Moving forward again – Dave post on the back burner. I found what I was looking for but it was stupid and gave me a headache. Here’s some loose speculation on some new stuff:
Openbound Part 3 had a couple weird things going on: the main one that stuck out to me was how Rufioh and Horuss each serve as analogues to both Dirk and Jake. Horuss is of course the horse guy oblivious to his partner’s reservations, but he also talks about resolving an identity crisis through loudly enforced traits of his personality, which seems like a commentary on Jake’s oft repeated love of ADVENTURE and FISTICUFFS. Rufioh is the passive dude who seems to attract everyone’s affections, but like Dirk, he the anime guy who gets decapitated and revived. Both are both.
So when when Rufioh is talking to girls and calling them ‘doll’ over and over, I get this weird overlaid image of Grandpa talking to the blue doll and Bro talking to Lil Cal. From the Grandpa view, retrieving Tinkerbull (Rufioh’s happy thought!) from Damara is a statement of the old man’s adversarial attitude towards the feminine? Rufioh berates Damara as though she’s directly responsible for his loss of happiness (she then reminds him of the actual cause, his unhappy relationship with Horuss).
Not sure if Horuss serves more as analogue for Bro or an analogue for the soul itself in that one, via the usage of horses we saw with Roxy. But at any rate, it seems like Damara is serving the Witch role of absorbing undeserved antagonism, a la Anthy.
Conversely, viewing Damara as a mouthpiece for Lil Cal is… flimsier and messier. Her hypersexuality could align with Cal directive to Gamzee (“kill them all”) and her particularly aggressive flirting with Horuss could be analogous to Cal’s sway over Bro? Or else his sway over the soul in general…
just chiming in to mention the Horruss:Dirk parallels have always seemed astonishingly weak to me. Jake’s behavior doesn’t really line up with Rufioh’s at all, but more importantly Horruss’ approach to conflict resolution (ignoring problems entirely and utterly nullifying the feelings of others) has a lot more in common with Jake’s treatment of Jane than with anything Dirk does.
the resorting to flattery to get/keep what they want and loudly talking about their own traits as self-assurance is also something Horruss and Jake have in common…along with Tavros. Seems like a pretty clear Page thing to me.
As for Dirk he’s keenly aware of Jake’s reservations–overblowing them into thinking Jake wants nothing to do with him without actually talking to Jake about them is the source of Dirk’s anxiety re: their relationship, which is honestly kind of the opposite of Jake and Horruss’ willful obliviousness.
the rest of this is pretty interesting, as usual. I hadn’t considered Witches as absorbing undeserved antagonism ubut i sure am now. i need to go lie down
Basically, the Condesce tried to institute Lusii in the human world, and Jake’s island is presumably where she was keeping/breeding them or w.e. They’re there because of her.
I feel like an aspect that makes Jake so relatable to me is this… this way he underhandedly tries to make things go his way, even if it isn’t actually a strategy that works out for him very well.
Like. My mind always jumps back to the Jane pesterlog, where he basically corners her the second she screws up and fails to confess properly. She’s said the thing that allows him to absolve himself of the responsibility of turning her down, and he fucking runs with it.
The other thing my mind always jumps to is when his and Dirk’s relationship goes sour. Rather than talk about it he clearly would rather just not deal, because confronting it or using his words to speak his feelings of suffocation puts the onus on him.
In that sense that’s why I stand with the opinion that jake is kind of an asshole. He’s not a bad kid but also he isn’t very forward in getting what he wants, to the detriment of those around him sometimes.
I guess this post kinda stems from tiredness of seeing people who dismiss or dislike jake for being “bad”. Or by demeaning his character by making him into an uwu cinnamon roll. Jake has a lot of room to explore, he’s so caught up in his posturing and his avoidant nature. At his core I feel like he’s a character that has a lot of want. He wants things and tries to get them through underhanded means. Even tho they sometimes blow up in his face.
Also I feel like I have to hedge by saying this isn’t meta, this isn’t a “”“"hot take”“”“” im literally just explaining why I find Jake, at least the way I’ve come to interpret his character, is aggressively relatable, especially lately, but it’s also for this reason he’s slowly become like. Maybe my favourite character??
it’s not like the narrative like…hides it…every character including Jake himself and even Caliborn tell us he acts like kind of an asshole. Every Alpha does kind of fucked up things. It doesn’t really make sense to hold Jake above the others in this regard, or to try to single out one party that’s “to blame” or w.e. It’s not that kind of story.
so i think the setting of Earth C is MASSIVELY underrated, ok? like. jane and jake run corporations they presumably do genuine business through. i don’t think Earth C has a simply capitalist society. It’s more likely to have elements of capitalism but with universal basic income and a robust social safety net.
