Ah, at last!

Here we are at the other side of Star vs. the Forces of Evil’s “The Battle for Mewni.” Was it everything I thought it would be? Yes, I think so; it was even more than that. There’s a lot to unpack in these episodes, and I plan to take my time in doing so. (But not too much time.)

This post will discuss Star, Moon, and Eclipsa and the connection they all have to a mythological concept called the triple goddess, with each of these characters representing one of the three archetypical aspects of the goddess – Maiden, Mother, Crone. I will discuss the nature of each aspect, while touching upon the comparisons and contrasts we are meant to perceive by way of these analogues, and I will explain what I think the implications are of the triple goddess’s presence.

This will be a long post.

First, Some Acknowledgements

This post owes a nod to my good friend @malthuswibble, whose post on reddit regarding possible symbolism and mythology behind the cauldron is probably more precise and insightful than anything I will ever post, and to reddit user celestialwolf157, who wrote an extensive analysis on Queen Moon which illustrates her shortcomings as a leader. My analysis will touch on some of the same ideas from these two essays, and I would strongly encourage you to not only read these posts but follow their writers as well.

Though it might sometimes feel like a solitary activity, critical analysis, whether literary or not, is a community effort. One writes critical analysis so that others will read it and discover something new, and, as a literary critic, one is inspired by both the work in question – Star vs. the Forces of Evil, in this case – and by what other people have to say about it – that is, the Star community and their often-thoughtful observations. Just as I read your posts and take something valuable from them, it is my hope that you will read my posts and find something worthwhile in them for yourself. In this way – together – we can create new meaning. Thank you for this opportunity!



With this in mind, allow me to present something which has taken far too long to reach you.

The Triple Goddess

Simply put, the triple goddess is the idea that there is a set of goddesses, each representing three allegedly prototypical aspects of womanhood or three spheres of influence. Whether there is a genuine basis for the triple goddess in historical mythology is something best left to be settled by scholars more talented than I am and is, in fact, irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion; as a literary concept that writers regularly make use of, whether in earnest or in parody, the triple goddess has proven to be useful.

There are, of course, some historical examples of tripartite goddesses – colloquially called “triple goddesses” – many of which have made their way into not only modern paganism but also popular fiction:

Greek goddesses (The Fates, the Furies, Hecate)

Norse goddesses (The Norns)

Irish goddesses (The Morrigan)

But I would argue instead that instead of a literal mythological analogue, Star, Moon, and Eclipsa instead fit the syncretic and modern-pagan idea of triple goddess: three women, each one at a different stage of her life. Yet there is some confusion and complexity in their roles, with Eclipsa, whom we know the least about, presenting the greatest uncertainty.

An ordinary reading of the triple goddess in “The Battle for Mewni” might place the characters thus:

Star, being a young woman, is the Maiden, who symbolizes the beginning as well as innocence, potential, and youth.

Moon, being Star’s mother and motherly in general, is the Mother, who symbolizes the middle as well as experience, fertility, and vitality.

Eclipsa, given her advanced age and (forbidden) knowledge, is the Crone, who symbolizes the end as well as wisdom, exhaustion, and death.

And that’s a fine reading that neatly ties everything together. However, I believe that, like so many other things in Star vs. the Forces of Evil, this seemingly-obvious established order has actually been turned on its head; there is more going on under the surface than there appears to be at first glance. To discover that, we can make use of the concept of the triple goddess to examine the ways in which these three characters don’t fit their molds – and, from that comparison, discern what the series is trying to tell us.

Let’s start with Star.

The Agony of Birth

A caveat before we begin: I am not a woman; I am a man, and to be quite frank, I don’t feel that I am qualified in the slightest to write about the pain of childbirth (or indeed any of the experiences of motherhood). When I write about these things, I must go by what the women in my life have told me, or what I have seen myself or read from others. With that admission – because it seems clear to me that “The Battle for Mewni,” at least in part, is about childbirth and the challenge of raising children, in addition to the difficulties women face as they transition into new stages of life – I will nevertheless endeavor to navigate this maze as best I can.



The Maiden, as I mentioned earlier, symbolizes the beginning of a woman’s life. And while Star certainly is still youthful, energetic, and reckless, the princess has undoubtedly tempered herself from the marauding ball of energy she was in “Star Comes to Earth,” the very first episode of the series, has she not? She has matured and will continue to mature further.

