Recap / The Owl House S1E5 "Covention"

Original air date: 2/7/2020 (produced in 2019)

Production code: 105

Luz's lesson about witch covens goes awry when she finds herself thrust into a witch's duel.

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Tropes:

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: If Luz wins the witch's duel with Amity, Amity has to admit Luz can be a witch and apologize to King for smashing his food. If Amity wins, Luz has to give up learning magic forever. They both end up losing, but the only term that ends up being met is that Amity admits Luz can try to be a witch. Amity nullifies the oath instead of insisting either live up to it completely.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Eda tells her sister her Curse is getting harder to control, but if this true or just part of lowering her guard is unclear.
  • It's also unknown if Amity accepted Luz's challenge to get back at her for what happened at school and if she was really fine with potentially killing Luz in the duel.
• Animation Bump: Eda's duel with Lilith gets a noticeable animation boost.
• Battle Aura: When Tiny Nose is given a power glyph, she becomes wreathed in a Dragon Ball-esque golden aura.
• Beam-O-War: Lilith and Eda do this using their fire spells, which results in a large explosion.
• Bland-Name Product: "Hex Mix"
• Cain and Abel: Eda and Lilith are siblings on opposite sides of the law, although both consider themselves to be the right one.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • While Luz is introduced to different covens, she sees a demonstration of a power glyph, which turns out to be something Amity unknowingly used in their duel.
  • King tripping on his scarf from overloading on con freebies at first just causes him to drop his food. During the duel, he ends up falling again, out of the audience and onto Eda's trap, exposing her deception. Moreover, the overload actually saves him from the traps because all the shirts he wore added so many protective layers on him.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Eda litters the battlefield for the duel with magic traps that Luz (reluctantly) pretends were her own spells. Lilith discovers the deception and tries to declare Amity the winner... until Eda notices Lilith cheated on Amity's behalf by sticking a power-boosting charm on her, so they both lose. Amity is not happy when she finds out about this, as she's now afraid this could affect her future.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each Coven has its own banner and signature color:
  • Bard Coven - Red harp
  • Beast Keeping Coven - Orange pig hatching from an egg
  • Potion Coven - Yellow bottle
  • Plant Coven - Green vase
  • Illusion Coven - Light blue mirror
  • Healing Coven - Dark blue hand wrapped in bandages
  • Oracle Coven - Purple eye
  • Abomination Coven - Orchid abomination face
  • Construction Coven - Brown fist
  • Emperor's Coven - Gold winged sword and shield
• Combat Pragmatist: During her duel with Lilith, Eda makes an opening by simply having the head of her owl staff turn into its animal form and fly into Lilith's face.
• Compressed Hair: Subverted; Eda tries to stuff all her hair into her hood as a disguise, but makes it swell up into a ridiculous-looking ball. Her hair seems to resist any attempts at restraint, as even a sweatband barely fits on and snaps off after a few minutes.
• Cracks in the Icy Façade: Amity starts as a total Jerkass, smashing King's cupcake and using Luz's challenge to keep her from studying magic. However, as soon as Eda reveals that Lilith cheated by increasing Amity's powers with a coven adhesive, the girl runs away ashamed and later frees Luz from her "everlasting oath".
• Crippling Overspecialization: Eda refuses to join a coven because no one in a coven is allowed to do any magic other than the coven's specialty. The Emperor's Coven is the only one not bound by this.
• Detachment Combat: Amity's abomination attacks by ripping off its own head and throwing it at Luz. The head grows back each time.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Despite Luz having little to no chance at beating Amity in a fair witch duel, Lilith still cheats by using a power glyph to make Amity stronger. She claims she knew Eda was going to cheat, which Eda did, but the end result is still turning what could have been a clear victory for Amity into a mutual loss.
