Unknown Knowns
So, while I was just taking my1 Walk2 just now I was thinking about This3, and in particular, whether Vriska’s final confrontation with Terezi constitutes another one of these failed attempt to ‘fix’ her relationships by flipping the committer and receiver of violence, and I think it is.
Vriska wants to ‘fix’ her relationship with Terezi but, as we know from their first dialogue, her idea of ‘fixing’ it is making things Like They Used to Be, rather than building something new. As always, her myopic desire to have things her way, rather than meet them on their terms, helps to cause(she’s not the only one with agency here obvsl) the failure of her larger goal of making Terezi a part of her life again(and also it kills her). Beyond being an example of the themes I discussed earlier, the whole thing is ALSO an example of another of Homestuck’s major themes, Irony, and specifically Dramatic Irony, and I have helpfully arranged those examples into an unnumbered series of discrete paragraphs u_u u_u
Vriska sees Terezi in her old FLARPing getup and thinks she’s cosplaying. Thinking this expresses a desire to return to their old relationship, she responds in kind by putting on her old FLARPing persona to match. That’s not what’s going on. Or it is, Terezi IS Cosplaying, but she’s Cosplaying Seriously(which is ANOTHER irony, and also another example of “Becoming Who you Want to Be”, but it’s Nested, so I wont paragraph it seperately u_u), not as a peacefrond wiggled tenuously towards the face of making things Like They Used to Be, so what Vriska’s actually doing is encouraging Terezi to kill her, which is the opposite of what Vriska wants.
Vriska doesn’t really know anything about Terezi’s Mind abilities, which bolsters this misinterpretation, while Terezi and the audience do know about them.
Vriska thinks she’s offering Terezi a Choice when, from Terezi and the audience’s perspective, she isn’t, since both actions Terezi sees WILL be taken and only stabbing her is part of the Alpha Timeline.
Terezi thinks there’s only two possibilities when the Audience knows she, and possibly Gamzee, are constraining her perspective to what fits her desired conclusion.
Terezi THINKS she's gathering evidence to make a decision, when actually she’s justifying a decision she already made before she even started. As we know from her convo with Dave about it, Terezi’s feelings for Vriska are ambiguous and conflicted. While she cares about her, she also finds their relationship Exhausting, Vriska’s constant Behavior(ie Murders) Dangerous&Counter-Productive, and fundamentally wants their relationship and what you could call “The Problem of Vriska” to be Resolved and Settled, for it to be Finally DONE, by any means. And she feels it is her ‘Duty’ to make it ‘Done’. While she tells herself she’s making it for the sake of Justice and Causality, it’s this desire for resolution which really shapes her perspective, and thus limits her to a ‘kill, dont kill’ mindset.
Just as Vriska feels the values of her society demand she kill Tavros(and immediately regrets it), Terezi feels the values of her society demand she kill Vriska(and immediately regrets it). Vriska completely misunderstands the situation, but her conclusions about their similarities and Terezi’s inability to live with killing her are correct(she knows because she can’t live with having killed her friends either&that conclusion flows from their ‘sameness’). Terezi correctly conceives of the particulars of her situation in their totality, but because her perspective on it is constrained by her inability to be honest about her feelings(and, Gamzee’s influence in this regard), her conclusions are wrong. And for this final irony she condemns herself to three years of self-punishment via the troll-equivalent of alcoholism and an abusive relationship with her manipulator(unfortunately, she has a Type X| X|).
The Management wishes to inform Our Dear, Sweet Readers that this walk was a Team Endeavor, Endeavored in its physical aspects mostly by The Management -The Management ↩ ↩︎
Our Staff’s Ride -The Management ↩ ↩︎
The Author: Our Staff wishes to inform Our Dear, Sweet, Dear-Dear SWEET Dear-Dear, Sweet, Dear Readers that I wrote that, All By My Self, with Nobodyelse’s Help: spcl not the EDITING entirely metaphorical tonguestick to No Monumental Persons In Particular |p |p |p ↩ ↩︎