Yikes That Whole Amity Bit Is Scary, Makes Me Wonder What Would Have Happened If That Hit Would Have

Yikes that whole Amity bit is scary, makes me wonder what would have happened if that hit would have actually connected.

His fighting style is pretty combat oriented. When we see other characters fight, it the magic that doing the heavy lifting (Eda, Lilith, even Willow with her plants do the action). For Hunter, it’s actually mainly using his staff as a literal weapon then just firing blast or having objects become the weapons (plants, abomination,ect). The staff bashes are pretty funny to think about since they sort of stand out compared to other moves.

There a lot of wiggle room in thing regarding anything with the Emperor coven. (Basilisk, golden guards, past coven heads, trials, erasing of history, the whole Wittebane situation, grimwalker origin- SO MUCH that could be explored). Also a reason I actually adore your fics. Love your Golden Guards and past coven heads. Jasper is wonderful, never stop hurting him please.

Oooo I love that interpretation, the idea that Belos wanted his grimwalker to turn against him to justify his actions against Caleb. Makes me think about a situation where Hunter is the devoted tool he’s probably fantasized about but doesn’t actually want. The idea of Hunter being so broken down he loses his kind heart. Wowie lots of angst in that one.

Been seeing some discussion on Hunter’s kill count so let me throw in my interpretation

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Hunter isn’t some cold blooded killer. In fact in the show we see him avoid doing any messy work. Like having the owl gang try to kill the selkidomous or letting Luz and the Palismen go. Or the fact that during the fight with Amity he never did anything to imply he was trying to kill her, he didn’t even try restraining her. He just was trying to snatch the key and leave the entire fight. If anything, it was Amity pulling out the hurting and restraining moves lol.

But rather where I think there is violence was because of the inherent nature of the two missions. Mission 1 was him trying to kill the selkidomous, the only reason that didn’t happen was because there was people there to do it for him (even if they didn’t). So that makes me wonder, where there other beats killing missions he had to do? I’d imagine so, and I guarantee he didn’t have anyone to the work for him those times. So there’s that, Hunter killing some beasts.

Mission 2 was the palismen , and also before the mission we see him handing a palismen to Belos. So yeah, dude has probably taken ownerless palismen in the past, and has given palismen to Belos to kill and eat so theirs that. I don’t think he’s directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of palismen but numbers do add up.

Also another thing I want to mention is direct responsibility, I’d imagine a lot of the violence or deaths caused by Hunter weren’t directly from him but the consequences of his job.

Now next is where we can be a bit imaginative, I pretty sure it’s stated in the show that Hunter only goes on missions on the weekends. So dude is pretty much just hanging out in the castle in the weekdays. That means he was probably doing paperwork, and considering he’s a coven head, he has a lot of power. So on the weekends rather than him going on missions, he was sending out scouts. That means anything that the scouts did, that he may have sent was also partially his responsibility. So if the scouts where to arrest, or kill any witches, then Hunter would likely feel at minimum partially responsible (I feel like he’d feel incredibly guilty as if he directly killed them)

Now for the actual mission, obviously he’s likely captured wild witches. While he was shown to struggle a bit but learn and adapt with palismen magic. When we see him with his artificial staff, he’s highly skilled with it. He fought pretty calmly with Luz and Eda at the shores and can travel a high speeds with it. I’d be more amazed if he didn’t manage to arrest anyone. Anyways, so here’s Hunter, he’s arrested some wild witches and he’s proud of himself. He takes them to the conformatium, he thinks that’s the end of it only for those witches to be privately petrified. We know that public petrifications hadn’t happened in 30 years but we see that they still happen in private.

It’s a bit dubious if we know if Hunter knew of these petrifications or not, much less arresting witches knowing they’re going to be petrified. But I think he possibly may have considering in Hollow mind he excuses those death of the sigil witches as just Belos perfecting sigil magic and literal terrorism for the greater good.

That’s where I think a kill count comes to play, that Hunter arrested wild witches knowing there may have been a possible chance of them dying. Therefore making him a factor for death. (Not to confuse with cause of death)

Another idea is him accidentally killing, like using too much force or miscalculating a spell. Another idea is killing in self defense. Assassinations aren’t much of a surprise in the castle so I don’t doubt there’s a chance that he may have killed an assassin or someone trying to cause bodily harm on him. Again a situation of a fight with a wild witch going too far. I don’t doubt a wild witch willing to fight Hunter to death knowing it was likely he was going to arrest them and lead them to a possible death.

One more, a messed up one but one that isn’t too out of character is having Belos having Hunter test his loyalty by being able to kill for him. Or Belos having Hunter kill someone in the privacy of the castle, like a traitor coven member (I doubt Raine and the Cats are the first to attempt a infiltration) Hence, where the context I was thinking of for this drawing actually comes from. (“May Titan have mercy on you”).

