Marvus thoughts pt. 1: Dionysian Frenzy

It’s an understatement to say that Marvus is a lot. He’s so much, in fact, that I had to split my thoughts about him into two posts from the get go. This got predictably long as hell so catch it under the read more.

This first part has to do with how he evokes various themes of Rage. I don’t think Marvus is Ragebound, but he seems to be the first direct evidence we’ve gotten that the Aspect influence of each Blood caste doesn’t necessarily have to manifest negatively.

Marvus seems to be so self-actualized and self-aware that he’s successfully reconciled and incorporated Rage into his identity, regardless of his true Aspect. Indeed, I’ve seen compelling arguments for Marvus as a Light, Hope, Mind, Heart and Life player so far–besides the personal impression I came away with of Blood.

He reminds me a lot of Doc Scratch, in terms of being someone who is so competent that they successfully blend and blur mastery of several different Aspects. Scratch wields virtually infinite influence through at least Space, Light, Rage, and even Time and Heart depending on how you look at it simultaneously, for example, which makes it hard to really assign him a true Aspect.

Marvus is obviously not that extreme, but given that he’s presumably a mere mortal in the end, he might be substantially more impressive. Anyway, lets get to noting the Rage references.

Obviously Its interesting that they start well before Marvus himself shows up. This has to do with the Reader becoming more aware of the nature of their reality as artificial/unreal/contrived, though, and that’s important to note for what comes next. For now lets keep it in mind and move on.

Zebruh, of course, inspires Rage through his “clowns are woke” comment, this time through simple anger. Of course, we’re inclined to think of Zebruh in terms of Doom and maybe Void, right? So maybe its a coincidence…

…but, huh, there it is again. Mentioned by name this time, no less.

This gets at an interpretation of Rage I’ve been meaning to talk about: Rage as a passionate spurt of fashion. The definition for this idiom, “all the rage”, says:

“The current or latest fashion, with the implication that it will be short-lived, The use of rage reflects the transfer of an angry passion to an enthusiastic one”

This understanding of Rage vibes heavily with Rage as indicative of the Hindu concept of “Maya”: The physical world as an inherently illusionary, unreal, ever-changing place.

When something is highly fashionable, it generally involves a lot of passionate reproduction in the realm of physicality-whether its an object, like Zebruh’s scooter, or a particular kind of performance.

Things like sports seasons, for example, are a kind of performance that comes about every so often, generating intense passion and fervor when they do. This is why I see Xefros’ interest in Arena Stickball indicative of his Rage inclinations.

In the same way, both the traveling circus and the music festival are fundamentally events of the moment, and when they’re in town, they draw our eyes to artifice, meaningless (if fun!) spectacle, and when they’re good, hearty guffaws or empassioned bellows–all things associated with the Comitragic heart of Rage.

Zebruh’s designs on Marvus also evoke Rage. He asks us to engage in a theatrical performance (one centered on Black feelings, no less–Kissmesitude itself is inherently linked to Rage via Kurloz and Gamzee).

It’s pretty odd that Zebruh is so taken with Rage, but I think that’s simply the nature of Marvus’ performance–and perhaps tells us a bit about how Aspects shift and spread through individuals. Zebruh is thinking entirely about clowns, purplebloods, and Marvus specifically, and that seems to influence his actions–and so is really everyone in attendance at this dark carnival.

The whole spectacle of Marvus’ performance deeply evokes Dionysian festivals to me. I’ve previously covered how Gamzee Makara is deeply entwined in the myth and symbolism of Dionysus, and its pretty clear by now that this association is inherited by all Purplebloods.

As a refresher, cults to Dionysus generally involved people–usually his female attendants, the Maenads, (who you might remember from Chahut’s last name) entering states of ritual madness and tearing animals or sometimes even humans apart with their bare hands.

Which uh, you know. Might have some parallels here. Just maybe.

Actually, Zebruh’s particular dismemberment feels a little more specific. Just as I’ve speculated that Gamzee has links to Dionysus or Terezi to Themis, I’ve suggested that Equius may have links to Orpheus, who was torn apart by Dionysus’ Maenads at the end of his life.

