Media Essays: A Lumity Retrospective (Valentine's Day Special)

The Owl House sadly approaches its end with only one episode left before it concludes its mighty run. And what a run it's been for the show, hasn't it? In just three seasons with 43 episodes (42 released and one upcoming), it's become one of Disney's biggest successes with critics and audiences with massive praise going towards its strong writing, complex characters, multi-layered plots and eye-catching animation. But one of the most praised aspects of course goes towards its LGBT representation. This show is one of the few that's been open about its LGBT themes and all thanks to Dana and the team fighting tooth and nail to tell the stories they wanted to tell with these themes. And one example of those themes is of course the pairing of Luz Noceda and Amity Blight.

The two have become one of the few openly gay pairings allowed to be featured in what's essentially a children's cartoon and LEGIONS of fans have become huge supporters of the ship ever since it became canon. I myself am a shameless shipper of those sweet potatoes. Guess you figured that out already when I put them on my 10 Favourite Love Couples list last year. ;)

So to celebrate Valentine's Day, I thought I'd look back on their romance and go over how it started and how it came to be what it is today. Join me as I go back to the start and work my way to the end with this retrospective of the Lumity pairing...

Not Off To A Great Start

Amity's first appearance was in the Season 1 episode I Was A Teenage Abomination.

Going back to this episode, it's STAGGERING how different things were when the two first met. Amity makes a bad first impressive by being a jerk to Willow and putting her down while showing off how superior her Abomination making skills are. Luz takes pity on Willow and pretends to be an abomination just to try and one-up Amity. While most of Hexside are fooled, Amity is rightfully suspicious and her suspicions are confirmed when she sees Luz eating a sandwich. As she points out, Abominations DON'T eat! While her suspicions are dismissed as an act of jealousy and she's sent to the principal's office, she actually convinces Principal Bump to dissect Luz to prove she's not an abomination. Of course, this forces Willow to reveal the truth and Luz is later banned from Hexside by the end of the episode. Hard to believe those two would become girlfriends later on, isn't it?

I always like how this episode defies the usual formula for one-upping the rival episodes as Amity is actually in the right (mostly) unlike most bullies in this scenario. Willow WAS cheating and you can actually feel she's vindicated in her suspicions towards that fact. While potentially risking Luz's life by asking the principal to dissect her was out of line, it was the only option she had to prove Willow was cheating. But yeah, first impressions can only give you so much. While they didn't hit it off well, things go a little better in the next two episodes...

Is Amity Really All That Bad...?

The next two episodes, Covention and Lost In Language delve deeper into Amity's character and Luz (and the audience) come to see she's not just another generic bully character. Quite the contrary, Amity has more sides to her character than we initially believed.

Covention is the second time the two interact and they're still not on good grounds with one another with Amity even squashing King's cupcake out of spite, an act that the fandom (jokingly I hope) still hasn't forgiven her for. XD The two end up in a duel so Eda and Lilith can settle their own grievances but there's a catch. If Luz loses, she will never practice magic again. Amity ends up winning the fight...only for Eda to find out that Lilith cheated by giving Amity a boost in power. This shocks Amity to her core as she doesn't want to achieve anything dishonestly and was even unaware of what Lilith did to her. By the end of the episode, she unbinds the oath so Luz can still learn magic and displays an interest in the fact a mere human seems capable of magic, even if she still seems cold about it. In fact, many may feel unsympathetic towards Amity in this episode as she keeps blaming Luz for everything, even the fact she unintentionally cheated despite that being Lilith's doing and all Luz is trying to do is make it up to her. While yes, this does make Amity pretty unlikeable and seem like she can't lay the blame at the right people's feet, later episodes make it understandable as to why she has this kind of behaviour.

Case in point, Lost in Language shows us a deeper side to Amity's character. First of all, she's not a complete jerk. This is a big deal for both Luz and the audience for this is the first time we see Amity NOT acting like a bully for once. The first time we see her, she's reading to children and seems to genuinely enjoy it. Of course, she's still got cold feet towards Luz from the previous episodes but it isn't helped when Luz ends up befriending her twin siblings, Edric and Emira Blight. The two delight in tormenting their sister, even calling her "Mittens" to wind her up for laughs. Face it, we've all had a sibling like this or even done that to our own siblings at some point in our lives, haven't we? But things go too far when the twins want to expose Amity's diary just to "teach her a lesson" for constantly telling on them for skipping classes. Luz is against the idea but Amity comes in and...well, you can guess. She even goes so far as to call Luz a bully (which is rich coming from her given the way she's been acting!). But let's talk about the diary for a minute. The diary also drops more major revelations about Amity's character, namely that she actually DOES NOT enjoy being a bully and only acts the way she does so as "not to show weakness". No doubt a mindset brought on by her cruel mother's parenting but we'll cover that later. By the end of the episode, Luz lets Amity borrow her Good Witch Azura Volume 5 book (Luz discovers Amity's actually a fan of those books, something they have in common), an act of kindness that Amity reciprocates and causes her to rescind her comments about Luz being a bully. She even admits she hasn't been exactly friendly either and has to think things over.

