Willow Park

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**Willow Park** is a recurring character in the Disney Channel animated series, *The Owl House*. She is a witch student and one of Luz's friends on The Boiling Isles.

## Background

### Personality

She is described as a bubbly and friendly witch, but sometimes insecure and doubtful of herself. She likes plants and gets frustrated, if she gets bad grades and when other students make fun of her, calling her "Half-A-Witch Willow". As the series progresses, Willow begins to come out of her shell and display a friendlier and sometimes commanding attitude. When she gets pushed down, she will take matters into her own hands. By the events of "Wing It Like Witches", Willow has taken a more confident demeanor which begins to earn the admiration of her fellow students.

### Powers and abilities

* **Magic:** Willow is adept in magic. Like many witches, her connection comes from a sac of magic bile attached to her heart. Whenever she gets mad her magic can react to her emotions and spiral out of control. Thorns will also sprout from the ground beneath her feet.
	+ **Phytokinesis:** She has powerful plant-based magic, which she uses to help restore plants and can make a tiny seed sprout humongous.
* **Staff:** Willow adopted a bird/bee hybrid palisman named Clover. She immediately grew attached to her new companion and promised to take care of it while Clower approached her for her desire to become strong and wise to protect her friends, and harm those who wish to hurt them.

## Role in the series

### Backstory

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Willow Park was raised by her two dads whom she loves dearly. As a child, she befriended a fellow witch named Amity Blight who shared many of her similar interests. They played together and taught each other various magic tricks. However, it quickly became apparent that Amity was more of a natural than Willow who was always having trouble with perfecting many of her spells and would sometimes get the both of them in trouble. For a time, Amity was very supportive of Willow who knew that she cared for her well being and had hope that she could be better. One day, while attending a party, Willow was pulled in private by Amity and informed that she no longer wanted to be friends with her because she was weak. This event traumatized Willow and since then the two had drifted apart with Amity becoming more cynical and condescending towards her former friend. Upon attending Hexside, Willow's fathers placed her in the abomination track, despite her affinity for plants, but found herself once again at the mercy of Amity's teasing.

### Season One

 File:I Was a Teenage Abomination promo image 1.png
While trying to bring her abomination project to school, Willow was mocked by Amity for her lousy creation. Amity showed off and left Willow to her mess of an abomination. Angry, she summoned a large plant that revealed Luz Noceda, a human who had arrived in The Boiling Isles and was training under the infamous Eda Clawthorne. Willow immediately became interested in Luz, who sympathized with her plight and offered to pretend to be her abomination. Willow took her to school where she introduced her to her only other friend, Gus Porter, a young illusion prodigy. Together, Willow managed to get a passing grade which irritated Amity to no end. Things began to fall apart when Amity brought in Principal Bump to open up Luz. Realizing that their ruse was over, Willow and Gus worked together to get Luz out of the school. During the escape, Willow used her plant magic to create a rather impressive diversion. Far from angry, Bump was impressed and decided to switch Willow to the plant track. Now with a new friend, Willow, along with Gus, became a close confidant to Luz; helping her to further understand the world of the Boiling Isles.

Willow begins to slowly open up to Luz about much of her personal life and joining her on her many outings. While attending a moonlight conjuring with Luz and Gus, they accidentally uproot the Owl House with Hooty being controlled by the kids. The reason for the conjuring was due to Amity making her own moonlight conjuring with her new friends and Willow wanting to show her up. Willow reveals her sad past to Luz who tells her that she does not need her approval to know that she is a good witch. She also becomes friends with King who was initially jealous of Luz spending time with her and Gus over him. After another adventure, involving them getting shrunken down and fighting miniature monsters, Willow comes to accept King as a friend and starts hanging out with him too. Later, Willow is happy to learn that Luz is attending Hexside, though she needs to work hard to make sure that she does not get them in trouble.

