Harbinger

Ex-Emperors Coven head members punching Belos in the face.

I find Hunter criticism very interesting. I’ve seen people hate on his character before, saying that he’s a bad person, or that what he has done is “irredeemable”. They often compare him to characters like Lilith and Amity, who in their eyes have better redemption arcs. Now as many of you know, I absolutely adore Hunters character, but I am not gonna pretend that he’s perfect. I do agree with some criticisms made of him. He does need to apologize and make up for what he has done in the past. But some criticism I see of him just don’t understand his character at all, and this is why I am here making this post.

A lot of criticism I see is that he’s worse than season 1 Amity and Lilith. That he has done much worse things than them. But you have to understand that what he was doing he genuinely thought was good and okay. We’ve seen in the show many times where he doesn’t understand basic human decency or right from wrong. He never did any of the things he has done with malicious intent, because he grew up to believe these things were okay. Unlike Lilith who knew cursing her sister would be a bad thing to do, yet she did it anyways. Or Amity who knew Boscha was a bad person, and knew that she shouldn’t have bullied Willow, yet she did it anyways. They knew it was bad, but continued to do it. I’m not hating on these characters at all, I absolutely love these characters, but it’s just not fair to say they were morally better because the things they did weren’t as “extreme”.

I know a characters past doesn’t excuse what a character has done. Amity had a controlling Mom who wanted her to cut her friendship with Willow, which led to Amity bullying Willow by her own acts. Or Lilith who has a need to succeed and prove herself, so she thought the only way to do it was to curse her own sister. Their reasoning doesn’t excuse their actions, but what matters is what they do in the present. If they just continued being a horrible person, and not trying to correct what they did wrong than that would be bad. But we see Lilith make an active attempt at making up with her sister, and we see Amity make an active attempt at bettering her friendship with Willow, and apologize for what she has done.

This then leads me to Hunter, where I feel like is one of the few times where you can actually excuse his past for his actions. He was manipulated his whole life into thinking what is wrong is right and what is right is wrong. He didn’t have a normal understanding of good and bad. He was heavily sheltered since he was made, and all he had were these horrible influences surrounding him in his childhood. People who only care for themselves. Liars, backstabbers, manipulators, etc. He grew up with a very messed up view on the world because of this. He says things like “friends backstab each other all the time” or “if you don’t have a use, your dead. That’s just life.” I’m paraphrasing the lines here, but you know what I mean. When he was sending Willow and Gus and the rest of the EE to join the EC he genuinely didn’t believe what he was doing was wrong. He only saved them because of what will happen to their Palismen. Now I know saying that makes it seem the Hunter is selfish and he only cares of the Palismen, but that is so far from the truth. Before Flapjack, he thought Palismen were just dangerous creatures, and they were just a use for Belos to remain out of his cursed form. But meeting flapjack made him realize otherwise. He needs something to change his worldview on things since it’s currently so messed up. Flapjack helped changed his view on Palismen, and he saw that they didn’t deserve to die, and that they were just innocent cute creatures. So that made him want to save the EE from being joined into the coven. He didn’t do it for them because at this moment his still didn’t find what he was doing was wrong. He was never doing it in a evil manner, he never meant to hurt the EE, he just didn’t know better.

But despite his horrible upbringing, he still is a good person. You can see these walls break. In Hollow Mind, he’s always seen his uncle as a genuinely good person, but when he starts to see things that could contradict that, he starts getting anxious and excusing his actions into reasons that were “for the greater good”. But when he sees Belos’ dialogue with The Collector he knows he can’t deny anything now.

This moment right here really shows Hunters true heart. If he were truly a bad person he wouldn’t have cared to ask or question what Belos has done to the other golden guards. He accuses Belos and says “it wasn’t wild magic was it”. This is the moment he realized Belos was a bad person. That he was lying and manipulating him this whole time. Which then leads to Hunter immediately going against Belos. If Hunter was evil and didn’t care for the bad things he was doing, he would still side with Belos and stay loyal to him. Or at the very least still have some faith in him. He even says in Clouds Over the Horizon “that my Uncle is evil”. He now knows that he is evil, and there is no way in hell that Hunter will ever go back to him, or give him the benefit of the doubt, like he previously was in the first half of Hollow Mind.

After Hunters defection, we can see him actively helping the good guys. We see him help Gus and Hexside from getting Sigils, we see him help save Amity, we see him help save Luz. We see him constantly saving Willow and Gus. We see him try to stop the DOU. Although he has not apologized yet, he does make an attempt at being a better person and helping the people he’s wronged. And I have faith that there would be an apology in season 3.

Some criticism I see is that his whole redemption arc is destroyed because he was already inherently good because the other golden guards were inherently good as well. But when I see that critic I just know they don’t even understand his arc. His arc is breaking away from his manipulated mindset from Belos. We have seen throughout the whole show of how manipulated he was. We can also see that he was always a good person. Like in Hunting Palismen when he saved Luz, and put his weapon down. We can see Amity’s words to him in eclipse lake did get to him and we can see him almost open up to her. We can see him genuinely being happy and being kind with the EE. He was always shown to be good throughout the show. His redemption wasn’t him going from a bad guy to a good guy. It was him realizing the manipulation of Belos and the emperors coven, and getting a better understanding of what is good and what is bad. He betrayed Luz because he had a mission to do, he attacked Amity because he had a mission to do, he betrayed the EE because he had a mission to do. He never hurt them because he was evil, he did it because of his horrible mindset of the world. He believed that Belos was the only person in the world that truly loved him, he believed what he was doing was for the good of all witch kind. But Hunter learning that all of that was untrue, and that he was being manipulated is what is important. He’s starting to learn what is normal and what is good, and that is what his arc is.

Another criticism I see is that his arc was rushed. Now I do agree with that, but a lot of that is because of the cut season 3. But even though it was rushed I feel like the creators did a good job at handling his character. He still has a lot to work on, and the creators may not have the time to go over it, but from what we have gotten, I can see that he is on the right path.

When you’re so fucked up so you relate to literally every characters problems.

Not to mention the plethora of other problems he has that not even the other characters can relate to.

How is he even functioning at this point 😟