Belos' Fatal Flaw | A Character Study

Tragic heroes are carefully written to heed warnings not to follow in the

character

's footsteps. They have a tragic defect that will inevitably rip everything from them until they are left with nothing. Belos is one of the scariest, if not the scariest, villains I've ever come across. He is calculating, wise, intelligent and manipulative, allowing him to shape the world into his world. The people are his people. His enemies are his enemies. The fights against him are his fights. Error or not, he will enter into his plans just as he wanted. To defeat someone with such a powerful iron fist over an entire society, there must be something catastrophic that results in his downfall.

Achilles would have been unstoppable, but we all knew from the beginning that his heel would end up causing his demise. To understand a

character

's

fatal

flaw

, we must first understand it in all the complexity of it. From both a psychological and literary perspective. Despite being the main antagonist of the show, Belos does not appear on screen until the penultimate episode of season 1. Before his first appearance, his presence is constant. He is everywhere and in everything. He looms over the Boiling Isles with a completely devout regime. His influence is tied to everyone, developing an intimidating villain who evokes feelings of unease without having to establish such a reputation through his own actions as a character.

Season 1 has a slow start to its plot, with each episode slowly giving more and more information about the world of the Boiling Isles. During this time, we slowly gathered more pieces about the Emperor's Coven and the coven systems Belos has created. Belos uses his charisma to his advantage by manipulating the people he encounters. He has such influence over the people of the Boiling Isles that his presence is not even necessary to control the actions of others. His reign over the islands has only lasted 50 years, but his theocracy has completely changed the way society is structured, from the legal system to personal life.

The manipulation of the Boiling Isles began when he traveled from city to city preaching the dangers of the Wild Witches. He claims that the Titan speaks through him and believes that the wild witches are using the Titan's gift in vain. The correct way to harness magic is to separate it into nine covens using sigils, which are supposed to protect the individual and make the Titan happy. Over time, he gains devout followers of this religion who believe in separating magical clues and preach the fear of wild witches. Wild witches are ostracized, shamed, imprisoned, and executed for not limiting the use of their magic.

Only through several rigorous life-and-death tests will the Titan deem you worthy of harnessing all magic and grant you the privilege of joining the Emperor's Coven under the rule of Belos. Once you join the Emperor's Coven, you will almost certainly lose contact with your family and friends to enforce the Titan's will as a Coven Scout. You practically give up your life to dedicate yourself to the Emperor and satisfy the titan. The ultimate goal of the Emperor's Coven is to reach paradise during the Day of Unity, where everyone on the Boiling Isles will travel to the head of the Titan to merge with another world free of wild magic.

Respected, loved and feared by his followers, Belos is worshiped as a messiah and recognized as the most powerful witch in the Boiling Isles. In reality, they have been victims of a sect controlled under his control to do his bidding. Make the world in his image, not the Titan's. A paradise free of wild magic and, for Belos, a world free of any kind of magic. Belos is a character based on realistic fiction in the middle of a fantasy horror genre. His narrative purpose is to rip the fantasy out from under your feet and force you to face the most horrible and vile realities that take place in our world, the human realm.

The Demon Realm isn't real, but at some point, wasn't Philip Wittebane? Here's a quick American history lesson. At the end of the 17th century, of the 13 colonies that were the initial roots of what is now the United States, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Saybrook Colony, the New Haven Colony, and, most importantly, the Colony from Connecticut, were all Puritans. The Puritans were former members of the Church of England, who split spiritually due to disagreements over interpretations of the Bible and its place politically. They wished to purify the Church of England and made the pilgrimage to the overseas colonies to have the religious freedom to do so.

These beliefs would help fuel the motivations that would eventually lead to the American Revolution in the late 18th century, although by the time of the American Revolution, the Puritans would be greatly diminishing in number of followers. Systematically, beliefs in Puritanism are still present today. They and other more traditional conservative Christian groups would generally be made up of the same people who claim that The Owl House encourages sin in children by promoting witchcraft, in non-cishet people, etc. Which is incredibly ironic because of everyone who would need to see this video, it would be those people. The Connecticut colony was Puritan.

