ok lets see if i cant run through this real quick

We’ve gotta start with the fact that as the third Hope player, Jake is subject to a magical prophecy passed down from Cronus. All three Hope players roleplay Magicians at some point.

Jake’s denizen, Abraxas, is sometimes considered a possible origin for the magic incantation ‘ABRACADABRA’, which is referenced by Roxy as she reads his BARK code.

Eridan and Jake both use Hope to force an enormous amount of emotional labor out of a Life player. And both Eridan and Jake piss their respective Life players off so much they revoke a symbol of mutual friendship. Eridan does this by using willful ignorance to keep his belief in a legacy of destruction, and then selfishly choosing to destroy Hope to save his own skin.

Jake is more complicated. He actually foreshadows his own behavior when he tells John about his Grandma in his letter, back in Act 4. It’s telling that tells John he likes to be honest, because he’s anything but for the first half of Act 6.

Jake changes what he himself believes, for his own benefit. He chooses to believe Jane after pressuring her into denying her own feelings for him, so he could avoid honesty and be with Dirk without having to turn Jane down.

Jake uses willful ignorance to get what he wants without having to be honest about it. In so doing, he ends up keeping secrets–not just from all his friends, but even from himself. Only the part of his brain that takes the form of Brain Ghost Dirk is fully honest about Jake’s true awareness of his surroundings.

Secrecy comes fairly naturally to a Witch. Jade’s plan in its entirety is shared with no one until the end, Damara is secretive and cryptic about her actions, the Batterwitch is noted for her secrets, Feferi doesn’t fill anyone in on the nature of her bargain with the Horrorterrors until after she’s already Dead…so on.

This seems to be an element of his Grandmother’s Jake emulates, but it doesn’t come naturally to him. He mentions that secrecy wears on him and leaves him feeling jaded, which is exactly how he ends up feeling about his relationship with Dirk. 

Oh, and speaking of Dirk.

If you recall, I’ve argued that Witches all have a Familiar figure, and that the imagery follows most characters who commit hard enough to Witch roleplay.
The familiar always represents the Witch’s Aspect.

A short list would look like:

Jade: Becquerel (Space)
Damara: Lord English (Time)
Feferi, The Batterwitch: Gl’bolyb (Life)
Rose: The Horrorterrors (Void), Doc Scratch (Light)

The interesting thing is, the relationship between a Witch and her Familiar always seems to be described in terms of Service. Serve is the verb inherent to Knight/Page, with Knights often Serving for the benefit of others, and Pages often benefiting from the service of others.

Because of this nuance, Knights can often be read as familiars to both types of Magicians (a topic I’ll definitely get more into sometime soon). This is best exemplified through Davesprite and later Davepeta, who takes on the attributes of a Crow and Cat–common types of Witch attendants.

It’s from Dirk that we get the best description of Witches’ Familiars, as he describes the relationship between Gl’bolyb and the Batterwitch.

And as it happens, it’s also an excellent description of the sum total of Jake’s experience of Dirk, himself. Which is fitting, because Dirk is also an intense roleplayer–one who roleplays a Knight.

Brain Ghost Dirk is the manifestation of Jake’s faith in Dirk as both his personal bodyguard and his secret weapon–a window into how Jake sees Dirk at his best. Here he parallels Bec saving Jade from the meteor or from imps. While Bec is powered by Space and Dirk by Hope, the image is of a devoted, hypercompetent protector.

Jake’s faith also has a hand in creating AR, however, and Hal becomes the interpretation of Familiars as foreboding and controlling figures. This Dirk most reflects Gl’bolyb imposing its will onto the Condesce’s desires, or Lord English imposing his onto Damara’s.

The Brobot under Hal’s control is even referenced as enigmatic, which definitely fits Jake’s perception of Dirk as generally hyper-mysterious, and AR as a cyber-omniscient puppetmaster responsible for Unite Synchronize.

ok so i totally failed at making that quick or short but that’s the loose gist of it. I could write a lot more but i really need to learn how to make these points concisely so i am hoping this is short and concise enough to get the point across.

let me know what you think!