Collector

The Collector is a former antagonist of The Owl House, acting as the secondary antagonist of the second season and one of two central antagonists of the third season. A mysterious, god-like entity known as a Collector, he was originally trapped inside the In Between Realm where he spent centuries awaiting his release. When assistance arrived in the form of Emperor Belos, The Collector helped the emperor with the Day of Unity in exchange for his freedom. Once the event proceeded as planned, Belos went back on his word and abandoned The Collector in his prison, only to be freed from it later by King. Upon his release, The Collector took over the Boiling Isles and turned it into his personal playground with King as his bound companion.

During his takeover, The Collector resided in the Archive House with King, together partaking in a game with the transformed citizens acting out the adventures of King's life. After Luz helps him understand his wrongdoings he helps protect the citizens during Belos' attack and helps fix the Boiling Isles, including reversing the puppet spell placed on the Boiling Isles citizens. He chooses to return to the stars for some soul searching but occasionally returns to visit his new friends.




Appearance

Body

The Collector is a short humanoid being with childlike features. He has tan-yellow skin, bushy white hair and eyebrows, an upward-pointing nose, and a large pale blue blotch that eclipses the left side of his face, giving the right side the appearance of a crescent moon shape. The Collector's eyes are yellow and have narrow pupils with scarlet irises. His left leg also appears to be pale blue.

Forms

When Collector starts playing "Pac-Man" with King, Eda and Luz, he takes a creepy Pac-Man-like form, he's reduced to a giant rounded up head with a wide toothy maw to chomp them up. He still has his nightcap over his hair.
Clothing

The Collector wears full-body clothing resembling pajamas with an oversized collar and sleeves. His clothes are split between dark blue on the right and periwinkle-gray on the left. The sleeves have these colors switched, with the right sleeve being periwinkle with blue suns and the left sleeve being blue with periwinkle crescent moons, as well as a magenta border on the rims of the cuffs. He wears a dark purple nightcap with magenta trim and light star-esque spots. He wears dark blue shoes with light gray pom-poms on them. Additionally, he wears a light pink pendant with a purple crescent moon face around his neck.


Additional features

The Collector has three small, dark blue stars on his left cheek. On some occasions, usually when he is using magic, his eyes emit a bright glow.




Personality

The Collector is depicted as a childish and mercurial entity. He is motivated by simple desires, wanting to have fun and play games with others, which he shows in his interactions with Belos, but much like a child, he gets quite emotional and impatient when his wants are not met. He partakes in theatrics often, speaking riddles and rhymes, although he will quickly give up on harder words. Despite his childlike attitude, The Collector has proven to be cruel and heartless when crossed. With a temperamental nature and great power at his fingertips, The Collector is a dangerous and unpredictable force that will not hesitate to punish those who upset him and terrifying others into obeying his demands.

Initially, the Collector was nonchalant about the world around him, as he used his powers freely to manipulate reality in suiting his needs. This casual indifference caused him to see others as toys for his amusement, such as viewing the catastrophic events the Day of Unity would unfold as a fun activity or casually killing Belos by likening his payback for Belos's double-cross as a game of tag. In spite of his god-like power, The Collector understood little about mortals, failing to grasp that his warped perception of fun has dire consequences and thinks little of the lives of others. When King tried to show to him how harmful turning people into puppets was at one point, The Collector innocently reasoned everything was still a game of pretend, dismissing the people as little more than part of his game. It was also revealed later on that the Collector did not know the fragility of mortal life or what death means to them, showing that that everything he did in the Boiling Isles was never under malicious intent and always having been under the impression he could just bring people back as easily as fixing a broken toy.

Despite all his flaws, The Collector has an honorable side, as he kept his word and stopped the Draining Spell after King freed him from his prison. The Collector also values what King has to say, and King seems to be the only being he listens to. He has also displays some affability with Odalia Blight, whom he sees as a maternal figure, in spite of making her his servant to his whims.

Due to his childlike nature, he was quite naïve to the point he will take someone's word that they are telling the truth, a trait that has been exploited by others in getting The Collector to help them. As a result of being taken advantage of, The Collector loathes deception, especially when the person turns back on their promise. When Luz, Eda and King beat him in all the games, instead of retaliating, The Collector instead went to a corner to sulk, opening up to Luz when she approaches him and telling her how disheartened he is that everyone uses and lies to him, even his own siblings, and confessing that even if it's just pretend, he just wants friends, if it meant he would finally have one.

For all his callousness, The Collector is not inherently malicious. At heart, he is a lonely child who only wishes to make friends. However, having spent a long time imprisoned to be sought after for his magical power, The Collector fears being alone, and is wary that people will use him and leave him. A passage in The Collector's storybook further implies that, due to The Collector wanting to use his powers for his amusement, he viewed his race's observance and vindictive ways with disinterest. Coupled with his wish to be friends with King and make him happy, it is shown that The Collector yearns to have a companion like him who understands him. However, he is alien to how friendships work, at one point he asked if they were formed by forcing someone others to be be with them. Another consequence of this desire for companionship is The Collector getting bitter and resentful when those he befriends express strong attachments with other people. This is displayed by his feeling envious of King's friendship with Luz, and despite initial belief that King was his friend and would never turn against him, but after coming to believe King was planning to stop him, he became vengeful of King's double-cross and decided to trap Luz, Eda and King into nightmares to teach them a lesson.