Luz lives in Connecticut, which means the portal is in Connecticut, which means Belos lived in Connecticut during the 17th century, when it was an established Puritan colony. If that's not proof enough that he's a Puritan, then this is. The Puritans were excessively paranoid about demonology and witchcraft, believing that the weakest members of their society were vulnerable to being possessed by the devil himself. Anyone suspected of being satanic was accused of being a witch and killed. The Puritans were responsible for many witch hunts that occurred during this period. I'm sure you've heard of the famous Salem Witch Trials, where a town became desperate to cleanse its community of the devil's magic, putting over 200 people on trial and executing 20.

But a lesser known fact, predates the Salem Witch Trials After nearly 30 years, between 1647 and 1663 the Connecticut Witch Trials took place, resulting in 11 executions. In Phillip's diary entries, he states at some point that it is around 1660-1670. An earlier entry mentions "after five years." Using this, we can discover that he has been in the demon realm since at least 1655, potentially and probably longer. Those dates coincide with The Connecticut Witch Trials. I refuse to believe that wasn't intentional. Why else would they have chosen Connecticut as the base for any US state? Who the fuck lives in Connecticut? Why are you there?

Who are you?! So here are the facts. Belos is a Puritan raised in a time when witchcraft was literally persecuted. His desire is to become a witch hunter and he wants to be recognized for his efforts. He claims to be saving humanity from evil. Witches were believed to be the devil in disguise, and I'm sure I don't have to explain that the devil would be the basis of sin for a Puritan and therefore the purest form of evil imaginable. Hence he wants to eliminate them to save humanity. I hope none of that is particularly groundbreaking information.

For someone to be manipulative, they have to have learned it from somewhere. Belos did not come into the world simply twisting his words to get exactly what he wanted. He had to learn that pattern of behavior from someone or something around him. While we don't have much information about Belos's past, it is not very difficult to decipher it with proper historical knowledge. Of course, keep in mind that this is completely speculation, so I'm going to keep this as vague as possible while still getting the message across. Puritanism is a sect. It is a religion that thrives on oppressive authority over its followers.

Beliefs are imposed on their subjects through manipulation and fear. Compliance is expected, as deviance will make you seem like an unwanted stranger and, at worst, could lead to physical abuse or execution. Outsiders were not tolerated. They wanted religious freedom, but only for themselves. Anyone who did not adhere to the beliefs would be condemned in the eyes of God. The Puritans were especially strict with many religiously motivated superstitions, as were many other Christian religions during colonial times. The Puritans were primarily concerned with magic that would oppose God, especially witchcraft. The period in which Belos grew up was also undoubtedly when the Puritans were most radical.

The panic that arose from witch paranoia cultivated extreme reactions, resulting in multiple witch trials, the most gruesome being the Salem Witch Trials. Not to mention that he lived in the human realm during the same time period as the Connecticut Witch Trials. This means that Belos grew up in a very paranoid Puritan society when it was at its most oppressive. The children, who are in their most formative years, would be greatly influenced by this environment, causing them to develop quite radical views. Just like Belos did. Children were not allowed to play unless they had permission from their parents.

They were raised with strict rules and to unfreely obey their own will. They were taught to never publicly express their emotions, even the good ones. At some point, a victim of abuse chooses to end the cycle or become an abuser themselves. I think it's pretty obvious which path Belos took. Religious trauma is a recurring theme in The Owl House. It's explored through Lillith, Hunter, Steve, and Kikimora, although discussing it would be a completely separate video in itself. It is not by mistake or coincidence that the character of Belos is the one who imposes such an oppressive religious cult.

Irony seems to plague Belos' character, as it is ironic that she Belos chooses to maliciously control the Boiling Isles through religious means without ever having the awareness to understand that she has cultivated the same environment in which she grew up. Belos genuinely believes she is a good guy with pure intentions. He sees himself as the hero of the story. A man who took the noblest act of sacrificing his own humanity to save others. He is tragically ironic. He hopes to cleanse the world of the sin that torments humanity by drawing it out from within. He will do everything in his power to stop evil, including altering the dark forces of magic himself, prolonging his life centuries beyond his lifespan, and sacrificing his life as it was to purge the world of all that exists. is. impious.

