Gravesfield + Gravesfield County probable locations in TOH
So, out of all the Gravesfield speculation I’ve seen so far, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone try to actually parse out its specific location within Connecticut, which is a shame because that window is SURPRISINGLY narrow now that we have certain bits of information about it on our hands. Not only that, but we also know that Gravesfield is part of its own county (”Gravesfield County Zoo,” anyone?), which has a lot of interesting implications as well. At least location-wise it does—I don’t know if it has any lore connections or not, though it’d be interesting to see if it did, at least. Not the point of this post though, so whoever wants to figure that out can have at it. Anyway...
TL;DR: I’m almost 95% sure that Gravesfield is located somewhere in southwestern irl Litchfield County along Route 109, and that its county should surround it and some other cities in mostly the same area. All the evidence I have to support this is below the cut:
The main source I'm drawing from here is this image:
Source: Tweet from John Bailey Owen, posted Oct 14 2022
For those who don’t know, this was a promo image of a fake Gravesfield website homepage screenshot that was posted October 14, 2022, just before Thanks to Them aired. For the most part, it looks like a regular, albeit slightly clunky 2000s-era-looking, website, except for the bits of weirdness/dark humor littered about the text (”Escape Routes,” “The Truth About This Place,” “Sightings,” “if you visit once, you may even wind up staying”) and the hidden text in the bottom corners of the page (which spell out “HELP THEM”). People of course freaked out about this stuff, as is evident in the replies of the original tweet, analyzed all of it to death, blah blah blah, that’s pretty much old news at this point.
There’s also a small calendar on the right side of the page that indicates that the events of the show are possibly happening on some year that the first day of October lands on a Saturday, and when accounting for Luz’s age (14/15) and her modern lingo and stuff, those years could be 2005, 2011, 2016, and 2022. Smartphones like what Luz has in her possession were definitely not around in 2005, and probably not around in 2011, so either 2016 or 2022 are reasonable in-universe years to guess, with it probably leaning more towards 2022 because of the irl show’s creation date.
I could probably make a whole separate post on my thoughts on the date stuff and speculate the hell out of it, honestly, but that isn’t the subject I want to cover in this particular post. No, I’m more interested in what seemingly no one else has picked up on here: the location hints.
The fake screenshot doesn’t explicitly say where Gravesfield is located, obviously, but it does have two pieces of information that narrow down the possibilities significantly when put together.
The first piece of information is this:
Route 109 is an actual route in Connecticut, which spans from New Milford to Thomaston as seen here:
Source: Connecticut Route 109 Wikipedia page, retrieved Feb 1 2023
In order for this route to be relevant to Gravesfield news, the town has to be along this route somewhere, or at least nearby it in some measure (aka it has to legally be within city bounds, which I’ll get into later). Route 109 is located in southern irl Litchfield County, which means that Gravesfield is also located in southern irl Litchfield County somewhere.
That’s pretty good and all, definitely a lot better than just throwing a dart at the map and hoping it lands somewhere decent, but it can be narrowed down even further. The second piece of information we have is this:
This is a real thing too. Regional School District 12 (or the RSD 12) is one of many school districts in Connecticut, and it happens to serve the towns of Washington, Bridgewater and Roxbury, all of which are, coincidentally, located in southern irl Litchfield County.
Washington is pretty much right on Route 109, as seen in the map above, so that means that in order for Gravesfield to be both within RSD 12 bounds and nearby Route 109 at the same time, it has to be within irl Washington’s city bounds. I’ve drawn up a diagram of sorts below with this information in mind:
Source: me :D (and google maps)
The speculatory boundary I marked between the Washington and Gravesfield city bounds here is really just one rather simple possibility of how it might be cut up while still accounting for a part of Route 109 being within Gravesfield’s jurisdiction. Again, if the route weren’t part of it, it wouldn’t show up on the city website as a relevant announcement (and if it were part of a county-wide thing, it probably would have stated it as a county announcement or something).
So there you have it: most likely locations for where Gravesfield might be in Connecticut, give or take. I could speculate even further on where exactly within these areas Gravesfield could be placed, with analyzing the smaller roads and all that, but that would honestly just be pure speculation based on personal bias/preference/etc. and not, y’know, anything concrete enough to be a plausible theory, so I’ll just leave it as it is and let individual headcanons do the rest of the work on that front.
But there’s also Gravesfield County to worry about, as shown here:
Source: The Owl House Season 3 Episode 1: “Thanks to Them”
(The fact that this is even a canon background thing in the show is bonkers, because holy shit I can’t imagine what kind of butterfly effect nonsense this must’ve made in-universe compared to irl history, but I digress.)
