Characters / The Owl House - Emperor Belos

The Owl House Main Character Index
The Boiling Isles (Palismen) | The Owl House (Luz Noceda) | The Hexsquad (Amity Blight) | The Emperor's Coven (Emperor Belos | The Golden Guard) | Hexside | Other (The Collector)

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Emperor Belos/Philip Wittebane

Voiced by: Matthew Rhys, Alex Lawther (as Philip), Fryda Wolff (child), Zeno Robinson (while possessing Hunter), Avi Roque (while possessing Raine)

"Now, I'm just a humble messenger for the Titan. In the grand scheme of things, the Owl Lady's life is inconsequential... but then you showed up."

^{Click here to see him unmasked} "I'll do anything to save humanity from evil."

^{Click here to see him as Philip Wittebane} "It doesn't matter. I just need to live long enough to see this through. And you're going to help me, Collector."

^{Click here to see his monstrous form} "We. Don't. Belong here!"

^{Click here to see him possessing Hunter} "I thought this one was another lost cause... Because of you, we can finish our work as witch hunters, starting with THEM!"

^{Click here to see him possessing the Titan} "Finally! I CAN CLEANSE THIS PERDITION... MYSELF!"

The Emperor of the Boiling Isles, implementer and overseer of the Coven System, and Humble Messenger for the Titan who brought order and control to the Demon Realm in the wake of the ashes of the so-called "Savage Ages" — or so he claims.

In reality, Belos is actually a 17th century human Witch Hunter named Philip Wittebane, whose only goal is to wipe out all life on the Isles on what he calls the "Day of Unity".

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A-C

• Absolute Xenophobe: Belos detests the Boiling Isles inhabitants, despite their loyalty, and justifies his genocide in "Hollow Mind" as a means to "save" humanity from evil, even if they disagree with his beliefs about witches and demons.
• Abusive Parents: Belos, Hunter's uncle, sees him as a pawn rather than a family member. He is manipulative, emotionally, psychologically, and physically abusive. In "Hollow Mind", Belos reveals he is Hunter's "creator" and attempts to kill him. In "Thanks to Them", Belos possesses Hunter and uses his body to mortally wound Flapjack.
• Achilles' Heel:
  • After centuries of consuming Palismen souls, his 'natural' body is inherently unstable and requires him to subsist off the life essence of other beings to keep persisting onwards. This instability and weakened nature proves to be his biggest weak spot besides his inability to recognise his own shortcomings.
  • Belos, living on borrowed time, struggles to survive after centuries of consuming life. Initially, he builds life force reserves from consumed Palismen, but they are destroyed by the Collector. In Season 3, he fights to return to the Demon Realm and find a Final Solution, eventually merging with the Titan's heart and remaining life force.
  • His body is entirely Made of Magic, as such, Vee poses a big threat to him, though she unfortunately doesn't have time to fully take him out. Likewise, the Draining Spell also negatively affects him even worse than the witches, whereas the magicless Hunter survived for an extended period whilst being drained.
  • Philip's magical abilities stem from a glyph array carved into his skin, allowing him to cast magic with a gesture. However, when the Collector destroys this, Philip's amorphous form cannot maintain the glyph symbols; he can only cast magic through his dripping essence. This complex array makes him powerless when reassuming his human form.
  • Inner Belos is vulnerable to intense environmental conditions, particularly fire, which weakens him. He flinches when hit by a fireball; his hidden scar melts during "King's Tide". He ultimately meets his end by Fire/Water Juxtaposition in boiling rains, dissolving into immobile sludge.
• Allegorical Character:
  • The series portrays Belos as an embodiment of religious extremism, influenced by Gravesfield's witch-hunting tradition. His theocratic tyrant rule is a facade for his true agenda, resulting in a zealot who sacrifices his family to uphold warped values. Philip's hypocrisy mirrors fanatics using religious teachings for reprehensible acts. Belos' interactions with Hunter mirror religious Domestic Abuse.
  • The Transhuman Abomination character symbolizes terminal illness, corrupting the Boiling Isles and causing antagonistic relationships. His toxic body infects multiple bodies, turning into a cancerous mass that resembles Luz's father's death.
• All for Nothing: Philip's initial goal was to rescue his brother, Caleb, from the evil witch, Evelyn, but he discovered Caleb was happier in the Boiling Isles and chose to stay with Evelyn. Enraged, Philip attacked them and killed Caleb, ultimately leading to his death as Belos under the scorching world, leaving his witch-hunter exploits as an old ghost story.
• All Take and No Give: Belos demands loyalty in personal and professional relationships, losing it when questioned. Hunter supports him but is abused. Belos expects his companions to die for him and is outraged when Lilith rejects his offer. He wants his brother, Caleb, to find happiness outside of Philip.
• Always Someone Better: Zigzagged with Luz when it comes to glyphs. Philip's mastery of glyphs is far greater than Luz's, allowing her to create complex spells and prototype glyph combinations. Luz found all four glyphs within weeks, while Philip took years to find three. Luz also learned how to use glyph combinations faster, despite Philip's initial resistance to finding the secrets of glyphs.
• Ambiguously Christian: The first season of The Emperor's Coven features iconography reminiscent of Catholicism, which Puritanism opposes. The show mentions unsavory practices in Gravesfield and the Boiling Isles as a "perdition", an archaic Christian term for Hell.
• Ambiguously Evil: Invoked. Philip Wittebane, known as 'Emperor Belos', disguised himself to gain cooperation for the Draining Spell Plan, teaching magic and promoting his built-up Cult of Personality over 50 years.
• Ambiguously Human: The present identity of a monstrous corpse, once a human named Philip Wittebane, is ambiguous due to his consumption of Palismen and glyphs. His more significant effects from the Draining Spell suggest a demon nature.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Luz discovers all four glyphs on the Boiling Isles within weeks, contrasting with Philip who only discovered three. He believes the Isles are working against him, but it's unclear if this is hyperbole or the Titan's will. Belos explains that Luz's use of glyphs is intuitive, possibly due to the Titan's resistance.
  • Philip's separation from Caleb is unclear, but memory portraits show him meeting Evelyn and following her through a portal. Masha reveals regular correspondence and secret code use.
• Ambiguous Start of Darkness: Philip's past is unclear, but his cursed state remains a mystery. The exact cause of his curse remains a mystery, but it remains a crucial issue to prevent further harm caused by Philip.
• Ambition Is Evil: It's mentioned by Lilith in "Wing It Like Witches" that he has big plans for the Boiling Isles. Eventually, it is revealed that he is engineering the full-blown genocide of the place and plans on using that feat to earn praise and approval from humanity and be rewarded by being labeled a famous hero in history.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: Philip's obsession with killing all witches for humanity led him to sacrifice his own humanity after carving glyphs in his own skin and consuming palismen to live longer. By the present day, Belos is quite literally a zombie witch/demon than anything remotely human.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Much like the protagonists, Belos resembles bird motifs, with a mask resembling a crow's beak and cape wings. His iconography and coven system bear feathered wings; his gloves resemble talons. He often poses calculatingly like an eagle, making him a monstrous amalgam of bird and artificial witch, attempting to fit in and trick others into trusting him for his plans.
  • Belos' true nature is revealed to have a deer motif, as evidenced by his childhood mask with deer-like antlers and his monstrous form with gangly limbs, elongated body, and facial structure. He possesses deer animals and sprouts antlers from their heads, resembling an all-powerful witch. However, his mask for 'Emperor Belos' resembles a bird-like structure.
• The Antichrist: Belos, a False Prophet, manipulates the people of the Boiling Isles and rules the Demon Realm, claiming to speak with a godlike entity, the Titan. He tricks people into wearing the Mark of the Beast, marking them as damned. His true body is a parody of Jesus.
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Belos believes humans are morally superior to witches, leading him to kill them. However, killing his brother, Caleb, drives him mad, as it contradicts his beliefs. He sees only the ghosts of Caleb and the Grimwalkers, feeling guilt for killing humans. He twists rationality to justify silencing dissenters.
• Arch-Enemy: To Luz Noceda. Belos and Luz's animosity escalates after discovering Belos was once a human named Philip Wittebane. Luz hates Belos' tyranny and his manipulation, while Belos admires Luz's humanity but dislikes her defiance of his beliefs. He wants to break Luz's defiance and make his beliefs the truth.
• The Archmage: He's widely considered the most powerful witch alive, and it shows. Part of this is due to Belos limiting everyone who's not in his Coven from accessing only one school of magic while he has access to all of them. Even without that, he's seems to be able to cast spells with just his thoughts alone, not even needing to move to draw a spell circle or use a glyph.
• Archnemesis Dad: In "Hollow Mind", he's revealed as one to Hunter, who's really an artificial lifeform Belos created instead of his nephew, as Hunter previously believed. Belos ends up trying to kill him at the episode's end and Hunter goes on the run realizing his home isn't safe anymore.
• Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: Belos, a monstrous character in the series, wears metallic gauntlets and a metal brace around his mask, particularly during confrontations with cape-wearing Luz. This trope is prominent throughout Season 2, as Belos appears more often and gradually wears the mask less. As the season progresses, the extent of Belos' villainy becomes more apparent, as the armor covers his rotting nature.
• The Assimilator: In "Hollow Mind", Philip and Belos consume Palismen to prolong their lifespan and enact the Day of Unity. Belos consumes their souls, transforming them into a rotting magical aberration. In "Thanks to Them", Belos reconstitutes himself by draining Human Realm wildlife's essence, with Hunter being the final victim before fully replicating his monstrous Palismen form.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: In "Agony of a Witch", Willow describes him as more powerful than Eda. His raw power secures his throne on the Boiling Isles and helps instigate the coven system. He studied glyph magic and used it to manipulate others, relying on trickery and misdirection. His power is implied to be a result of his years of study and manipulation.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Belos, a monstrously vile monster, wears dark armor and a divine golden mask while cloaking himself in white. He uses an iron will to reject reality armor and project a veil of righteousness, deceiving fellow humans into believing he is a noble crusader.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: "Watching And Dreaming" has Belos finally achieving his goal of becoming one with the Titan, which turns him into a mossy Draconic Abomination that easily towers above the rest of the Boiling Isles.
• Attention Whore: Very much so. Belos deceives himself into believing he's the hero, seeking admiration from others. He presents himself as a messianic figure to gain worship and admire his noble crusade. He murders Luz to gain admiration but lashes out when she refuses to buy into his bigotry.
• Asshole Victim: It's easy to say that Belos fully deserved his death.
• Ax-Crazy: Belos/Philip seems like a reasonable person, but he plots to kill witches and demons in the Boiling Isles, justifying his actions as saving humanity from evil. He silences human critics with violence, making mortal life impossible for centuries.
• Bad Boss: Lilith is threatened with death by her coven; her loyalty is questioned. The man's master plan involves killing all followers and subjects, despite their compliance. He even kills the grimwalkers; Hunter would have followed suit if Luz hadn't saved him.
• Bad People Abuse Animals:
  • Belos breaks an animal-esque palisman to relieve his chronic illness, horrifying Luz. He's been doing this for hundreds of years to prolong life and control mutations, leaving consciousnesses trapped in his mind.
  • Belos uses wild animals as hosts in the Human Realm, causing his true form to corrode and consume their flesh, which severely traumatizes Hunter and turns himself into a plague of death.
• Bait the Dog: His one semi-redeeming element seemed to be his relationship with Hunter, which, while strained at times, isn't nearly so ruthless or cruel as the way he treats his subjects or the Coven. Until it's shown that Belos manipulates Hunter with high promises and Hunter is the latest in a series of grimwalkers that Belos killed for apparently "betraying" him, which he has sadistically happy thoughts on.
  Belos: I say, "The Titan has big plans for you." And he does what he's told. Unlike the previous attempts.
• Backstab Backfire: When Belos makes the mistake of adding The Collector to the list of people he's betrayed, he wastes no time at getting back at him for it once freed. That is to say, Belos is almost instantly reduced to little more than a splatter on the wall.
• Beard of Evil: As Philip, he grew a big bushy beard while living in the Boiling Isles and he was already a prolific Serial Killer of witches by the time Luz met him in the past. However, between his encounter with Luz and his rise to power as Belos, he had shaved off the beard. Unusually, the beard is actually plot-relevant, as it hides the fact that his jawline is identical to Belos'.
• Beard of Sorrow: Downplayed. While Philip does develop a prominent beard, and it grows the most after Caleb's death, Philip himself is the one who killed him. Additionally, it had already begun to grow even before Philip discovered Caleb and Evelyn Clawthorne together, and by the time of the main events of the story, he has long since shaved it away.
• Became Their Own Antithesis:
  • Assuming they're anything like real life, Philip's Witch Hunts on Earth were targeting regular humans that supposedly made Deals with the Devil. That's exactly what Philip himself became in the process of targeting the witches of the Boiling Isles, a Mage Species whose natural-born magical power simply inspired the mythical witches Philip was originally chasing after.
  • His consumption of Palisman essence to extend his lifespan has transformed him into a magical monster that merely assumes the guise of a human, despite Philip's claims that he's still human, making him exactly into the kind of twisted, violent creature he sees the rest of the denizens as.
  • Belos, in his quest to cleanse the world, formed a cult, controlled followers, and used their energies to grow stronger. He attached himself to the Titan's heart, becoming a towering monster and The Antichrist in the Boiling Isles.
• Beg the Dog: After being defeated, Belos asked, then demanded a titanized Luz to save him from the boiling rain, despite doing nothing but hurt her and her loved ones.
• Being Evil Sucks: Thanks to his mad crusade, Belos has been stranded from his home for hundreds of years and he's been left entirely alone for all of it surrounded by people he hates. He's entirely to blame for his own predicament, but Belos refuses to give up and his misery only fuels his desire to commit genocide upon the Isles, as he blames them for his own mistakes.
• Believing Their Own Lies:
  • Belos believes in the death of his brother, Caleb, claiming emotional hurt and creating grimwalkers like Hunter to fix his mistake. He distances himself from his familial connection, but when forced to relive his worst memory, he creates a Self-Serving Memory to avoid the painful reality that he murdered Caleb.
  • It's implied in "King's Tide" that although Belos was lying about hearing the Titan's will, he does believe that the Titan was deliberately keeping secrets of the glyphs from him despite knowing the Titan is long dead.
• Beneath the Mask:
  • Belos initially seems like a calm, collected Evil Overlord native to the Boiling Isles. However as time goes on Belos gradually reveals the real him: a pathetic, bigoted Heroic Wannabe who never grew up. It coincides with him gradually losing his armor and eventually being reduced to a pitiful, rotting monster utterly destroyed by his obsession with being the hero.
  • Similarly, he claims the Grimwalkers are his effort to make a "better version" Caleb. However, it's heavily implied it's actually Belos' revenge on his brother for "betraying" him and his abuse and eventual murders of each Golden Guard are his way of taking out his anger at Caleb. Notably, when the Collector suggests he enjoys killing them, Belos smirks before denying it.
• Berserk Button: He's normally a calm and collective dictator but if these subjects are brought to his presence, he'll devolve into a raging beast.
  • Wild magic. As shown in "Hunting Palismen", he hates wild magic to the point he refuses to use any treatment that involves wild magic even if it can cure his curse, as Hunter finds out. It's later revealed in "Hollow Mind" that Belos hates all kinds of magic, but has a special hatred for wild magic as it is magic in its natural state and likely the magic that lured his brother away from witch hunting.
  • Being called inhuman. In "Clouds on the Horizon", when the Collector mentions Belos can barely maintain his human shape anymore after getting so used to draining Palismen, Belos wordlessly tries to attack them. In "King's Tide", Luz calling Belos barely human causes Belos' glamour to fail, and the witch hunter immediately tries to kill her by turning her to stone.
  • Flapjack is a massive one for him. Belos becomes enraged when he sees Hunter's one-eyed red palisman, losing control over his appearance. He tries to manipulate Hunter, but Flapjack, a gift from Evelyn, reminds him of Caleb's abandonment of witch-hunting.
