Greetings! I'm wondering how exactly the Bard class works? It really seems to be the odd one out, like you said, the Bard is essentially a stagehand, and shouldn't be there??? It also seems to exist in this weird superposition of being useless, but also extremely useful?? I'd imagine there's a whole lot more to it than that, so I'm curious as to how and why it exists in the first place! If nobody can "be" a bard, then why does it exist and what purpose does it serve to the introspective person?
It exists because Homestuck is a fiction, and the Bard is essentially the personification of handwave. There is, in my opinion, nothing to draw out of it. The Bard is plot contrivance. It is the curtains. It is the stagehand, not the actor.
You, in real life, are not a Bard because you have personhood. The Bard in Homestuck does not. Gamzee is reduced to less than nothing by the time he steps into the role, he exists just to make the plot work where otherwise it would not. Cronus is not a character, he’s a caricature of the Worst Person the author could come up with in the story. Even among the frequently one- or two-dimensional-at-best Alpha Trolls, he’s a joke. He has no purpose but to be contemptible.
“Introspective person” and “bard” are mutually exclusive. It’s akin to asking what’s the character motivation of frustum culling.