Namely: why does Homestuck choose
to go out on such an ambiguous note? After all, this caused significant
backlash and rifts within the fandom.
(True, an Epilogue is promised,
following certain lingering plot threads, and we got a renewed reminder of that
recently. Still, for the duration of the time from Homestuck’s ending and the
Epilogue’s release—a good two years already—ambiguity is a big part of the
experience of the finale, and it may well stay ambiguous. So what’s the deal?)
For a while I chalked it up to necessity—his
time severely constrained by other problems, Hussie chose to focus on the broad
themes of the story, rather than address every detail. I
still think there’s truth in that, but what I’ve realized is that there’s a
much larger purpose at work, too. Hussie knew exactly what he was doing.
The goal of Homestuck’s ambiguous ending is to bring fans into the same space as its
characters, and recognize in their own lives its most essential themes.
Homestuck is a Gnostic myth that casts its audience as its heroes.
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.
homestuck uses seemingly random things/concepts – the zodiac, a deck of cards, billiards, the magic 8 ball – as thematic elements so fucking cleverly it’s almost infuriating
the game over timeline failed because vriska was killed – much like in billiards, you lose the game if you pocket the 8 ball too soon
not to infodump or nothing but imho its even deeper than that, in that by act 7 the entire web of symbolism has been flipped
this is foreshadowed kind of obliquely by one, having chess and pool be exactly the same game in-universe, with sburb taking the form of a collosally complicated game of chess in multiplayer sessions, but taking the form of pool in a single player session, and two, having caliborn switch his king and queen’s appearance, but having them move as if they were the piece they appear to be
vriska appears to be the 8 ball and killing her appears to end their game prematurely, but shes actually the cue ball, and killing her causes a scratch in which she can be placed wherever is most advantageous for the opponent, and english is the 8 ball, and shoving him into the metaphorical pocket that is the black hole from the collapse of the green sun ends the game
what im getting at here is that i fucking h8 homestuck
holy shit
There’s also all the parallels drawn between Snowman(The Black Queen) and Vriska. And of course, while Snowman APPEARS to be an 8-ball, what is killing her circumstantially simultaneous with? A SCRATCH. From the perspective of Caliborn and his Session, it appears to be a victory, but it actually allows his opponents to reposition themselves to best win The Game(like vriscourse says).
It goes significantly deeper than this, since the cueball is also likened to an Egg visually and explicitly. Scratch’s cueball head is the egg from which LE is born, and Dave literally calls Grimbark Jade’s cueball an egg:
Which links the cueball to Homestuck’s pervasive traditions of Gnostic/Christian, Grecoroman, and Egyptian myth. In all of these stories (but in Gnosticism in particular as far as I can tell), there’s a consistent focus on Eggs as a symbol of both destruction and birth, best summed up by a quote from Herman Hesse’s Damien:
The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God’s name is Abraxas.
(if that sounds familiar, it’s because it also shows up in Revolutionary Girl Utena, another story steeped in Gnostic symbols.)
And let’s not forget that the cueball/egg is also tied to another symbol: That of Homestuck itself.
So symbolically, The Ultimate Juju/Story of Homestuck is at once three things:
1) It is the world that Lord English has created, that the bird (our kids!) must destroy to be born.
2) It is the cueball. Specifically, it is the IDEA of the cueball. Lord English successfully suppreses all cueballs that can hurt him in physical reality, but is ultimately beaten because he cannot stop the power of the IDEA of the cueball, manifested symbolically.
3) It is also, simultaneously, an egg–a symbol of inevitable change. Change, whether it be for himself or the world he created, is, of course, the only thing that Lord English cannot tolerate, so it makes sense to present eggs as a weakness for him.
I’ve written about most of this in my essay on Gnostic myths and how they influence Homestuck, which you can find here.
But one last note: Just as important as how it affects LE is what this means for the characters. Homestuck is arguing that none of its characters have been “born”, constrained as they’ve been within the “shell” of LE’s alpha timeline.
In Act 7, that egg seems to hatch, the shell of the world that constrains it cracking and splintering under the force of the bird’s will.
So what comes next for Homestuck’s characters, if this is meant to be the moment of their birth?
Hello. I’ve never really done a proper theory post before, but I really hope I can manage to make my points clear? Because this is something I feel strongly about.
First of all, today is October 28th 2016, Homestuck had its Credits three days ago, and Hussie has been hinting at an Epilogue to come. Many people really want the Epilogue, because they feel Homestuck’s ending was unsatisfying. The reasons for this, and whether I agree with them or not, are up for debate and are more complex than they seem. But one reason people have proposed is that Hussie grew tired of writing Homestuck and just whipped up an ending. That is the viewpoint I absolutely disagree with, and I believe I can (if not prove) make a convincing case against. Which means I believe I can make a convincing case for the suggestion that Hussie had this entire ending planned, including people’s dissatisfaction with the ending and the reasons why they found it unsatisfying.
So then. What was the ending, again? Let’s describe it from the perspective of one who didn’t like the ending.
