The Owl House

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Name: The Owl House
Abbreviation(s): TOH
Creator: Dana Terrace
Date(s): January 10, 2020 – April 8, 2023
Medium: Animated series
Country of Origin: United States
External Links: Wikipedia,
The Owl House Wiki,
The Owl House Fanon Wiki
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Owl House is an animated fantasy horror-comedy[1] series that airs on the Disney Channel.

Canon

Luz is a teenage human girl who accidentally stumbles upon a portal to another world instead of going to Reality Check Camp. When on the Boiling Isles, which is made from the remains of a dead Titan, she befriends the rebellious witch Eda the Owl Lady and an adorable demon warrior named King. Despite not having magical abilities and having to pose as a witch due to the prejudice towards humans, Luz pursues her dream of becoming a witch by serving as Eda's apprentice at the Owl House and ultimately finds a new family in an unlikely setting.[2]

Characters

Main

Major

Fancomic of Emperor Belos and The Titan by cozylittleartblog.

Supporting

Antagonists

Fan-Created

Fandom

The fandom grew rapidly during the second half of season 1, mainly after the airing of "Enchanting Grom Fight" which was a prom themed episode that confirmed Amity's crush on Luz. It was also confirmed on twitter by series creator Dana Terrace that Luz is bisexual which lead a flurry of news coverages naming her Disney's first bisexual lead.[3][4]

The fandom is predominantly active on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Reddit, and Amino.


Beta/Concept/Pilot Designs

"Beta designs. This would’ve been a completely different story with completely different characters and world rules. Fun to see everyone’s various interpretations." - Willow, Luz and Amity by Dana Terrace

During a charity stream hosted by Dana Terrace some early development sketches were shown for several characters from The Owl House. The designs for Luz and Amity were instantly picked up by the fandom and became the focus of much fanart. Soon various headcanons began to be applied, such of them being slightly older and edgier teens, and they came be known as the beta versions. Terrace later went on to post another piece featuring Willow alongside Luz and Amity. Fanartists have gone on to create beta versions of much of the remaining cast. SwissSides' Sibling AU popularised Beta Luz being presented as Luz's older sibling and being called Lucia. Beta Amity and Willow are sometimes called Amelia and Wionna.

While not as popular as the beta design there has also been a similar uptake in fanworks produced using the unaired pilot designs.

Shipping

Common Pairings

Connections with other Fandoms

The Owl House has several connections to Gravity Falls in both its production and the show's execution. The Owl House was created by Dana Terrace, who was previously a storyboard artist for Gravity Falls, additionally the creator of Gravity Falls, Alex Hirsch, is the voice of both King and Hooty. Fans have also noted the similarity between the two in that both Owl House and Gravity Falls left coded messages in episodes that hinted at future events.[5]

There is a large overlap with the fandom for Amphibia, which shares the same reasons as above, has a somewhat similar premise, and was created by fellow Gravity Falls alumna Matt Braly. A Reddit poll in September 2021 indicated that over 40% of respondents came from the TOH fandom.[6]

Fans often compare and contrast the two shows. Reddit posts asking why Amphibia wasn't as popular attracted a variety of responses:[7][8]

the owl house has a less niche premise. more people are interested in magic, and witches and demons, than frogs

[1]

Despite having only one season out, TOH has less filler. Almost all of season one of amphibia is filler (which isn't bad, but people really like a continuous story) and some people won't watch through all that filler to get to the awesome plot.

[2]

1.) The show starts off with a much slower pace, being a lot more episodic and having more of what seem like repetitive “filler” episodes early on. It makes it harder for people to get invested right away.

2.) The vast majority of characters on TOH are humanoids, which are inherently easier for people to relate to and empathize with than non-humanoid characters (i.e. frogs).

This does not mean that either show is better or worse - both shows are great, and both are well worth watching.

[3]

There would be one episode coming out every single day...For the entire season

So yeah the entirety of season 1 passed in less than a month

While the Owl House kept airing for far longer, giving it for its community to form

[4]

To put it bluntly. It’s because of the gay. It attracts a lot more attention. Both good and bad.

[5]

Fans have also noted the parallels between The Owl House and Little Witch Academia.[9] Luz and Amity were quickly compared to Atsuko and Diana thanks to their rivalry turned friendship and their differing skill levels as witches.

