Homestuck is a very good webcomic and it really is too bad that so many people, fans and non-fans alike, act as though enjoying it is something to be ashamed of.
Since the ending sequence of Homestuck in April 2017, and even well after the establishment of a canon aftermath for its main characters and the confirmation that there will be a further Epilogue, I’ve seen a sentiment among Homestuck bloggers and the Homestuck fandom that I find very frustrating, one that persists well into 2018.
The sentiment goes something like this:
“Homestuck is a meaningless work by a flippant, irreverent prankster (Andrew Hussie) who dropped his commitment to the story at the last second, and made fun of his fans for expecting there to be a meaningful ending. Furthermore, he continues to harm and belittle his fandom in the creation of Hiveswap, and only continues his work on Homestuck-related projects to exploit his audience.”
Not only is this idea wrong, I find it disingenuous at best, malicious at worst, and actively detrimental to an understanding of Homestuck as a work. While it comes from an understandable frame of mind - the feeling of disappointment many of us felt at the end of Homestuck’s pretty short and to-the-point Act 7 - it actively ignores the main reason *why* that ending came across as disappointing at first glance. Namely, it ignores the role serial storytelling - a necessity at that point in Homestuck’s existence - played in creating misleading impressions of where the story was going among fans. Furthermore, it completely ignores how well the story arc of Act 6 Homestuck generally works when taken as a whole.
It demonstrates a very shallow understanding of Andrew Hussie as a storyteller, conflating his in-story persona with the actuality of a creator who demonstrates nothing but work ethic and commitment to his creation.
It ignores what actually happened with Hiveswap, which is that despite a frankly horrific set of circumstances that nearly prevented it from being made, Hussie was nonetheless able to gather a small team to create a game studio that delivered on every promise it ever made to Kickstarter backers and created a pretty solid, fun, and novel adventure game, with more installments and a rich evolving mystery on the way.
Finally, this interpretation completely misunderstands the way the idea of narrative is being used in the ending of Homestuck, not as a cudgel to beat off fan desire for thematic completion, but as a tool for delivering a thematically powerful narrative that draws parallels between the specter of Lord English and the way stories themselves are used as tools of oppression.
Homestuck isn’t perfect, and neither is Andrew Hussie. But by and large, this popular perception of him is flat-out wrong, an exaggeration of whatever flaws he brought to the creation of Homestuck, and contributes to a misunderstanding of its ending. Indeed, I’d argue it is, in some ways, part of why Homestuck has rarely been acknowledged as a significant work of art. To understand why Homestuck is important, first we need to be able to acknowledge what it achieved.
Here’s a daring notion: overall, Homestuck was and is pretty damn good.
So I was thinking about god-tier abilities in Homestuck, and it struck me that rather a lot of the so-called “classpect powers” showcased in hs are either A: a more “supernatural” expression of something the person in question had already been doing prior, or, rarely, B: a direct response to a previously established problem. And in aggregate, these feel like they point toward a fairly particular conception of classpect abilities, that of skills that are learned (or levelups gained in a special ability, if we want to get video gamey with it).
Let’s use John as an example. As the predominant early viewpoint character, his growth is fairly well detailed. As he enters his Land and starts properly growing, he goes from using the Breeze to send objects across his Land using the Parcel Pyxis network, to subconsciously summoning the Breeze to save himself from a fire, to subconsciously having the Breeze emanate in massive quantities from his very body to put out the planet-spanning Green Tragedy, to finally as a god-tier (and with some valuable advice from Vriska) taking full control of the Breeze and using it as a tool and weapon. All of these fall into the A category, but John also has two solid B category abilities, the ability to resist detection via scent, and the ability to turn into wind to protect himself against attacks. And both those abilities are perfect for protection against Bec Noir, who tracked John down via his scent and stabbed him in the chest shortly before John god-tiered, at which point he immediately gained the first of these abilities (he showcased the second when fighting Noir in the Furthest Ring later).
Rose gains dark magic from dark gods, and her experience with that magic allows her to use light magic after the timeskip. She also goes from scouring her Land for clues and gathering information from various informants, to being able to synthesize key pieces of info effectively from the ether after god-tiering.