• Didn't Think This Through: Luz challenges Amity to a witch's duel despite knowing only one spell that she can't even cast in a practical fashion. When Amity forces her into an "everlasting oath", Luz realizes she's made a horrible mistake. When Eda tries to train her for her duel, Eda realizes she probably should have put more effort into teaching her other spells.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: It's implied Eda's curse makes her appear older than she actually is. Normally circa thirty years, a person's hair just starts to turn grey due to a decrease in melanin production. However there is a rare disease called "Werner Syndrome" that accelerates aging in people in their twenties. Symptoms include cataracts, joint pains, wrinkles, weight loss, and, you guessed it, hair turning grey.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • The man who gives Tiny Nose a power glyph is actually the head of the Construction Coven, though he wouldn't be identified as such until Willow shows off the banners for the coven heads in Episode 13.
  • Mattholomule is among the audience at the Emperor's Coven showcase and one of the students getting autographs from Lilith. He doesn't get a proper introduction until episode 9.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: At the beginning of her witch's duel with Lilith, Eda summons the Owl Staff and spins it dramatically to form a large spell circle, only for it to slip out of her hands and clatter unceremoniously off to the side. She has to go grab it before the fight can commence.
• False Reassurance:
  Eda: Come on kid—time to prepare for bloodshed.
  Luz: But... whose blood?
  Eda: Anyone's guess!
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Luz shows Eda the Covention program guide, she has it open to the "What coven are you in?" quiz and Eda blasts a hole at the Abomination coven symbol. When Luz continues reading the program guide while walking, she immediately bumps into someone who specializes in abominations, Amity.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Amity summons her abomination as a warmup, it's only about the size of her. When the duel comes, it's suddenly much larger and she's surprised by its size—which turns out to be because Lilith was boosting Amity's magic power without her knowledge.
  • Also, the Azura book at the start foreshadows exactly what is going to transpire between Luz and Amity, from the witch's duel all the way to Amity having a hidden soft side just as Hecate has three faces, with a mean-looking one facing Azura, an unseen middle one and a more vulnerable looking one turning away. And in case you didn't get it, Horus and Owlyvia spell it out for you on their show.
• Funny Background Event: One of the coven stations in front of the Emperor's Coven is for a "Carnivorous Plant Coven". The signage has a few bites taken out of it.
• Handshake Refusal: When Luz properly introduces herself to Amity, she offers her a handshake, but Amity slaps her hand away saying she's still mad at her for getting her in trouble with Principal Bump.
• Honor Before Reason: Luz risks ending her dream of learning magic just to get Amity to apologize to King. Once it becomes clear she will be magically held to the forfeit and has no way to win the duel legitimately, Luz still doesn't want to cheat and only starts going along when she's afraid Amity will end up killing her otherwise.
• It's All About Me: Amity was only focused on her own issues, disregarding the fact that she nearly killed Luz twice. She accepted Luz's challenge and was distraught when Lillith's meddling threatened her future in the emperor's coven. She ignored the feelings of others and never considered the potential outcomes of her actions.
• Improvised Armor: An accidental example; King wears so many free T-shirts layered on top of each other, they end up protecting him when he falls on Eda's spike trap.
• Internal Reveal: Luz reveals she's human to Amity and shows off her glyph magic to her. And when Lilith discovers Eda's student is human, she reveals it to the people watching the witch's duel but didn't bother to reveal Luz's name.
• I Resemble That Remark!: King's angry at Amity calling him a pet, as he scratches himself with his leg like a pet would.
• It's All My Fault: For some reason, Luz was the one who had the idea that she embarrassed Amity when she tried comforting the latter. Amity went along with it presumably to save face and that it was easier to blame Luz instead of her mentor.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Eda is not nice towards her sister, but you can't blame her for arguing against the established system because it's unfair that only a select number of witches are allowed to be powerful depending on the coven that they joined. Plus, Eda only uses her power to steal human junk to sell and hide from ex-boyfriends.
• Knew It All Along: The fortune-teller is surprised when Amity is revealed to have cheated, only to suddenly cover for her own discipline by claiming she already knew.
