I Loved Everyone's Conclusions In The Finals Except For The Collector's - Tumblr Posts
Ok, the more I've thought about it, the more I think I understand why the conclusion they gave the Collector was so off to me. And I think it was mainly two things; the execution of it, and the vagueness of it. Let me explain.
Disclaimer! I am not claiming to know everything about writing or how to do it, so take this with a grain of salt ^^
(Major spoilers below!!! You've been warned!)
First of all, I feel the need to clarify that, a lot of the vagueness here does probably have a little bit to do with how much time they had left for this. (The shows cancelation and all that.) The crew had about, like, 10 minutes to properly wrap everything up? So they needed to make it fast enough to fit as much in. With a good majority of the characters and the conclusion of their arcs, there just isn't that much to go that in depth into.
Luz? She can properly travel between both realms now, her insecurities and guilt complex have been dealt with, and she can properly be herself around the people she loves.
Eda? While, she does still have to deal with the curse, shes properly accepted it as a part of her, and feels free to be around the people she loves.
King? While he's definitely still got a lot to learn about himself, he's more free to do so than ever and has the support and help to do so from the people around him, and those he loves. I can go on with basically everyone else, but I think you get the idea by now.
The more I think about it, in theory/concept, I think having the Collector go back to space can work. But you have to establish three main things in order for it to do so.
1) Give us enough of an idea for what exactly he will be doing in space to grow as a person. Presumably, to me anyway, I feel like they're most likely on some kind of quest to undo as much of their siblings's doings. Until, potentially facing them directly again.
2) Make sure to note that the Collector is fully aware of the fact that he has a genuine and loving support group/found family that he can return whenever he feels the need to see them again. And especially make it clear that they do just that when they can. Not too often, but still somewhat regularly.
3) Inforce the fact that the aforementioned support system/found family (Luz, King and Eda, though this can include others later on) really do care about the Collector's well being and that they are willing to be there for him when they can be.
Alrighty!! Now that I have those things out of the way, let me explain how the show messed up properly showcasing them, despite how expertly everything before this was handled.
When the epilouge's beginning starts after Luz has finally put an end to Belos's evil-doing, we get to see everyone slowly start getting use to the new circumstances of their home. None of it can ever be the same way it was before, but that's definetely for the better in most cases. After all, everyone's gone through a lot as of recently. Especially this episode.
Including, (and in my opinion, most of all) the Collector. For the last ??? amount of years, everything in their life has been... stagnent, inauthentic and overall not great. Even during what we saw during For The Future. Despite it's happy, cheery and colorful surface, it was only really a facade to mask the lack of actual care and support that Collector has in his life.
The stories and adventures he plays out with King are like his own interpretation from a game of broken telephone. They can only really immitate the genuine experience and connection formed when the real thing happened. All the denizens of the Boiling Isles are reduced to a sparkly, cute puppeted version of themselves. Lacking any real emotion in order to go along with the tone of the story.
Realistically speaking, King is the only somewhat genuine thing in the Collector's world. He's the only person that they can trust and talk to. Sure, he techically has his distant, idealized connection with Eda, but she's (at least to the Collector's knowledge) always stuck as the owl beast. So that's kind of impractical for him.
In all of these stories and games of pretend, the Collector takes what would otherwise be Luz's role in King's life. They're jealous of the relation she's had with King for so long. Collector knows that while he's close to King, they can't be as close to him as Luz.
Going by this information, we can come to the conclusion that the Collector desperately wants to have real friends, and people who won't use him or lie to him. Much like how his (presumably) distant, but still likely very ill-intentioned siblings, the Archivists did. First so they wouldn't have to deal with him, and later to take all his friends away. This pattern continued with Belos, which also lead to betrayal and abandonment for the Collector.
For his entire life, Collector has struggled grasping empathy and the overall concept of death. He said it himself, clear as day. "Toys break all the time! You just fix em'!". There is a fundamental misunderstanding for him in this regard that they are unaware of.
As for the struggle with empathy, his status as an all-powerful immortal tends to make him kinda unapproachable for most non-immortals. So in order to actually play with people who he wants to play with, but are afraid of him, he forces them to do so against their wills.
Near the beginning of Watching and Dreaming, Luz and Co. are finally able to try explaining what it means to understand other people to the Collector. And after a bit, it seems like they're finally starting to get it. Kindness and forgiveness! Who guessed it was that easy all this time?? Soon after this, the Collector tries applying his newly found morals towards the first person they can. Unfortunately for everyone, that person is the furthest thing from somebody who can be reasoned with.
The Collector starts to feel as if they can finally fix things, only to nearly get blasted by Belos, mere seconds later. Thankfully, Luz swept in to safe him and tries explaining to him that he did do the right thing, just... not with the right person. Soon enough, we find out that Luz did get grazed by Belos's power. She immediately starts disintegrating and disappearing before everyone, but more specifically, before the Collector's eyes. Moments after this, Collector is... scared, but mainly confused. King and Eda are completely speechless, only being able to stare ahead of them. The Collector tries to bring Luz back, only for nothing to happen. Things go from bad to worse when King and Eda lose themselves entirely and start fighting off Belos.
