Emperor Belos is a TRAGIC villain...Let me explain why.
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- Опубликовано: 7 окт 2024
- It's no secret that I love morally dubious or just straight-up evil characters in fiction. I love it when villains are hot and when villains are interesting...and Belos is definitely both of those things.
It's also been a trend to bash Belos simps/enjoyers because he's a villain, and apparently, that means you shouldn't like his character or find him fascinating? It's gotten so bad that several Belos simps have claimed to be receiving death threats in their DMs, so I had to say something.
I think that it is ridiculous to be bashed for liking a villain and that people need to learn the difference between enjoying a character from an animated TV show and agreeing with their morals.
I specifically made this video in response to seeing Belos hate trend on twitter, so I already expect this video to get blown to Hell and back lol.
Also, there is a point in the video where I mention that Dana "based Belos off of a person/group of people in her own life that hurt her" I meant to put that that specific detail is a RUMOR, but it slipped past me in editing. The only reason I mentioned it is because that rumor is brought up a LOT when Belos Antis start on their bullshit, so I added that in just to cover that bullet point. But that is NOT CONFIRMED. It is a RUMOR.
THIS! I love Belos’ character because it’s understandable where he’s coming from and how he ended up that way, yet he is still unquestionably beyond redemption. I love how he shows that anyone, when given the right circumstances, could become a villain if they refuse to change their world view when presented with conflicting evidence, and allow their hatred to blind their reason. He refuses to acknowledge his own shortcomings and faults that brought him to where he is, instead sinking into his own delusion to the point where it’s impossible for him to come back. He’s not just evil because he’s just always been that way, and that’s why he’s a fantastic villain
As a Belos fan and simp (don’t look for my comments on other Belos videos), I don’t understand why ppl assume Belos likers don’t see him as a villain. His last recorded line from his va was literally losing his charm that gained a lot of enjoyers for him, announcing he could finally “cleanse” the so called perdition of the boiling isles. I enjoy him as a villain so do many others, but majority of Belos fans don’t support his actions. And to outsiders it’s very obvious as to why he shouldn’t be supported as a villain, which is really frustrating since those outsiders send hate to ppl who just like Belos!
We understand he is a villain, we understand he is awful and we know not to support nor “justify” his actions as someone who genuinely just is evil. Stop being awful to ppl who just like Belos, especially if they very clearly know he is evil. 😟
The dialogue between Luz and the Titan could have been so easily redone in a way that fit what was previously etablished, even if the team couldn't/wouldn't do a Wittebane flashback. Luz could still wonder if Philip's goal of "saving humanity" makes them similar, but instead of Daddy Titan essentially calling Philip a self absorbed prick(which he is don't get me wrong) he could point out that Philip didn't come to the Isles with such a lofty goal. That he wanted to take his family back, but since he messed that up so badly he keeps trying to make his mistake undone. And if he can't make it undone, he'll make it worthwhile at least by saving the rest of humanity. There fixed it, you wouldn't even need to change the animation.
I have to wonder how the "liking this villain makes you deserving of death threats" crowd would have handled the times when they still sold villain toys to children at McDonalds. I distinctly remember a Frollo toy, you know, the guy who said bigoted shit about irl minorities instead of fantasy creatures (no shade at Frollo fans though)
I have thought of a way to change the dialogue that makes everyone more nuanced:
Papa Titan: At least I’ve been able to keep an eye on my child, and those who have been kind to him.
Luz: I’m glad to hear you think so kindly of me, wish I could. It feels like everything I do only hurts those around me. Sometimes it feels with how I’ve treated the world like my fantasy, I’m just as Belos. Could I… have ended up like him?
P: I can tell you want me to say you could never end up like Belos, but I think you can agree that lying to protect others feelings rarely works out. And a can-do-no-wrong attitude is what drives people like Belos to continue the things they do. While Belos genuinely believes in protecting humanity, his upbringing has made him believe witches and demons must be persecuted to do so. He cannot cope with the idea that the things he has done have been in vain, so he only further buries himself in his beliefs in the hope that he cannot only make the human world a better place, but absolve himself of his own guilt as well. You find the strength to fix your mistakes in a way he refuses to do. No one can avoid making mistakes, but we cannot avoid fixing them either. I know, when the Collectors and the other Titans wiped each other out, I was so angry, I was willing to do anything to stop hurting, so I hurt someone else. I thought imprisoning the Collector would not only keep my son safe, but make me feel better. It didn’t. Because I let my emotions get the better of me, I deprived myself of the chance to be with my son.
@@docfox4353 This is beautiful. 🥲
@@Xoracious Thank you. It honestly felt very lazy to have Papa Titan say Belos was just a self-absorbed prick who was destroying a whole civilization for the sake of his own ego. It feels more thematically appropriate to have Belos be a bigoted zealot who wants to help people, but is so entrenched in his beliefs that he believes it justifies the persecution of those who don’t embody those views. The Owl House is a show about lovel understanding, and accepting parts of yourself and others that have stigmas attached to them by society. Belos makes a great antithesis to these morals by embodying this. He represents a time and place where people would be demonized for things outside of their control.
I honestly think Belos was doomed anyways.
Even if he did complete his plans, killing all witches and destroying the demon realm as we know it, when he would go back to the human realm it would be very different, to the point where he would never be able to get what he wanted and be seen as a hero.
Even if he managed to cure his curse, he would never be able to just do a hostile takeover of the world.
At most he could gather a fanatic following and create a little kingdom
Cartoon fandoms are crazy lmao, moving from fandoms for adult shows like Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul into a cartoon fandom is like, culture shock. Going from people simping for literal drug-dealing monsters like Walter White and Lalo Salamanca to like, people suicide-baiting others for liking an evil cartoon grandpa is kind of odd. Belos is small potatoes compared to some of the characters I've obsessed over, and seen other people obsess over 😂😂I guess fandoms for kids shows just tend to attract moral purists and people who are uncomfortable with any level of narrative nuance. I saw the same thing happening in the Steven Universe fandom back when that was a thing.
Sure, there's a time and place to analyze Belos from a critical lens, taking the issues of colonialism and abuse into account if that's what you're interested in, but that's just one way to interact with and enjoy the text out of many. Not everyone is going to be interested in doing that. More often than not, I see that specific interpretation being used not for the sake of literary analysis but as a cudgel against people who enjoy the character, which is sad! Anyone who's defensive of fictional cartoon characters while bullying actual real life people needs to get their head out of their ass 🤷♂
I agree with your points. I do believe Emperor Belos is great villain in how he's so powerful and ruthless while also showing this other side to him that feels somewhat guilty, sad and broken. Thinking about how much the world has changed and how much he has changed. However, due to possible time constraints and Season 3 being shortened. His other side was shown less than his surface persona. It's such a shame he was put in the pure evil category though.
true.
My thoughts almost exactly. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks the show ended up doing Belos dirty. It’s quite a disappointment that they went from setting up a villain who’s as tragic as he is heinous to making it so “oh he’s just a narcissist lmao” or whatever.
You missed the point of belos he's and always has been a con artist he has every opportunity to redeem himself but he's being blinded by his ideology something that you see in real world villains. If you paying attention to Dana's beliefs you see exactly why Belos is irredeemable. Poor belos that spends decades manipulating the whole Isles his bigotry led to the genocide he's more than just a narcissistic he's somone that oppose individuality something that luz is stand for he's evil but more complex.
@@thefirstone4864 when did the person above ever say that Belos wasn't irredeemable? A character can be tragic and still be irredeemable-i wanted Belos to die by the final episode, but the show did Belos dirty by shoving any and all complexity established in S2 under the rug and saying “lol no, he’s just pure evil lmao”
Reread the original comment, because the original commenter basically said what I'm saying but in fewer words
@@lemonperson02There's nothing about him that is tragic and he deserves everything that happened to him. Newsflash the character can be non tragic and be interesting. Thanos fried people's brains and created one of the most boring and unrealistic villan trope. I'm glad belos is the complete opposite of the norm. If you don't like the trope more power to you but don't expect that the show cater to your fan fiction.
@@thefirstone4864 its obvious to me that you didn't watch the show then, or at the very least you're not interested in any of the lore that was dropped about Belos in the show. It's perfectly fine if it's the latter option, but don't sit there and insult me by pretending that there was *nothing* tragic about Belos’ story and that I'm making shit up so the show “caters to me”
The entire Philip, Caleb, and Evelyn story was practically the plot of a Shakespearean tragic comedy: Two brothers growing up in an cult, the older brother falling in love with someone he was supposed to persecute, the younger brother killing him and going insane because of hatred and grief? Tragic as all hell.
Was Belos an evil dude? Yes.
Was he irredeemable? Yes.
Could he have still been interesting if he wasn't tragic? Absolutely.