As such there’d be no need for work and all of Skaianet and Crockercorp’s staff would be volunteers, and why wouldn’t they volunteer? They’re companies run by the literal gods that created them and both of the heads have demonstrable market savvy in other lives or while being cyborgs.
Also they have literal magic superpowers they can use to create ideas out of nothing. It would be stupidly easy to make a killing by just selling stuff in that context. Both companies would probably have giveaways and all sorts of marketing campaigns.
Ultimately what I’m saying is, in Earth C, these companies would act something like Disney or Marvel in our U.S. society–as cultural powerhouses. They’d also be means to introduce any kind of product or memetic idea into the world’s culture a particular writer found valuable.
And the culture of Earth C’s world is somewhat malleable, as the Snapchats showed us. If bigotry still exists to some extent, then the kids potentially become sort of…Super-Liberals, with kindhearted values that will be listened to by all the adults around them.
That create art that will be paid mind through, and appreciated by the mainstream through like professional companies under their own name. And these are kids just starting to get a handle on superpowers with near limitless utility, meaning they’ll only get craftier and more capable over time.
It’s just such an irresistibly rich setting.
What I’m trying to get at, in the end, is that someday in just the couple-years gap between Act 7, Credits, and..whatever happens in the epilogue, it’s totally plausible that, like
Dirk like…accidentally distributed too good a memetic marketing scheme through the media arm of skaianet, and ended up creating a thriving smuppet porn industry that dominated the entertainment sector of…
the consorts.
You could even write compelling character drama around it.
Dave coming to grips with the stunning revelation that Dirk had delivered on the promise of raising a small flock of bots of hardcore soft plush aficionados, but his bots were…literally living and breathing and ADORABLE fucking amphibian idiots. All like, buying dicknose masks and smuppet ass strap-ons and shit.
And Dirk just now realizing this could be potentially uncomfortable for Dave and freaking out internally about it, already crafting plans to make Consorts think smuppets were gross as hell actually, already trying to figure out how to apologize–
Only for Dave to bust a gut laughing and think its the funniest thing ever. Because Dirk isn’t Bro, and this isn’t creepy or mean-spirited or malicious its just having fun with how objectively hilarious the premise is.
Oh also Jake gets them into wrestling. The consorts I mean. So the consorts are into wrestling with smuppet paraphernaliaon, specifically. In fact Jake used Skaianet to distribute Hope-produced magic sexy stamina-restoring jack off bro crystals to the consorts considerably surfer dudebro subdemographic. That’s a whole thing, too.
“You sold a magic crystal that restores amphibian sex vitality perpetually, with magic literally powered by two salamander bros engaged in the intense spiritual practice of gay smuppet wrestlewanking?” Karkat says, horrified at the sheer power Skaianet’s marketing arm wields. Jake is a powerful man.
Also shameless as hell. Dave has a freudian slip and suggests a human-troll version and everybody dies but Jake, who is grinning and being very loud about what a good idea that is in this diner.
it’s sort of a mix of stuff. I pretty much think the biggest contributing factor to AR’s descent is the absence of his connections to the other Alphas, and I think that’s true of Bro as well.
I mean that’s pretty much explicit. All four of the Beta guardians are unsatisfied, unhappy, or a wreck in some way, and the unifying thread between them is the lack of the others. This is particularly pronounced for Bro, who is not just barely-functional like Mom and Grandpa are, but profoundly destructive to others and himself when lacking their companionship.
This isn’t JUST about Jake, I could say things as relevant about the ways Dirk needs Roxy and Jane, but I wanna keep this short and you all know what I’m about so let’s use Jake as an example.
Dirk explicitly fears his own potential for darkness and hates himself for it and the reason he falls for Jake in the first place is because of Jake’s *faith* in him, in his kindness and caring and potential to do good.
Dirk is drawn to Jake because Jake sees the value in him and sees the good in him and Jake being able to do that makes it easier for Dirk to see it in himself, too. So without that influence in his life at *ALL*, even less than what AR got?
