Friday, December 4, 2020

Adventures in the Elements - (The Owl House Season 1 Episode 12) - 'Toon Reviews 42

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Adventures in the Elements

There’s a lot of promise to this particular episode from world building, plot development, and at the heart of everything, the characters we follow.  At that, expectations for pleasing material seem pretty high, and the final product delivers exceptionally.

Connecting with one of the main goals of the series, the plot is a continuation of Luz now planned to enroll in Hexside, and be well on her way to really learn magic.  Her excitement over this is appealing enough, but the story really stands out as this element leads to more characters getting involved.  For one thing, after talking about starting school, Luz goes to meet up with Amity, and it’s nothing short of great to see how their dynamic has evolved from their past encounters.  They clearly get along better than ever, and are even at the point of sharing thoughts on things like books and fan art, although Amity adorably still tries to keep these interests under wraps.  In addition, Amity shows some openness about the idea of Luz starting Hexside and potentially joining her in classes. 

However, talk of this drives the main conflict as she brings up a catch to Luz’s enrolling.  There’s a requirement that to be in the same classes as Amity and most other witches, Luz needs to know at least two spells, or she’ll be put in the baby class.  It’s here where Luz shows a new side to her character where instead of being unapologetically herself, she’s more self-conscious of making herself look great in front of Amity. She claims that she does know two spells, when in fact she only knows how to make light glyphs, and spends the rest of the episode rushing to learn something new.  As an aside, in this scene of nice character moments and new layers to dynamics, Amity’s siblings, Edric and Emira, also stand out.  There was a shadiness and lack of real trust in their previous appearance, but this episode presents their characters with genuine care for their younger sister.  Granted, they still tease her and she finds their antics annoying, but it still feels like they’re trying to be better siblings.  It’s even said that it’s in the name of making up for the library incident.  As the episode goes on, their appealing side becomes even more known as is the case for all the characters involved in this story.

In attempt to learn her second spell, Luz convinces Eda to start being more productive as her teacher, and you can really see her point.  For the first time, Luz is seeing fault in the teaching methods of the mentor she’s staying with, or is at least vocally calling the shortcomings out.  With legit proof to her point, Eda is pushed to step away from her laid back mindset and seriously offer Luz actual teaching methods, though they still turn out very unconventional.  To learn, they head for one of the most wholesome places of the series, an ancient magic training arena called the Knee, connecting to the Boiling Isles status as a big decaying body.  The many snowy landscapes make it a joy to look at and watch all the characters interact within.  That’s enough to make it fortunate that this is where the bulk of the story takes place, and it gets better when it’s revealed that Luz and Eda aren’t the only ones present.  

Well, this may be a plus for the audience, but for Luz, she becomes increasingly nervous.  It’s Amity and her siblings who have come to train, and they themselves enhance the environment with their own appeal as characters.  For how much she’s been built up as the top student, Amity turns out to have her own shortcomings when learning spells.  She needs a training wand to perform something as simple as a fire spell, showing that she still has a lot to work through.  All the while, Edric and Emira point out that the wand is basically a handicap, but are still more than happy to guide her through training.  In fact, all their scenes on the Knee feature a healthy family relationship between them, and even Amity appears to get along well.  That said, since a big reason she’s here is to make herself presentable to be in the same classes as Amity, Luz sees their presence as a cause to learn the new spell as fast as possible.

Being a rare instance of taking being a teacher seriously, Eda’s methods are noticeably eccentric and highly unorthodox.  They involve exploring elements of nature via random actions like identifying rocks, tasting snow, and more.  For someone known for eccentricities, Luz finds all of these teachings weird, even for her.  You might say that the idea of being in the same classes as Amity is causing her to see life much less optimistically, suggesting a lot about how she’s come to perceive her.  Now for all their weirdness, Eda’s teachings do have a legitimately reasonable basis of Luz needing to learn from the Boiling Isles itself and discover her own form of magic.  That’s all the more meaningful when you consider that Luz isn’t even a witch biologically.  Despite meaningful philosophies to Eda’s teachings, Luz still doesn’t see real benefit, her mind still filled with worries of never measuring up the way she needs to. 

Then desperation leads Luz to perform the completely unethical act of stealing Amity’s training wand to perform the fire spell the way she did.  Admittedly, there’s some major concern to the idea of Luz going this far to achieve her own goals, but the staging of the moment makes everything work to some extent.  She does have some unease to going through with this, which contrasts with her other extreme stunts from earlier episodes where drawbacks never crossed her mind.  Plus, no matter how you look at Eda’s lessons, they’re still far too unusual for Luz to immediately find meaning in them.  The general lax nature of her mentor even makes it believable that Luz would not be able to follow them right away.  

