Nerd(affectionate)

Nerd(affectionate)

Let them dance.

I have a feeling essentially none of this will be touched upon directly by the show because it's getting into some pretty intense historical and uh...religious connotations, which I'm sure disney doesn't wanna deal with in anything more than metaphor, but...

phillip/belos comes from early 17th century connecticut. we know this. he was in the boiling isles by at least 1660 and appears to be somewhere between 30 and 50 at the time luz pops into his time period. it's unclear when exactly this is supposed to be, but if we just assume 1660 for simplicity's sake, that means he was probably born sometime between 1610 and 1630. if it's closer to 1670 when luz pops in, then he was born between 1620 and 1640.

either way, this means that it is most likely the case that phillip's parents were puritan colonizers from england who came during the great puritan migration of the 1630s. these were the people that first settled the massachusetts bay colony in the area that became boston, and they were by and large followers of john winthrop, a prominent puritan leader at the time. many of this group of puritans eventually broke off from the massachusetts colony over religious disagreements with winthrop- and a large group of them settled connecticut.

side bar, I don't think phillip's parents would have been part of the pilgrims at plymouth (those were the guys that everyone associates with thanksgiving who came on the mayflower in 1620 for my non-american folks). people from that group were less likely to have gone to the connecticut area in the early colonial period, most of them stayed in what became massachusetts.

so if phillip's parents were part of the original massachusetts bay colony group, either they or phillip himself (depending on his age) might have made the decision to strike out for connecticut. the first group of english colonizers who settled in connecticut came in 1633 and founded the town of windsor, which today is just north of hartford (the current capital of connecticut).

fun fact my 10th great grandfather was one of these founders of windsor which is why I know too much about this lmao

phillip and/or his parents may have also made the decision to move to connecticut in 1636, when another large group of massachusetts puritans broke off from john winthrop and followed thomas hooker to hartford. this was the largest group of puritan settlers to connecticut and they functionally founded what became the connecticut colony. I'd say it's probably more likely phillip was part of this group, either as a boy or by his own volition. I'm inclined to think that it's more likely phillip was still pretty young when all this was happening (he didn't look much older than 40 in the episode) so I feel like, most likely it was his parents making these decisions for him and his brother.

so all this to say, phillip and his brother were most likely young puritan settlers in their teens when they came to the hartford area of connecticut. we know from images of statues in luz's town, gravesfield, that the brothers would later go on to help establish that city, which suggests gravesfield is probably supposed to be in the greater hartford area. so these were whole ass colonizers. they were sons of colonizers and grew up to colonize their own town. this is important to understanding the type of mindset phillip- and later belos- embodies. the puritan colonials believed their cause righteous, ordained by god himself.

which leads us to the fact that the wittebane brothers would have been raised in the puritan faith, most likely following the teachings of thomas hooker specifically. hooker's beliefs were not terribly different from any other puritan sect, however, it's noteworthy that he was a strong believer in the concept of government answering to the people. connecticut is called "the constitution state" in part because the colony of connecticut had one of the first proto-constitution style documents as part of its initial legislature. these people still considered themselves english by and large, they ultimately answered to the king and there was no sense of anglo-american identity at this time, but the budding concept of what would later become american democracy 100 years later was first formulated by the puritans, especially the connecticut puritans. hooker was also...mildly more tolerant of other christian denominations than the massachusetts puritans.

........they still would have hated anything that isn't protestant christian though. catholics, jews, god forbid pagans......yeah no that wasn't gonna fly with a connecticut puritan. the puritans' whole thing was that they wanted to get away from the "corrupt papism" of the anglican church, seeing it as too similar to the catholic church. they wanted a society in which they could establish their own theocratic version of democracy, away from the scrutiny of the king and the church of england. in modern times, we view the separation of church as state as being meant to protect the government from religious influences. for the puritans it was the other way around- they wanted to protect their religion from government influence- in this case, the british government/crown.

ANYWAYS my point in all this is that THIS is the historical and cultural context in which phillip would have stumbled into the boiling isles with. while his sect of puritans were not the crazy witch burning puritans that would later show up in salem, there definitely would have been a heavy suspicion of anything deemed "un-christian." and a literal demon realm with magic and witches and, well...demons...would have been incredibly traumatizing to experience for someone raised to believe catholics were of the devil. phillip and his brother must have, at some point, believed they were in literal hell. though I highly doubt the show will ever go there, phillip's hatred of wild magic makes a ton of sense when you consider this perspective, that he was raised to believe that any kind of "wildness" was against god- puritans wouldn't even celebrate christmas due to believing it was a celebration of immoral debauchery, unbiblical, and pagan.

they were not entirely wrong tbh christmas was appropriated from pagan traditions

phillip's hatred of witches and wild magic is entirely logical to him. and while he may have been forced to drop some of his more extremist beliefs- a literal demon realm in which you are forced to learn magic to survive would probably have that effect- it completely follows that he would still view this world, and wild witches, as something dangerous, debased, and deeply, deeply un-christian. he's living in a land that is, to his view, completely vile in every aspect, that goes against all notion of god and morality that he would have been taught. it may have even reminded him of indigenous peoples, whom he likely would have been just as prejudiced against as all the english colonizers were, and brought out that latent sense of bigotry.

so in becoming emperor belos, he's really just acting out what he knows as a son of puritan colonizers. his rule is to some extent a theocracy (just centered around the titan instead of the christian god) because that's what puritans wanted to create in america. he calls the deadwardian era the savage ages because of prejudices he would have held towards any non-white, non-puritan person. and if the theory that his brother actually adapted more to the boiling isles and assimilated to their culture and their ways, rather than trying to conquer, control, or convert it, is true, well...it would sure explain why phillip turned away from the principles of democracy he'd have been taught as a child and leaned into authoritarianism and monarchy.

anyways phillip/belos is 100% a connecticut colony puritan and it adds a lot of depth to his character to consider the real world historical and cultural context of the puritan settlers, whether the show ever acknowledges this or not. I'd be shocked if this wasn't dana's intent in creating the character, even if she'll never be able to address any of this explicitly because disney show.

sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hooker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Colony

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Bay_Colony

https://windsorhistoricalsociety.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJanv1NUlrQ&t=1s

I love how forever ago before we got Dell's name, I joked "what if Eda's full name is just her parents ship name" just for shits and giggles and then I realized, and a few others pointed out...

Edalyn is literally pronounced E-dell-lyn.

Dell.

Gwendolyn.

Edalyn.

Of all the ridiculous things to be right about, I really did not expect this to be it.

i love Philip’s voice so much. how soft it is. he’s so soft-spoken and quiet and gentle-seeming, warm and kind-sounding, even when he’s saying awful shit. he was just so casual about it, it wasn’t until the end there that he got upset or angry or anything. and yet he’s so vile. <3