2024-03-27 3:24:10 ¶ ●

can’t help but wonder recently if Vriska’s “[e]ach class has a huge alpha8et of signs, so when someone shares yours, you know you have a lot in common” line is implicitly about aspect symbols? like in the same way a troll’s sign doesn’t actually determine who they are but can be used to draw two trolls into a shared destiny, she’s saying an aspect has no intrinsic meaning of its own but serves to draw lines between heroes who share that aspect. Aranea seems to imply something similar when she talks about Cronus’ destiny, which could be “passed on to his descendant, or if his descendant proved to be as much of a failure as he did, then perhaps on some other Hero of Hope.”

it feels particularly indicative that Vriska uses the word “class” as a synonym for caste here: each “class” has a “huge alpha8et of signs” in the same way each class has twelve aspect variations within it. this confusion of RPG class with social class is echoed later on in Caliborn’s literalism (LOWLY PAGE versus A LORD’S WORTHINESS [and] NOBILITY) - which seemingly went on to influence Alternian society (THEY’RE ALL MEN. BECAUSE I SAY THEY ARE.) - and was realised in an even more literal sense in the extended zodiac, which divides trolls into “sign classes” with “aspect sways”.