Owl, Frog, and Eldritch Abomination: The Three Disney Rigmaroles · 8:43pm Jul 9th, 2023
The Owl House, Amphibia, and Gravity Falls. A trifecta of terrific, tongue-in-cheek, and traumatizing tales. I've binged them, I've rewatched them, I've got nice things to say about them. (Plus...)
Spoilers ahoy! Let's get started, meatbags!
SPOILERS
GENERAL SPOILER POLICY: "Blogs in the Ep-By-Step series may or may not spoil content found in later episodes. Viewer discretion is therefore advised."
Blog Number 227: "Trinity of Freaks" Edition
So yeah, at long last I recently finished the final outstanding episode of the three shows that I otherwise hadn't seen yet (I'd been waiting for the finale of The Owl House to hit Disney+, and then got delayed a while).
I've been aiming to talk about all three for some time, especially in the context of my Gravity Falls reviews, but I wanted to make sure I'd completed them first, and properly. That happy time has finally come.
Firstly, how sweet is it that we now have a trio of thematically meta-related rigmaroles to talk about? An implied shared multiverse, each of which is perfectly capable of standing separately? Flaws, fine touches, and fantastic elements - in both the magic and the quality sense - to break down? It's a pretty great new thing to focus on, a triangulation of storytelling tricks and traditions.
There's no way I'm tackling everything in one blog post, so this'll just be a starter to get the ball rolling. Unlike the "Ep-By-Step" series, these posts will be more informal and less rigidly predictable (in progression if not in timing: I'm aware I've left long gaps between reviews). Hopefully, that makes the game more interesting!
Bear with me a sec...
So...
For starters: Jeez, this cosmology's packed. Bill Cipher's demonic dimension, the (implied) war between the Titans and the Archivists, and a three-gem cosmic entity who takes on the form of a cat. Hate to think how that supernatural committee meeting would go down.
Cosmic Game Night must be hell.
OK, to be fair, this is mostly just making much of irrelevant cameos. If you want to ignore the cameos of Bill Cipher or Anne Boonchuy in this, that, or the other scene, the stories are quite happy to proceed on their own. Can't express what a relief this is, in this age of reheated leftovers and insanely overwhelming shared universes so intricate that you'd need a flow chart and an encyclopedia to keep them straight.
Whereas the "cute nod for those in the know, can be ignored by everyone else" approach seems to me a highly effective and generous "crossover" approach, similar to how the Discworld fantasy books could work as part of a larger series or as standalone stories. It's self-contained, but adds a bonus for more committed viewers, and especially given how convoluted an expanded universe can get, the two-way flexibility here is welcome.
Which is just as well, because there's something very nice about the little nods and winks and nudges on the margins that Owl House and Amphibia pay to Gravity Falls and occasionally to each other, especially given the connection between the show creators. Both Dana Terrace and Matt Daly are alumni of the production of GF, with Alex Hirsh in turn making notable appearances for Owl House and Amphibia (playing major characters King and Hooty in the former, starring in a whole-episode reference in the latter, plus miscellaneous roles beyond those).
It's subtle, but especially given larger Disney's messy sledgehammer approach to brand management, this seems positively classy.
But I come to praise, not to bury, so it's enough to start with the observation that all three shows hold up tremendously well on their own.
Gravity Falls is unique as a child-friendly sci-fi supernatural conspiracy tale with a Lovecraftian undercurrent.
The Owl House mixes morbid horror and magical anti-authoritarian celebrations of weirdness with a school-level coming-of-age story.
Even Amphibia, which in some ways feels more like a conventional fantasy epic, benefits from its surprisingly clever blending of Thai culture and "change" metaphor with the microfaunal (amphibian-first) approach to worldbuilding.
From genre up, each one is doing some pretty creative stuff.
