At the end of Season 1 of The Owl House, it is revealed that Lilith, the main overarching antagonist of that season, was the one to curse her sister Eda, one of the protagonists, to win a tournament when they were teenagers. This information causes Eda to fly into a screaming rage and attack Lilith, and understandably so.
Eda’s curse is essentially a chronic illness, one that, in Eda’s own words, has ruined her life, being the reason she’s considered a social outcast and why, before meeting King and Luz, she hadn’t gotten close to anyone in years. In season 2, it’s revealed that the curse is why she pushed away her partner Raine to the point that they broke it off with her, and that during a particularly bad flareup, she accidentally maimed her own father, leaving him half blind and with permanent nerve damage to his hands, making him unable to continue working as a Palisman carver. The curse has ruled Eda’s life for decades now, so to Eda, this is the ultimate betrayal.
In the first episode of Season 2, Lilith has defected from the Emperor’s Coven, split the curse between Eda and herself to mitigate the symptoms for her sister, and has moved in with Eda at the Owl House. While Lilith herself still feels guilty and feels she has to make it up to Eda, everyone else, Eda included, has seemingly either forgiven her or chosen to look past it. Eda even makes fun of her for feeling bad about cursing her, and Lilith’s guilt is seemingly absent for the rest of the series.
The response to this was… Less than stellar, shall we say. A lot of people were angry, saying Lilith got away with her crimes without even a slap on the wrist, and that Eda’s forgiveness of her was far too sudden.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of critique. Amity spent years bullying Willow after her parents forced her to break off their friendship, and when she began trying to mend that relationship, the response from fans was that Willow should have been a lot more angry at Amity, and that they went back to being besties far too soon. I’ve even seen this criticism leveled at Hunter for the things he did while working for Belos, at Vee for impersonating Luz for months to trick her mother, and at Luz for hiding the fact that she helped Philip find the Collector from her friends. And it does seem strange for the show to keep tripping on this same point again and again.
Except, it’s not really. Because I think that, when viewing this show from a different angle, those supposed flaws are actually symptoms of something very important to understand – The Owl House operates on a system of crime and punishment that is very different from our world’s.
More specifically, our world mostly utilizes retributive justice. The world of The Owl House utilizes restorative justice.
So first, what do those terms mean? Broadly, they’re two different forms of handling interpersonal disputes, or dealing with crime.
Retributive justice is the one our current justice system uses, where the focus is primarily on punishing the perpetrator. Retributive justice can mean detention, suspension, expulsion, jail time, monetary fines, some kinds of community service, exile, or in more severe cases, corporal punishment or the death penalty. It’s the lens most people view the world through, where if someone hurts you, hurting them back is the correct response.
Restorative justice is a very different approach, where you instead focus on helping the victim recover from what happened, and rehabilitating the perpetrator to prevent this from happening again. Restorative justice can look like verbal or written apologies, monetary compensation for costs and trauma, therapy for both victim and perpetrator, education for the perpetrator, mediation between victim and perpetrator, a restraining order, etc.
When viewed through a retributive lens, The Owl House lets its characters get away with a lot of shit. Lilith cursing Eda, Hunter rounding up Palismen knowing they’ll be killed, Amity tormenting Willow for years, it’s all stuff that, in a retributive environment, they should be punished for, and they’re just not. Eda is only genuinely angry at Lilith for two scenes, Amity and Willow fix their relationship very quickly once Amity starts making amends, and Hunter isn’t punished at all.
However, I believe the story of The Owl House is best viewed not through a retributive lens, but through a restorative lens.
Let’s look at the Lilith-example again. Lilith’s offense was cursing Eda, which she did because she wanted to win a spot in the Emperor’s Coven. Knowing Eda was better than her, she cast a curse on her, thinking it would only last for a day. But when the time came, Eda forfeited the match, soon after which she transformed into the Owl Beast and was pelted with rocks until she ran. The curse turned out to be very permanent, and Lilith spent the next 20 years trying to fix her mistake by working for Belos to try to capture Eda, since he promised to heal her curse.
