Hope Is Still The Strongest Aspect: Wherein I Wonder Aloud If Y’all Even Read The Same Fuckin’ Webcomic As Me
So! How’s it hangin’ y’all? This post seeeems to have upset some of you. I made that post to be a funny look at how the Hope aspect works, ‘cause hey! If I’m gonna say Hope runs on willful ignorance then I may as well have some fun with it, right?
Unfortunately, the humor was lost on a lot of y’all. Fair enough. Tone is hard to convey through text. But apparently the issue wasn’t with me comparing Hope players to shitty, closed minded people who deliberately ignore reality, it was with me saying that Hope was the strongest aspect. Not the best, not the most charming or loveable or perfect. The strongest.
And apparently that didn’t jive.
So while I’ve been drowning in anons accusing me of talking up Hope for the sake of my ego (it’s true. You’ve found me out. I keep my ego in my homestuck side blog. However will I survive unless everyone knows my made up Title is the strongest and bestest of the the made up Titles. How will I go oonnnnnn.) I decided to go back over it and think about why I made that part of the post, and why that was the part that people took offense to.
“Oh Sylphie,” y’all might say. “Nobody would’ve minded your jokey funtimes post if you had sourced it. If you had backed up your claims. You’re work is usually so in-depth, why didn’t you do that with this one?”
Well, the reason I didn’t bother doing that on my ‘Hope is the Strongest Aspect’ post, and I swear to god somebody’s gonna fucking doxx me for this:
***I thought this was so colossally dumbfuck obvious that everybody knew it already.***
That’s right. I was genuinely surprised when I got people disagreeing with me about which aspect was the strongest, and you can imagine my shock when the anons started rolling in. The reason I didn’t bust out my motherfucking dissertation skills wasn’t because of my ego, or because I didn’t have evidence, but because I actually didn’t process that y’all failing to arrive at this conclusion on your own was even a fucking possibility.
I mean, even aside from the part where Aranea says it in plain motherfucking words:
there are loads of narrative reasons to come to this conclusion, but apparently nobody else was looking too closely.
And since y’all didn’t, I’m gonna break it down reeeaaaaaal nice and simple for you, and we’re gonna start by talking about The Worf Effect.
((This shit’s gonna get real fucking long, but if you sent me shit on anon, called me literally any fucking adjective or otherwise doubted me where you knew I would read it, I expect you to fucking read this whole goddamn thing. Y’all made me read your fucking horseshit, and I’m willing to bet actual fucking cash money that you didn’t bother putting half the thought into yours that you expect me to put into mine. You want me to back my shit up? Here it fucking is, now you’ve gotta fucking read it.))
(((If you politely disagreed but didn’t go on anon or say any rude shit, still read it and just pretend I wrote it less angrily.)))
The Worf Effect is a pretty well known trope, named for Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but even if you’re not familiar with tropes (or Star Trek) it’s pretty simple to figure out. It’s basically this:
Person A (Worf) is very strong. If you want to establish that Person B is incredibly strong, show them easily defeating Person A.
Like I said, pretty basic. This is usually used to introduce tough new villains, but could also potentially be used to establish a newly gained ability. For example, if I want to show off that my OC, Marisu Strongy, was very STRONG, I might show her going over to Equius, challenging him to an arm wrestle, then gripping his hand so hard it breaks his fingers before slamming his arm back so hard it breaks the table in half.
“Holy shit!” say the trolls. “Marisu is so strong!” say the trolls.
“Holy shit!” say the masses. “What a fucking Mary Sue!” say the masses.
Really basic technique. So who in Homestuck qualifies as a stand-in Worf?
So, Homestuck is not exactly a stranger to overpowered characters, but the folks that stand out head and shoulders above the rest in terms of sheer power level are The First Guardians, the Master Classes, and of course Lord English.
Let’s break down the First Guardians before anybody else.
Powered by the space-time anomaly that is The Green Sun, a star the size of two universes, First Guardians are gratuitously OP. Doc Scratch would never shut the fuck up about his omnipotence, omniscience, and incredible charm. Bec Noir was a game breaking boss to such a degree that after breaking the kids’ game he went over to the trolls’ game just so he could break that too. And Jade is, well, Jade. So let’s go over how they’re defeated.
How do you defeat a First Guardian? Well, basically, you don’t.
Doc Scratch stopped existing of his own accord once he succeeded in his plan to bring in Lord English. Bec Noir was stopped in his game breaking rampage, not because he had any actual weakness in his powers, but because PM developed an identical power set and the two were forced into a three year long stasis, which even then was only broken by Jade, who also had First Guardian powers.