It’s easy for me to see how Bro would fall apart to the degree he does. For the most part, that’s all there is to say on the matter.
.
.
.
but. let me complicate the narrative for you a little.
I used to be firmly of the opinion that Bro’s actions had nothing to do with Lil Cal and were all on Bro, and the latter’s still true. However, @jadedresearcher kinda turned my world around when they pointed out a simple fact:
There are explicit, demonstrable influences that Lil Cal exerts on Bro, in terms of his personality growth at least. Namely, Bro and Dirk have a divergent interest.
Namely, the SAW-inspired snuff film/”I want to play a Game” stuff. Bro expresses an interest in it, but Dirk really never so much as mentions it. The Jigsaw aesthetic is Caliborn’s thing exclusively, and the only real narrative explanation it has in the story is Lil Cal acting as a transmitter for the interest.
So having this in mind I think there is an extent to which Cal’s influence can be implicated in Bro’s descent. Not that it excuses any of his assholery.
Lastly, here’s a bit of rarely indulged speculation:
We do already know Grandpa raised Mom, suggesting Grandpa may have raised Bro as well. Hell, Hiveswap even has a blurry as hell picture that may be of Bro facepalming that i can’t for the life of me find right now so i guess ill just post it later who cares, the point is
if it’s true Grandpa remembers the Alphas in some way, or if it’s true *Bro* does– given that he’s a Heart player, that seems plausible too–those could also be factors that isolated Bro and made him vulnerable to Cal’s influence?
That is, of course, purely speculative. It’s just one of many potential questions I’m excited to see if Hiveswap will explore.
Hey hey hey – @revolutionaryduelist, I am normally 100% behind your point of view but I take serious umbrage at the implication that the WORLD RENOWNED EXPLORER-NATURALIST-TREASURE HUNTER-ARCHEOLOGIST-SCIENTIST-ADVENTURER-BIG GAME HUNTER-BILLIONAIRE EXTRAORDINAIRE lived anything less than a radical and amazing life.
“This is particularly pronounced for Bro, who is not just barely-functional like Mom and Grandpa are,”
Dude – it’s a stretch to begin with to call Mom barely-functional, given that despite being afflicted by one of society’s most misunderstood and poorly considered diseases, she was still able to succeed as a scientist and a mother (and I’d argue she was a lot better at being a guardian than Bro was – most of Rose’s tribulations about her mother were entirely projections on Rose’s part), but it’s outright absurd to call Grandpa Harley barely functional. Given what we know about him, he seems to have functioned better than 99% of all humans in ecorded history.
And, hyperbole aside, I think you’re hard pressed to speak with any kind of textual authority about what kind of interior life Grandpa may or may not have had – we see far too little of him. Other than expressing grief at DreamJAde’s death, we don’t know anything about him other than his known actions (unconditional love and support for Jade, including building her a magnificent dreambot) and what was filtered from Jade’s earliest memories. We’ve got no reason to think Grandpa wasn’t riddled with depression and deep-seated anxiety, but then we have no reason to think that he was, either. Either-way, calling the man who plundered every tomb and beauty parlour on the planet, invented a dozen wonders, and slew monsters like it weren’t no thang “barely functional” is just… incorrect.
To clarify: I meant emotionally. Mom and Grandpa are definitely successful, don’t get me wrong? I guess I just default to including the ability to enjoy life and engage with it in a like, balanced way…in my definition of functional?
As for Grandpa’s inner life, I don’t feel that’s correct. Grandpa’s inner life is laid out for us about as richly as Mom’s, I think. It’s just told almost entirely through environmental storytelling and context clues.
For starters, the man is a chronic hoarder. We see his hoarding all throughout Jade’s house, and it litters his manor in Hiveswap, too. Hoarding is commonly understood as a symptom of anxiety and depression.
Mom and Bro hoard to some regards too, but with Grandpa I feel it’s particularly notable just through sheer volume of stuff. And he doesn’t just hoard, he arranges his hoards in a way that’s deeply symbolically meaningful to him.
He sets up the Distinguished Houseguests in his living room and remembers enough to, somehow, sort them by Moon. He places himself by the fire in the center of all their attentions. He sets up entire rooms like shrines to each of the Alphas. He remembers Dirk not as a Prince, but as a Knight.
And, in my view, more tellingly, this is a guy who seemingly just…up and leaves his house and his two kids to raise Jade on an island? And while he’s doing that, he lets Jade play with flintlock pistols she almost shoots herself with a pistol:
Though I don’t doubt Grandpa loves Jade a lot (and I don’t particularly buy the more damning accusations going on about him right now) the dude is still guilty of serious neglect. Which, you know, kind of coincides with Jade’s Aspect pretty strongly.
And when you look at what Grandpa is doing while, you know, not taking care of his Granddaughter who is playing with guns, things become telling.
The dude is literally playing pretend. We established through Hussie that the blue dolls represent Jane in his head, which means he’s literally making believe he’s with his friends on some level.
This is Jake “Aggressively ignoring his problems” English at his worst. Just like you can see glimmers of Bro in AR at his worst, so too can you see a version of what Jake COULD become with no hope and no support network in Grandpa.
Which honestly I can’t blame him for too hard since the entire rest of his life at this point is “wait for the fucking Apocalypse and to die.”
And also, he’s alone. Jake relies on his sense of camaraderie to get by, and without his friends’ (perceived) approval his sense of place and self falls apart completely. This is a Jake who never had a chance to grow into a healthier attitude to his self worth, because he never had those friends to depend on.
Even if he did know Mom and even Bro, he would have been in a position of power and responsibility over them. It would not be the same dynamic at all, now matter how much he cares about either.
I think Grandpa is an excellently crafted tragic figure, basically. The fact that Hiveswap not only kept this consistent, but also successfully built upon it through enviromental storytelling alone is maybe the biggest reason I’m excited for it.
Sorry, not feeling it. I have a hard time conflating his collections with hoarders – the hoarders I’ve known (a few, not many, mind) were compulsive in their hoarding, almost indiscriminate. Grandpa. by contrast, is meticulous – he’s a collector, a connoisseur. Someone who collects art and builds a gallery to house their art collection isn’t a hoarder, they’re an enthusiast – in a series full of kids who stuff their rooms to bursting full of the junk that most delights them, Grandpa is simply the only person lucky enough to have the resources to build a space large enough to house them all. You say “he arranges his hoards in a way that’s deeply symbolically meaningful to him” as if we should take that as a bad thing – come to my house and see my My Little Pony collection; I assure you it’s not symbolic of my personal misery.
I don’t see Granda’s dolls as sad or evidence of loneliness – the man spent his entire life having glorious adventures and now, as an old man, he’s content to withdraw into relative seclusion. Sure his hermitage is a bit grandeur than most of those outside Saint Petersburg, but that doesn’t make it less of one.
“the entire rest of his life at this point is “wait for the fucking Apocalypse and to die.”
At the time of his death Grandpa Harley was pushing ninety of not over it – his meteor landed in 1910, he was definitely dead after 1995 and before 2009, making his time of death anywhere upwards of 85+. If you’ve ever spent a lot of time with the very elderly, you’ll know that that they don’t consider ‘waiting to die’ a bad thing. Sure, not everyone wants to go gently into that good night, but for many they start to slow down, do less, and spend a lot of time in their own heads, getting ready for whatever the next step of their life may be. To borrow a phrase from Stranger than Fiction, Grandpa lived his life– and now, at the end of it, he’s happy to be a kooky old coot. He looted all the tombs, toppled all the urns, stole all the mummies in a dreadful display of imperialist presumption – and now he’s retired, enjoying his hobbies, and knowing that one day he’s going to die – just like everybody else who ever lived.
In order to see Grandpa at the en of his life as a tragic figure you have to believe that eighty years of adventure were unfulfilling, and there’s zero reason to do so. I hesitate to go even half as far as you in considering anything in Grandpa’s house as a ‘shrine’ to the Alpha Kids – it’s far more likely that Hussie went back to Grandpa’s house when finding themes for the Alphas than the house being an anticipation of the alphas (though your line “We established through Hussie that the blue dolls represent Jane in his head” intrigues me – care to elaborate or source?). You say “This is a Jake who never had a chance to grow into a healthier attitude to his self worth, because he never had those friends to depend on” but we have no reason to believe that just because he didn’t have Dirk or Roxy he was incapable of finding friendship just as meaningful – there’s a good seven decades of this man’s life that are an unknown country about which we know next to nothing and from which any firm inference is impossible. To be an elderly eccentric is not to b unhappy, lonely, or unfulfilled – Grandpa lived the life Jake only ever dreamed of having, and I think you do him a grave disservice in presupposing his life was unhappy just because the Derse guardian’s live were unhappy. Take Nanna, for example, the only guardian whom we ever get to see say anything meaningful about her own life: it had a rough start with an evil woman, but over-all it was happy: she met a good man, had a son she lived, lived the quiet life she largely wanted. Not perfect, but not a tragedy. I think it’s far too big a leap to say call an elderly man enjoying his weird hobbies in secluded retirement an “excellently crafted tragic figure,” because even if he did miss his alt-universe friends, that’s at best sad; hardly tragic.