Ultimately, I think, Star vs. the Forces of Evil is about Star becoming a woman, if not a queen. Like the magical girl shows that it was inspired by, Star vs. the Forces of Evil uses the magical girl transformation – bound together with the literal butterfly’s metamorphosis, a conceit unique to the series – as a metaphor for the transition from girlhood to womanhood. “The Battle for Mewni” has, in addition to clear examples of her change, potent symbolism underscoring the nature of the transition.

In “Return to Mewni,” we have clear evidence that Star is separating from her parents and becoming her own woman:

Star does things differently from Moon at every turn, often to the latter’s chagrin.

This theme of children struggling against their parents is further reinforced in “Puddle Defender” when both Moon and Buff Frog prevent Star from sneaking off on her own; Star does so anyway.

Star knew that her mother was too weak, both magically and in terms of will, to do what was necessary, so she decided to bear the burden herself – to sacrifice herself in order to restore magic.

That is an absurdly heavy burden for a child to bear. That Star determines – on her own – that it is a burden she alone must bear is a clear indication of her maturity, the contrast between Star and her mother made all the more stark by Star’s choice.

It is in this otherworldly realm that the episode “Toffee” presents a startling and extraordinarily powerful metaphor:

The cauldron is an ancient symbol of femininity; more specifically, it is a symbol of the womb. (You may recall me briefly touching upon this topic in my post about the Holy Grail in Star vs. the Forces of Evil.)

That Star draws from it an egg – both a figurative egg and literal egg with a literal fetus inside of it, as she is screaming in agony the entire time – is simply astonishing to me. This entire scene is an incredible metaphor for childbirth.

I once said that the writers of Star vs. the Forces of Evil have a stunning command of visual metaphor. This moment with Star and the cauldron far surpasses anything yet seen in the show. It is, far and away, one of the most potent pieces of figurative storytelling in modern animation.

Too, this scene hearkens back to something @kyotosummer wrote in her (not-enough-attended-to) posts on connections between Sailor Moon and Star vs. the Forces of Evil: the Galaxy Cauldron.

Star reaching into the cauldron makes the connection I was missing between universe, cauldron, and egg. (I believe it’s significant, too, that the egg is made from pudding – but that’s a topic I shall cover in another post.)

It’s this scene, therefore, that firmly establishes Star not as a mere Maiden but as a young girl on the cusp of womanhood, one who is cognizant of her potential for bringing new life into the world and of the sacrifice that womanhood often requires.

Indeed, I answered a question not too long ago in which I remarked on the significance of the term “light-bearer”: for, as we can clearly see from both the opening of the show, some of the episode posters, and the closing credits, Star is intended to be the single light remaining in a world of darkness: the light-bearer, the one who carries the light.

Crucially, bear can also mean “give birth to” – and the cauldron scene makes it clear that it’s both of these senses which are meant. Star gives birth to and carries the light.

I wonder: do young women, watching “The Battle of Mewni” – do these scenes speak to them and make them more aware of the transformations that lie ahead for them, just as Star undergoes transformations in her own life? Does this show help them realize the capacity of birthing not only literal new life but also entire fictional universes – universes that feel just as palpably real as one’s own heartbeat?

After all, isn’t Star herself the product of someone who gave birth to her in our own world – that is, Daron Nefcy?

I wonder.

Yet even as Star wrestles with the fact that she is transitioning into a woman, her own mother, Queen Moon, has separate struggles: the challenges of being a queen, of being a wife, and of being a mother. In all three areas, she unfortunately comes up short. In this next section, I will discuss how Queen Moon falls short of the archetype of the Mother.

The Trial of Motherhood

In “Return to Mewni” and “Puddle Defender,” we can plainly see that Moon’s actions are informed by one single goal: keeping her daughter safe. But despite the fact that she obviously cares for Star, Moon clearly does not understand her daughter at all:

Star lacks Moon’s cautiousness, and Moon is unwilling to accept the reality that her daughter is a different person from her – something she remains blind to until the very end. Only Glossaryck understands Star’s true nature (and indeed prepares accordingly). This comes up prior to “The Battle for Mewni”; recall Glossaryck’s conversation with Moon in “Page Turner”:

Moon: Why all the riddles? You were always very direct when you were training me.

Glossaryck: (sighs) Well, it finally happened. Every queen wants to tell me how to do my job. “My training was different.” You know what Glossaryck hears? “Me, me, me, me, me! I’m going to pull my mentor away from his job so I can be in the spotlight again.” The only Butterfly to leave me be was your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Eclipsa, the Queen of Darkness – whose chapter, coincidentally, you left Star alone with when you pulled me into this wonderland of red tape.

[…]

Glossaryck: You all did this because you don’t trust me, and what’s worse, you don’t trust Star. My queen. My queen, your training was different because Star is different. You have to have faith in her to make choices that are best for her. And my job is to train Star to be a queen.

