#the owl house bosha | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

that-ari-blogger · 4 months

Text

A World Of Their Own

The Owl House thrives on archetypal storytelling. Essentially, it makes a beeline for the closest trope and twists it into a new direction. It's a story about how expectations and reality clash.

Up until now, the series has given a take on the concepts of prom, quests, magic schools, amongst others, and has been steadily working its way through the enemies to lovers trope.

And so, along comes Wing It Like Witches to tackle the Sport Story genre, and throw some serious shade on certain other stories while it is at it.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD (The Owl House, Harry Potter 1-6)

When writing a satire, it is broadly useful to have an understanding of the thing you wish to satirise. In the case of a piece of media, this includes understanding the writer, text, and audience. Specifically what parts of the text matter, what the text is trying to say, and exactly where it succeeds and falls short.

The episode after this serves as a turning point in the series, the moment when the stakes escalate from school drama to world threatening, and so Wing It Like Witches serves as a last hurrah for the small things, and the moral of the episode is "focus on the elements of life that matter."

What better way to emphasise that is with sport?

Now, I don't think it will come as a shock to many people that sport isn't real life. As in, it's artificial by nature, it's fair. The winner of WWI wasn't the team that scored the most home runs.

The significance of this is that sport usually has a point system, allowing certain areas to have a specific, value that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. You can win a story based on flags, for example.

In a fictional world, you can make up the sport, and so you can place your points on anything that you want. You can artificially inflate the significance of specific items.

The Owl House calls attention to this in a moment that I think comes as close to breaking the fourth wall as it ever gets.

"While you were celebrating your victory, I caught [the Rusty Smidge]. It means we automatically win. All magic sports are like this." "That just invalidates all our efforts! If catching that thing is so important, why do anything else? There's no reason to watch any of the other players! That's such a stupid rule!"

I think this is a reference to something, my reference senses are tingling. But I just can't work it out. It must be too subtle or something.

In all seriousness, this is actually a really interesting discussion about how stories as a whole work.

There is a pervading idea in a substantial amount of storytelling of protagonist significance. The idea that the protagonist enters a wide spanning conflict and single handedly ends it, rendering the rest of the cast onlookers and cannon fodder.

The Rusty Smidge is a neat microcosm of this idea. What is the point of the rest of the game when one person can win it? But there is a small change to the rules that I think is important.

You see, in Quidditch, for those who haven't heard of it, there is the role of the "seeker", a player who's job it is to find the golden snitch. The game ends when the orb is caught, and the team that catches it is awarded 150 points.

The two main differences are this: The snitch doesn't automatically win the game, and the only player who can catch it is the seeker.

So, what does this mean? Firstly, it means that the player who can catch the snitch is automatically the most important player on the field, so it means that the audience knows who to follow. It is an artificial significance put on a specific, chosen, one character. It specifically tells all the other characters that they don't matter.

However, the seeker doesn't win the game, they just score a collection of points. So that must be fair, right?

I would argue that this distinction is kind of irrelevant. There is exactly one instance in the series when a team who doesn't catch the snitch wins the game, and they are professionals. In a school game, there is no way that a team would be 16 goals ahead of the other.

The points attributed to the snitch gives the veneer of significance to the other players on the field, but when it is brought into question, it is extremely unlikely that they will have an effect on the story.

So, The Owl House satirises this in two ways. It directly calls out the superficiality of the game by taking away the point system, but it also takes away the chosen one aspect. Anyone in this game can win it, the rest of the story is secondary.

I would argue that there are two ideas presented in this story. The first through the game and the second through everything else. The rules of the game suggest that you should stop focusing on the things that don't matter (points) and look at the big picture, while the story suggests that you should stop focusing on the things that don't matter (Bosha) and look at what makes you happy.

The exchange above gets a ton of attention because it is funny, but for my money, the line immediately after it has more significance:

"Well, we beat them and proved our social dominance. All is right in the hierarchy."

The sport didn't matter at all. It was all for another game, with artificial stakes and no real point or prize. Bosha is an incredibly shallow person who has no better use for her time than following around those she doesn't like.

But the story does matter, because of what the Hex Squad earns at the end. They earn the respect of Skara, Amelia, and Cat, Bosha's teammates. They play well and they have fun and, end result be damned, they did their best. That's kinda what sport is about.

Now, a quick bit of credit needs to be given to the side stories of this episode, because they are great. First up is the blossoming romance between Luz and Amity that nobody bats an eyelid at. Amity waltzes up to Willow and gives the single most chaotic monologue in the entire series, and Willow's reaction is essentially "this is normal", which is hilarios.

