Eda Clawthorne

* Debut
* Season 2
* Harpy
* Owl Beast
* Apocalypse
* Epilogue

“
Look, kid, everyone wants to believe they are "chosen". But if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we'd die waiting. And that's why you need to choose yourself.
”

—Eda to Luz

**Edalyn "Eda" Clawthorne** is the deuteragonist of *The Owl House*. She ran away from home as a teenager after being cursed by her older sister, a curse which causes her to turn into the owl beast. Eda eventually becomes the most-wanted criminal and the most powerful wild witch on the Boiling Isles until her curse ended up completely robbing her of her magic.

During the Day of Unity, whilst attempting to save King from the Collector, she lost control of her curse and attacked, resulting in the Collector holding her captive in the Archive House.

## Appearance

### Body

Eda is a tall, slender woman in her mid-to-late 40s, with ivory skin, pointed ears, maroon lips, and golden eyes. Her untamed hair is thick, short, and layered with tones of gray. She has a removable gold fang, orange claw-like nails, and an oval amber gem on her sternum, which helped indicate when the curse was getting worse.

In her youth, she had bright orange hair and didn't have her golden fang yet. In "Wing It Like Witches", it is stated by Lilith that Eda's curse affects her hair, implying it would naturally be the same orange as when she was an adolescent if she were not under the spell.

When body-swapped into King's body in "Once Upon a Swap", she mostly resembles King physically, except with her gold eyes and white sclera in place of his, gray eyeshadow on her eyelids and around her eyes, visible eyelashes with black eyeliner, as well as her gold tooth in place of King's right fang.

As of "Young Blood, Old Souls", during which the curse becomes split between her and her sister, her left eye is silver and she has a white streak on the left side of her hair. The oval gem on her sternum is now black, indicating her lack of magic.

In her Owl Beast form, she resembles a large, owl-like monster with black eyes, grayish yellow sharp teeth and gray hair protruding from long, pointed ears. Her body is covered in dark teal fur, and she has two dark gray wings and black feet that resemble that of a bird of prey's.

After coming more to terms with the curse in "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Hooty's Door", she can turn into a harpy-like form of the Owl Beast. In this form, she has long dark gray hair with a light gray streak on the top of her hair, yellow eyes with black sclera, and tufts of hair that come out of her elongated ears. She has gray owl-like wings that protrude from her back, and her now two-toned maroon and red dress appears to be a part of her body, partially covering her face. Her torso, shoulders, arms, and hands are covered in dull spikes protruding from where the sleeves of her dress would be. Her feet are covered in light gray fur with dark gray talons like an owl. Her hands are monstrous-looking, with small yellow claws. In "Eclipse Lake", she learns how to change into her harpy form at will.

In "King's Tide", her right arm was removed and allowed to disintegrate by Raine in order to protect her from the combined effects of her curse and the draining spell.

After the Collector comes to power, she cuts her hair, the new hairstyle resembling how it was when she met King. She also keeps her amputated arm bandaged up and has cuts on her chin and forehead.

After witnessing Luz's "death", Eda took a enraged state more similar to her Owl Beast form. Eda goes feral just like in her Owl Beast form but way larger, her eyes and mouth turn into a fiery orange color with a bright glow, her tail grows longer, her fangs turn longer and sharper and she gains three pairs of wings instead of one.

In the epilogue to "Watching and Dreaming", Eda's hair is grown out and kept in a large ponytail. She additionally has replaced her missing right arm with a gold hook.

### Clothing

Eda initially wore a sleeveless, two-tone maroon dress with a ripped hem design and gray leggings. Her jewelry consisted of two orange spherical earrings and a gold spherical ring. For footwear, she wore maroon high-heeled boots. Her nightwear consists of a plum sweater with amber cuffs, a stained violet nightgown, and light yellow bunny slippers.

In "Wing It Like Witches", Eda removes her ring and gives it to Lilith after their grudgby match, to give to Emperor Belos so she does not return empty-handed.

Starting from "Keeping Up A-fear-ances", she wears a longer three-toned maroon dress with mid-length sleeves and a ripped hem with light gray leggings. Her boots are now dark gray and she no longer wears her earrings.

In her youth, she wore a Hexside School uniform of the Potions track with yellow sleeves and leggings, black flats, a gray tunic with a black belt, and a black cowl with a golden button.