Is it tragic that he was a young child who grew up being taught a very closed-minded way of thinking and his anger and sorrow in adulthood prevented him from ever growing past that? Hell. Fucking. Yes.
If you dont want your villain to be tragic…maybe don't shove his tragic backstory into episodes?
It's so funny to me that you people say that everything I just said is a figment of fanon despite the fact that the entire second half of season two, and even s3e1 seems to be building up Belos’ and Caleb’s backstory. Like it or not, it was canon, even if we got fuck all for payoff.
If you don’t want a vilain to be tragic maybe do not shove his tragic backstory into episodes
The thing about that is I do not think they ever intended Philips backstory to be tragic I think it was the fandom interesting the story in away it was never meant to be interpreted
If you look at the show itself it never once paints belos in a sympathetic light and as you pointed out the crew purposefully cut dialogue that could have made belos more sympathetic .
Thank you for this video!💕
Actually, I think that the fact that Belos is indeed a tragic villain would have been more clear if the writers had shown his backstory fully.
It's like most people say: The villain's backstory doesn’t redeem their actions but it makes you understand the reason behind their motivations.
This makes me sad, speaking more from my “character’s writing enthusiast” than my “Belos simp” side lol
I mean, imagine having a backstory chapter, seeing a Philip completely broken over the fact that his brother was living his "happily ever after" without him, when they used to be the only person they’ve got for each other… That would have made people feel bad for him at least in some part.
And perhaps some weirdos would want to justify his actions due to that, and that’s precisely why they deleted some scenes where Belos showed more depth in his character.
I feel like the show and the writers didn’t want to have any Belos’ apologist or even to feel pity about him, so they deleted scenes and didn’t deepen much into his personality and history in a more explicit way. (and Disney’s cancellation didn’t help smh)
And the fact that people are hating on any Belos’ fan makes me more sad too. You can enjoy him as a character, admire the way he's written or even simp for him for whatever reason, but that does not automatically make you someone who will justify all of his actions in a non-ironic way.
Lmao these anti-belos need to differentiate reality from fiction.
PD: I’m really glad someone understands the point of Luz meeting literally god and throwing away that speech of “there’s no chosen ones”. It doesn’t make the series finale bad, I enjoyed the battle and Titan Luz design but yeah, I feel like that speech was thrown in the garbage after that 😭
And makes a curious contrast that Philip was a normal man until he turned into the monster that Belos is, not because he met god, but because of his own actions and ideas.
I was gonna stay quiet about this but wth-
I like your overall analysis of belos here, but-
I’m sorry but I jus can’t agree with your stance on the whole ‘Luz meeting God’ thing, as the way I see it is different. Luz did not become any more of a ‘chosen one’ after meeting papa titan than she was before, idk what would give that impression. First, everything Luz did WAS indeed her own choice, even through all this, and even if it wasn’t after they met, it wouldn’t have changed the fact it had been up to that point, which is the only reason she got that far. Second (and this one’s important), I CAN sorta understand thinking that simply ‘the titan enabled her to defeat the evil’ makes her ‘chosen by higher power’ or whatever, I can GET that, but it (IMO) falls apart based on one factor here: the scene itself with papa titan goes to lengths to confirm what Steve had foreshadowed- he, like his son, is not a god, he’s just a guy. Hence, him helping Luz is just the same as any other character helping her: believing she’s doing the right thing, and so just gives her a hand. That’s why this interaction, to me at least, doesn’t go back on the ‘no chosen one’s’ idea. Luz isn’t being chosen by any God to beat belos, rather someone who happens to be at a godlike power level giving- no, offering (I’ll get to that in a sec)- her a second chance to do what she set out to do. Heck, I can’t even agree with all the bitterness in this comment section about how the show makers just decided ‘belos is pure evil cus God said so’, due to how we know why Papa titan knows anything, he’s seen it all from the between realm, if anyone would know what belos is like behind the scenes more than Luz (like WE DO, even we see more of his BS than Luz), he’s it. (But I know that part is very opinionated). Lastly, even if you disregard my points so far, which you could say are still just interpretations, even in that moment where the titan gave her his life, he still made it very clear he couldn’t just bring her back to life of his own accord, rather he would still want and need her to CHOOSE to keep going, and so she did. That, if you ask me, is why this doesn’t ruin any ‘no chosen ones’ idea: when it all came down to it, even if the was some godLIKE intervention, but not ‘divine’ per se, it was all still Luz’s choice.
So that is why I cannot in good faith agree/think that scene throws it in the garbage. Idk maybe it’s just copium on my part, not WANTING it to be a downer on that idea, but I think my reasons are fair, so either way it’s how I see it in any case.
That analysis of belos as a contrast though, I do find that very interesting, and a compelling point ya don’t see considered. Sill, even then, I (personally) think you could still find contrast in the other way as well. Perhaps like a Light Yagami case, him adopting the mentality of he IS a ‘chosen one’ as he’s the only one who IS doing what he’s doing it, telling it to himself early on as a justification to himself he’s doing the right thing, until in time it’s engraved in his world view to the point of never questioning himself being chosen, which of course is against the ‘no chosen ones’ message. After all, belos certainly presents himself as a holy figure in his cons and propaganda, ‘hearing the titan’ and ‘magic how the titan intended it’ and all that.
Again though, it’s just how I see it, and Dana did state multiple times in the livestreams she believes in death of the author when it comes to TOH, so I guess anything that can be interpreted is valid. This is it for me though. And I do agree belos’ tragic/sympathetic qualities COULDVE been just a bit more fleshed out while still making his defeat feel right (though I personally do still like the direction they went with his character towards the end as well, I think there was still just enough, and it was better to just drive home the point there’s no redemption in his ways imo).
@@redi.c.e.6046 I'll be honest I forgot I commented that lol
During these months I've been reading and listening to other opinions about the series finale and I've changed my last opinion.
Actually Luz did ended up with the Titan Papa and having his power by just doing the right thing: Protecting the collector from Belos (even if it caused her to die which it did)
I still think that the whole Titan Papa thing was some kind of deus ex machina but well justified (papa was only taking care of King but Luz ended up with King, so he watched after her too).
I forgot the foreshadow with Steve's dialogue tho! That was really clever and made a great contrast in the end, thank you for reminding me!
Actually I heard an opinion that the "choose yourself thing" was more an allegory to choose to be weird and embrace it despite what others say and I prefer it that way.
I still keep my opinion about Belos (well adding up a little after seeing more storyboards around Twitter lol) and I'm glad you agreed with that c:
And also I'm glad you pointed out the Titan Luz opinión too!
Finally! Finally, someone stands up for him and people who like Belos! But, I personally feel like he could have been redeemed although only in death and Not conplettly. Its more of a wish for a tragic ending on my part. Also I didn't know He was based on a real person. Still great character overall.
I headcannon that he had to make peace with the grimwalkers as well as Caleb and Evelyn.
The thing is the Diamonds took accountability and worked to fix their mistakes after realizing they were wrong
Belos does not because he did not want to he chose to still be evil and suffered the consequences for it
But at no means did Luz or Steven forgive their villains
I’m confused, where in the video did I say Belos should be forgiven? I very clearly state multiple times that Belos is irredeemable.
@area52ron, the message of the video is about acknowledging that Belos was implied by the writers (via the portraits in Hollow Mind and the story in Thanks to Them) that he has a very complicated past and that his desire to kill everyone on the Boiling Isles has more than meets the eye. Acknowledging one's motivations and feelings is not the same as excusing said person for their actions.
The Diamonds were poorly written, regardless.
I found Belos's death pretty underwhelming and Belos in Season 3 became a water downed version of 2012 Shredder ( the main villain of TMNT 2012 )
His proper development was shafted because of the collector, which is unfortunate. It just didn’t feel very thematically coherent
And what makes it worst. He doomed his kind as well.
it gets worse when you consider if it weren't for the Wittebros 99% of the plot literally would not have happened! I've often seen the argument thrown around "But the show isn't about Belos!" No, but he did kickstart major key events. While I'm still looking for evidence on it apparently Dana has come forth saying that she hated to write him and if true, it shows.
Things become even more frustrating when none of the other bad guys get any consequences for their actions even when it's shown they still suck despite Belos no longer being around to influence them.
The collector...good lord that was the biggest offender =_= literally gets their lore instantly retconned from FTF
Belos is an AMAZING villain, and he really was wasted
also as a Belos simp, thanks!
The argument that the show isn't centered around Belos is so weird, as if a little flashback scene would shift the whole focus onto him instead. Avatar spent an entire episode exploring Roku's and Sozin's relationship, humanizing Sozin in the process, a guy who actually suceeded in his genocide. Nobody started claiming that the guy was just a poor meow meow afterwards, even though he was portrayed as symphathetic and attractive in his youth.