The Owl House fans also seem to overlap with the Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom often. [10] There are a few ATLA references in TOH, Mae Whitman, the voice of Amity also voices Katara in Avatar, and Dana Terrace herself has shown to be a fan of the show.[11][12]

LGBTQ Rep and Other Shows

The sparse remaining Steven Universe Critical community, after the episode "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Hooty's Door" on Jul 31, 2021, began to form fresh discourse surrounding LGBTQ representation. This is typically displayed as a resurgence in Steven Universe criticism next to praise for The Owl House. To some, they saw the first gay wedding in a cartoon to not be "good enough" representation in Steven Universe, believing the use of the explicit word "GF" in The Owl House to be a better representation. Others saw such criticisms as a way to pit LGBTQ content creators against one another when both Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe's showrunner) and Dana Terrace (The Owl House's showrunner) had to go through different struggles to get different amounts of LGBTQ content in their shows, and we're telling different stories. Many new meta pieces were made, with some even expressing frustration that the Owl House tag was getting "annoying takes" related to Steven Universe in it.[13]

Some meta related to the debate is below.

I mean little rep comparatively. Who are these 3 or more canon "main" characters? Ruby and Sapphire don't count as main characters because 99% of the time they exist as Garnet. I know there is the wedding episode (the screentime split in half as it is), Keystone Motel, Hit the Diamond, and The Answer. But these are 4 scattered episodes out of 160. Other than that, I don't remember seeing their relationship much at all?

Then there's Pearl and Rose's relationship. But it's a terribly one-sided, abusive relationship that does more harm towards LGBT rep than good upon inspection. A romance in which one partner mind-controls the other doesn't seem like a positive thing. Pearl is always subservient to her Diamond, to the point where she doesn't stop obsessing over her thousands of years after her death. She admits to watching Steven (Rose's son) sleep at night and almost lets him die in her emotional instability (Rose's Scabbard). The circumstances surrounding her "romance" and the way she behaves, as a result, are very alien compared to real-world LGBT+ relationships. And that's no surprise given that she really is an alien. All of the prominent gay characters are.

Ruby and Sapphire are almost always fused together because that's how alien relationships work.

Stevonnie uses they/them pronouns because they're enby and intersex. But not because they're their own singular entity: they're an alien fused with a human.

Steven is trans because his mother gave up her gem to give birth to him and he uses he/him pronouns instead of she/her???

Sounds very alien to me.

I understand that Sugar worked very hard and risked her career doing what she did. I don't hate her series (I think it has a lot of cool ideas in it!) and I do admire her vision and motivation. However, that doesn't change the fact that she needlessly obscured things, making them easily dismissible.

The Owl House, despite having its own fantastical elements, did not reinvent the concept of LGBT+ people and relationships. A witch + a human is exactly the same as a human + a human.

The Loud House, airing at the same time as SU, did not have this issue.

mindful-electrical, Aug 2, 2021.[14]

Steven Universe: Eh, I don't really feel like saying "girlfriend" or "wife". Maybe they're together. They have a special connection...

(gets violently shoved aside)

The Loud House/Craig of the Creek/The Owl House: Pfft, amateur. "My GIRLFRIEND Sam and I..." "I'm texting my GIRLFRIEND, mind your business." "Luz's new GF showed her..."

itneedsmoregays[15]

anyways; the owl house, steven universe & she ra are "queer writers writing queer stories while being punished by homophobic networks.” rwby & legend of korra are not. give queer writers the respect they deserve & stop elevating their cishet counterparts over them for doing far less.

ironpines, Aug 1, 2021 [16]

However, the arguments surrounding LGBTQ rep in cartoons do not stop at comparisons to Steven Universe, and aren't only discussed by some few remaining Steven Universe Criticals. Other shows began to get comparisons to The Owl House as well, such as The Legend of Korra, She-Ra, and even Gravity Falls. Other short meta pieces discuss this, with some of them feeling like these arguments are taking away from the varies types of LGBTQ rep that have slowly grown over the years and dismissing their importance when something "better" comes along. Others believe fans of certain cartoons are making angry meta posts about other shows simply because they're "angry" that their favorite cartoon "didn't have content like TOH."

Why are people getting so defensive of other shows now that Lumity is canon?

I'm seeing people on this site say stuff along the lines of "X shows walked so TOH could run!" and "X creators fought tooth and nail to get what little lgbt rep they had so don't disrespect their shows!" and so on.

Literally no one is "disrespecting" these shows. I've gone looking through several tags (ie. Lumity, Steven Universe, She-Ra) and I'm not seeing any of this "disrespect". All I'm seeing is people angrily defending their shows for not having what TOH has.

TOH has a healthy wlw couple involving the main character that got together before the series finale. This means we can actually watch the two being a couple and put aside all the excessive pining. It's not an insult to say that shows like SU and She-Ra didn't have content like this, it's simply... just true. Those shows didn't have content like TOH.

sydney-empire, Aug 4, 2021[17]

Anytime I see those “God that rep from two years ago was so bad” posts, I think about Gravity Falls.