These motivations make a lot of sense with his character. He was raised as a Puritan, known for his witch trials and his obsessions with cleansing humanity of the devil's influence. Growing up in a time so obsessed with witches, he sets his life's goal of eradicating the devil in disguise to purify humanity. If he had finished Unity Day in the 17th century, he would have been a hero. He couldn't have imagined that society would have advanced beyond witch hunts when that was how he was raised to live and how society was structured around him. That doesn't make it redeemable or any less horrible, but it certainly adds layers.

Scary and realistic layers. However, a motivation as static as this would completely ruin the integrity of Belos' character. He would be very anticlimactic and, frankly, very boring as a villain. His character is more nuanced than that of a witch hunter thanks to a single part of his story that makes him a dynamic villain. The shadow walkers. The most influential moment in the history of the Boiling Isles was a knife fight between two Puritan white guys 350 years ago that no one even knows about! And when I say influential, I mean this moment completely haunts the show from the beginning.

Belos looms over all with great power and malice, but Caleb haunts the Boiling Isles, and if you look for him, traces of him are found everywhere. In Season 2, Episode 9, "Eclipse Lake," the episode begins with a shot of a book open to a page about something called a "grimwalker." At the time of the episode's airing, this was a completely foreign concept to viewers. A shadow walker seemed to be creating sentient life by taking powerful objects. The ingredients used to create a grimwalker consist of galder stone, palistrom wood, selkidomus scales, and an ortet bone. Malicious intent is almost guaranteed when creating a grimwalker, as galderstones are protected due to their immense power, selkidomus are peaceful creatures and obtaining scales requires killing them, and an ortet bone involves stealing from a corpse.

Fans quickly came to the conclusion that it must be some form of dark magic frowned upon in the Boiling Isles, or perhaps long forgotten in history. "Ortet" is a term used to describe a form of asexual reproduction in certain plants. It is the original plant from which the clones descend. Therefore, it was quite easy to discover that “The Bone of Ortet” had something to do with cloning. And then, there are the magenta eyes on the page, which match the eyes of a singlecharacter in the entire series: Hunter. It is with this single frame that fans were able to piece together the outcome of what we would soon discover was a gruesome story.

A story that at the time we had no idea would have led to the discovery of the most influential moment in the entire history of the Boiling Isles. All we knew was that Hunter was somehow a clone. But from who? And because? In season 2, episode 10, "Yesterday's Lie," this theory becomes more complicated and leaves more questions than answers. We see a statue in the town of Gravesfield with two anonymous humans. One looks like Phillip Wittebane and the other looks an awful lot like Hunter. At Eclipse Lake, a drawing from Phillip's diary also resembles the other statue. At this point in the series, the theory that Philip and Belos were the same person was also beginning to take off, but had not been confirmed.

This episode also has a newspaper clipping with a story that appears twice. A story of two brothers who were lured by a witch and were never seen again. And according to the rules of storytelling, if it's mentioned more than once, it probably has some meaning. In this newspaper clipping, one of the humans was drawn with a cardinal-like bird on his shoulder, starting the theory that Flapjack used to belong to this mysterious man. In Season 2, Episode 12, "Another Place and Another Time," we get confirmation that Phillip Wittebane is, in fact, the same person as Belos, as we see him taking Palsiman souls just as Belos does.

In the cave he appears to live in, there are more diagrams and interesting background details that relate to the Grimwalkers. We see multiple graphics fixed with the same drawing of eyes as before and several bones of a body. In episode 13 of season 2, we see the Seal of the Golden Guard for the first time, which turns out to be the exact same symbol as Gravesfield. And when he needs a cover name, Flapjack suggests the name "Caleb." Hunter: Uh... Hunter: Caleb? Caleb! Skulltrot: name that was popularized in the 17th century by the Puritans of the American colonies. Therefore, this is the conclusion that the theorists wove together.