Not flawlessly: it has to be said that a tendency to filler and a slow-burn approach to storytelling jointly tend to bog down all three shows, at least to some extent and early on. All three hit their best material in their second seasons, and it's easier to name great plot-shaking episodes than great pot-boiler eps. As much as all three aren't afraid to be light-hearted larks, it also means the drama - when it comes - easily overshadows the majority of the casual moments: you're more likely to find people talking excitedly about historical lore revelations and failed character trials than about the one time so-and-so went to a vaguely crummy-looking carnival with a pig figure involved*.
* If you're curious, here's the hints: Waddles, Tibbles, and the Grubhog.
Plus, some of the grander scope villainy gets a bit questionably handled during the (admittedly still spectacular) grand finales, and I don't just mean because the archvillains start playing catch with the villain ball to give the heroes a chance. To say nothing of the meta level difficulties: how behind-the-scenes shenanigans (some self-imposed, some a result of impositions from on high) forced compromises in pacing and focus here and there.
I mean, we all know what this scene was really about...
Still, I'd say without exception that all three have pretty solid cores, and pretty solid main characters.
Thematically, Anne Boonchuy seems to me the most solid, changing from a delinquent and a doormat to a thoughtful empath and hero of two worlds. Her complications with Sasha and Marcy pretty much make the show, especially when contrasted with that of King Andrias from Season Two onwards (albeit his side of the conflict is only revealed in bits and pieces prior to the finale, buried amid a lot of stock scenarios elsewhere).
The Pine twins have their great synergies throughout, though I tend to lean more towards Dipper as the bumbling yet determined underdog, and inevitably the parallels between them and Stan's dysfunctional relationship with his brother add an extra layer to Season Two that strengthens it (though it overshadows it a tad too). The closest they have to an arc is a coming-of-age weakening-then-strengthening bond, which is theoretically welcome but mostly feels like it stacks the deck against Dipper. Plus, it's kinda lost in the shuffle between the suspenseful build-up to Bill Cipher's epic move and the rocky reconciliation between the two Stans.
Luz Noceda, by contrast, feels very overshadowed by stronger side players such as Amity, Willow, Hunter, King, and her own mother Camila, even though she - Luz - undoubtedly plays a crucial role in all of their arcs. Combined with her more despairing moments late in the series, and how most of her beneficial influence is front-loaded, and I feel she suffers a bit as a central heroine who doesn't respond nearly as gracefully to her challenges as - say - Anne or Dipper, especially whilst everyone around her goes from strength to emotional strength.
But despite the often-brutal treatment she gets from the narrative, her unapologetic glee for the weird and otherworldly serves as a strong anchor early on. She's probably the one I have the most fun watching. And yes, Titan Luz is pretty damn awesome.
Anyway, enough waffling about vague generalities. Random specifics, go!
I think for today I might briefly chat about that one element of a story that often makes or breaks it: antagonists! (Including villains: "antagonists" is simply a more general and nuanced term).
Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls)
What can I say? Take the Eye of Providence, make him a snappy dresser, and give him the morals of the Joker with the cosmic powers of a Lovecraftian monster, and voila! You've got an inexplicably awesome demonic threat of apocalyptic proportions... who is still funny as heck. Gravity Falls likes being funny as heck.
There isn't really a villain who combines childish comedy, lore respectability, and sheer overwhelming menace so effectively in one package. Bill is a multidimensional marvel of character design. In isolation, he'd be a great character. In context, he pretty much single-handedly cements the unique identity of Gravity Falls, making him exponentially better.
Without spoiling too much for my future planned Ep-By-Step reviews, I think it's fair to give a general summary of how Bill evolves from intriguing one-off monster to literal show-stealer (seriously, the reworked opening titles for the finale must be seen to be believed).
Ignoring background cameos, his first proper appearance is "Dreamscaperers" near the finale of Season One. It suffers a bit from "Early-Instalment Weirdness": the greater scope of his surreal psychopathy is muted compared with his more on-the-job nasty oddness here. Apart from the abruptly impressed stalemate at the end, there's little to suggest he's anything but a quirky Monster of the Week. He's also limited as Gideon's lackey, bowing out before the little madman takes over the Mystery Shack.
