developed attachment issues from having lost her teammates and family? A majority of fans suspect the former, noting how a good portion of her interactions are of a person who may have a one-sided romantic attraction to a person. Some suspect the latter, noting that Boscha may simply be looking for a person to latch onto after losing everyone else and not having taken incentive to approach Amity in prior episodes. Still, some fans are considering both possibilities are true.
  • How much of Boscha's tyranny is actually done on her own incentive, and how much is Kikimora pulling her strings? Kikimora is an adult who has served under a Manipulative Bastard most of her life, yet is still a seasoned, cutthroat politician, while Boscha is a young and impressionable teenager. Boscha's previous actions certainly support the idea that she's power hungry, but by the end she seems to hand over leadership to Matt on her own accord (Amity merely asked her to let them go), and claims that she only really wants to play grudgby with her team.

Alador

• When Alador was briefly shown in "Understanding Willow", he was made out to be just as much of a Jerkass as Odalia, but in "Escaping Expulsion", he's depicted in a much better light and is Ambiguously Evil, at worst. Is it that Alador used to be just as bad as Odalia, but as the years went by and he got more invested in his work, he got more and more exhausted and mellowed out as a result? Is he just as bad as Odalia, but unlike her, he's not as obvious about it? Or is he so much of a Henpecked Husband that he just goes along with whatever Odalia does unless it crosses whatever lines he refuses to cross?
  • Adding to this, two other possibilities are that Alador's depiction in Amity's memory is either a sign of her being an Unreliable Narrator or simply a case of Characterization Marches On.
  • Also muddying things is Alador possibly not having the capacity or at least the easy ability to recognize when emotional or ethical lines have been crossed that don't apply to his own standards. It's noted that a few times Odalia has to get him back on track.
  • At the very least, Unreliable Narrator is likely the in-universe explanation for the difference in his characterization, considering a young child is likely to envision an Abusive Parent to be domineering and threatening, and Alador's cameo in "Young Blood, Old Souls" suggests he has been exhasusted and mellow since he was a teenager.
• When Alador is smiling as Amity fights off the Abomiton and stands up to Odalia, is he smiling because he's proud of his daughter for standing up to her, or because he's happy that Amity's getting strong enough to make his plans for her happen?
  • Alternatively, since his smile is first shown after a bit of Les Yay between Luz and Amity, it could just be that he's happy his daughter has a crush on someone that might be reciprocal.
• When Alador pushes Odalia to keep her word about letting Luz and her friends go back to school, his last bit of reasoning is that Amity is becoming strong enough to eventually become a Coven head. Is him saying that just him being manipulative in his own right, or did he only say it as a means of pacifying Odalia and getting her to back off?
  • "Eda’s Requiem" reveals that Darius, the current head of the Abomination Coven, doesn’t like Alador. If this dislike is mutual ("Any Sport in a Storm" hints that it is), then Alador has a personal incentive for wanting Amity to be a coven head.

The Golden Guard

• The Golden Guard blackmails Eda and Luz to kill the selkidumas, but gives them an out when it seems they achieve the task. While they did technically lose the reward money, and both are wanted fugitives, he lets them go. The Golden Guard, however, does not afford the same privilege to Odalia or Alador regarding their Abomitons; he says the Emperor wants to buy the entire stock, and warns the Blights that the Emperor doesn't like private citizens having armies as a threat to keep them in line. Was the reason being that Eda and Luz are harmless in the grand scheme of things, so the Emperor is keeping a distant eye on them? Does the Emperor take offense that Odalia tried murdering Luz, and it's hinted the Emperor needs her alive for the Day of Unity?
• There are hints that Hunter is aware that the Emperor is a toxic parental figure and using him for an ulterior purpose. Yet he can't break out of that cycle or mindset. Is he in denial when insisting that he needs to be useful to the Emperor, or merely desperate? Amity says that he's a jerk when an attempted pep talk goes horribly wrong, but could it be I Reject Your Reality when she says that someone who truly loves you won't consider you useless?
• On that note, his sparing Flapjack and hiding the little guy from Belos. Was it Luz's pep talk telling him he didn't want to have a sapient being's death on his hands? The fact that Flapjack gives him new spells during the fight with Amity hints that Flapjack is trying to win him over with honey instead of vinegar and gently persuade him to change his mind.

The Collector

• How much of their behaviour stems from genuine malicious intent and how much is them being Obliviously Evil? While they are shown to be sadistic and willing to commit genocide on a whim, they also describe the whole thing as a game and truly believed that Belos was their friend. This becomes even more obvious upon their release as they seem to be nothing more than an absurdly powerful but ultimately prepubescent child.
• How much of their behaviour and Blue-and-Orange Morality is due to their Goo-Goo-Godlike status or a result of being trapped in isolation for centuries?

Others

• Willow's knowing expression during Amity's tsundere stammering about Luz has some fans speculating she'd already gotten an idea that Amity was into girls back when they were friends, and Amity had possibly even been attracted to her for a while.
• The Titan that makes up the Boiling Isles itself: is it truly dead, or is still alive in some capacity? If the latter case is true, is it actually evil (meaning that it is responsible for the coven system and Eda's oppression to a varying degree), or was it a neutral being thus implicating Belos of lying about its intentions?
• Gus gets annoyed when Luz makes the Deal with the Devil with Odalia, when Amity says that Luz needs help. Is it just that Luz got in over her head again and he hates having to rescue her all the time? Or do he and Willow know all too well what Odalia is like and that she wouldn't honor the deal? After all, Willow understood completely when Amity revealed that Odalia blackmailed Amity by threatening to blacklist Willow from Hexside. Hearing the truth allowed her and Willow to start over, at least to try to deal with the baggage. Could it be Anger Born of Worry from Gus that Luz is selfless to a fault, and that she shouldn't be trying to die for them? 
• Did Gwendolyn favour Eda since birth (either due to her being the younger child or better at magic), or did she only start to neglect Lilith over her after Eda was cursed?
• About the Glandus kids, Are they purely selfish people? Were they going to make Glandus a better place with the powers that be, even if in a twisted way ? A mix of both?
• Why did Willow's dads force her into the Abomination Track rather than the Plant Track? Do they look down on plant magic or think it has better opportunities? Could they have wanted to try and get their daughter to bond with Amity again, knowing she'd be taking the Abomination Track, too? Or is there some other reason we don't know yet?
• Kikimora doesn't care that a Blight was on a quest to Eclipse Lake. What would her plans have been if the Captain hadn't tossed Amity down the abyss? Interrogate her about Hunter?
• In "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" Philip notes his difficulty in discovering glyphs and makes a comment that it seemed like something was trying to hide them from him. Was he just using hyperbole to exaggerate things? Was he assigning blame to some higher power so he wouldn't have to admit his own shortcomings? Was the Titan actually trying to hide the glyphs from him because it knew he would misuse their power? Especially in light of his eventual transformation into Belos.
• In "Any Sport in a Storm", was Darius genuinely happy for Hunter because he made new friends his age, or is he just happy that Hunter might annoy him less if he knows more people? "Hollow Mind" all but confirms it was genuine on Darius's part, considering how he reacted to finding out Hunter stuck in Belos's mind.

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