Dave’s and Roxy’s abilities are both centered around doing by hand what they’d previously done with technology, Dave learning to time travel on his own rather than with time machines, and Roxy going from summoning objects from around time and space with her appearifier gun to bringing them into existence from the very ether by her own power (in a rather stunning mirror to her sister’s ability to create knowledge, I just now realize). Jade also follows this pattern, as her power to shrink or grow physical objects eerily mirrors the abilities displayed by Liv Tyler (a being she had a hand in creating) and are also the perfect solution to transporting the Lands beyond her soon-to-be-voided session, a problem she’d previously given some thought.
Jake’s ability to create a real Dirk out of thin air is preceded by his ability to create a fake Dirk in his mind is preceded by his repressed fixation on the dude as an object of romantic interest.
Dirk’s ability to destroy souls is an odd one out here, it can be inferred that he conceived of the ability when Calliope described his class as a “destroyer of souls”, but Dirk himself doesn’t ever show any interest in developing such a power, describing it as the act of a “cartoonishly villainous sorcerer”. How fitting, then, that the ability first be displayed by Brain Ghost Dirk, whose nature as a splinter of the movie-obsessed Jake lends itself much better to such theatrics.
Jane’s ability to bring first herself and later others back from the dead is, I will admit, a bit of an enigma in this context, as resurrection is fairly major mojo and Jane doesn’t appear to do any smaller versions of it prior. Call it the weak spot of my hypothesis, whatever my hypothesis actually is.
The trolls are also a little vaguer, since we see so little of their journeys into power. Terezi’s Mind’s Eye and her ability to manipulate the timestream through choices (which may or may not be at all “supernatural”) make perfect sense for her character but receive little foreshadowing. Vriska’s luck-stealing power seems a direct response to her pre-game fixation with luck as a tangible thing- specifically a tangible thing which she is lacking in. Aradia’s time stop… ok Aradia’s time stop I have not a clue how it works, beyond being a fairly straightforward application of her class description.
Do I have a thesis for all this? I dunno, it was just a pattern I noticed and I felt like putting all the pieces together in one place.
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.
Maybe? I don’t really like jossing headcanons, but I’ve never really read a version of this idea that feels compelling to me, personally.
I think it’s more accurate to say Pages tend to either A) Attract the attention of others who mean well, but can be unpredictable in how they go about “helping” the Page, or B) Serve themselves their Aspects in very selfish ways.
I don’t think Jake in particular reads as “lacking” Hope. Understanding the impact Jake has on Dirk when they’re 13, specifically through the vector of his Hope, is instrumental to understanding both their characters, imo.
Well, I think that saying that Pages “lack” their aspect is very much oversimplifying it, and it’s worth noting that we never actually hear it stated this way in the text, not even from Calliope or anyone who gets info from Calliope. It is, however, present in patterns, just as it is for Princes - “lacking” the aspect is a signifier for them, too. Let’s review:
-Tavros is the simplest and most literal application of this signifier, and is probably where the concept originated because of it. He lacks freedom, both physical (due to his confinement in a wheelchair) and social/sexual (due to his constant victimization by Vriska). And this is not a failing on his part! Tavros is aware that freedom is something he does not have, and is not happy about it! Freedom sounds pretty good to him! Eventually, he gets it. Good for him.
-Jake, then, presents us with the other interpretation of this concept; that of having a bad relationship with one’s aspect, in which that part of one’s life is unhealthy. Taz can source this better than I can, but while Jake is very hopeful, he is naively so. Jake is a hopeless optimist, a person who thinks that if he just believes in something hard enough, it will eventually come true. If he believes that he’s a rugged, badass adventurer, he’ll become one! If he believes that his friends are all Good Pure People With No Issues who he can have Straightforward, Easy, Uncomplicated Relationships with, that’s what they’ll be! Everything will work out, you just gotta believe. Jake’s journey - one that as of Act 7 he has only just begun to make serious progress on - is that of understanding that hope is not enough, that in order to make the world the way you want it, you have to strive for it.
(Despite his other issues, I think we see the end of this road in Grandpa Harley - one does not become as accomplished in as many different fields as him by wishing in one hand and seeing how quickly it fills up!)