"Echoes of the Past" shows flashbacks to Eda eight years before the first episode takes place. Her hair is orange and short, albeit still thick and messy, and she has two gray streaks in her hair. She wears the same outfit from the first season and doesn't use lipstick.

As a young adult in "Eda's Requiem", she was seen wearing a red dress with ripped sleeves, a ripped maroon hem, and the same earrings and the red boots from her first outfit. She had her hair up in a ponytail with a red band, and at this point, she had started to develop gray hair, as two small streaks can be seen up near her forehead.

As of "For the Future", Eda has switched to a mid-sleeved maroon shirt with a red vest, baggy purplish-gray pants with a big gray patch sewn onto the right thigh, and calf length red-violet heel boots.

In "Watching and Dreaming," Eda wears a red coat with gray clasps. She has a gold plate on her shoulders and wears a grey scarf with the Titan symbol on it. She wears Raine's earrings and dons tall grey boots.

## Personality

Confident and sassy, Eda is best described as rebellious, with Luz calling her "surprisingly foxy for her age". Her vast skills and aptitude in witchcraft give her a brash streak, as she proudly declares her power and is openly defiant of authorities, going as far as knocking a guard unconscious and flying off to avoid getting caught.

Unlike her sister Lilith, Eda is vehemently anti-authoritarian, having little to no respect for laws and authority in general. She refuses to join any of the covens because she views them as crooked for the limitations they place on magic. She is also not a fan of the educational system for similar reasons, bemoaning its reliance on "blind obedience" and "pointless busywork".

Eda is described as the sort of teacher that would not only throw someone into the deep end, but also set the entire body of water on fire. Eda has an odd view of how a good apprentice should act; she is very proud of Luz for getting her face on a "wanted" poster for the first time, reacting the same way when Luz convinces her to teach new spells by appealing to her vanity.

It's shown that she has a caring side to her and she is willing to protect the people she holds most dear, such as when she protects Luz multiple times, being close to a mother figure for her, as well as swallowing her pride when she realizes that she's being unreasonable and that Luz is miserable not being around her new friends and only having a limited palette with learning about magic, and enrolling her in Hexside. She also deeply cares about Lilith despite them both being on different sides of the law. It also seems she is afraid of losing her friends, and as such tries to ignore the idea of them leaving.

## Abilities

### **Skillset**

* **Grudgby proficiency:** Eda was able to compete with Lilith in a game of grudgby.
* **Knitting:** She knitted a cape with a hood, made of witch's wool, for Luz in "Agony of a Witch".
* **Mechanical knowledge:** In "Separate Tides", it was revealed that she built herself a small, makeshift motorboat (likely to compensate for her lost magic) with a bathtub as boat hull which was, as heard for the first time in "Echoes of the Past", propelled by a motor of unknown design.