Also Caleb could have really needed some characterisation, because as things are now it seems like he left his only family in a town full of bigots, either because he just didn't care or because he was an airhead
Your video is very eloquently written and argued thoroughly. You did an amazing job compiling and explaining this! Could you please tell me the background music you used? It’s been playing non-stop in the back of my brain. Thank you, and I’ve a great day!
Thank you so much! The name of the song is “me and the devil” and I thought it fit perfectly for talking with Belos’ character
Honestly I wanted Belos to win. Not because I think he’s good it’s because he’s such a cool villain and I just like goop monsters
Its baffling to me what people are willing to claim solely based on a person liking any character that isn't 100% perfect.
Belos fans are anti black? Anti lgbt? Are ok with child abuse? Because they just find the villian in a cartoon to be interesting????!!!!
By this logic, everyone who loves Eda must be pro crime, and pro stealing, and supporting real life con artists,, like people are aware how hypocritical this is right ?
What people enjoy in a character is different for everyone and to base everyone's morals purely off whatever characters they enjoy is both dangerous and extremely harmful.
Philip is an incredibly interesting character, I don't think the show exactly treated his character's interesting nuance the way they should of, and genuinely wish they hadn't dropped the ball on his backstory and ending.
But there are MANY reasons people genuinely appreciate him as an antagonist and find him to be fascinating that have nothing to do with agreeing with his morals.
This gatekeeping is ridiculous, if people want this fandom to last long after the main series is over, it doesn't benefit them to drive everyone away.
Philip is a character at the end of the day, he's not real, let people have fun with him.
The fact that all this representation is exist inside a realm filled with demons and witches, and that’s it’s all ruled by an white, blond, blue eyed old man is hilarious
Belos is a very interesting villain and character because of this. Unlike Aku, the Joker, or Emperor Palpatine, he is not evil for the sake of evil. He made decisions that will always be a mark against him, and because of his pride, he is unable to acknowledge them for fear of having his entire world crumble and sinking into hopelessness. This is why he is evil.
Agreed
So did Philip love and care about Caleb deeply before killing him and able to feel sympathy and guilt as a child or was he a heartless monster even as a child?
I think he did genuinely love Caleb, and I think that when he set off to find Caleb, it was to bring him back home, but when he realized he couldn't “save” his brother because he was “too far gone,” he killed him for his “sins.”
So definitely not heartless. We can see that in his childhood memories in Hollow Mind, he is happy with Caleb and is worried and upset when he leaves. Hell, even in s3e2 we see Belos start to hallucinate Caleb looking disappointed in him, so to an extent, I do think he feels guilt over what he did, but he's too far gone to be pulled back.
@@lemonperson02hat’s what I think too. It’s just that lots of websites say that he only ever loved the concept of Caleb. When he looks genuinely happy just playing or doing chores with Caleb in the portraits (he didn’t even have a smug grin in the happy moments like Odalia had when blushing at Alador).
@@samaravasiloff6381 I think that Philip had a very immature black-and-white worldview. I also think that it's entirely possible that Philip had this idea of who his brother was, the same way that when you're a child you believe your parents are infallible because they're so much smarter, bigger, and stronger than you, but I do think Philip loved CALEB genuinely.
He just was never able to move past that black-and-white way of thinking about things. His own hubris kept him from outgrowing that.
THE REALEST TAKE EVER!!!
I feel like s3 was just...fanservice... for fans of the main cast, who just wanted the evil to be defeeated, and their favs happy, and their ships together. Especially this can be said about wad, and genuinly... genuinly i dont understand why do people loke this episode - it felt like the erasure of the entire toh message and the entire vive, there was nothing that i would've not expected from any other cartoon! Yes, animation, fight scenes, and designs are really pretty AND rememberable, however, i was so disappointed in it as your local villain enjoyer, who was so much excited to see something more interesting than just the protagonist fighting the villain who is !!!suddenly!!! very evil and deranged.
I could go on 30 minutes long rant on this topic okay, so i will just shut up.
But anyway, i hope so much that those people from owltwt see this video AND FINALLY understand our point because the way they attacked my moots and me for the most harmless thing ever said is just.... flabbergasting.
And they are still talking about this topic repeating the same takes over and over again
Belos being this Witch Hunter who wants to destroy the Isles because he thinks it is a threat is a much more compelling and thematically appropriate motive for him rather than wanting to be a hero. Yes, being a hero would make him a parallel to Luz, but thematically it doesn’t make sense. The Owl House is a show about a girl going to a realm of demons to learn how to be a witch. But deeper down, the show is about loving yourself, no matter your sexuality, interests, or (dis)abilities. It is a show that teaches us to find the beauty in the strange, and to appreciate. It teaches us that love is not just between two people of opposite genders. Belos being a Witch Hunter makes him the perfect antithesis to these themes. He embodies people from a time and place where differences where not just seen as weirded, they were hated and demonized. Belos represents zealots who are so adamant that their beliefs are right, that it justifies and encourages the destruction of anyone and anything different from their idea of the norm. But different doesn’t mean bad. The Owl House teaches us that understanding and acceptance can make the world a better place, and the greatest adversity to understanding and acceptance are ignorance and intolerance.
I'm failing to understand your point? Are you saying that Belos is shown as someone who wants to be a hero and that doesn't fit the shows themes, or are you saying that Belos simply wants to erase a threat?
The show tells us that Belos wants both-which makes sense, Belos seeing the Boiling Isles as a “threat” fits in beautifully with him wanting to be a hero. Those are not mutually exclusive mindsets, and they actually feed into each other really well. Belos thinks of himself as a hero because he's erasing a perceived threat. Now, he's a narrative parallel to Luz while also staying consistent to the show’s themes. That's why I love his character. He's such a slimy piece of garbage, but he’s such a fascinating character because of his psychology.
I’m sorry that I was unclear. What I am trying to get across is that when the show started revealing the truth about Belos’ motives in Hollow Mind (And by extension, Thank to Them), it was said, as well as heavily implied that Philip and Caleb grew up in a Connecticut Colony which was very strict and distrustful of outsiders. To better get them to fit in to their Puritan (It is highly likely Gravesfield was a Puritan settlement given the time and place) village, Caleb encouraged Philip to follow the town’s beliefs that anyone strange or dangerous was a Witch, a follower of Satan, and had to be destroyed to preserve the good of the town.
The show states that Philip believed his brother was seduced by Evelyn and spirited away, most likely in an attempt to steer Caleb away from the path of God. We do not know the finer details of how the final confrontation between Philip and Caleb went. I personally believe that Philip attempted to kill Evelyn in an attempt to break her ‘spell’ over Caleb, but Caleb, in an attempt to stop his brother from killing her, ended up getting in the way, and Philip ended up killing him. Philip likely believed that Evelyn had planned this as a way to kill Caleb and condemn his soul to hell.
After that, Philip wanted to dedicate his life to destroying the perdition of the Isles, to keep any other humans from being corrupted ever again. He likely continued to make clones of Caleb because he loved his brother still, and wanted (in his eyes) to give Caleb a way to redeem himself in the eyes of God. While I can see Philip wanting to be a hero. After the events of King’s Tide, it seemed the writers wanted to retcon any humanity in Philip, and have him want to be the hero not because he wanted to do what he believed was the right things but because in his own selfish desires, to have the chance to be praised for something noteworthy.
I hope that clarifies my thoughts better.
@@docfox4353 okay, I think I get what you mean now-and YES! I completely agree. I hated the finale for this (on top of other things), but it feels like they retconned his entire motivation despite all of the build-up. It's kind of frustrating.
@@lemonperson02 Belos being a prick who wants to destroy a world for an ego boost feels to awkward in the show. But Belos being this Puritan Witch Hunter in a world of magic, witches, and demons. A world that played a role in influencing the ideologies and mythologies of humanity. Belos being a zealot who believes God would want him to destroy this place to protect humanity from the sinning influences of these ‘creatures’. To see how he applied the scapegoating and fearmongering in a centuries long con is just incredible and feels just as terrifying as it is original.
I wouldn’t really say a tragic villain there is a tragedy there but he had way to many chances to change since he became hundreds of years old and his brother even rejected the idea of witches being evil but I like this video
that still means that he is a tragic villain. The tragedy is his hubris and the fact that someone who had so much potential to be good managed to turn out so horrible because of biases they refused to unlearn. His story may have started off sad, but the part that made his story *TRAGIC* is the fact that, at a certain point, it is entirely self-inflicted. That's why I love his story so much. He's absolutely a tragic villain, but the tragedy is his own mind and the fact that he actively attacks anyone who tries to pull him out of his poison-leeching worldview.
I would have preferred Belos be put on trial for his crimes against the Boiling Isles instead of being stomped on by Eda, King, and Raine.