I’m thinking its a possibility that Zebruh is inheriting Equius’ Orphic legacy here, just as Marvus is inheriting Gamzee’s Dionysian one.

Ok everyone should be about gone by now which means we can finally stop talking about Zebruh, just you and me. Finally.

Let’s cover some other things Dionysian worship tended to cover. Dionysus was also the god of religious ecstasy, which I think we see in the intense, deific love Marvus inspires. He’s also an entity of sexual transgression–much of his worship included orgies, and included in his male attendants were the Satyrs, goat men with perpetually erect penises described as “archetypal musicians and dancers”, associated with the breaking down of traditional values.

I think this is part (but not all) of the intense horniness that surrounds Marvus. Moreover, most of that horniness takes a pretty specific bent. It’s not just that people are horny for Marvus, but that he inspires some intense and very physical reactions, usually involving things we culturally see as debasement, degradation, and filth.

In other words, the specific kinks invoked through Marvus generally fall in the camp of things that are likely to outrage or disgust the audience, and so I’m ascribing that to his Rage influence as well.

I am well on record as describing Hope as the “horny” Aspect, but it’s worth noting that as its complement, we have precedent to see Rage as pretty horny, too, and in precisely this way: It brings to mind Gamzee’s bouts of necrophilia or profoundly upsetting approach to expressing his sexuality with women.

And of course, he’s putting on a performance of artifice and illusion for his fans–his show’s as much Theater as music. He even tricks them into thinking he killed you, sending them into a frenzy (ritual madness) that has them all tear each other to death. But more on that later.

The most important way Rage manifests in Marvus is through his deep awareness of the theatrical, metatextual artifice that is The Friendsim itself. Like Gamzee before him, Marvus is aware of the nature of the story he’s in. He rivals Boldir or even Davepeta in his understanding of the implications of this, even.

But where the Heartbound tend toward an existential/spiritual focus on
the fates of the characters locked in the narrative, Marvus devotes his
awareness to dissecting the meaning and mechanisms that underpin this
entire narrative framework.
He transgresses against the rules of Paradox Space itself, and insists
that there is meaning even in the paths that seem most meaningless.

Interestingly, even the way he thinks about PSpace feels Ragey:

He says it doesn’t matter if a path is completely contrived and illegitimate–acknowledging a state of being as unreal can still inform how you interpret reality, and so choose to act upon it. The awareness of unreality can be a source of power in itself, as well as a source of confidence and motivation.

So for example, acknowledging Homestuck as unreal/artificial could have allowed Gamzee to interpret himself as immortal, or at least informed his choice to reject Homestuck and follow Lord English.

Or one could be Marvus, who is empowered by this awareness–I’m sure it’s easier to perform for crowds of adoring fans when you’re aware you’re in a video game in which you’re a pretty major character–and still choose to be the exact opposite of Gamzee. In the face of unreality, he chooses to be a friend and a comforting hero. Which is why hes bae.

Mirroring, Distorting, Magnifying–these are all tools of theater, of jokes, of circus acts and the deliberate construction of art and narrative.

Marvus is suggesting that any individual timeline expands the meaning of Paradox Space as a whole by exaggerating, paralleling, or subverting different elements of how we see it, and putting new elements of each character and the setting into focus as a result.

And he argues that wearing down or violating continuity can itself bring that continuity into sharper focus. By “defiling” the story, its the shape of its integrity is further defined.

This is terribly exciting, because its basically Marvus straight up saying that plot holes and contrivances are another element of Homestuck’s story, and that is absolutely crucial to understanding how Lord English attacks the characters, the audience, and Homestuck itself.

Every little thing Gamzee does or manipulates others into doing that pisses us off and makes us further question whether Homestuck is worthwhile or a pile of dreck is being directly acknowledged here as explicit and intentional.

Hell, his actions have the exact payoff he claimed they would–we’ve fundamentally learned something new about the nature of Paradox Space because of what he’s done. It actually CAN come undone around the characters, provided they’re resistant enough to dying or dissapearing as a doomed timeline demands.

