La Ron S. Readus
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How Gwendolyn Handled Eda's Curse MATTERS! (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2021-08-11 20:00:05 +0000 UTCReaders, as you can imagine, I don’t have cable. So I wasn’t able to watch the first half of The Owl House season 2 like everyone else was able to as it aired.
But what I DO have is a year’s worth of Disney Plus. /And I found out that the first five episodes of season 2 were made available to stream on Wednesday July 21st, 2021./
Now if you’ve seen my video on Amity Blight’s character development in Season 1, then you already know that I love this show and how it handles the development for its main cast of characters.
So once I had a chance to watch at least the first few episodes of the second season legally, I was all on board.
And y’all; I am just FLABBERGASTED at how much stuff the first five episodes of this season covers.
/The romance between Amity and Luz gaining stride while also exploring the dynamic with her parents. The introduction of the Golden Guard. King discovering more about his past. Gus growing in both his self-confidence and abilities as an illusionist. There’s only 5 episodes of season 2 so far, and its already so full of potential for character development across multiple main players. I honestly want to do videos on everyone’s individual arcs as the rest of the season plays out!/
But out of the first five episodes of the season, the one that immediately made me wanna run to my computer and type out a script...
/Was the mother-daughter episode “Keeping Up A-Fear-Ances,” where we’re introduced to Eda and Lilith’s mother Gwendolyn./
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So it goes without saying that I highly recommend you watch season 1 of the Owl House. But just know that it’s damn near impossible for me to talk about this episode without spoiling a MAJOR plot thread of the show for you overall. So before you continue on with this video, keep that in mind. Cool? Cool.
So as you know, Eda Clawthorne has bestowed upon her a curse that causes her to transform into a monstrous owl beast.
It was placed on her by her sister Lilith out of jealousy when they were kids, and as part of trying to make amends for capturing her for the emperor to make an example of Eda for defying his law at the end of the season, decided to share the burden of the curse. All this was made known in season 1.
/However, what we DIDN’T know was that Eda and Lilith’s mother Gwendolyn has been trying to find a cure for the curse for just as long. By any means necessary/ (cut it out if you have to)
Now this is obviously setup for when we’re introduced to modern-day Gwendolyn.
By the time Luz meets her, we know that she’s the type to be overbearing, but only to Eda. And it's obvious that this has existed in their dynamic even before she was cursed.
/Her relationship with Lilith however is.../ (Oh, Lilith. You’re here too?)
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that Gwendolyn has a favorite.
So by the time we find out that Gwendolyn has been looking for a cure, Luz has been homesick and missing her mom so much that she sees Eda blowing off her own as nothing more than rude.
/So of COURSE she helps Gwendolyn out with getting Eda’s curse broken according to the means of a soothsayer she met./
Then, after seeing attempt after attempt fail, with the only thing the “cure” was accomplishing was frustrating Eda to the point where the curse was taking over, I started to see what was going on.
And more importantly, I started to see Gwendolyn's mindset regarding the curse, Eda’s potions, and her overall relationship with her versus Lilith that I began to see the point of her arc in this episode.
I originally had caution play a role in my depiction of her when I saw how Gwendolyn was addressing the healing coven.
/Specifically when it was revealed that she joined it in order to find a cure for Eda’s curse but ended up searching for other means when she wasn’t satisfied that they couldn’t do anything about it./
Then that caution started to heighten the moment I saw Gwendolyn keep Luz from giving Eda a potion for the first time when they were testing out the cures in the scam book she bought.
(She won’t have to drink those disgusting potions anymore after this)
/So you can only imagine my reaction when the time came for Luz to figure out that Gwendolyn was being scammed./
And what helps raise the danger within her decision in that episode is that it not only shows real-life parallels of how individuals fall for anything out of the likes of fear and desperation...
But also that it's not just an isolated incident, either; their decisions -- more specifically, acting on those decisions -- affect the people around and close to them as well.
/Which is something that’s also perfectly depicted in this episode./
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You see, the root of Gwendolyn’s manipulation goes all the way back to what we learned about her personality when Eda was first given the curse.
She’s headstrong to the point where it turns people off and drives those she cares about away at times.
/That’s what initially happened when Eda first heard how determined she was to get rid of her curse that caused her to run away and find the door to the human world./
And while we see the extent of her determination when it’s revealed that she joined the healing coven specifically to help find a cure for Eda’s curse...