• Beyond Redemption: Caleb, Philip's brother, is no longer with him, making Belos' heroic delusions difficult to understand. The Collector, unaware of the deeper morality, uses Luz's example of kindness and forgiveness to help Belos. However, Belos tries to shoot him and Luz consoles him. The heroes realize Belos' delusions must be stopped permanently.
  The Titan: You assume Belos' goal comes from a genuine place. But that man doesn't care about anything but his need to be the hero in his own delusion.
• Biblical Motifs: Philip's character, Belos, resembles Cain, with a band of green rot on his face and black holes in his skull, akin to the mark of Cain that God placed on him. This mark persists even when he covers it with a mask and glamour abilities. Belos' slimy form is poisonous, draining life from everything he touches and corroding the Earth, similar to Cain's curse.
  Genesis 10-12: And He said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil. And so, cursed shall you be by the soil that gaped with its mouth to take your brother's blood from your hand. If you till the soil, it will no longer give you strength. A restless wanderer shall you be on the earth."
• Big Bad: In the first season, Lilith, Amity Blight, Boscha, and Odalia Blight were antagonists linked to Belos, the primary magical authority. Lilith controlled Hexside School and Principal Bump, while Belos gained ultimate power by possessing the Titan's corpse.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Belos collaborates with the Collector, promising freedom in exchange for the Day of Unity. Belos betrays him in "King's Tide", but the Collector gains revenge.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Subverted; In "King's Tide", Belos and the Collector's alliance ends in a bad way, leading to Season 3 featuring them as separate threats. The Collector shapes the Boiling Isles, while Belos seeks revenge for his witch genocide. Despite their childish nature, Belos' plans for genocide make him a more insidious threat.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Is implied to be able to see through magical artifacts or some other method, if his "I will know" to Luz and her friends is anything to go by.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Belos is adept at misleading and double-crossing, as seen in his manipulation of Lilith and Luz into acting as sacrifices. In "Hollow Mind", a child version of himself helps Luz and Hunter escape Belos' monstrous Inner Self. The "monster" is an amalgamation of absorbed Palismen souls, manipulating them to destroy the Palismen.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Belos' Moral Myopia is based on the belief that all humans are good, while witches can corrupt them. He constantly falls for Luz's false deals and blames defiance on the Boiling Isles.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: After merging the Titan's heart, Belos' Meat Moss sports eyes with black sclerae and glowing blue irises. His Draconic Abomination avatar also has five such eyes on its chest, as well as numerous others within its body — as shown when Titan Luz blasts a hole through its hand.
• Blaming the Victim:
  • In "Hollow Mind", Hunter and every preceding Golden Guard are revealed to be grimwalkers created by Belos himself. The Collector accuses Belos of creating them for destruction, but Belos justifies killing them.
  • Belos attempts to murder Luz, blaming her for his actions and claiming she's crazy and twisted due to the Boiling Isles' influence. He blames the witches for her "corruption", demonstrating his inability to see humans as evil.
  • In "For the Future", Philip blames Caleb for the latter's death, claiming he saved his soul and mocking him for falling in love with a witch instead of accepting blame.
    Belos: Don't— mock— me. I tried to save your soul! It's your fault this all happened!
• Blasphemous Boast: A downplayed example; whilst possessing the Titan's heart he spreads his arms out ala Jesus on the cross, positioning himself as akin to the big J himself, which in all tenets of Christianity is a big no-no.
• Blatant Lies:
  • When the Collector accuses him of taking enjoyment out of creating grimwalkers only to kill them once they have reason to rebel, Belos denies it claiming that it breaks his heart having to do so. Judging by the brief, humoring grin, the Collector's observations are spot-on.
  • In "King's Tide", he has the gall to claim to the now-freed Collector that he upheld his end of their deal to free him when it was King who did it and after Belos had left them to rot in a pit, the Collector isn't fooled even one bit and quickly splatters him on the wall for it.
  • After losing his Titan possession, Belos uses a False Innocence Trick to claim he was freed by Luz, but Luz dismisses this story, causing him to be thrown into boiling rain.
• Blob Monster: His One-Winged Angel form in "King's Tide" has his usual amorphous Body Horror qualities— this is both what allows the Collector to splatter him against the wall, and for some of his remains to be carried into the Human Realm unnoticed on Hunter's back.
• Body Horror:
  • "Hunting Palismen" shows a man suffering from fits due to an unspecified affliction, causing his body to transform into an abomination-esque form. His dark shadow casts a painful shadow, with black gunk dripping through his damaged mask.
  • Belos' mask-less appearance is not grotesque, but his rotten green vein with black discolorations is unpleasant. Close-ups in "Hollow Mind" reveal that these discolorations are holes in his head, indicating rot.
  • In "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", it's revealed that Philip Wittebane's band is a scar Lilith gave him, in which she punched and broke his nose. The wound glows green and grows larger, implying unnatural magic manipulation.
  • In "Hollow Mind", Belos' inner beast is revealed to be a skeletal creature with glowing eyes◊ and Palismen faces◊, corrupted by consuming Palisman essence. Inner Belos manipulates Luz and Hunter to trap and restrain the creature, removing its weakness.
  • In "King's Tide", a branded creature loses control and transforms into a monster with eyes, all-fours movement, and excessively fast arms, some of which can bend backward.
  • "For the Future" reveals that even after he's reconstituted himself, his body is still coming apart. His hand and both of his legs just fall off while he's dragging himself back to the Skull, and when he tries to possess a failed/incomplete Grimwalker the flesh decays to the bone in seconds.
• Body Motifs: In Season 3, a mysterious creature with a connection to cancer consumes creatures, causing permanent damage and eventually husking them. His infection of the Boiling Isles with Meat Moss resembles metastasized cancer; the Titan's spirit reacts to the infection's speed.
• Boomerang Bigot: "Hollow Mind" reveals that he is a 1600s witch hunter. Belos believes the Demon Realm's use of magic makes them evil. Despite being the most powerful witch, he shares more similarities with the 1600s concept of a witch than any of the Boiling Isles inhabitants.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Implied. Philip's schematics for the portal are advanced and work with wormhole theory, suggesting he was centuries ahead of his time. His Fantastic Racism attitude towards witches and magic aligns with 17th-century New England supports this.
• Broken Faceplate: Luz breaks his mask, revealing his invincibility. In "Hunting Palismen", his mask falls, cracking and dripping with black gunk, suggesting he's keeping his appearance obscured due to facial horror.
• Broken Pedestal: Belos enjoys invoking Evil Gloating at his victim's expense, even if it's not pragmatic. He often gains short-term gains but rebounds into long-term consequences, which he can't recognize.
  • Lilith is horrified to realize that Belos was not going to honor his part of the deal about curing Eda and was sentencing her to petrification instead.
  • Also applies to Luz, but she didn't know it for a while. After meeting and helping the first human Philip Wittebane, it turns out he's a lot meaner than he seems, leading Luz and Lilith on to act as bait so he could retrieve the Collector's mirror. Then there's when she does find out that Philip and Belos are one and the same, something she doesn't take well.
  • Any respect Hunter had for him evaporates once he discovers how far the web of lies Belos made up to secure his reign is and how he's a Grimwalker, an artificial creation of Belos that the Emperor won't doubt killing if he stops being obedient or displeases him, as he did to several other Golden Guards before him.
• Byronic Hero: Deconstructed. Philip, a charismatic yet flawed loner with strong ideals, becomes a villain due to his unwillingness to change, leading him to become an insane, genocidal emperor who murders those challenging his beliefs.
• Cain and Abel: In "Hollow Mind", Philip, a witch hunter, murders his brother, Caleb, due to his relationship with a witch. Caleb, a former Witch Hunter, fell in love with Evelyn and the Boiling Isles. Philip kills Caleb for betraying him, dedicating himself to eradicating everything he loves while creating his own idealized version through his Grimwalkers.
• Came Back Wrong:
  • In a strange twist, it appears Belos has been aiming for this outcome. His brother Caleb "betrayed" him by marrying a witch, and Belos has been making Grimwalker clones of him for centuries, working hard to find a way to make them follow him unquestioningly in his mad quest to commit genocide. However, he consistently fails to do so, as every Grimwalker he makes turns on him like the original did.
  • This happens to Belos himself in Season 3. While he's able to reconstitute himself after the Collector nearly kills him, he's left trapped in his monstrous form and his body is rotting and falling apart. He's clearly on his last legs, and is only able to keep himself alive by possessing others.
• Can't Take Criticism: Belos' ego is so massive that he takes even being questioned as a betrayal, immediately trying to murder Hunter when he calls him out on having murdered his predecessors.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You:
  • In Season 1, the Emperor spares Luz despite her reneging on her deal due to her interesting and amusing abilities. Terra confirms Luz's role in the Emperor's plans; "Hollow Mind" reveals her role in the Stable Time Loop.
  • In "King's Tide", Luz convinces Belos to repeat a certain action, citing his desire to return to the Human Realm and his fears about the world's changes. Belos agrees, but Luz uses a Coven sigil to blackmail him into stopping the Draining Spell or dying from it.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: Belos struggles to maintain his human form due to his consumption of Palismen souls, which form a grotesque, greenish, goopy creature. Consuming more Palismen strengthens the beast, but it becomes stronger each time. By the series' start, Belos can barely hold his human form and allows parts to be overcome with the greenish goo.
• Category Traitor: Belos, a man with twisted beliefs about moral superiority, plans to kill humans if they support witches. He seeks excuses to spare a human traitor, blames them for his actions, and even makes clones to set them on the right path. Despite accusing Luz of being evil, Belos still hopes Luz will side with him.
• The Chessmaster: Belos' nightmarish planning skills have kept him in power, including organizing the Day of Unity to induct witches into a Coven and murder them. He's prepared for betrayal and masters of Xanatos Speed Chess rearranging plans. His arrogance, Fantastic Racism, and Chronic Backstabbing Disorder have contributed to his downfall.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder:
  • Belos seems incapable of making a deal without betraying his allies the instant he gets what he wants. Over the course of the series, he has betrayed his brother, his subordinates, every single witch and demon on the Boiling Isles, and even the Collector.
  • Inverted. Luz, a human, initially betrays Belos twice, despite his attempts to cooperate with his plans. She ultimately betrays him, causing him trouble. She accepts his deal to trade the portal door for Eda's life but booby-traps it. She also agrees to spare her and her friends for supporting his claims of 'protecting humanity', but is blinded by Belos' perception of Luz as a child.
• Circular Reasoning: Belos' Moral Myopia makes him unreliable, believing witches are evil and his actions are good. He believes he's always right and opposes anyone who opposes him, even if he wronged them first, which makes him dangerous.
• Color-Coded Wizardry:
  • His spells and the carved glyph arrays across his body are all red in color, demonstrating he's a vile and violent man to his core.
  • In Watching and Dreaming it changes to a greenish-blue upon possessing the Titan's heart, reflecting his nature as a sickness determined to infect everything around him.
• Condescending Compassion: Belos, despite his efforts to save humanity, dismisses genuine objections and dismisses the Boiling Isles' influence on reality. He casually claims the Boiling Isles twisted Luz and attempted to kill her.
• Connected All Along: Considering how it's revealed that his older brother Caleb had fallen in love with a Clawthorne during the 1600s, by definition Belos is Eda's and Lilith's great-uncle of many generations.
• Control Freak: Belos, obsessed with controlling everything, establishes a Coven System over the Isles. He creates Grimwalkers to be loyal to Caleb but kills most for disobedience. He even possesses Hunter, molding him into Caleb. Belos forces humans, especially Luz, to accept his worldviews, using lethal methods. The Titan explains this as projecting his own heroism onto the world.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Of both Ford and Mabel Pines as well as Oz The Great and Powerful.
  • Just like Ford, Philip was a scientist who made deals with a mysterious entity and experimented with supernatural phenomena. Phillip sacrificed people and witches for his goals, lying about them, whereas Ford stopped when he couldn't make things right. While Philip pursued his goals without considering others' well-being, Ford willingly turned down the opportunity to become an all-powerful being.
  • Belos and Mabel share a mature sibling who protects them but feels threatened by their interest in magic. They both struggle with Character Development due to their adventures in magic. While Mabel is merely impulsive and unaware of her intentions, Belos is an Evil Overlord who constantly punishes his brother and the magic world
  • He is also similar to the Wizard of Oz as a human from Earth taking on the role of a supreme magical ruler who tricked the people, while Belos is genocidal to the people he rules, the Wizard only deceive the people he rules for more noble reasons.
• The Corrupter: He's both this and The Corruption. Over four centuries, Belos transformed a peaceful community of witches and demons into a social Darwinist city, causing destruction and ruin. His true form is a malnourished Humanoid Abomination, capable of shapeshifting, possessing living beings, and blasting beams with Meat Moss.
• Covered in Scars: In "Hollow Mind", a painting suggests that the glyph arrays on Belos' skin in "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" were not tattoos but hand-carved. He also cut off his ears and gained a scar from Lilith's punch.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: A platonic version. Phillip kills Caleb due to jealousy over the latter having someone else important in his life. He also punishes Hunter for his independence, aiming to prevent similar mistakes made by his predecessors.
• Crazy Sane: Philip, a human who survived the Demon Realm, dedicated his life to eradicating witches and demons. He created Emperor Belos to deceive witches, but his Mask of Sanity reveals his inability to confront reality in both the Demon and Human Realm.
• Creepy Child: Belos, a deceiver, disguises himself as his younger self, wearing a wooden mask carved by Caleb. He tries to appear non-threatening, but eventually becomes off. Despite being capable of speech, he never talks in this form. He giggles and laughs about his atrocities but reveals his true identity when exposed. It's unclear if Belos was originally this way in his youth.
• Creepy Souvenir:
  • Belos keeps Golden Guard masks and death methods in his mindscape, including a pile of bones and masks from the Titan's skull. Kikimora's statement suggests Philip visited the location to reflect on his failures in creating an ideal version of his brother.
  • He also kept the mask his brother carved for him when they were children long after Belos killed him. As Philip, he's seen kicking it in frustration during "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" and the Inner Belos sports the mask when assuming a child form. The mask is also a precursor to the new one he wears as an adult.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Inverted in a Crucified Villain Shot. His pose on the Titan's heart when he possesses it makes it look like he's crucified himself on it, showing that his Holier Than Thou mentality is so deep that he's comparing himself to Jesus.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • Belos attempts to bury Hunter in his subconscious, weaken him with the Draining Spell, and possess him in "Thanks to Them". However, Hunter survives the gruesome Possession Burnout thanks to Flapjack's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Belos' death in the series finale is deservedly deserved, as his decayed body is broken down by boiling rain summoned by Luz using the Titan's magic. Eda, King, and Raine unceremoniously finish him off for good.
• Cruel Mercy:
  • The Emperor faces threats from an amateur witch (Luz), a public outlaw (Eda), and a government traitor (Lilith). He lets them go free as de jure fugitives, reinstating Eda's bounty and executing a manhunt, despite their powerlessness to resist.
  • Belos spares Luz's life in fights to break her spirit and accept his beliefs. He stops the petrification spell after Luz calls him Philip and resumes a witch genocide mission in the Demon Realm to prove Luz wrong.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Every direct confrontation between Belos and the protagonists is overwhelmingly in his favor, due to his combination of hundreds of years of magical knowledge and raw power; generally, Luz and her friends spend each fight with him struggling just to survive, much less injure him at all. In fact, it literally takes Luz temporarily ascending to godhood to finally defeat him.