I would rather have had Belos die while hallucinating Caleb & the past grimwalkers surrounding him. They don't even attack him directly, but bc the boiling rain is slowly killing him, he interprets that as them turning against him completely.
Literally ANYTHING
ANYTHING
Would have been better than Eda, King, and Raine curbstomping him.
indeed. though i wanted him to do the same stuff as William Afton got. never die and just suffer. that'd be way to both empathize him and give him deserved punishment.
I'd rather him just rest in eternal peace.
@@Xoracious I headcannon that he had to make peace with all the grimwalkers as well as Caleb and Evelyn.
This is why i like Phillip as a character.he's literally been guided and follow the living of his community his whole life before going to the boiling isles,and the only person who he trusted, his brother(possibly not even his biological brother) abandoned him for a girl from the demon realm(really caleb?)for years,and when Phillip finally found him,Caleb married the witch,have a kid with her,and just happy?really?if i'm in phillip's shoes i would be mad and feel betrayed,and since he follow the teachings of his community and he have no friends at all beside his own brother...well he killed caleb.then the story is shown by the show... honestly i find many redeeming qualities in phillip,but not anymore since he killed his brother clones unknown number of times,and outlaw witches.Phillip i think can be saved if he have others than just Caleb,maybe a sworn brother,a guiding father-figure priest,or a grandma or auntie or even a girlfriend..but as shown by the pictures,he only have Caleb...which is sad.on other hand thanks to Phillip backstory being little information,i'm just gonna say that phillip parents is from another world, kingdom hearts style,and that he's actually a child of a family with Spiritual powers,who one is his mother a white haired blue eyed then turned blonde hair blue eyed female doll with anger issues,and a middle age craftsman from japan that occupation is a 'spirit doctor'who is his father.....and for some reason i ship phillip with chainsawman Fami,get it?phillip lover of horses?,lover of horseman?both of them want to save humanity? characters from both of show basically calling them insane?yeah?
Or even better, Phillip rather than going to the boiling isles,he without knowing,go to a world that literally opposite of the boiling isles,a literal eternal rain world with flowers and a train station, beautiful landscapes,musicians who is a white haired girl with flowers on her hair and her partner who is a humanoid water being,with heavenly orchestral music.
I hate Belos as a character, his actions are deplorable, but I love this video essay, and it feels like you hit every point on the head in an unbiased way. It feels like a lot of the fandom, and by extension, the show itself has just become very black and white when it comes to antagonists, especially in the 2 half of season 2 and all of 3, which is frustrating when you look at people who love characters like Amity, and those who excuse others like Alador, who still face little consequences for their own actions. Seeing people admonish Belos for his black and white view of others only to attack those who are interested in the nuances of his character come off as hypocritical.
The finale honestly felt like mostly fanservice. It honestly feels like Dana started to give up by season 3 (We did not need the penultimate special being filled with that Boscha+Kikimora tripe). It feels like every major antagonist was reduced to pure evil. It is okay to sympathize with Philip because understanding what drove a person to their actions doesn’t make you bad yourself. Philip, no matter how much his Puritan upbringing affected him, still committed the unforgivable deaths and destruction and he has to face consequences for that. But to tempt us with depth only to say Belos was just always a jerk (I personally don’t see what the Titan meant by Philip just wanting to be the hero of his own story, that just feels like something that was shoehorned in to make him seem like a dark counterpart to Luz) essentially tells anyone interested in potential nuance that they were wasting their time.
They could have easily had the Titan explain to Luz that anyone, even her could have ended up like Belos because even the people with the purest intentions can hurt others if they take their actions to far, and that believing are incapable of being bad in itself is a dangerous mindset that can cause you to brush off your own bad actions. Philip was raised to genuinely want to help others, but he was taught to do it in a way that hurt others. When he came to the isles, and found that Caleb had unlearnt his own biases (I doubt Caleb was pure good, but that he just saw witch hunting as a means to an end as a way to support the only family he had left, but after meeting Evelyn, he felt guilt for the deaths he caused, and wished to atone), Philip believed Caleb was corrupted, and attempted to kill Evelyn to save Caleb, but when Caleb attempted to stop his brother, he ended up getting killed. Because he lacked the skills or strength to healthily cope with his brother’s death, and his own role in it, Philip only furthered buried himself in his hate because it was the one constant he could depend on.
This could have easily become a story about people learning to find healthy ways to cope in the face of tragedy. Luz learnt she couldn’t play life out like a fantasy to cope with her Dad’s passing, and Philip could have learnt he couldn’t continue to hurt others in his desperate attempt to absolve himself of his guilt. I also don’t think stomping Belos would have killed him. I think it would have been more fitting for the Collector to trap Belos in the In-Between.
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I hate how Philip died in S3.
Like, don't get me wrong, I wanted Philip to die, but the way they did it felt lazy and unsatisfying.
It's even worse when you remember that Raine said “Now THAT was satisfying.”
Because it's like the creators KNEW that it was the least satisfying ending we could have gotten, and they were teasing us about it.
Let's think about this logically for a second:
Philip is dying, begging for his fellow human to wake up and see reason, to not fall for this world of witchcraft and sin... He tries to appeal to her better nature, saying “We’re human! We’re better than this!”
And then, WITCHES cut him off from Luz, blocking his way and saying, “Well we aren't!”
AND THEN, he gets stomped out by the very people he hates? From his character’s perspective, he's getting every single one of his personal biases reinforced as he dies. Sure, he never gets to complete his mission, but he gets the satisfaction of feeling RIGHT? That rubs me the wrong way. It should rub all fans, especially those who don't like him, the wrong way.
He died feeling like everything he had done, every horrible, disgusting atrocity he had committed, was somehow justified because these witches were proof of that in his mind.
I wish the show had taken his death a different route, I really do.
@@lemonperson02 He should have just died in the rain, receiving nothing but silence. And his last words end up betraying his moral resolve. He becomes fearful of judgement. He starts seeing Caleb instead of Luz. He would start babbling incoherently of his insecurities, perhaps screaming at the world that this is not fair, and his last words would be: "Was I not the hero?"
It'll be ambiguous as to what Belos means by it. Perhaps he realized he's the villain. Or perhaps he's still in denial. Perhaps, he needs Luz to vindicate him. Regardless, Belos receives no answer. His shocked eyes widened before they flicker out and all that remains is a hollow skull.
@@lemonperson02 So does that mean Belos won? in his own eyes
@@jakubfidell3847 I don't think Belos thinks he WON, I think Belos thinks that he was proven RIGHT. He was stomped out by witches who literally just verbally confirmed everything he thought about them.
“Luz, we’re human. We’re better than this!”
“Well WE ain't!”
It infuriates me to a degree unlike any other. Why did Belos die believing every horrible, disturbing thing he did was justified? Why did he get to die with that peace?
@@lemonperson02 I don't know why he died peacefully, but thanks for the reply
I am a big fan of wittebane lore and belos is one of the best villains out there but i didn't even get as far as blaming the creator at all. Bare in mind the original story was way darker and interesting but had to be tone down a lot due to fit the disney demographics. Dana said that watching and dreaming isn't the ending she wanted. The ending she wanted need a lot more set up and she kept it so that if the show's ever comes back, she would have wanted to conclude it differently and it would end every character's arc better. I love your analysis and i do agree with some of your point but there's more than what we thought we know
I did state in the video that Disney is to blame for SOME of the problems with the story, but I've always thought that the writing on TOH was extremely sloppy-not just Wittebane lore. I'm not going to go into everything, bc that would probably be a video in of itself, and there are already people who have made posts online that articulate similar thoughts in a way that I likely never could, but we can't say that ALL problems with the story rests on Disney’s hands.
Without changing any of the story, Dana could have made SLIGHT changes to dialogue-Dialogue that we see present in STORYBOARDS that were then cut (aka Belos and Luz interaction during S2 finale “I wanted to save you” changed to “we don't belong here”, Belos reacting somberly to Luz asking him “what do you think they DID to you?”, etc…)
Hell, you could even keep the Titan and Luz interacting, Titan Luz, Titan Belos, Belos dying in the rain-EVERYING in the finale MOSTLY the same and it would be a slightly more satisfying ending-all you'd have to do is slightly change the dialogue between the Titan and Luz that DIDN’T retcon all of the interesting lore dropped for Belos.
You can blame Disney for cutting the show short. I know I do. But Dana and the writing crew DID do Belos dirty as a result of that.
Yes the one with luz and belos also any other scene that gave belos more dialogue also if you could link me to the articles or vids that you agreed with there critique on the show
Haven’t watch the show, but reading about him almost made me feel sorry. Almost.
What makes this worse is that Dana claimed that Belos stoped thinking names for grimwalkers and just named one hunter as sort of sick joke .