However, when she finally succeeded, Belos went back on his promise. Instead of healing Eda, he ordered her to be publicly executed. When Lilith protested, Belos essentially told her to shut up, that it was the Titan’s will, and left her there.
So, having realized her method of fixing her mistake has gone real bad, Lilith sneaks down to the Conformatorium to free Eda herself, but arrives too late and finds Luz instead. After a brief fight they end up teaming up, and Lilith leads Luz to the elevator, but they are captured by Belos and Lilith is thrown into the cage with Eda. There, she restores Eda’s partially petrified body, and after fleeing with her, Luz and King, uses a spell to split Eda’s curse evenly between their two bodies.
From a restorative justice point of view, Lilith has done pretty much everything she reasonably could do to fix things. She’s denounced the Emperor’s Coven, returned Owlbert to Luz, helped Luz find the elevator to the execution platform, saved Eda from petrification, apologized to Eda, and while there’s no way for her to cure Eda’s curse entirely, she took on half of the curse at great expense to her own health, in order to ease Eda’s symptoms.
Eda isn’t angry anymore because in her eyes, Lilith has already fixed things with her. Punishing her more at this point is pointless. What more could Lilith do, really? What other lessons could she learn? The only thing that punishment would bring at this point would be more suffering.
Let’s look at another example: Amity and Willow.
Amity’s offense was breaking off her friendship with Willow because she was a late-bloomer, bullying her for years, and allowing her friends to do so too. Willow is left with horrible self-esteem issues because of this, and combined with her failing grades, turned her into a horribly shy and withdrawn wallflower (no pun intended). After she’s moved to the plant track she starts actually getting better, but Amity and Boscha especially continue to torment her. While Amity’s bullying of Willow does peter out over time, Willow is clearly still extremely resentful of her. In an attempt to make Willow forget their friendship, Amity accidentally sets most of Willow’s memories on fire, leaving her confused, amnesiac, and unable to grasp basic concepts like that chairs are for sitting in.
Luz pushed Amity into fixing Willow’s brain by going into her mind together and piecing her memories back together. There, the Inner Willow revealed what happened to Luz and the audience.
At this point, Amity shows her that her parents were actually the ones who forced her to end the friendship because they didn’t think Willow was a suitably powerful or influential friend, threatening to make sure Willow would never get accepted into Hexside if Amity didn’t force her to leave. Amity then apologizes to Willow for going along with it, and for the bullying, and vows to make sure her friends never mess with Willow again.
Willow accepts her apology, but also makes it clear that, while it’s a start, she’s not yet ready to accept Amity in her life again. Restorative justice has not been fully attained, because to Willow, Amity hasn’t fixed everything – Boscha and her squad are still bullying her, and still consider Amity one of them. This changes two episodes later, when Amity tells Boscha to grow the fuck up when she starts bullying Willow again, and joins her and Luz’s Grudgby team despite her personal issues to get Boscha to back off. Willow doesn’t make a grand gesture of forgiveness in this episode, but it is after this point where the two become comfortable around eachother again.
Did Willow forgive Amity too quickly for years of trauma? Maybe. If she had chosen to continue keeping Amity at a distance I certainly wouldn’t have blamed her. But in the end, Amity fixed the mess she caused as best she could, and has proven herself to want to be a better person, to want to be Willow’s friend again. She worked hard to prove herself to be a person worth trusting, and Willow decided to give that trust a chance again.
And while they did become friends again, that friendship was clearly still affected by what happened, which led to bumps that the two of them had to work through. Like in Labyrinth Runners, where Amity’s overprotectiveness over Willow makes Willow feel like Amity thinks she’s incompetent, and still only sees her as the helpless person she used to be.
Willow continuing to be mad at Amity and punishing her for what she did wouldn’t be an unreasonable reaction, but it wouldn’t have fixed anything. It would certainly have an impact on Amity, seeing her former best friend rejecting her attempts to make up for what she did, but the hurt on both sides would have continued festering, because deep down, Willow missed Amity too.
In Hunter’s case, there’s the question of whether he can even be held responsible for his actions. The Palisman-kidnapping in specific was explicitly done under duress – if he failed he would face verbal and physical abuse, and be threatened with his nightmare scenario: getting thrown out of the Emperor’s Coven.
