I’ve wondered privately about the way Jake’s powers of manifesting thoughts as reality seem to counter Gamzee’s ability to manifest things as thoughts; in essence, Rage puts things in people’s brains, Hope takes them out?
indulging in the idea that a Hero of Rage essentially “does persona alchemy”, this would suggest Hope is “undoing persona alchemy”. which would explain why English seems so threatened by the whole Hope line; as an alchemical amalgam himself, someone with the ability to un-alchemise things could potentially be his ultimate undoing (after all the other things that are his ultimate undoing, like cue ball weapons, and glitches in Paradox Space). if Cronus’ powers were his downfall in the past, then presumably he’s at risk of the same thing happening to him again.