More on Abuse and the Owl House
I've seen a lot of discussion about Hunter's abuse, especially in ways to make it angstier than it actually is. I feel that people ignore the impact of neglect and the agency of victims because it's not as spicy. or whatever. However, I feel that Luz and Collector are entirely left behind in fanon as fellow victims of the same person. Quite a few people believe they were not abused by Belos. He uses abuse tactics on both of them. Belos threatens Luz, isolates her, and verbally abuses her a few times during the show.
Notably, her scar on her eyebrow, which resembles Hunter's scars, appears after Belos attacks her but between scenes (they also never showed Belos hitting Hunter's face, just his hair and swiping at him, this is a PG show). While it's a regular fight and he's trying to kill all of the kids there- the shot I picked is as he's about to kill Luz (presumably, based on the angle and focus) which is why she's protecting Amity. I think it was an intentional artistic choice due to their dynamic and also identifying her with Hunter and as a victim.
Most of her final season arc is about her trauma and guilt coming to the surface after Belos hurt her. In Thanks to Them, he threatens her and tries to "expose" that she's "evil" to her friends, and their response is concern for her safety rather than anger. She still internalizes that fear into the finale, where it's very obvious that her internalized self-hatred already existed but that Belos intentionally made it worse especially as she literally is Belos in her nightmare.
I'll be short on Collector because this one is very obvious in my opinion, I just think people underconsider them in general. But Collector is very obviously a victim of Belos's abuse both in Belos venting to/ treating Collector like an adult/ trying to make them feel that he's their friend while being an adult isolating them, and using his control over them to silence them and punish them (covering them with a blanket). He treats Luz like an adult as well, and Hunter too, and I think he just sees them all as adults or is dehumanizing all of them. Probably a mix of both.
Belos also identifies more with the kids (he only fights the kids in battles, that's also bc he's smarter than to challenge Raine and Darius unless he has to- Raine almost kills him while they're injured and weak so he knows he can't beat Raine on a good day. or even a regular day.) and didn't grow out of his childhood ideologies. I think that's partially why he also is angry about Caleb leaving as a caretaker, Caleb was never allowed a childhood and started doing things for himself as an adult and that pissed Belos off. I do think he sees Hunter as an older sibling rather than a child which explains some of his behavior. This is a FULLY adult man who is entirely capable of Not Doing the Bad Things, but he also appears to Luz as a child intentionally to gain sympathy and also pulls her around like he's a child. I think he's just the monarch of weaponized incompetence.
Belos used Collector's knowledge, a child who's age/maturity he is VERY aware of, and made them give up information and help him, in exchange for a promise that Belos never planned to fulfill. He also exposed Collector to traumatic situations which Collector didn't process/ reframed, and Collector denies their anger and internal emotions about Belos in favor of pretending everything is okay ("I'm not mad tho", and attempting to forgive him despite their fear of him and anger at his mistreatment of them)- they also do this "pretending" with other characters and struggle to let go of their own fantasy that everything is okay (bc accepting the truth is much worse than pretending for them after a certain point, understanding death and what it means is so much more painful than just pretending they aren't traumatized).
Back to Luz for a second, but Belos uses that identification as a child/ identification with her to guilt trip her and make her feel like she's a horrible person, and he primarily does this because a) He believes everyone is like himself/ selfish, b) He identifies with her because he sees himself as a hero like she is, but he explains away her disagreements with him as her being "Crazy". which also. plays into the ableism and the way he treats Collector as well.
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