- “I'm Eda the Owl Lady. The most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles.”
- ―Eda introducing herself
Edalyn "Eda" Clawthorne (also known as "The Owl Lady") is the deuteragonist of the animated series, The Owl House. She is a powerful rebellious witch, who Luz befriends and takes her on as her apprentice.
Background
Eda is known as the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. But due to her rebellious nature, she is pretty much an outcast/criminal who has a great number of enemies - some of which who are business rivals or ex-boyfriends. She is the sort of teacher that would not only throw someone into the deep water but also set the entire lake on fire.
Eda makes a living selling human treasures at the markets, and sometimes homemade elixirs and potions. She also happens to be a collector, as she keeps most of her human treasures at home. However, she lacks any knowledge and experience on the stuff she sells or keeps. For example, she refers to a TV set as a "black shadow box that reflects only sadness" and mistakes batteries, paperclips, deodorants, and buttons for human candy.
She has been known to have occasional short-lived boyfriends. Many monsters and demons will use any methods necessary to capture her, so they can ask her out on a date. Eda always turns them down and in return, her ex's will either try to insist or kill her. She even has the same issues with business rivals.
She is known as "The Owl Lady", due to having been cursed to become a giant and feral owl-like creature, though she managed to counter this with an elixir that prevents her from transforming. Due to having been cursed when she was young, she hardly recalls the circumstances that led her to become cursed, as well as who cursed her. For unknown reasons, she kept her curse a secret from her roommate, King.
Physical appearance
Eda is a tall, slender woman with ivory skin, pointy ears, maroon lips, and golden eyes. Her untamed hair is long and thick and is layered with two tones of gray (originally orange when she was younger). She has a single golden fang, orange claw-like nails, and an oval amber gem on her sternum. After splitting the curse between her and Lilith in "Young Blood, Old Souls", her gem becomes blackened, her left eye becomes gray, and she gains a white streak on the left side of her hair.
She wears a sleeveless two-tone maroon dress with a ripped-like hem design and gray leggings. Her jewelry consists of two orange spherical earrings and an amber spherical ring. For footwear, she wears maroon high-heeled boots. Her nightwear consists of a plum sweater with amber cuffs, a stained, long, violet nightgown, and light yellow bunny slippers.
Powers and abilities
- Magic: Eda is extraordinarily skilled in witchcraft, proclaiming herself to be the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. As such, she has enough expertise that she is qualified enough to educate others on the subject. Since Eda never joined a coven, there is no seal limiting her to only one type of magic. Like all witches, her connection to magic comes from a sack of magic bile attached to her heart. As of "Young Blood, Old Souls", her magic is heavily crippled due to her curse.
- Fire Magic: Eda can summon flames with the snap of her fingers. She can produce fire in all forms, from lighting candles simultaneously in "A Lying Witch and a Warden" to conjuring streams of flame in "Witches Before Wizards". Eda can also grasp balls of fire, as seen on her wanted poster and "Covention".
- Water Magic: Eda can summon water from the palm of her hand.
- Earth Magic: Eda can summon pillars of earth to protect herself from attack and trap opponents. The tops of the pillars have owl faces similar to Hooty and are large enough to swallow enemies whole.
- Light Magic: Eda can create small orbs of light.
- Mystical projection: Eda can twirl her hand and make a glowing glyph-like symbol to project imagery through it.
- Magic platform: By slamming the Owl Staff on the ground, Eda can conjure a magical platform for others to travel on.
- Portal creation: Eda can create a pair of short-range portals one at a time, and whatever enters the first portal will exit out the second portal.
- Force field generation: She can create and maintain force fields powerful enough to withstand boiling rain and scorching heat.
- Magic trap creation: Eda can conjure landmines that do elemental damage, ranging from bursts of flame to gusts of wind and even dirt spikes.
- Staff proficiency: Eda's staff helps focus her magic and serves as her main mode of transportation. Owlbert, the staff's owl head, can come to life and detach himself, which Eda mainly uses for retrieving items from the human realm.
- Limb autonomy: Eda's body can fall apart, but the separated parts remain active and within Eda's control. Eda can also reattach her body parts without ill effect, making her immune to dismemberment.
- Invulnerability: Eda has survived things that would seriously injure or kill a normal person. So far, she has survived decapitation from Warden Wrath without dying, then later took a direct blast of fire from Lilith without being burned.
- Dimensional Storage: Eda occasionally uses her hair to store items, usually books and scrolls.
Eda's cursed form.
