16/02/2018 11:02:59 ¶ ●

## The corruptive influence of justice

peachpizza:

> revolutionaryduelist:

> > arrghus:

> > > There are many things that cloud the minds of Homestuck’s protagonists. Many things they lean on, that they draw strength from, that they consider a positive influence in their lives, but that nevertheless serve to distract them and poison their hearts and minds. For John, it is innocence. For Karkat, it is the warrior ethos. And for Terezi, it is justice.

> > > Justice drives many of Terezi’s actions and her understanding of the world. It’s how she justifies helping Vriska feed countless to her giant spider lusus during flarp, it’s how she justifies siccing Scratch on Vriska when flarp goes too far, it’s how she describes the nature of doomed timelines and those doomed individuals who originate in them. It’s the language she uses when psyching herself up to personally kill Vriska once and for all.

> > > Justice, to Terezi, is about violence. Retributive violence, a punishment for evil action. It is a way to understand and interact with the world she inherited from Alternia, and it is riddled with the influence of that awful place, with its utter disregard for life, dignity, or any form of mercy. It is a means of justifying murder.

> > > Justice, to Terezi, is a drug, and it is one she only manages to shake once she kills Vriska and finds that in the face of such enormous action its effects as a palliative are lacking. She relapses, of course, wrapping herself in the blindfolded visage of justice when seeking violent revenge on Gamzee, but this no longer brings her strength against his inexplicable juggalo pro-wrestling skills and begins a sequence shortly leading to her death in the Game Over.

> > > Ultimately, Terezi chooses to shed justice entirely, choosing to use John to resurrect Vriska and, critically, to disrupt her initial pretend game of justice during her introduction, symbolically (and, to an extent, actually) freeing her from its curse.

> > The other big reference to justice that comes to mind: Aimless Renegade immediately prior to blowing some shit up and trying to kill people that end up being his friends.

> > I think I’m inclined to agree with seeing it as a corruptive influence. I should go through the text and see if it’s bad in every circumstance it shows up in, or if it’s toxic for Terezi in particular as linked to her Knight roleplay.

> > Either way, really solid point. I dig it!

> Not sure how much it means, but checked all the scene’s the John retcons and aside from the first, R3UN1ON, they do seem to all be moments in Terezi’s past where justice was on her mind. The latter half is all related to her hunting Vriska or talking about it, and saying justice was a bad influence on her in all those is fair I think.

> The first few scenes though I think it’s less clear. There’s when she’s roleplaying the trial in her room, and the “MOM3NT” pesterlog, which isn’t as heavily focused on justice but is when she was first started planning to exile Jack and enact justice on him. Harder to say if those are having a positive or negative influence.

At least some of them are probably about other things, the “you don’t need him” thing seems to be about Terezi distancing herself a bit from Karkat so as to avoid (or at least ameliorate) her disastruous relationship and ugly breakup with him later, for instance (incidentally leading to Davekat as a happy side effect).