D-F

• Dark Lord on Life Support: As the Emperor of the Boiling Isles, he is feared for his 400-year abuse of Palismen magic. However, he is in poor health and dependent on the Palismen for survival. Singling Palismen souls in "Hollow Mind" delays the decay, but he eventually falls into the Human Realm, requiring wildlife and Titan consumption.
• Dark Is Evil: Played with. Belos, a powerful figure, is associated with light and darkness, with his monstrous form and dark green sigils showcasing his true self. Luz, on the other hand, is overtly associated with light, as seen in her name and sigil. Belos' power revolves around manipulating others and believing his own lies, while Luz focuses on understanding the world and others.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Belos initially aimed to save his brother but became consumed by narcissism and bigotry, focusing on genocide. His love for Caleb has twisted into selfish possessiveness; he refuses to abandon his plan.
• Deadpan Snarker: Doesn't hold back his bitter familiarity at the disappointment he feels when Lilith returns after another failure.
  Emperor Belos: I heard you attempted a raid this morning.
  Lilith: Yes, but we were-
  Emperor Belos: Unsuccessful. That was obvious enough.
• Deadly Euphemism: In "Eclipse Lake", he tells Hunter that he plays an important role in the Titan's plans, and that finding a replacement in time would be "inconvenient", so he should stay safe in the castle. Both lines are ominous, but while the "big plans" line was just a lie to keep Hunter in line, finding a replacement would likely have meant killing Hunter and starting over with a new Grimwalker.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • The Emperor can grant you all kinds of favors and privileges, and in Eda's case he can remove her curse should she join. But once you join his Coven, you become eternally indebted to him. This is why Eda doesn't want to join.
  • In Season 2, Belos makes a pinkie swear with the Devil, offering the Collector freedom in exchange for knowledge on how to wipe out life on the Boiling Isles. King doubts Belos' commitment; the Devil's innocence raises questions about the childlike Mad God and the genocidal human zealot. This becomes inverted in "King's Tide", where Belos renegades on his deal to free the Collector, revealing the Emperor as the 'devil' in the exchange.
  • Ironically Inverted in "King's Tide", as Luz makes such a deal with him, apparently to spare her life, but it swiftly revealed to be the 'devil' in the deal, having used it as a pretense to get close enough to brand Philip with a Sigil, including him as a target for the draining spell, in an attempt to strong-arm him into stopping the spell or dying.
• Death by Irony:
  • After the Day of Unity, he desires the Human Realm's rain, but instead, he returns to the Demon Realm to achieve his endgame, resulting in his death by a deadly method.
  • In "Hollow Mind", when Luz calls him evil for everything he's done he dismisses her as unreasonable and tries to murder her. At the end of "Watching and Dreaming", as he lays dying he tries to convince Luz to spare him, but she decides to let him die for rejecting any chance at turning over a new leaf or seeing the error of his ways; Belos even accuses her of being evil if she lets him die.
• Death Glare:
  • He gives one to Luz at the end of "Young Blood, Old Souls" after Luz outsmarts him by destroying the Portal Door, denying Belos access to Luz's world.
  • He gives another one to Hunter in "Hollow Mind", after Hunter escapes from Belos' subconscious and saves Luz's life in the process.
  • The second he spots Flapjack in "King's Tide", his kindly act he'd made to try and manipulate Hunter is gone and for a split second his cursed form gains a notable murderous glare towards the reminder of his brother.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Wrong Genre Savvy Heroic Wannabe. Belos, a hero obsessed with his fantasies, kills his brother for marrying a witch and takes on the guise of Belos to rule the peaceful Boiling Isles. He violently lashes out against anything contradicting his delusions, even murdering his own Golden Guards and his own children. The Boiling Isles were actually peaceful and not inherently evil.
• Dehumanization: Philip views witches and Grimwalkers as demonic evil creatures, having them abused and killed. Hunter, a clone, effectively ceases to exist in Philip's mind after encountering Caleb's Palisman, Flapjack. Philip refers to Hunter as Caleb, not a clone.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: In "Hollow Mind", Philip, a human witch hunter, reveals his Obliviously Evil tendencies. As a 1600s-era individual, he believes witches and demons are Always Chaotic Evil. Luz, who is from the 21st century, believes magic exists outside fantasy fiction and genocide is a monstrous act best left in history.
• Demonic Possession: In "Thanks to Them", Belos takes over Hunter's body after he touches cursed slime. He causes him to hallucinate and lash out at Flapjack. Belos forces Hunter to fight his friends and impales Flapjack with his claws. Hunter manages to fight Belos from within, expels him, and survives with Flapjack's sacrifice. Belos reconstitutes himself using a Grimwalker, but the vessel's skin and muscle rot off.
• Desperately Craves Affection: Belos' narcissism leads him to seek validation and admiration for his heroism, viewing even questioning as a betrayal. His self-serving relationship with Caleb and the Grimwalkers reveals his desire for a dedicated lapdog.
• Determinator: Philip/Belos is determined to achieve his goal of rescuing Caleb and enacting his Final Solution of magic beings. Despite losing his human form and being thrown back into the Human Realm, he seeks a way back to the Demon Realm to kill witches. It's only when he's reduced to a skull that he is finally stopped.
• Detrimental Determination: A huge problem with Philip's determination is that he never knows when to quit:
  • Belos desires to create "a better version" of his brother Caleb with the Grimwalkers, but he ends up killing them for not living up to his expectations. Yet he refuses to dismiss the entire project as a failure, instead continuing it for centuries until a traumatized Grimwalker named Hunter escapes his grasp and fully turns against his "uncle."
  • Belos, despite living in the Boiling Isles for centuries, refuses to accept the reality of the region, leading to his genocidal plan and causing him to be ruined and isolated, which results in countless lives lost and a mud monster.
  • The Titan admits to Luz that his determination is what makes him Beyond Redemption. He refuses to explain his Final Solution aims against the Demon Realm, making him a Flat Character. Despite evidence of his wrongdoing, he remains determined to succeed in his goals. His attempt to guilt-trip Luz fails; he struggles to hold himself together.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Philip's plan to wipe out all life on the Boiling Isles on the Day of Unity relies on duping the Collector into developing the Draining Spell and stronger magic. He promises to free the Collector from their prison in exchange for wiping out witches and demons. However, King discovers the Collector's disk and frees him, proving the Collector's dissatisfaction with Philip's actions.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Belos believes he has everything under control when Luz offers him a last-minute deal to spare her life in exchange for valuable information about the modern world and his claims of killing witches and demons in an evil otherworld. Luz's glyph magic allows her to use a branding glove, causing him to revert to his "cursed" form.
  • Belos accidentally discards the Collector's mirror, unaware of a living Titan's existence. King, with Kikimora's help, frees the Collector, interrupting Belos' fight with Luz and her allies. Belos' betrayal of the Titan leads to his surprise at their appearance.
• Didn't Think This Through: A repeating flaw of Philip's is that when he sets his mind on a goal, he's capable of planning extensively to achieve that goal, but never really considers whether it's compatible with the reality around him, or what he'd do once he'd actually achieved it.
  • Philip believes his brother, Caleb, was kidnapped by an evil witch and tries to save him. However, he discovers Caleb's love for Evelyn, leading to Caleb's Sibling Murder, which haunts Philip for life.
  • Philip, despite his thorough planning, overlooked the negative aspects of spending centuries working towards his goals, such as the impact of time on the world outside the Demon Realm. He expected to be a hero for killing evil witches, but the world has changed over time. Despite this, Philip committed to his plan, agreeing to Luz's last-minute deal to gain glory and prestige.
  • Season 3 sees Belos struggling with his genocidal aims, despite the Day of Unity failure, and emotionally manipulating Luz, ultimately dying as a monster due to his incompatible past.
• Disowned Sibling: In "Hollow Mind", Belos' memories of his brother, Caleb, suggest a close bond, with crossed-out eyes and knife fighting. Despite being friendly with witches, he still desires Caleb's affection and murders him. Belos uses the Grimwalkers to resurrect Caleb, brainwashing them into blind obedience towards his with-hunting ways.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Played for Horror. Philip's attempted genocide of life on the Boiling Isles is based on his objection to their existence and revenge on Witch Evelyn for stealing Caleb. He murders Caleb himself and treats the Grimwalkers in his image to perfect his brother. Even questioning their righteousness renders their lives forfeit.
• Divine Right of Kings: This is more or less his claim to the throne; since only he can communicate with the Titan, only he can enforce the Titan's will. "Hollow Mind" confirms that it's a complete lie. He does serve a higher power, and it's definitely not the Titan.
• Does Not Like Magic: Belos' hatred for Wild Magic is evident in his use of Covens to enforce a mentality on his citizens. He is 400+ years old and believes his brother, Caleb, was seduced by Evelyn and using magic.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Inverted. He insists Luz to call him Philip rather than Belos, as it gives him great pleasure to hear his real name uttered by another human once more. He takes great offense when Luz still refers to him as Belos.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Belos learns the hard way that stabbing an entity as absurdly overpowered as the Collector in the back and then not immediately getting as far away from said entity as possible is a very bad idea. In fact, Belos accidentally sabotages himself by taking the time to rub his treachery in the Collector's face as it inspires the latter to accept King's offer to play "Owl House" in exchange for shutting down the draining spell.
• Doomed Moral Victor: In Season 3, Belos tries to commit genocide against the Witches, despite it becoming unfeasible and unrewarding. He seeks a way to justify Caleb's death through the 'greater good' and tries to escape judgment through his success. He rants at the hallucinations of Caleb and the Grimwalkers, recognizing his sin and delusion.
• Draconic Abomination: Though it's meant to resemble the Titan he's possessing, Belos' One-Winged Angel form in "Watching and Dreaming" is strikingly more draconic-looking as a result of its furless appearance. Like his other forms, however, it's also a many-eyed, skeletal monstrosity whose mere existence overwhelms the Boiling Isles and everyone on it with more of the necrotic, fungus-like Meat Moss it's formed from.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Belos manipulates the Collector and the Titan, pretending loyalty, while manipulating them against Luz and the heroes. The Collector's childish naivety diminishes their threat, while Belos becomes the ultimate villain.
• Dramatic Irony: Belos is on both the giving and receiving end of this trope:
  • His true identity as Philip Wittebane is revealed to the audience at the end of "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", where Philip is shown experiencing Belos' mutations and consuming Palismen in the exact same way, down to Belos' voice becoming overlaid on top of Philip's as he speaks. However, Luz and her friends only learn this after "Hollow Mind", which at that point only serves as full confirmation for the audience.
  • Philip, like Luz and the Collector, was a conformist who lost someone close to him. The Collector's trauma allowed Luz to sympathize with their insecurities. Belos, unaware of their connection, tries to connect with Luz solely through fantasism, leading to a skin-deep comparison that ultimately fails and causes him to die unforgiven.
• The Dreaded: Hunter reveals that the Emperor is not merciful, causing mental breakdowns for him, Lilith, and heroes like Luz. They fear crossing him; even Odalia Blight and Kikimora fear crossing him.
• Driven by Envy: Played for Horror. "Thanks to Them" reveals that the mass genocide on the Boiling Isles was motivated by jealousy of Evelyn's love for his brother, Caleb, leading to his murder, his subsequent plot to extinction, and the creation of a legion of Grimwalkers.
• Dying as Yourself: Double Subversion. When Belos is yanked from the Titan's heart, he returns to Philip Wittebane's unscarred body. Belos tries to convince Luz of a curse, but the rain burns away his glamour, revealing a rotting corpse of a man long past his life expectancy.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: Belos reveals his plan to enact mass genocide through an Apocalypse Cult and save humanity from evil, but he also manipulates witches and demons through centuries of his False Flag Operation, claiming to be the hero who slayed the "monsters", despite his true intentions.
• Ear Ache: Under his mask, his ears are noticeably scarred and misshapen, being pointed like a witch, but small like a human's. A memory portrait in "Hollow Mind" implies that he cut them to better look like a witch's.
• Egocentrically Religious: Belos, a Puritan, views witches and demons as evil, comparing the Boiling Isles to Hell. He rationalizes his actions and views himself as a Christ-like figure, as seen when he poses in a Crucified Hero Shot.
• Eldritch Transformation: He mutates into an emaciated creature shaped like a skull with glowing blue eyes, being engraved with runes and consumed by Palismans for centuries. Despite being destroyed by the Collector, he can survive and parasitize other living beings. In "Watching and Dreaming", he infects the Titan's heart to reanimate it.
• Elemental Motifs: Though subtle, the more is shown about his true character, the more he is shown to have a wood motif.
  • Philip's childhood wooden mask, inspired by his brother's, becomes his 'Emperor Belos' mask. He meets a witch from the Boiling Isles who carved wooden creations. His elderly appearance and withered mindscape evoke horror with dead tree images, making him difficult to convince.
  • In "Watching and Dreaming", Belos is transformed into a fungal Meat Moss by the Titan's corpse, a sign of decay. His One-Winged Angel form disintegrates Luz's body, corrupting the Titan's spirit. He is forced to give Luz last power before leaving.
• The Emperor: As per his title, he is the head of the magic system in the setting. A class lecture in "Wing It Like Witches" states that he's been in power for over fifty years.
• Emperor Scientist: Belos, possibly Philip, has a knack for scientific experimentation, including artificial magic, reconstructing the Portal Door, and reviving the Basilisks. He is believed to have revived the Basilisks to perfect his Sigil-based Draining Spell.
• Entitled Bastard: Belos tricked his companions into serving as sacrifices for his expeditions, expecting survivors to continue working for him. He criticized witches and the Collector, expecting them to spare him. However, his life ends poorly when he expects Luz to save him, despite his past actions against Luz and her friends.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Hunter, referring to Belos as an uncle, fears losing him to an affliction. However, after learning about Belos' reign in "Hollow Mind", he learns that he wants him killed without remorse and that Belos manipulated Hunter's love to maintain loyalty, despite the Emperor's threats.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Subverted with with regards to the Golden Guard, his nephew. Belos initially expresses genuine fondness for Hunter, calling him uncle and placing trust in him. However, he doesn't tolerate failures from his nephew. "Hollow Mind" sees Hunter as a better version of an old friend, but he has killed all previous versions. He attempts to kill and replace Hunter without hesitation.
  • His relationship with his brother is complex. Philip, later Belos, initially rescued his older brother, Caleb, from the Boiling Isles but was enraged when he discovered their love. He kills Caleb but blames the magical world for turning his brother against him. Belos' love for Caleb is conditional on his loyalty and dependency, highlighting the complex relationship between siblings.
• Evil Brit: Has an English accent and is voiced by British actors in both his old age as Emperor Belos and in his youth as Philip Wittebane.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • Lilith dedicated her life to serving him so he can cure her sister. Not only does he reveal he has no intention to do so rather casually, he hands her Owlbert and Eda's staff and leaves her with them instead of watching her destroy them, seemingly being completely unaware that this would cause Lilith to turn on him.
  • Inner Belos struggles to understand his plan to commit genocide against the Isles and why Luz opposes him. He believes Grimwalkers betraying him is inevitable, but they oppose him on moral grounds, not just questioning him.
  • Inverted in "King's Tide". Philip, despite committing daily acts of evil for four centuries, cannot grasp the concept that humans would be willing to backstab their own kind or choose to live in the Boiling Isles rather than returning to Earth. To him, they could only be twisted by evil magic to make these choices, and his inability to comprehend humanity's free will makes him susceptible to Luz's deceiving bargains.
  • At the end of "Watching and Dreaming", his final attempt at guilt tripping Luz fails because he accuses her of being as evil as the witches, still unable to understand that the reason for Luz's Guilt Complex was because she thought she was just like him, not because she was like the Boiling Isles natives.
• Evil Colonialist: As one might expect from a 17th century Puritan and witch hunter, Philip had nothing but contempt for the native witches and demons of the Boiling Isles. At best, he saw them as pawns for him to manipulate and sacrifice as he saw fit.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Eda. Eda and Belos mentor young witches on the Boiling Isles, differing in their approach to magical afflictions. In Season 2, Eda gains a better understanding of the Owl Beast, while Belos destroys the Palismen souls.
  • To Luz Noceda. Both are humans who were trapped in the Demon Realm and adapted to it. They learn magic through mentor Eda and the Collector, respectively. They impact society by becoming crueler and more social Darwinist or bringing out the best in others. Luz is a Wide-Eyed Idealist, while Belos is a cruel and tyrannical man who uses magic to purify and burn the world.
• Evil Genius: The man built the portal and invented the Magitek used by the Emperor's Coven. He reverse-engineered the Glyph magic system, believing the Titan opposed him. Despite his handicap, his knowledge of magic makes Luz no threat; Luz must cut off his access.
• Evil Gloating: Philip's flaw is his tendency to mock Witches and their misery, despite their victories. This is a form of Psychopathic Manchild tendencies, similar to a child mocking losers and praising their victory.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: According to Dana Terrace, Belos originally gave his Grimwalkers individual names before deciding to call them all 'Hunter' to allude to his occupation and goals as a witch hunter as a sick joke.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: His attempt at using and then betraying the Collector goes very poorly for him. While he narrowly survives, the Collector responds to his betrayal by launching him into the nearest wall so hard he splatters.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • Belos, despite being a witch over 300 years ago, still harbors a deep hatred for Lilith, causing his current deformation. This hatred may be the reason Lilith doesn't have a coven brand. Belos also drops the Collector into an abyss, causing him to rot alone, and his crusade against witches is based on Evelyn's theft of his brother.
  • When convincing the Collector to use their godlike abilities against Luz, King and Eda, he tricks them into being trapped in illusionary situations designed specifically to Mind Rape them, under the excuse that it'd 'make them reflect on their mistakes', when in actuality, he just wants to make the three individuals suffer for ruining his Day of Unity plan the most.
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: Belos, a Transhuman Abomination monster, loses his humanity after consuming Palismen for years, trapping their souls. To maintain his humanity, he creates a glyph array with a grotesque band of rot on his face. This causes his amorphous form to collapse, locking him into his monstrous body. The Collector turns him into a stain, revealing his true monstrous form.
• Evil Old Folks: He's been the tyrant ruler of the Boiling Isles for 50 years and judging by the white hair he has and his wrinkled face, he's getting on in the years. As a human from the 1600s, he's actually the oldest living human alive, and it's implied that his current elderly appearance is a side-effect of his life-extension measures with Palismen finally starting to reach a point where his delayed aging is visibly reaching his physical 60s.
• Evil Overlord: He rules over the Boiling Isles and the main feature of his regime is an oppressive Coven System with a recruitment policy that can be summed up in "join or suffer".
• Evil Uncle:
  • "Hunting Palismen" explores Belos' manipulation of Hunter, a Golden Guard. "Hollow Mind" reveals Hunter and previous Golden Guards are artificial creations, killed for moral disgust. Belos tries to kill and replace Hunter, causing horror.
  • In a way, he also serves this role to the Clawthorne family (particularly Lilith, given his treatment of her during Season 1), seeing as his older brother Caleb was their direct ancestor. That said, none of the Clawthornes are aware of their connection to him due to Caleb's existance on the Boiling Isles having been lost to time and it's unclear if Belos himself knows.
• Exact Words: Philip claims the Day of Unity will eradicate all Wild Magic, aligning with his plan to brand individuals in the Boiling Isles and eradicate them using the Draining Spell. However, only wild witches survive the spell. Philip has been doing this since before becoming Emperor Belos, believing Luz and he were destined to meet.
• Expressive Mask: The eyes on his mask are shown to move, as shown in the Season 1 finale.
• Face Death with Despair: When faced with death and the knowledge that the witches aren't dead, Belos shows panic and fear he doesn't show anywhere else in the show. He is genuinely unnerved by the ghostly hallucinations of Caleb and the Grimwalkers, and spends his last moments appealing for Luz's humanity to save him from the boiling rain before being crushed underfoot by the Eda, King, and Raine.
• Facial Horror: Even when he has his strange ailment under control, Belos has nasty green discoloration across his face and small holes rotting into his face and neck.
• False Prophet: Belos slanders wild magic and lies to Lilith about curing Eda, claiming it's "the Titan's will". He outlaws it due to its negative impact on his family. "Hollow Mind" doubts his ability to speak to the Titan.
• False Flag Operation: In "Hollow Mind", we learn that he staged attacks by wild witches to make it look like they were trying to stop him from spreading his message from the Titan.
• False Friend: He pretends to be the Collector's friend just to gain the knowledge he needs to wipe out all life on the Boiling Isles then goes back on his promise to free them from their prison once he's gotten everything he's needed.
• False Reassurance: Implied. He tells Luz that he doesn't want to invade Earth when coercing her to give up the door. Luz obviously isn't reassured. It's actually true. His real plans are much, much worse; namely to genocide the entirety of the Boiling Isles.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: After being returned to his human form, Belos melts from the boiling rain and his skull is crushed underfoot by Eda, King, and Raine stomping on it repeatedly.
• Fantastic Racism: In "Elsewhere and Elsewhere", he hates witches and sacrifices them for his goals. In "Hollow Mind", he aims to kill Boiling Isles inhabitants and sees humans as superior to creatures.
  "We're human! We're better than this!"
• The Farmer and the Viper: In whatever partnership he has, Belos is always the Viper. No matter how loyal or helpful any of his allies are, Belos will betray them with no remorse. Ironically, he views himself as the Farmer; Belos' ego is so bloated he genuinely doesn't see anything wrong with this and feels betrayed when he's made to face any sort of consequences for it.
• Fatal Flaw: Ignorance. Belos' flaws include bigotry, paranoia, and treachery, but they are all linked to his willful ignorance. He never considers the possibility that his beliefs, such as witches' innocence, are wrong. His ignorance leads him to self-destruction, becoming the very thing he hates.
• Faux Affably Evil: Belos maintains a dignified demeanor even when he plans to murder someone, as seen when he threatens Lilith after a failed attempt at capturing Eda. He acts similarly to Hunter and Luz, even when he shares his genocidal ambitions.
• Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: He believes that Witches and Demons are all inherently evil and monsters that must be wiped out to "save humanity from evil" when it's not only clear that this is not the case, but that most Witches barely even know anything about humans or have a way to get to Earth to cause trouble. During Luz's talk with the Titan in the Grand Finale, he says Belos is trying to wipe out the Boiling Isles because he fears what he can't control.
• Final Boss: After realizing that the Titan's power can cancel out the Collector's magic, he immediately goes after the Titan's heart to possess it and then destroy the islands without fear of being stopped by the Collector. He becomes the last threat of the entire series.
• Final Solution: "Hollow Mind" reveals that he's been working with the Collector for the past few centuries to develop a massive Draining Spell to be used on the Day of Unity to wipe out all life on the Boiling Isles, specifically all Demons and Witches who have been branded with a Coven Sigil. His reasoning for doing so is to "save humanity from evil".
• Fish out of Temporal Water: He hasn't been back to Earth since he started his crusade, and is thus several centuries out of date on the situation there. While it's first brought up by the Collector in "Clouds on the Horizon", Luz invokes this in "King's Tide" to get close enough to brand him with a sigil, pointing out that things have changed greatly since he was gone, like how out-of-date his clothes are, and offers to be his guide in exchange for sparing her and her friends.
• Foil:
  • To Luz. Luz and Belos both accidentally ended up in the Demon Realm and studied magic to return to the Human Realm. Luz loved magic and formed relationships with witches, while Belos hated the Boiling Isles and killed his brother.
  • To the Collector. They are both childish, powerful, immortal figures who view everyone as tools for their selfish validation. The Collector is gullible and hurtful, while Belos is stubborn and racist. While the Collector was willing to change, Belos remained the same racist, spiteful monster until his death.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The secret message throughout Season 1 referred to 'a curse of Feathers and Mud' which only partially seemed to fit Eda's curse that transformed her into an Owl Beast. In "Hunting Palismen", it's revealed that Belos suffers from his own affliction that transforms him into an uncontrollable monster, one apparently made out of Ominous Obsidian Ooze, which would appear to fit the 'Mud' part of the message, though whether or not it actually is a curse remains to be seen.
  • Philip Wittebane has previously seen the Human Realm, displaying unique magic skills, possessing a mechanical staff, and having smaller ears. His identity is revealed through art and promotional art, with a messy ponytail styled similar to his own when he was younger.
  • During their first meeting, the protagonist refers to Luz as 'Luz the human', implying he's a different human being. However, his Fantastic Racism highlights his desire to obscure his true nature until Luz completes the Stable Time Loop with his past self. Ironically, he's a Transhuman Abomination, no longer truly human, but still delusionally believes otherwise.
    Belos: It does feel good to hear another human say that name.
• For Your Own Good: Belos never sees humans as his enemies, only misguided fools led astray by witches at best. Everything he has done to fellow humans like Caleb and Luz, which includes murder/attempted murder, he claims it to be for the good of their souls and that they'll all thank him later.
• Forgot I Couldn't Swim: Played for Drama. Belos, a 17th-century explorer, enters the Boiling Isles, where water bodies are boiling. In "Thanks to Them", Hunter, possessed by Belos, accidentally dives after a vial of Titan's Blood, nearly drowning his nephew.
• Freudian Excuse: "Thanks to Them" tells the story of Philip, an orphan with only Caleb, who moved to Gravesfield in 1613 to fit in with witch hunting. Caleb fell in love with Evelyn, leaving Philip behind.
• Freudian Excuse Denial: Belos denies that Caleb's love for Evelyn was the root cause of his hatred of witches, portraying it as a dispassionate holy crusade that ended tragically. This denial embodies his delusion of being pure and incorruptible.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Although Belos denies it, it becomes clear to Luz and her friends that his resentment from witches come from his brother falling in love with a witch and leaving him behind after hearing his story in "Thanks to Them". When Belos accuses "Caleb" of backstabbing him, Luz tells him he's actually the one who did it first.
• From a Single Cell: Belos' centuries-long consumption of Palismen allows him to recover from fatal wounds. In "King's Tide", he is transformed into a stain by the Collector but still alive. He can restore his body by possessing other beings and draining their life force. However, his monstrous form decays, necessitating another's body.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Philip Wittebane, a Connecticut witch hunter, discovered a portal to a world with magic. He learned it and became the strongest witch. He founded a cult, eventually taking over the Boiling Isles, and nearly wiping out the population by branding them with marks.
• The Fundamentalist: Belos is a morally justified witch hunter who resents those who disagree with his beliefs on witches and demonic creatures. He tries to kill Luz and even destroys the Boiling Isles, calling it the Christian version of Hell, which causes his wrath on anyone disagreeing.
  Belos: Finally! I CAN CLEANSE THIS PERDITION... MYSELF!
• Fusion Dance: His last plan, after learning that the Titans' power surpassed the Collector's, is to possess the Titan's heart to try and obtain its power, becoming the most powerful thing in the Demon Realm. Once he does so, his slime spreads about the Titan's corpse like Meat Moss. Unfortunately for him, though, Luz shows up with the Titan's power and tears him off of the heart.

