Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

Author’s Note:

While Andes isn’t necessarily evil, he’s definitely not in the right here, after all, he’s someone who’s trying to scam an old lady for her money instead of doing honest work.

While both he and ayzee get around the rules a bit in battles, for Ayzee, she needed to actually put effort into her tricks for them to work, and it was more about outsmarting her opponents, that’s why she still got people’s respect, even from opponents she defeated. But for Andes, he was doing it in a way that, he could gain huge advantages that ended the fight without him even lifting a finger, it’s bad sportsmanship at best, and outright cheating at worst.

Hiring 3 people to fight Ayzee was just unfair. Same with summoning a strong abomination to fight for him. And dislocating Ayzee’s shoulder is unnecessarily cruel, since he could just knock her out, like how boxers do in real life (with the counting to 10 thing). In fact the first time he punched Ayzee out of the blue was his attempt to knock her out cold and finish the fight early, but he forgot that he couldn’t punch as hard as he used to. He got inpatient and decided to go the dislocation route instead. Again, he’s not “evil”, but he didn’t care about Ayzee’s wellbeing, and he didn’t really fight with honor at this moment, he just wanted to defeat her as fast as possible, with whatever that works.

I also wouldn’t blame Eda for letting Ayzee to participate in the tournament. It’s the same mama Eda who had no problem with Luz and Amity fighting in the Bonesborough Brawl. In fact, the no-attacking-with-magic rule was specifically add to make the battles in fight coven safer compared to the old sport. The thing about Eda is, she doesn’t like to restrict people with tons of rules, and people also follow the three rules with common sense for years, in previous battles Ayzee was always in a safe environment, until Andes decided to make it dangerous. And Mama Eda tried to stop the battle once things go downhill, but Ayzee refused to back down.

And for why Ayzee insisted to keep on fighting, besides the obvious reason that she wanted to protect Eda from being scammed, she also has a serious hero complex(which will be explored in other comics later), if she sees something’s wrong, she has to stop it. That’s why she ignored eda’s advice of backing out when things go south. Also she followed the teaching of the fight coven seriously, “stand up for themselves even when the odds ain’t with them”, plus she was a fan of Andes, whose catchphrase was “I’d rather lose doing my best than win effortlessly”, there’s no way Ayzee would want to back down in this situation.

Sorry for the long comment, just wanted to states how I intended to portray the characters, I know it’s not always a successful attempt, “what’s in my mind” vs. “what I actually wrote”, that kind of stuff. But I hope it clear things up a bit.

Full credit to Makmark/MoringMark. You can find him here: Tumblr | Reddit | Instagram | Deviantart | Ko-fi

  • Aielman15@lemmy.world
    12·
    5 months ago

    I respect Mark’s choices: it’s his canon, his story and, by this point, pretty much his world. And I appreciate his attempt to explain why he wrote certain characters a certain way.

    While I do respect his choices, however, I don’t agree with them. He is comparing early S1 Eda to end series Eda, which are two completely different characters. Since then, Eda took it upon herself multiple times to protect her children (at the end of S1 and S2, for example), and both times Luz went after her to have her understand that she couldn’t fight alone.

    Heck, the motto of the series is “Weirdos stick together”. Owl House was never a battle shounen anime where people fight to become stronger and growing up in the process: it was a series about finding like-minded individuals and facing adversities together, because no matter who you are, you can’t face life alone.

    Mama Eda allowing Ayzee to fight in the Fight Coven was fine as long as it was cartoon (“fake”) violence, but the moment people began cheating, fighting 3v1 against Ayzee (one holding her and the other punching her in the face), and real weapons were thrown into the mix, and now one guy doing that to Ayzee, I feel confident saying that the “real” Eda would not have watched from the sidelines doing nothing.

    That being said, I’m not trying to rain on someone else’s parade. Sorry if my comments soured the mood a bit around here. I still appreciate Mark for the work he’s done in single handedly keeping the series alive, and even with my criticism about this arc, I still have to point out that it has very good art. It’s a testament to Mark’s skill that he’s able to put so much effort into such beautiful panels and release them at a daily pace.

    My comments are not about “Mark bad”, but I do think that he missed the mark (heh) here, which is sad because, after reading his comics for more than one year by now, it’s the first time I feel not only disinterested in them, but grossed out as well. I do think that he did not handle the change of tone from silly cartoon to “adults punching, stabbing and dislocating shoulders of a kid” really well.