I think Belos naming Hunter could work better if he didn’t name all the grimwalkers Hunter. My headcanon is that he gave many of them traditional Puritan names, since Puritans wanted to prove their devotion to God. Names like Abstinence, God-Fearing, Humiliation, and we’re not uncommon for Puritans. Other names like Hunter could have included Chase, Fox, etc.
It never made sense to me because this would mean that Darius WOULD know something was fishy since his mentor would have been named Hunter, and also would happen to look very similar to the most recent Hunter. It just felt like some JKR level bullshit Dana pulled out her nostrils.
@@pentagrin4157
I would like to point out no one in the empires coven except belos ever uses hunters name so it’s safe to assume that t belos knows it as them looking similar Dan terrace recently addressed this in a qand a saying that while Darius did see the previous golden Garuda face that dose not mean it looks like hunter after all belos himself said “out of all the grimwalkers you looked the most like him” hinting that the previous golden guards looked a lot different
Oh he's a tragic villain alright but not the kind you can ever forgive. Instead of actually learning and rethinking his lot in life when he hundreds of years to do so, he kept doubling down and doing deplorable things. He's beyond redemption and that's why you don't ever feel sorry for him despite a tragic life.
This! I’m allowed to think he’s tragic and also think he’s deplorable and beyond redemption! He’s a very interesting character and I love looking at him as a cautionary tale of what can happen when someone grows up in a cult-like society: some grow past that way of thinking (aka Caleb), but some either are unable to bc they’re not shown another way, or, in the case of Philip, double-down on that way of thinking because of trauma and anger and end up being deplorable people until the bitter end.
I just wanna crack open his head and study his thoughts, because he’s SUCH an interesting character.
I love interesting, complex but irredeemable villains like Frollo, The Lich, Belos, Sauron, Voldemort, and Shen
@@jamestolbert1856 I feel that only Emperor Belos and Shen meet the list.
It's wrong to feel bad for bad people?
I just love goop villains
Belos is a tragic character who is a victim of his times teachings and ideology and it reminds me of a couple of other characters.
The first is Mina Loveberry from Star vs the Forces of Evil. Mina became a admirer and loyal follower of Queen Solaria and her monster hating ideology. Queen Solaria used her magic to turn Mina into a monstrous warrior and really did a serious number on her mind. Mina spent hundreds of years following that monster hating ideology believing herself to be a hero to her people, but became the final challenge to the heroes. In all those years Mina was seen as nothing more then a weapon and attack dog for the Magic High Comission and the royal family. No one ever tried to help her or undo the process that made her into the warrior she was.
Then there's Johannes "Jojo" Betzler from Jojo Rabbit who followed the ideology of a certain bad faction during World War 2. Thankfully Jojo sees how messed up the ideology is and turns his back on it.
The thing is all these characters were followers of one extreme ideology in their environments at a young age and it took a realistic hold of them.
I mean, still Belos decided to stay evil, Caleb was raised in exactly the same conditions, but he decided to see more to the people in the isles, seeing that they are good people like everyone in their world!
But not Philip, he decided to make his mission to kill every magic being, even if they have the same feelings as humans
@@Sombrita00 The thing about that is Caleb was older then Philip, so his mind was further developed and he had more life experience to decide what was right and wrong. Philip on the other hand was very young and young minds are like clay. Easy to mold and shape to think and believe things. Young Philip was much easier to sway and become a devoted follower of witch hunter ideology.
Well as I said before Belos is well written undeniably. However not every backstory requires a full look. In the end, Phillip was raised in the 1700s when witches were feared and was impressionable enough to buy into it. When his brother Caleb fell in love with Evelyn and created a child with her, Phillip felt betrayed and killed him in a fit of rage. Afterwards, he went to the Boiling Isles and plotted a genocide in a revenge scheme. What more do you need to know? It wouldn't have changed anything or helped the situation since all of his redeeming and sympathetic qualities were long gone. The story between Belos, Caleb, and Evelyn is doomed to being lost to time and its his own fault.
The final battle worked out in the sense of how Luz was chosen. It's like Edalyn told Luz to create her own destiny and she did. The Titan chose her for being great to her son and gave her the power needed to defeat Belos. Hard work, determination, and group effort can only go so far which was shown by fighting Belos before fleeing to the Human Realm. They had no chance and that was not going to change here. Besides, Hunter faced Belos by fighting his possession and told him about never wanting to go back to the palace and ensuring that he couldn't hurt anyone else. After helping out Willow, he began to find his peace and wanted to move forward. Him helping with the rescue effort was of his own free will and not a need to spite Belos. Ultimately seeing Belos was going to do more harm than good for Hunter.
Belos' death was undignified and anticlimactic but it didn't need to be grand. After all, he tried to be this mysterious and powerful being but it was slowly stripped away to reveal he was once human like Luz is. As for Edalyn, King, and Raine, there's this problem of thinking that humans or anything alike needs to be angels to win and so many just fall as they obsess over it and fear that they're like the evil until they become so. In the end, they stomped Belos out as an act of contempt. Nothing more and nothing less. They didn't need to be better than him or anything of the sort. He needed to go and that was it.
Belos is “sympathetic” BECAUSE he was a hurt child who grew up in a cult and unfortunately, because of the trauma he got from being, in his eyes, abandoned by his only family in favor of going to a hell dimension with a witch, he was never able to grow past his childhood views and died stuck in his ways. That is HEARTWRENCHING. But just because he's tragic and sympathetic, that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to be killed in the finale. I believe he deserved to die. I don't think he deserved to go out in some grand way. I actually think that the scene he dies in is ALMOST perfect, but where it could have hit a home run, it misses by a mile. I'm mad because his death, from HIS character’s point of view, reinforces the beliefs he held. He gets to die feeling RIGHT? Why does he get to die in a way that reinforces his beliefs?
Let's go over that scene one more time-he's lying in the mud, begging and pleading for the only human present to save him. He's trying to appeal to her better nature by saying “We’re human! We’re better than this!” and in response, WITCHES, the people he already associates with being evil and the source of corruption for Luz, cut him off from her, and in response to him saying “we’re better than to kill someone begging for help” the WITCHES say “well WE AREN’T!” before killing him.
I'm mad because that reinforces his beliefs that he was RIGHT. He shouldn't GET to feel right. He shouldn't get solace as he dies, he should die pathetically. Let the rain finish him off. Let the man’s final moments be a stare-down between him and Luz (and, in my version, Hunter would be there because that boy was SO hurt by everything Belos had done, he DESERVES to see the man who had tormented him for his entire life and murdered his best friend VERY RECENTLY be in such a lowly position. Hunter should get to see Belos when he's not able to lord some power over him or hurt him.)
Let Belos have a moment where he realizes that no one, not even his fellow human or the boy he treats as a placeholder for his long-since deceased brother, believes in his cause. That the only way he will be remembered is with hatred and contempt.
His death is still undignified, but at least now it makes sense for his character. Like…WHY did the witches have to stomp on him? It takes a scene that could have been FANTASTIC, and easily turns it into one of the worst character deaths I've seen.
Literally all they had to do was have Luz take a step back from him when he grabs her leg and watch in silence as he dissolves into a little green puddle. THAT alone would have made his death fantastic. Him dying to the rain while the person he's been manipulating this entire time doesn't even dignify him with a response so he has to die in silence? *MWAH* chefs kiss.
@@lemonperson02 Yet I didn't once say he was not tragic. In the end, he felt betrayed and acted. However, that does not matter when you refuse to change and frankly trying to see them as a person changes nothing or just makes it worse. Plus it comes off like you want them to be these perfect angels when they never were. It was about Luz's reaction and not the others. It was not going to change anything having those three be the bigger people and proving a point. It's ridiculous being hung up on it frankly. How do you know Hunter would have found closure in seeing Belos die? He clearly didn't utterly hate Belos so seeing that could have traumatized him further. Not sure what's with this obsession when Hunter made his peace after helping out Willow. Belos was his father figure no matter how abusive and besides a lot become monsters getting consumed by hatred towards their abuser. Revenge should never be nuanced as I say and it's not always a physical action. This isn't like Zuko and Ozai and even then Zuko only advocated for his death for the sake of the world yet was satisfied with Aang stripping Ozai of his firebending.
@@JamaicaZ160R1793010A I'll take “did not read my comment” for 500.
Motherfucker, did you not read the part where I said “Belos deserved to die, just because he has a tragic backstory that doesn't absolve him of the consequences,” or are you just rage-baiting?
“How do you know Hunter wouldn't have found closure, he seemed fine after helping Willow!” oh, you mean the scene where WILLOW got to cry out HER feelings while Hunter HELPED her? And then the show immediately moved on to him being turned into a puppet by the collector for the majority of the finale? Oh, yes, yes, my bad. Of
COURSE Hunter worked through his feelings as a lifeless puppet. From the time that Flapjack died to the finale, Hunter barely got a MINUTE to breathe, and none of that focused on HUNTER feeling better. I suggest you go back and watch those episodes and see how little time Hunter got to, as you put it, “work through his emotions.”