Hunter is a clone of the person depicted in Phillip's diary and the Gravesfield statue. This unnamed individual is presumably Phillip's brother and they both somehow became trapped in the demon realm, as told in the old story. This man was probably named Caleb and had Flapjack as a palisman. He somehow died and, for some reason, Belos has gone out of his way to clone him. Hunter was the result. Or well, Hunter was one of the results, as we discovered in season 2, episode 16, "Hollow Mind." Hunter was the last of dozens of other Grimwalkers to be killed by Belos.

He had been cloned in an attempt to create “a better version of an old friend” Belos: ...a better version of an old friend. Skulltrot: And he was to be discarded when he inevitably decided to betray Belos, just as every Grimwalker before Hunter had done. And if you had paid attention to the backgrounds in this episode, you would have noticed that the different paintings tell another story. A story that finally tied everything together...sort of. A man, who appears virtually identical to Hunter with only a few minor inaccuracies, is illustrated growing up with Belos in paintings throughout his mental landscape.

They seem to play together, have hunted witches together, and more. They end up stumbling upon a witch and arriving at the boiling islands. The details between this and the following moments depicted are practically non-existent, however, the story that unfolds is clear. Belos' supposed brother meets a witch, makes a living in the Boiling Isles, and settles down. In the following paintings, Belos is shown killing his brother with a knife. In season 2 episode 21, Belos sees Flapjack, causing him to have a fit of rage as he yells the name "Caleb". Belos: Caleb! Skulltrot: Which brings us to now. Philip and Caleb Wittebane, two men who grew up in the Puritan colony of Connecticut sometime in the 17th century and were raised by witch hunters, find themselves in the realm of demons.

At some point, Caleb realizes that the witches are not evil, he abandons the Puritan teachings with which he was raised and begins a new life in the world he was taught to despise. Philip, never one to abandon his Puritan beliefs, watches as his older brother goes from standing by his side to abandoning his cause to join forces with the devil. He kills his brother for committing the heinous sin and repeatedly clones and kills the doubles. Without his presumed older brother, it is very easy to reduce Belos to a product of his time. The fact that he was simply someone who grew up taught an initial bias and grew up to serve the world in service of his bias.

That he was only evil because that's how he was back then. Do you see how that mentality regarding Belos's character takes away from how complex he is and, frankly, how terrifying he is? It completely destroys how real his character feels and would instead turn him into one of those flat villains with little nuance like the ones he had described before. He just a mean old white puritan, ohh, scary. Look, the thing is, it's horrible because Caleb exists, and no, not because he murdered him. Although fratricide is definitely one of the most horrendous ways to follow the path to villainy.

Caleb grew up in the same society as Phillip. Caleb was presumably a witch hunter just like Belos. He would even say that the Hollow Mind paintings hint that he encouraged Belos' prejudices about witch hunts. However, Caleb did one thing that Belos did not do. He learned, changed and became a better person. It's proof that it wasn't just being a product of his times that made Phillip Wittebane Emperor Belos. He even supplies the narrative with the message that history was screwed because of it, and that even if it were normalized, those prejudices were not acceptable. It's not like he was lucky to be able to see past it because anyone can.

Again, anyone can do that. Even during that period, change was possible. Caleb decided to see beyond the bigotry he grew up with and become a better person despite it. Belos did not do it. When the time came, Belos decided to murder his brother and create clones of him over and over again. And each time that shadow walker would choose to change the mold that Belos had designed and be better. Each time this was wrong and Belos had no choice but to eradicate them. He goes across the world and meets these witches who live their lives in peace.

He finds his brother happy with him and is so blinded by prejudice that he doesn't really see any of it. He is blinded not because he is a product of his time but by choice. He chooses to be loyal to the ideals he was taught without ever questioning them. He is right and they are wrong. Stuck in black and white thinking about nothing more and nothing less. Therefore, at the end of the day, his brother is a fool, perhaps brainwashed or possessed. If he is happy, he is disgusting and must be conversing with the devil. One could even theorize that he fornicated with a witch.

