Emperor Belos

The Befittingly freaky vistage of the Emperor of the Boiling Isles.

Emperor Belos (real name Philip Wittebane) is the main antagonist of The Owl House. Originally a human named Philip Wittebane, he arrived at the Boiling Isles from the Human Realm during the Deadwardian Era (The 1600s on Earth during the Connecticut Witch Trials), keeping a written record of his experiences on the Boiling Isles as he endeavored to find a way to return to the Human Realm. However, Philip began to harbor a hatred and resentment towards witches and magic because of the upbringing of his time period and his inability to adapt to the environment of the Demon Kingdom, which ended up in him wanting to do away with it to protect humanity. In order to fulfill his purpose, he acquired a new identity, a witch named Belos. He claimed to the witches that he had the ability to speak to the isle, that they were misusing magic by mixing it, and that he was the only one who had the right to do so, convincing them and creating a system of covens to restrict the witches' use of magic and knowledge, and those who resisted were declared "wild witches" who would face great punishments. Sometime later he was named emperor of the islands, gaining the respect and devotion of all, without knowing all the deception he has done towards them. He is currently ruling the isles from his castle with the protection of the Emperor's Coven, where he is preparing for the "Day of Unity", an event where he hopes to accomplish all his goals against the witches by using The Collector, a total eclipse, and a powerful draining spell performed by all the Coven Heads, which is only a cover for a mass genocide of all witches. He is voiced by both Matthew Rhys (Aloysius/Alrick in Infinity Train and Justin Kenyon in BoJack Horseman).

Gallery

Unmasked

Monster Form

Role in the series

In the SAFA timeline, Belos and Philip are two different people. Belos was originally meant as a political stand-in for otherwise the Administration of Conformity having complete domain of the Demon Realm and a legal-pardon mechanism for their most extremist actions, after the downfall of Administrator Ordain, Belos was placed in charge of the Conformity itself, albeit not too directly due to strict imperial rules that the Emperor has too many political matters and duties to have Conformity affairs added on, along with a stand-in leader existing in the form of a vulturine member of the Conformity, Inspector Deadmen, the Demon Realm's strongest necromancer, who will come to be the one who will cement the Emperor's wants for the Conformity in spite of both their influences being challenged by those who put Ordain in charge from the beginning. It's further revealed that Belos is part of a long family of powerful liches from the undead continent of Zothique who came to the Boiling Isles with his father Emperor Hellion and mother Empress Jezebeth who wanted the power to control Mlandoth and Mril Thorion, two undefined forces that created all opposites in the multiverse, as they desire to remake the world into a more peaceful one after turning on their leader Emperor Cordis. Jezebele would be killed by Philip Wittebane on Earth, and his friend/brother's relationship with a witch allowed him and Hellion to take revenge on him. During wild witch battles, Hellion and Belos are cursed into unstable bodies, and Belos is later killed, forcing Hellion to use Philip Wittebane as a vessel since he could not gain a Grimwalker, making Wittebane uncontrollably evil, killing his friend/brother, and getting Wittebane himself cursed by the vengeful witch wife, forcing him to carve glyphs into his skin and then cut his ears to look like a witch. He intends to prevent the Demon Realm from being turned back to the Fantasy Realm not just due to a risk of returning the chaos energy to the Titans that destroyed it and reawaken them to repeat the destruction, but it has gone darker than that as, thanks to his father's death in the hands of wild witches, he swore to finish his job by using both Eda and Lilith, and later the Collector, to keep controlling Mlandoth and Mril Thorion's power in order to feed the Day of Unity, which is his plan to not only exterminate all witches, but also unmake everything into the peaceful world his parents promised, seeing this as a better future than the restoration of the Fantasy Realm, as well as defeat Azathoth and ensure all Mischievers are defeated permanently, while also fighting off Azathoth in his own mind to keep him from hijacking the Day of Unity or there would be no resurrection. But when Emperor Belos stops the Titan of the Boiling Isles from being awakened 50 years ago by bringing law and order there in the result of tapping into the Magic Realm as a means to restrict and curb Mlandoth's power in the harvesting process, in briefly lead to stronger magic and the advent of Wild Witches and Mix-Magic, which created Nycrama, thus resulting in allowing the Conformity to become demonstrably strict and prevent "One Bad Accident" to invite "More Outer Headaches, and not just from Mischivers", he ensured that he would also fulfill his father's plans and bring honor to his family and hopefully cure them of their own curse which deteriorates their minds, souls, hearts, and very being as they were merely the result of the strongest and most magically-gifted of people killed by the Titan long ago as the beings that empowered Ordain to do the hard stuff while they created the object that killed the titan in question, Bo'il the Boiler, which is why he requires magic bile from the Titan's surviving-ish heart regularly. But when Luz deteriorates the beneficial impact he made, she unknowingly dooms his chances of defeating Azathoth and supporting his world and gets himself possessed by Ngyr-Korath, Mlandoth's greatest agent, while his son 'Ymnar leaks information about Luz and her friends to all the enemies she's ever made to ensure Ngyr-Korath always has leverage over her.