It's really with "Sock Opera" that Bill establishes his creepy street cred, going from dreamy one-off to outright monster. More firmly hinting at a secret future scheme, he expresses himself at his best - and worst - as Bipper. Literally getting under another character's skin, treating them with a child's fascinated contempt, and then abusing the hell out of the body for fun, is 100% classic Bill: a horrific comedy forcing our intrepid hero into a helpless position, deploying emotional manipulation and stealth to get his way, pointing out exactly what's wrong with the Dipper-Mabel team-up, and giggling whilst pouring drink into his own eyes.
That's a lot of modes to pack into one villain, and that's why Bill's unique design is so genius: he can pull them all off at once.
Fitting his Lovecraftian roots, which in turn have Gothic and Romantic precursors, Bill is one of the Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, a vaguely anti-scientific cautionary tale opposite the highly academic, fame-seeking Ford (the revelation of their connection almost single-handedly saves "The Last Mabelcorn"), and similarly a temptation for the investigative Dipper (before the latter wises up).
Yet in another stroke of brilliance, he's also a repudiation of Mabel's more self-expressive and random approach to life, effectively being Mabel with all the power and none of the redeeming points. It's no coincidence that the pro-scientific heroes have - despite contributing to his return - long since wised up to his antics, yet Mabel's carefree ignorance (plus a couple of handy coincidences) ends up being his ticket into the real world. To a lesser extent, Stan gets the same repudiation, as his short-term determination to save his brother is another factor that ends up helping Bill's plan.
If there's one major criticism of Bill I can give, it's that he's a lot more effective as a brooding threat hanging over the heroes than as a villain for direct confrontation. He's simply too overpowered. Marvellously horrible as Weirdmageddon is, it's also the point where Bill straight-up levels the playing field, acting out of stereotypical bad-guy overconfidence. Most of his obstacles start to feel a bit arbitrary (quite why unicorn hair forcefields keep him out is never explained, nor is the ability of mere metal to keep him out of certain people's minds), but then he does manage to get around most of them anyway. Literally the only reason the final con works on him is because he wastes time chasing the Twins like a common monster, apparently ignoring the fact that he can warp space-time at a whim.
Still, how appropriate is it that the grabby con artist is conned by another grabby con artist? Bill's demise is a breakdown of glitchy, unnatural proportions, and in death as well as in life he gives Gravity Falls all the comedy-horror-surrealism of an Elder God screaming "STANLEY!" like a corny sitcom archnemesis. Oh, Bill. Never die. Now die horribly!
Of all the major archvillains in these three shows, he's easily the best-realized, as well as the most appropriate and entertaining. There's a damn good reason he left a massive impression on audiences.
His demonic cackle echoes on, long after his conjured nightmares have faded into otherworldly obscurity.
Emperor Belos (The Owl House)
If The Owl House is all about the weird and the wild, then what better antagonist can it have than a narrow-minded authority figure? Well, as it turns out, Belos is a little more complicated than that, arguably the most inconsistent of all the archvillains here, and yet also potentially the most disturbingly grounded.
During the first season, there's not a lot to note beyond the "Early-Instalment Weirdness" syndrome. Just as the Boiling Isles is presented as more dangerous and morally dubious than it probably should have been, so Emperor Belos is presented as more of a morally ambiguous figure than he later turns out to be.
Unexpectedly, he's presented well as a promising villain: in a season almost one-dimensionally demonizing authority figures as fools and killjoys, Belos' early appearances come across as a strange mixture of ruthless opportunism and well-intentioned extremism. One minute, he's callously double-crossing a subordinate who's failed him one too many times. The next, he's dismissing Luz's worst suspicions with claims to a higher calling: the Titan's will, which apparently only he can interpret. Such a presentation leaves a lot of angles open, though the ambiguity is shot to hell in the second season. His soft-spoken authority and air of unnatural mystery help seal the deal.
