[Author’s Note: This is a repost of Love, Faith and Fantasy–my piece on Jake and Dirk’s character arcs and the relevance of Knights and Pages in understanding them. I thought breaking it up into chunks would make the content more accessible, and give me room to flesh out each argument. Thus there will be some updates to the content. Hopefully this will mean more people can easily approach it!]

[Pt. 1 – Knights/Pages – Service and Ownage]
[Pt. 2 – Faith and Fear] [Pt. 3 – Fearful Heart] 
[Pt. 4 – Nobility] 

A disclaimer before we get started:

 I think reading Jake as aromantic is copacetic with the canon. Obviously I don’t share this reading–I see him as Bi and romantic–but all I’m going to argue here is that Jake deeply, truly, profoundly loves Dirk. I’m going to explain how and why he loves him, too.

But whether that love is romantic or platonic is up to interpretation, I think.
You can read them as lovers or best friends or whatever shade of grey between is most pleasing to you, in my humble opinion. All I’m arguing is that the love is there. That out of the way, let’s begin.

I don’t feel the need to deconstruct Jake’s every line to determine why he didn’t mean each and every one that could suggest a lack of romantic interest. You can pretty much put almost all of them down in one of four categories:

He worries about other people’s perceptions and discomfort with queerness, a byproduct of internalized homophobia…

His later discomfort with feeling unsafe and sexually threatened/objectified, a byproduct of his traumatic experiences with Hal, Jane and Aranea…

His lack of surety regarding the nature of Dirk’s feelings for him…., a byproduct of his willful ignorance and his desire to avoid talking about the possibility he may have hurt Dirk’s feelings growing up.

And then there’s the one moment I actually want to talk about.

Jake says this in response to Roxy talking about feeling like it hurts to let Dirk down. The thing is, Roxy–like Dave–is a Passive player, who is predominantly motivated by the perceptions and needs of others. Of course failing someone she cares about is going to sting for her more than it would for Jake.

That has nothing to do with Jake’s capacity for love, it has to do with the fact that Jake is selfish. It has to do with him regretting his self-absorption. Jake does love, and he loves intensely–he loves enough to die for it, which is pretty much as intense as it gets. He’s just deeply, deeply selfish about it.

And I love that selfishness about Jake. Because it turns all doubts about whether Jake loves Dirk back to ash in one fell swoop, in one single, brilliant, shining moment. 

In this moment all of Jake’s plot threads come together–his sexual abuse and lack of agency, his growing fear, his certainty none of his friends wants him anymore, his selfishness and fantasy indulgence AND Dirk’s desire to live up to Dave’s image and be helpul to Jake are all built up into this one single, spectacular moment.

A cinematic moment. A moment with deep philosophical implications.

Everything about Jake and Dirk’s narratives builds up to this. Dirk’s desire to live up to Dave and Jake’s inherent selfishness are complementary, symbiotic forces. I mentioned earlier that when Dirk’s lamp and Heart Light up and overflow he performs incredible, unbelievable acts whilst rushing to Jake’s side.

And when Jake is Lit up by Aranea, removing his agency as a person COMPLETELY while also making him the brightest object in the sky, Jake manages to find a way to turn his power against her. And what he chooses to create reveals everything about his character. 

Because what he chooses to do is call Dirk to his side, to protect him and keep him safe from his perceived threat.

Both of the boys literally LIGHT UP with their feelings for each other, in a comic where the concept of Light is explicitly linked to relevance, importance, understanding, and the concept of reaching Enlightenment or Nirvana. (Stay tuned, I’ll flesh this out more in my next three videos.)

I’ve gone over the inherent romance in Jake choosing to create Dirk over literally any other option imaginable. But with the new context of Jake explicitly looking to serve himself through Hope, it takes on an added edge. What Jake wants more than anything else in the world is Dirk, but not at all to make Dirk happy or because it’s what Dirk would want. No.

Jake wants Dirk because he’s selfish. Because he wants life to be happy and easy and adventurous but carefree, and he believes he can always rely on Dirk to take care of things or bail him out when things get too intense for him to handle. Jake wants Dirk as a best friend, a bodyguard, a partner, a rival and a servant all rolled into one.

Jake’s feelings for all of his friends have nothing to do with them and everything to do with himself. He’d rather die than live in a word without Jane, and that’s why he saves her–not because he thinks he owes it to her for past slights. The same is true of the way he wants to be with Dirk.

All of this is textual by implication. Dirk’s line:

”I am Brain Ghost Dirk. You kissed my boyfriend. Prepare to Die.”

Is indicative of the Dirk that Jake wants and believes in in his head. This line is a movie reference to The Princess Bride, a romantic fantasy adventure comedy with a very curious dynamic between the romantic leads. 

No shortage of people have pointed out how Jake seems to see himself as or end up in the positions of sexualized and marginalized female protagonists, but I think there’s a cause to be made Jake’s “arc” draws from this specific one–Buttercup–above all others. Buttercup’s romantic dynamic with Westley is simple: She issues requests to him, and he responds “As you Wish.” 

This As you Wish is an explicit I love you, and the power of love is put forth as the source of Westley’s power and endless competence and ability throughout the entire story. It doesn’t matter what needs to happen, Westley finds a way to do it. And he does it because he believes in their love.

Buttercup, however, struggles to hold on to her faith that love can overcome all things possible and wavers in her commitment to living for it, ending up nearly trapped in an unwanted marriage. Buttercups’ arc is resolved when she chooses to believe in love even at risk of dying, promising never again to hide what she truly desires–Westley.

Jake perceives Dirk as his Prince Charming, an idea that could also be described as a Knight in Shining Armor. 

This is the essence of Jake’s fantasy, and we know that’s what it is–a fantasy– because when Caliborn threatens to kill Dirk in the Masterpiece (which the Credits suggest we’ll soon see once again), Jake responds by shifting his and Dirk’s fundamental power dynamic–once again Lighting Up with love to save Dirk by delivering Caliborn his destined serving.

Jake’s victory ends up giving Hope to all those opposing Lord English, but Jake himself doesn’t give a shit about that. 

Jake’s stated motivation for trouncing Caliborn is one thing and one thing only: Saving Dirk. Serving his own desire to see Dirk safe. Caliborn is hurting his friend, and Jake is mad about it. His motivation is essentially identical to his desire to save Jane–he doesn’t want to live without Dirk.

And on Dirk’s side, this dynamic ultimately validates the idea that he became everything he wanted to become by emulating Dave through a bit of understated environmental storytelling. 

What’s more, this bit of environmental storytelling also prompts us to consider looking back towards the early Acts with the Beta Guardians with a bit more of a serious eye–the darkness of Mom’s House and Bro damaging the symbol of Dave’s Self begin to take on heavier tones, for example. 

What’s more, it gives us more reason to be excited for Hiveswap, through virtue of the fact that it demonstrates Hiveswap’s care and attention to detail with regards to Homestuck as a whole. 

I already argued in favor of Grandpa being able to on some level remember his relationship to the Alphas, so click here to see full version of that argument.   

The shortform is this: Grandpa’s manor has three rooms, each lit by one of the Alpha’s colors and filled with items linked to them, and the Distinguished Houseguests in his Grand Foyer each link to one of the Alphas as well. 

Here are the rooms in sequence:

Take a look at the fireplace–it’s got Derse colors on one side, and Prospit colors on the other. On the Prospit side, you’ve got a Blue Lady–matching Jane, who Jake liked to trade posters of blue people with– and an alien species with horns on it’s head, also wearing a suit–matching Calliope. 

On the Derse side you’ve got a Mummy, matching Roxy both by sharing both Jake and Roxy’s interests in bodily preservation, and through the fact that Roxy’s planet includes Pyramids. There’s also the wordplay between the words Mummy and Mommy, if you’ll allow me to stretch a little.

And then we have a Knight, representing Dirk. This dynamic answers a question that didn’t even need asking–why the Knight sitting on the Derse side of Grandpa’s house wears a suit suspiciously similar to one of Dave’s most well-known ones.

It suggests an explicit linkage of the idea of Knighthood and the idea of Dave, and suggests that this is the imagery that comes to Grandpa’s mind when thinking of Dirk. In one way, you could view this as Dirk managing to destroy his own thematic legacy in Bro and succeeding at living up to Dave’s thematic image instead, at least in Grandpa’s mind–a sort of ultimate implementation of his Prince of Heart role.

This existentially validates Dirk, setting him apart from his Splinters and rendering him unique in the context of the Dirk Strider ultimate self–at least in the eyes of the boy he loves. And, well. Fuck? That’s beautiful to me.

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And just for the record, this is a connection that has held true across not only the entirety of the Homestuck, but through Hiveswap as well, with a Knight standing right in front of a smuppet in Grandpa’s garage:

Which suggests to me that WP has approached Grandpa’s memories and the Alpha’s arcs with the same attention to detail the comic itself gave them, and makes me extremely confident in what’s to come. Hopefully now you are too. Hiveswap’s attention to detail speaks to the quality of the story they’ve crafted, and we should all be excited beyond reasonable belief, in my humble opinion.

Conclude.

So that’s it. That’s pretty much all my evidence for this reading of Dirk, Jake, Dave, and the wider story surrounding them. I look forward to hearing your responses. Personally, putting this together was revelatory for me. 

I hope it was for you, too. If it wasn’t quite, I hope you want to talk about it and keep track of the ongoing conversation I hope takes place here as a result.

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This series has been a passion project, but also a side project to my youtube series aimed at welcoming and explaining Homestuck to new, incoming Hiveswap fans. If you find yourself trying to make it easier for a Hiveswap fan to understand what Homestuck is about and how it connects to the game, I hope you think of me.

If you like my writing and have a buck to spare, you could also really help me out by enabling me to focus on putting more of this content out there through pledging on Patreon. Doing so will also give you access to my private community of enthusiasts trying to advance new and interesting readings of this wonderful property.

See you again soon, everyone. Until then,

Keep rising.