But by the time “The Battle for Mewni” comes around, it seems Moon has forgotten Glossaryck’s words to her; instead of helping Star, she’s still trying to control what Star says, thinks, and does. In the earlier example in “Return to Mewni,” Star’s instincts to fight Ludo’s rats in combat could have worked to the pair’s favor if, instead of focusing on scolding Star, Moon had joined her in dispensing with the rats. But by turning her attention on Star and what she allegedly did wrong, Moon inadvertently gives the rats the opening they need to sabotage their journey.

Star’s impulse to openly challenge her enemies is constantly at war with Moon’s drive to preserve the status quo through stealth and subterfuge. Ultimately, Star’s philosophy is proven right when she restores magic and defeats Toffee – something that Moon would never have accomplished simply by hiding and waiting.

And there’s the other matter: Moon simply isn’t strong enough. In “Baby,” we learn that Star’s power far exceeds her mother’s – and in fact potentially rivals Queen Eclipsa’s:

Star herself even points out Moon’s weakness during their heated argument in “Return to Mewni”:

By the end of “Toffee,” the titular villain has laid bare the true extent of Moon’s desperation and exhaustion: she is willing to sacrifice even the one thing that defined her as queen – Toffee’s finger – in order to get her daughter back, and is utterly helpless when Toffee betrays her.

The crushing despair of this final twist of the knife is what causes Moon to finally break down.

I think we have not yet seen the full extent of the torture that Moon will be put through (but this is a pet theory of mine that I’ve been working on which I will write more in-depth about another day). Suffice it to say that, at the end of “The Battle for Mewni,” Moon has lost her validity as a queen, as a wife, and as a parent. She is utterly exhausted and powerless in the face of evil to protect those she loves, which forces her daughter to sacrifice her own life in order to restore magic. It’s truly every parent’s worst nightmare, and it’s pretty grim stuff.

In this way, then – referring back to the triple goddess – Moon more resembles the Crone than the Mother: she is “old and gray,” exhausted and weak. Worse still, it’s not clear by the end whether or not she is any wiser for the experience. If anything, she seems brittle – almost unhinged, really – as evinced by the nervous little laugh she gives at the end of “Toffee”:

Moon does the best she can using the tools at her disposal, but I think the sad truth is that, due to her mother’s early death and the pressures put upon her as queen, she never got a chance to grow up and become a confident, full-fledged woman – very much unlike Eclipsa, who exudes confidence and independence, and whose mother was also allegedly killed at a young age.

Interestingly, while previously Star has been compared to Eclipsa (see “Baby” again), “The Battle for Mewni” compares Moon to Eclipsa, and it’s this comparison which intrigues me, since we otherwise know so little about the Queen of Darkness; perhaps the comparison hints at something to come.

The Hard Price of Power

Before we discuss Eclipsa’s comparison of herself to Moon, we should establish what we know about Eclipsa.

We have heard bits and pieces of legends about her throughout the series, starting as far back as “Into the Wand” in the second season, but we still know very little actual fact about her life. Her tapestry claims that she abandoned her Mewman husband for a monster lover, but “Moon the Undaunted” reveals that the tapestries are little more than creative retellings of history (i.e., propaganda – now there’s a timely subject), so it’s unclear just how true that is.

Eclipsa also reveals some things to Moon in “Moon the Undaunted,” but I think it would be prudent to be skeptical of these claims until we actually see them for ourselves. The only factual things that we know is that Eclipsa is a powerful spellcaster who wrote a chapter in the Book of Spells which is kept under lock and key; that Rhombulus freezes Eclipsa in crystal because, so he claims, she is evil; and that Eclipsa was originally born hundreds of years ago and is a distant ancestor to Star and Moon.

From her sinister appearance, the stories about her, and the fact that she is family, I would say there is more than a little bit of Morgan le Fay in Eclipsa – a nod to the Arthurian legends that seem to be a running thread throughout Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

It’s clear, also, from “Into the Wand” and from Glossaryck’s conversation with Moon in “Page Turner” (mentioned in the previous section) that Eclipsa values her independence and freedom. Yet those boons and the power needed to enforce them – interpreted (rightly or wrongly) by Rhombulus as evil – come with a high price; I can think of nothing worse for someone so independent-minded than being imprisoned alone and totally constricted for literally hundreds of years.

