The Owl House ⭐ Complete 3rd Season

The Owl House ⭐ Complete 3rd Season #TheOwlHouse #TheOwlHouseS3 #theowlhouseason3 #TheOwlHouseSpoilers #TOH #tohseason3 #TOHSPOILERShttps://t.co/W9y5zcv2Vh

— 🌸 Moonspirit🌙 🌸 (@Moonspirit_X) May 22, 2023

The Owl House S3E3 ⭐ Watching & Dreaming

 

A Look Into An Iconic Dadrius Scene | The Owl House

Before I get into the meat of this, two confessions first:

First, this week (technically March 18, 2023), marks a three year anniversary of something really horrible that happened to me. I was kicked out of the house of somebody who meant a lot to me, who also happened to be my abuser: the final straw after three months of emotional and physical abuse. I bring it up because the nature of this post (on reflection) is probably why my brain connected it to The Owl House, my current hyperfixation, if you will.

Second, this is basically an extended version of various tweets that I had made hours before time of writing. Figured it make sense to try to bring it all together... try.

Anyway, if you've been following me on Tumblr recently, you're probably seeing some stuff being liked and shared relating back to Hunter (a comfort character for me in some capacity or the other), usually either with Willow as girlfriend or Darius as a father. I'm going to be focusing on the latter relationship of Darius and Hunter in a father/son-like relationship, which is common among the internet as either Wovengold or it's more popular name, Dadrius.

If my information is correct, what got this father/son-ship off the ground to becoming as popular as it is regards to a scene in Any Sport in A Storm. If not then, then definitely after Hollow Mind. 

I want to take a step back and recap the scene in Any Sport in A Storm.

Let me make something else clear: I understand the intention of the scene. At its core, it's supposed to be akin to a joke, or to break the ice between Darius and Hunter, but after recent events, I feel the need to ask... was this scene appropriate?

If you've never experienced abuse, then maybe you've experienced another form of really painful memories? Maybe after that event, small things remind you of that (a smell, a sight, a certain thing, etc.), and even though it's illogical, it still upsets you when this "small thing" sets you off?

Unless your therapist and/or psychologist tells you otherwise, chances are what you're experiencing is called a trigger. 

This is a very real thing and shouldn't be used as a synonym of somebody getting offended and that they need to grow up. That kind of attitude is abelist and people need to just use the word "offense" when somebody is actually offended. Zena & Poppy did a video a while back relating to Offense vs Harm, and I think people need to understand the differences.

Getting back on the topic of actual triggers, allow me to use myself as an example. After leaving the house of my abuser three years ago, there were certain things I couldn't hear or say without it igniting something in me, usually a strong negative emotion or my chest hurting. There was a ringtone I only used for the person who was my abuser: I can't hear that ringtone anymore without being upset. The individual in question also has a very common name, and I thank God that despite its commonality, I don't run into people very often who share my abuser's name.

So what do triggers have to do with The Owl House, or Dadrius for that matter? The answer is simple: Hunter was abused by Belos, and Coven Heads did him dirty through neglect or hostility: there was another post that did this part of Hunter's story far more justice than I ever could. 

This doesn't help the fact that in Hunting Palismmn, Hunter literally had blades thrown in his face!

 
And for what? Disagreeing with Belos, his abuser! 

To make matters infinitely worse, Hunter was so groomed by this point, I'm convinced that if Belos actually aimed for his face, he wouldn't move and let him run him through. Anything to please Belos, even death... remember Eclipse Lake?

Now, with that in mind, if you're an adult and you've made up your mind at this point that a child proved you wrong about something, is it really okay to raise your hand at them, like Darius does in Any Sport in A Storm?

Seriously, think about this from a real-life scenario for a bit: if there was a child who's had a history of abuse in their lives, is it really okay to do anything that might resurface those unpleasant memories, especially if they are still in that abusive relationship?

Now, there's a chance that Darius may not know the full extent of the abuse that Hunter was going through, I'll give him that... but he's still a Coven Head, and given the cut-throat nature of the Coven Heads even against each other, you'd think that this detail would be both more obvious to Darius and imply something to the Emperor's Coven Head.

And look, if you want to insist that maybe I'm over-thinking this, that's fine. It's just that in the process of thinking about both my personal experience with abuse and The Owl House, it just doesn't sit right with me when someone is very likely to know that somebody has experienced pain a certain way and do something that's counterproductive to that.

And I also get that Darius was trying to be intimidating so Hunter would prove his willingness to rebel, but at that point in the story, the Emerald Entrails were already leaving: there was no further use for Darius to be intimidating once it was just himself and Hunter.

So at the end of the day, I get how this scene is funny, I really do, and it's easier on my brain when I don't think about the implications of it. However, when I do take into account the context, what Hunter has to deal with, and what that means for someone who's been abused, it's a careless writing decision at best, and potentially malice at worst.

I like the concept of Dadrius, I really do, but like everything else, it has its flaws. Given season three being screwed over by Disney, I can't see Dadrius becoming canon. Thankfully, we have fan-fiction to explore certain ideas that will likely never be touched, such as Darius actually apologizing to Hunter for not being able to do more for him during the time he was abused by Belos, or even exploring what it means to have a real trigger, and how that effects somebody.