G-I

• Genocide from the Inside: While Philip isn't a witch himself, he does present himself as one in his guise as Emperor Belos to the inhabitants of the Boiling Isles. He fully intends for every single one of his subjects to die by his hands on the Day of Unity. Additionally, while he was originally a fully human Witch Hunter, centuries of consuming the souls of Palismen have resulted in his body mutating into a rotting, skeletal aberration held together only by magic, ironically resulting in Philip being even more inherently magical in nature than the witches and demons he hopes to eradicate.
• Glamour: During "King's Tide", he's shown to have an artificial magic technique that lets him conceal the green scar on his face, as he prepares to return to the Human Realm as Philip Wittebane rather than Emperor Belos. The Collector's remarks also imply that his human appearance as a whole is just a paper-thin mask for what lies underneath; this is reinforced when he transforms fully into his monster form after being branded and having his magic drained by the Draining Spell.
• Glamour Failure: Besides the Collector implying that his monster form is now his true one and his "human" form is just a disguise, which would make all of his moments as a monster this, his disguise for his scar starts to slip during his fight with Luz in "King's Tide" and fully slips when Luz calls him out on his hypocrisy.
• Glory Hound: In his diary entries, Philip has a tendency of portraying himself as a brave, noble hero able to single-handedly defeat monsters yet mired with guilt of failing to save his comrades to danger. In actuality, Philip is more cowardly and knows he has no chance of defeating monsters without getting himself killed, so he deliberately uses his comrades (whom he hates for being non-human) as sacrifices to distract them while he gets the treasure he seeks. Ironically, in present day, Philip is now more of a traditional Glory Seeker... in that he's become so consumed by his hatred of witches that he's willing to go back to the Boiling Isles to ensure all witches are dead at the risk of dying in the process without getting any recognition for his work.
• Glory Seeker: Most of his flaws come from Belos' desire to be seen as a great savior of humanity and the hero of a grand adventure.
  • Luz accuses Belos that he wants be remembered for wiping out all the witches as Emperor of the Witch Hunters (or Witch Hunter General as he puts it). While Belos doesn't outright confirm that's what he wanted, his decision to spare Luz's life so she can be his guide to the Human Realm indicates that she isn't wrong and that Belos' so-called crusade to save humanity is rooted in selfish "heroism".
  • As more gets revealed about Philip Wittebane and his backstory, it's also clear that this desire comes with a lot of serious psychological flaws, including the complete inability to accept fault in anything that he does. As Belos, he's had over four hundred years to see that witches aren't inherently evil (just like humans aren't inherently evil). Yet he continuously ignores all signs that point to this, because this doesn't fit his vision of being a righteous savior of humanity and slayer of all demonic witches.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: His monstrous form has a skull-like face with glowing blue lights for eyes.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Implied. Philip discovers his brother in the Demon Realm and his relationship with Evelyn. Realizing his dreams of becoming a famous witch hunter and saving Caleb is meaningless, he kills Caleb to mold Grimwalkers into his image. Instead of accepting his failure, Philip chooses to remain in the Demon Realm and justify his desire to exterminate all denizens.
• A God Am I: Downplayed. Belos has a massive messiah complex that only grew after suffering a Humiliation Conga at Season 2 finale. By the series finale, he deliberately poses himself in a manner reminiscent of Jesus on the cross while attached to the Titan's heart. He also briefly rants about "cleansing this perdition" - i.e., the Boiling Isles - in a manner that heavily suggests he sees himself in a divine light. So, while Belos doesn't necessarily think he's God, he definitely sees himself as an equivalent to Jesus, when in truth he is actually The Antichrist with Luz as the true messiah.
• A God I Am Not: Despite being the Emperor and the most powerful witch of the Boiling Isles, Belos doesn't claim to be a god, but rather a humble servant for the Titan, even when it's clear he's making things up of what the Titan is saying. In fact, the moment that Belos thinks he has won, he abandons his Emperor garb in favor of his 17th century colonial clothes and expects to be called Witch Hunter General as opposed to a more grandiose Emperor of the Witch Hunters.
• Godhood Seeker: In "For the Future", Belos attempts to take over the sleeping Collector to obtain a host that can withstand his corruptive essence and seize the cosmic child's godlike power for himself, but is thwarted by the Collector waking up. In "Watching and Dreaming", upon learning that 1) the Collector's magic doesn't work on Titans, 2) that fully grown Titans are more powerful than anything, and 3) that the Boiling Isles' Titan is kinda still alive, Belos decides to assimilate the massive corpse to seize its power for himself and use it to wipe out the Demon Realm.
• Going Native: Subverted for drama. Despite having lived in the Demon Realm for the better part of four centuries and learned everything he could to become the Boiling Isles' beloved ruler, he never stops seeing its inhabitants as anything more than subhuman monsters to be slaughtered and he's all too willing to give up his witch charade for his old colonial clothes the moment he thinks he's won.
• Gold and White Are Divine: Wears a gold mask and white robes, and bases his authority on a feigned connection to the Titan, while he's actually working with the god-like Collector. That said, he at any rate is conjectured to be a Christian fundamentalist given his background, but nothing is ever stated in the show.
• Gollum Made Me Do It: In "Watching and Dreaming", after Luz pulls him from the Titan, he pretends that he's "cured", and that his curse was the reason for all of heinous actions. She doesn't buy it for a second, with the boiling rain quickly making it apparent he was lying as he starts to dissolve.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: In "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", Lilith gives him a well-deserved punch to the face which breaks his nose, which also leaves a cut which will eventually expand into the facial deformation Belos sports in the modern day.
• Green and Mean: Has a prominent green scar on his face and is the Big Bad of the show. Becomes even more fitting when his body breaks down into a monstrous, green sludge form and his more petty and sadistic tendencies become more apparent.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Memory portraits depict him and his brother Caleb being very close with each other until a witch named Evelyn came into their lives. One portrait shows Caleb walking side by side with Evelyn while Philip looked at her with anger. It's implied that Philip not only saw witches as inherently evil, but that they also took his brother from him.
• Hated by All: Belos, a selfish charlatan, changed his name from Philip to Belos after running out of town. He implemented the Coven system, revealing Fantastic Racism and hatred for witches. His identity becomes loathed, even by Luz herself.
• Haunting the Guilty: In "For the Future", Belos sees the specters of Caleb and the Grimwalkers staring at him during his whole trek to the Grimwalker-lab. The first time he sees Caleb he screams at him and tries to attack him, but by the time he reaches the Head, he's gotten so weak that the only thing he can muster when faced with a platoon of ghosts is a weak "Oh, shut up."
• Hearing Voices: Belos is said to hear the Titan, and present himself as only following its will. "Hollow Mind" shows that Belos made up everything about his connection to the Titan as part of his manipulation of the Boiling Isles. However, the Palismen he consumes are shown to have souls, that are now trapped in his mind, and, as he puts it, "constantly nagging" him.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Subverted as this is what he thinks is happening to him due to his Fantastic Racism against anything that uses magic and the fact that he himself is forced to use magic to accomplish his goals on top of pretending to be a witch.
• Hero Killer: Philip has a notable talent for murdering heroic characters, most notably Flapjack in "Thanks to Them", and Luz in "Watching and Dreaming". However, the latter doesn't stick, as Luz is resurrected by the power of the Titan; Flapjack isn't so lucky. What's notable is that unlike a villain like The Core, Belos directly murders Luz instead of causing her to undergo a death by Heroic RRoD.
• Heroic Wannabe: All that he really is deep down. As the Titan explains to Luz, everything Belos does is really ultimately just because of his need to convince himself he's the hero of his own story.
• Hidden Depths: It's subtly hinted several times that Belos knows he's done horrible things for no reason and that his campaign is totally unjustified, but ultimately he willfully denies this because he doesn't want to admit culpability. His dialogue during his dying moments implies he's been projecting his own traits unto the witches because of this, showing he's aware of his worst attributes at least on a subconscious level.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: Belos may seem to be a typical tyrant trying to rule all the witches and plotting to annex the Human Realm under his regime through the Day of Unity, but his true agenda is far worse for the Boiling Isles. He's from the Human Realm with the intent of destroying the Boiling Isles to "save" humans from the "evil" witches, and he only wants the Portal Door to return home as a hero. He actually hints his real agenda to Luz several times, namely he has no intention of invading the Human Realm, but she didn't pick it up because she assumed he's a standard fantasy Evil Overlord.
• Hijacked by Ganon: While he was initially ousted from Big Bad status by the Collector in "King's Tide", Belos has managed to steal it back from the child of the stars due to exploiting the Collector's desire for King's friendship and fear of any sort of betrayal in order to turn them against Luz, cementing himself as the True Final Boss thanks to his cunning and resourcefulness.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: In "For the Future" he attempts to possess the Collector's body. Thankfully they wake up before he can. Unfortunately, his attempt to sieze control of the Titan in "Watching and Dreaming" is far more successful, and he almost succeeds in killing the entirety of the Boiling Isles.
• His Own Worst Enemy:
  • Luz relies on Eda, Amity, and Boscha for glyphs, while Philip struggles due to racism and sociopathy. He adopts the 'Belos' identity, becoming dangerous and manipulative. Philip regrets killing Caleb, leading Grimwalkers against him, and reliving the trauma.
  • Philip's fear and inability to trust others led to his genocidal crusade against witches, separating him from Caleb. He commits several lifetimes to correct this and tries to find Caleb again, but their reunion is permanently separated due to Philip's internalized anti-witch sentiments. The memory portraits show Philip and Caleb before the Gravesfield archway portal, with Philip hanging back.
• History Repeats: As a result of his utter refusal to change his ways, he keeps making the same mistakes over and over again without ever learning anything.
  • His Grimwalker project is a never-ending cycle of this, as he is constantly 'betrayed' by the clones of his brother, just like their progenitor, which he attributes to them being flawed. In actuality, it's because they share Caleb's good nature and moral values, which stand opposed to Belos' mad desires for witch genocide, and his utter inability to accept the problem lies with him has driven him to create piles of discarded Grimwalker corpses over the years.
  • His attempt to kill Evelyn to 'save' Caleb from her manipulations only resulted in him killing the human he was trying to save from the Demon Realm, and he was nearly killed by his distraught widow fleeing in the aftermath. His final attempt to directly wipe out all life on the Boiling isles through assimilating with the Titan's heart likewise failed to kill any of the native inhabitants, and he only succeeded in giving Luz, another human who had chosen to embrace the Demon Realm, a Disney Death. In the aftermath, like Caleb, Luz stays her hand from striking him down herself, but her loved ones from the Boiling Isles step in to finish off Belos themselves.
• Holier Than Thou: He truly believes that his atrocities (from killing who is implied to be his brother and his clones, to planning a witch genocide) are justified as necessary evil to "save humanity from evil". Luz is rightfully disgusted by this, but soon catches on that his holier attitude hides a giant ego and exploits his desire for fame to her advantage in the "King's Tide".
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • It's implied that the reason he adopted the identity of Belos, even going to the extent of mutilating himself to resemble a resident of the isles, is that the Collector's deal with him involved him generating a large amount of nine specific magic types for the draining spell on the Day of Unity, but thanks to Philip's obvious disregard for the denizens he met and willingness to let them get killed at the easiest opportunity to advance his goals, 'Philip' had become too infamous and widely known as untrustworthy to trick any more people, requiring him to re-invent himself under a different identity.
  • In "King's Tide" while the Draining Spell is targeting everyone with a Coven sigil, Luz pretends to make a deal with him, using the handshake as an opportunity to brand him with a sigil himself, meaning he'll die too if the spell is finished. Unfortunately, not only does Belos not have the ability to stop the spell, but he decides to just transform into his monstrous form for a final chance at killing Luz and her friends.
• Honor Before Reason: Even though he finally made it back to Earth, it's still not enough for Belos. He has to finish his genocide of the Boiling Isles and so quickly heads back through the portal the moment it's open. It's implied that while he does desire fame as Witch Hunter General, it's just an optional bonus reward if he actually does complete his genocide and head home safely.
• Hope Spot: After being pulled out from the Titan's heart at the series finale, Belos manages to regain his younger, human form as Philip Wittebane and seems to be freed from his curse. But the boiling rain burns away his glamour, revealing a decaying mud corpse that is long overdue for death.
• Horror Hunger: Belos, a life-drinker, sustains himself on the essence of Palismen, which are living beings. He consumes them to ensure his Final Solution goes off without a hitch but now relies on the souls to keep them under his control, preventing them from briefly gaining control of his body.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Belos, once the beloved emperor of the Boiling Isles, is captured and transformed into a necrotic ooze. He regenerates, eating woodland creatures, possessing Hunter, and consuming a Grimwalker. His unstable body causes him to fall off his limbs and be haunted by hallucinations of Caleb and the Grimwalkers.
• Humanoid Abomination: Belos, once human, is now a creature with a unique ability to consume magical essence, warp, twist, and transform into a monster. He can also possess and consume living things, draining their life force and damaging them. In "Hunting Palismen", he threatens Hunter's investigation into studying Wild Magic for a cure for Belos' affliction.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: In "Hollow Mind", we learn that not only is he the human Philip, but he's planning to Final Solution the people of the Isles under the delusion of "saving humanity from evil".
• Humiliation Conga:
  • Belos, marked by the Emperor's Coven Sigil from Luz, loses his human glamour due to the Draining Spell, succumbs to a monster, and is subjected to reliving his past. He sees Hunter holding Flapjack, and his Day of Unity is undone by the Collector's magic. He survives on wild animals in the Human Realm, unable to enjoy it for centuries.
  • His plan to use the Titan's heart to destroy everything is foiled as Luz rips him out. He then tries begging Luz to help him when his body melts away from the boiling rain. Adding insult to that injury, his skull is crushed into a paste.
• Hypocrite: A recurring theme with Belos is that he never acts on what he preaches. While most of his speeches and lectures as Emperor of the Boiling Isles are cold, calculated lies to keep his subjects in line, his actions even run contrary to what he personally believes in. He sees himself as a selfless hero trying to eliminate the evil, conniving, and unforgivable witches for humanity's salvation, but he acts exactly like the very witches he describes; his "selfless" agenda is rooted in selfish desires for glory.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Philip, as Emperor Belos, possesses a Glyph array carved into his skin, allowing him to cast magical effects without a hand-circle gesture. This array is believed to serve as a hidden weapon against his 'companions' who seek revenge for his misuse of Palismen. Philip's memory portraits suggest he learned to use magic himself to enact his plans.
• I Control My Minions Through...: Fear. Hunter is terrified of Belos, leading him to submit. Belos uses Grimwalkers' deaths to intimidate others; even psychos like Kikimora and Odalia fear him. They secretly want to overthrow him but never attempt due to fear of consequences.
• I Did What I Had to Do: He takes this attitude towards everything he's done, inasmuch as he ever admits to being wrong. When Luz calls him out on everything he's done in "Hollow Mind", Belos tacitly admits he's done bad things but insists he's only doing it to save humanity in the long run. It's also deconstructed as Belos didn't have to and he takes active enjoyment in most of his crimes; he's just too much of a narcissist to ever admit he could be evil by choice.
  Belos: I'll do anything to save humanity from evil.
• I Gave My Word: In the Season 1 finale, Belos upholds his promise to Luz by demanding the portal door and sending her to Eda's execution site. However, Luz betrays him by destroying the door, leading Belos to be angry but allowing her to save Eda, possibly due to his need for her.
• I Have Your Wife: He realizes that Luz has the Portal in the Season 1 finale. Belos bargains with her to surrender it in exchange for Eda's life. As Luz is hesitating, he starts petrifying Eda and slows down the process to make her watch.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: A very, very dark case. Belos seeks Caleb's unconditional love to validate his witch-hunting and genocidal goals but only accepts an unquestioning Yes-Man who is completely dependent on him. He threatens Hunter and keeps him isolated, ultimately wanting his world to end with him.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Deconstructed. Philip, a childhood dreamer of being a Witch Hunter, murdered Caleb to live out his fantasies. He plotted genocide against the Boiling Isles for hundreds of years, ultimately becoming Beyond Redemption. He admits that the Isles aren't evil but still refuses to acknowledge he's not a hero or take responsibility for his actions.
• I Just Want to Be You: Philip adopts a ponytail as an adult, adopting the same hairstyle as Caleb during childhood, and wears a blue coat resembling Caleb's. His light hair and shaven face resemble Caleb, but history records show him wearing the coat.
• I Lied:
  • As revealed in "Young Blood, Old Souls", he lied to Lilith by admitting to her face that he never had any intention of actually healing Eda. The reason he wanted Eda is that he's interested in her Portal so he can go home when his plans wrap up.
  • He promised the Collector freedom in exchange for the knowledge to complete his Draining Spell and wipe out everyone on the Boiling Isles. The second the spell starts and the Collector asks for his freedom, Belos smugly tells him he only has enough Titan Blood to go home and drops the Collector's prison down into a pit for outliving his usefulness.
• Icy Blue Eyes: "Young Blood, Old Souls" reveals that his eyes are a pale, apparently glowing blue. With his mask off in "Eclipse Lake" we can see that they're sky blue, but have no shine to them unlike every other witch or human in the series — arguably reflecting Philip's weariness from his extended lifespan as well as his dead, soulless nature underneath his pretentious of morality.
• Idiot Hair: Philip has a pronounced forelock that sticks upwards, similar his brother, Caleb. By the present day, when he assumes his colonial-era garb once more and stylises his hair back into a ponytail, it droops lifelessly, as a symbolic example of how old Philip actually is underneath from his advanced aging, even staved off by Palismen souls.
• If I Can't Have You…: A platonic version. While it's unclear if his murder of Caleb was an accident or intentional, with every Grimwalker since Belos murders them whenever they turn against him or so much as openly question him.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Subverted for drama. During his final moments while dissolving, Belos desperately protests that if Luz allows him to die like this, then she'll be just as evil, cruel and duplicitous... as "those witches". While the sentiment is in keeping with the standard trope, it highlights how, even at the last moment, Belos still can't fathom the possibility that he's in the wrong.
• Ignored Epiphany:
  • After being expelled from Hunter's body and accusing him of betraying him, Luz snarls "You did it to him first." Belos pauses in shock, only to shift to anger and his usual self-righteousness, claiming he's doing it for the sake of their souls.
  • He has a genuine moment of Heel Realization when he sees the mountain of Grimwalker corpses and their ghostly hallucinations standing alongside Caleb. But he simply tells them to shut up and continues forward with his hopeless crusade.
  • Belos admits to Luz he's done terrible things, attempting to fake being The Atoner to get Luz's forgiveness. However, when his pleas are ignored, he rants about humans' superiority to witches, reverting to his Moral Myopia.
• I'm Melting!: In Season 3, Belos' monstrous body is falling apart and melting into goopy pieces. It can only sustained by consuming living tissue, but it doesn't last long. When Belos is removed from the Titan's heart, this problem seems to go away when he assumes the form of Philip Wittebane, but the boiling rain burns this glamour and melt Belos down to a skull choking on his own mud, which then stomped into a muddied puddle by Eda, King, and Raine.
• Immortal Immaturity: Belos, a chessmaster, is childish and petty, ensuring that his Grimwalkers follow his instructions. If they don't, they face harsh reprimands, physical abuse, or even death. In "King's Tide", Belos corrects Luz on the rank he expects to be rewarded for telling tales of his massacre, focusing on modern-day methods to spread his message.
• Immortal Ruler: Downplayed. Belos, a biological Human, extends his life by consuming Palismen to become the Emperor of the Boiling Isles and carry out his planned genocide. His body has warped into an undead Abomination, falling apart without energy consumption; he is not killed by a shattered body.
• Immortality Immorality: Belos extends his lifespan by consuming Palismen in the form of small animals, most of which were kidnapped or stolen from witches. Over 400 years, his formless body becomes more formless; his souls struggle to break free. He consumes Palismen to eradicate life on the Boiling Isles, aiming to feel oppressed by their existence.
• Incoming Ham: He's a Cold Ham most of the time, but after fusing with the Titan in "Watching and Dreaming" and transforming into a gigantic Kaiju, he takes on the appropriate tone of voice.
  Belos: FINALLY! I CAN CLEANSE THIS PERDITION... MYSELF!
• Inconsistent Spelling: The first time he was mentioned by name, the closed captions spelled his name "Bellows".
• Insistent Terminology: When Luz (desperately trying to escape petrification) suggests the title of "Emperor of the Witch Hunters" to Belos, he very quickly corrects her by insisting that he gain the title of "Witch Hunter General". Given that this title is formatted like a British Colonial title (similar to Postmaster General or Attorney General), it's implied that Belos has been wanting to be called this for a while.
• I Reject Your Reality:
  • Belos, a witch hunter, refuses to acknowledge that the Isles' witches are not evil to maintain his heroic image. He believes he can "save humanity from evil", but the Isles cannot cross between worlds without his portal. In "Hollow Mind", he uses Self-Serving Memory and hypocrisy to justify his actions, which Luz calls him out on.
    Belos: I do pity you. These monsters have warped your sense of reality. Perhaps it'd be merciful to put you out of your misery. [starts petrifying her]
  • The Titan's analysis of Belos' motives implies that he did realize to an extent the inhabitants of the Isles weren't as evil as he made them out to be; thus, he took up the guise of Belos to railroad them into being exactly what he thought they were so he wouldn't have to give up his delusions.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Downplayed. Belos, aware of his wrongdoings, omits murders in his diary and seeks validation from yes-men. His narcissism and bigotry lead him to violently react to questions, preventing self-reflection.
• Ironic Name:
  • Belos sounds a lot like "bellows", and if there's one thing he is, it's a Soft-Spoken Sadist. The only time he outright raises his voice is during his monstrous transformations, and even then that seems to be an involuntary case.
  • Belos, a Spanish and Portuguese "belo" with a grotesque soul, is not truly ugly but is a twisted monster created by the Palismen, a twisted form of himself that is the ugliest thing in the show.
  • Belos is close enough to the name of the Celtic god Belenos, usually associated with the sun. He is associated with light, but he's also a Puritan killing people he thinks are pagan.
• Irony:
  • Philip, a vengeful figure, hates witches and attempts to control Luz's perception of reality. He has turned his brother into a witch through his Grimwalkers and viewed the residents of the Boiling Isles as immoral monsters due to their magic. Philip's manipulation and deceitful propaganda have turned the Isles into a cruel, sinister, and callous world, despite his intentions.
  • In private conversations with Luz, he admits to struggling with learning magic, initially not understanding the light glyph until Luz used it. He believes the Titan is hiding it from him, despite his public talk about speaking to it.
  • As Emperor Belos, he is the supreme ruler of the Boiling Isles for over 50 years and beloved by nearly everyone, a fantasy dream come true for any typical power-hungry despot. Yet Belos is willing to throw that away in favor of fame as Witch Hunter General, a fringe position that no longer exists in the Human Realm. He had everything he wanted in the Boiling Isles yet was too blind to see it because of his racist views.
  • He's implied to be a Puritan and confirmed to be a Christian, but in the finale he transforms himself into a Draconic Abomination to bring about the end times for the Boiling Isles — something that bears great resemblance to biblical depictions of Satan. For extra irony, as he does so he compares the Boiling Isles to the Christian version of Hell and vows to cleanse it, utterly oblivious to the irony.
  • In his vain attempt at being a hero and be immortalized, Philip and Caleb end up being immortalized anyway as a town legend. But instead of playing it off as two boys who had disappeared trying to slay a witch, either living the rest of their lives in peace or in a failed attempt to save themselves, Masha, the one telling the tale and someone who could probably care less about it, plays it off as jealousy on Philip's part, which was probably what really happened.
• Irrevocable Order: He never devised a way to stop the Draining Spell, having no intention of leaving any witch or demon alive. This bites him in the ass hard in "King's Tide" when Luz brands him with a sigil in the hopes of forcing him to stop the spell, unaware that he can't do so.
• It's All About Me: Belos/Philip views himself as a Humble Hero, but he desires the world to revolve around his worldviews and desires to be the hero of his own delusions. His relationship with his brother, Caleb, deteriorates into a possessive obsession, with Caleb needing to support Philip as a witch hunter. The Titan reveals that he is merely a madman who cares only about his own delusions.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: Inverted and Downplayed. Belos hates all witches, including the main heroes, for being witches, but one of the few Boiling Isles denizens he expresses a personal hatred for is Lilith, for breaking his past self's nose because he attemped to sacrifice her and Luz and blatantly hire them as his expendable pawns. Despite his hatred for her, Lilith is just a supporting character in seasons 2 and 3.
• I've Come Too Far: Downplayed. Belos regrets his actions in the Sibling Murder of Caleb and his obsession with creating a better version of his brother, despite criticism and compromises, but he remains committed to his goals, leading to his downfall.
• I Want Them Alive!:
  • He gives orders for Lilith to bring in her sister alive. Considering that he was planning on petrifying Eda in "Young Blood, Old Souls" it seems that he only wanted her alive so he could send a message to other Wild Witches and/or to manipulate Luz.
  • In Season 2, Emperor Belos desires Luz's survival, ordering his Coven Heads not to harm her. He needs her for the Stable Time Loop, leading to his eventual rise as Emperor Belos. In "King's Tide", he attempts to kill Luz when the latter calls him out on his hypocrisy.

