I think it’s neat that Lunella has a chipped tooth and it’s just part of her character design and it’s consistently drawn in the same spot and all
It’s minor and inconsequential and that’s what I like about it!! People can have little flaws in their appearance and that’s natural and fine, it’s fun to see a character be allowed to have an ‘imperfect’ smile with it never being associated with anything negative (especially when there’s a present idea in parts of the world that everyone’s smile needs to be uniform and perfect with things like braces)
It just makes me so happy from a character design standpoint to see a common attribute real people have that might not be considered perfection on such a great character in a way that is never drawn attention to! It’s so inconsequential but it’s part of her design and you can’t remove that! There it is! Without it it somehow wouldn’t be Her yknow?? Give me more characters with minor imperfections that give them so much charm and character and realism please
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Okay, I genuinely never noticed this, I think because it kinda blends in with the background, but there's one detail in this painting that makes so much of the Wittebanes' backstory make sense.
Caleb is holding a pitchfork here. It's pointed down at the ground, so clearly he's not trying to intimidate this witch with it, but he is still holding it in his hand, just as Philip in the background is holding his mask.
The only other time we've seen pitchforks in these paintings is in the hands of the witchhunter mob. This encounter with the witch happened during a witch hunt.
So picture this: Philip and Caleb grow up idolizing the witch hunters, and finally, they're old enough to go on a hunt themselves. They get separated along the way somewhere, and Caleb ends up finding the witch on his own.
And he's curious. This witch doesn't seem dangerous, they're showing him how their magic works, and while he's still wary, he wants to know more. With the popular fandom headcanon that Caleb is a mirror for Luz (in that he never fit in with his peers, had interests that were deemed disruptive and dangerous, and fantasized about escaping his hometown and living out some fantasy adventure), this only adds weight to his decision not to attack or run. This witch is Caleb's ticket out of here, but if he's gonna leave, he's gotta leave now, because the mob is on its way and will kill the witch if they find them.
Philip sees this (or at least, part of this), but is scared to approach. So he hides, watches as his brother is lured into the portal, and by the time he musters up the courage to intervene, they're already gone.
And Philip tries to find a way to save his brother for YEARS. The version of him we see in the next painting is clearly a young adult, while in the top painting, he's a teenager. It took him THAT long to find a way of getting to the Boiling Isles, and even longer to find Caleb once he was actually there.
Is it any wonder Philip became SO radicalized? For YEARS, he thought what he'd seen was his brother, who he clearly adored, being ABDUCTED by the exact type of monster he was taught to fear, while he watched and did nothing. That mix of fear and anger and GUILT he must have felt, which he channeled solely into hating witches even more, and trying to save his bro.
The years between the moment he last saw Caleb and the moment he found him again gave his memories and opinions time to warp. The memories of Caleb became steeped in nostalgia, with Philip forgetting Caleb's flaws and playing up his good qualities. He blames the witches for his brother's disappearance, because if he can't do that, he'd have to blame himself for not intervening.
And then he finds Caleb, and learns that Caleb went on his own accord. That he's nothing like the Caleb from his (now warped and idealized) memories, that he married the witch that took him away from Philip, and Philip is so unable to cope with that reality that he just... murders his brother. Cause that's not his brother anymore, he's been too brainwashed, and it'd be a mercy to put him out of his misery at this point.
The blame for Caleb's death goes to the witches, and to Caleb himself. Philip stays, he finds the Collector, he becomes Belos, all to avenge the brother he himself murdered. He creates the Grimwalkers and kills them when they "betray" him, either by not being on board with genocide, or not being enough like Caleb, or being too much like Caleb.
Being shown the memories of what he did to Caleb by Gus brought it all back to the forefront. As long as he doesn't think about it too hard, he can blame everyone else for his brother's death, but in the end, it's nobody's fault but his own. Gus showing him the memory of the day he put a knife in his brother's heart was a very harsh reminder of that fact.
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