(As to anything about Hiveswap it’s my policy that, since it’s a WIP, nothing about it I canonically ‘true’ until the game is out and in our hands and no-longer subject to revisions.)
Fair enough re: the hoarding, but my biggest reason for noting his unhappiness was his negligence towards Jade and aggressive self-delusion anyway. It’s behavior that we see with Jake when he’s stressed or dealing with things he doesn’t like.
I don’t really think it’s much of a stretch to link the two this way, either. Mom is pretty blatantly unhappy, which feeds into her drinking, which feeds into her co-dependence with Rose. Bro is Bro, and has downright suicidal undertones in his pursuit of the Scratch.
Nanna lived a relatively happy life, but repeatedly said that she felt unfulfilled and didn’t push her limits, and mourned the infinite possibility of life that she lost due to the batterwitch–which is the exact problem Jane has to work against indulging in her interactions with her friends, too. Nannasprite explicitly sees Jane as a way to move past her regrets in that regard.
I don’t think you’re obligated to think the way I do on this, though. Ultimately, this is me reading into the symbols and implications we’ve seen in the canon so far, and part of the fun of Hiveswap will be seeing whether my readings hold up, and if not, what changes.
it’s sort of a mix of stuff. I pretty much think the biggest contributing factor to AR’s descent is the absence of his connections to the other Alphas, and I think that’s true of Bro as well.
I mean that’s pretty much explicit. All four of the Beta guardians are unsatisfied, unhappy, or a wreck in some way, and the unifying thread between them is the lack of the others. This is particularly pronounced for Bro, who is not just barely-functional like Mom and Grandpa are, but profoundly destructive to others and himself when lacking their companionship.
This isn’t JUST about Jake, I could say things as relevant about the ways Dirk needs Roxy and Jane, but I wanna keep this short and you all know what I’m about so let’s use Jake as an example.
Dirk explicitly fears his own potential for darkness and hates himself for it and the reason he falls for Jake in the first place is because of Jake’s *faith* in him, in his kindness and caring and potential to do good.
Dirk is drawn to Jake because Jake sees the value in him and sees the good in him and Jake being able to do that makes it easier for Dirk to see it in himself, too. So without that influence in his life at *ALL*, even less than what AR got?
It’s easy for me to see how Bro would fall apart to the degree he does. For the most part, that’s all there is to say on the matter.
.
.
.
but. let me complicate the narrative for you a little.
I used to be firmly of the opinion that Bro’s actions had nothing to do with Lil Cal and were all on Bro, and the latter’s still true. However, @jadedresearcher kinda turned my world around when they pointed out a simple fact:
There are explicit, demonstrable influences that Lil Cal exerts on Bro, in terms of his personality growth at least. Namely, Bro and Dirk have a divergent interest.
Namely, the SAW-inspired snuff film/”I want to play a Game” stuff. Bro expresses an interest in it, but Dirk really never so much as mentions it. The Jigsaw aesthetic is Caliborn’s thing exclusively, and the only real narrative explanation it has in the story is Lil Cal acting as a transmitter for the interest.
So having this in mind I think there is an extent to which Cal’s influence can be implicated in Bro’s descent. Not that it excuses any of his assholery.
Lastly, here’s a bit of rarely indulged speculation:
We do already know Grandpa raised Mom, suggesting Grandpa may have raised Bro as well. Hell, Hiveswap even has a blurry as hell picture that may be of Bro facepalming that i can’t for the life of me find right now so i guess ill just post it later who cares, the point is
if it’s true Grandpa remembers the Alphas in some way, or if it’s true *Bro* does– given that he’s a Heart player, that seems plausible too–those could also be factors that isolated Bro and made him vulnerable to Cal’s influence?