It's impossible to miss the fanatically religious aspect of Belos, even before the reveal that he almost certainly came from a Puritan 17th-century town where witch-hunting would have been second nature. Early on, his ambiguous connection to the Titan gives the impression of a dutiful theocratic ruler, promoting strict segregationist roles for the inhabitants and demonizing outsiders as heretics to execute (or to excommunicate, as an example to the populace). Even his vestments vaguely resemble the ceremonial dress of Roman Catholic priests (which, given his Puritan heritage, could be interpreted as a subtle insult to the witches).
And, of course, there's the witch-hunting and the fundamentalist oppressive/genocidal angle. He's like a cross between Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Judge Hopkins from ParaNorman.
That said, what made those two villains work in their own franchises was the humanizing angle. Frollo was a vicious fanatic, but his moments of weakness made him an oddly believable authority figure, riddled with hypocrisies and implied self-awareness. Judge Hopkins was a well-intentioned extremist who, by the time of the film's events, had come to regret his past actions and sought to find someone who could help him correct his own mistakes.
Unfortunately, Belos - revealed as mere human Philip exploiting whatever power he can get ahold of - never quite reaches either level, though he leans slightly more towards Frollo's guilty self-delusion. His main contribution in Season Two is as the secret schemer behind the Day of Unity, which amounts to a patient conspiracy for planned massacre. To say nothing of his willingness to gaslight everybody - himself included - in his determination to justify his actions.
It's an effective ambush horror, granted, throwing Luz and Eda into the deep end, setting up the resistance and counter-resistance of the likes of Raine Whispers and Terra Snapdragon. But once you're over the unflinching extremes of intolerance, to be honest, it's also a tad straightforward.
While it admittedly works for shock value and sheer depravity in Season Two - going from the embarrassing defeat of the Owl House residents at the beginning to a masterminded crime against humanity and an overwhelming chaotic challenge at the end - come Season Three, he outright loses all layers in favour of being corruption incarnate. That simplification makes it hard to award him full marks as the archvillain meant to carry the entire series, even as it makes him a supremely awesome entity of horror. Especially since he's nowhere near as funny as Bill.
Enter Hunter.
Hunter's arc is great and I'll gush about it another time, but what matters here is the way Philip's family drama defines the conflict between his ideological hatred and his one family connection (in typical Disney fashion, he is of course a convenient orphan). When the Wittebane brothers face a clash between the witch-hunting ethos of their age and the personal experience of the witches themselves, Caleb accepts what he finds and Philip sticks to his guns. This is where the start of darkness kicks in.
In any other series, killing Caleb would be enough, and we'd just have to swallow that Philip hated witches for centuries based on that one act of Freudian excuse-making. Instead, we get the sheer effort and madness of repeatedly cloning and killing his brother in a desperate effort to deny the obvious and insist on his own heroic credibility. It's a little easier to imagine Philip creating his own slippery slope, turning his own furious malice into a cold tradition and his own dogged persistence into a refusal to face reality. By the time we get to Hunter, Philip is little more than a Machiavellian domestic abuser, using promises and threats to manipulate his "nephew", ultimately treating him as a tool for his own darkly "heroic" fantasy.
It's a theme that the Titan draws explicitly when Luz meets him in the finale: Philip was more interested in his fanatical self-image than in actually checking whether he was doing the right thing. In other words, you remember that early Season One episode, "Witches Before Wizards"? The one where Adegast uses Luz's own heroic delusions against her? Philip would totally have failed that test.
Despite the Biblical irony of holier-than-thou Belos becoming an apocalyptic dragon...
That's why I think "Belos" shouldn't have lasted beyond his possession of Hunter in "Thanks to Them". With his manipulative potential already used up, his genocidal intentions clarified (and ambitiously attempted), and his standing undermined by the Collector's selfish power, the last shred of credibility he had was his psychological legacy over his greatest victim.