Or maybe they were married, either way Belos was angry that he had broken the pre-hoe brother code. I think that's where the real terror of Belos comes from. Not murder, not genocide, not his humanity that slowly crumbles as he lives longer and longer than he is naturally supposed to live. Isn't it so scary that we can get so caught up in our prejudices that we can become the worst versions of ourselves? That this is not fiction? That this has happened throughout history? What still happens to this day? Belos did not change and in a disturbing self-righteous act he ends up killing his own brother, which is the point of no return for him.

It is a testament to how ignorance could be the greatest sin of all. And it's none of that without Caleb Wittebane showing that Belos could have been a very, very different man if he had made the decision to have an open mind. When asked what a Grimwalker is, Belos replies, "He's a better version of an old friend." Belos: He's a better version of an old friend. But that doesn't really explain anything. Honestly, this makes things a lot more confusing. So, he created the Grimwalkers to be a better version of Caleb. In his eyes, a better version of his brother is someone who blindly obeys him and is relentlessly loyal to his witch-hunting escapades.

But why? If you really think about it, this is an outlier of his motivations mentioned above. It doesn't really contribute to them at all other than giving him a lackey to aid him in his conquest of the Boiling Isles. That's something he can do without cloning the man he murdered. It's very clearly something he can do without a Golden Guard because he regularly manipulates people into doing his bidding and eventually mansplains, mani- and ev- and finally mansplains, manipulates and unintentionally murders his way into becoming Emperor of the Boiling Isles. He literally builds an entire army. He doesn't need the Grimmwalkers, especially once he's Emperor.

In reality, they represent more of a risk to him, since none of them have remained loyal. The only reason he believes them is

flaw

ed because at some point they all betray him. And Belos is not stupid! He is incredibly smart. His knowledge of the Demon Realm is more complex than that of any other witch or demon and his emotional intelligence gives him power over all others. He plays his cards carefully and is able to include things in his plans even if they don't go as he expected. The only reason Unity Day failed is because he literally couldn't have explained that a single titan was somehow alive and in the right place to free the Collector and stop the drain spell.

Luz outsmarting him and marking him with a seal wasn't even enough to thwart his plans! It took a described "Star Child" with literal divine powers to stop him. So why does he keep creating the Grimwalkers? He doesn't need them and is smart enough to know that there is a potential risk with them that could, at the very least, be a setback to his plans. Something I've always said is that the most revealing thing about a character is what makes them act out of character. What makes the calm character lose his temper, what the intrepid character cowers in fear, and what the selfless hero takes for himself.

These moments expose a character's greatest vulnerability. It is something they value above everything, even his ideals. The Grimwalkers expose a vulnerability in Belos' psyche that would otherwise go unnoticed. And for the life of me I can't find a concise reason why. Each explanation completely tears away the foundation of where Belos's sole self-imposed reason for existence lies. Is it because deep down he misses his brother? Is it because he seeks revenge? Is his brother so upset for supposedly abandoning him that he enjoys murdering a doppelganger over and over and over again? Can't he see himself continuing with his witch-hunting plans without his brother working as his right-hand woman at his side?

He regrets killing his brother, but he can't stand it, so he kills him again and again to prove that he was right? Does he really want one of the Grimwalkers to succeed and never leave his side so he can get his brother back like he wanted while he was alive? The answer is yes and probably no to each and every one of them because they are all probable and the emotions are confusing and complicated and do not make any logical sense. But that made me realize that, of course, it doesn't make sense. There's nothing logical about him making the Grimwalkers.

He is completely irrational and motivated by his emotions. The character of Belos is oppression personified. His beliefs that arise from his Puritan background are the same beliefs that have consistently shaped much of fanaticism in America. That his

fatal

flaw is something that literally destroys all of his motivation and renders her meaningless is appropriate for the context. Intolerance of any kind imposes a belief that can only stand on its own because when external sources are attributed to it, all its foundations crumble. Being gay is not natural until science proves it is, then the argument for homophobes becomes misinterpreted or religiously charged statistics because his point of view cannot be supported by facts.

