- “'Forbidden'? Is that what they're calling my chapter?”
- ―Eclipsa Butterfly[src]
Queen Eclipsa Butterfly, also known as Eclipsa the Queen of Darkness, is a former ruler of the Kingdom of Mewni. She is Star Butterfly's ninth great-grandmother, Moon Butterfly's eighth great-grandmother, and the mother of Meteora Butterfly. She is first alluded to in "Into the Wand".
Appearance
Eclipsa has slightly pale skin, poofy teal hair, grayish-purple eyes, and red spade-shaped marks on her cheeks. She wears a long, black Gothic-themed dress, a large black sun hat with gray and white feathers and a thorny branch, a white cravat with a blue crescent moon on it, long gray gloves, and black flats with pale purple socks. Eclipsa also has maroon-colored lipstick and black mascara. Underneath her gloves, her hands are dark purple with purple veins sprouting out on her arms.
Without her hat in "Stranger Danger", Eclipsa's hair reaches down to her waist. She also wears a wedding ring on her left hand.
In "Sweet Dreams" and "Total Eclipsa the Moon", she wears pink-and-white pajamas with spades, a purple bandanna, and white furry slippers.
History
Little is known about Eclipsa's life or the history of her rule over Mewni, but what is revealed whenever she is mentioned portrays her as the "black sheep" of the Butterfly family, with a dark and/or less-than-respectable reputation.
In the episode "Into the Wand", Star Butterfly travels inside her magic wand and learns about some of her royal ancestors via the tapestries in what she calls the "Grandma Room" of Butterfly Castle. According to a passage inscribed on her tapestry's pedestal, Eclipsa was wed to a Mewman king, but she took a monster with red skin, white hair, horns, and four eyes as her lover and ran away with him.
During her life, Eclipsa developed a number of spells that were (or would later come to be) associated with dark magic, including the All-Seeing Eye.[3] These spells were recorded in the pages of the wand's Magic Instruction Book, and her entire chapter was sealed behind a skull-shaped lock (which could only be opened by Glossaryck) to prevent others from reading them. She is also the only queen who never questioned Glossaryck's teaching methods.[4]
According to Baby in the episode of the same name, Eclipsa had a very high affinity for magic compared to other queens, rivaled only by Star herself. It is also presumed from a remark by King Butterfly that Eclipsa harbored sympathy for Mewni's monsters, a sentiment shared by very few of her fellow Mewmans and royals.
In "Crystal Clear", Eclipsa is seen among the various interdimensional creatures that Rhombulus has imprisoned in crystal.
In Star vs. the Forces of Evil: The Battle for Mewni, Eclipsa appears in Queen Moon's flashback. Rhombulus briefly unfreezes part of her body so Moon can make a deal with her in order to defeat Toffee. Upon being unfrozen, Eclipsa asks Moon for a chocolate bar from the nearby vending machine, having gone several centuries without any food, and she sympathizes with Moon, since they both lost their mothers at a young age. When Moon asks Eclipsa to teach her a spell that can kill an immortal, Eclipsa agrees in exchange for her eventual freedom, and they form a magical contract. As soon as they strike the deal, however, Rhombulus immediately freezes Eclipsa again. In the present, following Toffee's defeat and a brief visit from Moon, part of Eclipsa's crystal prison cracks, hinting at an eventual escape.
In "Stranger Danger", Eclipsa meets Star Butterfly after escaping from her crystal prison, and the two strike up a friendship. However, once her escape is discovered, the Magic High Commission put her in a dungeon. Although she is revealed to have committed several questionable acts in the past, including eloping with a monster, the Commission is unsure if she is truly evil, and Star convinces them to give Eclipsa a fair trial.
In "Lint Catcher", Eclipsa appears to be under some form of house arrest until her trial, chained by her ankle to a tree with dragon shackles as she feeds the local birds, and helps Star with her troubles concerning Marco. Eclipsa warns Star that, contrary to popular opinion, attending to the laundry is the most dangerous job in the castle, prompting Star to rescue Marco.
