I have talked about it largely in my video on Denizens, yeah. Dirk tells us that Jake has an intuitive sense of reality that Jake has no natural means to know, and no clear limit for this is provided in the text.
Jake’s numerous connections to his Denizen, Abraxas, and the far reaching symbolic imagery associated with Abraxas that Jake puts into the story suggest something about the full extent of his capabilities, though. Namely, Abraxas is a deity associated with duality, totality, and the absolute oneness of all things.
Abraxas is the great unseen imbued in everything. It is every idea that could ever possibly exist, or be imagined. Its imagery pervades Cherubs, Calliope and Caliborn, and the character of Andrew Hussie, and so it’s agents have a massive impact on the entirety of Homestuck.
Abraxas could be said to be the conceptual embodiment of Homestuck itself–the double ouroboros of the Cherubs, decreeing the law of Do As You Will. Jake’s Hope powers already echo descriptions of Abraxas from Jung’s 7 Sermons of the Dead, so it’s not much of a stretch to suggest his awareness of Homestuck is just another facet of that connection.
PS: This is why we should be excited for Limebloods. Karkat is also implied to have Abraxas as a Denizen, he also has links to both Cherubs, and Redbloods and Limebloods on Alternia seem to be a two-sides-of-a-coin thing as a result.
Whatever we learn about Limebloods is likely to be relevant to Karkat’s like…ancestral connection to trollkind,I wanna say? So yeah
i always find it hard to classpect someone else because, unlike a character, you’re unlikely to have an objective and clear view at all of their actions and instincts. I find that classpecting for fandom/fun purposes is best done by the individual, because the most critical variable would be what your friend personally finds interesting.
Maybe show them the Archetypes if they’re interested, and see what they find compelling or enjoyable? That’s all I got rly
This is a script draft that was used for the following video, and is missing picture assets as well as general polish:
This train of thought is a bit more speculatory, so I decided to keep it seperate from focusing on Gamzee’s character. But linking Rage to Homestuck’s Theatrical elements might also tell us about the abilities and powersets Rage players might exhibit, and that seems worth discussing on its own, so…here we are.
Obviously, reading Rage as the Aspect that rules over Homestuck’s reality as a play lends itself to Tex Talk’s theory of Rage as the Aspect that describes Plot Contrivance, and I could argue there’s even a link between the two in the text itself.
The MSPA Command Terminal that Caliborn and Gamzee unlock using the tragicomic mask keys allow Caliborn to talk directly with the author, Andrew Hussie — Specifically, the ghost of Andrew Hussie, who somehow communicates through the machine after being murdered by Lord English.
As the original author, he’s now the God in the machine operating the story of Homestuck, and his awareness of Homestuck’s larger context lets him give Caliborn the scoop, enabling his rise to power as Lord English in the first place.
This could be seen as an echo of Homestuck’s roots in Theatre as well: The term “Deus Ex Machina”, or God in the Machine, originally refers to the practice whereby actors playing Gods would be entered into the play by an elaborate mechanism built into the theatre stage, usually by crane or a trapdoor.
The God character was often used at the end of a Tragedy, using their divine powers to wrap up remaining plot threads and bring the story to a close. Now, of course, the term is used as shorthand for whenever a story resolves problems in highly unlikely and often surprising ways — and is often considered a hallmark of bad, contrived writing as a result.
Actually, this might solve a mystery nobody knew needed solving. A lot of fans assume the story’s logic breaks down with the dream bubbles, based on the perceived nonsensical absence of dream ghosts — mainly concerning four characters:
Meenah and Aranea, Vriska, and Gamzee. But Meenah and Aranea actually do have ghosts in the bubbles — both are present in the final army that faces Lord English.
Vriska only has (Vriska), which is kinda weird, but John’s retcon is bizarre enough that I can kinda believe it would collapse all potential versions of Vriska into the weird…schrodinger’s vriska setup the comic gives us.
Which leaves only Gamzee. If he’s aware of the mechanisms that run the theatre of Homestuck, then he may know about an obscure game mechanic. If a player goes to sleep at the end of a doomed timeline, like Rose does in the timeline that Davesprite came from, they don’t actually produce a ghost.
Instead, the player’s dreamself simply merges with the Alpha dreamself, and the player inherits all the memories of the doomed version. This might require that the player in question be the last one standing, which might be why Gamzee kills all the other trolls in at least one doomed timeline.
