The Collector

Getting lied to and betrayed by Emperor Belos for the witch hunter's genocidal plans.

### Type of Villain

Tragic Thrill-Seeker

**The Collector** is the secondary antagonist turned hero of the Disney animated series, *The Owl House*. He was tricked and framed by his species and trapped in the Boiling Isles for over a million years before being manipulated by the main antagonist, Emperor Belos/Phillip Wittebane, into helping him with his genocidal plans for the Boiling Isles via the Draining Spell. Though after being betrayed by the witch hunter and freed by King Clawthorne, the Titans' son, he stopped the Draining Spell and turned the Boiling Isles into his own playground before being reformed by Luz and the others.

## What makes him sympathetic?

* Unlike the rest of his species, who were more malicious and followed twisted ideals of "preserving life", he's a genuinely sweet and innocent child from the stars who only wanted to play rather than to cause any harm despite his godlike abilities and poor understanding of death, mortals, and morality.
* He was tricked by his older siblings, The Archivists, into playing with the baby Titans, presumably as a suicide mission or as a way to get rid of him.
* He befriended the baby Titans and enjoyed playing with them, only for his species to exterminate them one-by-one out of fear of their power.
* The Collector was then unfairly framed into thinking that he was the one responsible for the genocide of the Titans, regretfully by King's Dad who made up the Boiling Isles, and got trapped into a small tablet deep within said Boiling Isles Titan's skull for a million years due to the Titan wanting to protect his son, who was in an egg at the time. This caused him to suffer from deep insecurities as he just wanted a friend who wouldn't manipulate or betray him like the Archivists did.
* Million years later, he was manipulated by Belos, who was originally Phillip at the time, into helping him with his genocidal plans in exchange for freedom.
* Despite helping Belos with his plans for genocide of the Demon Realm, the former human ultimately betrayed him and threw his tablet off a bridge to keep the Collector from giving his power off to anyone else.
* While the Collector did take over the Boiling Isles and turned most of its inhabitants into puppets to play pretend with after being freed by King Clawthorne and saving everyone from the Draining Spell, he made sure none of them were harmed and kept them safe in the Archives.
* He has a strong sense of honor as he hates lying and is willing to hold his ends of the deals with others, unlike Emperor Belos who used the Collector's powers for his own gain and lied about freeing him.
* The Collector is genuinely willing to make friends with anyone they meet, including Belos and King Clawthorne, despite his strained relationship with King's father.
* He actually views King as a friend as he promised to do whatever King asked, never treated him poorly, and even stood up for him when Terra Snapdragon called him a "stupid, little dog".
	+ It's even implied that he freed Lilith, King's adoptive aunt, from her puppet state per his request.
* Despite his initial jealousy of Luz and her friendship with King, even expressing some anger when he finds out that she returned to the Boiling Isles, he never showed actual malice towards her nor actual desire to harm her. Instead, just wanting to be friends with her, Eda, and King (despite believing he was going to betray him too out of a misunderstanding when King actually wanted to talk to him out of genuine sympathy and empathy). He also ignored Belos' (who was possessing Raine at the time) idea to just kill them.
* Although he did put Luz, Eda, and King through nightmare visions, it was all because of Belos manipulating him to do it under the lie that it would "show them the error of their ways".
* The child innocently took Belos' advice about playing with them in person to show them how fun he can be, not knowing about the dangers of his games and genuinely believing that with them will make them want to be his friends.
* Despite constantly being beaten and humiliated in each of his games, the Collector doesn't retaliate and instead sulks in the corner when he could've easily taken revenge on the trio for hurting him.
* The Collector immediately opened up to the trio about his past and how hurt he is about so many people betraying and lying to him. After Luz, Eda, and King take him to the Boiling Isles and show him how they became friends, he began to listen and was willing to start changing his ways.
* He took the trio's advice to heart and forgave Belos for all of his horrible crimes in an attempt to change him too, though it proved to be ineffective due to how irredeemable and delusional the witch hunter was. The Collector even expressed genuine confusion for why Belos still attacked him.
* When Luz was killed by Belos, the Collector tried to revive her and was sad and crying for the first time when he was unable to, showing guilt and grief.
* After Luz was revived by King's Dad via Titan magic and witnessing the Archives' destruction, the Collector used his puppet strings to save everyone inside from death, including Luz's mother and friends, despite slowly being corrupted by Belos' moss.
* He reverted everyone that he puppetized back to normal.
* He created a new portal door for Luz and the others to traverse between both the Human Realm and the Demon Realm.
* The Collector decided to return to space to continue growing up and improving himself. Despite this, he still sent a shooting star to sail across the Boiling Isles four years later to celebrate Luz's quinceañera. It's heavily implied that he visits his new friends quite often, and judging by the fact the characters happily waved goodbye to him during the finale, many of them have even forgiven and accepted him.
* While he has committed some malevolent actions over the series' span, such as giving Belos the Draining Spell, finding sadistic joy in the deaths of Caleb Wittebane's grimwalkers, and endangering Luz, Eda, and King with his summoned games, this was due to his very poor understanding of what death actually means to mortals, assuming that they can be fixed like toys when broken and showed genuine remorse and guilt for his actions once he realized what it meant for them and understood loss and grief.
* Considering that Belos was his only company for centuries and the witch hunter killed and remade many Grimwalkers at the time, it's not hard to assume that he was under the impression that Belos was breaking and fixing the same toy over and over again, making the Collector unable to understand how serious death is to mortals.

## External Links

* The Collector on the Villains Wiki
* The Collector on the Heroes Wiki
* The Collector on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki
* The Collector on the Pure Good Wiki