That is, of course, purely speculative. It’s just one of many potential questions I’m excited to see if Hiveswap will explore.
Hey hey hey – @revolutionaryduelist, I am normally 100% behind your point of view but I take serious umbrage at the implication that the WORLD RENOWNED EXPLORER-NATURALIST-TREASURE HUNTER-ARCHEOLOGIST-SCIENTIST-ADVENTURER-BIG GAME HUNTER-BILLIONAIRE EXTRAORDINAIRE lived anything less than a radical and amazing life.
“This is particularly pronounced for Bro, who is not just barely-functional like Mom and Grandpa are,”
Dude – it’s a stretch to begin with to call Mom barely-functional, given that despite being afflicted by one of society’s most misunderstood and poorly considered diseases, she was still able to succeed as a scientist and a mother (and I’d argue she was a lot better at being a guardian than Bro was – most of Rose’s tribulations about her mother were entirely projections on Rose’s part), but it’s outright absurd to call Grandpa Harley barely functional. Given what we know about him, he seems to have functioned better than 99% of all humans in ecorded history.
And, hyperbole aside, I think you’re hard pressed to speak with any kind of textual authority about what kind of interior life Grandpa may or may not have had – we see far too little of him. Other than expressing grief at DreamJAde’s death, we don’t know anything about him other than his known actions (unconditional love and support for Jade, including building her a magnificent dreambot) and what was filtered from Jade’s earliest memories. We’ve got no reason to think Grandpa wasn’t riddled with depression and deep-seated anxiety, but then we have no reason to think that he was, either. Either-way, calling the man who plundered every tomb and beauty parlour on the planet, invented a dozen wonders, and slew monsters like it weren’t no thang “barely functional” is just… incorrect.
To clarify: I meant emotionally. Mom and Grandpa are definitely successful, don’t get me wrong? I guess I just default to including the ability to enjoy life and engage with it in a like, balanced way…in my definition of functional?
As for Grandpa’s inner life, I don’t feel that’s correct. Grandpa’s inner life is laid out for us about as richly as Mom’s, I think. It’s just told almost entirely through environmental storytelling and context clues.
For starters, the man is a chronic hoarder. We see his hoarding all throughout Jade’s house, and it litters his manor in Hiveswap, too. Hoarding is commonly understood as a symptom of anxiety and depression.
Mom and Bro hoard to some regards too, but with Grandpa I feel it’s particularly notable just through sheer volume of stuff. And he doesn’t just hoard, he arranges his hoards in a way that’s deeply symbolically meaningful to him.
He sets up the Distinguished Houseguests in his living room and remembers enough to, somehow, sort them by Moon. He places himself by the fire in the center of all their attentions. He sets up entire rooms like shrines to each of the Alphas. He remembers Dirk not as a Prince, but as a Knight.
And, in my view, more tellingly, this is a guy who seemingly just…up and leaves his house and his two kids to raise Jade on an island? And while he’s doing that, he lets Jade play with flintlock pistols she almost shoots herself with a pistol:
Though I don’t doubt Grandpa loves Jade a lot (and I don’t particularly buy the more damning accusations going on about him right now) the dude is still guilty of serious neglect. Which, you know, kind of coincides with Jade’s Aspect pretty strongly.
And when you look at what Grandpa is doing while, you know, not taking care of his Granddaughter who is playing with guns, things become telling.
The dude is literally playing pretend. We established through Hussie that the blue dolls represent Jane in his head, which means he’s literally making believe he’s with his friends on some level.
This is Jake “Aggressively ignoring his problems” English at his worst. Just like you can see glimmers of Bro in AR at his worst, so too can you see a version of what Jake COULD become with no hope and no support network in Grandpa.
Which honestly I can’t blame him for too hard since the entire rest of his life at this point is “wait for the fucking Apocalypse and to die.”
And also, he’s alone. Jake relies on his sense of camaraderie to get by, and without his friends’ (perceived) approval his sense of place and self falls apart completely. This is a Jake who never had a chance to grow into a healthier attitude to his self worth, because he never had those friends to depend on.
Even if he did know Mom and even Bro, he would have been in a position of power and responsibility over them. It would not be the same dynamic at all, now matter how much he cares about either.