Women are not equal to men until science points out that there is no difference between the sexes other than the different functioning of the genitals and certain hormones. Hormones that are not consistently the same between each individual member of the sex and can even be changed medically, so the plot is fueled by stories of social constructs, something uniquely manufactured by individual cultures. Racism is literally just a social stigma because we are all humans and the exact same species, no science supports the existence of racism from a biological standpoint. All of these forms of intolerance have arguments isolated from real facts, using flimsy arguments generally supported by constructions created by humanity, not by nature, because it is impossible to prove that they are correct when there is no evidence to support it.

The character ofBelos is entirely motivated by intolerance. This becomes very obvious in the context of the witches, as he plans to commit genocide against this entire group of people. However, to fully understand this it is necessary to look at the nuances of the story and what kind of message the writers are trying to convey in a meta sense. The Boiling Isles are supposed to more or less represent hell, at least in the eyes of 17th century Puritans. That's where witches come from, who for Puritans are the devil in disguise. The human kingdom is shown to be just as it is in real life.

It can be assumed that all discrimination exists in The Owl House universe. The Demon Realm has almost all of these things normalized. LGBT people, equality between people of color, and women seemingly treated equally even during the Deadwardian Era. It seems that most, if not all, of the discrimination that existed in The Human Kingdom is a foreign concept in the Boiling Isles. Historically, Belos would likely be racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and misogynistic, just to name a few. The Boiling Isles are what he sees as a representation of all evil. Things that are different from the puritan society in which he lived.

Ramble long and short. Belos is an intolerant and that is proven historically. Belos' love for his brother? Her desire for him to have his brother in his life? It exposes that bigotry tenfold and reflecting on it in any capacity begins to completely dismantle everything Belos has stood for. Killing his brother and cloning him is the memory that causes the most distress because I don't even think Belos really understands why he is creating the Grimwalkers. Anyway, he doesn't fully understand why. He knows what the reason is, he tells himself. Everything he tells himself is what he believes with all his heart, the reason for being and what he acts on, but the analysis of a character should never be done verbatim.

We have seen that he lies to himself as a defense mechanism. In Hollow Mind, he has a lot of lies that he tells others, but that's not something he would consciously create to thwart potential spies from seeing into his mind. There's nothing in the show to indicate that something like this is possible, just that strong emotions can manifest. Strong emotions such as lies, delusions or anguish, perhaps separated souls, as well as the palisman. It seems that the structure of the mental landscape is a completely unconscious process. He hates witches and wants to eradicate them. In doing so, he learns to live as one of them and becomes one of the most powerful witches in the Boiling Isles.

Witchcraft is the devil's magic, but he uses it not only to harm witches, but also to selfishly clone his brother over and over again. Whether to satisfy revenge or not, it doesn't matter. He wants to save humanity, but his idea of ​​saving humanity has completely taken away his own and turned him into a monster. He is also clearly aware of this discrepancy in his logic. He'll never admit it, but mentioning it makes him angry. Collector: You've gotten so used to eating palisman that you can barely maintain your human form anymore! Skulltrot: When Luz calls him a hypocrite, he deflects the topic.

Luz: You are a hypocrite. You talk a lot about protecting humanity, but after everything you've done, you're barely human. Belos: I pity you. Skulltrot: He can't explain his prejudice beyond "witches are evil because my religion's interpretation of the Bible says so." He cannot support that prejudice in any other way unless he presents himself and others as victims of the devil's attack. Belos: These monsters have warped your sense of reality. Skulltrot: He is so immersed in his own delusion that he dares not look at anything around him without his insubstantial partiality. To make matters worse, he will never be able to let you know this.

He reached his point of no return the moment he stuck that knife into his brother. If he ever realizes how wrong he is, he would have to face the reality that he murdered his beloved brother out of harmful aspiration. I didn't just recite an entire Bible verse for no reason. The story of Cain and Abel from the Book of Genesis, a story from the Geneva Bible that the Puritans studied, is a lesson in the dangers of sin. It is to show that giving in to sin can have disastrous consequences. Cain was jealous of his brother because his offering was accepted where his was not.