I think about the fact that Alex Hirsch wanted the cupid character (who appeared in ONE episode) to have the MLM/WLW symbols on his necklace, but Disney shot it down because it was seen as inappropriate for a kid’s show.

I think about the sheriff characters, who’s “relationship” was used as a running gag to laugh at. Who’s kiss in the last scene at the end of the series damn near made people go INSANE. These were two characters who were no one’s favorites and who served as comedy relief, but it was still seen as a huge win for rep because it happened at all.

I think about the fact that Gravity Falls, a show where dead animals speak in tongues as blood drips from their eyes, couldn’t have anywhere near the amount of rep that the creators wanted to add because it “wasn’t for kids”

And now we have men getting married to their husbands and women getting married to their wives on screen. We have boys with boyfriends and girls with girlfriends and characters that are purposely gnc or androgynous. We have characters with pride pins or flags in their rooms. We have cartoons like Blues Clues that have been around for AGES making entire videos dedicated to pride for kids.

Just... things get better. Representation gets better because people fight to make it happen. We can’t act like they were “basically nothing” because without them we would HAVE nothing.

Edit: the Cupid necklace was likely the trans symbol

toasty-bat, Aug 1, 2021[18]

#savetheowlhouse

In May 2021, the series was renewed for a third and final season, however it would consist of three specials, instead of the 19-21 episode order the first two seasons had received. The reaction to the announcement was mixed, many were disappointed it would be The Owl Houses's final season but were glad it had not been outright cancelled after season 2 and hopefully would allow for the story to be wrapped up in a satisfying manner. Other speculated on the reason for its short episode order, with the most widespread theories being issues with LGBTQ+ representation and the COVID pandemic effecting workflow and budget cuts thereafter. As speculation continued, season 2 began airing in June and fans began to campaign to get #savetheowlhouse trending on Twitter each week in hopes that additional episodes could be added to season 3 or a forth season would be commissioned.

In October, series creator Dana Terrace took to Reddit to discuss the reasons why the show was cut short and dispel some of the popular theories surrounding LGBTQ+ representation and budget cuts.

At the end of the day, there are a few business people who oversee what fits into the Disney brand and one day one of those guys decided TOH didn't fit that "brand". The story is serialized (BARELY compared to any average anime lmao), our audience skews older, and that just didn't fit this one guy's tastes. That's it! Ain't that wild? Really grinds my guts, boils my brain, kicks my shins, all the things. It sucks but it is what it is.[19]

Fanworks

Fanfic

Cannot wait for the Mom Team Up, featuring Eda Clawthorne and Camila Noceda by strawberri-draws.

Fanart

Gifsets

Zines

Archives & Fannish Links

Archives

DeviantART

Communities

References

  1. ^ A colleague called her TV show ‘a dumb idea.’ It’s already been picked up for Season 2 (January 2020)
  2. ^ "Wikipedia". Archived from the original on 2022-04-23.
  3. ^ Disney confirms first bisexual lead character in series The Owl House. Digital Spy.
  4. ^ ‘The Owl House’ Makes History With Disney’s First Bisexual Lead Character. Variety.
  5. ^ "The Owl House Runes: Adventures in the Elements".
  6. ^ "Did you find this show through The Owl House?". Archived from the original on 2021-09-28.
  7. ^ "Why Amphibia is not as popular as The Owl House". Archived from the original on 2021-04-02.
  8. ^ "Why is Amphibia so underrated compared to The Owl House". Archived from the original on 2021-10-24.
  9. ^ "The Owl House /// Little Witch Academia Parallels". Archived from the original on 2020-10-24.
  10. ^ AVATAR and THE OWL HOUSE are connected...
  11. ^ I miss this child.
  12. ^ T O P H
  13. ^ Don’t disrespect Steven Universe because, Tumblr. Aug 2, 2021 (Accessed 8/4/2021)
  14. ^ I mean little rep comparatively. Tumblr, Aug 2, 2021 (Accessed 8/4/2021)
  15. ^ Eh, I don't really feel like saying "girlfriend" or "wife". Tumblr, circa Aug 2, 2021. (Accessed 8/2/2021)
  16. ^ anyways; the owl house, steven universe & she ra are, Tumblr. Aug 1, 2021 (Accessed 8/4/2021)
  17. ^ Why are people getting so defensive of other shows now that Lumity is canon? Tumblr, Aug 4, 2021. (Accessed 8/4/2021)
  18. ^ Anytime I see those “God that rep from two years ago was so bad” posts, Tumblr. Aug 1, 2021 (Accessed 8/4/2021)
  19. ^ "AMA (except by "anything" I mean these questions only)". Archived from the original on 2022-06-11.
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