The concept holds up pretty well with the Princes, too - Eridan has hopes and dreams, but they all get smashed to pieces and his moment of greatest power and greatest impact on the story comes at his moment of utter hopelessness. Dirk certainly has a soul, he has emotions (indeed, Dirk’s biggest problem is arguably that he can’t stop feeling way too much, all the time, forever) - but, like his counterpart Rose, he’s very bad at dealing with them and processing them, and he’s constantly held back by difficulties placed in his way by his Self or versions of his Self (such as Hal) and by his own literal Self-hatred. Kurloz we don’t see too much of, but he’s a Rage player (anger, chaos, doubt, purifying truth) who is always 100% calm and collected, and dedicates himself to a god who cares nothing for him - hardly a righteous or truthful faith.
So there’s my counterpoint - I would say that yes, Pages do lack their aspect at the beginning of their journey, but that’s only one way that their difficulties can manifest, and interpreting that too literally is limiting and inaccurate. It might be better to say that early on Pages (and Princes) have a weakness corresponding to their aspect.
A solid add-on! I think I could still make an argument that Tavros’ issues stem from an unhealthy relationship with his Aspect, or a fundamental misunderstanding linked to it. But I agree on the broad points, and I think this is a pretty solid way of conceptualizing the parallels.
I think my problem with this interpretation is it also holds for Thieves, lest we forget Vriska’s roomful of 8-balls and Meenah living as a fugitive on the moon (by choice, but still). It holds for Maids, with Jane’s life dictated by the Condesce and Aradia, well, dying. Could we make an argument that it holds for Mages? Perhaps. Sollux certainly has his fair share of Doom-related issues at the beginning of his story, though of course they’re not exactly caused by a dearth of impending catastrophes and explosions.
My arguments are getting weaker as I go along, I recognize this, but may I posit that all heroes start with a comparatively poor connection to their Aspect? That is, after all, rather the point of character arcs (well, most of the time).
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).
One idea that recurs fairly prominently in Homestuck’s Gnostic roots is the duality of the material and the notional, the World of Matter and the World of Ideas. And with the advent of the Extended Zodiac, one idea that took root in my mind was the possibility that this duality extended to the Aspects themselves.
I don’t have solid evidence for this yet, but I do have a lot of anecdotes, below the cut. Regardless of whether it’s truly canon, though, I do think it’s a potentially useful and interesting way of thinking about the Aspects and Homestuck itself.
So, this picture. It’s pretty interesting. An official Aspect wheel, after all this time. And, well, it’s got some fairly distinct color patterns to it. Most notably, and most importantly for our purposes, its upper half is considerably brighter than its lower half. Like, by a lot. Happy pastel colors up top vs a deeply dour color scheme at the bottom, with the middle two being fairly balanced, Space with its white-on-black and Time with a red that is brighter than that of Heart but darker than Light’s yellow.
And what do those symbols represent? The upper half, the notional Aspects, can be described as thought, knowledge, myth, growth, and at the very top, freedom and the essence of the soul. In summary, they are the infinite potential of the imagination, of possibility. Those wielding the notional Aspects have an ability to perceive what might be, what is desired, or what is simply made up, and strive to make it reality. I speak of John, and his dread innocence. I speak of Vriska, and her infinite ambitions. I speak of Feferi, and her grandiose designs. I speak of Jake, and his mastery of the art of delusion. Rose struggles with this, but, well, that’s the thing, she struggles. And the more she struggles, the less her symbology leans toward Light, and the more she is swallowed up by Void. Terezi has similar complications, especially once she is selected for predation by Gamzee, and struggles to imagine all but a finite set of possibilities, all unpalatable.
What of the material, then? The lower half, the half of nothingness, of self, of loss, of truth, of bond? They are the materials, they are solid, they are real. They are not to be dreamed up as possibility or flight of fancy and then discarded just as quickly. Dirk fights constantly to rid himself of the aspects of his personality that he dislikes but finds that he cannot (until perhaps at the close of it all); Equius’ very body is of such intensity that he cannot help but cause consequence upon all things he touches, and his presence repels the omniscience of Scratch, erasing his environment from the notional; Sollux is constantly concerned not with what might come to pass, but with what *will*, and pays a steep price whenever he tries to fit it to his liking, and Karkat is pretty much constantly busy bringing things back into reality with reminders of time limits and the need for teamwork. Gamzee’s path through this is one of struggle, of course, as he uses sopor and the power of delusion to hide from himself the truth of what his gods (who are very real and not simply to be accepted on faith) demand from him, and initially does not wish to live through the consequences of following through on those demands (though of course he eventually does).