And that’s not an empty threat either. Hunter has no magic, and Belos has drilled it into him that witches without magic have no future. Without the Emperor’s Coven, his only future prospects would be starving to death on the streets or wasting away in prison. Either way, Hunter would be alone, without family or friends, without a job or job prospects, without anyone to turn to for help. Any child would be terrified of that. Hunter wasn’t always acting on direct orders – in fact he defied direct orders to stay in his room in Eclipse Lake to go look for Titan’s Blood, and then again in Hollow Mind to arrest the rebels. But he made those choices based on the idea that Belos wouldn’t want him if he was a failure, and that he needed a chance to prove that he could still be useful.
And contrary to popular belief, Hunter does know right from wrong. He has a very strong moral compass, he’s just been forced to ignore it in favor of doing whatever the Emperor wants. To shut up that little voice telling him he’s doing the wrong thing, he uses what’s called a thought-terminating cliche, a statement that feels so fundamentally true that the argument need not continue. In Hunter’s case, that statement is “It’s for the greater good.” Sure, kidnapping his new friends and abducting Palismen to feed to the Emperor and threatening someone who’s been nothing but kind to him to take the portal key from her girlfriend and justifying terrorism makes his stomach feel like he swallowed a cactus and saying it out loud makes him sound like a horrible person – but it’s for the greater good. He’s doing it to serve Belos, and Belos knows what’s best.
So by the time Hunter is out of active danger and able to rest and recover from what happened to him… what would further punishment accomplish? He already knows that he did fucked up shit while working for the EC, and he’s proven time and time again that while he’s not fighting for Belos’s approval, he’s actually a genuinely kind-hearted kid. Punishing him now would likely cause him to react very poorly, because he’s been at the wrong end of that stick so often that he’s developed severe PTSD because of it.
And if you think restorative justice is still in order – Hunter is currently hyperfixated on making sure Belos can never hurt anyone again, and for the long term, he has expressed that he wants to become a Palisman carver when he grows up. While it won’t bring back the Palismen that were killed, it will help the current Palisman population recover and reintroduce Palismen to witches who may have had to give up theirs.
When viewed through this lens, the writing of The Owl House starts to make more sense. As a show, it is extremely forgiving towards its characters – they’re still held accountable for their actions, but as long as they’re willing to grow and learn and fix the damage they caused, they are very quickly forgiven.
However, I do understand why these writing choices can be… controversial, so to say. Because it doesn’t feel very satisfying, does it? When someone hurts you on purpose, your first impulse would be to try to hurt them back, that’s just how people work.
That’s the hardest thing to come to terms with when you become an advocate for prison abolition for example – you’re not just arguing for freeing a guy who got 5 years because a cop found weed in his pockets, you’re arguing for the release, and most importantly, the humanity of some of the most vile, disgusting people this planet has ever produced. Even now, when someone commits a truly awful crime and gets sent to prison for life, my first thought is “Good, I hope they rot in there.” But that’s not justice. That’s just revenge. And revenge is not something we as a society should want to build our justice system on.
It’s not satisfying to see Lilith go from using Luz as a human shield in her fight against Eda to sleeping on the couch in Eda’s house within 2 episodes. It’s not satisfying to see Willow let Amity back into her life when Amity has hurt her so badly before, or to see Hunter become romantically involved with Willow after he literally abducted her the first time they met. But that satisfaction isn’t really the point. Revenge is satisfying in the moment, but an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and if someone shows a genuine willingness to change, it’s often better to give them a chance to.
However, my final point is about what happens when this approach fails. Because not everyone is willing to change. Some people, when faced with the consequences of their actions, decide to dig their heels in and refuse to admit fault, or blame the victim(s), or use those same thought-terminating cliches that Hunter used to justify their actions, “I was just following orders” being a big one.
And thus, we come to Belos.
If Belos showed a willingness to change, a genuine one, not an attempt at manipulation, should he be given the chance to? That vengeful part of me is VERY empathetically saying no. But logically, reasonably, he should be given that chance, if only because he’s a human being and no human being deserves to be mistreated. That doesn’t mean his victims are obligated to forgive him or be around him again, in fact I think that, for the sake of Hunter’s mental health, Belos should stay as far away from him as humanly possible. But he should be given the chance to start over, to truly better himself and do something good with the rest of his life.