I previously believed that was impossible, and that timelines in Homestuck simply faded out naturally when players went to sleep instead–meaning there couldn’t be any Gamzees who didn’t go to sleep and merge with the Alpha iteration of the guy. That presumption is now in question.

At the same time, we can now be pretty sure that those hypothesized Schrodingers Gamzees out there never turned into horrorterrors, since we know what happens when someone resists the pull of a doomed timeline and it’s…not that. So that old bit of fanon is that much more questionable.

Now we have new questions, like: Why did this doomed timeline collapse so quickly, as opposed to say, Dave and Rose’s, which lasted four months? And so, through this singular violation of the rules of Doomed timelines, the grander design that informs them has come into sharper focus.

By far the most interesting thing he says though, is this. This is. A lot. let’s try to unpack it. Basically, he’s saying even an incident outside of canon contributes to a wider fandom metaconciousness.

So for example the Game Over timeline isn’t canon, but we still know that when Jake reaches full Hope power he can summon Brain Ghost Dirk, and that even after Dirk breaks up with him, Jake thinks of Dirk as his boyfriend. So that is meta knowledge that we all hold, even though it didn’t happen in the “canon” timeline. Alright. Simple enough.

But then he suggests that that metaconciousness is built by, and might even be defined primarily by, the various interpretations held by those who observe the event, and the discussion where they exchange those ideas afterwards.

In other words, what defines the metaconcious reality of Paradox Space is…us. The audience. And the various interpretations of meaning we derive from what we’re witnessing, whether canonical or non-canonical. We’re the ones who tie it all together, in our heads and through our conversations and relationships with each other.

The album’s lyrics describe the leader of the Carnival, who serves as
one of the judges of one’s soul in the afterlife, as being created from
the listener’s own evils.

When I read that, it reminded me of “The Ringmaster”, the juggalo Joker Card we’ve been associating with Marvus in my patron server. The juggalo card suggests that the leader of the carnival is created by “The listener’s own evils”, and in this context I think we can trade “listener” for “audience” and “evils” for general thoughts. Paradox Space as it exists in Homestuck/hiveswap is created by our thoughts.

But of course there is a bigger ringmaster than Marvus out there. Is it worthwhile to consider that the true judge of souls in Homestuck’s afterlife–Lord English–is born from our evils himself, in some way?

Dunno. It’s all a lot to think about. For now, this wraps up my discussion of Marvus’ extensive links to Rage, so join me next for a discussion on what I’m certain is his Class–Lord–and my personal guess at his Aspect–Blood.

Hi there! I just finished watching your HSE: The Waking World video (great job btw!), and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the identities of the other Denizens? We don’t know anything about those that are usually assigned to heroes of Blood, Doom, Mind, and Rage — also, Hope and Heart, since I don’t think Yaldabaoth and Abraxas are the standard denizens for those aspects.

Given how the denizens usually factor into the characters’ arcs in various ways, I’ve come to believe its possible to sorta reverse engineer at least some of the denizens of the characters we don’t know.

The ur-example here is Gamzee, who is so heavily linked to Dionysus I can’t really see another option for him.

Unless he has Yaldabaoth, which is possible since

A) Part of Dionysus’ mythology that links to Gamzee involves becoming one with Zeus, just as Gamzee becomes part of LE, and Homestuck’s mythology generally seems to treat Yaldabaoth as a symbol Zeus, Ra, and YHWH at once depending on the roles Caliborn/Dirk (rly Bro and AR here)/LE are playing at the time.

B) It seems at least possible that Yaldabaoth “replaces” the standard Denizen a player might have, yeah. (To be honest though, I’m not sure that Denizens are precisely aspect specific–my views on Denizens generally borrow a lot from @dahniwitchoflight, her conjecture on that particular system makes the most sense to me right now.)

