dukeofriven:

revolutionaryduelist:

Did you like, not watch the new episode yet? Spoiler talk below

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Thoughtful and nuanced responses as always, RD – and, yes, I did see the new episode. Here’s why I still can’t bring myself to your position, though.

Let’s start with an excerpt of one of the most sickening scenes in Homestuck:

AG: Apologize, Pupa!
AG: Apologiiiiiiiize!!!!!!!!
AG: Say you’re sorry for being a cripple! Wheeeeeeee!
AG: Aaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha!

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I’m gonna keep this short and stick to the core points where we differ

1. If we’re getting personal, I’ve actually been put in the position of keeping secrets for someone even when everyone involved is a loved one and nuanced conversation could solve stuff. It isn’t fun.

That said, neither of our experiences is universal, so all I’m going to go off is SU’s text–and in that context sure, Pearl took some pride in keeping Rose’s secrets, but love is a strong word in this case. She was very clear that she wanted to tell Steven, but physically could not. She was denied her own choice.

The right to be forgotten is all well and good when you’re deleting stuff from Google, but Pearl isn’t Google. Pearl is a sentient person who was forced into complying with Rose’s agenda for millennia, well past Rose’s own death, when Rose didn’t have to deal with the problems and consequences of her actions anymore.

To answer this: `Let me put it yet another way – if Rose’s command to Pearl wasn’t geas but a request, if she had begged Pearl never to reveal the secret the way us ordinary mortals would have, would Pearl be in the right to break that promise?`

Absolutely. Rose is dead. Pearl’s pain and Steven’s denial of his own history are not. And Steven benefits quite directly from knowing, because knowing Pink Diamond’s history gives him something the Diamonds want–and Steven has empathy powers who’s full potential we aren’t sure he’s reached, so…there’s lots of ways this knowledge could be used for the better.

If she was hypothetically expecting a peaceful existence from now on, it’s only more reason she morally should have done so, because the Gems fought for freedom for everyone and her lies and command were objectively imposing a lack of freedom on the Gems to make their own choices.

It might have been understandable, but it’s also selfish.
And it’s an ideological betrayal of everything the Gems fought for.

None of which is relevant to the way Pink Diamond made the decision, or that Rose Quartz never removed the command from Pearl’s life or…y’know, just told the Crystal Gems the truth.

I honestly think PD was just comfortable with exerting power fairly thoughtlessly, as is the role she was born expected to perform. Social conditioning is a powerful force, and PD was conditioned to assert her authority over others and be comfortable doing so. Old habits die hard!

The thing is, thoughtless abuse of power was behavior PD was expected to perform. In the same way, sadistic violence is behavior Vriska was raised being expected to perform, which she was intimately aware of.

It seems misguided to me to apply all this context to PD, but not to Vriska. Alternia demands cruelty and vicious callousness from its subjects by design, on explicit pain of death. They were traits Vriska personally had to develop just to reach her teenage years. And that’s before we even mention Doc Scratch’s exploitation of the girl.

You don’t get forced to become a serial killer at like 10 and come away from it well-adjusted and nice–you figure out ways to live with yourself and justify your own actions, and the trouble with justifying violence is that it becomes a lot easier to justify more violence down the road.

Which is exactly what Vriska does–she’s fairly explicit about the fact that, fucked up as her behavior was, in her own head she was trying to make Tavros stronger to help him survive on Alternia.

Obviously, that’s not what she did. But she’s a deluded 13 year old deeply alienated from her own sense of self, so it’s no surprise she doesn’t understand that her intent didn’t really match her actions.

Vriska is being cruel and sadistic, but she’s also kind of forcing herself to be on some level, out of what she fairly accurately perceives as necessity–she expected to grow up and join Alternia’s army, not to get whisked away into Sburb.

All of which is explicit in the text, since Vriska is told so by…

(Vriska) herself. I don’t really agree with your opinion that (Vriska) like, doesn’t count because she’s dead? She still tells us plenty about Vriska’s past and her potential growth as a person. And honestly it’s a little weird to me you’d shoot down (Vriska)’s contributions to the narrative using like…

The exact argument Vriska uses herself? Like, idk, I see this opinion pretty commonly that Vriska is ultimately the one who mattered and (Vriska) does not, and I just don’t feel it. Vriska is p clearly a parallel to Lord English, and (Vriska) is the one who ends up with her girlfriend, happy and showered in symbolic and literal Light/Importance.

Homestuck is not unambiguously taking Vriska’s side on any of this, and if anything I’d suggest it does the opposite. (Vriska)’s arc tells us more about Homestuck’s core themes, in terms of explicit, unambiguous text, than arguably any other character but MAYBE Calliope and Caliborn.

None of which excuses Vriska’s actions when they’re garbage, which is often, btw. But there’s plenty of context for her actions, just the same as with PD.

And uh, my silly meme post led us into discoursing about not just one, but both of them simultaneously, so yeah in terms of my original intent of paralleling their moral greyness and tendency to polarize fandom discourse (which is all I was really commenting on–A Vriska in terms of how Vriska was received by fandom, with all her layers and moral ambiguity, not in terms of the characters’ arcs being particularly similar) I’m going to say I’m sticking to my original claim. Even so, this conversation has been p fun!