• Magically-Binding Contract: As Amity and Luz agree on the terms of their bet, Amity forms a magic circle around their hands before shaking, which the latter declares an "everlasting oath". It's not clear exactly how the magic would enforce the oath, as both phrased their condition on winning and both lost. Regardless, both parties can negate the oath through the same process.
• Mirror Character:
  • Amity's resentment of Luz comes from the fact that working hard to learn magic is the core of Amity's life and future, whereas she believes Luz only wants to learn magic as a fun hobby. But when Luz demonstrates her style of magic to show Amity that magic doesn't come to her naturally, she realizes Luz must be working hard to learn in spite of her reasons for learning. This revelation moves Amity so much that she releases Luz from their oath so she can continue learning.
    Amity: The oath is unbound.
    Luz: Did it work? Can I still learn magic?
    Amity: Humans have no magical ability... but I doubt that'll stop you.
  • Besides her losing her temper at Eda's taunting, as mentioned above, Lilith also cheats on behalf of her candidate in the duel, just without Amity's knowledge. And just like her sister, she's skilled in several kinds of magic, just through her membership in the Emperor's Coven, while Eda is able to use those same magics through refusal of entering a coven.
• Misplaced Retribution: Amity blames Luz for embarrassing her in the witch's duel, even though it was actually Lilith and Eda's faults.
• Mouth of Sauron: Kikimora shows up at the end of the episode, speaking on behalf of the Emperor.
• Never My Fault: Amity blames Luz for getting her in trouble during "I Was A Teenage Abomination", but it was Amity herself who caused the scene by shaking Luz silly. Luz points out that Principal Bump didn't punish Amity, but she quickly changed the subject. Amity blames Luz for embarrassing her in the Witch's Duel, instead of realizing her arrogant behavior was the main cause.
• No Listening Skills: Amity ignores Luz when she brought up nearly getting her dissected by Bump in favor of finding an excuse to get Luz to leave and when Luz earnestly tries to explain that she didn't want to cheat in the duel. Amity interrupts her and disregards this as lying, looking down at her as if Luz is beneath her. She continues this attitude when Luz tries comforting her afterwards.
• No Ontological Inertia: When Eda pulls the booster patch from Amity's neck, her abomination immediately reverts to its normal size, and is then crushed by its own detached head, which doesn't revert with the rest of it.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Amity Blight squeals in delight during Principal Bump's demonstration when he points to her while talking about joining the Emperor's Coven.
  • Eda's taunting eventually causes Lilith to lose her temper and act just as childishly as her sister.
• Ordered to Cheat: Eda and Lilith don’t just tell Luz and Amity to cheat in their duel; they do so against Luz’s protest and without Amity’s knowledge, respectively.
• Pet the Dog: Luz would never be able to learn magic if the oath spell remained in effect after her and Amity's mutual loss, but Amity gets rid of it after being touched by Luz's earnestness.
• Portmantitle: Of "coven" and "convention".
• Potty Failure: Eda claims that, when they were children, Lilith was so excited to see the Emperor's coven that she peed a little.
• Power Limiter: When witches enter into a coven, they're given a tattoo which limits them to that coven's magic specialty. It's considered necessary to maintain order, so while Eda's refusal to join one lets her use any kind of magic, it's also the biggest reason she's a wanted criminal. The Emperor's coven is exempt from this restriction.
• The Red Mage: Eda is revealed to be this in the episode: when witches join a coven, their magic is sealed except for that of the coven they chose. Having never joined a coven herself, Eda has access to all forms of magic.
  Eda: That's why I'm the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles.
• Releasing from the Promise: It's unclear how a double-disqualification affects The Bet between Luz and Amity, but Amity decides to annul their Magically-Binding Contract just in case.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: While introducing the Emperor's Coven, Principal Bump asks "What is the highest achievement in magic?" Mattholomule, who's in the audience, asks "Is it this?" and makes his head giant.
