#collector!Luz theory | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kindestegg · 1 year

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Collector, the Isles, assimilation, Luz, grief and escapism

Okay, as per promised the last post in which I went slightly into depth about how much Collector actually seems to LIKE titans, here's a much bigger one playing off of the idea that for all his care, this dynamic is incredibly flawed, and how that relates to his relationship with the Isles and how that parallels Luz eventually, as well as... another thing. (Buckle up. This is a long one).

In a post-hoot that's actually... a pre-hoot, if you think about it, Dana and a few others gathered to talk about For the Future and what was to come, Dana dropped some interesting commentary on how Collector's magic interacts with the Isles...

"Well, the Boiling Isles is supposed to be death and rebirth and rejuvenation like wrapped up in like, a kind of horrifying and beautiful set piece, which is kind of how I see nature as a whole, it's like that bug is horrifying but it's beautiful that it exists, y'know. Maybe that's a vapid observation, but... (laughs) It's something that I like exploring.

But for the Collector I wanted everything to feel the opposite it should feel (...) yeah, unnaturally vibrant, not so much unpredictable but factory made. Like toys, like so many plastic toys. It should feel the opposite of what the Boiling Isles feels, it should be so sugary, it should be so toy box that it hurts. (...) Unnatural. (...)

And I also wanted it to feel like what Luz thought she was gonna get in Season 1. She goes into this fantasy world and (...) you can see it in the episode, and in episode 2 you can see that, you can see some cute little cat villages, you can see all these beautiful fantasy tropes and it quickly gets smashed down because we didn't wanna focus on that too much, but the Collector's whole image was supposed to be growing from that. 'Oh, this is what Luz's dream is, but now it's a nightmare'."

She also says this juxtaposition ended up being overshadowed then by the Collector as a character coming into his own and being a character they enjoy writing so much, but I feel like this assessment could not be further from the truth. I and a lot of fans have caught onto this and very much would like to discuss these themes.

This quote is incredibly interesting to me because I feel like it relates on multiple levels to the themes if this show, the characters in it, and even external motivations in the writing decisions.

Let's start with what I promised first. In the earlier post I referenced at the start, I said although Collector doesn't act out of malice when it comes to changing up the Isles to his will, he regardless is still enacting a violence upon them. And I don't just mean through turning people into puppets.

When the hexsquad finally arrives back on the Isles and you see the state Collector put it at, they state that the Titan Skull is the normal part, but everything else is "wrong". During the entirety of For the Future, there is an emphasis on how unnatural Collector's magic is for the Boiling Isles. It shapes this place that witches and demons call home into something it never was.

Multiple times, we are made to see a clear juxtaposition between what the Boiling Isles is normally like VS how the Collector's magic interacts with it. Another line that stuck with me is Camila going "so the eyeballs on the ground are normal, but the little space cherub is the danger?"

And yet, despite all her negative reactions to the uglier parts of the Boiling Isles, she goes out of her way to try and understand why Luz likes it, and be supportive of Luz regardless. In a way, Camila's journey so far in the Boiling Isles is like a quick redux of Luz's own journey. At first, her daughter, too, had been weirded out by all the strangest in the demon realm, but it was her determination to find brightness in it despite it all.

It is in this that we find the meaning in Dana's words when she says that nature, in all of its weirdness and grossness, is beautiful. Because the Boiling Isles exists in its natural state, and not just that, but in a state that is culturally relevant and important to all witches and demons inhabiting it.

Luz was only able to learn her second glyph when she embraced that magic in the isles was different than just waving a wand and doing magic just like that. That magic was a gift from the isles, from nature. The way that witches connect to the isles is to giving thanks to the Titan, understanding and never forgetting their roots and that all of the bodily manifestations that life sprouts from are part of magic.

When Collector swoops in and covers it all in artificial glitter and plastic and toys, he takes away that natural part of the isles, he covers up the manifestation of the isles' culture that is meant to entwine so deeply with this nature. Regardless of how much he's liked the titans before and how much he doesn't think he's hurting anyone, he is still assimilating and erasing this culture of the isles.

