[This is an excerpt from a longer post, but I think it can stand on its own. It’s based on blogger mmmmalo/Malo’s idea of Homestuck characters as Manifestations of the protagonists’ psychology and trauma. Malo argues that Lord English is a reflection of Jade’s hidden trauma; below, I present a different approach.
Content warning for discussion of neglect, abuse, CSA, suicide, assault, and general
trauma.]
As I understand it, Manifestations Theory posits:
New characters, events, and problems introduced in Homestuck come into being as symbolic echoes (manifestations) of the psychology of the original four characters. Further characters also emerge as manifestations of those new characters, and so on. This is especially true of the interaction between the kids and the trolls, but also of other figures like the Midnight Crew, the Dancestors, and Lord English.
I really dig this way of reading Homestuck! It often leads to really interesting results. I think it makes a great deal of sense in terms of how Hussie writes his characters as echoes or riffs on previous characters.
I could very easily see a Paradox Space which provides its players with beings and events that echo their own psychology. In which the challenge for SBURB players, in very Gnostic fashion, is to face the reflections of their own selves in order to find their own identity within their concerns and fears. That’s awesome!
That said, my reading of the origin of Lord English as a psychological Manifestation differs significantly from Malo’s.
What I find very striking about Lord English is that he’s an amalgamation. He’s a fusion of Caliborn + Lil’ Hal (AR) + Equius + Half of Gamzee.
That’s incredibly resonant, because if there’s one thing it makes sense
for the villain to be in Homestuck, it’s a collision of overlapping
symbols, like everything else that drives its story. And a mess of
overlapping symbols is also perfect as an expression of psychological
problems.
Here’s the reading I’ve been playing around with:
Lord
English is the manifestation of the collective traumas, repressions,
and psychological issues of the initial protagonists of Homestuck.
Oooh my god, I love this. I never quite linked LE to trauma or any given character’s psychological issues, and I certainly never considered attempting to pair the Betas with respective components of LE.
I’m not super sure how sold I am on the link between Rose and Caliborn (Scratch always struck me as more Hal than Caliborn myself; the twisted realization of Caliborn’s desire to be “Bros” with Dirk mingling with AR’s desire to emulate Dave by Serving others.) And I’m still mulling Jade over, too.
But that’s pretty much just me saying this take on LE is really interesting, and teases new light out of him as an antagonistic figure, so I hope we end up expanding on the concept more.
I’m glad you’ve joined us! 😉 Alright so, I should mention that me mentioning other people isn’t the same as me saying I agree with all their opinions. I just want to avoid confusion, because I think a big part of what makes the conversation around Homestuck so rich rn is the variety of in-depth opinions and perspectives.
https://www.youtube.com/user/thetrulyalex/videos Tex Talks is a must watch. He’s incredibly good at what he does, and changed how I see Aspects fundamentally. He’s also the person who got me to start considering Pages as Active and Knights as Passive.
@betweengenesisfrogs is an amazing writer, and helped me learn a lot about the comic’s Gnostic themes. I also like @arrghus ‘s posts on Aspects and @homestuckexamination / @wakraya ‘s general writing, especially the idea of Castes being influenced by their associated True Sign’s Aspect. And @sam-keeper ‘s articles on Homestuck remain some of the most influential writing on me personally, even years after they were written.
I also enjoy a lot of @mmmmalo , @dahniwitchoflight and @bladekindeyewear s writing. That’s probably a decent crop to get started with? The last two in particular have been around for years, and are some of the best known Homestuck “theorizers”, as it were.
Heir’s familiars tend to actually be pretty harmless and less powerful. John’s clearest Familiar is Wizardly Vassal, for example. I could also make an argument for Nepeta, and then Davepeta way later into the narrative–they’re p much set up as Jade’s familiar, and they’re pretty relevant to Arquis, too.
Oh, no. All I was alluding to was that Mind and Heart powers in general both seem to be linked to alt-universe memories. I kind of already believe this about Dirk, since I suspect he correctly subconsciously intuited Jane’s other name, Anna.
Since Dirk has Heart powers, I just mean he has the idea of Heart to add to any potential fraymotif combination. Considering what Dave and Terezi were able to do together, literally who knows what the kids could accomplish by working together as they learn to use their powers to their fullest.
anon: I don’t do analysis writing on individual classpects, not because I don’t want to or don’t think it’s worth doing (there’s lots of cool peeps doing it on tumblr now!) but because I could do it literally forever.
Writing or producing content mostly related to Homestuck is basically a full-time job for me, so I try to stay focused on making stuff as many people can enjoy as possible. When I do talk about this stuff, I’d like it to be focused on particular characters, and ideally on Youtube.
That way,
A) People who aren’t already in love with Classpects might have a chance in hell of being interested, assuming I do my job well enough and B) I can hopefully paint a much more evocative and interesting idea of what the Title might be like.
Until then, I think what I’ll do is mention a character I read as at least related to said Hero Title, if I can think of one.
At least two characters I’ve considered covering in video form can be read as Pages of Heart, I think: Kirby (serves himself the bodies and identities of his enemies; wears hats) and Steven Universe (though I also think he might be a Knight? I’m not sure. I’d need to rewatch SU at this point.)
@appreciationcat Thanks! I don’t know if anyone “should” use classpects any particular way, especially since I’m not even sure we fully understand the system, but I’m glad if what I’m up to is helping anyone understand classpects better.
@geekness101 See 1. As it happens, though, we have one such character right in the comic. Jake English may not be a Witch, but he does roleplay as one for a good chunk of his narrative. Keep an eye out for my writing on that as soon as I can possibly produce it.
I’m a big Roxygen fan. I’m kind of a very laissez-faire multishipper in my heart of hearts, and that’s especially true with John. I ship him with like half the cast don’t even look at me…
That said, I’m also huge on Callieroxy. And Janecallieroxy and Johncallieroxy. Also I kind of figure between Davepeta, Dirk and Terezi, everyone’s probably more likely than not to recover their memories about everything over time with like, fraymotif god powers and stuff.
Not that the “bound together by shared memory of trauma” concept is bad at all for John and Roxy, now that you mention it. I have a similar mindset about how Dirk and Jake deal with their shared trauma as the ones who experienced the brunt of the responsibility for/harrassment of HAL/AR.
Hm. Homestuck is good. I need to catch up on fanfic.
Back in the old fandom days, I was one of the many who was pretty pissed about that joke and internalized it as some sort of “take that” at Homestuck fans who had criticisms of the comic’s relationship to race.
My feelings have since shifted, and I certainly don’t think that was the narrative intent. I think the Caucasian joke is better understood in context with the rest of the comic’s gnostic themes. I’ve written an article on Trickster Mode:
Suffice it to say, I’m not an expert on race issues, and I don’t want my personal feelings to imply that all people who are critical of Homestuck along those lines are being unreasonable or anything.
But my reading of the text is such that if anything, the joke here is on Whiteness as a source of political power.
Or, even more likely, on making a tongue in cheek reference to one of AURYN’s side-effects in The Neverending Story. When Bastian (a white kid) gains the amulet (same one depicted on Jane’s Lollipop), he’s also transformed into an “oriental prince.” Racebending is sort of part of the thing’s powerset.
Not on debunking the idea that the kids could be white, or mocking fans who wanted to consider the possibility.
TWND already looks fantastic to me, so I’m excited :B But mainly I’m mentioning this because it expands the window of possibility for what we can reasonably expect of Homestuck’s epilogue.
“I wanted to do something a little unusual for it, something existing outside the confines of the web story. Working with Viz struck me as good opportunity for this.
Aside from that, anything can happen. Take a look at the sorts of things Viz has already published or produced. These are all examples of things on the table for future consideration for either Homestuck or Hiveswap. I’ve got plenty of ideas, and so do they. Maybe you do too??”
So yeah! It’s entirely possible it’s a comic project or something like that–we won’t know until we know. But I was sort of hoping for a game-like flash project or something for a while, so things just got a little more exciting to think about!
Flying through Storytelling 