  Bump: Wow, I failed you as a principal.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!:
  • Witches are only allowed to perform the type of magic used by their coven... unless they're working directly for the Emperor, then their coven gets to do whatever magic they want.
  • Lilith uses her power as leader of the Emperor's Coven to temporarily suspend Eda's wanted status so Luz and Amity can duel.
• Screw the Rules, They Broke Them First!: Lilith justifies cheating on Amity's behalf by claiming she correctly guessed Eda would also cheat. However, Eda doesn’t care because her sister stooped to her level and is thus no better than her.
• Sequel Hook: Lilith's conversation with Kikimora reveals that the Emperor has made some kind of promise to her, dependent on Lilith apprehending her sister, Eda.
• Spikes of Doom: The last of Eda's magic traps causes the ground to form into spikes that spring upward. Luz is aghast that she'd use something so violent against Amity, although in Eda's defense it was probably meant for Amity's abomination.
• Springtime for Hitler: Luz tries to warn Amity away from one of Eda's traps, seriously (and correctly) afraid it could wound or kill her. Amity is so hellbent on proving Luz a fraud, she seemed prepared to step forward anyway. It was only stopped by King falling onto it first, something he only comes out unscathed from because of all the "offerings" he had on him.
  Luz: No, Amity, don't step any closer!
  Amity: (contemptuously) Why, Luz? What happens if I step closer?
• Staredown Faceoff: Amity gets right in Luz's face when accepting her challenge for a witch's duel.
• Technician Versus Performer:
  • Luz is a performer and Amity the technician. Part of why Luz rubs Amity the wrong way at first is because she treats learning magic as something fun and exciting, whereas to Amity it's her whole life.
  • The same dynamic plays out between Eda and Lilith. Eda enjoys magic and refuses to be controlled by the system, which is reflected in her varied spell use. Lilith is part of the system and though she has the same freedom of magic, focuses on a select few spells to achieve victory.
• Torment by Annoyance: Eda doesn't want to go to the Covention, so King reads floridly written passages from Good Witch Azura to annoy her into taking them. Even when she tries to exit with a portal, Luz just throws him in after her.
• Troubled Fetal Position: Eda asks Luz how she would respond to a fireball coming at her. Luz responds by pulling up her hood and curling into a ball. Eda realizes she probably should have taught Luz more spells.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Eda gleefully rubs it in Lillith's face that she cheated, and tells her that she stooped to her level.
• We Win, Because You Didn't: Eda and Lilith are both caught cheating on behalf of their pupils, but the bragging goes solely to Eda because she's shameless about her cheating, while Lilith is a witch of high prestige and thus makes herself look bad by resorting to the same.
• With Friends Like These...: King pressures Luz into taking a very one-sided bet just for a chance at an apology over Amity stepping on his cupcake. As soon as Luz realizes how hopeless the situation is, King immediately agrees and offers no sympathy or support.
• Wizard Duel:
  • Amity and Luz face each other in a witch duel, (nominally) using magic to fight each other in an area. Though not explicitly a Duel to the Death, they're allowed to be quite violent, and no one but Luz seems too concerned with the prospect of two children killing each other.
  • After the above results in a double-disqualification, Eda and Lilith's bickering escalates into an outright fight between the two witches. Lilith wins, but Eda manages to distract her enough to sneak away while calling it a draw.
• Worldbuilding: Remember the color-coded uniforms in Hexside School back in "I Was a Teenaged Abomination"? Here we find out that each color indicates the specific coven each student belongs (or will belong) to. Gus's coven (light blue) is Illusionists, Willow's coven (green) is Plants, Amity's coven (light purple/orchid) is Abominations.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: After Lilith manages to surprise her during their duel, Eda claims (to what degree of truthfulness is unclear) that her curse is getting worse so Lilith will take pity on her, only to toss a pretzel bag in her face and flee while calling their duel a draw.

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