Similarly, when he captures people to be his puppets, he does not just make them into puppets in their regular appearance, but also their appearance is changed, specially their outfits and hairstyles, which is a denial of their self expression and the way the Boiling Isles culture itself informs such choices. The style Collector enforces on the people he turns into puppets is not like anything we see the people on the isles usually wearing, but it sure as hell seems incredibly close to what Luz would have wished to see. We will definitely get back to that, specially with how that relates to Witches before Wizards, which is paralleled hardcore in this episode and even Dana points it out.

Point is: Collector is enacting a violence upon the Isles of a much subtler type than the already pretty damning "turning people into puppets and leaving the survivors to fend for themselves" thing. He is erasing its culture, running over its wildlife, reshaping the environment to his own wants. Regardless if he realizes how harmful this is to the Isles, it is extremely harmful, and I've discussed before in a more informal ask answer, but to me it seems like collectors in general parallel pretty closely the uglier parts of humanity, specially those relating to invading whatever lands we see fit and thinking we are justified in not only drastically altering the landscape but also forcing the people to conform.

Again, though, I feel wrong about going too close with the real world parallels here because I feel it isn't my place to speak on this. I can talk about, however, how once again the Collector is paralleling both Belos and his own ancestors here.

I've already discussed this here, but the way Belos introduces the coven system upon the Isles is a violence that he enacts onto its people to make them easier to control. He straight up rises to the top and changes the entire social norms and societal structure to benefit himself and creates a myriad of problems along with it, some I've discussed in that post like the fact the Emperor's Coven is made the strongest just to make it easier for him to establish his rule and benefit his power structure.

But there's more to this: I have not been the first one to point out that the way Belos denounces "wild magic" and the witches that used it as being in the "savage ages", to the point even historians such as Lilith were made to believe that venturing into an old Bonesborough before the established rule would be dangerous (which is interesting in and of itself: this signifies that the state controls even the historical material given to academics, and the implications here are horrifying) is also a form of imperialistic conquering and scrubbing the Boiling Isles of its original culture.

In this, it is also particularly interesting here to us to remind ourselves Collector very much did have a hand in the Day of Unity, and therefore, its connection to the coven system as well. We don't know how much of a hand it was when it comes to covens, maybe he suggested all of it or only told Belos he needed to siphon witches' magic through something and gather them all in one place, but the fact of the matter is that Collector's been implicated now in not one, but two instances of robbing the Boiling Isles - and its people- of its identity.

Like I stated in my analysis on cycles of violence, Collector is not just a victim despite having his own issues and trauma, he is very much a perpetrator as well. And once again, this is equally related to his upbringing with those of his own kind. Regardless of the fact he did change his mind and went out of his way to rebel and befriend the titans, he still spent a considerable amount of time learning from his family that collectors are meant to claim a world for their own to then take whatever they want from.

And because of all that, they are still very much in the habit of enacting a system of cultural violence upon those that they encounter. Even King, the one whom they consider their best friend, cannot escape this, as he is made to wear the same clothes as they do and denied the lifestyle he actually wishes for.

Once again, though, Collector does not seem to be doing this all out of malice. There is no indication that they are hunched over rubbing their hands laughing maniacally to themself about how they are finally making that ugly horrible Boiling Isles into something better and that with everyone turned into puppets there'll be no one to stop them. In fact... he rejects the very notion when Odalia brings it up that they could reshape the entire Boiling Isles...

And, as I have come to realize and discussed here, Collector doesn't actually seem to think turning everyone into puppets is the best end goal, he is most likely acting out of what he falsely understood the Owl House game to be. That isn't to say he regrets it or is doing so unwillingly, that's also a misreading, but at the very least, it's not something he would default to as a form of play, usually.

But that is just another incredibly important facet of this type of violence that we can discuss: most people who enact such erasure will not realize at first that what they are doing is wrong, they think that what they're doing is what's best for the culture they are bulldozing, and believe this to be just how the world works. While most of the time in real life this takes an incredibly frightening scale because it relates to structural oppression and concentrates itself in many powerful adult figures which are hard to empathize with, the Collector being a child in this sense lends itself to a different type of moral lesson here.

Put simply, this layer of his character and actions is there so that the audience may recognize that despite how he means well, he needs to change his ways. He is there for any members of the audience, particularly young ones, because, you know, this is still a show for kids, to project themselves into and understand that just because you think what you're doing isn't hurting anyone and everything looks prettier in your view, you're regardless still doing something very wrong by taking away what is natural and what is part of the identity of a people and a place.