I particularly like this shot, and the exchange that accompanies it:

"You just destroyed your social life." "Nah, I think I made it better"

Look how small Bosha is here. She's insignificant in the big scheme of things. Amity has finally realised that status doesn't matter, and so the emblem of that status, Bosha, is framed with less power in the scene than the kid in the "I have the power of G-d and anime on my side" vine (Google it).

But the thing with Eda is Lilith's last resort. She has been trying to bring Eda into the Emperor's Coven peacefully up until now. You could say she is playing by the rules. But she still loses, because the rules are against her. She is forced to resort to violence.

Final Thoughts

I'm going to level with you, I do not get the sport story genre at all. I don't understand it's appeal, I don't find it compelling, it just isn't for me.

Now, that isn't to say this genre isn't important, and doesn't have its place in media as a whole. Rocky, A League of Their Own, and Bend It Like Beckham make that point for me exactly. I am simply not the target audience of this genre.

All this is to say that I struggled to analyse this episode from the framework it was presenting me. I couldn't comment on how well the training montage worked, or what the speeches were reminiscent of, so I wrote what I knew.

Next week, I am covering Agony Of A Witch, the point at which the tone of the series shifts dramatically and permanently. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

22 notes · View notes

dazeddoodles · 10 months

Text

NOBODY messes with Mama Eda 😤

#the owl house #toh #luz noceda #raine whispers #eda clawthorne #raeda #amity blight #bosha #willow park #gus porter #my art

2K notes · View notes

anne-phibia-fan · 3 months

Text

AYOOO??? NSAF??????

202 notes · View notes

skelestonkss · 2 years

Text

🫢🫢

#the owl house #toh fanart #the owl house fanart #toh #toh boscha #the owl house boscha #bosha #toh bria #bria toh #toh ships #the owl house ships

1K notes · View notes

howdy5455 · 1 year

Text

fights

#toh #the owl house #sketch #I kinda feel that bosha would beat matts ass #gus porter #boscha #matt tholomule #gustholomulefanart #kind of #the owl house fanart #art #fanart #it's pre 3 season of course

366 notes · View notes

ilovetvtoons · 10 months

Text

3 years of Grom Memories. ❤️

#disney #disney tva #cartoons #animation #the owl house #toh skara #skara #bosha #toh bosha #mattholomule #luz noceda #amity blight #lumity #willow park #gus porter #3 years ago #happy anniversary #happy 3 year anniversary #😍💘😍💘😍💘...

170 notes · View notes

jess-the-vampire · 9 months

Note

https://www.tumblr.com/spare-stories-archive/725931962195410944/nothing-can-cheer-you-up-like-family

I wrote you another fic uwu (just posted it on my writing side blog) I hope you like it!

sorry it took so long, i hope you love the art i made! <3 <3

thank you for the fic sooooooo much!!!!

#my art #the owl house #toh #a reverse of feathers and mud au #areverseoffeathersandmudau #a reverseoffeathersandmud #caleb wittebane #philip wittebane #toh hunter #the owl house hunter #golden guard #the golden guard #bosha

95 notes · View notes

kpiva · 1 year

Text

wiwwow my bewwoved (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)

#huntlow #willow #willow park #hunter #amity #amity blight #bosha #toh #toh fanart #the owl house

316 notes · View notes

nerobuffoonery · 9 months

Text

Amity are you even listening???

#lumity #toh amity #amity fanart #amity blight #bosha toh #toh skara #the owl house #the owl house fanart #toh fanart #toh school sketch #toh eye gril #apperently her name is eileen?#toh eileen

26 notes · View notes

beloved-cat-gremlin · 1 year

Text

Soooo that silly little crossover took over my brain I guess.

(Huh fitting since the show ended today. I'm not OK, btw)

40 notes · View notes

bet-on-me-13 · 1 year

Text

Amity meeting her Future Self

So, we have all seen the posts and Fanfics about Luz meeting her own future self, but can we just stop and imagine a scenario where Season 1 Amity meeting Epilogue Amity?

She would be so horrified to learn how different her life is.

Openly Gay, Dating that annoying Human, disobeying her Mother constantly, messing around with Ed and Em, dyeing her Hair Pink, smiling so much, destroying the Emperors Coven rather than joining it, helping in the rebellion to Overthrow the Empire, etc.

She would have to deal with so much, because she is so different from her old self compared to her new self.

There would be Angst, there would be Fluff, there would be Crack, it would be amazing

#The Owl House #Owl House #Amity Blight #Time Travel #Amity meets her future self #Luz Noceda #Edric Blight #Emira Blight #She would be so confused #Like remember her reaction to Bosha's offer of friendship?#That would be S1 Amity finding out that this girl her herself in the future #It would be Glorious

52 notes · View notes

dazeddoodles · 1 year

Photo