I think Grandpa is an excellently crafted tragic figure, basically. The fact that Hiveswap not only kept this consistent, but also successfully built upon it through enviromental storytelling alone is maybe the biggest reason I’m excited for it.
Part #1: Flight of the Movie & Anime References
This section is pretty much setup for the next three essays. There’s a couple sections here that I have a fair bit to say about, but probably just as many where I’ll close out with some minor observations, or reference to someone else’s Good Post™.
What I think is important is noting the consistency and similarity with which Homestuck engages in meaningful reference. I just want you to have this list in mind as I flesh out the three truly impactful references I want to talk about in this series.
So here’s a short list of cases where Homestuck outright leans on other stories to structure itself, with accompanying references:
1) The Game Over Arc – Plot Structure & Dragon Ball Z
We’re starting with Dragon Ball Z because the references here are relatively simple and straightforward, and they largely set up either pretty clear structural parallels, rather than thematic ones.
The clearest of these examples is the section of the story that begins with the joke Arquius makes above. In case you don’t know, the “over 9000″ meme has its roots in this iconic, hilarious sequence from DBZ:
What’s notable is what follows. From the moment this joke happens, the very structure of Homestuck changes to following the loose structure of some of the most memorable DBZ arcs.
I’m no buff on the series, but the memories it calls up for me most strongly resemble the Namek/Freeza or Buu arcs, and expert DBZ consultant @alotofmomos (who hates me for writing this) confirms these are the arcs that most perform the particular structure Homestuck will now be mimicking.
And what does that structure consist of? A particular mix of “pacing” choices, cinematography, and sheer scale of spectacle that I find hard to source to anything but DBZ. I can’t even think of other Shonen series that mix all these elements in quite the same way, though again, I’m no expert.
Some of these elements are:
A) Drawn out, massive power-up sequences:
B) Conflicts that carry out on planetary scales, and indeed often destroy the planets hosting them.
This pretty much speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Do I really have to say some stuff to make it look like I’m doing anything other than pointing out some obvious goddamn parallels that blew my mind because they took me years to notice?
Alright, fine. I’ll say this much: I think it’s quite fitting that Homestuck would borrow from the DBZ playbook for the section of the story that illustrates the sheer mind-boggling scale of power our protagonists have reached.
There’s very few stories out there that demonstrate this sense of mortals achieving such bonkers dominion over reality through sheer force of will, and the homage certainly hammers home the idea that these kids are Gods with levels of power we’ve barely scratched the surface of.
But I don’t think there’s a big Narrative Payoff to this particular reference. Instead, I think what Homestuck takes from this is functional in terms of narrative. Because the most interesting things this narrative model adopts are structural.
C) Convenient plot-structure.
Namely, what we end up with is a bunch of characters grouped into disparate conflicts across the same larger “playing field”, separated by considerable amounts of distance–and thus, isolating them into distinct narratives.
As a natural consequence of this, the pacing slows down to an excruciatingly slowness, as we cut from conflict to conflict, each one progressing in small snippets of minutes or even seconds at a time. All of this is par for the course for Dragon Ball Z, particularly in the Namek saga.
So what this provides us with isn’t a profound, revelatory moment of thematic meaning–but instead, an effective backdrop on which to flesh out that meaning elsewhere. In fact, this very arc does that like twice with two other stories!
So let’s move on from this and take a look at a couple of character arcs whose resolutions are telegraphed by way of reference.
The bottom line is: Terezi janks Jade’s shoes, and adopts the role of Dorothy in Homestuck’s symbol logic. This leads her home–to Vriska and their memories of growing up together, and ultimately to embracing her red feelings for her.
Terezi’s resolution is one of two relationships resolved in the wake of [S] Game Over. Let’s take a look at the other.
3) Jake as Buttercup
Don’t have much to say about this one either, cause I already wrote most of it. I will say I don’t think it’s an accident that the arcs to coincide here are Dirkjake’s and Vrisrezi’s, since the two relationships are in many ways direct parallels. But that’s another essay for another time.
I have received some rightful criticism on my writing on Jake in particular, and this is a good place to clarify my position, however. I do not think it’s particularly “Good” or “Healthy” for Jake to indulge his own desires at the expense of Dirk’s (or Jane’s) feelings.