To any younger viewers who may be just getting introduced to a concept like this, or even older viewers who have simply not given themselves the chance to think of these subjects for whatever reason and might be needing to, this is one valuable lesson to learn, and it is put in a way where you are made to understand that yes, you can hurt people in different ways than physically hurting them like Belos did, or even through direct but emotional abuse, and you can hurt people even when you think you're not doing anything wrong.

But, alright, we've discussed how the reshaping of the Isles by the Collector is important from a metanarrative standpoint. How does Luz fit into all of this? When does she come in?

I wanna get back to what Dana said in the post-hoot, about how this represents what was once Luz's dream becoming her nightmare. As I had stated before, it was only through Luz's determination of understanding and embracing the Boiling Isles as it is that she was able to have the adventures that she grew to love so much and meet the people she did and become the hero of the Isles and protector of its people.

But before she could ever do that, she had to be faced with the harsh reality that she couldn't will her journey to be better or more magical, that just because she couldn't find the world she wanted when she came into the Isles, doesn't mean that there isn't beauty to it.

In fact...

"Eda: The bones of the Isles. Up close, the Isles can be slimy—

King: And very stinky.

Eda: And gross. But if you look at it from a different perspective...

[The three of them look to the sky above the Titan's skull, where stars are beginning to appear. As they watch, a shooting star crosses the sky, there for only a moment.]

Luz: It's beautiful."

(Courtesy of the transcript from the TOH Wiki.)

This line from Witches before Wizards only cements what Dana said about the Isles showing the beauty in nature, in the cycle of life that we are all bound to. Luz's journey throughout that episode, and then adjusting through most of season 1, was coming to understand just that. And only because now she's learned to appreciate the Isles for what it is, she can denounce the violence that the Collector is doing to it as a result.

I think Witches before Wizards being such a parallel to For the Future that this latest episode ends up reminding us of such an early episode speaks to another one of the central themes of The Owl House: escapism.

The Owl House seems to have a great grasp of nuance when it comes to escapism. It simultaneously acknowledges exactly why someone like Luz might feel the need to elope to a fantasy realm where they may feel more understood, not shying away with themes of bullying, neurodivergence, and just in general any sort of alienation that can lead to seeking refuge in fantasy, while also reminding us that shutting yourself off from the world too much and refusing to deal with your emotions can be dangerous.

This is where Luz Noceda comes full circle, from a naive young girl whose dream of being a witch just like the pretty and powerful one from the books she reads guides her every action, to a now responsible and caring heroic figure who fights not just for her dream, but for the people of the Isles that she has grown to love to be able to live in peace, free from a controlling force attempting to overwrite their identities.

And it is also where our Collector's circle is about to begin. Collector, too, is enacting a form of escapism, not just through the Owl House game itself as it involves pretending they are the hero of the Isles along with King always by their side, not even just through the fact they are overwriting the identity of the Isles and its people...

But also they're pretending everything is fine, denying their own trauma. Let me explain.

So, some people have already caught onto this, but I'll just echo their sentiment: hey, isn't it really fucking weird that Collector seems to be so put off by their people's history, and also knows all of it pretty well, yet they still have King read that lore book to them before going to bed?

Well, let's analyze again what parts of the book Collector does want read and what parts he doesn't, and how does that line up with what we know of his backstory.

"Collectors live long, we watch things pass. To preserve, to observe, we must amass. What flies, what swims, be it predator, or prey, seal them up so they may never fade."

I think it's safe to say our Collector knows very well what this is and isn't too bothered by it. His eyes gets small and tired as he watches King read this, indicating he is comfortable enough hearing this part to fall asleep to it.

However, when it comes to this part...

"But should they meddle in our affairs, we’ll clean the planet and scorch the air."

That is precisely when our Collector gets incredibly upset, as if he is actively dreading hearing this be said out loud, and he begs King to skip over it.

This lines up a lot with his backstory and also his overall more explicit behavior in the episode. We know he wanted to befriend the titans rather than hurt them, and was likely upset when the other collectors killed off the last of his new friends. Many people have pointed out how upset Collector's expression gets when spying on King and hearing him and Lilith mention how the collectors wiped out all the titans.

