I Want To Add Something Else And It Is The Fact That Belos Not Only Manipulated And Abused But Planned

I want to add something else and it is the fact that Belos not only manipulated and abused but planned to kill Hunter and Collector from the beginning but even though he also manipulated and abused Luz he didn't plan to kill her and even wanted her to agree her side due to the fact that she is human. Hunter had coven sigil so regardless of whether he were loyal to Belos or not he would have died on Day of Unity from the draining spell anyway and Belos throws Collector off the bridge once he is no longer useful, giving to understand that he had planned to kill Collector by making his disk will be destroyed by the impact but with Luz it is a rather peculiar case because unlike what he does with Hunter and Collector, Belos didn't plan to kill Luz because he could kill her before but he didn't and only tries to kill her when he realizes that Luz does not agree with him, this contradiction can be seen after he tried to kill her in "Hollow Mind" for not supporting him but in "King's Tide" he tries to convince her that he wants to help her and offers to take her with him to the Human Realm.

Basically Belos has no qualms when it comes to manipulating, abusing and even killing children once they no longer serve him or rebel against him but he gives Luz several opportunities to join him by implying that he wants human contact so Belos wants to have Luz as if she were his prized possession while Hunter and Collector are disposable items for him, that means, Luz's feelings do not matter to him, nor those of Hunter or those of Collector, but only his own feelings matter to him.

TW Child abuse/manipulation general Belos shenanigans. No spoilers past 3x01, please don’t add spoilers for 3x02 to this post.

Sometimes I think about how Belos targets kids and why, because he knows that kids are still developing and don’t always understand right from wrong, and also it seems like he just likes being around kids more because he feels like he can control them. He’s very aware of what’ll upset Luz, what’ll make her mad, and what to say to her to get what he wants. He’s even more in tune with Hunter, he kind of trains Hunter on certain words like “replacement” that set him off. Hunter’s backstory that he gives in Hunting Palismen is probably almost word for word what Belos taught him to say (he always highlights how Belos gives him the staff which would be important to him as a half-witch but Belos also highlights that himself which feels… interesting, as well as the fact that it sounds rehearsed a bit, because Hunter trails off and then he remembers where to go next with “And then Belos found me”), and Belos definitely taught Hunter to respond to physical violence specifically from him with the freeze reaction which is fucking awful (ex. Eclipse Lake, Hunting Palismen- Belos makes a sudden movement and in both of these Hunter goes silent and still, and then in King’s Tide, Hunter freezes up and goes silent when Belos addresses him). Finally, the Collector he has less control over but it kind of seems like the Collector looks up to him and Belos uses that against him. The Collector gave Belos secret magic, and helped him create the Grimwalkers, in exchange in a lot of ways for Belos’ friendship. Belos and the Collector even pinky swore that Belos would let him out, and Belos abuses that and uses his position of having something the Collector wants to force him to help him. 

I don’t have anything to say about Darius because we haven’t seen them interact directly or alone and we don’t know much about their relationship other than their vague past when Darius was likely a minor so. Yeah. Probably won’t get elaboration on that at this point but this is a History.

Basically Luffy during his fight against Rob Lucci in Egghead was like this:

I love Willow's character development. She tries so hard to keep it together, because she's gained the reputation as the strong one of the group after all her training and support from her friends from her in the previous seasons. But the more she bottles up her emotions, the more she loses control of her powers and starts to doubt herself. Only by admitting her fears of her and letting her emotions out of her, does she regain control, and is able to pull through, and be a strong member of the team again.

I love the lesson this teaches, it's okay not to be strong all the time, it's okay to let people know if it's too much, and it's okay to show your emotions. There will always be someone to give you the support you need.

The Fake Fire Lord and The Fake Shogun

I don't know if anyone noticed but Kaido's plan to leave Yamato as Shogun of Wano is the same as Ozai did when he left Azula as Fire Lord of the Fire Nation.

