classesandaspects:

classofaspect:

The binary system of Aspects is wrong! Just completely unable to be true.

Why? Because Aspects aren’t one single thing that matches up neatly with one other singular Aspect. Parts of the Aspects will of course make neat little parallels, or opposites. But the WHOLE Aspect? No, not a chance.

Example: Void! (I love Void, you can’t help but love your own Aspect, I feel) Void is described as primarily the essence of Lack, but also of Obfuscation. It’s often paired with Light, and on some notes I agree! Part of Void is “Lack of Clarity/Knowledge” and part of Light is “Knowledge/Understanding”**. Nice and clear opposites!

But, and here’s where a lot of Classpect*** theories start to fall apart: Void is not described and cannot reasonably assumed to be “Lack of Fortune”. You can’t really just put “lack” in front of a word and make it – Tah Dah! – Void-y. Likewise, Light isn’t described as “the essence of being”. On these facets, the comparison makes no sense! So saying that “Light is just Not!Void” as an end all be all of the conversation is just…not true.

But you know what is the opposite of Void’s “nothing”? Space! and that’s something you never see mentioned: Space is sometimes an opposite, sometimes intermingled with Void!

This kind of component-based analysis of Aspects make so so so much more comprehensive, it’s such a better tool to describe Aspects (or just in general).

And it makes for so many really interesting comparisons! Light and Rage have a few stark similarities! Hope and Void do too, in some ways! Time and Doom. Blood and Time. Space and Life. Breath and Heart. Heart and Time. There’s lots of similar or “opposite” facets of these Aspects, and they are usually lost if you’re only concerned about “yeah, but whats the nega-Breath? What’s the anti-Mind? What’s the bizarro-Hope?”

* There’s two theories, this one and the one I’m railing against lol
** I see Light as more of “Interpretation” as a core, and “Fortune” as a semi-related concept.
*** Probably could have changed this to “classpect theorists” meh

It’s not only the opposites between aspects but the similarities that are missed with the Aspect Duality system.  Space is related to Life via frog breeding.  Space is opposed by Hope via their female/male and successful/failed sexuality, respectively.  Void is opposed by both Light and Space, as described by OP – and also that the symbol of Void consists of the “voids” within the Space symbol (I’m p sure this was confirmed by Hussie, but I can’t find a source) – yet Light and Space don’t seem to have much of anything in common of either opposites or similarities.  Life and Breath are also the same symbol, turned sideways, and Doom and Time both have the gear motif in their symbols in addition to their general themes of death and inevitability.

Unfortunately, it’s also difficult to isolate the influence of the Aspects from the individual characters.  Space is female sexuality through frog breeding, Rosemary, and Porrim’s red flings – basically the only successful flush relationships in the entire comic – but then again the Maryams are both Virgo, and Jade hasn’t had a successful relationship yet.  Life and Breath seem related through their perseverance and ability to keep moving forward, but then again so are Jane and John.  Same with Heart and Time, due to Dirk and Dave.  And hell, same with Void and Light as opposites, due to Roxy and Rose.

There are some Aspects that work well in opposing pairs.  Space and Time, obviously, and even more so since that’s one of the pairs Hussie started with (the other being Light and Breath). (<– Rachel also says inversion isn’t a thing at that link.)  I also think that Heart and Mind are solid opposites, despite seriously disagreeing with the way that most of the fandom jumped to the emotion vs logic, duh!!! conclusion and rarely looks further.

But a few pairs doesn’t prove the existence of the entire system.

If you guys don’t mind me chiming in, I have a bit of a counterpoint.
I basically agree that there are all sorts of resonances between the Aspects, and that the focus on the established binaries tends to make people miss them.
I think this is unfortunate because we definitely lose a lot of depth that way. 

However, the pairs themselves are still real. I would not describe them as opposites, but rather as specifically dichotomous or, better yet, complementary, as Tex Talks describes them.  

This is because I don’t think that, for example, Void lacking a connotation of misfortune (an idea I’d argue against anyway) means that Void does not present an existential counterpoint to Light. The symmetries don’t have to be perfectly exact to paint a compelling picture in the broad strokes.

But more on that later.

Since you quoted softowl, I may as well mention that in an exchange with Bladekindeyewear where she debunked Inversion theory, she actually agreed with him about the aspect pairs themselves. 

i DO say u can arrange aspects in contrasting or dichotomous pairs. however, i DON’T think that has an impact into how acting against one’s class manifests.

i think you were typing this as I was typing my reply to myself!! i essentially agree with what you’ve just said, up to and including the pairs. it’s where you take it a step further that i disagree. http://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/comments/2ik4as/was_this_theory_debunked_or_did_this_guy_know/cl3bbj8

And in the quote you linked to from her, there’s an interesting little tidbit of information.

Andrew said that he started with Light and Breath, and then Time and Space, as the things you need for creation. Light and Breath being the more metaphysical concepts (especially influenced by Western canon/Christian thought, given that that’s deeply fused to our culture), Time and Space being the more quantifiable ones.

Which actually suggests more strongly than anything that there are indeed Aspect pairs, given the source Hussie was drawing on. I’ll be posting an essay on this on Monday so I’m not gonna go into much depth here, but I’m talking about the Gnostic concept of Aeons.  

Gnosticism is pretty much a conglomerate of obscure Christian mystic and alternative spiritual practices, and it is definitely part of the canon softowl references, since it’s where Abraxas and Yaldabaoth get their names and theres all sorts of other references to it in the story.

The Gnostic gist is that, n the “Nothing” before Creation, the One True God/Source of Light and Knowledge emanates a series of Idea-Gods known as “Aeons”. These Aeons were created in pairs, and were meant to create reality by working together “in harmony”.

So what you’ve got is beings of God-like power, bonded in pairs, who together create all of reality, yet exist entirely as Ideas rather than existing as concrete, physical entities. And Ideas are essentially what the Aspects are–conveyed as they are entirely through symbols, color and thought rather than specific language or concrete physicality. 

As with Yin-Yang’s applicability to the Active/Passive spectrum and Classes, the Gnostic concept of Aeons seems to be the closest analogue to Homestuck I’ve seen yet, so I think it’s worth bringing up here. Understanding the Aspects as akin to Gods also sort of helps me imagine how they might be understood to have “Wills” of any sort, as Calliope implies. 

As with the last one, hope this helps or that you found it interesting!