He murders his brother in a fit of rage and when confronted, he rhetorically asks the lord, "Am I my brother's keeper?" In a story with as much religious undertone as The Owl House, I sincerely doubt that the parallel between Cain and Belos was unintentional. We don't actually know what happened between Caleb and Philip. We know enough to understand that Caleb broke away from Puritan teachings and found himself enjoying his time in the Boiling Isles, but we don't know how Belos perceived his brother's decision to make a life for himself in the Kingdom. Demons. We know he murdered him for it, but we don't know Belos' feelings toward the event.

We don't know what they said to each other, how the tension between them increased, or why Belos moved on. We aren't shown any of that because we don't need it to solve it. As any character would, Belos establishes a pattern of behavior through his actions. His worst memory is killing his brother, but when he sees the palisman his brother once owned as hers, he is caught in a blinding rage and angrily shouts Caleb's name. Belos: Caleb! This tells us that he would not hesitate to kill the original Caleb again, even though it would cause him distress.

With the Grimwalkers, he obviously sees his inevitable rebellion as a betrayal. And while, yes, they are tools that Belos creates to be disposable pawns, they are still created in the image of his brother. He kills them with no visible remorse and even he seems to enjoy it. A twisted part of him was glad to see his brother die at his hands. Whatever his true feelings are, this reveals that somewhere there is resentment toward his brother. A form of pain caused by his betrayal of his religion and a feeling of superiority as she considers herself worthy of the privilege of punishing him as she sees fit.

Luz is the first human Belos has interacted with in hundreds of years. He doesn't feel the same contempt for her that he feels for witches and demons. What he tells her really allows him to understand her character. But if you think about it, it actually reveals a lot of information about his disagreement with Caleb and also his conflicting views. Belos: Please, I don't want to see another human life destroyed in this place. I pity you. These monsters have warped your sense of reality. Maybe it would be merciful to put you out of your misery. Light: Ah!

Wait! Belos: We don't belong here! Luz: I'm not like you! He doesn't want to see another human life destroyed in this place. That line is obviously referring to Caleb, the only other human being who is shown to have been "ruined" by the Boiling Isles in the eyes of Belos. It was said that witches seduced men and led them to sin. What Belos tells Luz coincides with that. He believes that they have distorted her sense of reality and that it would be merciful to kill her. And they, as humans, don't belong there. Both of them shouldn't be there.

I think Belos killed Caleb because he believed he had been brainwashed by witches and that it would be merciful to kill him. Most likely they resented him for being a victim of the same thing they were taught to hunt all their lives. Perhaps even resentful of being abandoned by the devil for someone he clearly cares about, since even if Caleb still loved him, he made the impossible choice to side with evil. More importantly, he believes that he has the authority to decide on his own to put Caleb and Luz out of their supposed misery. Throughout all of his interactions, it's hard not to notice how he treats the people around him.

Of course, seeing witches and demons as a vile sin would lead him to treat them as if they were inferior to him. He believes that he is integrally more righteous and holy than them and will treat them as nothing more than the dirt under his shoe. Naturally, he manipulates them to bend them to his will. This pattern is increasingly obvious when he talks to Luz, another human. After all, she is the demographic he is trying to save from the Boiling Isles. Luz is completely helpless against Belos. He could kill her very easily. He almost killed her.

She poses no real threat to him, even managing to outsmart him isn't enough to stop him. Once again, Belos would have succeeded with Unity Day if it hadn't been for the Collector being freed by a Titan he didn't know existed. So when he tells Luz to walk her through the portal, that he wants her to return to her kingdom, it's not hard to believe he's being genuine. He has nothing left to gain, no plans to hatch, no witches to exterminate. As far as he's concerned, he's already won. However, the way he speaks to her is full of superiority.

He thinks he knows better than her, that he is the hero in this situation, that he is the beacon of morality. There is a clear pattern of behavior. Belos wants to be a hero. Belos wants to be recognized and rewarded for his achievements. He treats everyone as if they were minors to him. He cannot recognize when he is wrong nor see the error in his ways. He believes that he is always right, so how could anyone else know better than him or be treated as equal to him? Even his older brother is beneath him. Belos has a god complex.