And no, I don't consider him crying after being told he has some of Flapjack's magic as “completely working through his feelings” because we didn't get a chance to see Hunter AFTER that point and tell how he was doing about the Belos situation.
So, yeah, considering he spent the entirety of s3e2 anxious to stop Belos and angry over Flapjack, and the majority of the finale trapped as a lifeless puppet, I DO think he would benefit from at least BEING PRESENT for Belos’s death, even if he doesn't participate in the death itself.
Not to mention, I'm not sure what you're going on about Hunter’s “revenge,” because no, it's not “revenge” for Hunter to stand by as Belos is dying via elements outside his control. It's not “revenge” for a victim to see poetic justice befall their abuser. Revenge would be-say, stomping Belos’s head into the ground? But WAIT! Isn't that what happens in the original canon? Guess our MCs are monsters now, by your logic.
Also, the idea of Belos being killed by characters who had little to no relevance to him because “eh, the outcome is the same” is laughable.
In the tale of Icarus, instead of having Icarus fly too close to the sun and having the wax on his wings melt off, why not have him stay at the correct height but have him be shot down by a flaming arrow if the result of him falling to his death is the same? In Star Wars, instead of Luke flying down the canal and shooting that perfect shot into the duct of the Death Star, why not just have the Death Star implode on the inside from a random engine combustion by an error caused during construction? It would save the heroes the trip.
Do you see how dumb that sounds? If you just take the cheap way out, the “well the outcome would be the same anyways, who cares about how it's done!” way, the story feels half-baked and not as satisfying.
Philip, who's spent his adult life lying and manipulating and abusing those around him, would have a far more compelling and narratively cohesive death if he died whimpering and scared while Luz and Hunter, the people whom he feels the strongest bonds with (Luz because she's human and Hunter because he's Belos’s reincarnated brother) do NOTHING to help.
that’s it. Luz and Hunter get the closure of seeing such a horrible man, who has made them both feel weak and helpless in the past, in such a pathetic position that he can't hurt anyone
Philip has to see his “brother” and his fellow human do nothing to aid him as he dies because of the boiling rain.
It makes the most narrative sense.
@JamaicaZ160R1793010A you don't know how to read
@@theidiotics2629 That's not it. Some ideas don't work as well in reality or in canon. It's not my fault that pulled out rage.
I 100% agree
Another cool thing about him is that he turns into goop which illustrates his corrupted heart and twisted mind, I love that about some villains that represent their cruelty or character
you gotta ask Ivlis simps. that villain knows everything about being OVERhumiliated.
yes, Ivlis from Gray Garden. game... with community MUCH more creepy than gacha or genshin...
I’m curious now I want to find out more information about the guy based off belos who harassed Dana terrace
Great vid, you need to ask Santa for a new mic for Christmas though! Have you ever seen Made in Abyss?
I haven't seen that!
Also, yeaaahhhh I was using my 3-year-old headset mic and it was like 3am at the time of me recording so I know I didn't sound the best xD
I've always loved evil characters all of my life (some evil characters I just hate forever though) so it does depend for me,I do have a strange love/hate thing for certain villians,like I love anti-cosmo from fairly oddparents,I hate/love scar from the lion king/lionguard,I *HATE* aion from chrono crusade and I *HATE* akito from fruits basket,the reason why hate is bold twice is cause these 2 characters have made me so angry that I can never forgive them which means I have different levels of hate for cartain characters,if the character doesn't make me angry it means that I can forgive them later on,but if they make me angry,I will hate that character forever making them unforgiveable,now that those are out of the way,let's talk about belos,where does he fit in my list? has he ever made me angry in the show? the answer is,I can't remember,I've always had mixed feelings with belos,he was extremely well written so that makes him a great villain which I love,I love villians that are well written,but he was also written for people to hate him,do I hate him? or is he forgiveable in my eyes? even though he never made me mad like a few of the anime characters that I've mentioned,I don't forgive belos for the things he's done,but thanks to an animator that I really like on here,they have made me feel bad towards the character which brings down my hatered just a bit,and then I have ideas in my head of my own,like he was brainwashed when he was a mere child,he was lied to since most of the town's people back in his timeline were witch hunters,so they all most likely fed him lies about witches being evil,I do belive that they were the reason why he was the way he is,he's been in denial since he was he was led to belive these things,he fell victim without ever realizing he was the one who was hurting the entire time,no one could help him anymore,not caleb,or luz,they both saw how lost he was,since we only had pictures of caleb to go by,I think caleb's optimism (yes I belive caleb was optimistic,I belive he saw silver linings) made it clear that he didn't care if philip was a monster or not,he hugged his brother anyway,probably without hesitation,I think he knew what was going to happen next but he had to at least try reasoning with philip one more time,it is hard to go by with pictures only,but that is my guess since we don't know how the conversation went down,so my thoughts/feelings towards philip/belos is complicated,so I'm going to say I have a mixture of love/hate and sadness towards him
I'm really sorry for the long comment,and I'm not sure if makes sense ethier,I also have complicated thoughts on all of the diamonds (including pink diamond from steven universe and vegeta from dragon ball z,but I decided not to mention them since the comment was already really long and I didn't know where to fit them in XD and I would most likely made them go into my most hated list anyway since they all did make me pretty angry,I'm starting to think irredeemable characters that get redeemed or that died but shown to still be alive at the end (yes that happened in an anime) just make me so angry
think Notsoaveragefangirl influenced series. She hated Kikimora in season 1, and then they make her annoying evil prick for sake of being that in season 2. In season 1 she didn't behave like that. She behaved more like professional figure and roasted lilith. That girl hates belos, and then they treat belos as nothing more than a dirt in season 3. I am so glad she didn't influence amphibia. She hates king andrias, even it times he is actually amusing and funny, he has guorks, personality, the way he behave in season 2 it's not an act, he is really silly goofball who like earth things, and genuinely like marcy, he even beg to core do not take her as host. And he has a backstory that you can understand. Imagine if your father gaslighting your view of the friendship and then manipulated by his father and core, there his ancestors for hundreds years. But this girl still hates belos, she mocks him, even in his cool moments and lines like "don't stop on my account". The most annoying part, when andrias acknowledged that he is not good at the attitude, she says "you're not good at anithing because you're an a**hole". This girl hated scarlemagne (the best part in kipo) also she disappoints in that he didn't get redeemed in the finale of season 2, even known many of people actually like that, because it was realistic and we hate if he is gonna redeem himself so easy and unrealistic like *ucking steven universe. Also she hates alastor just because he is an asshole, it's not. Yes he isevil sadistic psychopath, but he is gentlemen, he doesn't hide the fact that he is evil with no good intentions, he respects woman, protects weak woman in official comic, and also will never kill a child, becausehe has a code. This guy is so charming and charismatic evil bastard. But she doesn't like him because he is an a**hole and doesn't think why he become like that. Well why she likes angel dust or blitzo, to be fair they are a**holes, but she likes them because they are protagonists. She can easily hate a villain. Even known alastor is one of main character, he named a title of the series hazbin hotel. She hates striker, doesn't thinking why he does that. She wants him being nothing more than a bitch like belos. It's not interesting, we already have stella, and striker is really interesting character, and he can't hate royals for no reason. He already showed redeeming traits. He didn't shoot singer, he could, but he is just annoyed and said them to f off, also there is another reason to shoot them, because they know where his lair, but he didn't shoot them. They already showed his redeemable traits, he did even offer to blitz to join him, because he relate him, and he lost because he didn't shoot blitz immediately, because he feels ashamed of him, and actually wants to team with him, because they have so much common. The average fan girl sees villains as one sided character. She hates them no matter what.
Elijah is a good person, but she does seem to have a very black and white thinking mindset. She also tends to immediately form a bias that stays the same for certain characters. She immediately liked Hunter from the start despite the narrative framing him as an antagonist.
Nah this is the worst take ever. Belos had multiple opportunities to change and refused again and again. He literally had his whole tenure as emperor to change and he didn’t. He’s a monster due to his own willful ignorance
Where in the video did I not say that Belos was irredeemable? I said multiple times in the video that he is irredeemable and beyond saving in the show's canon. He is absolutely a monstrous piece of garbage.
I'm failing to see what point you were trying to make when we both agree that he is irredeemable. You commented that as though saying he's a monster is in any way contrarian to the point I made.