Again this is me just counting deaths and not any other potential violence he may have committed (not resulting in deaths. Even if someone doesn’t die, the violence inflicted upon them could still be life changing. The idea of Hunter giving someone a disability or trauma is pretty sad :( and not even impossible). Hunter in the show is pretty desensitized to violence in the way he talks about it or thinks of it in Any sport in a storm and Hollow mind.

So yeah, that’s my Hunter kill count, a couple if beasts, dozens of palismen and handful of actual witches, my guess 3-6. Could be higher but I’m trying to be a bit more realistic, even if I admittedly want to dramatize it lol.

Anyways that my rambles, anyone have their own thoughts on this?

We can love the person he has turned out to be without whitewashing the crappy things he has done

Guys, I know Darius is cool, but can we please stop victim-blaming Hunter and acting like the way even the good adults in his life treated him is NBD?

‘Cause I keep seeing a lot of “okay Darius was mean to Hunter at first, but Hunter was a brat who got the job because of nepotism, so…” comments.

And look, I really think people in general are hugely underestimating just how badly Hunter was screwed over not just by Belos but by *ALL* the adults around him.

1) Let’s start by establishing something first: Hunter was never a brat to anybody in the castle.

Now, to be clear, even IF Hunter had been a brat, people 30 years older than him should still have not made his bad situation worse. If there are two people, and one of them is an adult while the other is a kid, the adult is supposed to keep their cool even if the kid acts out. You can punch up but you can’t punch down.

But that point is moot because all the evidence we have points at Hunter being a little nerd who adored the adults around him and was desperate to please them.

Exhibit #1: Dana’s official art, where Hunter freaks out over being slightly less overworked because it will make Lilith hate him. Even with the mask, you can tell he has a frantic expression.

Exhibit #2: the Hunter’s Palisman Observation stream, when Hunter has a question and is looking for an answer, he reaches out to the Coven Heads to ask them. He sees them as wise and knowledgeable, and wants to learn from them. That makes it extra hurtful that “Darius ignored me, as per usual. Eberwolf hissed at me, also as per usual.”

Exhibit #3: in ASIAS, we learn that Hunter genuinely loves rules and authority. Does that sound like somebody who’d disrespect an adult in charge?

Exhibit #4: pretty much the entirety of ASIAS. The whole reason Hunter went to Hexside is because an adult who technically ranks below him gave him an order.

There is a grand total of TWO examples in the series where Hunter talks back to an adult.

The first one is when he sees Kikimora again after she tried to murder him.

Note that he never tells Belos what she did, even though he didn’t realise that she had recognised him by his burnt hair, so he thought that she had actually bought his “travellers found me” story and wouldn’t be able to respond to his accusations with any of her own. He could have easily thrown her under the bus, and actively chose not to, even after she almost killed him.

The second one is in ASIAS, where an angry Hunter confronts the Coven Heads after they rescheduled the meeting behind his back, right after they physically pushed him aside hard enough to almost make him fall and walked away smirking at his misery.

Note that, immediately after, he looks like this. Arguing with the Coven Heads makes him miserable. He doesn’t want to fight them. He’d much rather ask “how high” when they say “jump.” But they still casually assault him.

They all knew that Belos had given him the order to leads the meeting. And they knew that Belos is a control freak who is infamous for his lack of mercy. They knew that Belos would see their decision to reschedule as Hunter’s fault, even though they did it behind his back.

If you think he was being arrogant or whatever here, I want you to look me straight in the eyes and tell me that if your coworkers screwed you over in front of your infamously vicious boss and walked away smirking while pretending they can’t see you and literally pushing you around, you would totally keep your cool.

2) The nepotism excuse also doesn’t work.

Nepotism is supposed to make your life easier.

Hunter is a child covered in scars with huge eyebags and absolutely no social life whatsoever who rolls over and shows his neck the second an authority figure expresses any displeasure with him.

It’s plain to see that getting Belos’ “special treatment” is harming him.

Hunter eventually does pull out the “Belos’ nephew” card, in an attempt to get Darius to back off.

But by this point, he:

- knows he has disappointed Belos, something that he fears more than death (as per Eclipse Lake)

- has been assaulted by the other Coven Heads…

- …who added insult to injury by pretending they couldn’t see him, really rubbing it in that they find him worthless

- and then Darius, a man twice his size and thrice his age, grabbed him, spun him around, and stole his clothes

Tl:dr: Hunter is not acting entitled here, he is acting *cornered*. He is lashing out because he is scared, and like any scared kid he is calling out to his “dad.”

And the moment Darius tells him that he has to earn his position as Golden Guard, Hunter immediately agrees to do anything. There is no entitlement there, only a desperate desire to be good enough.

3) On the Boiling Isles, a half-a-witch is at best a social outcast and at worst a target.

