Inner Emperor Belos is a minor character of The Owl House. He is a metaphysical manifestation of Belos' thoughts and memories that exists in his mind.
Appearance
Body
Inner Belos is identical to the real Belos, except he emits a red glow. He can change his appearance to his past selves, Philip, and a younger version of what appears to be himself as a child, although the latter emits an indigo glow.
Personality
Unlike other subconsciousness beings such as Inner Willow, Inner Belos acts and maintains the same awareness as Belos, as though he is the real version. He is able to change into various personas, but in all of them, he remains cold and deceptive; even his child self maintains an innocent facade as a means to earn Luz's initial trust. However, he is more openly cruel than the real Belos, as shown when he laughs maniacally after he captures the fused palismen entity before slowly crushing one of its fallen palisman, and takes pleasure in torturing Luz and Hunter with the revelations of his personal connections to them.
He expresses the real Belos' true intentions and goals as being righteous, excusing his evils as working towards the greater good in protecting humanity from the beings of the Demon Realm and the Boiling Isles, calling them evil. When Luz rebuked this claim by stating that he is evil, he simply shrugged it off, deeming Luz crazy and therefore unreasonable, before attempting to kill her without hesitation or remorse.
Background
Inner Belos first appears as his child self inside Belos' mind when Luz and Hunter find themselves in it. Luz initially finds him crying in false memories, and at that same moment, a separate version of Belos appears before Hunter. Hunter mistakes it as the real Belos, but Luz notices the child Belos warning them to stay away from this being, before it takes a more eldritch appearance. The duo escape from the monster Belos and plummet to the real memories hidden within Belos' subconscious, where child Belos meets up with them. The two assume the entity to be Belos' sense of guilt and innocence, upon which they ask the child to help them through Belos' memories and escape the monster. Agreeing to help, Belos jumps through a few memories with the two following for more on Belos, while he gathers items from each of these memories.
After some time, they come to a collection of memories depicting the fates of the Golden Guards, and the monster Belos returns, where it is revealed to be the fusion of palismen souls trying to warn Luz and Hunter of the real Inner Belos, whom they realize was the child Belos all along. Inner Belos then activates the trap it set up from the memory items and incapacitates the palismen entity. Taking the appearance of Emperor Belos, Inner Belos walks up to the duo and sardonically congratulates them for capturing the palismen entity, stating it to be the palismen he has absorbed existing in his mind for years until the entity fades away completely. Hunter demands to know what Belos did with the Golden Guards, if it was not wild magic that wiped their family out. Scowling at Hunter's rebellion, Inner Belos identifies Hunter as a Grimwalker and remarks he looked the most like "him", which confuses Hunter. Right then, Hunter is dragged down into the ground, despite Luz's attempts to save him.
Now alone with Luz, Inner Belos goes on to reveal himself as a witch hunter and confirms not only his plans for the Day of Unity, but that Belos and Philip are the same person. Inner Belos then advances toward her, assuming the form of Philip briefly to torment her further, forcing her to retreat in fear. Luz questions why Belos is doing all this, and Inner Belos simply responds that he is trying to save humanity from evil. However, Luz fires that Belos is the one who is evil, to which he replies that he cannot reason with crazy, and transforms his right hand into a blade and launches it at Luz. However, Hunter bursts from the inner subconscious with vines that block the blade. Together, both Luz and Hunter rush towards the walkie-talkie, where Eda is counting down on the return spell, and they reach it in time to teleport away from Inner Belos and back to the Owl House.
Abilities
- Memory manipulation: Inner Belos has the ability to enter memories and can collect physical objects from each to take with him.
- Shapeshifting: Inner Belos has the ability to change his form to any of his previous ages, including his child self, how he looked as a young man, and his current self. He also has Belos's sludge-like morphing abilities, changing his limbs into axes and blades.
Sightings
| Season 2 | ||||||||||||
| The Owl House Main Theme: | Absent | |||||||||||
| The Owl House Credits Theme: | Absent | |||||||||||
| 1. "Separate Tides": | Absent | 11. "Follies at the Coven Day Parade": | Absent | |||||||||
| 2. "Escaping Expulsion": | Absent | 12. "Elsewhere and Elsewhen": | Absent | |||||||||
| 3. "Echoes of the Past": | Absent | 13. "Any Sport in a Storm": | Absent | |||||||||
| 4. "Keeping Up A-fear-ances": | Absent | 14. "Reaching Out": | Absent | |||||||||
| 5. "Through the Looking Glass Ruins": | Absent | 15. "Them's the Breaks, Kid": | Absent | |||||||||
| 6. "Hunting Palismen": | Absent | 16. "Hollow Mind": | Debut | |||||||||
| 7. "Eda's Requiem": | Absent | 17. "Edge of the World": | Flashback | |||||||||
| 8. "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Hooty's Door": | Absent | 18. "Labyrinth Runners": | Flashback | |||||||||
| 9. "Eclipse Lake": | Absent | 19. "O Titan, Where Art Thou": | Absent | |||||||||
| 10. "Yesterday's Lie": | Absent | 20. "Clouds on the Horizon": | Absent | |||||||||
| 21. "King's Tide": | Absent | |||||||||||
Behind the scenes
Voice
Inner Belos is voiced by Matthew Rhys. He is voiced by Alex Lawther when he assumes Philip's appearance, and Fryda Wolff in his child form.
Debut
Inner Belos appears in the episode "Hollow Mind".