The difference is that Azula agrees to be the Fake Fire Lord while Yamato refuses to be the Fake Shogun and here I will explain why in more detail:

We know that Ozai decides to name Azula as Fire Lord because he knows about Azula's successes so he is entrusting Azula with the Fire Nation, while he is going to rule the whole world as the Phoenix Emperor, having more authority than Azula. Kaido, like Ozai with Azula, trusts Yamato to give him the position of Shogun and in turn, wanted to leave her as Shogun because by wanting and going to become ruler of the world, he would have more power and authority than Yamato anyway.

In Ozai's eyes, Azula is still his most capable general and his own daughter (read an extension of himself) while Kaido is confident that Yamato will follow his will and Yamato is his own daughter (and therefore an extension of himself). So, it makes sense that Ozai and Kaido to give both full powers over their previous domain, now that they can have more.

Also, this feeds the ego of Ozai and Kaido because they give Azula and Yamato more power but keep them both inferior and dependent on them, they give them titles (Fire Lord and Shogun) that mean nothing in the long run because in the end they would be under the rule and authority of Ozai and Kaido.

Azula ended up being a puppet ruler because even though she is Fire Lord, Ozai is the only one with real power for being the ruler of the world while Azula rules over one of the many territories that are under Ozai's command and thus, the Fire Lord title has no real value so Azula had no real authority over the Fire Nation and becomes just a title like any other that Ozai can easily take from her at any time. Similarly, Kaido wanted to appoint Yamato Shogun to rule Wano but any power Yamato would have would be overridden by Kaido's authority as Kaido would rule the world and Wano would only be one of many territories that would be under his command so that the Shogun title becomes empty and becomes a title that Kaido can either take away from Yamato and give to someone else or remove said title, making Yamato a puppet ruler with no real authority over Wano as Orochi.

The reason why this worked with Azula but not with Yamato is because of the treatment and upbringing that Ozai and Kaido gave their daughters which made Azula seek her father's approval while Yamato didn't. Azula was treated like a prodigy by Ozai and was always praised and told that everything she did was fine, she was used to it and Ozai only wanted her for her power and considered her his best tool

while Yamato witnessed Oden's execution and seeing his bravery came to admire Oden to such an extent of emulating him,

and wanting to be him

and Kaido disapproved of this to the point that he beat her and locked her in Onigashima with exploding handcuffs and starved her, killing anyone who gave him food.

Because of Ozai's upbringing, Azula sought his approval, hiding her feelings and vulnerability from herself and others and consequently hiding her desire to be loved and to have someone she could love and trust, resulting in her basing her relationships on in control and fear, causing others to distance themselves from her and ended up as a puppet ruler with no one to trust while Yamato, through Kaido's upbringing, distanced herself from him and managed to create genuine bonds by opening up to others, expressing what she feels and wants without fear and showing vulnerability in a way that Azula wouldn't have done, causing Yamato to choose to defend her friends and her hero's dream by rebelling against Kaido and rejecting his plan to make her his tool by naming her the puppet ruler of Wano.

It should be noted that at the time Ozai names Azula Fire Lord, Azula was very unstable due to losing her friends through her own fault and Ozai was the only thing left for her so Azula agrees to be Fire Lord when her father orders her to because she seeks Ozai's approval since she wants someone to love her and be there for her while Yamato, because of Kaido's abuse, wanted nothing to do with him but still doubted that he was able to kill her but when he saw that the handcuffs exploded it was the straw that broke the camel's back for Yamato, causing him to disown Kaido as a father, calling him only by his name and rejecting any plan that Kaido had for her such as naming her Shogun of Wano as well that Yamato is not so affected by the fact that she distances himself from her father because, in addition to having the closest thing to a good example in her life (Oden's diary), Yamato has what Azula wants: people she loves, trusts and they are there for her

and achieves this by acknowledging his feelings

and being open with her desires

while Azula continues to refuse to acknowledge hers

and as a result, she refuses to open herself up and is unable to achieve what she truly wants.

Azula is a girl whose childhood was taken away and she was forced to grow up and be an adult by her upbringing so she doesn't open up to anyone and can't relate to anyone or do the same things that girls her age do while Yamato is an adult who acts like a child because of the little contact she has had with the outside world, but when she meets people with good values and meets people who value her, support her and encourage her to express her emotions and follow her path, she is able to grow and improve.

What Kind of Girl do You Like?

If there is something that I liked about the bond between mentor and apprentice that Yuki Tsukumo and Aoi Todo had, it is that even though they didn't show us what the dynamic between Aoi and Yuki was like, it is not necessary to show it either, because just seeing the way Aoi is you realize the impact that Yuki's teachings had on him.

To start, both Aoi and Yuki are unorthodox jujutsu sorcerers and they always ask people they meet the question that gives the title to this post: what kind of girl do you like?

and if their opponent's answer convinces them or they consider them boring, Aoi and Yuki will not hesitate to hit them.

At first this may seem like a joke but the reason why they both ask this question is to know what exactly their opponent is fighting for, what drives them to do what they are doing, to think about what they live for?, what do they want from life?, what are their hobbies? why are they alive? Those are pursuits that make living something other than just surviving day to day.

All this shows that they both focus on they sort of cultivate lives and enjoy them outside of just being a jujutsu sorcerer. They both have hobbies: Yuki travels overseas, Todo loves Takada, an idol. They have lives, outside of being jujutsu sorcerers, and even Yuki's ultimate goal, a world without cursed energy, aligns with this. They extremely proud and indvidualistic people, but their pride allows them to buck tradition and think for themselves, they do what they do because they want to and because it brings them excitement. This is seen with Yuki whe she admits that she doesn't side with the jujutsu sorcerers at all

and that despite helping Tengen, she doesn't agree with their methods of maintaining their immortality by sacrificing young girls who were Star Plasma Vessels such as Riko or Yuki herself.

Aoi for his part decides not to kill Yuji even though those were direct orders from the high command of the jujutsu sorcerers but decides to test him for himself.

All this is just a sample of all the above mentioned.

As individualistic, proud, rude, headstrong as these characters can be, oddly enough both Yuki and Todo are able to cooperate with others. Aoi along with Yuji are not only able to win the two fights they have against their opponents because they are strong but also because Yuji and Todo are working in perfect sync with one another with the use of Todo's cursed technique, Boogie Woogie, which allows them to surprise their opponents multiple times (it's no coincidence that Boogie Woogie is perfect for team use).

Yuki herself cooperates with allies, including Larue, a former member of Geto's family and during the fight against Kenjaku, Yuki shows concern for Choso when he offered to be the vanguard against Kenjaku and even praises him, calling him "Big Brother" and saying that Choso matches her type of man.

After all, it's because of the social cooperation that humans are capable of is also considered to be part of the life drive. Humans are a social species, no man is an island but they have to cooperate together in society in order to survive.

All of the above implies that Aoi and Yuki are "life" symbolism or are surrounded by it. So much so that their cursed energy makes little hearts.

It's not surprising that Yuki was the one who trained Todo and he follows her teachings as a way of respecting the person who got him out of his boredom. It is also no coincidence that precisely these panels where Aoi and Yuki's cursed energy is shown in the form of hearts is when they face enemies that represent death or are related to it in some way.

Aoi and Yuki's passion reaches such a point that they are willing to win even if they are in a deplorable state (curiously both end up losing an arm when fighting Mahito and Kenjako, who represent death or nihilism, but they choose to keep fighting, representing their love for life and being true to themselves through their passion).

As I said before, Aoi and Yuki ask people they know what kind of girl do they like as a way of finding out their goals, which implies that in addition to being passionate, both are also smart and analytical and they even go so far as to share their point of view with their adversaries.

This is shown with Aoi not only knowing how Hanami's seed technique works but also being able to figure out Yuji's shortcomings with regards to his handling of cursed energy and helping him improve its use even though Yuji was his enemy at that moment.

With Yuki it is shown when she interacts with Kenjaku for the first time and they both discuss their theories and plans with each other,

then Yuki predicts a part of Kenjaku's plan with a lot of participation, which consists of convincing foreign countries to take advantage of the cursed energy of sorcerers as an alternative energy source

and this gets to the point that when Yuki meets Kenjaku again they try to analyze each other

without any success.