Whether he kills the others for this reason or not, if Gamzee outlives all the other trolls in every timeline in this manner, then we have canonical basis for Hussie’s statement that Gamzee hasn’t died in any timeline he’s aware of.
This would also mean Gamzee houses the conciousness of all his doomed selves, and that every single version of Gamzee would get to live out the truth that he is his own mirthful messiahs. No clown left behind…I guess?
But there’s something else I want to talk about.
If Gamzee views Homestuck as a play, then another facet of his power may be the ability to understand the various Masks that characters wear during their adventure — and the corresponding Roles they take on, as they perform their identities in relationship with the world.
Only in Homestuck, roles that define how characters Act are a codified game mechanic: Classes.
And I’ve recently found myself arguing that characters perform the behaviors of the Classes they’re assigned, but also often emulate — or try and fail to emulate — other Classes’ behaviors, through a mechanic I’ve taken to calling Roleplay.
Most characters only Roleplay classes they absorb through culture, whether it’s their interests or — more commonly — role model adult figures called Ancestors.
Having power over roleplay would make Gamzee uniquely dangerous, because it would give him the power to warp how other players see themselves and each other — confusing them by alienating them from their own true roles.
By inviting Terezi to adopt the persona of Redglare, he encourages her to take on the role of a Knight. As a result, Terezi gives a Knight’s performance in one of Homestuck’s theatrical Flashes — [S] Seer: Ascend. She’s even cast in another Knight’s shadow— imitating Dave’s own ascension flash.
It would also make him uniquely flexible. Understanding all the roles played in the story, Gamzee would be able to wear any of those masks to complete whatever objective is at hand. This is likely why Gamzee’s Jokerkind Specibus allows him to use every weapon.
He introduces himself to Jane with music boxes originally owned by Aradia Megido — A Maid, a class linked to the Fae archetype.
Maids and Sylphs are often referenced as imaginary beings, and this tends to include players committed enough to roleplaying one of the two — vampires, ghosts, gnomes, fairies, and in Gamzee’s case, he’s referenced as an elf during this stint.
The Fairy classes are associated with healing and creating new things. And Gamzee happens to perform this role— healing his troll friends by reviving them as Sprites, merging their personalities together in the process.
Later, Caliborn learns he’s immortal for arbitrary reasons that make no sense. Of course, it’s because he’s still relevant to later events in the story, and knowing this, Gamzee is aware he cannot die.
Wearing Fairy wings labeled with the masks of comedy and tragedy, Gamzee evokes Maids as ones who are “Made of” their Aspect — in his case, Made of Rage: In this case, in the form of theatrical contrivance.
In the comic, Maids are repeatedly shown to have some passive self-ressurection or survivability perks, and Gamzee seems able to make use of that benefit by acting out the Maid’s role.
Inviting destruction through Anger/Rage.
But all of Gamzee’s creations are abominations, and his form of “immortality” is brutal and painful for him, especially since his natural inclinations invite destruction — no matter what part he consciously tries to act out.
This is a common result of roleplay. Homestuck seems to lean on a “Know yourself first” approach to identity, as characters often confuse their own personalities with what they wish they were, commonly while trying to emulate an ideal or person they view with admiration.
This commonly leans to failure and confusion for Roleplayers, as their own instinctive tendencies come out even when they’re going for something entirely different.
Gamzee is subject to these negative effects, but to him, it doesn’t seem to matter. He’s just barely good enough at acting like these classes to accomplish the goals he sets out to achieve, and the rest of us just have to deal with it.
Of course, many would argue that Theater has nothing to do with Rage and everything to do with Gamzee belonging to the Purpleblood Caste, since several Purplebloods in Hiveswap share Gamzee’s clown motif and one pair even evokes the Comedy and Tragedy imagery.
Just as Xefros’ Rust-Blood status encourages him to think in terms of Time, I believe it’s possible these cultists are being societally pushed into thinking in terms of Rage, the Aspect of their Caste’s True-Sign — Capricorn.
So I’ll be interested in observing just how they relate to their own Aspects, and in seeing to what extent any of them are linked to Rage — not to mention comparing them to characters that we know are Rage-bound, such as our hero, Xefros Tritoh.
Off the top of my head, Sports and Wrestling share some similarities with theatre — the inherent artifice of the experience and the distinct roles for every participant to follow. One of my biggest inspirations, Supereyepatchwolf, has actually done a great video on the theatrical elements of wrestling you can check out here, if you’re interested.
