When teaser images from the upcoming graphic novel The Owl House: The Long-Lived King were released, fans were surprised to see several characters dressed in formal ceremonial attire attending some kind of a ritual.
Now, what could this mystery ceremony be for? Is it a gala? A wedding for Luz Noceda and her girlfriend Amity Blight? At least that’s what many Lumity shippers were hoping for since the novel, written by Dana Terrace and Mikki Crisostomo, is set two years after the defeat of Emperor Belos. Though a wedding is highly unlikely due to Luz and Amity would be around 16 years old during the events of The Long-Lived King.
Well, the correct answer is none of those things I listed above. The ceremony is actually a funeral for abominations.
This development raises some interesting questions about these creatures and their place in Witch society in The Owl House universe. Why would abominations need funerals in the first place?
First, What are Abominations?
Abominations are essentially golems made from animating/re-animating a purple slime-like substance. For the longest time, only witches that belonged to the Abomination Coven or were studying abomination magic at schools like Hexside were able to create these magical constructs.
Normally, they take on a vaguely humanoid look, but their forms can be molded into almost any shape for nearly any purpose. The Abomination Coven Head, Darius Deamonne can use the goo to teleport and transform himself into an abomination. Amity can use the goo to summon abominations to fight on her behalf, or mold it into weapons and shields during combat.
The goo’s potential as a powerful weapon was the core of Blight Industries, a subsidiary of the Abomination Coven run by Amity’s parents that sold abomination-based products specializing in home security and weaponry. Her father Alador was able to engineer the goo to build abomination-powered robots like the Abomaton and Abomatron.
Abominations act as servants since they’re intelligent enough to follow orders and obey commands, but not too smart to rebel against their creator(s). However, the season 2 episode “Them’s The Breaks, Kid” referenced an incident where a teenaged Eda Clawthorne raised an abomination army that eventually gained sapience and revolted. It’s unknown how Eda’s army gained consciousness but it seems to be possible under the right circumstances, whatever those circumstances might be.
What We Know About Abomination Funerals
According to Amity, witches used to hold funerals for abominations but the practice was outlawed by Emperor Belos when he rose to power. Worse, he forced witches to use their abominations until they dried up and withered away. So at some point, these abominations lose their ability to function over time. It sounds similar to how a human becomes more fragile as they age.
There’s very little we know about how abominations are made and what exactly brings them to live. Season 1 episode 3 “I Was a Teenage Abomination” showed that each abomination needs a list of raw materials to create one, with one of the ingredients being eyeballs. So it’s possible that abominations are a mix of organic and inanimate objects that are reanimated through magic.
But why does the magic the abominations contain need to be released? Is it just a means to honor the “life” a particular abomination lived? Or does the Boiling Isles need the magic used to sustain these constructs for some reason?
Whether abominations are fully sentient beings or a magical gray area is still a mystery, but hopefully The Long-Lived King will answer our questions. Since the concept of life and death are going to be the graphic novel’s main theme, I’m curious to see how an abomination funeral will be used to reinforce the book’s message.
The Owl House: The Long-Lived King will be released on September 29, 2026.