J-M

• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Eda's curse is not freed out of kindness but to become petrified. In "Hollow Mind", it is revealed that Hunter, Belos' closest friend, is an artificial creation called a grimwalker. Belos manipulates Hunter's usefulness and tries to kill him when he loses his usefulness. Belos' goals, including the Coven system and Day of Unity, are actually steps to a planned genocide of witches and demons, driven by his human identity.
• Join or Die: Belos' Coven System labels Wild Witches with Coven Sigil, potentially leading to death, and dismisses those supporting Witches and Demons as "corrupted" by the Boiling Isles.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Implied. Philip initially saved Caleb from a witch, but after murdering him, he blames the Boiling Isles for "corrupting" him and commits witch and demon genocide as revenge. Today, his heroic motives vanish; he becomes a spiteful demagogue.
• Just Toying with Them: In "Young Blood, Old Souls", Belos uses massive spells to protect Luz and Lilith from being defeated by Philip Wittebane. He believes Luz is still decades away from giving him a fair fight, despite her impressive magical knowledge. They plan to meet in time to learn the Light Glyph and the Draining Spell for the Day of Unity.
• Karmic Death: Belos manipulates others by shapeshifting into his original human form as Philip. He rants against Luz, believing killing him will make her evil. He is killed by witches.
• Karmic Transformation: His obsession with witches and magic led to a mutated magical abomination. He cannot recognize his faults, and when Luz brands him with a coven sigil, the Draining Spell kills him faster than other magical inhabitants.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Philip Wittebane reveals his identity to Luz, highlighting her assistance in deciphering glyph magic. This guilt wears away Luz's positive attitude, leading her to believe she's only hurting those around her from Belos' plans.
  • According to a livestream, he started out giving his Grimwalkers unique names before eventually deciding to call all of them 'Hunter' because he thought it would be funny to name them after his occupation. While not his worst act, it's still rather cruel.
  • Belos betrays the Collector, demonstrating pragmatism by rubbing their naive faith in their 'pinkie promise' and disposing of their disk in a deep hole. He goes the extra mile to ensure nobody finds them, leaving them in misery to satisfy his Fantastic Racism against magical beings.
  • Belos targets Hunter out of self-reflection, subsisting on animals to possess him. He uses Hunter to attack friends and mortally wound Flapjack. Hunter's possessed state is seen as a uniting with Caleb for Witch Hunters.
  • When he reveals himself to have survived to Luz whilst on Earth, he notes the rest of the Hexsquad entering the scene and takes the opportunity to reveal that she helped him meet the Collector in the first place to them, just to torment Luz wit her guilt over the fallout of that action.
  • While possessing Hunter, he grabs Flapjack in one hand and gloats over it before using his claws to impale the bird and attempting to absorb his essence with Hunter's body.
• Killed Off for Real: The ferocious Belos survived 400 years of life with Palismen souls and survived the Collector's attack. He met his end when pulled out of the Titan's heart, melted by rain, and stomped out by Eda, King, and Raine.
• Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: The murder of Caleb Wittebane by his own hand is haunting for him, as it was his first murder of his will. He attempts to cancel it by committing witch genocidal acts and creating Grimwalkers.
• Knight of Cerebus: Through Lilith, Belos brings about the Darkest Hour in the first season. His actions in "Hollow Mind" reveal his role as a witch hunter; his final battle with Luz in "King's Tide" is horrific, leaving Luz with permanent scars.
• Knight Templar: "Hollow Mind" shows that in spite of all his evil actions, Belos believes he's morally righteous and his plan is for the "greater good". The "greater good" he's working towards is the genocide of all witches and sapient demons in the Boiling Isles, as he's Philip Wittebane, a human witch hunter who believes all witches and demons are inherently evil.
  Belos: I'll do anything to save humanity from evil.
  Luz: No. You're evil.
  Belos: Can't reason with crazy.
• Lack of Empathy: Belos in "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" mocks Luz and Lilith for being gullible and offers sympathy to humans only, conditional on accepting his way of thinking. He is willing to kill those disagreeing or trying to prove him wrong.
  Belos: [mockingly] That's right, you wouldn't want me hurting your precious palisman would you? Oh, but then again, I don't care what you want.
• Large and in Charge: Emperor Belos towers over his subordinates, including an already tall Lilith, and his enemies. He takes it up even further when he reveals his true form, a massive rotting lich-like monstrosity that stands at least 10 feet tall.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • In "King's Tide", Luz agrees to guide Belos in the Human Realm, sacrificing her and her friends. He is given a sigil, making him susceptible to the Draining Spell. However, karma bites him again when the Collector, betrayed by Belos, becomes free.
  • He refuses to admit that his hatred of witches come from his insecurities relating to Caleb and Evelyn, insisting that his goal is For the Greater Good of humanity. He even goes as far as attempting to destroy any memory he has over the worst event of his life (i.e. Caleb's murder) in his mindscape. This ends up biting him big time in the series finale as the Collector has no idea of how to redeem him, thus necessitating the need to kill Belos for the heroes.
  • Belos often bypasses his open reluctance to kill the human Luz by rationalizing that she has been corrupted Beyond Redemption, only to relent every single time when he's convinced that Luz could still see his ways of things or at least still have some use for him. At the end of the series, Belos is deemed by Luz to be Beyond Redemption and unlike Belos, she makes it unconditional in spite of the former human appealing to her humanity.
• Last Villain Stand: After the Day of Unity fails, Belos' intent to commit genocide on Witchkind is exposed; he is nearly destroyed by the Collector. Despite facing enemies and the unlikelihood of success, Belos returns to the Demon Realm to ensure his efforts are not All for Nothing.
• Leitmotif: Belos' theme is a slow, melancholy tune, with some very creepy undertones, usually played on a string instrument or a music box. It can first be heard at the start of "Eclipse Lake".
• Lesser of Two Evils: Many citizens seem to consider him one. According to the book The Unauthorized History of the Boiling Isles (which is written by someone who presumably opposes Belos), the Savage Ages brought such devastation that many people were willing to follow him. Subverted if the reveal in "Hollow Mind" is to show that he's the sole reason those times are considered devastating in the first place.
• Life Drinker: He maintains his health by consuming Palisman essence, which might explain why he's able to live so long. Doubles as Exotic Entree, since the Palismen shown so far are often adorable and non-malicious familiars.
• Light Is Not Good: His appearance consists of golden armor and white robes and one of his depictions shows his hand holding the sun while the witches scream in fear. As revealed in past memory, he claims to show a healing light while displaying orbs of colored lights but is revealed as a liar to Luz and Hunter after the whole explosion he planned.
• Living Distant Ancestor: He's the many generations removed great uncle of the Clawthorne family via his older brother Caleb, though it's never made clear if he's aware of their familial connection.
• Living on Borrowed Time: Belos, in his One-Winged Angel form, prolongs his lifespan with Palismen consumption but eventually mutates into a corpse-like figure. To delay this, he consumes more Palismen and organic beings, but they burn out. The Titan restores Belos' strength.
• Living Out a Childhood Dream: Just about everything Belos does comes back to trying to create the perfect circumstances for him to be the hero who slays monsters Philip always wanted to be. The problem is that he is so obsessed with this dream that he sees everyone around him as side characters in his story, fit to help him be victorious at best or be slain by him at worst.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Until the Grand Finale, he remained none the wiser to the fact that King is a Titan, and things would've gone a lot worse had he known. But, even after finding out King's own power could stop the Collector, it wouldn't have been enough for what he had in store.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: A much older example of this trope than most, but when his mask is taken off, he's revealed to be a combination of this and a Silver Fox, appearing somewhere in his late 50's to early 60's with surprisingly refined facial features and long, flowing graying hair. Unfortunately, this is nullified by the streak of rotten skin on his face.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: In "Hunting Palismen," Belos suffers from a curse-like affliction that transforms him into a monstrous Ominous Obsidian Ooze shape. He treats this by absorbing Palisman essence. The affliction is exacerbated by his consumption of Palismen, their "souls". Despite destroying their manifestation, Belos retains the shifting power, suggesting that his cursed form is his "real" form.
• Love Hungry: Belos' relationship with Caleb, an orphan, twisted over time, culminating in his murderous rage when Caleb married a witch. Belos sees independence as a flaw in his Grimwalkers, aiming for a Caleb centered around Philip.
• Loving a Shadow:
  • Belos creates Grimwalkers, including Hunter, due to his attachment to his older brother, Caleb. He tries to kill Hunter when he suspects he will betray him after questioning the Golden Guards. Belos' focus is on recreating Caleb as an unquestioning, obedient witch hunter, rather than his brother's true identity. Belos is dismayed when Hunter resists his Demonic Possession, accusing Caleb of "backstabbing" him.
  • Belos, formerly Philip Wittebane, finds similarities with Luz but only cares about her human status. He spares Luz and tries to kill her, ultimately causing his downfall in the series finale when he pleads for her to save him.
• Low Culture, High Tech: Belos has used his extended lifespan to develop Magitek that allows him to match, even outpace, actual witches. However, his imperialist worldview remains unchanged from his origin as a 17th century witch hunter.
• Made of Magic: Belos' life extension by palisman makes him entirely made of magic, making draining spells more painful. However, this benefits Belos as he can regenerate his body over time, preventing the lethal injury caused by the Collector.
• Magic Eater: He slices open and consumes the magic essence from a Palisman. Through his eyes. As it turns out, he isn't just devouring their magical bile but also their soul and this practice is why he has been able to live for centuries but is afflicted by random bouts of Painful Transformation due to the Palismen attempting to fight back against him. ^note At least until Luz and Hunter get tricked into helping him destroy the souls of the Palismen in his mindscape in "Hollow Mind".
• Magic Staff: His staff is odd in that it is bizarrely technological in design, having a crystal orb instead of a palisman. As it turns out, this is because it is using Artificial Magic, which turns out to be an advanced form of Glyph Magic, likely indicating that his technological staff is the only kind of staff that could channel said Artificial Magic.
• Magical Species Transformation: Season 2 reveals that he used to be Philip Wittebane, a human. Over the years, he slowly carved glyphs onto his body, turning him into a magical abomination that lives off Palisman essence. While he can maintain a human form with magic, his true appearance is a lanky and skeletal monster that barely resembles his original look.
• Magitek: Belos' castle features machinery, metallic Magic Staff, Taken for Granite punishments, and a Portal attached to machinery. He uses non-magical tools for staff repair. Hunter's Magic Staff allows him to cast magic, suggesting that Belos' advanced version uses artificial magic. Ironically, his fondness for technology surpasses his historical mindset.
• Make Them Rot: In his monstrous form, Belos has a corrosive effect on everything it touches. He leaves visible scars on Hunter and Raine after he possesses them and reduces several animals and a dead Grimwalker to nothing but skeletons when using them to reconstitute his biomass. When he possesses the Titan's heart and takes on his One-Winged Angel form, it covers the Boiling Isles in a fungal Meat Moss that disintegrates Luz when it touches her.
• Manipulative Bastard: The Grimwalker's strongest trait is his ability to manipulate people, using tactics like praise and False Flag Operations to persuade others. He has been working on perfecting this technique to create obedient Grimwalkers, using emotional and physical abuse to keep Hunter in line.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The name Belos itself comes from a Babylonian title meaning "lord". This title specifically was reserved for gods, sharing a root with the name of the prominent ancient Near Eastern deity Ba'al. Greek writers used Belos to refer to the Babylonian god Marduk, head of the Babylonian pantheon. In other words, Belos considers himself a lord of gods. To a Puritan, this is utterly blasphemous. The Neo-Platonic philosopher Damascius further interpreted Belos as the Babylonian name of the Platonic Demiurge. In essence, Belos is a being that falsely believes himself to be at the pinnacle of existence.
  • Wittebane is a symbol of White Evil and witches bane. Philip Wittebane is a genocidal Puritan with a less-threatening sounding full name. It symbolizes Philip's ability to hide his dangerous nature and disguise his intentions, despite his charm.
• Mercy Kill: How he rationalizes any attempted murder on humans. Incapable of accepting that some humans love the Boiling Isles for what it is, Belos believes they have been corrupted and that if he can't change their minds, he needs to kill them to "save" them.
• Metaphorically True:
  • He tells Hunter he's been to the human world before. Turns out it's actually his native world.
  • He announces to the Coven Heads that the Day of Unity will eliminate all wild magic. What he doesn't mention it that it will wipe out all magic, along with their very users.
  • His claim to the throne is based on the idea that he has a personal connection with a godlike being who had gifted him with magical knowledge and power. While it turns out that he was not talking to the Titan like he told everyone, we find out that he had in-fact been in regular contact with The Collector, a different, yet still very otherworldly being who taught him the draining spell for the Day of Unity.
  • He refers to Hunter as his nephew. The boy is actually a Grimwalker cloned from who was implied to have been Belos' brother.
• Meta Power: He forbids witches from using more than one type of magic and enforces this through the coven system, in which witches choose a type of magic to specialize in, while their ability to use any other kind is completely removed via coven sigils.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: The Wham Episode where Luz and Hunter go into Belos' is both a huge Trauma Conga Line and nightmarish insight into Belos' evil. Both of them nearly die and both escape with severe PTSD from their time in the Mental World.
• Misplaced Retribution: Belos doesn't admit it, it's clear that reason of his Final Solution of witches is partly because his brother falls in love with a witch, making this trope effective as well.
• Mole in Charge: Belos has essentially made himself the ruler of witches and demons, but is in truth a (former) human who wants all his subjects dead.
• Moral Myopia: Belos is a "hero" with a hatred for witches and magic, destroying them for humanity's "safety". He manipulates a magical society, prolongs life, and betrays allies. When Belos' body melts under the rain, he starts begging for mercy, believing magic is necessary for survival.
• Moral Sociopathy: Belos exhibits traits of antisocial personality disorder, including a Lack of Empathy and never-taking-responsibility. However, he has a moral code centered around humans, believing humans are good and deserve second chances, while witches are evil deceivers.
• Motive Decay: Downplayed. His goal has always been wiping out all witches. But any personal reason he has for doing so, namely as revenge upon Evelyn for "stealing" Caleb away, has been eroded long enough for the Titan himself to deem it irrelevant to discuss. Belos is merely continuing his goals of genocide simply because that's all he knows to his miserable long life, and he now only cares to satisfy his desire to become the hero of his own deluded story.
• Mouth of Sauron: He claims to merely be a conduit for the will of the Titan, though it's hard to say if this is genuine. "Hollow Mind" all but confirms it's not.
• Muggle Power: "Hollow Mind" reveals his true agenda is a Type II of this. He is secretly a committed Puritan witch hunter from Earth, and he plans to use the Day of Unity to exterminate every witch and sapient demon on the Boiling Isles all in the name of his deluded belief that they're inherently evil and their mere existence is a threat to all mankind.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" reveals Philip's preference for sacrificing people for short-term gain, including Luz and Lilith, despite their assistance. His ultimate plan is to kill all witches and demons on the Boiling Isles without batting an eye at the massive loss of life, focusing on the choices of his "companions".
• Must Make Amends: A truly twisted example. Belos is driven by guilt over killing his brother, a hero in the Demon Realm. Unable to cope with his sin, he commits a greater moral action by killing all evil witches to protect humanity. Despite not gaining fame or recognition, his refusal to explain his true motivation leads to his death, as the present-day cast sees him as a mad monster.
• Murder Makes You Crazy: The murder of Caleb at his hands forever haunts Belos despite his best attempts to suppress it.
  • "Hollow Mind" follows Belos' attempts to silence the Palisman Monster, but his confidence is shattered by the Collector and Luz, leading to anger and loss of control. He undergoes a Humiliation Conga, losing his human form, reliving his past, and losing control of reality; he even calls Hunter Caleb and Flapjack Evelyn.
  • In "For the Future", Belos starts seeing visions of a gaunt-looking Caleb with a dagger floating above his head. He attempts to shift blame onto Caleb and then attacks him, only for Caleb (and the dagger) to remain untouched while Belos' hand falls off from his arm. Soon, the vision of Caleb is accompanied by several Grimwalkers that Belos has killed over the centuries, which Belos can only weakly tell them to shut up.
• My Way or the Highway:
  • The Coven system requires all demons and witches to join, with potential imprisonment or Petrification. The Titan's disapproval is a threat, particularly on the "Day of Unity". The plan is to commit genocide on Isles, using Coven Sigils for his Draining Spell.
  • "Hollow Mind" also strongly hints that he killed his own brother for falling in love with a witch, and then promptly spent centuries creating Grimwalker clones of said brother in an attempt to make a "better version" of them that will mindlessly follow them (one he openly treats like a slave, complete with collar), killing them and making a new one when they fail him, question him too much, or turn against his plans because he Copied the Morals, Too.
  • In "King's Tide", King tries to force Luz to return to Earth after the Draining Spell activates. Despite his "genuine" desire to avoid harm, he petrifies her as an "act of mercy", demonstrating his belief that humans do not belong in the Boiling Isles.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • Subverted. Belos, along with his companions, embarked on a mission to gather Titan's Blood at Eclipse Lake, a tragic failure that resulted in the deaths of his "friends". He later reveals that he fabricated his feelings in his journal and planned to kill all witches and demons.
  • Implied in "King's Tide". Gus uses Graye's amplifier to reveal Belos' worst memories, focusing on the murder of Caleb. Belos still feels guilt but represses it to rewrite a narrative where Caleb deserved it as one of his own delusions.
• Mythical Motifs:
  • In his monstrous form, Belos has quite a bit in common with a Wendigo. Belos, a massive humanoid monster, is emancipated from his human form and resembles the deer-like appearance of Wendigos. Wendigos were once humans but became cannibalistic due to greed and selfishness. Belos' predatory behavior towards palismen and other creatures is disturbing. He restores his body by draining Hunter's life essence through his possession. Wendigos originated from Native American legends and are often found in dark caves or woods. Belos' true nature is revealed during his journey through darkened cave formations and his mindscape. Some legends claim that Wendigos' hearts are made of ice, which accurately describes Belos' true nature. He eventually melts after being pulled out of the heart.
  • Additionally, Belos also has some points in common with the native American depiction of a Skin Walker. Skin Walkers were shapeshifting beings created by a medicine man who abused indigenous magic for evil purposes. They gained mystical powers, such as the ability to transform into animals or people. Philip Wittebane used shapeshifting to deceive Luz and Hunter, disguised as a benevolent guide. Skin Walkers could only be created by committing deep-seated taboos, which mirrors Philip's near-biblical murder of Caleb. They were believed to be nearly impossible to kill, which mirrors how Belos' current form can survive physical trauma.
  • In "Watching and Dreaming" his pose on the Titan's heart being a Crucified Hero Shot implies that he's trying to deliberately make a parallel with himself to Jesus, when he's really more of a Satanic Archetype like Lucifer, who in Dante's Inferno is ultimately trapped in Hell by his own mistakes and his futile desire to escape only furthering his imprisonment.

N-P

• Narcissist: Each subsequent appearance he has shows he has this mindset, even having it back when he was just Philip Wittebane and it's made him unable to see his actions as evil. He is most narcissistic about being human, and doesn't like to be reminded that his abuse of palismen magic has mutated him into a magical abomination. The Titan specifically observes that beneath everything, Belos is really just a narcissist desperate to convince himself that he's the good guy.
• Nasal Trauma: In "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", Lilith punches Philip in the face so hard she breaks his nose, rightfully angry after she and Luz were betrayed and left dead to a stonesleeper, leaving a scar as well as a crooked nose that stays with him permanently, all the way up to his present time as Belos.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Belos, a Nazi-inspired character, is an authoritarian dictator of the Boiling Isles, enforcing his beliefs through secret police and banning knowledge that doesn't align with his plans. He plans his own Holocaust, the Day of Unity, to eradicate all Witches and Demons, believing they are inherently sinful and must be eradicated.
• Never My Fault: Philip, a vengeful wizard, believes witches are barbaric after Lilith breaks his nose, causing him to use Luz and Lilith as bait. His scar, a result of his actions, spreads over his face, indicating his deformity. He treats humans who disagree with his beliefs, like Luz and Caleb, as victims, blaming their decisions on witches. Philip's mentality towards his murder of Caleb is evident in "For the Future", where he blames Caleb for his own death. Even near-death, Philip refuses to accept fault and blames his own flaws on witches.
• New England Puritan: All but stated to be the case. Philip, born before 1613, moved to Gravesfield with his brother, Caleb. He was indoctrinated into the Witch Hunt hysteria and saved Caleb from elopement with Evelyn. However, he murdered Caleb in jealousy for having children with Evelyn. Philip's clothing reflects colonial style and he claims his actions are for the good of people's souls.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Matthew Hopkins was an actual Puritan Witch Hunter who claimed the title "Witchfinder General" for himself, similar to Belos' desire to be named "Witch Hunter General". Hopkins was known for his obsessive pursuit of witches, leading to the execution of more witches than any other Witch Hunter in England in the 160 years prior.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: After removing Luz from the Stable Time Loop, he wastes little time attacking the Owl House and its inhabitants, preparing for the Day of Unity. He uses Hunter's current possession to attack the Hexsquad without fear of retaliation.
• Non-Standard Character Design: In "Eclipse Lake", a monstrous witch, Philip, resembles an Undead Abomination Lich, displaying a unique form based on humanoid warping, breaking the creature design rules.
• No Place for Me There: Part of what makes Belos so horrific is that he ultimately doesn't care if he too has to die in his quest for annihilating all witches. While he'd prefer to live, he himself states in "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" that it ultimately doesn't matter to him if he dies immediately after his quest as long as he succeeds in it. This is a rare example of this trope where it only makes the villain more horrific as it highlights his obscene Fantastic Racism.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: His voice actor considers him this, but after "Hollow Mind", this is ultimately subverted. Belos is a genuinely evil individual who is revealed to be a Witch Hunter planning a "[[Final Solution genocide]]" of the Isles, with his justifications for oppressing wild magic being false flag operations he staged himself. His misunderstood mentality is attributed to his Byronic Hero nature.
• Not Quite Dead: As soon as the Collector is free, he repays Philip's previous betrayal by turning him into a stain upon the wall—literally nothing is left of the would-be "Witch Hunter General" except dripping bits and pieces. Except one of those dripping bits falls onto Hunter and magically attaches itself to him, setting up Belos' return in Season 3. During the end credits, bits of him fall on the shack door that used to connect to the portal door and close it, implying Belos is attempting rebuild himself on Earth in solitude.
• Not So Above It All: As monstrous as he is, even Belos has a few moments of levity throughout the series:
  • In "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", after acquiring the Collector's mirror and leaving Lilith and Luz to die, Philip takes some time to deliberate over how to describe the mirror while writing about it in his journal. Despite the mirror being a perfect circle, the descriptors he considers are "oval", "oblong" and—most inexplicably—a "round boy", making him sound more like a modern teenager than the colonial witch-hunter he is.
  • In "King's Tide", when Luz assumes Philip/Belos wants to return to Earth to be "Emperor of the Witch Hunters", he corrects her with an almost childish insistence that he'll be the "Witch Hunter General". He's also visibly concerned when she disses his fashion sense. More seriously, despite having abandoned his pretenses of being able to 'speak to the Titan' at that point, he still sincerely (and correctly) blames the long-dead giant for his extended struggles with learning Glyph magic, showing that even he's been affected by living in the Demon Realm for so long despite his utter rejection of the place.
  • He's just as baffled as the heroes are by the Collector's attempt to stop him with "kindness and forgiveness" in "Watching and Dreaming": the act leaves him in Stunned Silence for a few seconds before he winds up an attack against the Collector.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Subverted. As he lays dying, he angrily tells Luz that if she lets him die she'll be just as conniving and evil as... "those witches".
• Not So Invincible After All: Belos, a powerful witch, is built up in season 1, with Luz cracking his mask and treating the injury as minor. In "King's Tide", Luz causes significant harm to Belos with a Coven Sigil. The Collector turns Belos into a stain, leaving him irreversibly damaged and unable to survive.
• Not So Similar: Luz spends the latter half of Season 2 and all of Season 3 terrified she's no better than Belos. When she admits this to the Titan, he laughs in her face. He promptly explains that whatever mistakes she made, she had genuinely good intentions and has tried to atone; Belos on the other hand is narcissistically obsessed with being the hero and would rather commit genocide than admit any faults within himself and humanity.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Belos claims to bring order through wild magic, but he is actually a human Witch Hunter who aims to "save" humanity from evil by committing genocide. His hypocritical methods and Lack of Empathy undermine his claims of defending mankind. Belos' hatred of witches stems from his inability to accept Caleb's love with a witch. He aims to be the hero of his delusions, causing him to nearly kill all life in the Boiling Isles.
• Obviously Evil: Spend any real length of time with him, and it becomes fairly clear that he's not a good person, but his manipulations and fifty-year reign means that, by the time Luz comes to the Isles, people are so used to him that they don't see it, which causes Luz no end of frustration in "Hollow Mind". That said, "Reaching Out" reveals that even the members of his own Coven are starting to wonder if his plans for the Day of Unity are as benevolent as they seem (which they aren't).
• Obliviously Evil: Played for Horror. Belos/Philip's obliviousness and belief in witches make him more vile than sympathetic, despite having the only known working portal. His hypocritical use of runes and pact with a supernatural being undermines his intentions and leads to his death.
  Belos: You'll be just as bad, just as conniving, just as evil, and just as unforgivable as those witches!
• Oblivious to Their Own Description: Belos is this on a multitude of levels.
  • Played for Horror, and it's more like 'actively ignores anything that conflicts with his pre-held views about the world'. In "Hollow Mind", him and Luz have the following exchange after she discovers who he really is:
    Belos: [holding up a broken mask of a Golden Guard^note that Luz has just discovered is a line of Expendable Clones Belos regularly makes and kills when they don't meet his expectations to Luz] I'll do anything to save humanity from evil.
    Luz: No. You're evil!
    Belos: [Beat then shrugs dismissively] Can't reason with crazy. [morphs his arm into a fleshy blade in an attempt to behead a defenseless little girl for arguing with him]
  • In "King's Tide", Belos urges Luz to return to the Human Realm to prevent the Demon Realm's destruction of the Boiling Isles and Philip's happiness due to his colonial-era anti-witch delusions, highlighting his deluded state in "Watching and Dreaming".
    Philip/Belos: You'll be just as bad, just as conniving, just as evil, and just as unforgivable as those witches! We're human! We're better than this!
• Offing the Offspring: Belos does this all the time. While he's not the Grimwalkers' father in the traditional sense, he did create them, and they do see him as their father (albeit one who is horribly abusive). Still, Belos will not hesitate to kill them if they even show one sign of disobedience. He's done this so many times, that there's an entire room filled with their skeletons.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In "King's Tide" when he sees the Collector freed from their prison after Belos had betrayed them, he's visibly horrified and tries to give a weak lie that he freed them as promised. The Collector responds by turning him into a muddy stain on the wall.
  • Similarly, Belos is clearly desperate when Luz confronts him after ripping him out of the Titan's heart in "Watching and Dreaming", sweating and stammering as he pieces together one last lie in an attempt to convince Luz to show him mercy. He fails, and he suffers an Undignified Death for it.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • When he loses control of the condition afflicting him, he starts to mutate into a monstrous creature comprised of Ominous Obsidian Ooze, the fully transformed form of which is shown in "Hollow Mind". In "King's Tide", he fully transforms out of rage when Luz brands him with an Emperor's Coven sigil in an attempt to blackmail him into stopping the draining spell. This form is much faster and stronger than his human form, but it costs him the Power Tattoo that lets him wield magic by thought alone.
  • After learning from the Collector that the heart in the throne room is the Titan's heart and the Collector's magic is useless against the Titan, Belos decides to possess it and then destroy all of the Isles in one swoop with no one to stop him. He succeeds in possessing the heart and becomes a monstrous cancer (with a mockery of the Titan's visage) seeking to consume everything.
• Only Friend: This is how Philip/Belos sees Caleb, partly because, until Luz showed up, they were the only two humans in the Demon Realm. Since it's a land inhabited by witches and demons, and Belos is prejudiced against them, he refused friendship from any of the natives. When Caleb and his clones eventually sided with witches, this drove Belos over the edge, as he believed that he lost the only person he could trust.
• Only I Can Kill Him: Rather than go back to Earth through the portal and recruit an army of witch hunters to attack the Isles, Philip/Belos decided to stay and enact his genocidal plans with just him and his Grimwalkers. "Thanks to Them" reveals this stems from Belos' desire to recreate the days where both he and Caleb were proud witch hunters, as well as getting the respect and acceptance from Gravesfield's witch hunting society.
• Our Liches Are Different: Belos, a 400-year-old magic user, has survived by consuming souls, turning him into an inhuman abomination. This metamorphosis makes him stronger and allows him to survive injuries. Belos doesn't have a phylactery and lives on the souls of familiars, unlike traditional liches.
• Our Mages Are Different: Much like Luz, Philip must use glyphs and glyph arrays in order to cast spells due to lacking any natural magic as a result of his human nature. However, Philip goes the extra length of carving the glyphs into his skin, thereby allowing him to use any spell he wants on demand.
• Out-Gambitted:
  • In "Young Blood, Old Souls", he succeeds in forcing Luz to give him the Portal Door to her world and honors his part of the bargain by sending her up to where Eda is so Luz "can play the hero". Luz then reveals as she's being sent up that she covered the Portal Door with her Fire glyphs, destroying it and denying Belos easy access to her world. This leads to him giving Luz a Death Glare for her audacity.
  • In "King's Tide", Luz tricks him again. As he is petrifying her, Luz warns him of Earth's changes and the potential for delusional dismissal. Luz uses a branding glove to mark Belos with an Emperor's Coven sigil, causing him to lose his human form.
• Orcus on His Throne: The Emperor rarely leaves his palace, part of it is due to his rare affliction that he's trying to cure. At least until "Hollow Mind" revealed that the actual reason is because he is a Witch Hunter with a personal hatred for witches, thereby indicating that he stays in his castle to have as little interaction with the witches and demons of the Boiling Isles as possible.
• Parasitic Immortality: After being splattered by The Collector and going to the Human Realm, Belos possesses the local animals while he reconstitutes himself, though this quickly kills them and nearly does the same to Hunter. Upon returning to the Demon Realm without a host, he rapidly deteriorates until he can barely move, forcing him to possess a failed Grimwalker. Belos later takes over and impersonates a transformed Raine, with their puppet body being immune to decay.
• Persona Non Grata: He casually mentions to Luz that he had to change his name from "Philip" after he got ran out of too many towns.
• Pick on Someone Your Own Size: He admits he didn't really care about Eda's status as an outlaw Wild Witch or really any witch rebellion... until Luz shows up. He takes special interest in Luz, both praising yet mocking her in their first fight, and the two share a mutual Death Glare at each other. It's later revealed throughout Season 2 that Belos' interest in Luz is because of two things: 1) She will help his past self learn the light glyph and finally obtain the Collector's mirror and 2) Belos sees Luz as a human that needs to be "saved" from the witches.
• Phlebotinum Dependence: In order to survive for centuries beyond his natural lifespan, he's been regularly consuming the souls of palismen. However, doing this for so long has warped his physical body into a rotted, sludge-like monstrosity barely kept under control by increasingly frequent palisman consumption, something made much more difficult by the present day due to the near-extinction of the Palistrom trees that are used to create palismen.
• Playing the Victim Card: Thanks to his Moral Myopia and Never My Fault tendencies, Belos always sees himself as the victim. He portrays himself as betrayed by Caleb and the Grimwalkers, but in reality, he murders them for refusing to adopt his beliefs or questioning him. He rants about witches being "barbarians" and continues to act like a victim, never considering fault.
• Poke in the Third Eye: In "Separate Tides", Lilith creates a scrying potion to make amends for cursing Eda, allowing Luz and others to spy inside Belos' castle. Emperor Belos mocks the scrying attempt, revealing his mask, mocking the 'camera', and being unconcerned about Luz and others' potential awareness.
• Politically Correct Villain: Zig-Zagged. Belos, a 1600s individual, exhibits Fantastic Racism towards witches and demons in the Boiling Isles but is progressive in some areas. He allows women in positions of authority, including Lilith as Head of his Coven. Despite his societal norms, Belos doesn't show bias against queer relationships or gender non-conformity. He respects Luz, a queer, Afro-Latina girl, despite her perceived derogatory attributes.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Belos, a progressive Knight Templar, is a fervent hater of witches and demons, viewing them as Always Chaotic Evil. He plans to commit genocide, believing he's right and even appreciating Luz's gratitude. He dismisses them as insane or corrupt, avoiding a change in his worldview.
• Possession Burnout: In "Thanks to Them", the state of a deer he's implied to have possessed after he left heavily hints that his mere presence in its body consumed it, and even after he's forced out of Hunter and Flapjack makes a Heroic Sacrifice to heal him, the young Grimwalker has several new scars.
• Powers Do the Fighting: Unlike every other witch in the series, he shows the ability to cast magic without the need for a spell circle, glyph, or staff. When he faces off against Luz in the Season 1 finale, the only actual movement he's shown making is flicking his finger to telekinetically send her flying. In fact, his magic not being based on the kinds of things used by witches indicates that he isn't a witch at all.
• The Power of Hate: Philip's determination, once driven by love for his brother, has turned to hatred towards witches and demons who "stole" his brother. He consumes palismen for longevity, aiming to seal the Demon Realm's fate. He regenerates his monstrous body and returns to the Demon Realm for revenge.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: For some reason, when he possesses people in his goopy form, it makes their hair grow into a mullet, as Hunter and Raine can both attest to.
• Power Tattoo: Glyph arrays carved on his arms allow him to use magic without a staff. Though he wears long clothing to conceal to this fact, it's first shown in "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" when he was still Philip, and a bit of the array can be seen poking out from his sleeve in "King's Tide".
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Belos' hands-off approach towards Luz and the Owl House residents is due to his need for her to go back in time and advance his plans. He tries to behead Luz when she disagrees with him and sends a squadron of his Coven members to capture or kill the Owl House inhabitants.
  • Belos/Philip, despite being a Witch Hunter who despises magic, uses glyph magic to advance his plans to destroy the Boiling Isles. He lacks the ability to destroy them as an ordinary mortal, leading to the development of 'Magitek'. He extends his lifespan by absorbing Palisman essence, rationalizing his use of magic as a necessary evil to achieve his ultimate goal.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: "Okay. I'll play." Cue one of the most one-sided battles in Season 1. He utters a similar line in "King's Tide" when dismissing the threat that Luz poses to him.
  Belos: What? No fight left? Or did you learn your lesson from last time?
  Luz: You wish! (Attacks him with a fire spell)
  Belos: Of course not.
• Prefers the Illusion: He is in such complete denial that witches aren't Always Chaotic Evil that he rejects any evidence to the contrary to satisfy his delusional heroic narrative.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: The Knight Templar variety. Belos persists in painting himself as a crusader who's saving humanity from "evil" beings via wiping them out, despite having turned himself into a rotting, eldritch monster that's even further removed from humans than the witches and demons he hates.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: Starting with "Separate Tides", he is given a spot in Season 2's Title Sequence.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Deconstructed; Belos, obsessed with being seen as the hero, commits atrocities to purge the world of evil non-humans. His obsession with this narrative began when his brother, Caleb, was kidnapped by Evelyn. He tries to rescue Caleb, only to murder him for marrying the witch. His guilt over this leads him to rationalize everything as necessary to protect humanity in the long run.
  The Titan: (to Luz) You assume Belos' goal comes from a genuine place. But that man doesn't care about anything but his need to be the hero in his own delusion. And because of that, he fears what he can't control.
• Psychological Projection: His rant as he dies implies he's projecting his own failings into the Boiling Isle's residents, having claimed that they're conniving, evil, and unforgivable. He'd just rather continue his narcissistic delusions than ever own up to it, and spends his last moments continuing his Never My Fault attitude.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Philip was a young boy from Gravesfield who desired witch hunting with his brother Belos. Despite growing up, Belos' mentality remains unchanged, killing witches to fulfill childhood fantasies. He creates Grimwalkers to get his brother's support but destroys them when they show imperfections. Philip's inner self takes the form of a child wearing Belos' mask.
• Puppeteer Parasite: "Thanks to Them" showcases that this is one of the "perks" of his transformation into a magical aberration from devouring Palismen souls. By entering the body of another living being through something as small as a cut, Belos is able to infect that being with himself and take control of it while also draining them of their life force to reconstitute his own body.

R-U

• Rasputinian Death: In "Watching and Dreaming", after spending the previous episode basically decaying, once Belos is ripped from the Titan's heart he tries to pretend that he's "cured of his curse" to Luz, before the boiling rain hits and melts him into a puddle, with King, Eda, and Raine stomping him to make sure he's gone for good.
• Really 700 Years Old: "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" reveals that he's Philip Wittebane, meaning that he's been alive for centuries. "Thanks to Them" clarifies that he was born sometime before the year 1613, meaning he is at minimum, 409 years old by the events of the main story.^note "Reaching Out" indicates that The Owl House takes place in the year 2022.
• Redemption Rejection:
  • Implied in "Hollow Mind". The memory portraits in the background reveal that a cursed Philp attacked Caleb and Evelyn when he saw them together, only to be calmed down by Caleb's Cooldown Hug. Philip manages to regain much of his sanity back... to formulate a subtle assassination attempt on Evelyn despite Caleb's attempts to prove that she's not evil. This time, it ends with Caleb dead and Philip completely untethered from morality and reason.
  • In "Watching and Dreaming", the Collector attempts to stop Belos with kindness and forgiveness, as it's how he was redeemed by Luz, Eda, and King. But the Collector doesn't truly know Belos, which allows the cancerous witch hunter to sneak attack him when he's vulnerable. Luz admits that while offering redemption is still the best option, it's a lot more complicated with Belos, who refuses to believe he's wrong.
• Red Right Hand: Philip, who has a band of rot running beneath his mask, is portrayed as a traitor who is constantly annoyed by being trapped in the Demon Realm. This rot can be suppressed in "King's Tide" and grows as a visual indicator of Philip's anger. Despite his stoic facial expressions, Philip enjoys telling Kikimora and the Collector about his feelings, demonstrating his irritability and eagerness to return.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: A major part of his lie that gives him his power and authority is that the Titan is still sentient. Only part he got wrong about that is that it favors him; it's implied that the Titan's lingering consciousness nudges Luz into getting the glyphs while trying to stop a younger Philip from finding them himself, outright telling Luz that it's almost as if the Titan favors her over him.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • In "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", Philip's large bruise from Lilith's punch symbolizes his growth and the 'crack' in his image as a caring individual. The scar expands involuntarily when Philip is angry or defied, revealing his inner ugly nature. The rot and decay across his face also represent his 'crack' in his image, as he is unable to hide his inner ugly nature.
  • His inhuman true form noticeably has two long horns and a facial structure that evokes the somewhat-creepy looking wooden mask Caleb carved for him to play with as children, which he apparently wore when playing the 'hero' who would catch and kill the 'evil witches' Caleb would pretend to be. By the present day, this same desire to be the 'chosen hero' protecting humanity from 'evil' has warped Philip into a monster underneath his lies and deceptions to everybody, including himself most of all.
  • Philip reconstructs himself on Earth through Demonic Possession, controlling bodies and absorbing their life force. This reflects his centuries-long manipulation of people, leaving them with lasting physical and mental damage. Even those escaping Belos' possession leave scars, reflecting his dependency on seeking approval and validation for his actions.
  • In the finale, after possessing the Titan, Belos takes the form of a Draconic Abomination destroying everything in his path in order to destroy the Isles, ironically resembling biblical depictions of Satan. It symbolically shows what Belos really is; a monstrous hypocrite who destroys everything he touches, and has been so consumed by bigotry and narcissism that he's become exactly the kind of thing he claims to hate.
  • His final form is in the visage of an unscarred Philip Wittebane seen in "Elsewhere and Elsewhere", symbolizing his inability to learn anything for 400 years as well as his manipulation skills becoming sloppy (as Luz knows this Philip was a manipulative jerk from her time travel adventures). When the boiling rain hits him, the visage melts away and reveals a decaying skeleton (deprived of antler and hair), a reminder that Belos is just a mere shell of a human long overdue for death.
• Sadist: He denies enjoying killing Gravewalkers, but his actions and facial expressions suggest he does. In "Thanks to Them", he torments Hunter by killing Flapjack and mocks Luz, while Belos denies this, believing his actions are morally noble or necessary.
• Sailor's Ponytail: He has a long, bushy ponytail as his preferred style, although in his monstrous form it falls apart into Barbarian Longhair.
• Sanity Slippage: In "For the Future", we see that his mental state is degrading, as he is hallucinating (maybe) images of Caleb and the Grimwalkers that he killed.
• Satanic Archetype: Emperor Belos, a deal maker, grants wishes and removes curses, but his coven members are forever indebted. Inspired by Lucifer and agnostic Christianity, he becomes a Draconic Abomination, symbolizing his actions and refusal to give up.
• Scars Are Forever: His facial deformity is a scar from a broken nose courtesy of Lillith, infected by raw Palisman essence, resulting from his abuse of wild magic. Despite using a spell to hide his deformity, the original scar remains visible, indicating his past actions.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: It's heavily implied that he invoked one for himself. In "Watching And Dreaming", the Titan reveals Luz is a madman fixated on being the hero of his own twisted story. He manipulates a peaceful community of witches and demons into a World of Jerkass to justify his hatred.
• Self-Harm: If you look closely in his mindscape in "Hollow Mind", there are pictures that imply that he not only used a knife to carve glyphs into his arm, he cut his ears into points with it just so he could make them look more witch-like.
• Self-Proclaimed Knight: "King's Tide" reveals that Philip/Belos expects to be made "Witch Hunter General", similar to self-proclaimed "Witchfinder General" Matthew Hopkins and essentially a position on the same level of Postmaster General or Attorney General in the British colonies, for his actions in the Isles as part of his Glory Seeker nature after he returns post-Day of Unity. His correction of Luz when she gets it wrong implies that he's wanted to be called that for a while.
• Self-Serving Memory: In "Hollow Mind" after Luz and Hunter end up in Belos' mind, they initially see a dark hallway full of memory paintings that are really just the lies he tells to himself. Just like the lies themselves, the walls of this hallway are paper thin.
• Serial Killer: He leads residents of the Boiling Isles into dangerous situations, allowing the many hazards of the Isles to off them in an attempt for Belos to harvest Palismen to extend his lifespan. He continues this habit in a different form by continually murdering the Grimwalkers he makes when they fail to live up to his impossible standards, namely questioning him or making friends with witches.
• Shadow Archetype: His fantasies of being a heroic witch hunter fighting the forces of evil is eerily similar to Luz's fantasies of being a heroic witch fighting the forces of evil, a reminder that such a dream can motivate a person to do horrific things as much as good.
• Shadow Dictator: He appears in public, but very rarely, generally using intermediaries even when talking to high-ranking subordinates. Given that he hates witches and demons with a burning passion, it would make sense that he avoids interacting with the general populace as much as possible.
• Shapeshifter Default Form: Falls under the "preferred" type. Belos maintains himself in his original human form, but centuries of abusing magic to extend his life have mutated him horribly and he now requires that magic to keep himself human. Robbed of it, he liquifies into goop that holds a vaguely humanoid shape with extra eyes and bones protruding from the gaps.
• Shapeshifter Weapon: "Hunting Palismen" reveals that he can use his Wild Magic affliction to change his arm into a spiked tendril.
• Sibling Murder: In "Hollow Mind", Belos kills his brother, Caleb for falling in love with Evelyn. He kills the Grimwalkers he made of Caleb for their "betrayals" at least thirty-three times over the centuries, as seen in "King's Tide" and the Grimwalkers' skeletons.
• A Sinister Clue: Belos is ambidextrous, but he prefers to use his left hand for magic, weapons, and hand gestures. He gets branded on his left arm when fooled by Luz's false handshake. Philip writes his journal with his right hand, as left-handedness is seen as the mark of the Devil.
• The Sociopath: He ticks off a lot of signs of antisocial personality disorder. He's incapable of relating or understanding others, hides behind a mask of charm and trustworthiness, thrives on manipulating and backstabbing others, gets sick kicks out of harming others and indulging in violence, doesn't have any healthy affection for anyone, and has an obscenely bloated opinion about himself.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: His calm demeanor conveys his detached nature, even when threatening others. He uses Hunter to express his delight and outrage, despite Hunter's attempts to hinder his plans and throw away the Titan's blood.
  Belos: Caleb, you would stab me in the back!?
• Sole Survivor: The only member of his group who survived the ill-fated trip to Eclipse Lake, aimed to become the ultimate leader of the Boiling Isles by enacting a Final Solution and leaving the realm to receive glory.
• Sorcerous Overlord: He is the single most powerful magic user on the Boiling Isles, and is its unquestioned ruler. Interestingly, he is only in this position to make his attempted genocide of all magical life in the Demon Realm easier. By convincing the population to mindlessly follow his Coven System and accept the Coven Sigils, Philip can kill them all at once during the Day of Unity, after which he fully intends to abandon this status and return to the human realm.
• Start of Darkness: Philip, influenced by Deliberate Values Dissonance views, was naturally antagonistic towards the Boiling Isles. He had a close brother named Caleb, who fell in love with a witch. Philip's anti-witch beliefs led to Caleb's death, which is believed to be the driving force behind Belos' genocidal plans and the Grimwalkers. This memory haunts Philip today, despite his sociopathic attitude.
• The Stoic: He remains calm at all times, never changing his mellow, polite tone of voice. He moves out of this over the course of the final season, as he spends the entire time in a prolonged Villainous Breakdown and eventually goes into a loud, screaming fit in the finale as he makes his last-ditch attempt to destroy the Boiling Isles.
• Stranger Behind the Mask: When we first see the Emperor’s face, he didn’t look like anybody we recognize or came to mind. Then, later revelations show he is none other than the long-lost Philip Wittebane.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: In "Clouds on the Horizon", The Collector (correctly) points out Earth might have changed significantly from what it was when he was living there as Philip. Belos is clearly angered by the thought.
• Straw Hypocrite: Belos/Philip is believed to be a Messiah and a benevolent overlord who protects Witchkind from wild magic dangers. However, these lies are a front to rally power for his true agenda, the extermination of witches and demons.
• Stupid Evil: Despite being a brilliant mastermind in enacting his Final Solution, Belos still makes several key mistakes that ultimately causes it to fail:
  • His Chronic Back Stabbing Disorder causes Lilith, Kikimora and the Collector to turn on him.
  • His No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup means he has no way to turn off the Draining Spell in the event that he was branded.
  • His utterly delusional belief that he'd be praised for his actions without realizing that times might've changed over the centuries he was gone blinds him to the possibility that a fellow human might legitimately object to his plans and try to stop him, ultimately resulting in a battle with the Hexsquad that distracts him while King is freeing the Collector.
• Summon Magic: In "Young Blood, Old Souls", he summons the giant monster from the opening in his fight with Luz.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Philip initially travels to rescue his brother Caleb, but he soon kills him in anger and devises a plan to wipe out all witches. After centuries, he is stranded in Gravesfield but refuses to accept defeat. He digs up the last Titan's Blood to finish the job, revealing that he doesn't want to accept that his actions were All for Nothing.
• Taking You with Me: Luz brands Belos with a sigil in the hopes of blackmailing him to stop the Draining Spell, not realizing the spell is irrevocable. Belos, enraged that he's marked for death just when he's about to head home, morphs into his monstrous form and attacks Luz, intending to take her with him to his grave alongside the witches she cares about.
• Taught to Hate: Philip, raised by his brother Caleb, grew up in the 17th century, where witches were believed to exist. Caleb, a witch hunter, learned to accept that witches exist, while Philip never did, leading to a downward spiral and a belief in witches.
• Tautological Templar: Belos is fully convinced that his plan of eradicating witches and demons is for the betterment of mankind and is incapable of taking the blame for his atrocities. Even when he murdered his own brother and made clones he inevitably killed, not once does he acknowledge it was his fault. Luz even calls him out on it when he rants that Caleb stabbed him in the back. Belos spends his final moments demanding Luz save him, honestly insisting she's worse than him otherwise.
• Telepathy: He is able to communicate telepathically, first when he catches Luz and her friends stealing the Healing Hat, and again during their fight. He doesn't seem to be able to read minds, however.
• Teleportation: Through years of research, he developed a complex glyph pattern that allows him to teleport himself and anything within the confines of the pattern.
• Technically-Living Zombie: He has consumed Palismen's souls for centuries, turning him into a rotten, decaying monstrosity that requires further consumption of living essence to sustain himself. He is not yet dead, but if he goes without consuming essence, he can fall apart. He can prevent this by infecting other living beings.
• That Man Is Dead: Inverted. Belos seems to still identify as Philip Wittebane, and asks Luz to call him that when they're alone. However, everyone, even the Titan himself, only see him as Belos since he killed his humanity when he killed Caleb a long time ago.
• Theory Tunnel Vision: Belos, after centuries of living among the Boiling Isles, realizes they are not the monsters he initially thought. He is unaware of the potential objections of other humans, like Luz or Caleb, convincing himself that the Boiling Isles have "twisted" them.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Without his mask, Philip has a fatherly, unremarkable face, similar to any other witch or human. However, his disguise is a disguise of his true form, which is revealed when he drains his magic, turning into an inhuman monster.
• This Was His True Form: After Luz tears him off of the Titan's heart, he turns back to his original, human form to try and plead mercy with Luz, before reverting back to his slimy form as the boiling rain breaks his body apart, finally being killed by Eda, King and Raine in this form once reduced to a pile of sludge and a skull.
• Thought-Controlled Power: He casts spells without visible magical circles or glyphs, thanks to a hidden Glyph array in his skin. This allows him to use magic without a visible focus. When petrifying Luz, a glowing part of the array is revealed.
• Throat Light: In his monstrous form Belos' mouth emits an eerie blue glow that matches his glowing eyes.
• Tom the Dark Lord: The all-powerful tyrant of the Boiling Isles is named Philip. He changed it to Belos when he got run out of too many towns in his original identity, but even then actually seems to prefer being called by his human identity of Philip whenever possible, especially if it's a fellow human like Luz.
• Tragic Hero: The show alludes Belos' character to Macbeth for a reason. Belos' obsession with being a hero and bigotry leads to his downfall and destruction. He murders Caleb and rationalizes his witch lover's corruption. Despite becoming the ruler of the Boiling Isles, Belos' obsession blinds him to his failures and his true nature. By the end of the series, he loses everything and is narcissistic, unable to admit his wrongdoings to Luz.
• Tragic Keepsake: The depictions of the Wittebane brothers in "Thanks to Them" reveal that the blue jacket with the Gravesfield crest on it that he wore when exploring the Boiling Isles as Philip, and wears again when preparing to reassume that identity, originally belonged to Caleb, with it being implied Philip took it with him on his journey as a source of comfort when searching for his brother, and thereafter becoming a bittersweet reminder of him. It's implied this is why he takes offence at Luz insulting his fashion sense in "King's Tide".
• Transhuman Abomination: After years of use of the palismen, he is barely able to keep a human form and shows some Lovecraftian Superpowers. In "King's Tide", he turns into an Animalistic Abomination after his rage from being branded with the Coven Sigil.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Initially introduced as a long-gone figure from ancient Boiling Isles history that Luz researches, it is eventually revealed that Philip Wittebane would later become Emperor Belos.
• Undead Abomination: Belos, a monstrous Palismen, is a zombie-like abomination with additional eyes, Lovecraftian Superpowers, and unnatural longevity. In Season 3, he merges with the Titan's heart, assimilating its continent-sized corpse, but is torn from the heart, severing his control over the dead god.
• Undignified Death: A man disguised as a savior, either as Emperor Belos or as a witch hunter general, survives a climatic battle and reforms into Glory Philip. He manipulates people by claiming curses but fails. He is dissolved by the island's rain, revealing his monstrous form, and reduced to a skull. Luz stares down at him in contempt, allowing the others to finish him off.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • Despite Luz and Lilith's assistance in obtaining the Collector's mirror, he acts condescending and offers them another sacrifice for his ultimate goal of killing every living resident of the Demon Realm. He offers this as a bargaining chip, indicating his ignorance about the Boiling Isles' worthiness.
  • This is his relationship with Hunter in a nutshell. Hunter loves him like a father and goes above and beyond to help him. Belos responds by relentlessly abusing him and brutally cutting off any sign of independence Hunter expresses, even if it's in the name of helping him. Notably, when Hunter offers to research wild magic to help him deal with his curse Belos' immediate response is to threaten to murder him. And when Hunter questions him for the first time about murdering the previous Grimwalkers, Belos immediately tries to murder him and dismisses him as a traitor.
  • In Season 2 finale "King's Tide", Kikimora has finally brought Luz to him (whom she thought was Hunter), but only for Belos to reject her as his right-hand woman and even cruelly telling her to go find a hole to wither away in, leaving her in a complete shock. This even caused her of having enough of him so much that she decide to manipulate King into releasing the Collector from his imprisonment to get back at him, which makes Belos indirectly responsible for the Collector's rampage through the Boiling Isles.
• The Unfettered: Belos is a witch-hunter who is determined to "save humanity from evil". He uses sacrifices and bombs and petrifies witches to gain power. He creates a line of 'Expendable Clones' to enforce his plan and even makes deals with a Mad God. In Season 3, he pushes his unstable body to complete his genocide.
• Un-person: Belos has erased all records of human presence in the Boiling Isles before Luz's arrival, leaving Philip and Caleb Wittebane as unknown. Philip's old journal is the only confirmed evidence, suggesting that Belos manipulated Luz to help him find the light glyph and Collector. Belos' motive is to prevent the denizens from realizing his identity.
• Unreliable Narrator: Philip's diary entries reveal his Self-Serving Memory, with deceptive retellings of events. In "Hollow Mind", he retells events as they were perceived. Luz rescues Eda and sets Philip back, framed as a painting titled 'Triumph over Wild Magic'.
• Un-Sorcerer: Philip, born without natural magic, aimed to purge the Demon Realm by consuming Palismen and carving glyph arrays into his skin. This led to a grotesque metamorphosis into a rotting magical aberration, ultimately downplaying the trope.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: If the portraits in his mind are any indication, Philip was once a sweet, happy child who played many games with his older brother, Caleb, but his mind was so poisoned by the anti-witchcraft hysteria and propaganda he was exposed to that it permanently warped his moral compass, as shown by the fact he murdered Caleb for realizing that that same rhetoric was hateful nonsense.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Belos describes his master plan as a 'utopia' where wild magic will be eliminated, but "Hollow Mind" reveals he's actually trying to wipe out all life on the Boiling Isles. Despite this, Philip still believes he'll improve the universe by wiping out witches and demons.

V-Y

• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: A witch hunter who plans a genocide of the Boiling Isles simply because of his belief that all witches and demons are inherently evil. He even goes as far as being personally nasty to them if he thinks he can get away with it.
• Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Emperor Belos is the stern antagonist in Knight of Cerebus, driven by his religious extremism and racism. He plans to annihilate life in the Demon Realm, with few inhabitants aware. The coven scouts and guards have comical personalities, while the coven heads have their own quirks, neither of which Philip has.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The Owl House is a lighthearted horror comedy featuring comedic and cutesy moments. Philip is a cruel, narcissistic, sociopathic monster who is the most prominent threat to Luz and her loved ones. He has committed numerous atrocities and is responsible for the Boiling Isles' state when Luz arrives.
• Viler New Villain: Lilith, the Arc Villain of Season 1, remains sympathetic due to her desire to heal Eda's curse. However, Belos, introduced in Season 1, proves himself even worse. In Season 2, Lilith's role is taken over by Belos' Co-Dragons, the Golden Guard and Kikimora. Belos's plan is to wipe out all life in the Boiling Isles, driven by a fundamentalist belief in evil witches and demons.
• Villain Ball: His Evil Gloating. Philip, a manipulative and untrustworthy individual, gains support from the Isles' denizens but deceives them, assuming 'Belos' and betraying Luz, Lilith, Kikimora, and the Collector, which results in his plan ultimately failing on the Day of Unity.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • When Luz places the Emperor's Coven sigil on his arm meaning that he would be effected by the Draining Spell, he transforms into the hideous form seen in "Hollow Mind" out of anger. From then on, with exception of some brief moments of quasi-lucidity, he does not even talk, only roar, being effectively feral.
  • In "For the Future" he's literally decaying both physically and mentally. He sees hallucinations of Caleb and the Grimwalkers that he killed, and his body is clearly giving up the ghost at long last.
  • His death scene sees his last drops of lucidity melt away alongside his dying body in the boiling rain, pathetically continuing to lie and try to convince Luz to save him by claiming she'll be just as bad as "those witches" if she lets him die. Which she does, doing nothing as Eda, King and Raine finish him off.
• Villainous Friendship: Subverted. In "Hollow Mind", Belos appears to have a casual relationship with the Collector, another Psychopathic Manchild. Belos speaks with the Collector in genuine respect, but in "Clouds on the Horizon", he tries to attack him. The Collector believes Belos is their friend, but they fear he won't fulfill their promises. In "King's Tide", Belos betrays the Collector and others, proving his true intentions.
• Villainous Underdog: In Season 3, Belos, a sludge, tries to kill all life in the Demon Realm but is stopped by the Hexsquad. He reconstitutes himself, possesses Hunter, and restores his body. He plans to grant himself a new body, hoping to possess a Grimwalker and the Collector themselves. He attempts both but ultimately gaslights the Collector, putting him back as a threat to the heroes.
• Villain Respect: He respects Luz both in part that she's very talented glyph user and the fact she's human, meaning she's the only one of his allies or enemies he actually views as a person.
  • In "Young Blood, Old Souls", Luz damaging his mask with the ice pillar spell actually seems to get some respect out of him.
  • "King's Tide", he admits he's more happy that Kikimora accidentally brought Luz instead of Hunter to him, and even complements her creative use of combining glyphs. Though he ultimately defeats her, Belos offers her a chance to return home to the Human Realm, claiming that he doesn't want to see another human life destroyed.
• Villain Reveals the Secret: When he informs Luz of how she helped him in "Hollow Mind", Luz goes to great lengths to make sure that this revelation stays a secret to her loved ones, out of fear of how they would react. In "Thanks to Them", when Belos notices Luz's friends and family coming to search for her and Hunter, he decides to take the time to lay out in detail how he duped her into helping him meet the Collector purely out of spite so he could see her suffer one last time.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Emperor Belos takes a special interest in Luz after their battle in "Young Blood, Old Souls". This is because he recognized her as the same person who helped him meet The Collector in the late 1600's when he was still Philip Wittebane. In addition to wanting to ensure Luz lives on as she is part of a Stable Time Loop, Belos also wants to "save" her from the Demon Realm, and opts to murder her once the former has closed, and Luz has rejected the latter.
• Villains Want Mercy:
  • When the Collector shows up in their physical form, it's clear that Belos realizes how screwed he is, so he pathetically attempts to downplay his betrayal by telling the Collector that he freed them just as he promised. The Collector of course doesn't buy it and splatters him against a wall with a poke of their finger.
    Belos: Collector!
    [The Collector glares at him]
    Belos: [nervously] You're free, just as promised...
    Collector: As promised? I remember someone throwing me off a bridge... I'm not angry though. Say, you wanna play tag?
    [The Collector twirls his finger, pulling Belos towards him]
    Collector: I'm it.
  • His final moments in "Watching and Dreaming" are first spent trying to trick, then begging, then angrily demanding Luz to save him from degrading. Luz has none of it.
    "Luz. Luz, I'm-I'm free. Thank goodness you saved me from-from that horrible curse. Yes, I was cursed with a terrible, terrible sickness by-by dark magic, just like your mentor. It forced me to do all those horrible things, but-but now I'm free. (Is hit by boiling rain and cries out in pain) Quick-Quickly now! Don't you want to make peace, Luz? [...] Don't just stand there! You'll be just as bad, just as conniving, just as evil, and just as unforgivable as those witches! We're human! We're better than this!"
• Villain with Good Publicity: Most of the Boiling Isles' inhabitants believe him to be a visionary, who showed them how to use magic "the right way".
• The Virus: He becomes this upon infecting the Titan's heart, spreading his warped form all across the Boiling Isles.
• Vocal Dissonance: Despite being a corrupt and villanous dictator, Belos speaks with the voice of a sophisticated gentleman.
• Voice of the Legion: While he's possessing Hunter's body, he speaks in both his and Hunter's voice simultaneously.
• Walking Spoiler: The more that's revealed about Belos, the more his actions in previous episodes become recontextualized and impossible to talk about without spoiling major plot points — such as the fact that he and 17th century human Philip Wittebane are one and the same, that Philip was a Witch Hunter before he came to the Boiling Isles, that he came to the Isles in hopes of "saving" his older brother Caleb, who he later murdered and the fact that he is planning the Day of Unity to eradicate all life on the Boiling Isles.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Belos is so utterly narcissistic that he feels like he deserves to be lauded for everything he does. During "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", he genuinely thinks Lilith and Luz are ungrateful when they refuse to take him up on his offer of letting them be expendable pawns he'll sacrifice at a moment's notice because he's genuinely convinced it's a good offer.
• Was Once a Man: Was once a 17th-century British Puritan named Philip Wittebane, what he is now is up for debate. It's implied that something happened to make him this way four hundred years ago when he and Caleb first came into the Isles. Abusing wild magic for four centuries has not helped whatever's left of his humanity in the slightest.
• We Can Rule Together: Part of the reason why Belos keeps reviving Caleb is because he wants to reenact the "good old days" where the two of them hunted witches together. Problem is, that Caleb, or any of his clones, are friends with the witches, thus have absolutely no desire to hunt them. If Belos' last words are anything to go by, then there was also a point in time in which he was hoping that Luz would join him, but immediately knew that she was a lost cause when he saw her siding with witches.
• Weak, but Skilled: Possibly. Philip, a powerful wizard, is portrayed as reliant on trickery and natural dangers to kill his companions, unlike his future self as 'Emperor Belos'. He has a Glyph Array carved into his skin, allowing him to cast magic without a focus. However, the Collector's words about teaching him powerful magic make it unclear if he was always capable or learned under their tutelage.
• What You Are in the Dark:
  • In "Hollow Mind", the Memory Portraits reveal the true motivations and character of Belos, a "heroic" Witch Hunter. However, Luz and Hunter are distracted, leaving them blind to his relationship with Evelyn and Caleb. These portraits are the only actual depiction of his character, leading to his final defeat as the cast has No Sympathy towards him.
  • In "For the Future", where we see him by himself after his true motives have been revealed and his body and mind are decaying, we see from his interactions with the specters of Caleb and the Grimwalkers he killed that, deep down, he does realize that what he did was wrong, but is suppressing it. Despite what he claims, he's not truly driven by a desire For the Greater Good of humanity, but rather by a need to run from his sins, which threatens to destroy his childhood dream of being a hero.
• White and Red and Eerie All Over: He wears white, but any time he uses magic, it's in a deep, bloody red, creating a rather unsettling contrast between his holy mask and his real evil self. fittingly, it represents how Belos sees himself as a righteous man, all the while committing utterly abominable atrocities over the course of centuries.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Subverted. He only avoids killing if doing so would cause more problems for him. He doesn't kill Luz during their first meeting, but once the Stable Time Loop is completed, he tries to murder her when she enters his mind and is later quick to have his troops advance on the Owl House.
• Wicked Witch:
  • Played for Irony. Belos, an elderly outcast, engages in a deal with an evil spirit for powerful magic. He uses a mask to manipulate the righteous and deceives two children into following him into a foreboding forest. Belos reveals his true evil nature while cackling madly, resembling the 17th century witch definition.
  • Furthermore, "Watching and Dreaming" has Belos make allusions to two of the most famous evil witches in popular culture. First, he has a One-Winged Angel transformation into a giant dragon for the final battle, akin to Maleficent from Disney's Sleeping Beauty, complete with a hammy announcement to go with it. Second, his death scene has him melting from rain caused by Luz, similar to how the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz was famously weak against water.
• Windmill Crusader: Played for Drama. It's obvious the Boiling Isles don't pose a threat to humanity and by the time of the present day, Belos controls the only means of travel to the Human Realm, meaning that even they couldn't invade the Human Realm even if they wanted too. However, Belos is so bigoted and obsessed with living out his fantasies of being a hero that he refuses to accept evidence to the contrary and continues on with his genocidal ambitions.
• Windmill Political: Belos rose to power by preaching against wild witches and magic in the Boiling Isles. He conducts false flag operations and creates a revisionist history, claiming they made the Isles a wretched hive. He plans to control the Demon Realm with an iron fist before his complete extermination.
• The Witch Hunter: "Hollow Mind" not only confirms that Belos is indeed Philip Wittebane, but also reveals he is a witch hunter, and intends to "save humanity" by destroying all witches in the Boiling Isles. In "King's Tide", he aspires to become Witch Hunter General upon returning to the Human Realm, not knowing witch hunters, as Luz says, "aren't really 'a thing' anymore."
• The Worf Effect: In the final battle between Belos and Luz, he uses his Magitek abilities to overpower her. However, he loses control of his body and transforms into a monstrous creature made of necrotic flesh. Despite this, he lacks the mental stability to use his magic. Despite being huddled with Gus, Willow, Amity, and Hunter, Belos is freed by King; the Child from the Stars casually transforms him into a splatter of necrotic flesh.
• Worth It: Played With. Philip believes his Final Solution plans for the Demon Realm are worth the time he spent manipulating and killing witches and demons. He fears that his time away from Earth has made it too changed for him to have a place there anymore. He stubbornly holds onto his outdated beliefs about witches, killing Grimwalkers and bargaining with Luz to gain glory and prestige back on Earth.
• Would Hurt a Child: In the Season 1 finale, Philip Wittebane fights Luz and attempts to kill her and Hunter, sacrificing them for his plan to wipe out witches and demons on the Day of Unity. He tries to bury Hunter and trick Hexside students into believing they are illusionary sigils. In "King's Tide", he petrifies Luz with his muck monster form, then tries to eviscerate her and her friends. He also gives Luz a permanent scar on her left eyebrow.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit:
  • When Luz and Lilith encounter him as Philip, his leg is splinted and bandaged, he walks with a noticeable limp, and he occasionally grabs at his leg while wincing in pain. After The Reveal that he was tricking them the entire time, he reveals that the splint was actually a collapsible shovel he kept strapped to his leg with bandages, and completely loses the limp.
  • His inner self disguises itself as a scared little boy, and gains the trust of Luz and Hunter, who believe him to be a manifestation of one of Belos' emotions. He even makes a point of crying in fear and hiding behind Luz whenever the Palisman creature shows up. When Luz and Hunter eventually figure out the truth, he cackles evilly, before capturing the Palisman creature and transforming into his adult form.
  • In "Watching and Dreaming", he tries one last time to manipulate Luz by pretending that he wasn't in control of his actions, and that he's seen the light now. Luz has none of it, and Belos responds by undergoing a Villainous Breakdown, ending up Killed Off for Real when Raine, Eda, and King stomp his head in.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Belos' abuse of wild magic prolongs his life but prevents his broken nose from healing properly. After Lilith's punch, the swelling subsides, but the cut spreads into necrotic flesh. Philip's distorted appearance is a disguise for his self-image and his emotional control slipping. His poisonous anti-witch mindset has made his physical body the wound.
• Written by the Winners: Emperor Belos rewrote history, turning a prosperous time into the Savage Ages. His betrayal of Luz and Lilith casts doubt on his grief over his companions. He planned to receive praise for wiping out witchkind, but Luz stymies his near-victory by pointing out that he neglected to provide physical proof and Earth had changed over centuries.
• Wrong Context Magic:
  • He can casually restore consciousness to Eda's Owl Beast form, something even Lilith couldn't accomplish after years of trying. He never intended to cure her curse completely, however, so it's not clear if he can't or simply doesn't want to.
  • Willow claims he has the ability to speak to the Titan, the giant whose corpse forms the Boiling Isles. It can be inferred that this is how he convinced the public that their magic should be restrained by the coven system. It should be noted, however, that this is later revealed to be a lie designed to make his "wild magic bad" propaganda seem more credible as depicted in his memories.
  • In his fight with Luz in "Young Blood, Old Souls", he is shown to be able to cast spells without tracing circles in the air, seemingly being able to use magic simply by thinking about it or gesturing with his hands or staff.
  • "Hunting Palismen" reveals that Hunter's similar Magitek staff actually uses artificial magic, allowing him to cast and use spells even if they don't come from himself, implying that Belos' abilities break the established rules of magic demonstrated thus far because he's not using the same kind of magic everybody else is.
  • With the confirmation that he's Philip in "Hollow Mind", the fact that Philip was shown to have a glyph array Power Tattoo in "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" implies that some of his feats are because of this.
  • "King's Tide" reveals that part of why he's so powerful is the Collector, themselves an example of this, having taught him more magic than just the Draining Spell. This is actually part of why he never intended to actually free the Collector once the Day of Unity came, he doesn't want him running around free or teaching said magic to anyone the Draining Spell missed killing or just about anyone else in general.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: "Hollow Mind" portrays Belos as embodying the worst aspects of human nature, fighting against supernatural monsters in a horror-based dark fantasy story and expecting praise for his actions. In reality, he is the Big Bad Knight of Cerebus. On a side note, he does appear to be aware of his delusions, but he still tries to force everyone to conform to his preconceptions of being a heroic witch-hunter. He causes pain and suffering due to his Control Freak nature, violently lashing out at anyone breaking his mold.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: Belos has taken great care to not actually refer to Hunter as Caleb or that he's a clone of his brother (the closest he ever admits to Luz is "A better version of an old friend"). But when he sees Hunter holding Flapjack, Belos angrily shouts "Caleb!?" at Hunter's face. From that day since, Belos has only referred Hunter as Caleb, as if he truly believes that Caleb has finally come back from the dead.
• Xanatos Speed Chess:
  • It's made clear in "For the Future" that he has no real plan beyond his goal to "commit witch and demon genocide", and that he's merely floundering around taking any chance that he has to survive and advance his plans. Despite this, he manages to come dangerously close to possessing the Collector through a few lucky breaks, and when that fails he uses the fact that he's possessing Puppet!Raine to manipulate the Collector into taking action against Luz, showing that even when he is in the throws of a massive Villainous Breakdown he is still a threat.
  • He tries to pull this off again in the finale after his plan to possess the Titan is thwarted, taking on his original appearance as Philip Wittebane and spinning the tale that he was forced to do all his horrible deeds by his "curse" in an attempt to save his skin. Unfortunately for him, Luz doesn't buy it.
• Yandere: A familial example with his brother, Caleb. Philip, an orphan in a hostile witch-hunting society, saw Caleb as a big brother and parental figure. When Caleb left to settle with Evelyn, Philip attacked them, leading to Caleb's death. Unable to accept his brother's death, Philip created Grimwalkers in Caleb's likeness and psychologically molded them into his ideal Caleb. However, the Grimwalkers rebelled, leading to their death. When Hunter, the last of the Grimwalkers, rejects him, Belos accuses Caleb of stabbing him in the back.
• You Are What You Hate: Belos depises all witches due to his upbringing in the 17th century, viewing them as nothing but evilness to be purged, yet be harboring magic to destroy them, he has also become a witch in the process.
• You Have Failed Me:
  • In "Agony of a Witch", he threatens Lilith with being thrown out his Coven (and he will have her head) if she fails in capturing Eda.
  • In "Hunting Palismen", he has a similar conversation with Hunter over his failure to secure more Palismen to help Belos' affliction. After silencing Hunter with an almost-strike to the face, Belos compares the pain of his fits to the pain of seeing Hunter fail, and tells him he has faith Hunter can do better. This seems gentler than his threats to Lilith, but are actually emotional manipulative.
  • "Clouds on the Horizon" reveals that he has demoted Kikimora for her numerous failures, reducing her to a delivery driver.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A very bad flaw of his.
  • What he does to the Golden Guards when the cost of keeping them around outweighs simply making a new one, if the hallway of dead Golden Guards and his treatment of Hunter upon finding everything out are any indication.
  • He also tries to kill Luz in "Hollow Mind" since the Stable Time Loop he needed her alive for has already been completed.
  • New heights are reached in "King's Tide" where Belos not only betrays the Collector and attempts to leave him to rot in his prison, but he tries to pull this on every single person in the Boiling Isles who has ever served him, willingly or not, as an effect of the Draining Spell. When Kikimora asks what she could possibly do to gain his favor, he coldly tells her to "go find a hole to wither away in".
• Your Soul Is Mine!: "Hollow Mind" reveals that the souls of the Palismen he consumes are absorbed by him, and are at least in part the cause of his monstrous affliction.
• Your Worst Memory: His worst memory is murdering his brother and failing to bring him back from the dead. When Gus subjects Belos to relive his worst memories, Belos holds his head in agony and screams like never before. Interestingly, the portraits that flash in Belos' head showcase Philip's murderous intent rather than Caleb falling in love with Evelyn, implying that Belos feels guilt for his actions but has been suppressing it by blaming it on the witches and rationalizing Caleb's murder as merciful.
• You Will Be Spared:
  • "Clouds on the Horizon" reveals that Odalia Blight is well aware of the true purpose of the Day of Unity, but has been led to believe that she will be rewarded for her loyalty to Belos by having her family be spared the same fate as the rest of the Boiling Isles. "King's Tide" revealed he's convinced all the Coven Heads save for Raine, Darius and Eberwolf of the same thing.
  • In "King's Tide", he genuinely makes the offer to Luz once the Draining Spell has started, offering to take her back with him to the Human Realm. Instead of being a Pet the Dog moment it's just another example of his myopic, self-righteous, narcissistic personality as Philip thinks humans are inherently superior to witches and demons. When she calls him out on his hypocrisy, he coldly says he pities her for the "monsters" on the Boiling Isles "warping her sense of reality" and tries to kill her while calling it a mercy.

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