Eda the Owl Lady: Learning to Open Up Again

A Deep Dive into Eda From The Owl House

What is there about Eda the Owl Lady that still needs to be said? She’s magical, sassy, powerful, confident, rebellious, and, as Luz puts it, “Surprisingly foxy for her age.” Luz is right, too. Eda has many people who think she’s hot, both in-universe and out. When we first meet her, she’s an outlaw and the most powerful Witch on the Boiling Isles. While it looks like she’s living her best life, as the show progresses, we start to understand how lonely she is. And while she may have lost most of her power, she gained something just as valuable: the chance to open up to others again. 

I’m RJ Writing Ink, and as part of my attempts to get hyped for the series finale of The Owl House, I’m deep diving into some of my favorite characters, exploring who they are and how they’ve grown over the show’s run as we head into the series finale. First, we have everyone’s favorite Witch, Eda The Owl Lady.

Man, she is awesome.

Eda, the Bad Girl, Meets Luz, the Human

Introduced in the opening minutes of the premiere, when her familiar, Owlbert, accidentally steals Luz’s prized Good Witch Azura book, Luz and Eda’s first meeting is chaotic. After realizing that she’s no longer on Earth but in another world entirely, Luz manages to impress Eda with her know-how by attracting customers to buy her Human-related junk. However, their meeting gets cut short when the cops come, and Eda has to bounce, dragging Luz along as an accessory to her crimes. After taking her back to her hideout, the titular Owl House, and introducing her to Hooty and King, Eda makes a deal with the young Human. Help them break into the Conformatorium and reclaim King’s “Crown of Power,” and she’ll send Luz back home. It’s not like Luz has a say in the matter, anyway.

While they’re on their caper, though, something unexpected happens: Luz starts to bond with the pair. Having spent her life on Earth is an outcast herself, Luz sympathizes with them after Eda admits that King’s Crown doesn’t give him any power, but since it was important to him, it was to her. As Eda put it, “us weirdoes have to stick together.” Luz takes those words to heart when she returns to save Eda and King from getting captured by the Warden and freeing several other prisoners in the process.

True to her word, Eda offers to send Luz back home, but given how that means sending her to a summer camp meant to make her act normal, she takes a different option. She offers to stay with Eda and King and serve as Eda’s apprentice, despite Eda saying that humans can’t do magic. Impressed by her resolve, though, Eda agrees. She doesn’t know it yet, but Luz coming into her life ends up becoming the best thing Eda could’ve ever hoped for.

A Rocky Start as a Teacher

Despite agreeing to teach Luz, problems arise almost right away. Despite Luz being more than eager to learn magic, Eda doesn’t share her enthusiasm. At all. 

It soon becomes clear that despite her promise, Eda has yet to learn how to teach Luz to use magic. She doesn’t even know how such a thing might be possible in the first place. Thus, for the first week or so, she treats Luz less like a student and more like an errand girl to do jobs for her. This comes close to blowing up in her face when Luz grows impatient to begin her training and ends up sneaking into Hexside to learn magic there, something that Eda hates due to having to drop out when she was young. When Luz ends up getting herself banned, though, Eda can’t help but be proud of her for it.

Despite this, the magic training makes little progress until the events of “The Intruder.” When King and Luz swipe Eda’s elixir, they learn Eda’s big secret: she’s been cursed to transform into this Owl Beast, with those elixirs the only thing keeping her from permanently changing into it. It’s the reason why she’s an outcast. The show frames it like someone with a medical issue that someone has to take medication to control, which is pretty mature. 

Ultimately, the incident serves as a means for Luz to figure out a way to perform magic via her glyphs, proving that humans can do magic, something that Eda can’t help but be proud of. The deadly incident ultimately brings the three closer together and gives Eda people she can trust to help her when she needs it.

Reuniting With her Sister, Moonlight Conjuring, and Enrolling Luz in Hexside

As time passes, the trio of Luz, King, and Eda go on even more adventures and grow closer together in the process. Eda reunites with her estranged sister, now head of the Emperor’s Coven, and humiliates her in the episode “Covention,” with Luz learning Eda’s past is more complicated than it seems. When the trio swap bodies for the day to see who has the worst life, they all learn that they each have their own problems that are hard to deal with. Most importantly, though, while in Eda’s body, Luz learns from an unknowing Lilith that Eda had trouble controlling her magic when they were younger, thus motivating her to reject the Coven system as a whole. And who can forget the events of the moonlight conjuring where Luz and her friends animated the Owl House and saved Eda and King?

Eventually, though, things progress to the point where Eda realizes that there’s only so much she can teach her student. Wanting the best for her but not wanting to put her in a school that destroys free-thinkers, Eda finds herself in a dilemma. Ultimately, her growing concern for Luz leads her to swallow her pride and enroll Luz at Hexside. Even if that means she has to make up for everything she did as a student.

Good times. Joking aside, Eda pulls Luz aside and lets her know she has enough faith in her not to fall for the whole Coven system nonsense. As Luz learns on her first day at Hexside, Eda had tried and failed to fight against the one-track system at Hexside. Where Eda failed, Luz succeeded, convincing the school to allow students to study more than one type of magic.

Sacrificing Herself for Luz’s Sake and Losing Her Powers

Despite how much happier her life has gotten since meeting Luz, Eda’s still facing many problems. Throughout the first season, the audience learns that Eda’s elixirs are less effectively than they used to. As a result, she’s becoming more at risk of permanently changing into the Owl Beast. Despite this, and despite learning that she shouldn’t keep her condition a secret, Eda opts to do just that, not wanting to worry Luz. In addition, the Emperor’s Coven doubles its efforts to capture her, with Lilith unable to keep letting her go. Even with everything going on in her life, though, Eda feels happier than she’s felt in a long time, thanks to Luz. Before meeting her, Eda was a loner wasting her life, living on the edge of society and surviving by selling scraps. Meeting Luz and seeing her enthusiasm and passion for magic helps to break down the barriers she’s put in place ever since she got cursed. Luz becomes the daughter that Eda never had, and she’s all the better for it.

Which only makes what happens next harder to watch.

When Lilith captures Luz to lure her to the Emperor’s Castle, Eda loses it. She fights her sister with everything she has, showing how she is the strongest Witch on the Boiling Isles. However, trying to protect Luz, and the revelation that Lilith cursed her, prove to be too much for her to handle. While she manages to save Luz, she succumbs to the Owl Beast and is captured, leaving the residents of the Owl House devastated.

Ultimately, Lilith’s efforts to help her sister are for naught, with Emperor Belos reneging on his deal in favor of executing her. All he wanted was her portal to Earth; he couldn’t care less about Eda herself. This revelation makes Lilith turn on Belos and join forces to free her while Luz destroys the portal in front of Emperor Belos, with everyone escaping. Afterward, Lilith and Eda reconcile, with the former using her magic to split the curse between them, allowing Eda to return to Witch form. However, doing so costs both their magic, potentially for good. But at least they have each other now.