Contrary to what it seems, a god complex is not believing that you have the powers of a god, it is simply acting as if you are better than those around you due to an inflated ego and infallibility. It's similar to a superiority complex, but without the masked insecurity underneath. His feelings of superiority over others lead him to have no remorse for his actions. He doesn't feel guilty, or at least he doesn't admit to feeling any guilt. This literally causes him to not only attempt mass genocide, but to become a serial killer by definition. And to top it off, if he expected one of the Grimmwalkers to succeed, then he would be doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

He is crazy. Cain murders his brother Abel because he believed she deserved better and was above him. God gives him a lifelong punishment for having such a misplaced ego. Belos' hidden motivation, his fatal flaw, is his pride. He was so obsessed with eradicating the world of sin that he ended up committing one himself. I can summarize the entire character of Belos with a two-word literary device; A good case of tragic irony. Tragic irony is a type of dramatic irony in which the audience, and in some cases other people within the story, are aware of something that the character is not.

The only distinction between tragic irony and dramatic irony is that it results in tragedy. A dramatic irony would be if we found out that Belos and Phillip are the same person before Luz. It's not inherently tragic in any way, it just serves to add tension to the story. The tragic irony, on the other hand, is that the audience understands that Belos's views are incredibly outdated and that his heroic cause is worthless because, as Luz says, no one is going to take him seriously. Of course, if The Owl House were written with Belos as the protagonist, his story would structurally follow that of a tragic hero.

Someone who sets out to perform a brave task to help his people, only to end in defeat. Tragic heroes have three main characteristics. First there is Hamartia; The hero's fatal flaw. Second is Peripeteia; a reversal of circumstances due to the hero's poor judgment. And third, the arrogance, the excessive pride of the character, which is often considered his true enemy in the story. Tragic heroes must be understanding. And while Belos throughout the events in The Owl House is anything but sympathetic, if you dig deeper into his character and analyze the information we have been given through historical context, we can discover that he was a devout Puritan.

To say that he is a victim of what is a radical religion is not the least bit sympathetic, it is cruel. It's an incredibly screwed up story and he made all the wrong decisions, but you can see where he started. A boy who was raised to dedicate his life to God, or else he would be ostracized and brutally punished by those he grew up with. Belos's hamartia is his arrogance combined with prejudices that lead him down a dark path without redemption. His adventure is the point of no return for him after killing his brother. Due to his pride, he refuses to see himself as anything other than a hero until he is no longer able to reorient himself toward a path of true heroism after committing such heinous crimes.

I think if Belos has anything left for his personal arc in season 3, it will be his anagnorisis. It is then that the hero becomes aware of the incident. He would realize that the human kingdom has changed beyond his own ideals. Not in a case of redemption, probably not to make him realize the error of his ways, but as a morbid realization to him that no one alive will perceive him as the hero he thinks he is. That he dedicated his life to nothing. That he killed his brother for nothing. Tragic heroes are a warning. Show how someone with good intentions can become trapped in themselves andend up facing a horrendous end or following a terrible path.

It heeds a warning to its audience and is used narratively to invoke a sense of fear. Belos is such a disturbing villain, not only because of his power, manipulation, and violence, but because of something so innately human that he possesses. Belos reminds us that we can become our own monsters. That we can become what we fear. That we can get so caught up in ourselves that we become blind to reality and end up hurting the people we love the most without showing any remorse. We are all capable of this and it has happened time and time again in history.

If we don't take care of ourselves, we can become the tragic hero of our own stories. Our own hamartia. There's a chance that season 3 will put everything I just said to rest, but even if context is given or more information about the Grimwalkers and Caleb is given, which I assume it will be, it doesn't change the fact that Belos is a tragic character. hero and that his story has a lot of tragic irony. So this video shouldn't be completely destroyed by time, but you know, we'll see. Also, I'm starting college soon, so I have no idea how often I'll be able to make videos when that starts happening, but we'll see when we get there.

For now, if you liked it, make sure to subscribe and also comment because I love reading comments. And that's it! I hope you enjoyed the video. Bye bye!