This episode was a great next step for their relationship together as both come to understand each other more and see they're not what they originally thought. Amity realizes Luz is actually a nice girl and didn't mean to embarrass her and Luz sees Amity isn't all that bad and is even insecure about her behaviour. While it would be nice if Amity apologized over almost getting Luz dissected back in I Was A Teenage Abomination, I think this developed things well between them. And things would only pick up from there.

It's also worth mentioning that in Hooty's Moving Hassle, we get a scene of Amity looking sullen by the window during Boscha's sleepover, which hints that she may not enjoy hanging out with her and her friends as much as we may have thought, further indicating what would soon be revealed about her later on...

Understanding Willow

Understanding Willow became one of the biggest bombshells for the show so far as it dove DEEP into both Willow and Amity's pasts and relationships to one another. While Amity did show up in Adventures in the Elements and The First Day, there's not too much to cover in terms of Luz and Amity's relationship there. And while yes, this is more about Amity's relationship to Willow, this episode is where we start getting the first signs that Amity may be falling for Luz. I mean we have this unforgettable imagine up above that shows Amity blushing when Luz hugs her. What more hints do you need? =P

Anyhow, this episode further explains why Amity was such a bully in the earlier episodes. It turns out she and Willow were once friends, VERY close friends in fact and it was only through blackmail from her parents, Odalia and Alador Blight, that she called off the friendship with Willow because they didn't want her associating with the lower class witches. It was an ultimatum in where she had to do this or else Willow would be forced out of Hexside by the Blights and thus Amity unwillingly ended the friendship. This episode already paints a very unpretty picture of what Amity's upbringing was like and explains so much why she was so unfriendly in previous episodes. But spending time with Luz is clearly changing her for the better as she wants to make up with Willow by the end and is nothing but apologetic about all the pain and heartache she brought on Willow, and she couldn't even tell her why at the time. Not only does this show Amity in a more sympathetic light than before, but I imagine it caused Luz to grow ever closer to her after everything that happened.

May I Have This Dance?

Here's the one you've been waiting for, Enchanting Grom Fight. What else needs saying about it that hasn't been said already?

This is the episode that EVERYONE loves and everyone talks about whenever The Owl House is brought up and for good reason. Not only was it a huge victory for the LGBT community as for once, they get to see honest, true representation for them in the form of a lesbian dance scene, but it's a true highlight of the season by being a great episode that further develops the relationship of Luz and Amity while being a big character study of what these two fear the most. For Luz it's her mother discovering she's here in the Boiling Isles and for Amity, it's rejection. Amity is very clearly developing feelings for Luz to the point she wants to ask her to be her date. And as mentioned before, this climaxes in the two getting into a beautifully animated dance fight where they team up to defeat Grom once and for all and put an end to its fear-inducing powers. This was the episode that made it clear that these two were not only firm friends, but Amity was clearly seeing Luz as more of a friend and even though she couldn't ask her out to the Grom in the end, the last we see of her is sitting on her windowsill gazing out the window while putting her Grom crown in a box, maybe lamenting on the fact she couldn't ask Luz out in the end. Give it until next season Amity, you'll get there in the end. ;)

Amity's Gay Panic Episode

Sadly, Season 1 ends here for the Lumity stuff with Wing It Like Witches, or as many fans like to nickname it, "Amity's Gay Panic Episode". And yeah, it's easy to see why. Practically the most recurring joke in the episode is "Amity has a crush on Luz" and they really make the most out of it with some damn funny moments here and there, especially the moment where Amity needs to collect herself after practically heating up over the idea of her and Luz on a team together running around in cute uniforms...and SWEATING! It's like the poor kid discovered her first fetish. XD

Amity ends up joining Luz for the Grudgy Team against Boscha in spite of that and at the end of the game, she hurts her leg to which Luz offers to carry her. Amity tries to say she's fine, laughing nervously and then saying "Who's Amity?" Not only was that very funny, but it also shows just how far things have come for Amity this season. Going from hating Luz's guts to now being unable to speak a coherent sentence in front of her speaks volumes how much their relationship has developed. And it all makes perfect sense too. Luz has been nothing but kind and friendly to Amity in spite of their bad first impressions and it's possible that Luz is probably the first person in YEARS to display that kind of behaviour to Amity. So naturally, she'll start falling for her. It's also Luz that brings out the best in Amity, which is the person she ACTUALLY is and not the person her abusive parents want her to be, which only makes their relationship all the sweeter and further explains why Amity would be crushing so hard on Luz.