But Belos isn’t willing to change.
Belos is a product of a bad environment and grew up with a cult-like mentality and hatred for witches that he had to adopt for his own safety. It’s hard to break out of that mentality, but not impossible. Case in point: Caleb. The tragedy of Belos’s character to me is that he had so many chances to change, so many people to help him make that leap, but all of the people who offered him that help ended up dead by his hands because he couldn’t handle the idea that he may have been wrong.
At this point, Belos is stuck. Changing would mean not only giving up on his life’s work, but acknowledging to himself that everything he’s done, mutilating his body, killing his brother, slaughtering thousands and installing himself as God-Emperor of a population he despises more than anything in order to facilitate a genocide, was completely pointless.
He can’t admit that to himself. Especially the thing about Caleb’s death. He’s sunk-cost-fallacied himself so far into a corner that all he can really do when faced with opposing viewpoints is dig his heels in even deeper and lash out in a rage at anyone who challenges him. Even now, when his body is literally falling apart at the seams, he’s still trying to commit witch-genocide, because it’s all he has.
Restorative justice doesn’t work in this case, because the perpetrator needs to be receptive to it. Logically you would assume the show would default to retributive justice, and characters like Willow and Camila do take a very vengeful glee in imagining themselves beating the snot out of Belos. But right now, the primary motivation of the Hexsquad and Hunter in particular when it comes to Belos is to end the threat he poses. As long as Belos is alive and free, he will continue to hurt and kill people, and if he can’t be talked down, he needs to be either contained or killed to prevent him from causing more harm.
The Owl House provides, in my opinion, a very nuanced take on restorative justice. It shows how it works in action, how different situations impact what it looks like, and what happens when it’s simply not an option. It’s not the most satisfying story to tell your audience, because when someone hurts our babies we want them to suffer, no matter how sorry they say they are. But in this case, I think that sacrificing that bit of audience comfort is worth it to tell the story like this.
Hi is there a rule for how tall you must be to play Christine, and who is the shortest actress to have played her?
There are few or none rules, but the general preference is that Christine is lower than her Phantom and Raoul. Some of the lower ones has been:
Amanda Jane Callaghan (5′ / 152)
Tabitha Webb (5′1 / 155)
Teresia Bokor (5′1 / 155)
Ana Marina (5′2 / 159)
Ali Ewoldt (5’2 / 159)
Hanna Ulvan (5′2 / 159)
Mona Botha (5′2 / 159)
Micaela Sjöstedt (5′3 / 161)
Elena Bahtiyarova (ca. 5′3 / 161)
Tamara Kotova (ca. 5′3 / 161)
Some of the tallest ones has been:
Susanne Elmark (5′11 / 180)
Renée Knapp (5′11 / 180)
Luann Aronson (5'9 / 179)
Celinde Schoenmaker (ca. 5′8 / 177)
Monika Sommerovà (ca. 5′8 / 177?)
Olivia Brereton (ca. 5′6 /175)
(have in mind the convertions aren’t always exact, going between metric and imperial system, and some listing it differently in resumes. Also, some actresses write a slightly tweaked number in their resume to be more average. So though I’ve in large based this on what they’ve written themselves, there’s also a bit of adjustment based on what people who’ve met them has said (Olivia Brereton being one example). So the list above gives a pointer more than anything else)
Now imagine AJ Callaghan and Susanne Elmark side by side…
Which tall actresses have played Christine so far? I’m 5’8, so I just wanted to know.
It will probably depend on your definition of "tall", but you can check out @operafantomet's post here on the tallest (and shortest!). The winners would probably be Susanne Elmark and Renee Knapp at 5'11. The list was also made before Isabel Schwartzbach was cast in the second Copenhagen revival in 2018, and she would probably be the next contender at 5'10.
Hope that helps!
EDIT: Also, I believe this will answer the second question you sent me about a few minutes after this.
A photoset to show that though the typical Christines are slender, petite and usually caucasian, Christines have come in many shapes and with different ancestry.