So Hunter finally tells him where to stick it, Belos is up against another discarded victim of his in the form of Vee (who's underused for such a fascinating concept), and we've mined Belos' inhuman powers for all their gruesomeness. Just drown him, drain-kill him, and move on to a new angle. It would have been an appropriately personal way to dispose of a still-pretty-impressive villain.
See, the Archivists would have made a perfectly plausible final threat, and their arrogance and condescension towards other species would fit the open-hearted tolerance theme like a glove, especially since it still ties into the Titan worldbuilding. Heck, you could still keep the Collector's arc (more or less, given his apparent ignorance around the permanence of death contradicts his other scenes, including the one about the Archivists).
Instead, we get Belos again. A more spectacular rehash of a not-particularly-deep villain whose M.O. we already know, and the oversimplified impression that one man is literally the source of everything wrong with the world. It's big and bold and vivid, I grant you, but I personally felt it was a bit of an uncreative misstep.
Still, all hail Belos, a very anti-weird, very anti-wonderful trauma incarnate.
The Core (Amphibia)
Whereas Bill is a creative explosion of demented genius, and Belos fits as a meta-commentary on hyperreligious opposition to the unconventional (the Harry Potter book-burning comparison and LGBTQ+ parallels practically write themselves), the Core seems to me the most conventional of the three ultimate archvillains. Even as it combines some super-cool ideas from sci-fi and fantasy, it ultimately goes down as yet another fictional evil overlord who got too cocky.
Seen from a distance, the Core's role in the plot is typical archvillain stuff. It's at the top of the social hierarchy that sees the peasant frogs at the bottom as monster chow, the enforcer toads in the middle (Toadstool and Grime included), and Darth Vader-esque King Andrias of the newts/salamanders at the top (the Core's parallels to Emperor Palpatine become really obvious come the finale, especially when you realize "That's no moon!").
And in proper video game fashion, that's more or less the order in which each threat becomes prominent. The Core's final fantasy boils down to self-serving conquest, it borrows Voldemort's cowardly fear of death, and it delights in corrupting other characters until they inevitably snap out of it and break the puppet strings. For all the talk about it being a fusion of Amphibia's greatest minds, it rarely demonstrates any tactical brilliance and ultimately relies on overwhelming power and fighting competence.
On its own, the Core is more style than substance, but what a style it is! The closest comparison I can think of is the D-Reaper from Digimon Tamers: a cybernetic abomination, constantly watching and measuring its enemies with legions upon legions of mechanical eyes, taking shapes that are simultaneously purely functional and unnervingly off, combining technical power with creepy mind games.
Also, red and black are hellish colours that work.
Like an industrial furnace fuelled by hellfire...
The technology angle certainly punches Amphibia's backwater setting in the gut. Even whilst possessing a goofy teenage girl, the Core looks sleek and weird in an arresting way. And whilst Amphibia mostly splits the difference between its medieval stasis and its gradually emerged magitech backstory, I have to admit to my biases here and say that I lean more towards the Core's unapologetic embracing of transcendent technology. What? It looks cool. I'm more a "futurist" than a swamp-lover.
Of course, what makes the Core work is not its own independent merits, but the sharp relief it casts on other characters as a satellite around their spotlight.
As a living antithesis to change, it represents the stale legacy of King Andrias' ancestors, which is the only strong excuse for promoting Aldrich to its main representative (presumably Aldrich was less conflicted when his own father was grooming him?). Andrias owes his tragic villainy to the Core's relentless influence, deepening his (only sporadically shown) inner conflict and prising apart - as well as it can - any influence that threatens to tempt him off his preordained path. The result is the Andrias we love to hate, one of Amphibia's strongest villains, rivalled only by Sasha Waybright.