In this moment, right before Luz comes back with her titan powers, the Collector is about the lowest they've been in forever. Having just realized that they can't just fix everything with the snap of their finger, and completely powerless to do ANYTHING. King and Eda are there, but they're not there. Luz is gone. There's nowhere they could go from here. It's hopeless.
A bit after Luz comes back, the Collector decides to do something with their currently fading power and help everyone in the Archives (yknow, from falling hundreds of feet in the air towards their certain deaths).
After Belos is defeated and all the goop goes away, the Collector gently falls onto the floor of the Archives, exhausted. The moment they see Amity (someone he doesn't know well, but knows is close to Luz) walk towards him, he covers his head, expecting for her to start scolding or even attacking him. But she doesn't. She reaches her hand out to him as a friendly sign of peace, and understanding. His face literally lights up when this happens.
After all of this, while I think that Collector really can't be in the Isles all the time, considering how many people probably won't be that ok with having him around all the time after what he did, it's still obvious to me that they do finally have people who they can lean on and properly be better around. Luz, King and Eda.
...Too bad that their send-off scene doesn't make any that clear!! Like, whatsoever!!
While, yeah you can say that the main trio are DEFINITELY also exhausted after everything, I don't think that would make them all of a sudden be totally fine with the Collector leaving into space on his own.
Firstly, unless we can assume that what I said earlier about him undoing the Archivists's damage where he can, it seems like he's just, isolating himself so he can't hurt anyone until he feels worthy enough to ~maybe~ go back to the Boiling Isles eventually? You know. Like the same thing Luz wanted to do in Thanks To Them because she felt like a burden onto everyone around her? But there atleast, the show made it clear that everyone seeing Luz confess to this, had a problem with it.
During this scene. We don't see anyone other than King go after the Collector. Sure Luz is looking, but that still doesn't count for much. The phrasing of King's last onscreen words to the Collector are "I hope I see you again" before he gives them François. The way this was worded makes the idea of King giving François to the Collector seem more like an almost permanent goodbye gift. Like, the two of them won't be seeing each other again, or at least for a LOONG WHILE.
I think that adding on a "soon" at the end of "I hope I see you again" could've made it a lot better, and make it more obvious that François being given to the Collector is to remind them of their newly found family and that they will be there for him, wherever he is in the universe. Which I feel is way more fitting coming from King. Like his own version of "I don't know what the future holds, but it would be so cool if you were in it" to the Collector.
One thing that I feel like made everything make way less sense is the "No one argued" line from Luz. It makes literally no sense to me considering everything they've been through together? Like?? You'd think Luz and Eda would atleast ask him if he'll be okay going away on his own?? Considering that Luz was able to recognize where the Collector was at the beginning of the episode, it feels extremely out of character for her not to recognize what they're going through here, especially when taking into account that she went through something VERY similar as of very recently herself??
As for Eda, she just kind of, lays back away from the whole situation to begin with? For some reason? Which also feels weird to me since she was also open to being there for him earlier in the episode? She's grown enough at this point to know what to say to kids when she can tell they're not doing well at the moment. Not to mention how she would also probably be able to recognize the Collector trying to isolate themselves as something she's also gone through to protect the people she cares about!! She's fully aware it doesn't work out well when you have absolutely no one by your side! So I feel like having her atleast also reminding the Collector that they're all here for him would've meant a lot more.
As for why all of this came off as really jarring to a lot of people (i'm mainly using myself as an example here btw), The Owl House has always been a show that's overall narrative message has been about found family for different people. The main example I'll be using here is for neurodivergent people. Whether or not it's something like ADHD, autism, or any kind of personality disorder.
The Collector, to me anyway, is extremely ND coded in a few ways. So, in a way, to me personally, having it seem like nobody out of the main trio was actually concerned with the Collector's well being in this scene, felt... jarring? It gave off the message of "neurodivergent people deserve love and belonging, unless they have unstable emotional regulation and struggle grasping empathy, in which case it's okay if they isolate themselves from the people they love because those loved ones don't care about them enough to where they would have a problem with the person isolating themselves", which would be ridiculously insensetive and insulting from what's otherwise such an open-minded and emotionally mature show. I read ts this way when I first watched the episode when it aired, and I feel safe to say that it was not what I needed to hear at the moment. I feel like I'm doing better now, and I understand why it hit me the way it did considering everything I mentioned earlier.
I'm not calling anybody who worked on TOH ableist for any of this, and I want to make that clear. This was obviously unintentional on their end and I'm glad that I can understand that now. This show has been here for me and so many other people through so much and other than this on gripe I have with the Collector's send-off scene, the finale was everything I could've asked for and more. That's all.