Swedish? South Korean ancestry? Yes.
Round face? Narrow face? Yes.
Elder? Younger? Yes.
Busty? Average? Yes.
Stouter? Extremely narrow waist? Yes.
Tiny? Very tall? Yes.
There’s been a Christine who was 5'11’’. I think it was Susanne Elmark, from the Denmark production. RUG was actually worried about casting her due to her height, so your fears are not exactly unfounded. But they had a Raoul and Phantoms who were even taller, so it worked out.
What are the approximate height and weight requirements for Christine, if you happen to know?
I don’t, and it seems to vary. I have heard that it’s more important how tall the actress is compared to her Phantom and Raoul, which means that it can vary widely. Just by reading forums and looking up heights, it seems that the average height is around 5’4” to 5’8” or so, though that can vary widely - Tabitha Webb is apparently only 5’, while Susanne Elmark was probably 5’11”. Weight, I have no idea, but I’ve seen all kinds of body shapes, from slender to curvy to plus-sized.
Do you know how tall most Christines are? Or do they just cast based on the phantoms and raouls heights?
I doubt there’s been any “official” measurement or average of all the actresses’ heights, but I might guess at somewhere from 5′4″ (162.5 cm) to 5′7″ (170)? When you look at posts from some of the actresses, you can get a sense of what is considered a bit shorter or taller: Ana Marina, who is about 5′2″ (157.5 cm) thought herself pretty tiny (as another 5′2″ person, I would agree), while Celinde Schoenmaker was considered to be tall at 5′9″ (175 cm) or thereabouts. And when you see this thread on actresses downplaying their height if they’re over 5′8″ (173 cm), it sort of confirms that actresses try to stick around and see that area as “ideal”.
Of course, I do think the heights of the actors playing the Phantom and Raoul do come into play, but probably more so for taller actresses. Susanne Elmark is probably the most well-known case: at 5′11″ (180 cm) she was (and still is) the tallest Christines in the world, to the point where RUG was worried, but since the Phantom and Raoul was taller, she was cast anyway. It’s also possible that the heights of the other dancers are taken into consideration - I remember reading that many of the ballerinas in the show are 5′4″ or under, so any actress who is much taller might stick out.
This section focuses on the bare bones of each house. Later I expand in great depth on the specific combinations.
Wampus:
Pragmatism. The Wampus wants real world results. It wants things that can assist these results. It will take real, immediate action to achieve these results. Oriented towards events, the exterior world, and action. Searches for advantage in everything. Searches for ways to win. Competition, winning, the real world. Proof. Logic. Action.
Horned Serpent:
Theories. The world aligns with their system of thought. Why is the world this way? What if it isn’t? The horned serpent considers everything. They scrutinize and analyze. They make the world fit their mind and make their mind for the world. Oriented toward the internal world. Thinking about things for their own sake. No objective but understanding.
Pukwudgie:
Pukwudgies are what they are. They want to be themselves in all respects, extroverting themselves on the outer world. They are in tune with their own emotions and will follow their gut instincts and feelings wherever they might lead. They have a strong emotional attachment to those they value, and will stay extremely loyal to those select few. Pukwudgies are social without Boeing to society.
Thunderbird:
Change. The grand concept of the soul. The thunderbird wants change for its internal world. It wishes to be free in its thoughts and it’s desires, pretty much regardless of the outside world. The thunderbird seeks betterment for itself in subjective ways. It does not want to win, it wants to be happy.
Hogwarts/Ilvermorny Combinations
This section focuses on each individual house combination.
Pukwudgie/Hogwarts
The Hero (Gryffindor)
The Traveler (Ravenclaw)
The Loyalist (Hufflepuff)
The Charmer (Slytherin)
Gryffindor/Pukwudgie: These people are the typical thrill seeking freedom fighters of Gryffindor. The social nature of Pukwudgie combines with the glory seeking bravado of Gryffindor to make a person who sees themselves as a hero, and is eager to act accordingly. Gryffindor Pukwudgies are often more attuned to their own wants and the wants of their friends then anything grander. They prefer not to look at the big picture, and instead focus on small situations where they can apply themselves with vigor and individuality. Gryffindor and Pukwudgie are both individualistic and emotional houses, and this manifests particularly strongly in this combination. The Gryffindor is action oriented and the Pukwudgie is social, creating someone who is outspoken and willing to stick to their emotional decisions to the bitter end.
