Funny little observation: Post-Scratch, all of the pre-Scratch trolls assumed roles that their descendants would take on as players while retaining many of the abilities of their original player roles in the previous universe. Damara became a Maid, Aranea a Thief, Meenah a Witch, Cronus a Prince, Meulin a Rogue, Mituna a Mage... and yet the powers that made them these things fit their pre-Scratch classes, and in all cases the aspects fit. Interesting!
Homestuck. It's kind of sort of a web comic, but there is a lot of text, some video and a couple of mini-RPG things, so it's more a kind of multimedia extravaganza. It is, on the whole, very funny and a really interesting read; it is also very long, and possesses a fairly complicated plot with a lot of characters, which makes explaining what is going on at any one point difficult.
We know that this'll do nothing to Gamzee because he's going to be raising cherubs at some point in the future. And it's stopping the drama of the Aranea vs. BGDirk battle, which doesn't have a clear outcome at this point.
^^ It is somewhat ambiguous as to whether or not he raised the cherubs before or after being controlled by Aranea. Given that he does not have wings here, I assume that he has already performed those duties, given that Caliborn's gunfire blew them off.
So it probably is important, O ye of little faith.
On a completely different note, it finally clicked for me last night why Gamzee acts the way he does past the whole Subjugglator/sopor slime thing, and it actually made me really sad.
It's kind of a bunch of different things that came together for me. I'll try to explain as concisely and clearly as possible.
First off, if you really think about it, Gamzee's ridiculous Pollyanna attitude early on is a coping mechanism for the fact that he is a neglected child. He seems to love his lusus, but he is constantly alone, so he compensates by treating everyone as a friend, no matter how badly they treat him. His caste is naturally inclined to violent paranoia as a survival mechanism, but he staves that off through keeping himself stoned and convincing himself that everyone likes him and he likes everyone else.
What made Gamzee finally snap was not simply that he no longer was constantly drugged into complacency or that his religion was defamed, but that he was forced to confront the fact that everyone else who he had convinced were his friends either loathed him or thought him a joke—and that on some level, they were right. All of the repressed resentment from Tavros' rejection to Karkat's constant abrasion came together with his newly unleashed instincts to put down any threat and made him into a violent monster.
Consider his constant sarcastic use of "best friend" when talking to Karkat after he snaps; or that the only thing that stops him—Karkat's shoosh-pap manoeuvre—is ultimately simply a confirmation that Karkat really did care about him, thus flipping the switch back; or how the collection of bodies seems to reflect the childish logic of playing with dolls taken to a morbid extreme with the rationalisation that dead friends can't betray you; or the implications of his relationship with Terezi, and how he discusses it with Rose in Openbound. I could go on, but you get the point.
They did not occur to me either, until about a week ago, when all of a sudden it hit me and I started to pity him. He's still a frequently frustrating, often narratively misused character, but I don't think of him as shallow or unbelievable anymore. Just horribly fucked up.
OK, I think that I have figured out how the classes are broken down in active and passive terms.
Based on the arrangements on Prospit and Derse with respect to the roles and behaviour of both the orignal and post-Scratch human kids, it seems clear to me that each planet, while hypothetically aligned with passive and active classes respectively, tends to include an equal number of active and passive players, albeit ones that either take on roles contrary to the nature powers based on where they awake (i.e. Rose's active role and passive class) or are challenged to act contrary to their nature in some way (i.e. Vriska as a Thief on Prospit).
We are given the following information directly:
(-) Active: Witch, Prince, Thief, Lord.
(+) Passive: Seer, Bard, Rogue, Muse.
Knowing where John and Dave were situated, we can infer that Heir is a passive class and Knight an active one. How strongly passive or active each is is not known, but it does not seem unreasonable to assume that given how powerful an active class the Witch is, the Heir may be almost equally passive.
Whether the Maid or Page classes are active or passive is more difficult to determine, but given the gender divides present in the pre-Scratch foursome and the Dersite dreamers post-Scratch, I am going to wager that the Maid is an active class while the Page is a passive one. A point of contrast, however, may be seen pre- and post-Scratch in the development curve of the classes: When realised initially, both Witch and Heir have tremendous power that takes a while to get a hang of; meanwhile, Page and Maid both seem to realise their powers slowly, yet ultimately become masters of their aspects. Both Jake and Aradia are good examples of this in different ways.
Now, what remains? Two classes little explored, at least until recently: Mage and Sylph. The latter is, to all appearances, a passive class, with both Sylphs situated on Prospit and the few demonstrated uses of the powers of the class vis à vis Aranea being related to influencing others rather than providing for oneself. This leaves only the Mage, represented by Meulin and Sollux, which logically must be an active class, albeit likely not a strongly active class in the manner of the Witch or Prince, but more a complement to more mildly passive classes like the Seer or Rogue.
Now, insofar as contrasting pairs go, if we assume that these classes have been correctly sorted into active and passive factions, the above list of pairs (Witch/Sylph, etc.) seems most logical, yet still there are problematic aspects: Is a Maid the active equivalent to the Heir (both "serving" or "becoming" their equivalent yet opposing master classes) or the Sylph (a healer through active rather than passive intervention)? If the former, then what of the Heir and the Witch? Are the master classes truly complements to each other, or simply definitive classes with less distinctly active/passive complementary classes—say, Lord/Heir and Maid/Muse?
At the moment, I am going to rest on this as my present theory. If additional evidence serves to contradict me, then so be it; I will be glad to be better informed.
P.S. On second thought, the Witch/Heir pairing does make sense if we consider each as a kind of creative or manipulative class and the Maid/Sylph pair as related to healing, but given the thematic associations present between the confirmed pairs (every Prince has his Bard, etc.) and unconfirmed but probable pairs (e.g. Knight and Page), the association between the conjectured pairings of Witch/Sylph and Maid/Heir seems somewhat more likely, particularly when one considers how the players with these abilities have used their powers.
Still, I'm pretty sure about Mage/Seer and Knight/Page: The former knows, the latter defends.
Probably extremely dangerous. Same goes for, say, a Prince of Doom. Sylph of Blood would be pretty cool, though, if only because it sounds impressive and, if appearances or correct, such a character could probably inspire friendliness in anybody.
Maybe? The mechanics and implications are different even if the literal wording is similar. A Page defends by becoming a conduit for their aspect; an Heir seems to become or assume (power over) their aspect for different reasons, in a different manner.
Comments
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
☭
B̤̺͍̰͕̺̠̕u҉̖͙̝̮͕̲ͅm̟̼̦̠̹̙p͡s̹͖ ̻T́h̗̫͈̙̩r̮e̴̩̺̖̠̭̜ͅa̛̪̟͍̣͎͖̺d͉̦͠s͕̞͚̲͍ ̲̬̹̤Y̻̤̱o̭͠u̥͉̥̜͡ ̴̥̪D̳̲̳̤o̴͙̘͓̤̟̗͇n̰̗̞̼̳͙͖͢'҉͖t̳͓̣͍̗̰ ͉W̝̳͓̼͜a̗͉̳͖̘̮n͕ͅt͚̟͚ ̸̺T̜̖̖̺͎̱ͅo̭̪̰̼̥̜ ̼͍̟̝R̝̹̮̭ͅͅe̡̗͇a͍̘̤͉͘d̼̜ 
⚢
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis