although i don’t like vriska much, i do like that she’s a female character who’s allowed to be irredeemably awful in genuine ways. she’s a villain, not because she’s killed so many people (terezi has too), but because she is horrible to her friends in ways that people relate to and take real offense at. she’s interesting to me as a polarizing character and i kind of love that so many people love vriska for being this horrible, messy person who fucks up. that’s a type of character love that is usually the domain of bland white guy characters, so i like seeing it, even though she’s not my personal favorite.
and another thing i love is that vriska sets the boundaries for troll culture. if everything she’s doing should be acceptable under alternian culture, why do people feel so uncomfortable with it? why are the trolls so unanimously agreed that vriska has crossed a line (or several)? it throws an early light on the fact that alternian culture is the result of false manipulation, and not just trolls being biologically ruthless. this is then highlighted more explicitly by terezi discovering that it’s difficult for her to kill vriska, even though culturally it shouldn’t be. vriska causes everyone to confront their boundaries and question what behavior they are actually comfortable with.
and she’s still doing that, not just to the characters but to the readers. although there were complaints (which i agreed with) that vriska’s dreambubble return made her death less poignant, her closing speech about ~being herself~ caused lots of debate among the readership about whether we were meant to take that sincerely, or whether it was a sign that vriska still hadn’t changed. it forced us to choose a side regarding how much of this behavior we could really accept, even in the service of “the ends justify the means.” vriska prevents the characters from reacting passively to the situations they’re in, and she prevents the fandom from reading passively, without pausing to examine our own reactions. she is a universal antagonist in all directions. she is a really great character.