And what of the two Aspects caught in the equilibrium, of Space and Time? Well, they’re a bit of both, the point where rising ape meets falling angel, to borrow from Pratchett. They’re physical phenomena, of course, laws of nature, but they’re also both closely connected to the creation of art (although very different forms of art), and Space further has an association with ascension into an imagined ideal form, merging notion and materia together as one.
I might do more on this, delve deeper into some particular detail, but this provides an overview of the idea, at least. Bits and pieces, perhaps to be assembled into something of greater cohesion one day, perhaps to be unraveled and discarded with time.
idk if you'd be willing to answer this by do you mind telling me something about Knights? like i'm kinda confused on the many interpretations of them are they active exploiters or passive servers? are they challenged by their aspect/oppressed by their aspect? what exactly do they need to overcome and how would one identify themselves as i Knight? what do Knight's even do (I'm a Knight of Void and know jack about what I can do due to many interpretations on Knights)
The Knight is a topic of some debate, yes. I generally view them as a Passive class, operating under the Serve verb and associated with the mythological archetype of the butler. They are compassionate other-focused souls who give of their Aspect to others and operate as bodyguards and teachers, making sure that their friends have what they need to make their lives just that little bit easier.
For more information I recommend going through revolutionaryduelist’s excellenct Force and Flow article series (follow the links at the bottom of the article for information on particular classes):
When Vriska Serket was young, far younger than her still very young age when we first encounter her, she faced a choice of monumental proportions, at an age so young many would not ascribe her any agency, any responsibility for her actions. Perhaps we might even call it a Choice, for it is similar in nature to the ultimatums presented by the Denizens.
The Choice was this: A: Start killing people, innocent or not, on an enormous, serial killer kind of scale. Dye your hands in blood for all futures to come. B: Die before you’ve ever had a chance to live.
The Vriska we encounter chose A. Obviously she did. If she hadn’t, we would never have met her because she would be dead. This is the reponsibility of Vriska Serket, that to even exist in the story, she had to be a person who chose A.
And that makes her evil. I mean that in a sense that to choose and to continue to choose your own life over that of countless innocent strangers is a horrible (albeit somewhat understandable) decision, but I also mean it in the sense that Vriska herself perceives and understands herself as a bad person.
She makes excuses for herself, certainly. She justifies her actions using troll morality, tries to pretend she doesn’t care, clings to arbitrary standards of “fairness”. None of it works, of course. Aranea makes that much clear, in that key conversation of hers with Terezi. It never works.
And with her repeated failures to find absolution, with guilt gnawing at her every step of the way, here is Vriska’s grand mistake, that she desires to be Good, more than she desires to be Well.
In this world I would be surprised to hear of anyone who does not know the consequences of prioritizing accomplishment over health.
And so Vriska makes her plans, plots her designs, never quite understanding that in acting out of repressed guilt and pain, and in operating with a brain wired to kill and kill and kill and to endlessly justify the endless killing, she is perverting both her means and her ends, until it is quite difficult to say if she’s doing any good at all.
This is the selflessness of Vriska Serket. It is a poisoned selflessness, a broken selflessness, indeed a selfish selflessness. And she chooses it. Again, and again.
She chooses to force her idea of nobility and power on Tavros, who is even less equipped to handle it than she is, and wounds him deeply in the process. She chooses to create Bec Noir, and so take all the world’s evils into herself. Against Terezi’s pleas, she chooses to fly off and fight Noir, to try and become his end and beginning both. She chooses to sacrifice countless ghosts, because her poisoned mind sees no better way to oppose English, and to not oppose English is entirely contrary to the purposes of good. She knows she is bad. She knows she is hurting countless people with her methods. But she tries, tries endlessly, because she can’t stop. Because to stop would be to admit that maybe her methods don’t work, or if they work, that they might not be worth it. That she’s sacrificed all that she has, that she’s worked this long with this poisoned brain, and it’s not working.
She does, of course, recognize it eventually. When Aranea falls in love with Vriska’s self-aggrandizing narrative and decides to try it out for herself, when Vriska sees herself from the outside for the first time, she’s horrified, and abandons her plans in favor of solitude and a romance that, while it ultimately peters out, still brings her greater happiness than the Good ever did.
It’s quite amazing then, that that is what Terezi sacrifices in the final Choice, creating a new Vriska who did not know that path and so is locked on the false path of Good.
