The Owl House has quickly garnered a large following. In spite of this, Disney has determined that the series doesn’t fit its brand image and therefore canceled the series, with the final season consisting of three 44-minute specials to wrap up the storyline and the back half of Season 2 quickly rushing into the crux of the story. Regardless, the show is fully intent to push on with being unflaggingly queer, introducing Disney’s first non-binary character and the strange, little world of The Owl House.
In a world full of witches and obvious references to other worlds of wizards, one cannot help but note the similarities and differences between the show and the Harry Potter series. JK Rowling’s Wizarding World has come under fire in recent years for her problematic treatment of gay and trans issues. The newest entry in the Fantastic Beasts franchise recently was edited to remove the few gay references that were present, marring the series further. As more Pottermores look for a world that treats their sexuality as legitimate and important, they could do far worse than The Owl House.
The Owl House Is a Queer Coming-of-Age Story
Fans have flocked to the series Our Flag Means Death for its casual treatment of gay relationships, which, while central to the story, aren’t emphasized for their gayness. It’s queer, and unapologetically so, but the conflict isn’t being gay; it’s love. The Owl House is fighting against a genocide of the inhabitants of the world at the hands of an outcast and a madman. It isn’t about the struggle of being queer. It just has characters who are.
Luz and Amity, the show’s main couple, had an enemies-to-lovers arc. It feels very much like the relationship between Harry and Draco at first, but instead of simply shutting down her newfound enemy, Luz helps her to see the good in herself and others. Luz isn’t just a hopeful girl, though; she’s overly trusting. She has too much ambition. She’s unflaggingly weird, which is endearing, but proves to get her into a series of scrapes. Like Harry’s Everyman-but-rich qualities, Luz represents the weird phase that everyone went through in middle school and feels applicable to nearly everyone in this way, making her a perfect coming-of-age protagonist.
The Owl House Trumps Harry Potter's Magical World
The world of The Owl House features not just one magic system, but upwards of ten. A bardic system of magic allows for hard-light constructs and chemical changes to be projected from music. Abominations are semi-conscious creatures or a semi-organic augmentation. The magic systems alone are a well-executed system that are a brilliant compliment and improvement to Harry Potter’s Latin incantation-based system.
What’s more, the world of The Owl House is intentionally different from the tropes of most magical worlds. Two major, unique sports parody Harry Potter’s, one of which features a parody of the golden snitch that one character questions as eliminating the efforts of all the other players, a point of contention in the world of Harry Potter. Trope upon trope are turned on their head. Even Eda The Owl Lady would be an ostensibly evil witch because of her reliance upon wild magic and quitting school, but she loves and cares as deeply as any other character.
Though certainly not Harry Potter, the world of The Owl House has shown the Boiling Isles as a brilliant queer-friendly alternative. In constructing a narrative free from the presuppositions of fantasy, it is unique and complex, with plentiful space for fan theories to boot. In fully embracing its queerness, it shows an even greater “be yourself” idea than Harry Potter’s world. The Owl House is ultimately about embracing others, and it truly shows through its narrative choices.
The Owl House is currently available to stream on Disney+.