Regarding Bards as an Aspect Overabundance
Hopping on my old classpecting blog bc I have something I'd like to share with the class regarding Bards.
So Bards and Princes are both destruction classes, Bard being passive and Prince being active. Along with that, it's stated that Princes are lacking their aspect and thus so is the session. Bards, meanwhile, destroy passively, not always in control of what they destroy. I prefer to use the term "corrupt" because it brings up a clearer picture of what "destroying passively" means. Unlike Princes, however, it is never directly stated that Bards lack their aspect or that their aspect is lacking in the session (citation needed). I'd like to argue that it's because not only are they not lacking their aspect, but that they possess their aspect in abundance and, as such, so does the session they are in.
In canon Homestuck we only have 2 bards: Gamzee, Bard of Rage, and Cronus, Bard of Hope. Let's talk about Cronus first, since there's less info on him. In the Act 6 Intermission 3 Openbound, we learn a bit about Cronus during the time in the session. He used to be a nerdy kid who loved wizards, but then eventually he left that behind, especially after he died and learned about humans. So, now he claims to be human in spirit and acts like a 1950's greaser. He's also a perv but I don't think that's related. I interpret Hope players as having a very strong sense of self, so Cronus changing up his personality like this is a very interesting look at Bards, especially since it seems like he doesn't really care about how he was before. It's not that he doesn't like how he was before, but more that he's moved on from it to something new. His self (his hope) has been Corrupted and now he's different. Along with that, he does seem to have an almost foolish level of hope, as he immediately volunteers to help fight Lord English when asked. As for his session, it's really hard to tell if they did have an overabundance of Hope since we see very little of the Dancestor Session on screen, but I believe we can assume it had more Hope than Rage, especially since they had a Prince of Rage in the form of Kurloz.
Cronus is a bit hard to use to definitively assert this claim of mine, but that's why Gamzee is very important. Gamzee is the Bard of Rage, and boy does he sure have it. Rage is all about emotions and raw power, something he has In Spades. Gamzee is one of the strongest Beta Trolls, arguably the strongest, and as we see in his many bloody outings, he is dripping in Rage. He has an obvious overabundance of his aspect, which was kept down in his early years by eating soper pies, keeping him high and unaware of his emotions. We get hints of his power here and there, like when Karkat commented on the fact that he dealt a great blow to the Black King in their session, but it wasn't until Dave sent him the ICP music video that he finally snapped and went on a rampage. Years and years of Rage that had built up exploded like a dam, and it was disastrous, as he went on a killing rampage. If ever there was an overabundance of an aspect in Bards, as I have asserted, this is very clearly evidence for that. However, was there an abundance of Rage in the session itself? I'd argue yes to that as well. Throughout the whole session, there were many moments of sabotage, subterfuge, distrust, and loathing. Hell, the whole game was even meant to be a competition before they did the whole double mobius reacharound. This mixed with the lack of Hope thanks to the Prince, Eridan, makes it a bit of a miracle that the session ever was completed. Even after the new universe was created, Rage was apparent. Gamzee wasn't the only one who went on a killing rampage, as we see both Vriska and Eridan give in to their bloody desires. It's pretty clear to me that Rage was a major force at work in their session, due to the overabundance that Gamzee possessed.
This is my evidence for how Bards have both an overabundance of their own aspect, but also cause the session to have an overabundance as well. I think I've laid out a good argument as to why and how I interpret the class and gave a bit of insight into how I look at classes within both the story and classpecting itself.
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