Anyway, what do you think? Am I overthinking this, or is there some merit to this, and in what way? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

🐦 A Dadrius Observation | Twitter

This makes me wonder if this set up for a joke was even appropriate... I mean, this is a kid who's had blades thrown really close to his face.#TheOwlHouse #HunterTOH #DariusDeamonne https://t.co/cwt8rKfTyn

— 🌸 Moonspirit🌙 🌸 (@Moonspirit_X) March 18, 2023

Like, think about it for a minute: how would you feel about a real life adult looking as if he's about to physically assault an abused child, only to turn around and it be a a joke? Trauma has a way of fucking people over.#TheOwlHouse #abuse https://t.co/IqCM979vIY

— 🌸 Moonspirit🌙 🌸 (@Moonspirit_X) March 19, 2023

While we don't see how much Darius knows of the #abuse Hunter went through, you'd think as a Coven Head, he would have had enough sense to know better, at the very least.#TheOwlHouse https://t.co/KOrCg4RIdC

— 🌸 Moonspirit🌙 🌸 (@Moonspirit_X) March 19, 2023

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this scene that made #Dadrius so popular in #TheOwlHouse was cute at first, but after reflecting on the #abuse Hunter has gone through, it changes the implication of a joke to something careless at best and troubling at worst. https://t.co/sQgko4wx6r

— 🌸 Moonspirit🌙 🌸 (@Moonspirit_X) March 19, 2023

An Owl House Fiction Idea

It's interesting that this would come back to my mind on Valentine's Day of all days, but if you're willing to sit this one in and hear me out, then please do so. 

 

Apparently my darker streak has come back when contemplating about this idea, because unfortunately, upon thinking it over, it's pretty fucked up.

So while I don't have any names for these respective characters, I did have the basic premise of this being an Owl House future sort of gig, where it's more about the children of the previous gang than anything else, mainly revolving around a daughter of Hunter and Willow.

And before you ask: yes, I imagined that she'd have a wolf palisman... his name is Waffles.

What's so fucked up about it? The simple fact that it goes more into just the Huntlow kid being bullied for being part Grimwalker: she is elected as Grom Queen as a pity vote, kind of like what they did to Chris Griffin in Family Guy.

While people, especially the bullies, figured that the Huntlow daughter's fear was related to her bullies in some way... what they don't take into account is the full nature of that fear and it's true implications: becoming the monster they insist that she is.

Upon facing this part about herself, she begins to believe that if the world is going to think that she's a monster no matter what she does, then there's no point in trying to be anything else. This permits Grometheus the Fear Bringer to merge with her (or take possession of her, similar to what Belos did to Hunter) and bring about the havoc that he intended to do so long ago, fueled by the Huntlow daughter's anger, frustration, and helplessness. Thankfully, she is rescued by her family and friends, mainly the work of her grandfather, Darius, as as Grometheus (as a head-canon) has natural elements to himself that are similar to the abomination goo.

After being saved, she takes out her anger out on her bullies, especially the leader to it all: I always imagine said main-bully was the daughter of Boscha. She ends up saying a lot of things she ends up regretting, including (but not limited to) that the bullies should not only inflict harm to themselves, but also end their own lives for targeting somebody who did nothing to them. 

 

The end result is a quiet awkwardness whenever Huntlow's daughter is brought up.

For sometime, they don't see her, and rumors fly around that she had done to herself what she said she wanted her bullies to do so long ago. After some investigating, it turns out that Huntlow's daughter has been attending her classes, but wearing a very powerful version of concealment stones, but with a unique enchantment on it that makes the wearer of it invisible to whoever they wish to avoid - in the case of Huntlow's daughter, everybody except the teachers.

There were a few other ideas after this, but it got too dark...

such as a magic beast or something getting a hold of Boscha's daughter who had a kind of magic to make her do something crazy (like going through with killing herself) that she's rescued from, mainly by the involvement of Huntlow's daughter because while she meant what she said in a fit of anger, she regretted it so much that she'd never actually wanted anybody to do such a thing...

Boscha herself being responsible for the information of Hunter being a Grimwalker going public, even though he was not ready for that information to be public at the time...

And Boscha's daughter and Huntlow's daughter becoming friends at some later point, but after some seriously awkward shit, such as Huntlow's daughter's PTSD regarding physical contact from her bullies (Boscha's daughter included), and Boscha's daughter standing up for Huntlow's daughter in such a way that she not only openly regrets bullying, but cuts off ties from the group who are insistent that bullying is still fine because Boscha's daughter used to insist that Huntlow's daughter's info dumping about random shit was annoying, which compelled them to bully her in the first place...

And before you ask, yes, I was thinking of giving Huntlow's daughter a form of neurodivergency, explicitly a form of ADHD. As part Grimwalker, I would think such an origin story would open the possibility of that having what I can only describe as side-effects, and they just happen to match what the human world would call ADHD. In fact, the only way to help her focus on her school work (on top of meditation training) is with a plant she can turn into a potion, but the plant has weird regulations because it can be used to brew an illegal drug... a sad reality regarding how Adderall can help ADHD individuals, but still be dangerous in the wrong hands.

The biggest thing stopping me from doing this is the possibility of being seen as racist for actually going through with writing this. Yes, Huntlow's daughter would technically be half-Korean (as Willow is Asian-coded) being of Hunter's blood would also make her White in some respect, or at the very least white-passing. Despite being partly-Korean myself, and the fact that ADHD can technically be inherited from one of your parents' gene pools, I don't think the implication that the origins of her being different was the result of her mixed blood would sit well with people. Even if I were to establish that the way her brain works is explicitly a Grimwalker thing, I still don't think I can write such a characterization without being branded as racist.

So yeah, thanks for hearing one of my weird rants on one of the strangest days to have it.
Love ya.