Ravenclaw/Pukwudgie: The Ravenclaw Pukwudgie is primarily concerned with the exploration of the world. The Ravenclaw is insatiably curious, and the Pukwudgie sees the world externally, without becoming preoccupied with the structure of the world or what they can and cannot do. The two houses in combination seek to fully enjoy life, seeking out new knowledge and experiences without very much of an end goal. These people seek to enjoy their life above all else, and will likely have a drive to see the world, try new and exciting things, and will not have patience for those who drag them down to a more boring world.
Hufflepuff/Pukwudgie: The Hufflepuff Pukwudgie is devoted to its friends and family. It will make sure they are happy and healthy above all else, and will define their lives by those they care about. They are more focused on themselves as individuals then the traditional Hufflepuff, who seeks to make things fair for the general world. These Hufflepuffs instead prefer to stay within the circle of those that they love and rarely stray from it. These Pukwudgies will be more selfless and able to dismiss their own emotions easier than most because of their acute awareness of the affect it has on others.
Slytherin/Pukwudgie: Slytherin Pukwudgies are naturals at making connections and thrive in the social world. Their ambition is driven from emotional need, and will often be less traditionally ambitious than the dreams of other Slytherins. They will want to succeed in a social or emotional way, more intangible than the power and wealth many Slytherins seek. They will seek prestige in their social circle, using their quick wits to charm their fellows. They are highly external people, loving the company and positivity of social gatherings and becoming highly adept at navigating such settings.
Wampus/Hogwarts
The Champion (Gryffindor)
The Trickster (Ravenclaw)
The Paragon (Hufflepuff)
The Victor (Slytherin)
Gryffindor/Wampus: Wampus Gryffindors are the most in tune with the real world of Gryffindors. They see the real world problems with constantly sticking to their morals and emotions, and will be willing to change their decisions and adapt to whatever will yield the greatest benefit. This combination is extremely action oriented, often becoming restless when there is no danger for them to face or situation to mend. These will be the most competitive of all Gryffindors, eager to jump on any casual opportunity to show others what they can do. This is the result of the glory seeking nature of Gryffindor combined with the Wampus drive to win. While this combination is highly impulsive and strong willed, it’s logical side and desire to succeed often makes it more detached than most Gryffindors until the opportunity for action arises. This combination will look for logical and analytical reasons why it won or did not win, and thus will often seem changeable, as it is reviewing new data and analyzing while it is taking action. It’s looking at the same time as it’s leaping.
Ravenclaw/Wampus: The Ravenclaw Wampus is the rarest of all sixteen combinations. Understandable as it is a paradoxical personality. Strong willed with malleable beliefs and goals, active with a tendency to hang back and consider all options, and intellectual but fierce. This combination deals in cleverness more than any other type of intellect. It prefers wit and strategy in its thoughts and conversations to a less immediately applicable, more studious knowledge. The introspective nature of Ravenclaw combines with Wampus in two principle ways, first with its competitiveness and its drive to succeed, which makes the Ravenclaw Wampus self critical and keenly aware of its own strengths and weaknesses. Secondly, the introspection combines with the strength of Wampus to create an impassive exterior. This Wampus will conceal its weaknesses behind a thick veil of intellect and prestige.
Hufflepuff/Wampus: The Hufflepuff Wampus has tangible goals that it wants to succeed in, and has a strong drive like other Wampuses, however, this will be offset by their affection for their companions and their wish for these people to succeed as much, if not more, than themself. This manifests as a person who is a strong and charismatic community leader. They will drive groups of people forward highly effectively with an infectious optimism and tireless determination. Both the Wampus and the Hufflepuff houses are hard working houses with great amounts of grit. As a result, the combination will take on massive amounts of work for greater projects with incredible drive. This is a self sacrificing combination with a strong sense of right and wrong, based primarily around justice and fairness. They will fight tirelessly to achieve this fairness in any place they can.