And then when the new Vriska steals away Meenah for Collide, Terezi sneaks in and nabs the enlightened Vriska for herself.
So now that the whole notional and material idea has been established, that leaves the question, is there another axis to the whole thing? In other words, what separates, say, Mind from Light, or Void from Heart?
I pondered this question for quite a while before coming up with an answer I found satisfactory, and I’m still far from sure I’ve got it right. But I believe the answer might lie in a slightly different perspective on the dichotomy of Active and Passive.
Now, it is well establishled that the Classes can be divided into categories of Active and Passive, though what exactly that means is in some dispute. Personally, I subscribe to the notion put forth in OptimisticDuelist’s Force and Flow essays, which emphasizes that the Active classes operate primarily based on their own needs and desires, and the Passive classes operate primarily based on the needs and desires of others.
So we have the classes determining a basic leaning toward self-oriented or other-oriented behavior, and the moons shading that behavior, adding a nuance of cultural influence to that basic makeup. Where do the Aspects fit in then? Simply put, through breadth of domain.
Toward the west end of the wheel, the Aspects I have dubbed Passive operate on reality in a broad sense, with Hope seeking to explain the phenomena of the world, Doom representing the inevitability with which those phenomena eventually crash into you, Mind dealing heavily with a breadth of possibility and infinite potential timelines, Void concerning itself alternatively with an all-encompassing nothingness or with the physicality of reality, and Space being literally dubbed the Aspect of all physical locations in-comic. There is a further link here, perhaps, with the way alt-Calliope describes Space as an Aspect concerned heavily with passively waiting for the right moment, not to mention the fact that all Spacebound in Homestuck have dreamt on the Passive moon of Prospit, and the ultimate Passive Class of the Muse is assigned to a Spacebound.
In contrast, the Aspects on the east side of the wheel are much more heavily concerned with individuality. Life I have already deemed an Aspect concerned with the circumstances of one’s individual livelihood, Rage deals heavily with a personal perception of the True, Light has been described as an Aspect of ambition more times than I can count, Heart is literally the Aspect of who you are as a person, and Time… well, if Space is something that exists beyond where you are, then Time is something that happens to you. I’ve written before about how Timebound struggle with reclaiming themselves and their character arcs from the influence of Lord English, a deeply personal quest. There is also a contrast in the art produced by Spacebound and Timebound respectively, where the art of Space is beautiful and appealing in a more generic sense, the art of Time is highly individual and usually somewhat ugly, but in exchange possessing an aesthetic unique to itself. There is birth and death, where the birth Spacebound give rise to is that of someone else (usually a lot of someone elses inside a big frog) while the death Timebound struggle with is their own. And so on. And of course, all Timebound in Homestuck dream on the Active moon of Derse, and the ultimate Active Class of the Lord is borne by a Timebound.
As with the material/notional post, this is mostly a broad draft of the idea, with details to be more carefully examined later.
Maybe? I don’t really like jossing headcanons, but I’ve never really read a version of this idea that feels compelling to me, personally.
I think it’s more accurate to say Pages tend to either A) Attract the attention of others who mean well, but can be unpredictable in how they go about “helping” the Page, or B) Serve themselves their Aspects in very selfish ways.
I don’t think Jake in particular reads as “lacking” Hope. Understanding the impact Jake has on Dirk when they’re 13, specifically through the vector of his Hope, is instrumental to understanding both their characters, imo.
Well, I think that saying that Pages “lack” their aspect is very much oversimplifying it, and it’s worth noting that we never actually hear it stated this way in the text, not even from Calliope or anyone who gets info from Calliope. It is, however, present in patterns, just as it is for Princes - “lacking” the aspect is a signifier for them, too. Let’s review:
-Tavros is the simplest and most literal application of this signifier, and is probably where the concept originated because of it. He lacks freedom, both physical (due to his confinement in a wheelchair) and social/sexual (due to his constant victimization by Vriska). And this is not a failing on his part! Tavros is aware that freedom is something he does not have, and is not happy about it! Freedom sounds pretty good to him! Eventually, he gets it. Good for him.