My point has never been that Jake’s selfish behavior is inherently good–merely that Jake’s reasons for being in love with Dirk are his own, and not imposed to him from Dirk himself, or anyone around him.
As with all things in Homestuck, the key is for Jake to grapple with the negatives in himself and come to balance with the tension between his own wants and his relationships with others. This is true of literally everyone in Homestuck.
And there’s an easier way of saying what I am getting at. Because Homestuck literally gives us a guidebook to understanding Jake and Dirk’s relationships to each other, as parsed in Jake’s head–a guidebook that provides context to their entire relationship.
Just as you can read Terezi as Dorothy, so too can you read Jake as Buttercup. This is the crucial distinction I seek to make. In common readings of Dirk and Jake’s relationship, Jake acquiesces to Dirk’s pushy forcing of the relationship despite Dirk’s control issues.
In this one, Dirk is a flawed but committed provider and protector, and Jake picks up on and begins internalize a belief that Dirk will always be there for him, prompting him to fall for him. This reflects the fundamental core of their attraction to each other. It does not present a solution to their communication issues. They both have to work through that and be more aware of each other’s needs.
Now, The Princess Bride is a comedy action-adventure movie, but it’s also a philosophical fairy tale. Buttercup and Westley aren’t just in love, they’re in True Love, and the driving force of the movie is how Westley’s love empowers him to do anything it takes for his beloved.
A big part of her journey is learning to truly commit to not just Westley’s love for her, but her belief in that love as something both true and powerful. Something that can transcend all odds and obstacles.
Which is. You know. Exactly what Jake does when he’s fully immersed in the power of his own faith.
Now let’s move on, and note two more movie references that the comic makes outside of the context of this DBZ-mini arc.
4) Tavros as Peter Pan
There’s not a terrible amount of depth to be drawn here, either. I think most people accept that Tavros is deliberately invoking Peter Pan in his narrative victory here, with the ghosts as his Lost Boys. I will add, however, that if Peter Pan is the role Tavros is emulating in reaching his full potential, well…
Peter Pan isn’t exactly known for being Selfless, is he? He’s a hero, for sure, but self-centeredness is pretty much his calling card as a hero. To the point that Wikipedia claims that
“In the play and book, Peter symbolizes the selfishness of childhood, and is portrayed as being forgetful and self-centered.”
Understanding Caliborn as a Yaldabaoth is one way to contextualize his power over the reality all the characters preside over, and we’ll definitely touch on that further in the next three sections I’ll be covering.
But one easy way to contextualize Lord English’s power is as…well…Jigsaw.
Like Jigsaw, Lord English builds a massive, highly controlled gauntlet that he exploits and terrorizes his victims through. The only difference is that Lord English’s dungeon is bigger than some creepy gray cellar.
It is in fact, Literally Everything that occurs within the context of the Alpha Timeline. Every homeworld that every character originates from–except for, arguably, Beforus, which is still under his sway enough to be doomed, but also presented as borderline Eden-like by comparison to Alternia.
While Yaldabaoth’s control seems very distant and abstract, Jigsaw’s is crystal clear and vicious. Everything the characters of SAW suffer is, ultimately, in the hands of the orchestrator of their misery. Their puppetmaster, so to speak.
In the same sense, pretty much every single way the characters in Homestuck suffer has Lord English at the root of it–even the thing they do to themselves and each other as a result of cultural memes.
Troll Violence, heteronormativity, quadrant normativity, and hypermasculinity–all are memetic structures that exist because Lord English himself disseminated them, in the context of Homestuck. They’re thought-traps rather than literal physical torture devices, but they’re torture tools all the same.
And you can even see Jigsaw as a symbol for Lord English’s influence, since it is, after all, one of the primary differences setting apart Bro and Dirk. Dirk has no interest in the SAW franchise at all, whereas Bro makes a point of mocking Dave with it. (thanks to @jadedresearcher for pointing this out, by the way!)
So yeah. Not only does SAW tell us a lot about the nature of Caliborn’s effect on our characters through the Alpha Timeline, it also acts as a mark for his influence. That’s…pretty much all there is to say on the matter.
For now.
That wraps up this little introductory round-up. Now I can get to talking about three of the biggest influences on Homestuck as a story: The Neverending Story (the book), Earthbound & Mother 3, and Gnostic Myth. Hope you’ll follow along with us over the next couple of weeks to find out more.
Flying through Storytelling 