And if you look at the edit that he made, claiming he fixed it...

"But playing is more fun, make friends instead, the others stink, boo!"

Hey, doesn't it seem like Collector is trying to make himself live out a fantasy in which he denies his past of having witnessed his species destroying the titans?

To Collector, the sweetest lullaby is one where the collectors learned to not trap everything on instinct and kill what doesn't agree, but instead, came to befriend the beings of this realm, and played with them in peace. One where he did not receive a horribly unjust punishment of fate for even trying to approach the titans and deny his own nature, but rather, where his best friend is a baby titan who reads bedtime stories to him.

All is well, echoes in his mind. All is well, so there's no need to think about what happened now.

Of course, I don't want to deny there is a possible counter argument to this. After all, if Collector is trying to escape his past, then why are there still pictures of the collectors vs. titans war hanging around the halls of the Archive House?

And to that, I can only guess that maybe this structure is not something he built entirely of his own conscious accord but is rather largely reminiscent of him trying to faithfully imitate what the original archives and structures collectors may have kept back in the day.

It does somewhat make sense: there are a ton of books being kept in the archives if you look at some of the backgrounds, and some of them even have further upsetting information. So I don't think Collector curated specifically every form of content in the archives, and it's possible he put those murals up due to a feeling of obligation, his collector instinct kicks in and tells him he has to catalogue his adventures up til then.

It's also worth noting that if we go with the second timeline suggestion, the one from Andy's post, it abruptly stopping when Collector meets the baby titans makes a ton of sense: he doesn't want to catalogue what happened after he met the baby titans, even though we all know that it didn't last.

Whatever the case, this form of radical escapism, one that denies even real life happenings to try and further close yourself off from allowing yourself to really feel any negative emotion, is something that is clearly unhealthy and has been called out before multiple times in the show, specially when it comes to Luz.

Dana has said in an interview that Season 3 would deal with themes of grief and how it affects our lives, and I can definitely see that with Luz and how she and Camila still process their grief over Manny, Luz's dad. Hence another parallel between Collector and Luz. Once upon a time, Luz, too, was using escapism as a way to cope with her father's death.

The Good Witch Azura was the last thing Luz's dad ever gifted to her. As such, it informed much of how she coped after his death, becoming an incredibly important comfort item that she treasured very much. Once again, this book very well represents the themes of balance in escapism: no one can argue that receiving the book wasn't incredibly important in helping Luz heal and cope well with her father's death, but eventually she also started having trouble realizing how her way of expressing herself might affect others and even having anyone to socialize with.

And listen, I know we all agree sending Luz to Summer Camp was kind of a bad idea on Camila's part that definitely scared Luz away, but we cannot ignore the motivation to want Luz to better herself was there. Because I want to talk about the fact that Demon Realm was Luz's Reality Check Summer Camp.

There is where she learned that even a fantasy where she could learn real magic and unlock her true potential world would not accommodate to her expectations, and that she would still have to work hard if she wanted to meet her goal. Not only that, but several episodes also focused on Luz learning emotional intelligence and responsibility.

We even had one episode that was exactly about trying to distract yourself from grief with games to the point you put people around you at risk! Reaching Out was literally about that! Do you understand! Do you see how Luz is literally just like Collector but older and given a proper system of support and not overpowered!

And yes, Collector is grieving. Just because the titans were not their actual family, doesn't mean they didn't care about them deeply, and so of course their deaths would affect them in a similar way.

Once again, we return to Dana's words about how the Isles encapsulates life, death and rejuvenation. Death is part of that. It must be accepted as a fact. And Collector's magic, once again, is one of keeping everything in plastic, factory made stasis. Denying this nature. Therefore, denying grief.

If the Collector is to grow as a character sufficiently to join our heroes, they will need to stop denying the past and covering it all up with sparkles and glitter and filling their time with only playing, and admit they are sad, they are grieving, and that they know horrible things were done to the Isles in their people's name. And that, even if they mean well, they are still continuing part of that when they mess with the Isles. Is this what the titans would have wanted?

And hey, who better to realize their need and call them out on it than Miss "Local troublemaker, nerdy bookworm, Azura fangirl, fanfiction writer, experienced grief-dodger" Luz Noceda?