What's funny though is that in Lost in Language and Adventures in the Elements, people viewed Luz as the one with the crush and Amity is the oblivious one, and yet come here Amity is the one with the crush and Luz is the oblivious one. Talking about flipping the tables! XD

Some fans feel the relationship between the two was "rushed" but I don't see it. Over the course of this season, I think it's paced really well myself. They don't hit it off well at first, it takes a couple of episodes for them to start being nicer to one another and then come the second half of the season, the romance starts blossoming. Could they have devoted a couple more episodes to this? Eh...perhaps? But with 19 episodes, I think they did well enough. It would've been nice if Amity could've played a part in the season finale so we could maybe get a little more development but hey, that's what the next season's all for.

A New Season And A Progression Of Their Romance

Season 2 furthers the Lumity romance with Escaping Expulsion. The episode provides significant development for Amity in many ways, one of them being that we actually meet her parents in this episode and as we can see, Odalia isn't winning any Mother of the Year awards with how she sees her children as a means to an end and upon feeling like Amity's getting distracted by her friends, she pulls some strings to get them expelled from Hexside. We see very clearly how much of an intimidating figure Odalia is to Amity as she can barely even make an effort to stand up for her friends as they're unfairly...well, expelled from her life. But then we see how much of an impact Luz is having on her life for not only does her picture of her friends nearly getting destroyed cause her to act out against Odalia's demonstration of a new Abomination model, but Luz's life being threatened causes her to finally stand up to her horrible mother and call her out for what a piece of dirt she is. Can you imagine pre-character development Amity ever attempting this? Probably not. And this further shows why their romance is so appealing: Luz not only brings out the best in Amity but her presence has had a snowball effect that has been nothing but positive changes for Amity. Over the course of the series, Luz's time in the Boiling Isles has:

1. Caused Amity to soften up over time and eventually stop being a bully.

2. Stand up to her abusive mother and not take any crap from her anymore.

3. Attempt to reconcile with Willow after her parents forced her to end their friendship

4. May have possibly improved her relationship with her siblings.

5. Feel less insecure about herself and truly feel happy for a change.

6: End a friendship she once had with a toxic group of people (namely Boscha and her flunkies) and hang out with a more positive group of people that she enjoys much more than the fake friendships she had to forge for her mother's sake.

Who knew one person could have such a positive impact on one's life? ;)

Anyway, after that, the two would appear together again in Through The Looking Glass Ruins. Their plot should've been the main plot rather than a subplot in my eyes but for what we got, we still got some significant development. Not only is Luz clearly more aware of Amity's crush on her than before but even she at times feels flustered around her as Amity did in Season 1. Come the end of the episode, Amity has a change in appearance where she ditches her green hair for purple (and in my eyes, looks even better that way) to further distance herself from the person her mother tried to shape her into and eventually, she makes the next move by kissing Luz on the cheek as you see in the image above. That shows that Amity's starting to feel a little braver than before as she's now able to do that, even if she questions why she did so afterwards. But enough on that. I know what you guys REALLY want me to talk about. So let's see the moment where...

They Make It Official...Hoot Hoot!

Hey, remember how we thought this episode was going to be pointless filler? I do too. Good times. XD And yet because this show wasn't finished being incredible yet, it takes what SOUNDS like filler and makes it one of the most important episodes of the series with significant developments for King, Eda and of course, Luz and Amity as they FINALLY make it official by the end!

Hooty spends the episode trying to help his friends with their problems. For Luz, he tries helping her and Amity open up to one another by setting up a whole Tunnel of Love ride and everything. This just causes Luz to freak out and worry she'll look embarrassing to Amity so she wrecks the joint. Amity...does not take it well and Hooty takes it even worse, feeling his efforts have only ended in failure. Eventually, all is settled and Luz and Amity ask each other out. After so much build-up, the two witches are finally a couple and officially dating. To say the fandom flipped their lids when this happened is putting it very mildly. XD

So after that episode, we do see a few more episodes with the two that further develops their romance with Eclipse Lake being all about how Amity wants to prove to Luz what an awesome girlfriend she is, Follies at the Coven Day Parade shows that Amity is learning a bit of Spanish as Luz also speaks that language (and if you're ever wondering why I keep referring to them as sweet potatoes, this episode is where it came from) and Reaching Out ends up being a big episode for both girls as it's all about them and their fathers with Amity trying to reach out to her father (who thankfully isn't as bad as her mother) while Luz is struggling to handle the day as it's the anniversary of her own father's passing and she's missing out on it due to being in the Boiling Isles at the time. It was a great idea to give the two an episode about their fathers as it only gave them something else to bond over and by the end, Amity helps Luz carry out her tradition she does for her dad's passing so she doesn't miss out.