C) Gamzee obviously qualifies for the “natural born warrior” thing. So does Equius, but due to Gamzee’s dominance I tend to assume he’s likelier to have Yaldabaoth.
Incidentally, if Equius doesn’t have Yaldabaoth, I’ve speculated he might have Orpheus, since Orpheus is at least in some places understood as a version of Dionysus, and Equius’ story seems to have some parallels to his.

Looking at canon this way it also becomes a solid guess that Terezi’s denizen was Themis, since again she’s blatantly enmeshed in her mythology.

That gives us at least one reasonably fitting denizen for Rage and Mind–Dionysus and Themis, respectively. As for Doom, I haven’t identified a particular mythological figure Sollux or Mituna seem based off other than the obvious–the Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux. But since there’s two there, I’m not sure how that’d translate to a Denizen–a dual denizen with two names would be fitting enough, I suppose. It’s also possible I’m missing some other mythological references built into the Captors, so who knows.

Don’t have anything to go off for Blood, though. Both Kankri and Karkat are fully enmeshed in Jesus imagery, all of which ties directly into Abraxas, so they don’t have any outside mythological ties to let us speculate into their Aspect’s “corresponding Denizen” specifically, if indeed such a thing exists. I’ve thought for a long time that YHWH would be a fitting match for Blood, as a “God of the covenant”. But that’s just my long-held fan preference, not any kind of serious speculation based on canon.

spacekeiths:

whats-bronya-the-president-of:

Hm

Hm

Hm

Hm

Hm

Named after two flightless things with wings, but he’s Derse and Mind. What’s this guy’s deal..?

The desire for flight parses to me as a Breath motif, which would be the Aspect all bronzebloods are drawn to by their caste if @wakraya ‘s Troll Sign Caste theory is correct.

Dammek himself exhibits some strong Breath imagery despite being Bloodbound–the hoverpad he steals from Xefros has a breath blue beam, for example.

So this reference feels like it’s along the same lines of Chahut Maenad’s last name, which is a reference to the worship of Dionysus, even though she’s a Hope player.

Their names and aesthetics seem to reflect the Aspect/mythology that Alternian society pressures them into, as much as their own True Sign aspects.

Anon with the book on gnosticism here, figured I should come off anon! After watching the latest Gamzee video, I thought it might be interesting (if not terribly relevant) to share a bit on Dyonisian cults/religion, more specifically their somewhat opposite cult/religion, Orphism. Orpheus is, in Grecian myth, the son of either a human man or Apollo, and Calliope (a name we all recognize), muse of heroic poetry. Orpheus was torn apart at the end of his life by the Maenads of Dyonisian fame.

Oh yes, I’m glad you brought this up. Me and the pals in the patreon discord talked about Orpheus a bit after this Dionysus stuff came out, and I think there are two solid ideas to consider.

The first is we should probably keep an eye out for an Orpheus themed troll in Hiveswap, since the story you mentioned is one of the more notable stories Maenads are involved in, so uh…we might be able to expect such a character might have trouble with Chahut. RIP @ that hypothetical guy, probably.

But it’s also possible Orpheus’ analogue is Already Here, in this guy:

We won’t get to this in video for a while, so lets just get into it here.

To start us off, yes–Orpheus’ dies at the hands of the Maenads, specifically for denying his former Patron God, Dionysus–who in Homestuck we can loosely understand as Gamzee in the flesh, and the Grand Highbloods and their ideology symbolically.

Gamzee kills Equius right when Equius turns his back on the Highblood’s ideology, and tries to stop Gamzee from murdering the lowbloods. So there are some legit parallels. An obvious issue here is that Orpheus is killed by the Maenads on Dionysus’ behalf, but there’s a couple things to consider.

If we’re reading Rage as the aspect of Theatre, then suddenly the masks and identifiers Gamzee wears become much more important. By identifying himself with Nepeta’s cat hat, Gamzee evokes the Maenads’ practice of dressing with panther skins, as Dionysus greatly valued the animal.

Note that Gamzee’s polka-dotted clown pants now suggest the spots on a cat, like the Panthers’.

Gamzee also enters the scene of Equius’ murder wearing Terezi’s shades.
Dionysian imagery plays into Gamzee’s treatment of Terezi already–Satyrs were known for “breaking down traditional values”, a good example of which is…Law.