What this means is that the southern part of irl Litchfield County at minimum is actually Gravesfield County in the TOH universe by default, since it has to include Gravesfield in it, being the town its ultimately named after. And since we’ve already established Gravesfield’s approximate location here, its county could possibly look something like this:
Source: me (and google maps) again
It’s a lot less concrete than the location of Gravesfield itself, obviously, but that’s because I don’t have much else to work with here other than that one screenshot from Thanks to Them and what I’ve theorized about Gravesfield so far. For all I know, the entirety of irl Litchfield County is Gravesfield County, not just a part of it, or maybe Gravesfield County goes even further south than what I’ve depicted and contains parts of the Fairfield and New Haven counties for whatever reason—who knows, really? Whatever it might be, it’s definitely somewhere in western Connecticut, surrounding New Milford, Washington, Route 109, etc., and that’s good enough for me in the interest of sticking to the concrete stuff.
Fun fact: apparently Connecticut doesn’t have county governments nor county seats, so despite the fact that Gravesfield County is named after Gravesfield, the town itself isn’t, like, a grand authority on other places nearby or anything. Each city within the county deals with their own police, fire department, schools, hospitals, etc. (and zoos. Gravesfield is apparently big enough to have a whole-ass zoo in it. Wild.)
The only thing that might break this in some respects is, well, potential butterfly effect shenanigans. It can be argued that because Gravesfield and Gravesfield County exist in the TOH universe, the exact positions of the other counties, towns, etc. could be drastically different from where they are irl, and things like the regional school districts could have totally different boundaries and thus the triangulation I just did using them is pretty much useless, but there’s nothing confirming any of this in Word of God or in the show canon as of today, so I’m fairly confident that we’re working with a world that’s very similar to the irl world Except For Gravesfield. Unless the last special pulls some sort of epilogue nonsense in Gravesfield that completely obliterates my base-line irl world assumptions for this universe, anyway. You never know lmao
So basically, in short: Gravesfield and its eponymous county are most likely located in southern/southwestern irl Litchfield County around Route 109 or thereabouts, and probably replace that particular area as their own governmental entities instead of being part of a different county or something. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk
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frenzied_emotion.mp4
[A mysterious video is uploaded on Blackthorn's account. No metadata exists to determine who, how, or why it was posted...]
The restless Fuchsia is illuminated by the light of her phone, taking care to face it away from the others. She hums quietly to herself, playing a puzzle game to try and fall asleep.
A sudden impact - she drops the phone on the bed, the light revealing the source: Den, thrashing around wildly, a silent scream embedded on her face.
Fuchsia jumps out of bed and grabs a weighted blanket, throwing it over Den to keep her limbs under control. She then sits down to hold Den in her arms, singing gently to her, until the expression and the nightmare fade.
'Even the thorn in your heart, in time it may become a rose...'
As Den drifts back into sleep, Fuchsia releases her, but continues to sing for a moment, lost in thought.
'...but it's unfair. It's unfair! We did nothing to deserve this--- your only 'crime' was being 'different' in a world not designed for you! It's... it's not...'
Seeing Den shift slightly, she lowers her voice, which had been growing steadily louder.
'...you feel like you don't belong anywhere, because of that. We all do, but you... You know we're here now! We can help you! Why won't you open up to us...?'
With a slight sob, she flops back down, and grabs the phone again. As it lights up, it illuminates her eyes looking directly at the viewer.
The image changes. A fleeting spiral for only a moment, before the video ends.
//picrew source
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go the extra mile for somebody today, if you can. it really doesn't have to be anything huge. just a small something to let someone know you're there, thinking of them. that you care about them and want to show it in whatever capacity you can manage.
it could be an in-person thing... make a loved one a daisy chain. or a cup of tea, unprompted. give them a hug, or a poke in the arm if hugs aren't your/their bag. or maybe just msg a friend a smiley face with no explanation. send a nice tumblr ask to somebody you think might needs it. write a mutual a ficlet. draw them a picture, whatever your abilities. they'll love it.
and if you can't do interaction today? be kind to yourself instead. do something tiny that's just for you, a silly thing that will make you smile. just for the sake of being nice. and don't even start bc you can and you should, bc deserve it—even if you think you don't, you do. love you.
kurt vonnegut said:
“be soft. do not let the world make you hard. do not let pain make you hate. do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.”
remember that, and pay it forward today. love the world, love others, love yourself. even when—especially when—it's hard to <3
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