Once again, this is what makes a great romance: two people bringing out the best in each other, inspiring acts of kindness towards each other and showing how they'll bend over any way they can to make their partners happy. And those sweet potatoes definitely do so, which again makes this pairing so appealing.

They FINALLY Kiss!

Unlike Season 1 where Amity missed out on the the action, she gets to be a part of the Season 2 finale, a two-parter consisting of the episodes Clouds on the Horizon and King's Tide. At first, Amity is forced out of the action due to Odalia grounding her and her twin siblings but Luz and the others make a quick detour to rescue her from Blight Manor. What follows is the two having their first real kiss together, a scene so big and important that they gave it an animation bump to make it even better. They really didn't need to go so much into a kiss scene but this is The Owl House, it puts effort into EVERYTHING! Their reactions are priceless too:

Luz: "Whoa...crikey!"

Amity: "I can't believe I just did that!"

Luz: "I can't believe I just said that! Oh, crikey! How did I even think that?! (Sigh) Come on Luz, be cool next time!"

I dunno Luz, Amity looked like she thought that was pretty cool. ;)

Later on, Amity learns a horrible truth about her mother, namely that she's in on the Day of Unity plot the Emperor has been cooking up for years and she couldn't care less. Not only does Amity flip her lid at this, but she FINALLY disowns the cold-hearted cretin and Alador ends up quitting the family business to make up for lost time with his children, leaving Odalia with just her family name and work when all is said and done. Once again, do you think Amity would ever have the courage to do this and even say she's never talking to Odalia again if she'd never met Luz? I doubt it. It's no wonder she fell for the quirky little human girl. Luz has been such a positive impact on her life that she'd be crazy NOT to fall for her!

Come the end of Season 2, Luz ends up back in the human world with Willow, Gus, Hunter and of course, Amity in tow. As of now, Season 3 has one episode left so I can't talk about their full developments in that season. But I can mention that the montage in Thanks To Them gives us a cute scene of Luz showing Amity that rain in the human world is harmless. Who knew rain could be romantic?

Season 2 was the natural next step of their relationship. Season 1 had them grow from enemies to friends and now Season 2 has them becoming girlfriends. Their development was wonderful to watch and naturally is a highlight from the season amongst the many other things it did. It's a pity Season 3 was cut so short as we could've had even more developments with the two but hey, these two seasons are better than nothing at all so let's be happy with what we got, OK? ^^

Overall

Lumity is the most popular pairing to come out of The Owl House and one of the most popular pairings in recent years for a myriad of reasons. Hopefully this retrospective has covered all that as best as I can.

From their rough start as less than friendly towards each other to eventually coming to understand each other more to making positive changes to each other's lives and eventually growing from friends to girlfriends, this is an example of how to properly develop a romance. Nothing really felt rushed to me and the progression between them feels completely natural and believable. And it's also a huge victory for the LGBT community too as FINALLY, they get a cartoon that gets to show the gay couple prominently and not have them be a couple right at the end like The Legend of Korra and She-Rea: Princesses of Power did. No, they got to be a couple while the show was still going! For an animated series aimed at children, that was practically unheard of so it's significant for showing how far things have come where we can have this in a cartoon show now. True Disney screwed the pooch by cutting the show short because "it didn't fit their brand" but they still deserve at least SOME credit for allowing them to be girlfriends at all and not trying to censor it (though some foreign dubs make hilarious attempts to try and show they're totally not girlfriends or anything...), they allow it to be shown as prominently as it is here and it's all the better for it.

Overall, this couple is a significant romance for many reasons and I only hope more shows can follow its example on how to write a romance, how to portray a gay romance positively and to also allow more LGBT representation in the future. Those sweet potatoes are truly a sweet couple and I applaud Dana Terrace and her team for the wonderful development of their romance over the course of the show. Many congratulations indeed to the team at The Owl House...

And that's it for this retrospective on the Luz and Amity pairing. I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane and I invite you all to share your thoughts down below. What do you think to the Lumity romance? I'd love to hear all about it. Oh and to all you readers out there, Happy Valentine's Day. Whether you're single or in a relationship, I hope you can still feel the love or have some love to share with the world and everyone around you.

Join me again later this week as I have ten more facts about Disney to share with you all. See you then media fans!

Special thanks to my friend, the Wandering Fox, who suggested a few additions to this retrospective

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