#heart host

I’ll be referring to Heart Host as ‘H’ for the rest of this post.  First off, let’s look at their icon on the cast page.

Obviously, we don’t know what their name is, or what they really look like yet, but the silhouette  can tell us some things!

- H is wearing a crown. (I’ll come back to this later.) 

 - Their shape is a heart. (I’ll also come back to this later.) 

 - H is smoking a pipe. (Believe it or not, I’ll also come back to this later, albeit briefly.) 

 - They have fluffy hair. (Not crucial, but fun to note!) 

 - And, finally, they have an almost cat-like ear. (Which is cute. That’s all.) 

‘Why does this matter?’ Let’s move on to some panels.

We’ve all seen this page, and it’s been analyzed to kingdom come, so I’ll keep this brief. 

If you look here, there‘s a snake with heart shaped eyes and body patterns. Said hearts are pink. 

This implies that H is represented by snakes, much like how rabbits are associated with Ava, as an example. 

But wait! There’s more! 

If you look here, the color of the vial with the sleeping pill matches the color of the hearts perfectly. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to predict that H and Sloth are linked. 

Now, if you remember Formspring, you might remember what Michelle once said about Sloth.

Because Sloth and mushrooms are connected in this, one can infer that H’s demon is this:

See the snake like tongue? The mushroom protrusion? Yeah.

And if you’re wondering why the pipe is relevant... both mushrooms and smoking a pipe can count as a drug, so to speak. Pair that with the sleeping pill in their vial and the imagery there makes perfect sense.

So! What about the crown? 

Well, in the two Alice books by Lewis Carroll, there are three queens.

The Red Queen and White Queen are lesser known, but that’s because they’re from the second book. (Interestingly, Alice does in fact become a queen at the end of the book, due to playing as a pawn for most of the game. Now, I’m not calling Ava a pawn in Wrathia’s plan to kill Titan, but... She’s a pawn in Wrathia’s plan to kill Titan.)

And it’s absolutely obvious who the third queen is.

The well known and very temperamental...

Queen of Hearts.

That, paired with this panel...

... makes H come off as a threat. 

And I’d argue that they are a threat! Just... maybe not in the way we all picture.

Here’s the thing. 

The Queen of Hearts isn’t so much of an antagonistic character as she is an obstacle. Just like how all of the other Wonderland characters are, essentially, obstacles to Alice during her journey.

In fact, her behavior around Alice is quite mercurial. During their first interaction, she blows up at her for acting rudely, but then proceeds to loudly invite her to a croquet game. Alice even manages to avoid being ‘sentenced’ to execution for the entirety of the game, unlike the rest of the players (sans the King and Queen). While they come into conflict again at the climax of the story, she still isn’t really a villain at all. She just has incredibly warped logic. 

That being said, here are my thoughts.

1. H is not meant to be a completely faithful interpretation of the Queen of Hearts.

I certainly think they are royalty, and maybe they will have their moments of irrationality and anger at some point in the plot, but they’re just based on the character. 

And 2. H is a threat... but they’re a threat to Ava’s pact.

Ava and Wrathia made a pact. The terms were simple. Ava has to help Wrathia kill Titan. In exchange, Wrathia will give Ava a new life.

Later on, Ava demanded a change. She wanted an ‘entirely different life’.

However, as Tuls said...

It’s currently not clear if Wrathia will in fact be able to accomplish Ava’s demand for an entirely different life, despite giving Ava her heart as collateral. 

However, it can definitely be argued that Ava’s side of the pact, if it does in fact remain unchanged, is easier to accomplish than Wrathia’s. 

After all, Wrathia wants to defeat an absolutely gigantic conqueror.

Ava just wants a new life where people miss her and love her. 

And while I doubt her side of the pact is fully fulfilled despite Wrathia believing otherwise, it’s absolutely reliant on her relationships with others. 

Here’s where H comes in.

A failure of pact results in  a ‘monster of failure’.

In their case, the way this would be accomplished is  in a few different ways. 

- Wrathia does not give Ava a new life. This doesn’t sound likely though because Wrathia desperately wants to go back to ruling and wouldn’t want to be fused permanently with someone she loathes. Also, she has a child to think about. If bringing Ava back to life counts, then she already accomplished too.

- Ava does not kill Titan.

Ava already has her doubts about the plan. Killing the owner of their part of the universe? Recruiting other pactmakers when her anxiety is so bad? It just seems like a pipe dream.

And, above all, her dream is to be loved. Appreciated. 

She lost all of her friends and loved ones because of Wrathia’s influence. She lost it all.

Now imagine if someone did love her. 

That someone loves her and appreciates her, just as she wants. And said someone doesn’t think killing Titan is feasible.

It’s too hard. Too risky. It’d just be easier to give up on that dream and live a simpler life. A better life. Why worry about Titan when you can just be happy? 

The Queen of Hearts was never an antagonist.

The Queen of Hearts was an obstacle. 

And what better obstacle than a snake? A careful, cautious, dangerous creature... who lies waiting in the grass to strike? 

TLDR; H is not dangerous to Ava personally (at least, not intentionally), but they are absolutely dangerous when it comes to the pact that Ava and Wrathia share.