Jade’s First Guardian powers are so over the top that, from a narrative perspective, it makes her a liability. If Jade could be allowed to wander freely with her power, she could fix just about any problem she came across and there would be no more narrative tension. Which is why, after her moment in the spotlight in [s] Cascade, Jade is shoehorned from position to another, all of which make sure she either can’t use her powers or, if she can use them, it’s for the wrong team. In the Green Yard she can’t use her powers. When she gets to the next session she gets mind controlled and works for the Batterwitch (for the sake of this argument I am not counting mind control as a defeat, since it’s not directly outweighing her powers). The cure to mind control is keeping her asleep, so she can’t use her powers. She doesn’t have anybody to fight when she’s in the Furthest Ring with Callie, and when she does finally come back, she gets matched up with Bec Noir and PM, so she can’t curbstomp anybody. Jade is so overpowered that the narrative itself won’t let her go all out in a fight because the story would be destroyed in the process. The other First Guardians count, but Jade is 100% a Worf.
As for the Master Classes, they get a bit trickier. While the First Guardians regularly interact with the main characters and make their power levels very clear in the process, the only two Master Classes spend a lot of time in isolation, or else only fight against other people or with other objects that make guessing the extent of their abilities really difficult. (I am not counting Jujus as a potential Worf or defeater of a Worf, because the extent of their abilities is unknown).
It’s implied, though, that they are a lot stronger. Alt-Calliope collapses the Green Sun and makes it look easy. This would seem? to imply? that a fully realized Master Class is stronger than a First Guardian???? But it’s not entirely clear.
Making matters worse, there’s Lord English.
It’s hard to say how much of his ability is because he is a Master Class, how much of it comes from Doc Scratch, a First Guardian, how much of it is reliant on his True Immortality from defeating Yaldabaoth. Basically, it’s a crapshoot. But he’s really, really strong.
So who is able to consistently curbstomp these hyper OP motherfuckers?
3.) APPLICATION OF THE WORF EFFECT
A Page of Motherfucking Hope, that’s the fuck who.
When Aranea ‘healed’ him and he went all Hopey, he was able to take out Grimbark Jade without, seemingly, being cognizant of it.
And, of course, in Caliborn’s Masterpiece
So, this should be the end of the discussion! In conjunction with Aranea’s earlier statement we can come to the conclusion that -
“But Sylphie!” the masses cry out. “Pages are canonically the strongest regular class once they’re fully realized! Jake isn’t able to fucking wreck the strongest people in canon because he’s a Hope Player, he’s able to because he’s a Page!”
((at which point I would like to throw some serious side-eye at the folks who are fine with there being stronger and weaker Classes but get their panties in a massive fucking twist over the idea of Aspects being anything but perfectly fucking balanced.))
In response to the Page argument, I say you can fuck right back off and look at Aranea again.
After getting the Ring of Life, Aranea mind controls several ghost Damaras to make them move a golden battleship. Aranea is able to mentally affect ghosts and have their powers influence the living world.
Does she cure a bunch of dead Tavros ghosts’ mental trauma and make them do a Windy thing? No. What about a bunch of dead Horuss ghosts? No. She opts for one motherfucking Page of Hope rather than a horde of Pages from another class.
“But wait!” cry the masses, yet again. “What if ghosts are just really weak? She had to use 3 Damaras to lift the ship after all! It isn’t that Hope is the strongest aspect, it’s that Jake was alive while the others weren’t!”
Well first off that’s ignoring the “unrivaled 8y that of any other aspect” line, but frankly who hasn’t ignored that, right? Kurloz still mind controls Meulin while he’s a ghost, Alt Calliope collapsed the Green Fucking Sun while she was a ghost, Feferi convinced the Horror Terrors to create the dream bubbles while she was a ghost. Ghosts lose relevance, not power. Please come back with a better argument.
But you know what? Let’s look at that further. What have other Pages done when fully realized?
Horuss doesn’t do much, but Tavros is able to singlehandedly form an entire fucking army to go fight Lord English. What a cool and awesome display of power! He earns his many dances. No doubt they will fucking curbstomp that misgoynistic green asshole!
The army was just there as a distraction so they could deploy the House Juju as a secret weapon. Less impressive than Jake, so Jake is stronger, Hope is the strongest fucking aspe-
“BUT WAIT!” scream the masses, as I try to keep myself from ramming my face through a fucking wall out of sheer frustration. “Tavros’s army was up against Lord English, while Jake only beat Caliborn! There’s no proof that Jake is stronger! Heck, John was able to beat Caliborn in a fight! This is a false equivalence that means absolutely nothing!”
Well hold onto your fucking hats because I’ve still got more explaining to do. God forbid I should leave even the tiniest fucking amount of space for confusion. Even the tiniest fucking crack in this logic house I’m building. Y’all will cram yourselves into it Enigma of the Fucking Amigara Fault style and then blame me for my shitty construction. SO LET’S KEEP FUCKING ROLLING.
I am not counting John’s kerfuffle with Caliborn as an example of the Worf effect, for the same reason I’m not claiming that Clubs Deuce is the strongest player in the game for taking Jade out with a Barbasol bomb.