-Jake, then, presents us with the other interpretation of this concept; that of having a bad relationship with one’s aspect, in which that part of one’s life is unhealthy. Taz can source this better than I can, but while Jake is very hopeful, he is naively so. Jake is a hopeless optimist, a person who thinks that if he just believes in something hard enough, it will eventually come true. If he believes that he’s a rugged, badass adventurer, he’ll become one! If he believes that his friends are all Good Pure People With No Issues who he can have Straightforward, Easy, Uncomplicated Relationships with, that’s what they’ll be! Everything will work out, you just gotta believe. Jake’s journey - one that as of Act 7 he has only just begun to make serious progress on - is that of understanding that hope is not enough, that in order to make the world the way you want it, you have to strive for it.
(Despite his other issues, I think we see the end of this road in Grandpa Harley - one does not become as accomplished in as many different fields as him by wishing in one hand and seeing how quickly it fills up!)
The concept holds up pretty well with the Princes, too - Eridan has hopes and dreams, but they all get smashed to pieces and his moment of greatest power and greatest impact on the story comes at his moment of utter hopelessness. Dirk certainly has a soul, he has emotions (indeed, Dirk’s biggest problem is arguably that he can’t stop feeling way too much, all the time, forever) - but, like his counterpart Rose, he’s very bad at dealing with them and processing them, and he’s constantly held back by difficulties placed in his way by his Self or versions of his Self (such as Hal) and by his own literal Self-hatred. Kurloz we don’t see too much of, but he’s a Rage player (anger, chaos, doubt, purifying truth) who is always 100% calm and collected, and dedicates himself to a god who cares nothing for him - hardly a righteous or truthful faith.
So there’s my counterpoint - I would say that yes, Pages do lack their aspect at the beginning of their journey, but that’s only one way that their difficulties can manifest, and interpreting that too literally is limiting and inaccurate. It might be better to say that early on Pages (and Princes) have a weakness corresponding to their aspect.
A solid add-on! I think I could still make an argument that Tavros’ issues stem from an unhealthy relationship with his Aspect, or a fundamental misunderstanding linked to it. But I agree on the broad points, and I think this is a pretty solid way of conceptualizing the parallels.
I think my problem with this interpretation is it also holds for Thieves, lest we forget Vriska’s roomful of 8-balls and Meenah living as a fugitive on the moon (by choice, but still). It holds for Maids, with Jane’s life dictated by the Condesce and Aradia, well, dying. Could we make an argument that it holds for Mages? Perhaps. Sollux certainly has his fair share of Doom-related issues at the beginning of his story, though of course they’re not exactly caused by a dearth of impending catastrophes and explosions.
My arguments are getting weaker as I go along, I recognize this, but may I posit that all heroes start with a comparatively poor connection to their Aspect? That is, after all, rather the point of character arcs (well, most of the time).
You have a point. Taz has made the argument very convincingly that the “lacking one’s aspect at the start” thing is not the defining attribute of the Page as I had long assumed; the focus for the Page should really be the on Needing Help From Others and Drawing Others To Assist You (as well as its failure state of Running Away From Your Problems), rather than by the unusual “leveling curve” that Dirk describes. If we actually stop and think about it for a moment, there could be at least three classes that fit this definition - Pages, Princes, and Thieves.
I guess it’s a fair question, and at least partially a matter of interpretation? I agree with you on Thieves, but someone else might not - if the argument is that Thieves have a dearth of something and so they take it from others compulsively, Vriska is pretty open and shut, but the Condesce doesn’t really lack much of anything, she’s basically just stealing and hoarding lives and material wealth because she can, because it’s Never Enough, and whether that satisifies the criteria or not is kind of up to the individual! I don’t know if I agree on Maids. I’m not really willing to have an opinion at all about Mages, considering that we still have so few data points and only one singular data point at the beginning of the Mage’s journey.
Still, one of the most frequent misunderstandings with regard to myth roles is that your role is Who You Are. And that’s partly true, but your role is also your Journey. It’s the way that you have to grow. I don’t know if I see patterns in the text for other classes in regards to aspect-related Weakness that are as strong as the ones I see for Pages and Princes, but if they were there, it certainly would fit the thematic foundation the game is built on.
If we’re counting Condy for myth-arc we’re counting Grandpa for myth-arc, and he has no dearth either. Neither do Darkleer or the Summoner, for that matter, however you choose to count that (the classpects of the ancestors in general seem to get intermixed with their descendants quite a bit if you ask me).