Also as a living antithesis to change, this of course makes it the counter to Anne's own arc. Anne not only changes over the course of the three seasons (slowly, granted: one of the problems with Amphibia's unusually slow pacing is that lapses are distressingly common) but becomes willing on her own initiative to sacrifice herself for the greater good, something totally beyond the Core's self-seclusion and narrow-minded thanatophobia.
This in turn becomes the main justification for the Core simply not living up to its hive-mind concept: as much as it's willing to copy tactics from species such as the shadowfish or use an opponent's psychology against them, no amount of alleged genius can disguise its childish, reactionary attitude or its homogeneous insularity. This possibly makes sense of the fact that it's originally shown as a shut-in ball with no outward signs of intelligence.
And, lastly, there's Marcy. What's Marcy flaw? She's so desperate for others to connect with her uplifting fantasies - and so terrified of being torn away from them - that she's willing to trick them into a world of her own choosing, even though that same isolation dooms her into thinking she understands the situation better than she does. What's the Core's flaw? It's so desperate for godhood that it ropes other worlds into its own self-aggrandizing empire whether or not they want it, even though that basically reduces it to nothing more than a deadly parasite.
Neither can see further than their own noses, neither are able to face the prospect of their good times ending, both are delusional about their own importance, and both manipulate others around them in an effort to put off the moment of reckoning. Both end up immature and stunted as a result. The only major difference is that Marcy's mostly well-intentioned, which ends up being her way out of the cesspool once she finally understands the harm and dishonesty she's indulging in, whereas the Core only pretends to be, and even then only sometimes.
Plus, there's the sick irony that Marcy's heroic role-playing ends up overridden so the Core can force her into the villain role. So there's that.
And the sight of the Core faceplanting the floor, or squeeing over cupcakes.
"Darcy" is a weirdly prosaic name for a villain, though, for someone who's read Pride and Prejudice.
My main problem with the Core - and especially its relationship with King Andrias - is that the show's overreliance on slice-of-life sitcomming and spare use of the overarching plot forces it to the margins, leaving us with a cliffnotes approach to its whole backstory. The hierarchical nature of the antagonists means that it's simply not a direct influence until well into Season Three.
Which isn't a problem on its own, but even when we get to that late reveal, the greatest supervillain of the show has... two, maybe three focus episodes prior to the grand finale? Two or three of Season Three's greatest episodes, to be fair. But the scarcity of room for flexing its muscles is still a structural handicap.
This isn't a problem unique to the Core: Sasha and King Andrias are far more complex and better-realized antagonists, and even they get sparse real estate compared with the endless parade of whatever foibles the Plantars/Anne are indulging in now.
Ignoring the fact that the mechanical moon is barely foreshadowed before it becomes a plot point - that being the most obvious casualty of the character's sidelining - the Core as a whole rarely gets to rise above its stock evil overlord functionality. There are bits here and there, such as its use of hallucinatory holograms and the brief glimpse we get of Marcy's time in the collective mindscape, but they come across as decoration. Flavour text. Again: style over substance.
Still, that moment when it forcibly fuses with Marcy... shudder. What a style, indeed.
Don't believe this is my last word on the subject, far from it! There's plenty to talk about regarding these three shows, especially alongside the (glacial) Ep-By-Step reviews of Gravity Falls as and when I can get them out. I mean, heck, there's something to be made about Amphibia's focus on (toxic) friendship as an ongoing theme. The magic - or curse - of friendship, so to speak.
But until then, this blog post'll be a primer and a starting point.
Until next time, then!
Impossible Numbers, out!
I adore shared universe narratives and playful mirroring of themes/characters/scenarios
That being said, it is rarely goes above fan speculations, in nearly every instance đ
Adult world isn't really suited to such ambitions. But, well. At least we have fanfiction to fix things, don't we?
Thanks for fleshed-out long post (I've watched only Gravity Falls, though)
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I remember DannyJ once got excited about the interconnected universe of MLP:FiM media (show, comics, etc.), and how he criticized the later show seasons for its increasing continuity snarls. Personally, I've never seen it as more than a bonus, but I do e.g. like the concept of the "spiritual successor": a work that's not a literal sequel, but which borrows a lot of story elements or stylistic touches from a prior story (in video gaming, Team Ico's work is one example).