Slytherin/Wampus: The Slytherin and Wampus houses are defined by ambition. Slytherin values ambition deeply, and Wampus’ interaction with the world is based around fighting and winning. As a result, the Slytherin Wampus feels that it must achieve its goals at all costs, and overwhelmingly does so. This type is highly adaptable within the margins of its goals, as it sees many ways it can get what it wants, and has no issue buckling down to what work is necessary. While in true Slytherin nature, it is focused on the end goal at all times, the scrappiness and engagement with the present moment that Wampus brings leads this combination to be more playful than other Slytherins. These Slytherins are so constantly ambitious and secure in their desire that they feel comfortable dropping their seriousness whenever it appeals to them. At the same time, the Slytherin Wampus sees no point in becoming too preoccupied with the negative aspects of the here and now, and has a tendency to “wait out” annoyances, emotional problems, or pain.
Thunderbird/Hogwarts
The Revolutionary (Gryffindor)
The Philosopher (Ravenclaw)
The Optimist (Hufflepuff)
The Candidate (Slytherin)
Gryffindor/Thunderbird: Gryffindor Thunderbird has deeply internalized its moral beliefs. It is guided by its principals and ideals. The contrast in between Thunderbirds vibrant internal world and Gryffindors strong external tendencies make a combination that is powerfully focused on carrying its beliefs into the outside world. This combination makes no compromises. It is resilient against outside influence, and most powerful when faced with impossible odds. In the face of everyone telling it “no”, it plants it’s feet and screams “yes” in response. This Gryffindor is the least boastful an glory seeking of Gryffindors, as it cares very little for the the outside world. It deeply connects to those who share its beliefs however, and will stick to these long lived friendships through any situation, no matter how thick or thin.
Ravenclaw/Thunderbird: The Ravenclaw Thunderbird seeks enlightenment. Regardless of its religious views or what words they might use to describe what they seek, the Ravenclaw Thunderbird wishes to reach a state of complete happiness and knowledge. Both Ravenclaw and Thunderbird constantly seek out something, deep in their core. The Ravenclaw seeks many new ideas, whereas the Thunderbird seeks a single great ideal. In combination, these houses search for all ways they might achieve their final ideal (note: not their final GOAL, the ideal is generally something unattainable. The Ravenclaw Thunderbird considers it nobler to strive for the impossible.) This house will be as curious as the traditional Ravenclaw, but it’s deep held beliefs as a Thunderbird will lead it to dismiss more information than its more trusting and open minded fellows. Ultimately, their greatest priority is enlightenment and whatever else they may have chosen as a panultimate ideal.
Hufflepuff/Thunderbird: The Hufflepuff Thunderbird is probably the greatest source of Hufflepuff’s reputation of being offbeat. The Thunderbird devotion to its internal world mixes with the upbeat attitude of Hufflepuff to create a person who is extremely amiable and easygoing without feeling the need to fit in or act in a way they feel uncomfortable with. This Hufflepuff is more secure in their identity than other Hufflepuffs, and this Thunderbird is more secure in their present situation than other Thunderbirds. This makes a sweet spot of contentment where the Hufflepuff Thunderbird makes it’s home.
Slytherin/Thunderbird: Of the Slytherins, this combination is the deepest emotionally. It does not find the same advantage of repressing its emotions that the other houses do. Instead, this house propels itself through its ambitions with a deep emotional drive to thrive I whatever environment it is put in. The forceful confidence of Slytherin gives this Thunderbird a tendency to hurl themselves into happiness and freedom, acting however they might please. This gives them a forceful and individualistic charisma, but makes them enemies as they can come off as a bull in a china shop when surrounded by weaker personalities. This Slytherin plans ahead less than other Slytherins. It has it’s eventual goals in mind, but it trusts in its ability to improvise with all the cunning and determination it possesses once it comes into contact with an actual impediment.
