So, I’m starting to think Wynnona becoming the Heir is what ultimately saved the Earp family from Bulshar’s curse. And not just because she’s the hero of the show. I mean, from day one, she legitimately stops the curse in its tracks. Because, when you get down to it, to the heirs themselves, each generation becomes more cruel and outright bloodthirsty than the last. Check it:
First, you have Wyatt (and yes I know the gif is from Tombstone, it’s a good movie) who started the whole shebang. Not perfect, but in all of Doc & Bobo’s accounting a decent man who tried to do good. Then Josiah, his son, was referred to as noble by the Jack of Knives. So still carrying his father’s torch.
It’s when we get to Edwin that things get interesting. He’s famed as being the “One Year Wonder”. Which means he was not only good at tracking but also killing Revenants. Arguably a good trait to have in this family. However, once again looking to Jack, he’s referenced as simply ambitious. These aren’t exactly what one might call....complimentary qualities. In fact it’s left rather ambiguous what kind of man he was because he died too soon. So soon he left a two year old Ward (who became Heir in 1993, making 1966 his year of birth) to learn how to deal with the curse himself.
Ward, of course, was the worst until Willa decided opening the Ghost River Triangle was a good idea. We’re given a fairly clear image he was a drunk, abusive asshole who made deals with the very demons he was supposed to fight. A trait referred to by our dear friend Jack as “wit”. And by raising Willa to think of herself as the chosen one who needed to kill or be killed he primed her eventual turn to psychopathy.
And let’s talk Willa, because the apple does not fall far from the tree. Not to say she didn’t suffer or wasn’t further scarred by over a decade’s capture by bad guys, but she was psycho from the beginning. I mean, look how she treated Waverly. It was clear from her journal entry she picked up on Wave’s “otherness” even if she wasn’t familiar with the specifics. Unlike Wynonna, however, she used it as a basis for her treatment of her little sister. Willa clearly had no problem exerting power over those weaker than herself, and the fact Ward wouldn’t have raised a hand to help his youngest was something used to her advantage (see: the support beam episode). Waverly, who has jumped in front of monsters, revenants, and even Doc on a bad day, was scared of her. Waverly, who even revenants make an effort to protect. Even before she was the Heir, Willa was putting her us-or-them philosophy into practice. Age just made it easier for her to manipulate people.
So where does Wynnona come in?
Well, simply put, the genius of Clootie’s curse (which his wife apparently never got because she was the short-sighted one) is that it destroys the Earp family by rotting it from the inside. The snake literally laying the foundation of corruption. Each generation becomes more desperate to end or at least survive the curse and more willing to do the worst things imaginable to do it. By design, the push and pull of Revenants hiding, dying, and resurrecting was enough to slowly drive the Heirs crazy while still maintaining hell’s forces topside.
Wynnona, however, grew up with knowledge of the curse but not the weight of it. So, when it fell to her...which, in and of itself is kind of weird since Willa was still alive and curses aren’t supposed to be bound by paperwork but whatever....she, like Wyatt, was not perfect but still a person who wanted to do good. There by halting the corruption of the Earp family line and setting it back to where it started.