So uh. That puts a new spin on all of Gamzee’s mockery of courts of law whilst pitting Terezi against Vriska. And his literal breaking down of Terezi–emotionally across the meteor, and physically before Game Over.

+ given how Gamzee basically dragged Terezi into his juggalo cult, I think we can–to an extent–read her as an unwilling Maenad, and so Gamzee identifying himself with her symbol here seems relevant.

Back to Orpheus, though. You’re right to point out the similarities between Orphic and Dionysian traditions–both were apparently mystery cults, fitting both the secretive nature of the Mirthful Messiahs and the unknowable nature of Void.

Orpheus in general comes off pretty Voidy–his mythology seems to feature a lot of water imagery, fitting Equius’ sweat motif, for example. But apparently, some held that Orpheus was a mortal version of Dionysus himself:

“Here his death is analogous with that of Pentheus,
who was also torn to pieces by Maenads; and it has been speculated that
the Orphic mystery cult regarded Orpheus as a parallel figure to or
even an incarnation of Dionysus.”

Which is certainly interesting because part of Dionysus’ myth is being ingrained in Zeus’ thigh until he grows to reach maturity. This “becoming part of the Patriarch God” narrative evokes, to me, Gamzee and Equius both becoming one with AR/Caliborn, who are both stand ins for Yaldabaoth, the sun-branded Demiurge described in Gnostic mythology.

One of the figures the term ‘Demiurge’ was born to describe was Zeus, and indeed, Caliborn’s arc in particular echoes Zeus at times–Caliborn banishing the beta kids into the house echoes Zeus’ banishing Typheus under Mt. Etna, which was also said to house Hephaestus’ forges.

And then there’s the most famous myth Orpheus is involved in–his quest to seek his dead wife in the Afterlife.

When Eurydice dies, Orpheus travels to Hades and charms the gods into letting her travel back to the world of the living with him…

“But thoughtless Orpheus forgot, and when he turned round and looked at his wife, she instantly slipped into the depths again.”

Void is the counterpart to Light, the aspect of the imaginary, the Humanities–the realms of thought. So ‘Thoughtless’ feels particularly Voidy here, especially since it causes a return to depths. Memory and Forgetting pretty clearly tie into Light/Void respectively, too.

I might be reading too much into the wording here, but the basic parallel stands–Equius doesn’t die to find Aradia, but his stint in the underworld coincides with dating a bunch of Aradiabots, and when he returns to the world of the living it’s without her, as…

A version of Yaldabaoth/Zeus, with a side of Orpheus/Dionysus attached. I’m not totally sure I buy this reading–if we were talking about any Aspect besides Void, which is literally linked to vague and unknowableness, I’d want to feel a lot more certain. Its possible there are other deities that might reflect the Zahhaks better.

But this seems pretty fitting to me, so I thought I’d raise the curiosity.

What do you all think?

This time we dig into Gamzee’s recurring links to the masks of Comedy and Tragedy, historical worship of the Greek god of Theatre, Dionysus, and what all of this tells us about Gamzee’s arc and, potentially, even the Rage aspect.

Today’s question is: Can you think of other trolls with strong ties to figures in Greecoroman/Egyptian/Judeo-Christian mythologies?

You can find links to sources & support the project at:
https://www.patreon.com/optimisticDuelist

Find the music on bandcamp!

Purple Bard: https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/…
Apocryphal Antithesis: https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/…
Entangled with the Void: https://spellmynamewithabang.bandcamp…

Fanart source: Ikimaru http://ikimaru.tumblr.com

More on Theater @ Crash Course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeTeK…

GAMZEE MIGHT MAKE SENSE ACTUALLY —

It never stops from keep happening.

[ACT 1==> THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS]

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.

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.

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.

Worship of Dionysus is also credited with the eventual founding of Theatre, particularly the Tragedy genre. An early predecessor of Theater is the Satyr Play, a largely comedic and slapstick performance reminiscent of the Trickster Mode sequence.

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.