I’m not necessarily claiming this interpretation of Rage is canon or anything — I just thought it’d be an interesting thing for you guys to talk about, and consider, as we get to know the trolls through the Hiveswap: Friendsim and Hiveswap: Act 2.
Ahahaha, heavens no, I’m nowhere near that talented. I’m lucky enough to be friends with @joyfulldreams however–she’s pretty much the primary author and manager running the Act Omega show, as far as I can tell, though theres other people like @acamaeda too.
The Masterpiece takes place after the end of Homestuck–it’s probably circumstantially simultaneous with the final defeat of LE. Caliborn is taunting John in the credits to entice him to come fight him, since Caliborn knows the kid’s challenge will be the moment he becomes Lord English.
At some point in Earth C’s future, the kids go fight LE. The Epilogue will probably cover the Masterpiece in more detail, along with the moment the kids are released from the Juju they’re trapped in.
I’m really really happy to hear that! It’s been a lot of fun because I keep meeting awesome Homestuck fans and learning more about the comic than I ever thought possible as I go. I’m really excited for what’s to come–we’re only getting started here.
Most of the Homestuck fandom will tell you that Gamzee Makara is a broken character, and with good reason. It’s not just that his actions are morally repugnant, but that he seems like a hollowed out caricature of a character, almost deliberately crafted by the author to be as flat and nonsensical as possible.
The author of the story literally tells us that his actions probably don’t make any sense, and a lot of the fandom has decided to take that literally, believing that Andrew Hussie didn’t know what he was doing when writing this character — or, more likely, was just “trolling” us.
The end result is a character that is, for most, deeply unpleasant to think about for all sorts of reasons — he commits all kinds of acts of depraved and distasteful immorality, but we’re also barely told anything about who he is, how he does what he does, or why he even does it.
But I think there’s a coherent strain of thought behind Gamzee’s character, and while I consider Gamzee responsible for everything he did, I think there’s a case to be made that his worldview made him uniquely malleable and exploitable by Lord English.
You probably won’t believe me about this, but then, that’ll be kind of the point. Introductions complete, let’s begin our Descent.
The Rage-bound care about truth more than anything. They aren’t so much religious or spiritual as they are deeply dogmatic and intense about their worldviews — in essence, they’re conspiracy theorists.
Understanding this is vital, because at the core of Gamzee’s narrative is a schism between two major versions of his character, separated by an intense crisis of faith.
Gamzee is a Bard: The Passive Destroyer Class. This means we can understand him as one who allows Rage to be Destroyed, or invites destruction through Rage. Rage rules over concepts like anger, fear, hate, doubt, and confusion, and Gamzee will often be found exerting his influence over the story through both definitions of his title, sometimes at the same time.
Early Gamzee is little more than a 420 joke — he’s depicted as a harmless stoner juggalo who simply wants to make his friends happy.
He worships his personal vision of the Mirthful Messiahs, an obscure religious cult largely made up of Purple-Blooded trolls like Gamzee, the Highest blood color of Alternia’s Hemospectrum that belongs to Land-dwelling trolls.
Highblood privilege allows him a sheltered upbringing and the freedom to indulge his soporific drug habit, and as a result he seems completely out of touch with the true nature of his religious order.
In reality, Alternia’s Grand High Bloods are an obscure but powerful cult devoted to the worship of Lord English, a physical God who exists on Alternia and tortures trollkind throughout its history through a number of Agents.
The Highbloods are one of these agents: religious enforcers who control the population through a combination of brutal executions and psychic Chucklevoodos that poison lowblood’s minds with nightmares of gore and violence, fear, anger, and paranoia.
Gamzee’s crisis of faith comes about when Dave Strider exposes Gamzee to the real-world inspiration for his religion: The Juggalo subculture formed around the Insane Clown Posse. When Gamzee learns about this, he regards it as heretical, and a desecration of everything he believes in.
He soon comes into contact with two messengers of his God, Lord English. First is Lil Cal — a doll containing the Lord English’s composite, twisted soul. Gamzee looks into Lil Cal’s eyes, and in the depth of those peepers he discovers a horrifying, unavoidable truth:
Inviting destruction through the HIghblood’s Truth|Rage
Just as Caliborn does later, Gamzee recognizes one of the souls that makes up Lord English as his own — meaning Gamzee’s soul is, in effect, partly responsible for starting his own religion.
Gamzee is initially distraught and confused by this knowledge, but he soon begins to trust Lil Cal and the souls within, and decides to reframe his worldview according to what it tells him.