Attacking a strong enemy when they are not strong is not an example of the Worf Effect. Caliborn didn’t have total control over his abilities yet, he hadn’t collected the Felt, he hadn’t fought Yaldabaoth, he hadn’t gained True Immortality, and the fight reads as a joke where neither of them are seriously injured. Likewise when Clubs Deuce killed Jade, she hadn’t gone Dog Tier. It doesn’t count. This is the same reason I’m not espousing Aranea as being the strongest character for crushing Jade beneath a building after Jake knocked her out. If the opponent is not strong at the time you fight them, defeating them does not prove you are stronger.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that Lord English is stronger than Caliborn! You can’t prove that Jake’s powers are stronger than Tavros’s!”
It’s true that Tavros never goes toe to toe with Caliborn, Jake never goes toe to toe with Lord English, and we don’t have enough of a grasp on their power level to say for sure who would win what fight. But you know who we do have a grasp on?
Motherfucking Jade Fucking Harley.
Jade can shrink and teleport planets within moments of getting her powers. Shrinking and teleporting people is a cinch for her. But this is an army of God Tiers, including dead Kanayas and Porrims, who could potentially unshrink people or move them back to the battlefield. Depending on how cohesively the army is and how prepared they are to fight Jade, there’s even a chance they could win!
But she would still be able to affect them, and that was never on the table for Jake.
“BUT SYLPHIE!” the masses wail in agony. I stare into the distance. My eyes are dead. My soul is on another plane of existence. “JUST BECAUSE HOPE IS STRONGER THAN VOID OR BREATH DOESN’T MEAN IT’S THE STRONGEST ASPECT OF ALL! SYLPHIE, SEE REASON!” I cannot see reason. I can only see the canon fucking words in the fucking webcomic.
And finally my last fucking point. The big man himself.
4.) ANDREW HUSSIE IS NOT A FUCKING IDIOT
The masses scoff amongst themselves. “Sylphie thinks if you disagree with her you’re an idiot. She would apply this to the creator of homestuck himself. How foolish she is! How arrogant!” They continue to scoff, but I am no longer here. Where am I? Even I do not know. But I am gone.
Andrew fucking Hussie is a goddamn genius of literature. That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? Because Andrew Hussie knows what the fuck he’s doing with a narrative, and he can write some compelling shit because of it.
Would bring in the Worf Effect twice for the Page of fucking Hope.
Would have another Page have another Pagey moment that is very. fucking. decidedly. not Worf Effect shit.
Would write Aranea’s goddamn line.
This is a man who will bust out pesterchum handles representing GCAT strands of DNA, only to have the character with the astrological sign of cancer cause a deviation, representing literal cancer as some side shit. As a fucking easter egg. That’s the shit he’s not even gonna call attention to.
This is a man whose grasp on temporal mechanics is so fine that you can follow the location of a fucking wallet through three different fucking universes just by going back and paying a-fucking-ttention.
Andrew Hussie is not a fucking idiot.
Speaking of subtle shit Andrew Hussie does, I wanna to talk about some visual associations he makes with the Hope aspect. Everybody has noticed the correlation between Life and Food (looking at you, Batterwitch) but far fewer people have noticed the correlation between Hope and… putting it politely politely, procreation.
Setting aside the multiple, gratuitous crotch shots, all three Hope players are notable for their romantic relationships - the Destruction classes for their failing relationships, and Jake for the struggles of the people who want to enter a romantic relationship with him. More than that, though, Hope has multiple, direct correlations with children and childbirth.
Or, for the Destruction classes, the destruction of children or the parent/child bond.
Not to mention Eridan’s whole thing of white stuff shooting out of his rod to hit his flush crush, romantic rival, and the matriorb.
Real fuckin’ subtle, isn’t it?
“But so what?” ask the masses. “What does this have to do with being powerful inside the realm of Sburb?”
The game that’s filled with reproduction-based imagery?
The game that is literally about procreation on a universal level?
You mean the game that punishes you for not believing you can do the impossible?
Yeah, no, no reason for Hope to be the most powerful Aspect in the game of Sburb. No conceivable reasons here. Definitely nothing Andrew Hussie canonically wrote into the fucking comic. It’s gotta be my ego talking. I mean, I’ve never tried to play myself off as a Master Class, but obviously my sense of self is entirely dependent on people thinking I have the best Title. Especially with all the other motherfucking times I’ve done that right? I’ve sure never said that Hope is powered through willful ignorance and that Hope players tend to be stupid. I’d never say anything like that, with my ego riding on this and all.
But, real talk, if y’all could collectively get off my fucking ass that’d be absolutely swell. An absolutely abstract kinda real fucking good times going on. Get off my metaphorical dick unless you have an actual goddamn reason to think I am wrong, and in that case think reeeaaaaalllll fucking hard about whether that’s actually the fucking case before I have to waste my time with another goddamn essay, just ‘cause y’all couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to the fucking Sylph. Am I talking about me or Aranea? Who’s to fucking say. Either! Both!
Hope next time y’all can learn to fucking read before making me take time out of my day! ^U^ Toodles~