 File:Understanding Willow (115).png
In photography class, Willow pulls up a memory of herself and Amity when they were children. While she is away, Amity attempts to remove the photo, but accidentally burns all of them. This causes Willow to suddenly become inebriated and loses her memories. To help her, Eda sends Luz and Amity into her mind to save her memories and encounter "Inner Willow" who has a vendetta on Amity for abandoning her. Amity finally comes clean about why she stopped being friends with her; she did not think she was weak, she herself was weak because she could not stand up to her parents. Willow regains her memories and forgives Amity, but is not ready to accept her as a friend. Since then Willow becomes more confidant and the students of Hexside begin to admire her, except for Boscha, who was once Amity's friend and has since taken over as the resident mean queen. With a newfound confidence, Willow with Luz and Amity take Boscha and her team in a grudgby match. While they end up losing, due to a rather ridiculous rule, Boscha's friends end up supporting Willow and her friends. Willow slightly helps Luz with trying to cure and rescue Eda from Emperor Belos.

## Relationships

### Family

#### Gilbert and Harvey Park

Willow loves her fathers unconditionally. Despite this, much of Willow's life decisions seem to be made by them, though she knows they come from a good place. Harvey Park is very protective of her while Gilbert is more easygoing. She tells Luz that her being in the abominations track was not her idea, but her parents; they want her to be successful.

### Friends

#### Luz Noceda

 File:I Was a Teenage Abomination 21.png
Willow was shy upon first meeting with Luz, but thanks to her, she has been able to come out of her shell more. Willow has become reliant on Luz and is shown to be slightly curious about her background. However, Willow has the discipline to know when Luz can be overbearing and tries to protect and correct her on occasion. Sometimes Willow will use Luz as a means to feel special only for her to realize that she should rely on her own abilities.

#### Gus Porter

Willow and Gus have been friends for some time. While it is not known how they met, they know each other long enough that they are on good terms with one another. Willow treats Gus like a younger brother and in "Something Ventured, Someone Framed", she highly disapproved of him lying to Luz about her ban being lifted. Nevertheless, she is shown to be very protective of him.

#### Amity Blight

 File:Labyrinth Runners (110).jpg
Willow and Amity used to be best friends until they got older and Amity's powers manifested while Willow's became limited. Since then, Willow and Amity have been emotionally distant from one another. Willow has grown to feel longing for the older days and wishes that Amity would stop teasing her. Willow wants to prove that she could be just as much a witch as she can even though both of their talents are widely different. In "Understanding Willow", it was revealed that the two were almost inseparable when they were younger. Their separation was the result of the Blights refusing to have any "weak" witches be associated with them. After Amity apologizes for her actions, Willow does not consider her a true friend, but acknowledges that she is trying to be better.

## Trivia

* Her name is a play on the fact that her strength is in plants.
* Her surname is a Korean surname, and derives from Bak (박) meaning "Gourd." Park is also an English word that refers to spots of nature devoted to recreation and preservation. Both meanings could be referring to her placement in the plant track.
	+ While not apart of Korean descent, as Korea does not exist on the Boiling Isles, Disney TVA included Willow, along with Anne Boonchuy from *Amphibia*, Hiro Hamada from *Big Hero 6: The Series*, and Gloria Sato from *Big City Greens* to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
	+ Ironically, her voice actress, Tati Gabrielle, is actually only half Korean from her mother's side. Her father is African-American. This is alluded in the series through Willow's fathers, who are shown to be the Boiling Isles' equivalents of African-American and Korean, respectively.
* In "Enchanting Grom Fright", Willow is revealed to have coccinellidaephobia, the fear of ladybugs. This could be seen as ironic as ladybugs are supremely beneficial to all plant life.
* Willow is revealed to have two gay fathers in "Understanding Willow".
	+ Willow is the second character in Disney animation to have two fathers, after Violet Sabrewing from *DuckTales*.

## External links

* Willow Park on The Owl House Wiki

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1. ↑ Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Post (May 1, 2021).