In "Sweet Dreams", Eclipsa saves Marco and Star from being lost in the void. When Marco reacts to her presence with hostility, she playfully mocks his karate stance. After Star ejects Marco from her room, she and Eclipsa talk, with Eclipsa revealing she managed to escape her confinement in her tower through the use of secret passages. Eclipsa encourages Star to embrace the dreams she's been having and see where they lead, telling her "all knowledge is good knowledge". Eclipsa then goes back to her tower through a passageway in the wall of Star's room.
In "Monster Bash", Eclipsa is revealed to be the mother of Meteora Butterfly, the true identity of Miss Heinous.
In "Total Eclipsa the Moon", Eclipsa helps Queen Moon solve a mystery involving the true identity of Eclipsa's daughter, with Moon reluctantly allowing Eclipsa to accompany her to the Bureaucracy of Magic's royal archives. Inside the archives, Eclipsa discovers that all records of her daughter Meteora were replaced by Festivia the Fun. After escaping detection by the Magic High Commission, Eclipsa is distraught at the erasure of her daughter's existence, but Moon believes that her daughter is still alive.
Personality
When introduced in "Moon the Undaunted", Eclipsa is portrayed as calm, approachable, and sympathetic to young Moon's loss of her mother, despite her reputation as a queen of evil. Her demeanor toward Moon, however, provides little indication to her true nature and motives, and she was initially hesitant to teach Moon her darkest spell. In "Stranger Danger", she bears no ill will toward her jailers, despite her long time in crystal captivity, and she displays a carefree, fun-loving attitude similar to Star's own. As of "Sweet Dreams," she maintains her calm demeanor and is more than willing to help Star, from warning her about the dangers of the castle laundry room to rescuing her from being trapped in a different dimension. She also has a playful side to her, casually telling Star to "call [her] a villainess" for her perceived crimes, then later responding to Marco's hostility with light-hearted teasing when the two of them first meet.
She has a fondness for chocolate bars and roses, consuming a whole bucket of Snookers bars over the course of an afternoon.
Sightings
- Theme Song (season 3)
Season 2
- Into the Wand (mentioned/pictured)
- Page Turner (mentioned)
- Bon Bon the Birthday Clown (mentioned)
- Baby (mentioned/pictured)
- Crystal Clear (cameo)
Season 3
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: The Battle for Mewni
- Return to Mewni (mentioned)
- Moon the Undaunted (flashback)
- Toffee
- Stranger Danger
- Lint Catcher
- Sweet Dreams
- Monster Bash (mentioned/depicted)
- Holiday Spellcial (mentioned)
- The Bogbeast of Boggabah (mentioned)
- Total Eclipsa the Moon
Gallery
Click here to view the gallery.
Trivia
- Eclipsa was designed by Jushtin Lee.[5]
- Eclipsa is voiced by Esmé Bianco, who is best known for her recurring role as Ros in Game of Thrones.
- Like the hearts on Star Butterfly's cheeks, the diamonds on Queen Butterfly's cheeks, and the clubs on Meteora's (Miss Heinous) cheeks, the marks on Eclipsa's cheeks are also themed after the four suits in playing cards - in Eclipsa's case, spades.
- When in Eclipsa's possession, the royal magic wand resembles a closed parasol with a long handle, the wand's head has black wings, the bell resembles an orb, and it has a black crescent on top.
- Due to the possibility of Rhombulus having imprisoned innocent people, it is unclear whether Eclipsa was frozen for being evil or merely under suspicion of being evil.
- Due to Eclipsa's "black sheep" status in the Butterfly family, Star did not know about her existence until "Into the Wand".[6]
- Eclipsa's dark veins are a very common trait in many media with dark-embodied creatures, indicating that darkness (or similar form of dark magic) is devouring its host. The signs can also symbolize death, if not treated (e.g. Star's mother feeling pain on her arms as an adult rather than at a young age when she had no pain), however, they usually are just a physical trait that symbolizes evil.
- Eclipsa doesn't know anything about Festivia, who replaces Meteora as her daughter in the Butterfly records.
- In "Total Eclipsa the Moon", Eclipsa reveals she does not know how to "dip down", or use magic without the wand.
References
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