@@lemonperson02say,do you think all Phillip needed are friends(or maybe just a good parental figure) in his youth?he only have caleb as his only support,you think if Phillip have friends,'genuine friends' when he was still with caleb,you think he wont go to the demon realm because there are others who cares for him?(And for easier imagination,imagine characters from alice shach of the magic orchestra as phillip friends,have a lot of religious tone there)
@@mythzel898bet2 I think there was a time in Philip's life when he could have been brought over to the good side. Philip had the potential to be a good person. He suffered from abandonment issues due to Caleb leaving (Not that Caleb was wrong for leaving Gravesfield, per se, but that's a whole other can of worms)
I think if Caleb had taken Philip with him when he left, Philip might not have been so angry about what had happened. That's the long and short of it: Philip was angry and hurt because he REFUSED to believe that Caleb would choose a witch and live in the closest thing he's ever seen to Hell over the peaceful life he led with him, his brother. I'm unsure if him being introduced to witches (Similarly to how Luz was taken in by Eda) when he first entered the demon realm would have helped the outcome of the brother's reuniting, but it very well could have.
I think most people kind of got it wrong.
The Titan literally said that Luz was chosen by him for being nice to King to put it lightly.
There was no "hi im god did you know that you were special all along!?!?" Luz did indeed make herself something great not some prophecy. She was a good person who was kind and helped the people around her as well as having personal growth: she was selfish at times,she always made up for it, she matured and The Titan saw it all when he was watching over King. She made herself worthy so all your points are invalid.
On the Belos situation you and most of the others also interpreted it wrong, The Titan never said Belos was always evil, he only explained in what way his evil worked to assure Luz that she isn't evil. Belos is indeed stuck in the mindset of being a hero in his own delusional fantasy, The Titan never evan implied that Belos was always like that, he only assured Luz that he was truly beyond saving, he wasn't always evil but now he is and we can do nothing other than have to stop him.
And now his death, to some people it seems anti climactic but that could have not been farther from the truth.
Belos' death is fitting that it could not be more it shows the only thing left of him, a manipulative scumbag, narcissistic covard that made himself to be some great and powerful hero, while he is phisicaly strong and intelligent he is pathetic, in his last moment when he has no power he wants to try one last trick, but when it fails he resorts to insulting and begging. He is both figuratively and literally a slime that controls people. Mo matter how tragic it is mostly his fault. He does feel guilty but his ego was so in power that he wouldn't even tell the truth to himself. I would add a bit more on how Disney is the rute of all evil but I'm tierd.
1. Me saying “hey, I'm God, you’re the chosen one, want God's powers?” is a hyperbole I made for effect, but it's not entirely untrue, is it? Even from early season one, Luz was HANDED answers by the Titan (the light glyph being the most obvious example, but I can absolutely make an argument for the ice glyph as well.) and the only other instance we’ve seen of another person trying to find glyphs is Philip, and there are multiple instances of Philip claiming the Isles HID the glyphs from him (which based on what we see from Luz’s journey is entirely possible). So, no, I don't think that TOH isn't a chosen one story despite the show bragging in the early episodes about “not being the stereotypical fantasy chosen one story.” because despite the show going “we’re not like other fantasy stories! (turns to camera) WINK!” and actively making fun of other fantasy stories…it accidentally turns itself into a chosen one story.
A way to avoid this is to have the Titan not be able to just give his powers away. Luz could still meet him, they could still have a conversation, but instead of giving her “God Powers”, he used the last of his powers over the isles to send her back from the in-between, and she has to fight Belos alongside ALL of her remaining allies. Amity, Willow, Gus, and Hunter alongside Eda, King, and Raine. Instead of Luz being the only one putting up any real fight (because lets be real, the emphasis was on her and it barely felt like Eda, King, or Raine did anything during that fight) have it be a group effort of regular-ass people trying to fight this man as a group. The battle should show struggle. And it should emphasize the GROUP coming together to take down the INDIVIDUAL. Not one super-powered individual taking down a kaiju end-game boss. That would make Belos’s takedown so much more impactful. And would have felt less like a chosen one story.
2. I don't disagree that Belos is “stuck in the mindset of being a hero in his own delusion.” that part is true. What I HATE is that the show never bothers to go deeper than that. Why is he like this? *WE* know because *WE’VE* done deep dives on his character and were able to stitch together a timeline of his life with what scraps we were given. We understand his backstory. We’re not saying that Belos isn't too far gone, that he's not delusional and doesn't need to go down. What we’re saying is that when the show puts NO emphasis on Belos’ character and just treats him as “bad man bad” it basically ignores everything about him except “yeah, he's delulu, take him down, Champ.” and flattens him into a one-dimensional character with no substance to him.
3. His death was anticlimactic. Full stop. I don't hate that he died while trying to manipulate Luz. I think him dying while trying to manipulate Luz one last time is very fitting. What I find bad about his death is actually two reasons: 1. the fact that he got stomped. And 2. Hunter didn't get to be there.
Thats literally it. You could play the exact same scene to me where Belos is dissolving in the rain while trying to manipulate the characters and I'd be fine with it if they tweaked it so he died from the rain and not being stomped (and so that Hunter is there standing with his friends for support)
The reason why I hate the stomp so much is this:
Philip is dying, begging for his fellow human to wake up and see reason, to not fall for this world of witchcraft and sin... He tries to appeal to her better nature, saying “We’re human! We’re better than this!”
And then WITCHES cut him off from Luz, blocking his way and saying, “Well we aren't!”
AND THEN, he gets stomped out by the very people he hates? From his character’s perspective, he's getting every single one of his personal biases reinforced as he dies. Sure, he never gets to complete his mission, but he gets the satisfaction of feeling RIGHT? That rubs me the wrong way. It should rub all fans, especially those who don't like him, the wrong way. He died feeling like everything he had done, every horrible, disgusting atrocity he had committed, was somehow justified because these witches were proof of that in his mind
Belos should have died without that satisfaction. His pleading should have been met with silence. Cold indifference. He should have died seeing the face of the only other human present and the reincarnated face of his brother staring down at him with nothing but contempt in their eyes. He shouldn't be able to have the comfort of feeling right as he dies.
And then the show had the nerve to say “now THAT was satisfying!” as if it didn't give us the least satisfying ending for one of the most interesting characters in the show.
@@lemonperson02 sorry it took me a lot of time to reply. My internet connection was off for a few days.
1. The chosen one story part is the only argument here that i don't agree with you as much as the other ones.
The Titan didn't give luz the light gliph(idk how it's written) beacuse he saw her and was like "you are special i chose you to be the hero of this place despite you coming here like 8 days ago. He gave her the light gliph (still don't know how it's written) beacuse in the situation they were in that was the only thing that could save his son's LIFE. By that point in the series Luz was with King and Eda for like 8 days or something like that. But she was the only somewhat capable person around to save king from The owl Beast. And the other Gliph's he also probably gave her are beacuse he started to know her better and was now getting sure she's a good person that deserves this power beacuse she would only use it for good, that's why her gaining the ice spell was so far from the light one, giving her light was out of necessity, and giving her the ice spell was both to teach her about magic as she has sparked his interest and to save Eda as the two of them are keeping king safe so it's still not really a chosen on story.
But i agree with your re writte as it would have been more impactful.
2. I agree with this part, the show made a complex villain and decided that past the information we already have they're going to give nothing else,and for the viewers who didn't see any of the countless deep dives on his character would see him as an entertaining but barley complex villain, the show thinks that it gave us enough information and is basically self sabotaging itself. Also there was originally going to be a whole Tale of two Stan's episode about Belos' life but the 3rd season got shortened and it was cut, so they definitely wanted to go into his complexity but they didn't beacuse they thought they didn't have enough time, but at least they could have given us a few more lines of dialogue between Luz and The Titan or between Luz or Belos but what we got is what we got.
3. Yeah i agree that Hunter and in my opinion many more character's should have seen Belos die(especially Hunter) and him getting stomped is indeed leaving a bad taste on me. So yeah i think we have come to an agreement.
I’m sure that’s not what happened. god didn’t tell her she was special. She made a choice herself. So she wasn’t a chosen one. be aware I haven’t watched it in a while and actually going off memory alone.
If you actually look back on the scene and the context that built up to it, the conversation that Luz has with the Titan establishes several things:
The Titan had been watching Luz since the day she came to the Isles (or at least not long after that since the Titan was watching King and the people he interacted with.)
As stated by Belos multiple times before this scene that he struggled immensely to find glyphs and learn magic because, and I quote, "It was as if the world was hiding them from me" and "The Titan itself didn't want me to have that knowledge" Implying that the Titan, the being who equates to God in the Boiling Isles, actively watched Luz and CHOSE to give that knowledge to her. The Titan, literal god, CHOSE her specifically because he watched her and thought, "Yeah, alright, this one will do."
The Titan's dialogue with Luz actively paints her as the "hero" of a story. Sure, he says, "You need to choose yourself," but narratively, that moment rings hollow because everything we've learned about the Titan shows us that he's been actively affecting the story and priming Luz to be the "chosen one" since season 1.