/We also see how quickly that’s taken away when Gwendolyn turns their back on them for saying that the curse can only be MANAGED, not cured./
So to see that Gwendolyn is capable of throwing away the word of healing witches -- specifically witches in their field of profession -- because she’s unsatisfied with the results and shows enough desperation to attract the attention of a scammer, or in this case, a GROUP of scammers, that’s willing to take advantage of her desperation and manipulate it for their gain, just set off the “Too Real” alarm in my brain.
Because I -- a 33 year old African American male living in America -- have seen this transition of headstrongness to desperation in members of the generations that came before me, and have seen them just as easily manipulated by outside forces feeding off of their dissatisfaction of facts and logic. Even more so once this god damn Paula Abdul struck in 2020, and I’m absolutely sure most of y’all did too.
But that’s not the only message the episode subtly delivers to its young audience. It also shows how that manipulation can spread in various ways.
/And the way it chooses to do it is through parental neglect./
She’s so willing to believe the soothsayer scammer, that she completely removes the Owl House of every potion inside, already cursing the potions existence because of her association with the coven that told her Eda’s curse can only be treated not cured.
Gwendolyn’s dismissal of facts, logic and expertise due to her dissatisfaction with said experts combined with the blind faith in the scammer gladly allows her to believe that the potions are no longer necessary, satisfying her desire to flip off the Healing coven for telling her a truth she didn’t want to accept.
However, this affects her children in the process.
/Because by the time she sees that the faux cures for Eda’s curse aren’t real after destroying all the potions in her possession, Eda has already once again been overcome by it./
Also, due to using the excuse of seeing Lilith as self-sufficient in order to not learn more about her life both during and after her involvement with the Emperor’s coven...
She has no idea that in order to free Eda from the permanent damage of the curse, she decided to share the burden with her.
/Let alone know that she was the one who cursed Eda in the first place until the end of the episode./
So by getting rid of all the potions in the Owl House, she also sets Lilith up for failure as well, and both of her daughters' lives are in jeopardy as a result.
Now while I’m glad that Gwendolyn learned the error of her ways, genuinely sought the forgiveness of her daughters and decided to try and do right by Lilith by the end of the episode, seeing everything Gwendolyn did over the course of it definitely left me feeling a certain way by the time the house of cards came tumbling down.
Because when I saw that play out on screen, I know I’m not alone when I say I couldn’t help but see all of the parents being tricked and manipulated by the toxicity of Fox News. That I saw all the parents that are falling for alternative medicine and money church pyramid schemes.
And that last one I mentioned hits home for me, because my mom is currently wrapped up in one of those exact situations despite my sisters and I telling her it’s not what she thinks it is.
And I wouldn’t feel the need to make this video if that was the only comparison this episode was making to what’s going on in real life either. Because as I’ve stated before, it’s clear that through the combination of Gwendolyn’s naivete via seeking a cure for Eda, it also affected Lilith.
Because through her lack of communication and connection with her, Gwendolyn brought about HER sabotage thanks to not knowing that she too now carries the curse because of the actions she made at the end of season 1, by removing the potions used to keep the curse at bay from her possession.
This episode is brilliant because it exposes children to the reality that even adults are fallible; that if they are scared enough, worried enough or concerned enough, malevolent outside forces can easily take advantage of said fear, worry and concern and either exploit them or drive them to do potentially dangerous things. Sometimes both.
And it also shows how said exploits can be made even MORE dangerous by using how Gwendolyn’s actions in trying to cure Eda but neglecting Lilith can compound via parental neglect.
But also, JUST as importantly, it shows that they can learn from their mistakes, respect boundaries and are capable of growth.
And while some young adults and ADULT adults who watch this show probably have had to make a hard decision -- or not-so hard decision depending on the situation -- regarding if a relationship with a parent is worth saving or not, “Keeping Up A-Fear-Ances” shows that it can happen if said parties are open to the possibility.
And part of how it CAN be is if the parent or parents are willing to see what they’ve done to damage or sever the connection, put aside any harmful rhetoric they’ve allowed to cloud their judgement, listen to the affected parties, and are willing to make the steps necessary to become better because of it.
But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what YOU thought of the “Keeping Up A-Fear-Ances episode of The Owl House Season 2 if you’ve seen it.
Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, a moment in either film or television you’ve seen that set off YOUR “Too Real” Alarm in your head.
Whichever question you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.