Horned Serpent/Hogwarts
The Advocate (Gryffindor)
The Visionary (Ravenclaw)
The Psychologist (Hufflepuff)
The Architect (Slytherin)
Gryffindor/Horned Serpent: The Gryffindor Horned Serpent is the fiercest of the Horned Serpents and the most conservative and cautious of the Gryffindors. They have strong held ideas that they reenforce with a powerful will and as much mental energy as they can muster. However, these Gryffindors are aware of the consequences to their actions, and will act in a more refined way, only breaking rules or taking direct action when they see it as good to do so. They will not, however, hesitate to challenge any idea put forward, examining it from both moral and logical standpoints. This combination has a highly tuned moral framework that builds itself on sequences of logic in order to determine what is right. These Horned Serpents are less interested in discovery, experimentation, and hypothesizing than most of their brethren. The Gryffindor in them prefers to take what is established knowledge so that they can act in the moment and will not have to shift their belief system, which is dependent on information. This combination will project themselves as the most prominent mind in the room. They often do not project the pure and quiet intelligence of Ravenclaw combinations or the calculated charisma of Slytherin, but the use of Gryffindor’s indomitable will and Horned Serpents uncontainable mind forces the attention of those nearby. People are drawn to this combination, and it uses this ability to advocate its ideas.
Ravenclaw/Horned Serpent: This combinations mind is completely active. It thinks constantly, developing and discarding ideas and theories at a consummate rate. The quick mindedness of the Ravenclaw allows it to see multiple ideas and possible ways to see a situation at once. At the same time, the Horned Serpent focuses these many ideas, narrowing down those that are illogical and discardable. This combination is fully involved with its mind. Its intelligence propels it in everything it does, shaping its values, shifting its actions. What the Ravenclaw Horned Serpent does will always be to the benefit of knowledge and its own understanding. It will seek the analysis and dissection of the entire world, magnifying every notion as far as it reasonably can. This combination balances a scale in its own mind. On one hand, it enjoys the pure information of chaos, but on the other, the rationality of both houses wants stability. The Ravenclaw Horned Serpent makes its compromise through observation. It will sit still and accumulate knowledge until it sees there is something to be gained for their mind if they move. They will then throw themselves headlong into whatever pursuit they have deemed smart.
Hufflepuff/Horned Serpent: The Hufflepuff Horned Serpent seeks to understand people. It will study someone in all their intricacies, looking to their likes, dislikes, beliefs, motives, and everything else try can glean. This combination loves people as truly as most Hufflepuffs do, but is truly fascinated by them as a Horned Serpent. Hufflepuff’s patience combines with the theories of Horned Serpent to form principles over time. This combination will slowly accumulate similar ideas, slowly turn them over, combine them where they can be combined, and eventually form well fleshed out principles that it can share compassionately with those in need. This combination values wisdom above all else. It wishes to guide others in a subjective manner. Helping them with their minds and their ideas. The strong inclination to fairness that Hufflepuff brings overpowers the wish for personal understanding that Horned Serpent holds dearly. This combination will, as a result, share what it knows indiscriminately. It wishes the world to be better mentally and to be supplied with guiding wisdom that will keep it safe.
Slytherin/Horned Serpent: The Slytherin Horned Serpent wants to build. While it is receptive to the many ideas of the world, it prefers its own. It will be strongly oriented towards order, categories, and rules. These are where the Slytherin ambition and the structured minds of the Horned Serpents thrive. Within this structure, it will create more and more structure, expanding it and pushing the boundaries of the previous rules, before forming new rules and guidelines in a more refined manner. This combination is proud, trusting its own intellect and intuition above all else. Its logic being that they are tried and true indicators. This makes the Slytherin Horned Serpent stubborn minded until failure. At the point of failure, this combination will see no problem admitting that they were wrong and pursuing an entirely different approach. The ambition of Slytherin drives it forward towards a goal or a principle to understand, while the Horned Serpent studies and searches for the best way to achieve such an end.
This post is incredible! Many thanks to the wonderful maker of this post mysteriouslyhappyanchor! This has proved to be extremely insightful and has allowed me to fully understand the contrasts between them, as well as how they differ from the hogwarts houses. Expect another post on this topic very soon!
Modern Racetrack being SO excited for the Kentucky Derby. He is glued to the TV when it’s on and for his 21st birthday year, Jack takes him and it’s the best time ever