- Curse: According to Eda, she was cursed as a child and had no memory of who did it or how it happened until it was revealed in "Agony of a Witch" that it was her sister who did it. As a consequence, she must regularly consume a golden elixir to keep it at bay. Whenever Eda doesn't take her elixir, she transforms into a giant, scary owl-demon, hence her nickname, "The Owl Lady". In this form, she has a feral mind and can quickly climb and punch through walls, but is sensitive to bright lights and retains her fascination with shiny objects. Additionally, she cannot perform magic while in this form. Any living thing she consumes in her cursed form will be regurgitated in a giant owl pellet when she returns to normal. When partially transformed, a part of herself remains intact, making her partially suggestible. In this state, she can understand and respond to commands and can recognize anyone she knows. By "Agony of a Witch", Eda's curse worsened and the elixir she took became less effective. Her powers grew weaker to the point she could no longer cast magic like she used to.
Relationships
Luz Noceda
Eda took an interest in Luz purely for her human background. However, since she has been living with her, she has grown to accept her as part of her circle. Eda found it amusing that someone like Luz would not only look up to her, but also openly want to learn from her. In "Witches Before Wizards", Eda did not seem to hold any interest in teaching Luz about magic and only wanted to have her around to help with chores and make deliveries. It is soon revealed that there is a point to Eda's distance when in "The Intruder", she reveals her curse to her. While Eda takes advantage and occasionally pokes fun at Luz, she does care about her as she feels that she has a responsibility to look after her "student". She begins to take her job as a teacher seriously and wants Luz to be proud of her and ultimately decides to have her attend Hexside Academy because she trusts that she is smart enough to make her own decisions. Over time, she almost becomes more like a surrogate mother to Luz. In "Young Blood, Old Souls", she tells Luz that she loves her, showing that she has accepted her as a surrogate daughter of sorts.
King
Eda considers King her "roommate" in the Owl House. They share an unusual friendship with the origin of their first meeting currently unknown. Much like with Luz, Eda seems to garner responsibility for King's well-being and genuinely cares for him like a child or pet and is shown holding him much like an infant. However, the two share friendly banter with one another on a regular basis. Eda tends to "look down" on King, both figuratively and literally, and sometimes questions his personal knowledge. They speak to each other as equals though and Eda enjoys King's company, possibly because without him, and Luz for that matter, she would otherwise be lonely.
Lilith Clawthorne
Eda and Lilith are sisters and carry a sibling rivalry. Eda makes fun of Lilith for her uptight ways of dealing with magic instead of her free-form take on it. While they are bitter with each other, there does seem to be some longing for reconciliation for one another, at least from Lilith's end. In "Something Ventured, Someone Framed", it is stated that Eda summoned an army of abominations when Lilith's lunch money was stolen, showing that she was very defensive of her when she was younger. However, everything changed when Lilith started trying to capture Eda for Emperor Belos. It is revealed that Lilith does care about Eda, and believes that by helping the Emperor he will heal her sister. Although, it is also shown that Lilith feels inferior to Eda, which Eda supports by flaming she is better than Lilith. During their battle, in a jealous fit, Lilith reveals her dark secret: she was the one who cursed Eda, a choice she seems to regret.
Gallery
Trivia
- The episode "Witches Before Wizards" reveals that she owns a mug reading "30 & Flirty" implying that she is somewhere in her thirties. Though throughout the series, Eda is hinted to be much older, and the mug could simply be just one of her human treasures.
- Concept art suggests that Eda was going to look physically older.
- Between the pilot and the actual series, Eda went through little to no changes in her appearance.
- Her large silver crowned hair combined with her large yellow eyes make her slightly resemble an owl, which is fitting for her title. She also sleeps in a nest instead of a bed, coughs up pellets, and is attracted to shiny objects.
- Eda's hairstyle resembles that of Ryoko Hakubi from the anime series Tenchi Muyo!
- Wendie Malick likened Eda to her character from Just Shoot Me, Nina Van Horn, due to their similar personalities and the way they dress.
- Following the events of "Lost in Language", Eda has begun to display symptoms of Empty Nest Syndrome. While obviously meant as a one-off joke, the fact that Eda is an owl may also be the case for this.
- While her height is unknown, the episode "Once Upon a Swap" gives a slight indication that she is at least under 6'5" tall as she wears high heels and her hair makes her look 7'5" tall.
- Eda shares many similarities and is most likely based on, the legend of La Lechuza. In Mexican folklore, La Lechuza is a woman by day, but an owl by night. In some legends, Lechuza was a witch who had sold her soul to live forever. In other versions, Lechuza was a woman who lost her child and was cursed to be an owl. Based on the various tellings, Lechuza would either simply curse someone who gazed eyes at her or would snatch away or even kill children who came near her.
- It is revealed in "Escape of the Palisman" that the elixir Eda takes to counteract her curse no longer works. However, light and King's 'squeal of rage' seem to be able to turn her back.
- According to Dana Terrace, Eda once went to Las Vegas and "wasn't impressed".[2]
References
- ↑ "disneytvanimation post". Tumblr. Retrieved on October 4, 2019.
- ↑ Dana Terrace's Reddit
External links
