Disability in The Owl House

It’s funny how Belos’ last attempt to trick Luz is basically just him pulling an apology video with the whole “I was in a dark place”

I like to think Eda got a prosthetic elbow and just chose to have a hook hand.

Honestly, i love the way that Eda's curse was handled. And the whole "keeping it a secret from her kids thing", was possibly not to scare them but also, being secretive is her character flaw. She hid what King's past was and she didnt tell Luz where she found the door until after it was destroyed. Being secretive and lying was Eda's flaw until Luz broke down her walls.

Haven't watched TOH that far, but harpy eda is... Just my autistic heart. For me it immediately read as "oh. So she dropped the mask and is feeling infinitely better for it"

You know I feel like of anyone, eda would be the fastest to adapting to be an amputee simply because she already could remove her limbs and so has at least a smidge of experience with loosing one permanently. Also I could definitely see her joking about how she looses limbs around her house all the time and at least she knows where that one went

Okay, but Hunter is very good PTSD representation! As someone with PTSD, I appreciate it.

Gotta be honest. I was so afraid you were gonna say that Harpy Eda is a cure. I was admittedly afraid that it was during it's first appearance. But I never actually got the impression after the fact that it was. It's simply evolved to a more manageable state. Thanks to the medicine and years of learning to understand the curse.

For the prosthetic arm issue I think the apparatus actually has it's own elbow joint. Prosthetics have gone a long way over the years.

My theory for Eda's arm is that Alador made it, meaning it is an extended joint so she can still use it like a normal arm. He's known for making that kind of stuff so it makes sense.

As a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder, I felt very seen by Eda and the Owl Beast communicating. The curse isn't "cured", the Owl Beast wasn't erased, and their healing wasn't about becoming "one person" but by working together. It's a great example of DID in a fantasy setting.

The Owl House was a really good show, the plot was well written and the show was really entertaining to watch. It's really nice that most of the characters have disabilities, having a disability is something that is and should be seen as normal and no one should be judged for having one.

Eda's power before she lost her magic was unrivalled by anyone except The Collector. Raine, Darius, and Eber had to do a whole ritual to get into Belos' mind. Meanwhile, Eda just put people inside of Willow and casually forgot.

I see Hunter less as autistic and more with PTSD, or at least both. You cannot tell me that boy doesn't have trauma

It's also worth mentioning that it's very possible the Owl came out during For the Future because it had to face the Collector - a kid that reminded it of the Archivists, who are the beings that imprisoned it in the past

tbf i assume the lackluster handling of eda's prosthesis is bc the show got cut short. it would have probably been further explained if we got a full s3

Eda's reveal post time skip will never not be amazing. The curse once isolated her from her loved once and society, and now she's surrounded by her family and she's embracing her nurturing nature as a teacher. Her staff spinning is a staple move for her, so of course when she lost an arm, she learned to do it one handed and with even more flair than before. Whatever difficulties the curse has thrown at her, Eda makes a point to rise above it in the most beautiful, spiteful Eda way possible.

I love the owl house and as a person with a disability and is also queer I very much appreciated both the great disability representation as well as the great lgbt+ representation. besides luz being bi, Raine being NB, amity being gay and willow's parents, dana has confirmed many other characters being part of the community including representation that is rarely shown (pan, aro, ace). Dana confirmed while the show was still airing that Lilith was both aro and ace

Something I really appreciate about the ending is that not everyone got paired off as couples. Neither Gus or Lilith had any romantic plots in the show and they didn't end up with anyone post time skip. And they're still shown to be happy! As an ace/aro person I love it much

As someone with DID, I really liked how you explained the relationship with Eda and the owl beast. If we are reading Eda and the owl beast as some sort of system (DID, OSDD, etc) I personally think of the owl beast as a persecutor to a persecutor protector by the end of the show. For reference, persecutors are usually the alters that media turns into the "evil alter" because they sometimes lash out due to the severe trauma they have experience and hold in their memories. Persecutors sometimes carry the worst and severe trauma of the system and they are in pain, scared, confused, and angry because they cannot fathom why someone did to them what they did. Remember that DID systems are formed due to severe and repeated Trauma before the age of 8 years old. After Eda starts to understand the owl beast and they start to heal together, the owl beast becomes more support orientated which is where it becomes more of a persecutor protector or even a full on protector, which is when your role in a system is mainly to protect the body when you are triggered out due to outside forces. To be fair I can kinda understand why they introduced the owl beast the way they did. Before you know that you are a DID system, it can feel a lot like how it is depicted in the show (not to the extent in the show but you know). There is a huge reason why if a system grows up severely religious, they are seen as being possessed because there is literally more than one person living in the body and alters in a system can be very different people and/or not even human due to their trauma. Please be aware that I am using persecutor, protector, and persecutor protector as broad umbrella terms. DID is very severe and complicated that deals with complex ptsd/cptsd and literally no system is the same. What alters are created for is a spectrum and these labels are only really used to get a rough idea of how an alter interacts within the system. But if we are reading it as coming to a healthier balance of disability, it is very well done. It is so awesome to see a show nail and show so many different types of disabilities, both nd and physical. :this comment will probably be edited in the future

I also think it’s very in character for Eda to choose a hook over the alternatives. I can imagine her, Darius, Alador, and Raine discussing the possibility of using abomination goo or something to make a new arm for Eda but nope she chooses a big flashy hook. This is the same woman who reclaimed the moniker of “the Owl Lady” for herself, she would also detach her limbs for convenience or to make Raine laugh. Of course she’s not going to want a prosthetic that LOOKS like a normal arm. Eda is going to want something functional, flashy, and something that’s recognizable as a prosthetic. She’s Eda the Owl Lady with a hook for a hand. You know she’s rocking it with pride.