Lil Cal can be highly influential to those who hold it, as Gamzee and Bro both begin to pick up phrases and habits originally native to Caliborn while in contact with the doll. Because Bro is a highly Active class and Gamzee a highly Passive one, we also have grounds to believe Gamzee more susceptible to suggestion.
But the relationship doesn’t seem to be mind control, since this form of psychic influence is distinct from the full mind control Lil Cal proves capable of later. Rather, Gamzee implies he welcomes Lil Cal like a best friend.
Specifically a replacement for Tavros, who Gamzee had romantic feelings for. The Purple Sign Caste description tells us Gamzee is a strictly monogamous and devoted lover, and he goes on to prove it.
We can see Tavros’ death as the moment Gamzee’s relationship to the rest of his friends is severed, and he devotes himself fully to the new object of his affections: Caliborn — the Cherub boy who will eventually become Lord English.
And why?
Because Lil Cal gives him the truth.
[ACT 2 — THE VAST JOKE]
At this moment, Gamzee simultaneously receives three divine revelations: He discovers that his cult’s God exists in physical form, the cruel and brutal nature of this God, and that he himself is this God.
The important thing is that Gamzee does not choose to believe these things — he’s confronted with unavoidable proof for all of them. He’s confronted with a raw, physical, tangible truth.
Now forced to accept this truth, Gamzee embraces the violent and vicious roots of the cult, becoming a Dark Messiah ruthlessly devoted to bringing about the advent of his God.
He taps into his ancestral memory of the Grand High Blood, a notable head of the cult and Gamzee’s Ancestral Figure. He begins imitating the Highbloods and murdering his lower-blooded friends.
Starting with Equius, one of the other characters whos soul becomes part of LE’s. Equius must become Arquis for Lord English to be born, which Gamzee would also have found out from Lil Cal. He kills Equius and hoards his corpse.
After securing the other component of Lord English in his session, he targets female characters that Caliborn later goes on to single out for death in his retelling of Homestuck. He kills dear, sweet, precious, DEAR Nepeta before our eyes, while Caliborn describes her as useless and irrelevant. The monster.
Vriska is targeted for her ambition and attempts at relevance. Rather than confront her directly, Gamzee drags Terezi Pyrope into the conflict.
He does so by manipulating Terezi to play up her anger and frustration with Vriska. He also encourages her to take on the Neophyte Redglare persona she used to roleplay during FLARP campaigns she and Vriska waged together, partnered as the Scourge Sisters.
Caliborn singles Terezi out for getting between his One True Pairing of Dave and Karkat, and though she doesn’t die, Gamzee makes sure she suffers for this.
After Terezi kills Vriska, Gamzee and Terezi enter a Kissmesitude, and he starts harassing and emotionally abusing her, wearing down her self-respect and ability to focus and help her friends for the rest of the adventure.
Inviting destruction through fear/Rage.
He also uses his Caste-given Chucklevoodos to mess with the Beta Kid’s minds, rendering them all somewhat mentally unstable. He pays special attention to John, seeding in his mind the clown doll that acts as the source of John’s self-loathing messages and clown scrawlings.
Inviting destruction through anger/Rage.
Which indirectly contributes to Jack Noir’s Rage fueled rise to power, and destruction of the Beta’s session.
However, perhaps because Bard is one of the most Passive classes, pushing himself into behaving so actively is exhausting and stressful for him. While Gamzee’s behavior during Horrorstuck is impactful, it’s also unsustainable, and he soons settles down with some help from Karkat.
He’s then contacted by Doc Scratch, Lord English’s second emissary. Scratch is LE’s best bureaucrat, smooth salesperson, and master manipulator. He’s also a part of Lord English himself, a puppet that LE uses to carry out tasks he doesn’t want to perform himself.
It’s Doc Scratch who manipulates Trolls into being as violent and cruel as they are, across their entire planet’s history. And since Scratch’s soul includes Dirk’s cyber-omniscient AI Auto-Responder, Equius, and Gamzee himself, Scratch is also aware of all the events to come in the second half of Homestuck.
In [S] Cascade, Gamzee talks to Scratch, and by reporting the completion of Horrostuck’s events, implies he was doing everything he did on the orders of Scratch, Lil Cal, or both. Then he asks what’s next.
So Scratch is in a position to offer Gamzee something unique: A script. Through Scratch, Gamzee could have learned everything he needed to do over the course of the Alpha Kid’s session in order to bring about the birth of LE.
This is why Gamzee complains about Vriska in the Post-Retcon timeline. There’s a plan in place that the Cult of the Mirthful Messiahs is following, and Vriska cheating her way into being alive throws that plan off the rails.
But in learning his role, Gamzee would also learn something else. A deep truth of Homestuck’s universe, that would reshape the way he sees the world, and the way we see Rage. He would learn that Homestuck…isn’t real.
Homestuck is a story. A story told online, by an author: Andrew Hussie, who wrote Gamzee’s life into existence as a silly parody of the Insane Clown Posse. An author who created Gamzee’s life to be a joke.
But Homestuck is also the story of how Lord English murdered its author, and took over the story for his own, ensuring that his dominance is forever absolute. LE cannot be defeated. LE cannot be stopped.
And Gamzee cannot die, because he has to become part of LE for the story of Homestuck to exist. Knowing this means Gamzee sees the story for what it is — as a jokey webcomic structured like a theatre play, with himself as the comic relief.
Where the rest of the characters see The World, Gamzee sees a Stage.
[ACT 3— THEATRE OF DIONYSUS]
Perhaps Gamzee’s biggest recurring symbol is the masks of comedy and tragedy-the archetypal symbol for Theatre and Tragicomedy. The harlequin mask keys he and Caliborn use to power on the MSPA terminal grant Caliborn the ability to view and influence every event in the entire story — letting him take ownership of the play of Homestuck itself.
Maenad, Top Right | Satyr, Bottom Right
We can more about theatre through the Troll Call purpleblood Chahut’s last name: Maenad.
In Greek Myth, the Maenads were the female companions to Dionysus— the Greek God associated with wine, epiphanies, religious ecstasy, and ritual madness. Also associated with Dionysus are half-goat men called Satyrs, who are described as “ archetypal musicians and dancers”, associated with the breaking down of traditional values.
Like Gamzee, Dionysus is also intimately connected to his Godly All-Father, the Demiurge: Zeus for Dionysus, Lord English for Gamzee. Zeus saved his son by sewing him up in his thigh and keeping him there until he reached maturity, so that he was twice born. Similarly, Gamzee is Born Again when he discovers his ultimate fate is to become part of Lord English.
Early theatre often employed the use of masks, allowing actors to easily switch between portraying different characters. This colors almost every action Gamzee takes as performative in nature — recognizing Homestuck for the story it is, he plays whatever character is convenient to achieve his objectives.
Gamzee also uses theatre’s history of audience participation to punish the viewer directly. We can view pretty much every nonsensical impact on the plot he has this way — like how his immortality is literally derived from “Plot Armor”, practically begging the audience to call the story on its bull.
But in particular, every sprite he creates in the Alpha session seems deliberately designed to cause as much frustration and anger as possible, not just for the characters, but for Us — the fans.
Seriously. Hear me out.
Eridan and Sollux’s mutual hatred made them two of the most popular characters over the course of act 5, with plenty of detractors and supporters on both sides passionately clashing to defend their favorite characters — and just as many shipping the two in hate-fueled Kismessitude relationships.
Gamzee revives the character conflict between these two — but without any of the fandom-fuel romantic tension. Just misery and self-loathing with no catharsis, a disappointing outcome for any fan invested in seeing their conflict reach any kind of resolution.
Gamzee making Fefeta, Erisol and Arquis leads to Fefeta’s explosion when the other two start fighting over her — Inviting destruction through Confusion/Rage.
Nepeta and Feferi — — two characters the fandom often criticizes the comic for abandoning — are brought back, but their union leaves them a running gag where the fandom gets to hear all about the cool and helpful stuff they’re up to, but without ever actually seeing either girl talk again. Fueling the fandom’s bitterness over their irrelevance.
And Tavrisprite’s creation eventually causes Vriska and Tavros to get into a relationship together, extending the fandom’s furious debate about their unhealthy, abusive dynamic long past the deaths of both characters, when we thought we’d seen the end of both arcs.
And the creation of Arquisprite, of course, is a necessary part of the script that eventually leads to Caliborn, Arquis, and half of Gamzee’s corpse being destroyed and merged inside the Lil Cal doll, bringing about the birth of Lord English.
Don’t believe me? Does this sound too thought out for Hussie, just a bit too far-fetched? That’s fine, I feel you. I understand. Just keep in mind that Doubt itself is also linked to the Rage Aspect. Our skepticism is already written into the story.
