#but yeah I really don't think Camilas treatment is fair or even all that deserved

[juiceastronaut]

If I can throw in my two cents about the whole Camila situation:

Honestly what I think is happening is people are projecting their own experiences a little too deeply onto Luz and vilifying Camila because they don't have a great relationship with their parents. I also think people's minds are jumping to the worst-case scenario of what the camp actually is (I don't think the answer is conversion therapy cmon guys this is a kid's show). The overall lesson in the Boiling Isles is that one needs to learn to consider the effect of their actions on others, especially if it's linked to one's creativity. It celebrates being different but also doesn't say that you can act any way you want because you're different. I think a lot of people are closer to Pilot Luz than they realize, and since they haven't gotten that reality check themselves, view these lessons for Luz as an attack on her, and thus an attack on themselves because they haven't learned that lesson yet. But anyway, back to the camp.

I think what's happening is people are getting really hung up about the "Think Inside the Box!" slogan from the first episode, which may seem to directly want to stifle kids' creativity. I think there are two explanations this can fall under, an in-universe one and an out-of-universe one. The in-universe explanation is that maybe the marketing team really sucks and in an attempt to be quirky and creative (look at us we're subverting a popular phrase!) it came off as really bad. The second explanation is, I don't think the Owl House team was thinking that far ahead when constructing the pilot, and how relevant the camp was going to be in later episodes, so they put a little joke in there to both get a laugh out of people, and to quickly solidify that Luz doesn't want to go to that camp and the reason for that. I think some light dismissal of earlier episodes is in order here, because a lot has happened between the pilot and now, and obviously, the reconstruction in Yesterday's Lie is the reality that the crew wants the viewers to go forward with. Maybe the camp wouldn't have even been that bad.

Maybe if Luz actually went she would've had a good time there. I think the more accurate interpretation is...maybe it did suck, but she would've still been able to garner good experiences from it, friends as well, so that going wouldn't have been all that bad, or at least not a living nightmare. Remind you of anyplace? (the answer is school). So maybe Luz would've had the reality check she needed, learning skills and making friends, and still have the camp be an unpleasant experience. I think those can both coexist, and I don't think the camp needs to be literal conversion therapy in order to achieve that. Okay, onto Camila.

Camila isn't perfect. I know people throw around that phrase a lot but I don't think you can find a more apt situation to apply this too. Carmilla, trying her best to do what's right by Luz, sometimes stumbles and does the exact opposite, but doing that out of love for Luz. I fully subscribe to the theory that the camp wasn't really her idea, and more of a suggestion by the school or Luz would have faced expulsion. Again, the pilot didn't really put weight on Luz's actions, but as of the most recent episode its obvious that Luz was close to receiving a very serious consequence by endangering people by bringing snakes and explosives into school. In the first few episodes it was a way to show that Luz was quirky and didn't fit in with the other kids, but as Luz has matured on the Boiling Isles that lets us revisit those scenarios in a different light. I'm sure Luz didn't see anything wrong with what she did, and the framing reflects that, maybe she'll feel differently now after the character growth she's gotten.

Camila loves that Luz is creative, and she loves her daughter for who she is. She even actively engages with Luz in her interests, as seen in Yesterdays's Lie. But as a parent its also Camilas responsibility to raise Luz into a person that can interact with society in a healthy way. Of course, that would be personally tailored to Luz as a person, and she shouldn't try to make Luz fit a certain standard, but that's not what's happening here.

Camila would be enabling Luz if she just allowed her to continue with these high stakes, highly dangerous expressions of "creativity" because Luz was posing a danger to others and to herself. I would actually say Camila would have been a bad parent if she made excuses for Luz's behavior and didn't do anything to curb that. Maybe camp wasn't 100% the best course of action to take, but at least she does something to make sure Luz feels the weight of her actions. I don't even think of the camp as a punishment per se, which is leaps and bounds above what any other parent would do in that situation (I'm under the belief that punishment isn't always the most effective way to facilitate behavior in children). Camila putting her foot down doesn't make her a bad parent, its what a parent should be doing in this situation!

By the end of the episode Yesterdays Lie, Camila's whole life was turned upside down. The person she thought was her daughter actually wasn't her daughter and her actual daughter chose to leave her and is now stuck in a completely different world where she can't reach or even talk to her. I think it's unfair to her to expect her to rationally react to that situation in any capacity. Her daughter left her and she desperately wanted her back, and was/is fearful of losing her again. That's why she made Luz promise to stay when she got back. She doesn't want to lose her again. She blames herself for driving her daughter away, probably for all the above reasons in relation to the camp, maybe for something else entirely.

The thing is, Luz didn't have enough time to explain to her mom what exactly went into her motivations to stay on the Boiling Isles. She wasn't even going to stay there permanently, she was going to go back when camp ended why? For her mom. She didn't want to be away from her any longer than she expected to be away. It was only after the whole Belos thing happened that she was stuck. But she didn't have the time to explain that. So essentially what Camila heard was "Im stuck over here with no way home and I chose that. for myself." Damn I'd get upset too! This whole thing is a misunderstanding I don't for one second think any situation where Camila forces her home to never see her friends again, or Luz being forced to break her promise and stay on the Isles forever is actually going to come to fruition. Luz will probably tell Camila about her time in the Isles and Camila will go "Oh my god I'm so happy you made friends, okay of course you can go back and forth" because I assume they'll have fixed/have another door by then.

In conclusion, Camila is an actual imperfect mother in the most literal sense, instead of saying someone's imperfect but never misstepping when it comes to taking care of her kids. She messes up, doesn't do the right thing because she's working against forces outside of her control or is having a very human reaction to a genuinely stressful situation. People are projecting their own home lives a little too much into Luz's situation which I think leads to people being harsher with Camila than she deserves. She's a good mom, and I think a realistic and complex character. Y'all are just mean.

Also anyone saying that Camila having a flip-flop (la chancla) in her purse is a sign that Luz is being abused...are you on crack? Is it crack you're smoking? No, but it's a haha shout out to the latino community it's not that deep oh my go--

#wholy guacamole i didn't expect to write that much #but yeah I really don't think Camilas treatment is fair or even all that deserved #people say they want complex characters then actually get one and immediately deem them as evil #that's literally what's happening here. #cut her a break she's a woman trying her best #camila noceda #luz noceda #the owl house