For starters, a half-a-witch can’t get an education. You have to be able to perform spells to be allowed to go to school.

Granted this is for Amity’s advanced class, but the idea is that you have to get there eventually, even if it takes you much longer than the gifted students. In order to go to Hexside, you must at least have the potential to use magic.

Before Luz came into the scene, glyphs were a forbidden knowledge that had been lost for hundreds of years. Add in that palismen are close to extinction, and there is simply no way for a half-a-witch to do magic.

So, you can’t go to school. But can you at least get a job?

Ah. No.

Eda gets robbed in public by an officer of the law, in plain view of a huge crowd, and their reaction boils down to “sucks to be powerless.”

A half-a-witch essentially has no rights. They are not treated as citizens. It’s completely legal to ban them from essential functions and to refuse them pay for their labor.

If Eda had not found the Selkiedomus’ treasure, she and her family would have starved.

The discrimination against magicless creatures is so bad that even Hooty, arguably the nicest character in the show, still expresses scorn for them.

Hunter wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest here.

Being magicless is basically the BI equivalent of being disabled in a society that actively favours eugenics.

4) So, what did Darius do that was so bad?

Now, before anybody takes this post as Darius bashing, I want to bring up why he did it.

- Darius was clearly traumatised by the death of his mentor…

- …who not only died, but also died in circumstances that must have been highly suspicious at best, so that Darius never even got proper closure and has been living with that open wound for years…

- …in addition to the fact that Darius is extremely protecting of his loved ones, so that he must have felt the urge to protect the memory and legacy of his mentor…

- …and that’s made ten times more painful if the replacement, who acts like the antithesis of everything his beloved mentor stood for, looks almost exactly like his mentor.

Can you imagine the grief is somebody you love with all your heart dies, and then some time later they appear to come back as an insult to everything they were?

So, I’m not denying that Darius had his own reasons here, nor am I arguing that he is a terrible person.

In case you don’t know, I like Darius so much I wrote a meta titled “Why Darius is a much better person than Fandom gives him credit for.” I like the guy, okay?

Nevertheless, he almost caused irreparable damage.

One of the reasons Hunter is so desperately loyal to Belos, is that Belos is the only one who never looked down on him for his lack of magic.

Now of course the bitter irony here is that Belos is racist against witches.

But Hunter didn’t know that.

All Hunter knew was that every person he ever met thought he was worthless for the way he was born, *except* for Belos, who said he was special.

And what does Darius do? He goes and reinforces Hunter’s belief that nobody but Belos will ever accept him.

Now, we know that Darius wasn’t really talking about magic there. We don’t know if all grimwalkers lack magic or just Hunter, but either way, later context clues indicate that he was talking about “strength of heart” or something like that.

Nevertheless, he most definitely came across like he was saying that Hunter has no place in the EC because he has no magic.

And Darius is not stupid. He had to know what he sounded like. And he didn’t bother correcting Hunter’s assumption, let him believe that the problem with him were the circumstances of his birth.

Why did Hunter befriend the Emerald Entrails? Because he accidentally stepped on a griffon’s tail. It was sheer dumb luck. If Hunter had put his foot a couple of inches aside, he never would have met Willow.

If not for a single stroke of extraordinarily unlikely good luck, Hunter would have gone back to the castle more convinced than ever that Belos was the only person in the world who could ever give a damn about him, the only one Hunter could ever love and trust.

Darius’ words would have driven him even further into the grasp of his abuser.

This is on top of the fact that Hunter canonically reaches out many times to Darius and Eberwolf over the years, and they always responded by giving him the silent treatment. Again, “Darius ignored me as per usual, Eberwolf hissed at me also as per usual.” How can they blame him for being an ignorant fanatic, if they have systematically rebuffed any and all of his attempts to talk to the only people in the castle who are not Belos’ stooges?

And on top of the fact that “you always do as you are told” is one hell of a line to give a kid *who gets blades thrown at his face* if he says a single word Belos doesn’t like. Hunter’s devotion to Belos is also his shield from violent beatings. If Hunter ever acted “rebellious” to Belos, Belos wouldn’t just send him to his room without dinner.

5) Has Darius changed?

Duh.

6) So what’s the problem?

Remember when people were like “Amity is doing right by Willow now, but she still needs to apologise”?

And when people were like “Alador has finally started walking in the right direction towards eventually becoming a decent father for his kids, but the first step was admitting that he treated them horribly”?

As far as I know, nobody was like “Amity is cool now so there is no need for her to say sorry to Willow, and Willow kind of sucked anyway” or like “Alador is cool now so wtf does Amity have to bitch about and move his hand away, just hug it out and ignore the past”?

What this whole tl;dr essay boils down to, is that S3 needs to have a scene where the good adults in Hunter’s life acknowledge that they did him dirty, without excuses and without victim blaming.

That’s all.