### **Unique 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, allowing her to perform all forms of magic. Like all witches, her connection to magic comes from a sac of magic bile attached to her heart. She also claims to practice "wild magic", which draws power from the natural magic of the Boiling Isles itself. It is revealed in "Agony of a Witch" that her curse also affects her magic power, as it takes some of her magic to delay it until she can drink an elixir to reverse it. As the curse grows stronger, the more of her total magic power is needed to hold it back until her next elixir, while also increasing the number of elixirs she needs to drink to revert the curse and temporarily restore her magic usage. She can use less and less magic before the curse drains her and turns her into the Owl Beast. As of "Agony of a Witch", Eda's magic bile sac, the sac of magic bile attached to her heart, no longer creates magic bile or spell phlegms that can be mixed together to create different spells due to her curse, leaving her without a natural magic reservoir, and unable to use any magic or the ability to cast any spells by drawing a spell circle. Because of this, Eda began to learn to use magic through glyphs. In addition, she now carries potions that function like grenades.
	+ **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.
	+ **Construction magic:** Eda can summon pillars of the 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.
	+ **Lightning magic:** Eda can summon massive bolts of electricity out of thin air. She can also conjure multiple circles of the spell at once for more damage.
	+ **Mystical projection:** Eda can draw a spell circle to project imagery and visions through.
	+ **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.
	+ **Flight:** Eda can use her staff to fly.
	+ **Telekinesis:** Eda can use her magic to levitate people and objects and move them without touching them.
	+ **Teleportation:** She can disappear from one location and instantly reappear in another.
	+ **Force field generation:** She can create and maintain force fields powerful enough to withstand boiling rain and scorching heat.
	+ **Potion magic:** Eda was in the potion track at Hexside, and as such is very skilled in making potions and elixirs. After her magic was weakened by her curse, Eda made use of potions in combat, throwing them like grenades.
	+ **Magic trap creation:** Eda can conjure landmines that do elemental damage, ranging from bursts of flame to gusts of wind and even dirt spikes.
	+ **Body swapping:** Eda can move her consciousness and the consciousness of others between bodies. She cannot perform magic while in another person's body and must use her staff to undo the spell.
	+ **Abomination magic:** According to **Incident #3421** in her school record, Eda created an army of abominations for a food fight and then lost control of them.
	+ **Bard magic:** During her younger years, Eda was able to use bard magic by playing the lute. In "Eda's Requiem", it is revealed that Eda can cast magic through music, but the curse makes her bard magic destroy anything around her into ash. She isn't immune to this effect, and she'll start decaying herself if used for too long.
	+ **Animation:** She can bring small inanimate objects to life, having done so with a bowl of vegetables, causing them to grow small arms and legs and gain at least rudimentary intelligence.
	+ **Sleep spell:** Eda can make people and creatures fall asleep if the target passes through the sleep spell circle.
	+ **Magical weapons:** She can conjure up a sword made of ice; when doing so, she also creates an orb of flame in her left hand. Seeing as she didn't actually use them to fight with, any other qualities of these weapons are unknown.
	+ **Magic hideout:** Eda left behind the secret shortcut room and a glyph to access the room after she dropped out of the school.
	+ **Mind walking:** She can send at least two individuals into another person's mind as they sleep. She also has the ability to allow individuals to bring in items, in this case, a bell.\* **Staff proficiency:** Eda's staff helps focus her magic and serves as her main mode of transportation. Owlbert, the staff's palisman, can come to life and detach himself, which Eda mainly uses for retrieving items from the human realm.
* **Palisman communication:** Eda is able to communicate with and understand Owlbert.
* **Superhuman strength:** Eda was shown to be strong enough to smash rock-solid substances with her bare hands, especially as a way of getting Hooty to tell her where Luz ran off to. One strike from her fist cracked the wall and shook the whole house. Even after the loss of her magic, she is still very strong (e.g. can break through a wall of ice using her head without any injury).
* **Cursed form:** Eda was given the curse of the Owl Beast when she was younger by her sister, Lilith. 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 an owl-like creature, 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, as well as the ability to fly. However, the transformation isn't immediate. While partially transformed, Eda will respond to a command. Additionally, she cannot perform magic while in this form. Any living thing she consumes as the Owl Beast will be regurgitated in a giant owl pellet when she returns to normal. The curse also drains her total magic power, and as the curse grows stronger, the more of her power is needed to delay it until her next elixir, and should she rapidly use up her remaining magic power, say going all-out in an extended fight, she will immediately transform into the owl creature. From "Escape of the Palisman" to "Agony of a Witch", Eda's elixir had become less effective on her curse that she required several bottles of elixir just to stave it off. As of "Young Blood, Old Souls", Eda has split the curse with her sister, though the curse has weakened her powers and she cannot cast any magic spells like she used to. In "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Hooty's Door", Eda makes peace with the Owl Beast and gains the ability to transform into "Harpy Eda" at will, as long as she follows up on deals made with the Owl Beast, such as feeding it. It also seems that she can transform specific parts of her body, such as her arms. She couldn't transform back into her regular, humanoid form without an elixir at first, but eventually learned to do so. In this form, she can fly at incredible speeds, fight with heavily increased strength, and fold her wings in on herself to spin downward like a drill head.

