#hexide

Hexide: The one with found family and parental figuers.

Glandus: The only thing you get out of here is emtional trauma.

i mean they’ve been dating the longest and are probably like one of the power couples of hexide not to mention the boiling isles and i can just imagine them being seen as like the cool battle scarred upperclassmen that know everything and that young couples might go to for advice right

Raeda on game night 

(Rats below the cut)

A furry

A Drama queen (Darius)

The theater kids

God (but he's cute)

Two bird queens

A tube

A nerd

An entire school

Said school's kickass principal

So, what do you think a toh would be like if those were taken out? Like a toh without S1 and a third of S2?

You would end up with not TOH. And also with a show that probably did middling numbers at best because... Hexide presents a really big Catch 22 for the show. On the one hand, it has nothing to do with plot, narrative and tangentially at best works with the themes long term even if there are term moments that function. On the other hand, it is EASILY the best part of the show with most of the iconic moments in it, even if you're not a Lumity shipper, some of the best character moments, the only character even arguably a real arc (and frankly I still argue that Amity's arc is poorly done. Lumity isn't rushed because Amity's character was rushed and gutted.), and some of the clearer morals of the show. Because TOH's adventure element is where the plot is but it also gives zero fucks about that adventure element. Its villains are consistently incredibly weak and one note, often sharing the same note. The fights are mostly boring. Even the well animated ones have minimal good choreography or interesting elements going on with them and very rarely real emotional or characters stakes. The best fights of the series are easily Eclipse Lake and Covention and... That's about it. One of the things that helps those two fights admittedly is that not everything is energy blasts and vines in them and even then, Eclipse Lake isn't exactly clearing a high bar as far as choreography goes and its still lacking personality since one of the most memorable moments is Amity, graceful nerd Amity, sucker punching Hunter with a spiked gauntlet. Otherwise, the magic and world building is incredibly inconsistent. The characters are pointedly not interested in adventures, only Luz is so every adventure would be an argument and would get old fast. You'd probably get more episodes moralizing at you for their structure so I hope you liked Really Small Problems and Once Upon a Swap because that's likely what you'd get more of.

Actually, roll back a second because this IS important. One of the subversions of TOH is that classic question in fantasy of "Why is everyone going and getting themselves almost killed?" Eda and King embody that. It's explicit in S2 when Eda is trying to respect that King and Luz are kids but it's there in S1 too. In the second episode even when they consider Luz a fool because they see such little promise in the world that they don't interact with it. Which, you know, for a show is kind of a problem when two thirds of your main cast are lazy assholes who have to be bribed in someway to do fucking ANYTHING besides their mundane routine. It's part of why TOH fails so hard as an adventure show because they go on SO FEW ADVENTURES. It's also part of why Willow and Gus, who are enthusiastic and active, are inciters so much in S1 with three different episodes not being about them but them being the direct catalyst for those episodes because SOMETHING needs to get these fuckers to do ANYTHING. (Escaping Palisman, Covention and Really Small Problems for those curious. There may be more but those were three I could immediately think of.) And then there's the fact that as even you pointed out: You remove Hexide and you lose a LOOOT of the show. For something not actually important to the plot, it does consume at least a third of the show. Even the better adventure episodes usually were more about Hexide characters like Lost in Language or Adventure in the Elements, though calling that one adventure is admittedly a bit of a stretch. Like Hexide is so wrapped in everything going on, despite having little impact, it's hard to actually say what the show would look like without it.

Like I've made a lot of inflammatory statements but that's simply going off of what is in the show. These writers are not equipped to do an adventure show. Frankly, I wonder what show they would specialize best in due to the general issues with TOH, as its not like all the Hexide episodes are exactly bangers, but there is at least more joy and obvious interest in Amity and Romance. Which is also what would make it so that if you want TOH to have failed harder ratings wise... Take out Hexide. There's a lot of gay teenagers who watched the show after all. A lot of people wouldn't even talk about the show thought without Amity. Without there being such a forward facing, gay couple. Hell, take out Hexide and even Raeda becomes more awkward and Huntlow just doesn't happen. In fact, you lose a lot of your representation, admittedly just because the cast would be closer to a manageable size.

This is why I don't try to pretend that TOH could be magically rewritten and fixed. I don't pretend that a reboot would cause some magically perfect show to form from the aether now. TOH's identity crises, its fluff, its mishandling of things while being so confident about all these elements definitely needing to be here, to the point where they make up a FUCKING THIRD of the final season even, is part of what is identifiably TOH. You cannot cut out Hexide without a fundamentally different show.

And admittedly, probably just a really bad one. After all, Eda and King are not the Plantars. They aren't a part of a community that can get them to do things, they don't have their own real desires to motivate them and they don't have a real interest in the world outside their door. They're the cool kids who say they're so much better than everyone else and that their lives are so much better when really they do only lean against walls looking cool all day because acting like you're better than everything means you have nothing to fucking do.

Vee and Hunter had a strained relationship the first couple of weeks. Vee was scared of Hunter, him having the emperor's coven sigual and all. Hunter was afraid to talk to talk to her cause of this. Everyone saw it, but didn't want to interfere. Amity and Gus didn't want to make it worse, but Luz and Willow knew they would sort themselves out eventually.

And they did! A couple weeks in, Vee woke up at 1am from a nightmare. She slithered out to the kitchen to get water, milk, food, whatever would peak her interest. Whatever would distract her. Instead, she found Hunter. Hunter, sitting on the counter with his head in his hands.

Vee crept up to Hunter, attempting not to disturb him. She took her human form, hoping that the golden guard wouldn't see her as a monster. Part of her knew that he couldn't hurt her. He couldn't, he was too broken. In too much pain. But the louder part of her is scared.

Hunter jumped up as soon as she stepped forward, her now human feet creating a much more recognizable sound. A trauma response. His hair is long and wild, his eyes shadowed. He looked so young, so small. He was just a kid. A hurt, crying kid. Vee can't be afraid of that.

"Nightmare?" "Yea, you?" "Same."

The pair stood there, simply looking. Vee slowly shifted back to her natural form, a small smile. Hunter paused, staring at her.

Then it all came tumbling out. Off both of then. All the nightmares, the pain, the hurt. It was all there, in-front of them. And now they could see it like this, it was all so similar. Both felt so seen in that moment.

Nobody knew what happened that night. Hunter and Vee never spoke of it. But everyone knew something had changed. A strange unspoken trauma bond was held between the siblings. Cause thats what they where, siblings. Luz accepted it quickly, of course she did.