And many of them pretty convoluted ones, too, of (in my eyes) dubious benefit. See: the Pixar Universe Theory.
When I started in the fandom, I was amazed to find how widespread crossovers were. It was a mark of how naive I was that I first thought the very idea was a daring step onto new ground.
Oh gosh, my poor soul: how spoilery this thing is!
I wouldn't want to ruin the experience for anyone. Although I'm assuming you didn't mind: I'd hoped the spoiler warnings would be enough.
Gravity Falls is one of a kind, though, isn't it? đ
In defense of Belos, it's because he's so grounded and frighteningly realistic that I feel that he's one of the more engaging and genuinely terrifying ones here.
You're very unlikely to meet an eldritch abomination like Bill Cipher or a technological monstrosity like The Core. But a religious extremist and all-around abusive person like Belos? Brrh.
Brennan Lee Mulligan once posted that evil really isn't complicated at all in real life, and that's what makes Belos so effective to me.
https://dimension20official.tumblr.com/post/635450465083162624/i-dont-think-that-every-villain-in-the-world
And Belos, with his simple yet monstrous goals, hits very close to home.
I've watched and enjoyed all three, and I'm looking forward to more of your commentary!
I wonder how much of the "it really gets good in the second season" phenomenon is because the writers have a much richer and more developed world to write their
fanficsepisodes in? That, plus being able to pull off a dramatic moment with a simple reference to something the viewers are (by then) familiar with. Economy of drama, I guess.I should probably watch Amphibia one of these days, I've seen at least some of the other two.
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I think this is a bit mixed. It's certainly true Belos' ideological prejudice - having real-life examples - hits closer to home than his more fantastical counterparts. The whole reason the Hunter connection works so well is because it boils down to a mistreated kid escaping an unhealthy home, rather than party armageddon or multiversal conquest. But I can't say I'd go so far as to then make sweeping statements about how simple/complicated a concept like "evil" is. It's too hasty a generalization.
On reflection, my takeaway is the opposite of that one you cite: Belos may have simple malicious impulses, but they're wrapped up in a more pathological and twisted psychology that you could definitely profile. His historical upbringing, his clash between his ingrained beliefs and his brother's behaviour, his overcompensation attempts, and his moralistic pretensions and normalization of extremes. It all makes his mind more complicated than that of, say, Bill - who's little more than a playful monster - or the Core - who/which is so manipulative and self-serving that there's little to no sincerity of feeling to anyone else, not even Andrias.
My main criticism of his reclaiming the top spot in Season Three is simply because we've been given all the jigsaw pieces by the end of the first special, so there's really nothing substantial left to do with him except fill the space with a bombastic final battle. Plus, it leaves the Collector as a damp squib, despite all the buildup over Season Two.
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That's plausible enough to me. The Owl House has enough oddities in the early going that it's easy to imagine points were worked out as they went along. The way some characters come in and out of focus too: Raine and Hunter feel influential enough that they should have made appearances before Season Two, whereas Lilith starts feeling vestigial a few episodes after Season One.
On the other hand, in the case of Gravity Falls, I'm more inclined to think Hirsch's decision to combine the second and third season into one combination radically chopped down the leisurely filler that diluted the first season to an extent, meaning you wouldn't have to wait nearly as long to build up to the next dropped bombshell.
And with Amphibia - given it didn't suffer the truncations of the other two - I get the impression Season One's slowness and confinement to Wartwood was a deliberate policy, banking on our getting invested in the local cast.
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Well, if you want my two cents: Very much recommended! The high points and overarching plot are easily worth the price of admission alone.
All I'll otherwise say is that, if you don't mind the long slice-of-life interims of Season One, you're pretty much in for a good time overall.