YMMV / The Owl House S2E18 "Labyrinth Runners"

• Accidental Aesop: As shown with Severine, a prestigious job shouldn't be at the cost of your mental health.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • The Abomaton that defeated and captured all the other resisting students in record time was taken down in less than two minutes by Amity and Willow, which was how long it took Hunter to snap Gus out of it. We didn't even get to see the battle.
  • Graye doesn't even get that because he goes catatonic as soon as Hunter storms the room and doesn't recover for the rest of the episode.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Fans immediately came up with the idea that the students of Hexside will start their own resistance organization against Belos (inspired by Dumbledore's Army).
  • The backlash Graye receives from his own bad memories is so severe that he's left catatonic and remains so by the end of the episode. What potentially traumatic events Graye went through became a popular subject of discussion.
  • Boscha disappears from the episode after Graye's announcement. What was she doing while the events of the episode happened?
• Genius Bonus: On his bag, Hunter has a blue ribbon. Blue ribbons are a symbol of support for child abuse prevention.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Mattholomule mixes Illusion Magic and it's later confirmed that Steve is his half-brother and also specializing in Illusion magic. In a way, he wants to be just like his older brother.
• Ho Yay: Out of all the Tracks Mattholomeule decided to mix, it's Illusion. The same type of magic that Gus is in.
• I Knew It!: Several people correctly guessed that this episode would feature the head of the Illusion Coven, and that the Emperor's Coven were visiting Hexside in order to force the students to have coven seals before the Day of Unity.
• Realism-Induced Horror: As shown with Gus' flashback, freeloaders are a major problem in group projects and pretending to be friendly to get others to do the most work is a very common method. This hit a bit too close to home for many viewers regarding their own experiences with them, as you don't have to be a prodigy to run afoul of them.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While many students like Edric, Emira, Mattholomew, Skara or Viney had their moments during the battle against the Emperor's Coven, Boscha was just as horrified as the rest of the students when Graye tries to force an Abomination sigil on Gus but disappeared without any trace and wasn't seen for the rest of the episode. Some felt that a wasted moment to show more to her than the mostly jerkass characterization she'd gotten.
• Viewer Name Confusion: Graye's full name, his illusion is introduced as Adrian Graye and he himself is simply referred to as Graye for the rest of the episode, but listed as Graye Vernworth in the credits implying Adrian was only the name of the illusion. Since his full name isn't actually mentioned in the episode, the fandom combined them into the triple-barrelled Adrian Graye Vernworth.
• The Woobie:
  • In this episode it’s revealed that Gus suffers from severe self doubt and anxiety issues. It doesn’t help that whenever he’s under immense stress, his illusion powers go haywire, subconsciously creating illusions of people who wronged him to berate himself.
  • While it was already known that Hunter's had a pretty terrible life, he's revealed to be hiding in Hexside since running away because he has nowhere else to go, sleeping in a ratty old sleeping bag in the closed-down auditorium, wearing his old Flyer Derby uniform under a dirty, worn cloak, and eating nothing but snack foods and whatever Flapjack manages to fish out of the trashcan. On top of this, he's utterly bewildered when Willow and Gus hug him, implying he has never been hugged before.

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