Moon, too, pays a high price for the power to defeat Toffee by making a dangerous agreement with Eclipsa; she is aware of the risks of freeing Eclipsa and so intentionally misses her shot with the Darkest Spell in order to merely destroy Toffee’s credibility (and thus rout his army). Yet this power fails to truly defeat Toffee, allowing him to return and exact revenge on her. By the end of “The Battle of Mewni,” she is utterly powerless, and it seems inevitable that Eclipsa will be freed.

It’s hard for me not to feel pity for Moon; like Star, she, too, has an enormous burden foisted upon her at a young age. She is scared and desperate at the lowest point of her life in the wake of her mother’s slaying. With nowhere else to turn, she approaches Eclipsa for help.

Interestingly, upon speaking with Moon, Eclipsa almost immediately compares the two of them:

Eclipsa: (tearing up) I lost my mother, too, when I was not much older than you.

What are we to make of this comparison? I am uncertain. We know so little about Eclipsa that it’s hard for me to say what role she will come to play. Can we even trust what Eclipsa says? Does she seem genuine?

Despite her formidable abilities and her extensive contribution to the Book of Spells, Eclipsa still looks quite young – nothing like the Crone one might think of when imagining an ancient witch. (For, indeed, Eclipsa is ancient compared to Moon and Star, having been “alive” for over three hundred years.) Certainly, she appears to be younger in appearance than Moon.

I suspect this relative age is the key to understanding Eclipsa’s coming role. I have often (half-seriously) called Eclipsa “Evil Mary Poppins,” thanks to her umbrella and her garb, but there’s a strong possibility that Eclipsa will be a sort of alternate mother for Star – a replacement for the tired, old Moon who doesn’t even really get Star anyway – that is, someone who understands why Star detests the traditions of Mewni, who sympathizes with Star’s love for Marco, who shows Star another path to becoming queen, one that will no doubt be sorely tempting, as Star herself, like Eclipsa, is fiercely independent.

It’s not hard to see how this scenario might play out.

In the coming season, Star herself will likely face the same quandary that Moon does in “The Battle for Mewni”: what cost will Star be willing to pay for the power to save her kingdom? Her family? Her love? Would she sacrifice all that for freedom? We shall no doubt see.

A Useful Reading?

Earlier, I introduced a simple reading of the triple goddess in “The Battle for Mewni”: Star as the Maiden, Moon as the Mother, and Eclipsa as the Crone. The series definitely wants us to recognize the relationships that these three women have between each other, as well as what it means to be a daughter, a mother, and a queen. Yet I think the series wants us to understand that life is a process of change, continual change, and that none of these women are confined to (or defined by) any of these roles. They are in flux: Star is discovering her potential for new life; Moon, alas, is in decline, both physically and mentally; and Eclipsa will be once more free again to exert her influence.

While the triple goddess unfairly limits women to three particular roles, I think it’s still useful as a concept for thinking about depictions of womanhood in fiction (and whether they are fair or unfair) – and, in this particular case, is useful for examining the extent to which the lives of Mewni will be unexpectedly thrown into confusion by Eclipsa’s release. There is disorder everywhere – that will be particularly evident once two queens of Mewni concurrently walk the realm, competing with one another. That theme of disorder, I predict, will grow and grow as the season progresses. Star vs. the Forces of Evil will evoke a deep sense of unease – even dread.

It is therefore fitting that Star, who herself embodies the messy disorganization of ordinary life and is practically the champion of chaos, will be the one who must put things to rights. It will be another chapter in her story of development.

Future Writing

I hope you enjoyed reading this analysis of “The Battle for Mewni.” It’s been a long time coming. The next analysis and theory posts will not take nearly as long (let us hope). I want to talk a little bit about what’s going to come next. I have a lot to cover, and I’d like to write it all before the new episodes come out in November. Here’s a rough order of the posts to come:

Vaylon’s Crazy Theory on Pony Head.

Vaylon’s Crazy Theory on Queen Moon.



Unsolved mysteries of Star vs. the Forces of Evil .

. A Double Take on “Pixtopia,” loneliness, and wabi-sabi .

. A Double Take on “Fetch” and mistaken identity.

More analysis about “The Battle for Mewni.”

Glossaryck’s true nature and goals.

Star’s facility for lyric composition and its relation to her imaginative spellcasting.

The Holy Grail theory, revisited.

How much influence does Revolutionary Girl Utena have in Star vs. the Forces of Evil?

And, of course – because this is a blog about animation in general – I’d like to write a bit about some unrelated animated series, including The Real Ghostbusters, BoJack Horseman, and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

As you can see, I have my work cut out for me. Feel free to send me any questions you may have or message me with your preferences as to my topics or with suggestions for things you’d like to see. Thank you for reading! See you again soon.