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## Trivia

* Eda makes a cameo on a wanted poster in *Gravity Falls: Lost Legends*.
	+ In a DVD commentary of *Gravity Falls*, Alex Hirsch, in-character as Stan Pines, stated he was married to a woman matching Eda's description named Marilyn for less than a day before she robbed him and mysteriously disappeared. This was also mentioned in *Gravity Falls: Journal 3*.
		- In "Yesterday's Lie", Eda is revealed to have gone by the alias of "Marylin" whenever she visited the Human Realm.
* Eda's famous wanted poster has two different versions. The most consistent version depicts Eda with King and a reward of one trillion snails. On some occasions however, the posters will depict Eda alone and a reward of only one million snails. It is unclear why there are two versions depicted, although the million version may have been an earlier concept that did not get fully replaced.
	+ Both versions appear in "Covention" with the million version inside the building and the trillion version outside, and in "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" with the million snails appearing on the close up of Luz's taped up banned poster and the trillion version appearing in the wide shot of the same scene.
	+ The most obvious example of the two posters is in "Reaching Out" with the less common million version appearing in all of the wide shots of the living room and the trillion version appearing in close ups of the characters on the couch.
		- During the close up shots, only the bottom part of the poster is shown, so it is unclear if King is featured on this poster as he should be. However, there is one shot where the camera pans up slightly and the very bottom of Eda's dress can be seen, in which there are lines that intersect it where King should be, but he is not colored in.
* As revealed in "Once Upon a Swap", according to her mugshot, Eda is 7'6" tall in heels and to the top of her hair. Although, this could be a different form of measurement.
* Eda shares many similarities to, and is most likely based on, the Mexican 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 telling's, Lechuza would either simply curse someone who gazed eyes at her or would snatch away or even kill children who came near her.
* Eda is much younger than she looks and ages faster because of her curse.
	+ Incident #3421 has Eda and Lilith attending Hexside together in their youth. In "Wing It Like Witches", there is a photograph of them playing grudgby together, neither of them showing any sign of being older than the other. In her Reddit AMA, Dana Terrace stated that Lilith was the older one by only two years.
	+ As a child, Eda's hair was naturally orange. Its current gray coloring is a result of her curse, as confirmed by Lilith in "Wing It Like Witches".
	+ According to herself in "Sense and Insensitivity", whenever Eda sees more wrinkles, it's a sign of her curse getting worse.
* Dana Terrace has confirmed that even if Eda's curse is healed, she will not regain her natural orange hair color.
* Eda has a *Pokémon* Snorlax plush in "A Lying Witch and a Warden".
* Eda states in "Adventures in the Elements" that she hates garlic.
* After "Something Ventured, Someone Framed", Eda took her school record home and kept it as a photo album.
* When Eda was younger, she either created or found a secret room of shortcuts where she had access to different parts of Hexside from one room, most likely used for pranks and getting away without being caught; in present-day, students from the detention track could use it to access different rooms at Hexside, unknowingly idolizing Eda as Lord Calamity, the Secret Room founder.
* In her harpy form, Eda's voice has an echoing effect as if she has a second but deeper and more demonic voice, similar to how demons are depicted in most media.
* Since making peace with the Owl Beast and gaining her harpy form, Eda seems to no longer have much issue with the curse; so long as she bargains with the Owl Beast it won't spontaneously try to take control.
* In "Yesterday's Lie", it is revealed that Eda has a reputation in Luz's hometown Gravesfield as a nuisance and danger.
	+ A few months prior to the events of the series, Eda was banned from Robin's Roast Café for life after trying to pay for a latte with a live raccoon. When the barista called the police, she hexed the croissants in the pastry display. After the employees threw them out, the rats that ate them became capable of speech and evil, desperate for more magic croissants.
	+ After she agreed to give up Hexes Hold'em forever, she decided to throw her cards in a river; before she could, however, Jacob Hopkins offered to buy them from her, which she agreed to. As a result, teenagers living in the town bought them from Jacob at the Gravesfield Historical Society, unaware it was a game. Instead, they use them as a kind of tarot deck which, oddly enough, provides strangely accurate readings.
	+ While visiting at some unknown time, Eda turned into the Owl Beast, which was witnessed by Jacob, who managed to take a photograph. Since then, he has been tirelessly working to expose their kind to the world.
* Eda has a very big tab at both Bonesborough Library (her card was revoked as well) and Grimgrub's Pub.
* Her witch-owl hybrid form's name, Harpy Eda, is taken from the women-bird hybrid creatures of Greek mythology. It also brings to mind a tengu with it having both wings and arms.
	+ Interestingly, the specific bird tengu are usually depicted as corvids. Her sister, Lilith, is associated with ravens, which is a type of corvid.
* As revealed by Dana Terrace, the Clawthorne family, including Eda and Lilith, are the descendants of Caleb Wittebane and Evelyn, making them the first known witches with human ancestry.

## References

1. ↑ Dana Terrace's AMA. Reddit (September 3, 2020). “(If eda gets the curse cured will her hair turn back to its natural color) No.”