Aoi learned from his mentor Yuki the ability to analyze, create strategies and cooperate with others, as well as inherited her passion and love for life that she had and what better way to respect and honor the person who got him out of his boredom than by doing all the things she taught him.

Emperor Belos and Funny Valentine: The Lie and Toxicity of White Savior Complex

It may seem strange what I'm going to comment but Belos shares some similarities with Funny Valentine from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run in the sense that both are a satire of radicalized white supremacists, genocidal colonizers.

Even if we look at it from a historical point of view, Valentine's ideal (Americans superior to other cultures) is clearly the evolution of Belos's ideals for modern times (pure humans superior to native savages and heretics).

Both were heavily influenced by their upbringing, young Phillip being in an environment of anti-witch frenzy, while young Valentine was told from early on that above all else stands patriotism, that the only pure righteous action one can take is born from the love of one's country and they follow these ideals because a loved one inspired them (Caleb and Valentine's father) to the point that Belos and Valentine see it as a way to bond with said loved one as well as that they both feel that they should live by the ideals or values of their respective loved ones but as time goes by they genuinely believe in these values regardless of what Caleb or Valentine's father genuinely believed in those values so Belos and Valentine never question these values to the point of wanting and seeing themselves as heroes or marthyrs for what they think is a noble cause.

Beneath what appears to be a feeling of wanting to do good for their people lies a distorted feeling of love that they both have and firmly believe is normal and/or good:

Valentine sees his patriotism as an extension of love for family and friends and he becomes a soldier and later the president to protect the United States.

Belos became a witch hunter to fit in in Gravesfield and protect his family and town from witches and aspires to be Witch Hunter General.

This is because Belos and Valentine don't love Caleb and Valentine's father but love the idealized versions of them that they both had in their heads. Belos saw that Caleb left with Evelyn and believed that she manipulated him into abandoning him when clearly Caleb left of his own free will and was happy with her and Valentine never got to know his father, he only knew what others had said about him.

What I'm getting at with this is that at first they both followed their ideals because they believed they were doing something good, but as time went by those ideals were flawed (and most likely Caleb and Valentine's father knew it or at least they suspected it) but Belos and Valentine continued to cling to those ideals to a toxic degree because it gave them power, control, benefits and justification of their nefarious actions to the point of developing a desire for personal satisfaction of being remembered as heroes by showing that they are better than others for being the chosen ones (Valentine wanting to become the best and greatest president of the United States of America and Belos by wanting to become the best and greatest Witch Hunter General). This can be seen by the simple fact that they saw themselves as the chosen ones because they believe that they are the only ones that can save their people (Valentine sees himself as the only one who can take the corpse and bring prosperity and security to his country and Belos is seen as the only one who can protect humans from witches).

Later they both become politicians in order to achieve their goals:

Valentine wanted to use the saint corpse to bring good fortune to the United States at the cost of ruining other countries and total chaos and killing innocents and Belos wanted to protect humanity by committing genocide to the inhabitants of the Boiling Islands, except that Valentine became the president of the country he loved the most and Belos became the Emperor of the place he hated the most.

Belos and Valentine hurt their own citizens or fellow (fellow humans for Belos, fellow americans for Valentine) they claimed to protect and they manipulated everyone in the process thanks to their charisma, everyone admired and respected them to such an extent that they manipulated the protagonist at one point in the story and even manipulated the audience into believing that they are selfless heroes.

Valentine and Belos say they want to make things better for their respective nations but they follow an ideology that hurts the marginalized and don't seek to improve their situation (in Valentine's system black people are still treated as slaves and the natives continue to be massacred and their lands are stolen. The system Belos supports excludes all those who don't fit his impossible standards of virtue like Luz or Caleb).

An important aspect that Belos and Valentine have is that they both support colonialism:

At the time Valentine is president the native american population was being exterminated and Valentine does nothing to stop that. That it's so true that there are some natives like Sandman, who learns the culture of the Americans and signs up for the Steel Ball Run in hopes of winning the prize money to buy his people's land for the white men to leave them in peace.