An easy way to avoid this trap would have been to not let the Titan control who the glyphs were revealed to. Have the magic just be a part of the world and not something that can be given out and withheld. That way, it wouldn't feel like the Titan DIRECTLY chose Luz to be his chosen one, and Luz really would have been "choosing herself."
It would even make better sense for Luz and Philip's characters and why one was able to learn magic so easily while the other struggled for years: Luz actively *wanted* to embrace magic and learn from her experiences while Philip was too stuck in his ways and pig-headed to try to learn authentically. Not because one was "chosen" and was practically handed all the glyphs while the other fought tooth and nail to find them despite being opposed by a God-like entity.
Question where did you find his cut dialogue because I can't find it
@@deavin4293 are you referring to the storyboards I mentioned in the video? I can link you to the one I mentioned in the video, but there is another that is fairly popular. Let me know if you would like me to try to find them for you and I’ll do some digging speakerdeck.com/yastralplane/a-deal-with-belos
@@lemonperson02I mean, you’ve worded your reasoning well and I understand why ya feel that way. Even so, I still just gotta respectfully disagree. At the end of the day, you’re still basing it on, what is at the end of the day, in implication (one which I can’t say I ever interpreted like that), with the Philip and Luz finding the glyphs thing. It seems just as easily possible the alternate explanation you just gave as to why Philip struggled IS in reality the truth. Regardless of what we think of Belos as a whole, I will still stand by that Luz was no more ‘chosen’ after we learn of the titan watching than she was before we knew that, and her choices, still her own. Not sayin you’re wrong, just that I just can’t agree. I don’t think that was the writer’s intent anyway. At no point does it ever really try to explicitly say anything like papa titan was actively trying to give Luz an advantage, so I just don’t take that from it. OR, instead, perhaps it IS indeed true about belos (him saying it was like the titan tried to keep him from it cus… well why wouldn’t he?), but means nothing for Luz, who just got it at the pace anyone else would. (I put another reply somewhere in here with my full opinion on the Luz ‘chosen’ debate if you want more detail on my thought process, but nvm if you don’t)
Idk, maybe it’s just easier for me to think that, cus im happier with it that way, but not much I can do about that.
@@redi.c.e.6046 the problem is that both of us can be technically right because the writing of the show is so inconsistent it supports both ideas. It's why I really disliked season 3-and I understand that this is because the show was cut short-but it really felt like the writing took the laziest, most rushed route and the show ended up suffering because of it.
Does the Titan really not control when people see Glyphs? If so, why do we have multiple instances of our two narrative foils admitting that the “isles” shows them the glyphs/hides glyphs from them? The answer is that the writing was rushed and didn't get a good payoff
Season one: There’s no such thing as a chosen one, audience, this isn't your typical fantasy world.
Season three finale: hey, audience, I've been watching the MC this whole time, helping them succeed, and I like them. Want them to get god-like powers for the Kaiju boss fight coming up?
It was just disappointing. I have gripes about the finale other than that specific problem, but pretty much all gripes I have stem from the fact that the writing felt lazy and rushed, something that the show probably couldn't help given the circumstances, but still something that I feel should be mentioned and pointed out.
They arent harassed for liking belos, those that escuse his actions are
Nah, clearly you weren't there for when people were on Twitter and whatnot saying that Belos enjoyers were mentally unstable and N@zi sympathizers and everything else under the sun, it was NUTS.
Hell, they're still losing their minds over it lol twitter.com/search?q=Belos%20simps&src=recent_search_click
@@lemonperson02 Personally, I like Philip in terms of his design, his skills and a little bit of his intelligence (like inventing a way to clone Caleb or even creating his own magic staff, even if it's just artificial magic) but obviously I don't support their actions, such as causing genocide.
(What I didn't like very much was his death, it seemed a bit empty to me honestly).
@@Hank_wimbleton_2002 yeah, exactly! I love Philip/Belos because of his story. I think he had a lot of potential and I love talking about him as a character. I also have a track record of simping for villainous characters. I don't support his actions, nor do 99% of people who like his character or simp for him.
It's like “I wanna give that old man a kiss, but I'd push him in front of oncoming traffic if I got the chance.”
Except NOBODY ever excuses his actions?? People are harassed for liking Belos.
@@pentagrin4157 No they do excuse his actions, there’s several posts in different sites about them trying to excuse his actions. It’s not just for liking Belos
I was on your side until you stared to blame the writeing of the show, Belos was never ment to be what you wanted him to be
If you look at him in s2 (where we see the most of his character) and you see everything we have IN THE SHOW leading up to that point, then yes. I can 100% blame bad writing.
I can blame the fact that the show was canceled as a REASON for the bad writing, but it’s 100% bad writing to build up a character with hints and clues, give people enough of a backstory for them to piece it together, give Belos motivation that makes sense and also makes him somewhat sympathetic (but doesn’t excuse his actions), and overall build up this incredibly interesting character, only to retcon it away all in the finale by having a literal god say “lol no, don’t look into it, he’s just bad.” Is 100% bad writing. It’s lazy writing.
RIP s2 Belos, you were the best version of yourself.
By giving us pieces of a backstory, only to take it away, the writers are essentially baiting us with potential character depth. The writing in season 3 is honestly some of the show’s weakest. For the Future seems to suffer a lot of from this too, and I think it is where the show started to decline in quality. The writers could have done various other things than focus on Kikimora and Boscha for the penultimate special, but they did so anyway. The writers chose to do that. They could have expanded on the Collector’s lore since they wanted to redeem him.
Nobody says you can't like him just don't harass other people and act like Luz isn't the main character and send hate to Dana and the crew. Ya'll are acting like the poor victims in this situation like you're not watching a show about an afrolatina girl fight a colonizer. It's not that deep and ya'll should enjoy Belos as the cool villain guy he is with all the choices he made. Stop making excuses for who he is and just recognize that he's exactly who he is in the show. Your fanon isn't our canon.
You didn't watch the video at all, did you?
No one who likes belos is sending hate to dana, they're not making excuses, and they are acting like victims because they ARE victims, they're getting literal death threats for thinking his character is interesting or making fancontent involving him.
What you're saying is basically gatekeeping, that no one is allowed to enjoy his character outside of bring a villian, all fancontent is forbidden, and no one is allowed to look into his character deeper at all.
He is a character, he doesn't exist irl, he may be the villian but he is still a fictional character just as much as the rest of the toh cast.
I strongly suggest you let people have fun and not ignore the very real harassment people get for liking morally bad characters, because the more people try and justify this behavior, the worse it'll get.
And I don't think you'll be so tolerant of it when it starts happening to a character you like.
"Nobody says you can't like him"
*The several twitter threads that were at the top of the #Belos tag on twitter at the time calling Belos fans racist, N@zis, N@zi sympathizers, white supremacists, etc, as well as the fact that some of my mutuals have been sent death threats over this*: "Allow us to introduce ourselves..."
Also, I just have to comment on this because this is too fucking good... ... ...
... ... ...Me throughout the ENTIRE video: "Man, Belos is evil. Belos is an awful dude. Belos could never had been redeemed in the canon of the show and I wouldn't want him to. It's a good thing he died. I'm glad he died, he deserved it. I just wish the crew had taken advantage of the wonderful story they could have fleshed out besides shoving it all in the bg of a handful of episodes, because that might have added some nuance and a good life lesson about radicalism and how it can happen to anyone."
You, having not absorbed a single soundwave of what I had said: "Lol you just like making excuses for his character to do shit things."
Jesus fuck, the inside of your brain must look like the DVD screensaver.
im sorry dude but belos fans literally get called næz!s just for liking his character/story. WE ALL KNOW HE IS EVIL. we dont support ANY of his actions and we literally get called disgusting and apologisers for drawing fanart and engaging in conversations about him. yes, there are problematic belos fans just as there are problematic luz, amity, hunter, etc. fans. simply liking a villain doesnt make you bad but belos antis literally act like its the end of the world. some of you need to touch grass
@@lemonperson02 That's because a lot of Belos fans responded with criticism with white supremacist and colonialist talking points
@@dantent I'm literally a Belos fan and I have never been called a N*zi.
Is the dana part true? I cant find that anywhere 5:20
I'm not sure how true it is, that's just a very common thing I've seen thrown around as a way to bash Belos fans, so I included it. I should have put down “allegedly” during that section, since I don't know for sure, it just slipped my mind during editing. I'll put it in the description now.
From what I remember seeing, Belos “isn't meant to represent one person, but a group of people.” So...do with that what you will.
i wish they wouldve gaven hima fleshed out redemption or true reason why he does all this they whole one sided viallin trope felt unnecessary. @@lemonperson02
i followed you in tumblr because of your hot fanarts of belos in dresses and safe to say im quite happy to find this video that makes good points about his character
long live belos simps