John finds his way into a rewritten world where his friends are not really the friends he knows. Roxy is dead here, indirectly killed by John’s own choice (but it’s okay because we know the real Roxy is still alive). The protagonists fight the Big Bad witch and inexplicably kill her with one lucky blow off-screen. A wolf thing, presented as a dire threat, has nothing to do with the actual fight and is neutralized and appeased naturally. A robotic killer is threatening but ultimately blows itself up. The audience is rewarded with, essentially, fanart of Homestuck characters being affectionate with each other. The audience is pissed off by this turn of events; after all that was built up, suddenly our favourite characters are being drawn by other people, suddenly all plot seems to have been forgotten and just strung together with contrivances. It feels like an insult to everything we’ve come to admire. The next Act, instead of providing more answers, we just get anime, and still not drawn by Hussie. A little while later, we hear again from the story, and we see our focal point character is despondent and mournful, deciding ultimately to take action and leaving us on a cliffhanger.
(I gave this description on Reddit, though I added the last sentence specifically for this post)
That is the ending, right? Let’s go over it again.
John finds his way into a retconned timeline, where the art is predominantly a different style than Hussie’s conventional (and when it is Hussie’s, it is “fast and loose”).
His friends are there, but John is consciously aware that they’re not literally the same people he has known all his life.
John’s very act of arriving in this retconned timeline (his Choice with Typheus in A6A6I4) necessitated that the new Roxy would have to die (which is okay because there is still the old Roxy).
The new John died before we came to this timeline.
The protagonists fight the witch (Batterwitch), the wolf (Jack), and the robot (different Jack).
The witch is inexplicably killed with one lucky blow. (The audience is rewarded with “fanart” of Homestuck characters being affectionate with each other, including a wedding.)
A wolf thing, presented as a dire threat, has nothing to do with the actual fight and is neutralized and appeased naturally, non-lethally.
A robotic killer is threatening but ultimately blows itself up.
The audience is pissed off by this turn of events; after all that was built up, suddenly our favourite characters are being drawn by other people, suddenly all plot seems to have been forgotten and just strung together with contrivances.
The next Act, instead of providing more answers, we just get anime, and still not drawn by Hussie.
A little while later, we hear again from the story (Credits), and we see our focal point character (John) is despondent and mournful…
…deciding ultimately to take action (fight Caliborn) and leaving us on a cliffhanger leading presumably up to the Masterpiece.
Does this… make sense? Do you see why I personally believe this whole “ending” is just another ruse, another instance of Homestuck being shaped like itself?
It took me waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to finally see this, but: Holy shit. This is fascinating. And backs up pretty much everything about what I think the ending is going for.
We’re in for a doozy, and I think it might be coming soon.
Apotheosis & Creation Myth
Horsin’ Around–Dirk as Physical Abuser
The Deep Blue of Weird Plot Shit– Dirk as Romantic Predator.
Pulling the Strings — Dirk as Manipulative Mastermind.
Tin Cans Don’t Have Feelings– Dirk as Unfeeling Robot.
HYPE ABOUT HIVESWAP: Grandpa, Alt-Life Memories, and Hiveswap’s lore.
This is a compilation of all of my written work on Homestuck, thus far. This is quickly turning into an ongoing project as I think of more I want to say about the comic and universe, and I wanted to have this stuff easily accessible on my blog for those who may be interested, so this is here to essentially serve as an archive link in my Analysis tag page.
On top of working on new pieces concerning subjects as varied as Spades Slick, Davekat, Vriska and (Vriska), character analysis of characters oft-considered ‘overlooked’, such as Jane, Jade, and Jake, the Retcon, and more–I’m also working on adapting these into video format! More on that soon.
For now, the essays:
Apotheosis & Creation Myth: A longform exploratory piece on Homestucks’ themes of metaphysics, Gnosticism, spiritual enlightenment and morality as a creation myth, and how these themes are reflected in the ending sequence of Act 7.
My views have grown and adapted somewhat since I wrote it, but I’m still pretty proud of this one! I stand by pretty much all the broad points I argued Homestuck was prioritizing, though I am looking forward to the chance to revise the details when I adapt it into video form.
A Defense of Dirk Strider: A four-part essay series questioning the commonly understood fandom narrative surrounding the events of Act 6, and providing a reading of Dirk Strider that I feel is more in line with what’s depicted in canon. I was expecting a lot of backlash for this one, but surprisingly I’ve yet to even encounter disagreement, at least that I’ve seen.
Each essay tackles a different popular misconception of Dirks’ character and puts different parts of the story under a microscope. They also sort of double as a defense of Dirkjake as a ship, and the Alphas as a group dynamic worth considering and celebrating as a whole, since I feel both suffer from how fandom typically considers Dirk and Jake in particular.
HYPE ABOUT HIVESWAP: An examination of Hiveswaps’ trailer, mainly noting it’s attention to detail with regards to Grandpa, the Alpha kids, and potentially even Calliope and Cherub lore, and comparing it’s approach to Grandpa’s character with that of early Homestuck, to determine how well it connects to the comic. (Spoilers: Very well.)
Includes some character analysis for Grandpa and raises new questions about the Guardians in general, but really I’m just incredibly excited and wanted to celebrate what looks like downright masterful environmental storytelling–something that should excite anyone interested in Hiveswap for its potential storytelling value.
Fans of Dark Souls and Undertale’s secret and clever lore nods should be quite excited for Hiveswap, if its trailer is any indication of the game as a whole.
That’s all for now, though you can expect to see more from me pretty much as soon as I’m able to get it to you, because writing about Homestuck is basically my favorite thing to do.
As ever, I regard everything I write as the opening of a conversation, rather than a definitive statement. If you have thoughts or questions on anything I’ve written that you’d like to share, feel free to send me an ask! I probably won’t engage through reblogs, however. I just kind of hate the format and find it inefficient and inelegant for archival purposes.
Flying through Storytelling 