not to loose followers but gamzee could have been developed well but he got flattened by the plot and hussie into an unlikeable irredeemable mess
like, gamzee had the worst lanus behind spidermom. goatdad was never there, he was straight up neglected for most of his childhood. neglect is a form of abuse too. and because of it gamzee was raised on nothing but the beliefs of a cult and propaganda.
the dark carnival is a gift from doc scratch, aka the guy who also fucked over vriska. it set him up to idolize and revere to our main big bad. and we’ve seen how the an inkling of the influence of lil cal messed up bro and then dave. and lil cal is like what? 1/4th caliborn?
couple that with the propaganda he must have been raised on. Gamzee is a highblood, near fucking royal. like his lanus is p much a SEADWELLERS lanus. so his position over most would be assured very well. and the strength and dominance that was expected of him? I mean just look at the GHB, and know how much he would have been expected to fit that mold
so it’s no wonder he turned to soper slime and got fucked up in the head. hell, the slime probably started off as an attempt as self harm of sorts, it’s implied to be horrible for trolls to ingest. and after coming off a near constant high he had for years, he goes into a murderous fit-for-a-highblood rage filled withdraw. then yada yada honk fiend flattening
but with the retcon, he could have been given a redemption, as we start over from murderstuck. and i honestly think vriska could have helped gamzee out. they both were abused, albit in different ways, by their lanusi. both hurt by doc scratch, the expectations of the culture, and the pressure to become their ancestors. and if vriska had it in her to fix rose’s alcoholism, she with kk could have helped with gamzee’s sopor problem. console him, and help him fixate his rage on the culture and cult that wronged him. turn the bard of rage into an asset. have him fill out a killer redemption arc
@inanotherextraverse There’s a lot you’re not getting but it’s a good example of the way a lot of people seem to think in this fandom. I hope it’s alright to make it a separate post, I shoved everything into the readmore so it’d be easier on your dash and mine.
Gamzee is not an actual person and I know, logically, you know that, but the issue that people in the fandom seem to have is not being able to grasp is that every turn a story goes through is a decision made by the person writing it.
There are two things I want to highlight here, one, that I’m not convinced Hussie made the right choices when he designed Gamzee’s character arch. Two, I’m not sure he made all of the wrong choices, yet. I’ll start with the second thing, though.
Dave’s abuse passed by large portions of the fandom unnoticed, myself included because I didn’t connect with it on a personal level. I wrote it off as a quirky, albeit unnerving part of Homestuck but didn’t give it any weight because Homestuck hadn’t defined itself as a serious text that would tackle serious issues like child abuse.
Gamzee, however, stuck out to me on a personal level. Other people have written about this in ways more eloquently than I can put it, so I encourage you to look through it if you like.
When some people read Gamzee’s intro page they see a funny kid who’s kind of like a goofy pothead. He’s forgetful, unfocused, and rather happy go lucky.
Except, when I read it, I saw someone who was desperately trying to avoid unpleasant thoughts and focus on something else. Like how harshly everyone (except Tavros) treats him in the beginning of act 5.
He’s also ready to do whatever to please his friends in a bid to be liked.
Gamzee self medicates, has no little to no support system, and is eager to be accepted by those around him. His set up is not accidental, but intentional, both by Hussie and within the context of the story. Everything about him makes him an easy target to take advantage of and all of his coping mechanisms are taken away at the same time right before Lil Cal drops into his lap. He gets used several times in various ways by characters throughout the story to do things he clearly had no interest in before being involved with them.
Even now in a literal sense he was being used as a weapon while stuck in a fridge, pelted about at his peers while he suffers on the inside and if that isn’t a metaphor then fuck everything, I quit.
So far I’ve really only discussed the latter point I was trying to make, I’m not sure that Gamzee’s story isn’t one about overcoming abuse. There’s still a lot of unknown variables. For a long time I felt like we would get to see Gamzee overcome Lord English, or be free of him in some way so he could reclaim himself. After the mess in act 6 though those hopes got further and further away. If Hussie is trying to narrate an abused kid dealing with his abusers, he seriously muddied the fucking waters when he made Gamzee Terezi’s abuser in act 6.
Gamzee’s abuse could be characterized as possibly subtle, he’s disconnected, distracted and easy to manipulate and he doesn’t have a lot to say on the matter. The fuckfest disaster that was Terezi and Gamzee, however, was visceral, very much in your face, and completely unsatisfying even now. I look at that and think it was a bad choice from ANY perspective.
On to my first point, what if I’m wrong and in the end Gamzee is just that capricious clown who was silly and sweet and addicted to drugs and is now the beloved trope of psychopathic murderer?
Then that was a bad fucking choice for the story.
You know what’s not fun? To see yourself in another character’s story of abuse and then watch the author use that character’s history as the reason they become a monster.
You know what I’m sick to fucking death of? People not being able to LOOK at Homestuck for what it is. Something that Hussie wrote because it pleased him to do so. Don’t talk about “Gamzee did this” or “Gamzee did that.” Momo said it best already, but I’m NOT interested in the story of Gamzee as an abuser. I’m not here for drug addicted kid turns into a dangerous murderer who we should all hate.
And you know what else? I’d REALLY really love it if people stopped bashing the character that I identify with in front of me. I get that you don’t resonate with Gamzee Makara. His story isn’t your story, but the beginning of that story is one that a lot of us felt a connection to. Before the rug was pulled out from under us, may of us thought Gamzee was here to narrate that struggle.
If we’re all wrong, and he’s just another trope? I want you to try and respect all of us who still resonate with him, pull back and get some perspective and understand what we saw here and how hard it is to move on from that. Give us some fucking respect and understand that abuse victims come in all types, and some of them resonate with Gamzee Makara. If I have to see another “abuse apologist” thrown at a Gamzee fan for all the wrong reasons I’m gonna lose my goddamn shit.
That’s all.