To me, it now seems that Gamzee’s story is not that he was lying or pretending during his kind phase, or that he’s a helpless victim of mind control, but rather that he’s coerced through his own intense convictions into accepting a deep sense of tragicomic fatalism.
This distances him from his friends, as he can no longer see them as anything more than falsehoods to be obliterated and punished by the self-evident power of his One True God. We don’t know exactly how Gamzee feels about this, beyond the fact that he’s accepted it.
But it brings up an interesting question that puts a new light on the half of a Gamzee corpse that remains after the end of the Masterpiece, and the creation of Lord English.
It’s true that LE is the overbearing truth of Homestuck, the comic. But there are deeper truths than those that are immediately apparent from observing physical reality — such as the inevitability that all tyrants eventually fall, just as Lord English has at the end of Act 7.
And the paradise planet that Gamzee so passionately believed in early in life, the one he wanted to share with his friends and at least one boy he had romantic feelings for — it actually exists. Earth C is just that sort of paradise planet.
Only half of Gamzee went into Lord English, so he still technically has a corpse available. Jane could, hypothetically, use her life-restoring powers to bring Gamzee back from death’s doorstep — only he would now be custody of our Heroes, with his God either dead or sealed in a black hole for eternity.
If that were to happen, and if there’s any truth to this reading of Gamzee, then what would the Bard of Rage make of this truth beyond truth, this promised land he would find himself in on the other side of an endlessly dark reality?
It’s enough to make me curious, personally. Although my personal suspicion is that if he gets the opportunity, whatever he does, it’s going to manage to piss us off. It’s inevitable, because seriously…Fuck that guy.
the ghost stuff has definitely not been solved, per se–a lot of the legacy fandom would probably say hussie phoned it in there for various reasons, though I would definitely not agree.
To answer your questions:
Is the ghostrealm conditional to the universe that spawned it, or is it truly infinite?
The furthest ring–the black void surrounding all Sessions and Universes–is truly infinite. The eldritch horrorterrors that inhabit it are also infinite, since they’re part of Sburb’s design.
The dream bubbles, and the ghosts that inhabit them, however, are conditional to the universes that spawned them. The horrorterrors glub up those bubbles, but as far as we know, they don’t do so for every session.
They glub up the afterlife for our Heroes thanks to the influence of Feferi Peixes-the Witch of Life. She was actually raised by a horrorterror as her familiar, and is able to commune with the gods to request they establish the bubbles.
You could read this as Feferi changing the nature of Life in Homestuck, granting everyone who perishes a sort of second life in a weird limbo of half-existence.
Later parts of the story suggest that the horrorterrors were manipulating Feferi and all of the ghosts of the afterlife to protect themselves from Lord English, and to serve their mysterious goals by both A) Ensuring Lord English’s destruction and B) Enabling his creation in the first place.
Which brings us to…
is there a hypothetical alternate-alternate world where the conditions that rolled the troll-verse are different?
No, definitely not. That scenario is theoretically possible for other species elsewhere in PS, but not for trolls–or humans, for that matter.
We’re not sure what the limits are on variations of existence and choice in Paradox Space, but Aranea tells us there are some, and goes into some of the philosophical problems that come with the admittedly attractive idea that there might not be any:
But really, the problem is logistical. Having even potentially infinite variations of a particular universe isn’t necessarily impossible in Paradox Space, but it is impossible for the worlds and characters trapped in Homestuck. Because of Lord English.
Aranea gives us this little spiel about how the choices and possibilities available to everyone in Paradox Space are limited by the fact that PS itself is using the characters to propagate its own existence. Only choices and scenarios that allow reality to exist and continue to propagate are allowed to flourish.
And by the very nature of his existence, Lord English traps every universe and person we see in the comic in existential stasis. He’s a notable influence in the Alpha Trolls’ session through Kurloz, Damara and Cronus, and he’s THE reason Alternia exists as it does and the Beta trolls are who they are.
He made trolls what they are, so their reality can’t actually exist unless he exists, and if trolls existed in any other way they wouldn’t create and interact with the humans the way they do, meaning the humans wouldn’t eventually create LE, meaning trolls wouldn’t have existed in the first place.
It’s a grandfather paradox, but on a cosmic scale. Trollkind may be able to exist in varied ways from Earth C,’s Troll Kingdom onwards, which is now free of the influence of Lord English. But its origins–and those of humanity–are forever entangled with Lord English. Them’s the br8ks.
Flying through Storytelling 