Yet even his envy does not seem to supersede his interests; after they break free, The Collector still desired to befriend them, going against Belos' suggestion of wiping them out, showing that despite any animosity, he might have against people that might betray them or feel jealous of, Collector would rather befriend people than destroy them. Upon a new suggestion, The Collector goes to play with the trio in person, wanting to show them how much fun he can be and blissfully unaware how dangerous and potentially deadly his games are. When the trio shows him how they became friends and take him to a trip around the isles recalling their adventures, The Collector starts to open up more and bonds with them, starting to see a new dimension to friendship he never realized before.

After this, the Collector made an honest effort to be kind to people, once Luz shows him how she befriended people like Amity and Lilith through kindness and forgiveness. However, when The Collector took the lesson by heart and tried to do the same to Belos, naively assuming anyone could be forgiven, it came to him in shock when he saw Belos still tried to kill him, and when Luz took a blast meant for him dies in his hands, The Collector finally understood what death meant. The revelation sees a change in The Collector, as he cries at the fact he hurt many people so carelessly that he shows sadness and empathy for the first time. Furthermore, he reacts in befuddlement to what tears are after his eyes begin producing them, completely at a loss of words of what the feelings mean.

Following the revival of Luz, The Collector expresses a wish to save others in order to make up for his misdeeds. He volunteers to save everyone still left at the archives while Luz, Eda and King deal with Belos, and after he's defeated, an exhausted Collector is afraid Luz's friends will punish him and cowers, but is delighted when Amity helps him up.

After the Boiling Isles is saved, The Collector turns everyone back to normal and decided to retreat back to the stars to reflect and grow up on his own, signifying his adopting a more responsible mindset. With a new appreciation of life, he also becomes open to forming real bonds with the people around him. He is deeply touched when King gifted him Francois before departing and gifts Luz a portal door so she could come and go between the Human and Demon realms as many times as she wants. Despite living in the stars now, The Collector visits his new friends from time to time, putting up a spectacular display of shooting stars for Luz as a birthday present.
Background
Origin and imprisonment

The Collector hails from a race of celestial beings who seek to archive and catalogue all life in the Demon Realm. Although little is known about his own nature, it is shown that The Collector's childlike interests stood out from other Collectors, whose ways he held in disdain and went as far as to omit them in a Collector guidebook. At an unknown point in time, the Collectors encountered another magical race, the Titans. Fearing the Titans' power, the Archivists, The Collector's siblings, sent him down to the Demon Realm under the impression that he would be playing with the Titans. Upon arriving to the world, the Titans welcomed The Collector and quickly bonded with him, and he took a liking to their kids because of how cute they were. Unbeknownst to The Collector however, the Archivists slowly took out all the other Titans, which left the only remaining Titan furious at The Collector, believing he was the one responsible.

Afterward, The Collector was imprisoned inside the In-Between Realm by the last Titan, to keep The Collector from getting to his son, King. An ancient tribe of witches known as Titan Trappers would come to worship The Collector as the "Grand Huntsman" and slayer of the Titans. Their leader, Bill, claimed to be working with or for The Collector and further proclaimed The Collector wants them to find the last of the Titans, as only it has the power to free The Collector from his prison.

Trivia

The Collector's bust in the charity stream

He was first teased in the "Be Gay, Do Witchcraft" charity Twitch stream hosted by Dana Terrace as part of a request to draw half of a Season 2 character.

The Collector was listed in the credits for "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Hooty's Door", but went unnamed in the episode itself. It was not until "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" that this name was mentioned.

In all of his appearances, The Collector is credited as "The Collector". However, with the reveal that the term "Collector" is also the name of his species, it is possible the preface "The" may be intended to distinguish the character from other Collectors or all Collectors may share this title.

At the beginning of the scene where The Collector captured the Owl Beast, a different Titan skull shape can be seen in the background, which may mean he at least caught the Owl Beast on another Titan corpse archipelago. This skull resembles the Titan found at Titan Trapper Island.

Notably, The Collector looked very different from the one later seen, appearing extremely tall with a split color robe and glowing crescent moon on his face, and acted quite sadistic. It is possible that, despite being credited with the same name and voice actor, The Collector who transformed the Owl Beast is another individual, given the two appear different from each other.

In "Separate Tides", it is revealed that Eda has been cursed for about thirty years, meaning that the Owl Beast was turned into the scroll more than or about thirty years ago. However, given this Collector was free during this time, it is likely that the Owl Beast was turned into the scroll more than three hundred and fifty years ago, and The Collector was present then.

His prison orb resembles a Beast Ball, a type of Poké Ball from the Pokémon franchise introduced in Generation 7. According to Dana Terrace, the resemblance was a coincidence.

It is implied in "For the Future" that after the isles were taken over by The Collector, the nature in it started being affected by his powers in someway making plants and creatures similar to him such a day/night themed butterfly seen in the episode.

In the Amphibia episode "The Root of Evil", when Horace shows the Plantars a tour of Gardenton, they pass by a sun sign resembling The Collector's insignia.
According to Dana Terrace, The Collector uses he/him and they/them pronouns. This is shown by Philip and King referring to The Collector with masculine pronouns, and Luz using gender-neutral pronouns.