so having uncovered the pervasive gnostic imagery tying homestuck to other fantastic works like The Neverending Story, Mother 3, and Revolutionary Girl Utena, its time to get to the real discourse
the epilogue is real. its going to be act 8 but its just going to be a remake of the episode from Utena where Nanami lays an egg, starring Vriska as Nanami.
Juri can be…oh lets say dead Aradia, why not. or Rose.
god this show is weird
I understand that she’s using Lord English to talk about herself there, but I’m not following how this is particularly characteristic of Vriska? I don’t think she’s the only character who gathers self-knowledge from observing others. Though I guess this scene is the most explicit example that comes to mind…
Oh no, people get self-knowledge in Homestuck in all sorts of ways.
This is just a pretty clear page of insight for Vriska in particular. Vriska gazes at the lightshow of paradox space and describes it as Lord English “putting on a fireworks display” just for the two of them, right before launching into her little spiel.
So witnessing the Light of Lord English’s destruction leads her to taking a nugget of Truth about reality for herself–I’m reading it as an interpretation of Thieves as “One who takes Light, or takes through Light, for the benefit of oneself” basically.
In this case, the Light she’s taking isn’t Luck or Literal Light, but truth/true information. The kind of information Rose spends her session seeking: information that leads to fortune. Ie: Enlightenment. [S] Remem8er has her gaze upon the lightshow again, even more dazzling this time, right as she reunites with Terezi, too.
I don’t think the experience is unique to her or anything, I just think it’s a pretty notable moment in Vriska’s arc that’s too often passed over, and that parses neatly into Classpect terms. Alpha Vriska is never presented as gazing into Light as an idea in quite the same way, implying that it’s (Vriska) who is closer to the path of fortune.
It’s also important in the sense that it tells the audience that Homestuck as a comic seems, at least, to be calling out Alpha Vriska’s behavior as unhealthy and unfulfilling, which I think is important considering how many feel the comic just kind of said “Actually Vriska wins at everything and is the hero”, in a sense? There’s doubt cast onto that reading, is what I’m saying.
oh yeah, the parallels between vriska’s and aranea’s reaction to finding out their relations to mindfang are definitely solid. i also don’t think the Page’s god tier outfit being visually similar to peter pan’s is a coincidence, either; there’s a deliberate link between pages and youth, immaturity, and a struggle to realize themselves, making theirs the most arduous and lengthy of all the classpects’ journey of maturity.
vriska’s is also a unique journey in terms of thieves; while the thief class sets up the player for a journey of learning to be altruistic instead of selfish, vriska has to go through the additional step of learning that she is a thief in the first place. she frames all of her self-centered choices as selfless ones, done either for the good of another person (tavros, john) or for the general group. she wants to paint herself as a sylph, working for the good of others, even though most of the time, her choices are rooted in altruism only insofar as that altruism can come back to benefit her. i.e., she wants to be a hero, but only so that she can ultimately profit from it.
this comes back in the Dream Bubbles, when she meets another thief and starts dating her. (vriska) is a demonstration of Vriska at her most ‘thief-y,’ totally absorbed in her own world and her own relationships, and willing to give up on altruism entirely. the problem is that although this is technically progress in the right direction, it’s not the thief’s ideal endpoint; ideally, she would come to terms with her own nature and start working towards genuine selflessness. this doesn’t happen, not in the least because she’s dead, and has a dearth of opportunities.
aranea, on the other hand, is a sylph through and through. what she does is for the “good” of others, she’s just very bad at realizing what the good of others is; and she’s too utilitarian (mind-controlling people, killing others, desperately making a power grab) about it. aranea has a vision for the greater good of all people, but the brutal methods she’s willing to use to get to that vision damn both her and the attempt.
Oooooh damn I’ve been arguing for a while now that the Active/Passive distinction inherently includes Selfishness/Selflesnsess respectively but it didn’t occur to me to consider that part of the roleplaying mechanics I’ve been uncovering, that does say a lot about Vriska I think!
Interestingly it suggests Alpha Vriska hasn’t wholly moved on from her Mindfang mentality either since one of the ways she tears into (Vriska) is specifically noting that she thinks (Vriska)’s behavior is selfish.
Man I want the epilogue what the fuck is Terezi going to do about this mess 😦 i believe in her
Hey! So, this is a really good point (and is leading me to thinking about Vriska in some interesting new Lights…)
What I will point out is this: I looked it over, and pretty much every time Vriska is referenced as a fairy, it either directly concerns or surrounds a pivotal moment in her arc with Tavros specifically. After [S] Wake, Vriska is never referenced as a Fairy again.
Vriska also at least somewhat admired two Fairy figures–she thought Kanaya’s lusus was the coolest of all of them, and she literally crafted herself in the image of Mindfang–a Sylph of Light herself.
This is not the only instance of a character from one mythological role actively trying to fit into the context of another. I’ll be going into at least some others–but not all–in the next two posts.
One thing I’m noticing more and more now that I have the understanding I do is that the way these mythological motifs affect different classes is complicated, and that this system has kind of essentially infinite depth. There’s a lot in this story for us to reconsider and rediscover, and I’m very excited about sharing it with you guys.
Stay tuned 😉
PS: As I release these essays, I’ll begin tagging posts concerning these mythological figures with their tags instead of going for the more awkward Active/Passive setup. I just think it’ll be more elegant that way, though I might have to think up terms for Prince/Bard and Thief/Rogue, who don’t seem to get them (as far as I can tell right now) because they’re freebies from Calliope.
Flying through Storytelling 