Before Belos came, the people of the Boiling Islands were more connected with nature, they could use magic freely and they were kinder but when Belos comes and establishes his system, those who did things before Belos came are branded as wild witches and are imprisoned at best or petrified at worst, in addition to the fact that the inhabitants are more discriminatory and unsympathetic than before.

All of the above regarding the idealization of their flawed ideals is that Belos and Valentine refuse to change or at least have a reflection on these ideals because as I said before that gives them power and they justify it by saying that they are doing something good for their people and being the choosen ones to do that. The Owl House and Steel Ball Run waste no time in showing that all this makes Belos and Valentine had a feeling of colonialist white supremacist superiority.

It is most likely that Belos was taught as a young man that the Native Americans are savages and that the only ones who could "fix" said natives were colonists like him. At the time of Steel Ball Run, the Native American population is still being eradicated and their lands stolen, and it is most likely that Valentine has been taught the same thing as Belos regarding the "savage" natives. And even their plans consist of expanding this genocide with other cultures that don't adhere to their ideals of what a human/American should be like.

The aspect of colonialism reaches the point that Belos and Valentine use the corpse of a long-dead person praised by the land they rule (Jesus Christ and the Titan respectively) as part of their plans regarding their nation. They claim that they're chose them to carry out their actions.

When actually that's not true:

Luz and Johnny are selfish, immature and have a lot of traumas, contrary to how Belos and Valentine paint themselves but even so Jesus Christ and the Titan choose to help Luz and Johnny throughout their stories for the simple fact that Luz and Johnny choose to mature and improve as people which makes Luz and Johnny choose to accept the help while Belos and Valentine appropriate the bodies of the Titan and Jesus Christ as if they were their possessions and take the choosen one role by force and at the end of their stories they take literal possession of the Titan and Jesus Christ's bodies.

Also, Valentine and Belos have a disturbing fixation on two 14-year-old girls with similar names who ended up helping them without wanting it (Lucy Steel and Luz Noceda) and the fact that both girls have helped them makes Belos and Valentine see this as a sign that their actions are just and right. The way Belos and Valentine see Luz and Lucy is almost, if not completely, misogynistic as they relegate both girls to roles and treat them as objects that only serve to help Belos and Valentine and feed their delusions of white saviors,even both girls have powers from the aforementioned deities (Ticket to Ride/Love Train and the glyphs) that Valentine and Belos waste no time in appropriating and using them for their nefarious goals (again seeing the factor of forced appropriation by white colonialism).

Another thing that Valentine and Belos share is tha both use clones to achieve their goals (Valentine brings copies of himself and other people from other universes thanks to his stand D4C and Belos creates grimwalkers to help him) but they also use their knowledge/powers in an attempt to find a loved one who inspired them and who they miss dearly (Valentine tried to find an alternate version of his father from another universes but failed and Belos created grimwalkers because he misses Caleb and longs for human contact).

Although Belos and Valentine had presumptions of superiority, in the end they are defeated by Luz and Johnny who obtain greater power (Johnny gaining Tusk Act 4 after Gyro's death, and Luz gaining the Titan's power after her own death) and what they do is beg them to don't kill them.

Belos tries to appeal to the fact that he and Luz are human but she ignores him and let Eda, King and Raine from trampling on him.

Valentine tells his story to Johnny and he wants to believe in Valentine but still suspects the president and when his suspicions turned out to be correct, Johnny kills Valentine.

The failure to accept their deaths with dignity to the point of trying to manipulate the protagonists only shows how hypocritical and cowardly Belos and Valentine are because both believe that sacrifices are necessary and sacrifice others but are unable to admit that their ideals reached toxicity or that their plans are nefarious and that beyond doing it for their people, they did it for the pure personal satisfaction of being the heroes of their stories. Belos could at least try to understand the witches like Caleb and Luz did and could even accept Collector's kindness but he refused, Valentine could make America prosperous in other ways and improve the situation or quality of life of minorities who did need his help such as women, afroamericans or native americans, but Valentine refused.

All this shows that they don't want to help anyone and they just want to be the heroes of their story regardless of who they have to harm to do so. Just as the Titan said: