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“ | How about... I leave you dangling above the boiling sea! Around these parts, just the steam is enough to cause third-degree burns. But I don't have to be that mean. No one will have to be a sailor, or get arrested, if one of you follows those Selkidomus tracks and slays the beast. | „ |
~ The Golden Guard threatening Eda and Luz. |
“ | We have a lot in common, Blight. We're both trying to show what we can bring to the table. And we can't fail, because there's nothing worse than disappointing someone who thinks you're special. | „ |
~ The Golden Guard to Amity Blight. |
“ | He knows! H-h-he knows we were in there! I can't— I can't go back! | „ |
~ The Golden Guard's breakdown after realising Emperor Belos knows he entered his mind and discovered the truth about him. |
Hunter, also known as the Golden Guard, is a major character in the Disney Channel animated series The Owl House.
He is the new leader of the Emperor's Coven following Lilith Clawthorne's defection and Emperor Belos' nephew and right-hand man, who is sent to spy on Luz and Eda in order to make sure they don't cause any more trouble for his uncle.
He is eventually revealed to be a "Grimwalker", an artificial creation made from the Boiling Isles' resources by Belos as the latest in a long line of previous Golden Guards as a replacement for his dead brother Caleb Wittebane, and abandons Belos after discovering this, leading to him defecting to the heroes' side.
He is voiced by Zeno Robinson, who also voiced Carter Brown in Craig of the Creek, Sentibubbler and Sentinino in Miraculous Ladybug, and a young King Andrias in Amphibia.
Appearance[]
The Golden Guard is humanoid and wears an ivory hooded cloak with a golden triangle clasp like other members of the Emperor's Coven. Under the cloak is a golden-yellow tunic with darker sleeves and a dark brown belt, black leggings, and wears dark brown gloves and boots. He wears a golden pauldron on his left shoulder and a pointed two-faceted mask with a thin slot across it. His staff, however, is not a palisman and looks similar to the one Belos uses.
He has fair skin, pointy ears, dark magenta eyes, thick black eyebrows, a gap between his front teeth, bags under his eyes, and ash-blond hair that is shaved below the top with a long, jagged forelock. He has a notch on his left ear and scars on his right cheek, upper left arm, and legs.
Personality[]
“ | I say, "The Titan has big plans for you", and he does what he's told. Unlike the previous attempts. | „ |
~ Belos explaining how Hunter is always obedient to him. |
In comparison to his uncle, or any other villain in the series, the Golden Guard is actually quite laid-back, easy-going, chill, and comedic, making quips towards Luz and Eda during their first meeting. He is also shown to have an endearing side, taking a liking towards King for his cute nature. In spite of this, he takes his job seriously and always makes sure to follow his uncle's orders, and is also quite arrogant and obnoxious, as even before his appearance, Lilith clearly detests him, calling him a "brat" due to the special treatment he gets. According to Lilith, he is apparently the "genius, team prodigy" among the members of the Emperor's Coven, implying him to be intelligent and resourceful at magic, which serves as the reason for his high rank despite his age. Despite his high title, unlike Boscha, he never takes advantage of his power for personal gain, only using his authority when ordered by Belos himself, showing his respect towards his uncle, yet quite a bit of hubris and egotism towards anyone else. He is, however, an opportunist who is willing to use blackmail or extortion to manipulate others, offering to let Eda and Luz go in exchange for slaying the Selkidomus (a job Belos told him to do), and then threatening to kill King when they refuse to do so. Whether this is due to pragmatism or simply laziness is hard to say, but having said that, he does give Luz a sword to use to do so and does indeed let them go after he believes the job is done. Seeing as it was not done (and Eda is well-known as a con artist) shows some naivety on his part.
Biography[]
Past[]
“ | You were right before. I'm a powerless witch. A lot of my ancestors were. I never thought I'd have a future in a world like this. But then, Belos found me and gave me a staff with artificial magic. He said the Titan had big plans for me. | „ |
~ Hunter telling Luz of the origin fabricated by Belos. |
Hunter apparently hails from a family where a majority of his ancestors lacked magic. Despite being a witch, Hunter himself lacked any natural magic, making his future on the Boiling Isles a dim one. However, his uncle, Emperor Belos, took Hunter under his wing and gave him a staff imbued with artificial magic, claiming that the Titan had big plans for him. While working under the Emperor, Hunter became known as "the Golden Guard" and served as the Emperor's right-hand man. Hunter appears to be orphaned, since he and Belos describe their family as being gone due to the effects of wild magic.
As revealed in "Hollow Mind," this was an elaborate lie that Belos devised: in reality, Hunter was an artificial being known as a "grimwalker," made to resemble Belos' dead brother, Caleb Wittebane, who he himself murdered. In fact, he was the latest in a long line of grimwalkers, all of which were murdered by the Emperor when he felt they would rebel.
Season 1[]
The Golden Guard first appeared in "Agony of a Witch", when Lilith visited Emperor Belos for her failure to capture her sister.
He later appears in the season finale "Young Blood, Old Souls", where Emperor Belos, after he gets the pieces of the portal, sends him to watch the inhabitants of the Owl House.
Season 2[]
The Golden Guard appears in the series premiere "Separate Tides", where he is seen inside one of the Emperor's ships. He then kidnapped King when the latter tries to warn Luz.
He then meets Eda and Luz at the Island, where is holding King in a birdcage. He gives them motivation to kill the Selkidomus by telling them that Luz will have to remain a sailor to pay for all the money they lost, while Eda will be arrested for attacking one of the Emperor's ships. The killing of the Selkidomus is under orders of the Emperor, despite the fact that it is a peaceful creature. Luz and Eda attack the Golden Guard, but he easily overpowers them. He again tells them to go and slay the beast, or he will drown King in the boiling sea. Seeing no alternative, Luz takes the sword and goes after the Selkidomus, despite Eda's pleas. Luz believes she has to do this to make up for everything that has happened to Eda because of her.
Back on the Simmering Shoals, Luz finds the Selkidomus. She engages the beast, but it proves to be much stronger than her. She almost tries to go for the kill, but Eda stops her and tells Luz that she is not to blame for anything. Because of Luz, she saved Eda from turning to stone and got her talking to her sister again. Eda considers her life a lot better now because she has a friend like Luz. Together, Luz and Eda come up with a plan that gets them out of the predicament they are in without killing the Selkidomus, especially when they discover it has a baby. Using plant and light magic, they convince the Golden Guard they have killed the Selkidomus, permitting him to let them go free and release King. However, he also warns them to stay out of trouble as the Emperor is not a merciful man.
He appears again at the end of "Escaping Expulsion", where he visited Alador and Odalia Blight as they kneel before the emperor's emissary, who informs them that their weaponized products and efforts will now be sold exclusively to Emperor Belos, before warning them he does not take kindly to citizens producing a private army.
He appeared in "Hunting Palismen", where he steals a nest of palismen for his uncle in the middle of the night, unaware that Luz is inside the nest. While the Golden Guard is distracted with flying his ship, Luz manages to slap a fire glyph on his back and send him flying off uncontrollably. Though he manages to get back on the ship with his staff and even restrain her, Luz uses the grime on the ship's floor to draw an ice glyph, and the resulting icicles knock the staff away. To make matters worse, a hand dragon attacks, causing the ship to crash-land near Latissa.
The resulting crash leaves the Golden Guard unmasked, unconscious, and vulnerable, but Luz is unable to leave to guard to die at Kikimora's hands and subsequently slaps the guard awake. He immediately storms over to one of Latissa's police precincts to contact the castle and shows his coven brand as proof. However, the guards running the precinct do not recognize their superior due to his young age, and when the Golden Guard asks for his staff in order to prove his identity, Luz hides it behind her back. Annoyed, the Golden Guard chases Luz through Latissa, and while she manages to elude him by using an ice pillar, the Golden Guard easily manages to climb up and corner her. Luz may have had the advantage now that she was armed with a staff, but the Golden Guard points out that no matter what she does, it won't end well for her; she won't attack him because she's too nice, and she can't fly away either because then she'd be leaving the rest of the palismen behind. However, neither Luz nor the Golden Guard want Kikimora to return to the Emperor's castle with the palismen, and the two form a truce.
Luz comes up with a plan to get the palismen away from Kikimora while en-route to the Emperor's castle. Using a fire and ice glyph combination, she will conjure up a thick mist, combined with pollen from sleeping nettle flowers that will create a sleep-inducing smoke, forcing Kikimora and her dragon to land. The Golden Guard is impressed by Luz's knowledge and compares Luz's glyph magic to the elemental magic once used during the Savage Ages. Just as he is about to talk about his knowledge of wild magic, the Golden Guard stops himself, knowing that such magic is restricted by the Emperor. Luz then asks why the Golden Guard wanted to join the Emperor's Coven, and he reveals to her that he's a powerless witch who was taken in by the Emperor and had his entire future planned out. Luz muses that the Golden Guard had his future planned for him, but he is envious of her freedom and ability to decide her own future. During this time, the cardinal palisman takes interest in the Golden Guard, but the guard is apprehensive and sees the creature as dangerous due to the fact that it is made of wild magic.
Soon, Kikimora is on the move and Luz returns the Golden Guard's staff before activating the glyph combo. The plan is successfully executed, but Luz forgets one crucial detail. She forgets that the Golden Guard has to take the palismen to the Emperor, and he prepares to double-cross her now that the staff is back in his possession. Luz criticizes him for what he is willing to do to the palismen for the sake of the Emperor, and acknowledges that the Golden Guard is not a friend, but an enemy. Visibly hurt, the Golden Guard lowers his staff and reveals his name, Hunter. Immediately after this, Kikimora attacks him. Due to the sleeping smoke, she cannot see Hunter very clearly. The two fought, with Kikimora managing to set fire to a strand of Hunter's hair. He easily defeats her and sees Luz leave with the palismen.
Later, at the Emperor's Castle, Belos scolds Hunter for failing to retrieve the palismen. Hunter responds that if he knew more about wild magic and how it cursed his uncle, he could potentially find a cure. This causes Belos to lash out and just barely miss hitting him with a sharp tendril. The Emperor, however, forgives Hunter, as he knows that he can do better. Hunter returns to his room to find that the cardinal palisman has chosen him to be its wielder. Hunter is hesitant, knowing that it is dangerous for the palisman, but he accepts his new staff.
In "Eclipse Lake", wanting to prove himself to his uncle, Hunter decides to go find Titan's Blood despite Belos' orders. Disguising himself as a regular member of the Emperor's Coven, Hunter attempts to sneak past Kikimora's expedition group to get to Eclipse Lake, but is caught by Eda, Amity and King, who are also searching for Titan's Blood. After realizing Hunter's identity on account of his "annoying voice", Eda and Amity capture him and tie him up.
Hunter cooperates with them, and even helps guide them to Eclipse Lake. However, when Hunter convinces Amity to untie him due to Kikimora having found them, he turns on Amity, kicking her legs out from under her and leaving her to be captured by the Emperor’s Coven while he runs off to get the Titan's Blood before anyone else can. Amity later finds Hunter in the middle of the dried-up Eclipse Lake, visibly exhausted from fighting his way through Kikimora and her guards. He then has a mental breakdown due to finding no Titan's Blood for Belos. Hunter begins digging a hole which he refers to as his "grave" before lying down in it. Amity attempts to console the distraught Golden Guard, telling him that he too can find people that care about him for who he is, rather than what they want from him, like she did.
Hunter seems to be willing to take Amity up on her offer to go with her, but upon seeing the portal key on Amity's neck, he quickly turns on her and tries to grab the key off her. A fight ensues, with Hunter (with the help of his new palisman) fighting both Amity and King in an effort to get the key. Hunter and Amity eventually get into a stalemate, and he manipulates her into giving him the key by saying that he knows where to find both her and Luz. However, Hunter seems to show some degree of remorse about this before leaving. On his way back to the Emperor's Castle, Hunter bonds with his palisman, thanking it for never leaving his side and even now being able to understand what his palisman is saying.
Hunter later brought the portal key to Belos, but instead of being thankful and grateful he told Hunter to leave which he did.
In "Any Sport in a Storm", Hunter sets to prove to Darius that is worthily of wearing the Golden Guard cape by finding some recruits to join the Emperor's Coven. He goes undercover at Hexside as a student named Caleb to find if any of the students are interest in joining the Emperor's Coven, but none of them were interest. However, he gets chased by Viney's pet griffin Pebbles until he is pulled down by Willow Parks who asks him to join her flying Darby team but was not interest and said he'll think it about it. Gus was suspicious about him as he never seen him before, Hunter claims he was a transfer from a different school.
In "Hollow Mind", Hunter is seen at the night market looking for a group of witches who were planning to use Wild Magic to enter Belos' mind, unaware to Hunter, the witches were actually Raine, Darious, and Eberwolf who were trying to enter Belos' in order to find out how to stop the draining spell. Hunter was getting ready to arrest him until Luz show up and the two accidentally got sent into Belos' mind. When they arrived, they were in a hall that shows Belos' "triumphs" over wild magic, these included Belos escorting people from a town to safety when Wild Witches were attacking, the other shows people joining his Coven system, and another one that shows Belos giving Hunter the role of Golden Guard. Hunter laughs at the idea of Belos being evil and looks at the pictures of Belos and he protect the isles from Wild Magic and how he brought unity to the Isles and why he's well like. When looking at the picture of him becoming Golden Guard, he notices Darius is sad and he never knew what became of the other guard before him.
They then meet a boy who supposedly presents Belos' guilt and remorse and then meet Inner Belos, Hunter is about to ask him to take them only for Inner Belos to have many eyes. As they run, they fall through a hole in a wall and arrive in Belos' real mind where he keeps his real memories and the hall above them is made of all the lies he tells though Hunter believes they're being punished for upsetting Inner Belos. They soon follow "Kid Belos" who seemingly wants to help them. However, as Hunter and Lu enter Belos' various memories, he begins to realize Belos is not who says he was. However, he continues to deny the simple facts until he discovers the bodies of all of the previous golden guards in Belos' mindscape. As they meet "Inner Belos", "Kid Belos" traps the beast in a ring and de-powers it, where it is revealed that the "Inner Belos" was in fact a being composed of the souls of all the palismen Belos had consumed, who had been trying to warn Luz and Hunter. They soon figure out that "Kid Belos" was in fact the Inner Belos all along and was manipulating them. Hunter presses him for answers on what he did to the other Golden Guards but Belos instead reveals that Hunter is in fact a grimwalker and tries to kill them both. However, Hunter manages to save them in time for Eda to transport them out of Belos mind and to the Owl House. Flapjack attempts to comfort Hunter as he suffers a panic attack after discovering the truth about Belos and he had been helping a monster the entire time.
The now reformed Golden Guard flies into panic attack and leaves the Owl House but not before ripping off the Golden Guard cloak after learning the truth about Golden Guard lineage as it means nothing to him anymore. He then realizes Belos will kill him the moment he returns to the castle so he decides not to return and search for a place to hideout.
In "Labyrinth Runners" it's reveal Hunter and Flapjack went to hideout at Hexside to avoid Belos' capture. While hiding out Hexside, Hunter has been doing research on grimwalkers and Flapjack went to get food for them.
Trivia[]
- He was first teased in a charity Twitch stream hosted by Dana Terrace as part of a request to draw half of a season 2 character.
- Like Emperor Belos, he does not use Spell Circles and instead uses his staff to do magic.
- Prior to "Hunting Palismen", it was theorized that the Golden Guard is Belos' son. There were many hints that imply and/or confirm this:
- During his first appearance alongside, he is seen standing at Belos' side. While this could be because he serves as his right-hand man, it would also make sense for Belos to have his nephew by him
- While their eye colors are different, Golden Guard's hair as seen in the Season 2 intro bears a resemblance to Belos' hair shown at the end of the first episode of Season 2.
- Lillith mentions her hate for Golden Guard due to receiving "special treatment" from the Emperor, even though he's a brat. His meeting with Luz and Eda confirms his cocky personality, implying that Belos shows nepotism towards him due to being his son, as Belos would never have someone with Golden Guard's personality on the Emperor's Coven. That being said, he is acknowledged as a prodigy, so it's also possible Belos puts up with him because of that.
- In the outro of Season 2, Belos and Golden Guard are shown together in a picture, further implying their familial connection.
- It's ultimately revealed that Golden Guard is in fact, Belos' nephew rather than his son. Though the fact that he created him means he’s someway the Golden Guard’s father.
- According to Dana Terrace, the Golden Guard is her favorite character.
- Dana Terrace said in a livestream that the previous Golden Guards had individual names before all being named "Hunter" by Belos referencing to his profession as a Witch Hunter. This as a grim joke.
- To create a grimwalker, one needs selkidomus scales, and since Belos put a bounty on the selkidomus and sent the Golden Guard to oversee the capture of it, this means he sent Hunter to gather materials to unknowingly create his own replacement.
- Another material needed to create grimwalkers is an "bone of ortet", in botany, an "ortet" is the original plant from which the clones are descended, this heavily implies that to create the grimwalkers, Belos had to desecrate his own brother's body. This is seemingly proved in "For the Future" where there's a tagged ribcage, possibly Caleb's, in Belos's grimwalker lab.
- As stated that they have a lot in common in the episode "Eclipse Lake", the Golden Guard served as a parallel to Amity Blight. Both are teenagers who came from high-class and prestigious families and were emotionally abused by their parental figures (Golden Guard to Belos and Amity to Odalia) which led them into becoming snobby and elitistic individuals until they later met Luz after she arrived at the Demon Realm which could change their life, allowing them to gain their courage to stand up towards their parental figures and calling them out for their cruel actions against them before moving on from them.
- In the episode "Hunting Palismen", Hunter is seen whistling the theme song of the series, making him one of the many characters to break the fourth wall.
- According to the Pitch Bible and Pilot, Hunter was originally named Willaim who was from 16th century England and put in an enchanted slumber that Luz woke him up from. Despite the fact that he tries to burn Luz at a stake many times for being a witch and a girl for wearing pants, Luz would've help William regain his memories and adjusting life to the Demon Realm.
- Thanks to their somewhat similar appearances and backwards ways of thinking (albeit not as extreme for William), it's likely that William's design influenced the design of Emperor Belos's self when he was a child
- As revealed by Dana Terrace during Momocon 2024, Belos can control what biological age each of the Grimwalkers come to life at, with Hunter being created as a toddler.
External Links[]
- Hunter on the Heroes Wiki
- Hunter on the Disney Wiki
- Hunter on the The Owl House Wiki
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