2023-08-21 4:37:43 ¶ ● ⬈

lime-bloods:

> cont. from here:

> > do people really believe that when a hero goes god tier it leaves a ghost of their dead waking self wandering around the dream bubbles[?]
> > if you’ve just revealed the characters we were introduced to at the start of the story have been ghosts for a dozen acts, that’s something the story actually needs to address the ramifications of […] but now that i put it into words, that’s exactly the same argument people had against The Retcon

> for the first dozen or so acts, most of us probably assume that characters in Homestuck have “souls”, and that when a character dies and leaves a ghost, that’s their “soul” wandering around, disembodied. but as of commentary in Book 6, this maybe isn’t true? a ghost is a memory of someone; as per Ultimate Self, it is one interpretation of someone, just one part of a greater whole. under this schema we don’t have to worry about where a ghost “comes” from, because merely the act of observation, in that classically mysterious quantum way, allows a ghost to exist. there can be dream ghosts (like Jadesprite) and god tier ghosts (ala Remem8er) in just the same way there can be pre-retcon ghosts.

> there are some analyses that need to be discarded under such an interpretation. it is no longer meaningful that we never see a single ghost of Gamzee, because Gamzee no longer needs to have “died” to have left a ghost.

> meanwhile some things need to be completely rethought. if there is no “soul” - an invention of the great fanfic writer Calliope? derived from cherub folklore, and not reflective of Homestuck’s “reality”? - then what is the domain of the Heart aspect? are the twin aspects Heart and Mind both to do with interpreting? what then is the difference? does Heart deal with interpretation of the past, Mind with interpretation of the future? many opposed aspects are able to effectually “undo” each other; Light can reveal that which Void has obscured, Hope can make real the things that Rage has imagined… so by assuming that the “soul” is purely a metaphor for the idea of memory, can perhaps we take a step closer to realising this same relationship between Heart and its shadow…

but nay, now i’m coming around on this again from the other side: if ghosts are memories, how can one justify two separate ghosts existing with the exact same set of memories, as Remem8er would seem to suggest happens to heroes reaching the god tiers? again the question becomes about what significance a “soul” has, if it’s just synonymous with memories. hm