Above all, there are severe consequences for going this far with achieving her goals, probably the biggest consequences Luz has ever gotten at this point in the series.  Using that wand may bring out a fire spell, but Luz still is using something she knows very little about.  The blast she lets off angers a resident monster to the Knee called a slitherbeast.  It captures Eda, Edric, and Emira in its clutches, and the wand’s charge is all used up, meaning Amity is unable to use it to beat it.  

Speaking of Amity, this moment is easily one of the most telling of her growth as a character.  Since Luz has really messed up by stealing her wand, using up its power, and putting three people in danger, she’s in the right to be upset.  However, unlike the other times Luz has wronged her, Amity actually doesn’t see the worst in her over this despite putting her in a cage.  It’s not because Amity sees Luz as a bad person or even that she thinks Luz will make things worse when trying to rescue everyone.  What Amity does is in the name of keeping Luz safe, and there’s genuineness to her worry of Luz getting hurt.  That shows that Amity’s come to realize that no matter how much Luz messes up, she’s still her friend, and you can’t help but be satisfied with this character growth.

The most satisfying moments of the episode are yet to come.  With all the trouble she caused, Luz is left to reflect on failing to grasp Eda’s teachings and feel like light glyphs are all the magic she’ll ever know.  It’s the ideal thing to do when facing consequences for actions.  Through doing this, during captivity in the cage, the tone becomes atmospheric as Luz takes in the simple beauty of nature.  Her being patient like this unlocks her own form of magic, first by recognizing her main light pattern in the stars, and then seeing a pattern in the snowflakes. She replicates the snow pattern, and that brings her long-awaited second spell, an ice spell.  It allows her to create ice pillars to get out of the cage, showcasing new growth and potential for her as a witch, and what happens next further emphasizes this.  

Luz catches up to Amity setting out to save Eda and the twins, and Amity further demonstrates more openness to Luz by going along with her plan without opposition.  Yes, even after what Luz did, Amity trusts her judgement, which is very remarkable.  This move turns out to be good for both of them as they come to their own magical growth.  Backed by sincere support from her siblings, Amity beautifully pulls off the fire spell wand-free, and uses it to save everyone.  In the process, Luz proves to be able to protect herself by distracting the slitherbeast, and using her new ice spell to hold it back, Eda’s philosophies officially resonating with her.  Ultimately, everyone is safe, and growth is achieved.  Luz and Amity even grow closer as friends because of these events, with both of them equally happy that they’ll be able to enroll in the same classes now.  The promise of their own book club speaks further volumes of how far their bond will go.  For that and many more, you can’t deny that this episode is fully successful as a character-driven story.

In the midst of everything, King forms his own magic boot camp that mostly exists as its own thing.  I mean, the only connection this has to the main plot is the catalyst being an offhand remark of Eda referring to teaching Luz as magic boot camp.  Despite its lack of connection, it still has reasonably fun merit.  There’s a good mix of cute and demanding with King forming his army of toys he brings to life with a special potion Eda uses to make vegetables sentient.  You also have to wonder if this is truly reminiscent of King raising actual armies as well as bring actual validity to his supposed position of power.  He rules over these toys with legit dictatorship even if it’s all for little things like getting him snacks.  Then comes a crack in King’s leadership when the toys turn against him, and the audience can probably see it coming from the glowing red eyes throughout the subplot.  However effective the twist is, the big surprise is how King has to call upon Hooty to help stop the toys.  Though the being controlling the Owl House is mostly used for the purpose of jokes, Hooty is at his most productive here by being the only thing to take out the toys.  In fact, with how much his and King’s dynamic changes from King wanting nothing to do with him to them working together, it’s easy to wish to see more of them in action.  For just a fun antic-driven adventure, this subplot is effectively funny and further insightful when it comes to characters.

Based on how much there was to say about this episode, the big conclusion is that it’s another instance of everything coming together perfectly.  It already delivers with solid comedy, eye-opening world-building, and wholesome atmosphere and snowy settings.  However, what’s done with the featured characters, from how they develop to how they’re portrayed in general, brings everything together and make the whole work a true winner.  The final results are thoroughly pleasing, and proof of this series being an all-around testament to timeless animation.

A+

Fan Art:

The Ranking

1.      Lost in Language

2.      Adventures in the Elements

3.      The Intruder

4.      Covention

5.      Escape of the Palisman

6.      I Was a Teenage Abomination

7.      Witches Before Wizards

8.      Something Ventured, Someone Framed

9.       A Lying Witch and a Warden

10. Sense and Insensitivity

11.  Hooty’s Moving Hassle

12.  Once Upon a Swap

The next Owl House review covers Luz's long-awaited first day at Hexside.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "Civil Wart" and "Hop Popular" in Amphibia.
If you would like to check out other Owl House reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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