#inverted classpect

[gaydeivs]

you’re fighting with someone who doesn’t even exist anymore

[existentialspiral]

On Mages

While doing my analysis on the Mage of Hope, I ran into the immediate issue that Homestuck only has two mages, and neither have ever been shown directly using their powers. As such, I found myself having to dive down these characters’ histories, possible class relations, and several other sources of speculation and theory. After a fair amount of work, much of which I could probably have skipped by using other blogs as resources (not that I would; I prefer to do my own analysis from the ground up, and only read others analysis of things for entertainment), I was finally able to derive an, admittedly highly theoretical, answer to the basic questions of what, exactly, a Mage is, and how would they fight. Unfortunately, in doing all this, I found that adequately explaining my conclusions made the Mage of Hope longer than it should have been, and broke both pattern and flow of the article. As such, I have included an edited version of the original Mage analysis below. The class of Mage is, quite possibly, the most difficult class to speak of in any way, with almost everything being the result of theory and conjecture. As a class with only 2, technically 3 users, with neither of them showing any display of God Tier powers or even particular amounts of exceptional direct ability, anything I could say would be nothing more than derived possibilities implied by possibly-misinterpreted information. Obviously, I still intend to do exactly this, but I felt it best to warn of it. Our Mages, Sollux Captor (Mage of Doom) and Meulin Leijon (Mage of Heart) have rather little in common outside their class. Only one seems to have any extraordinary abilities pre-game, and while both of them do gain disabilities, the exact nature of these disabilities and their presentation presents little, if anything, in the way of situational simultaneity. No, the only actual things I have been able to find in common of them, is that both of them have a great knowledge and suffering of their aspect; Meulin has her dancestor’s obsession with shipping, but actually has a great degree of success in her shipping (according to Aranea) albeit without any real success herself, her only personal romance having fallen apart over the years/ages. As for Sollux, he has a great deal of skill in the use of the programming language ~ATH, a language whose very name connects it with his aspect (both in pronunciation, and the fact that John Egbert’s book on the language is “~ATH – A Handbook for fhe Imminently Deceased), and which is implied to be less a language created by people/trolls, and more the method Paradox Space uses to define the inevitable. As well, Sollux has quite the degree of suffering his aspect, both in his hearing of the voices of those soon to die, his constant pain from his mutant brain being incompatible with his body, and even his habit of dying, repeatedly, only for it to never stick (refusing even to grant him the sweet release of death). However, things become more complicated when you also take into account Meulin’s post-Scratch counterpart, the Disciple. As the Disciple, Meulin experienced a unique form of romance unknown to trolls, falling into every quadrant simultaneously with a single person, experiencing both the full-spectrum of troll romance and the human concept of monogamous romance, as well as the cherub idea of devoted kismessitude; in summary, it could be said that Meulin’s post-scratch self was able to experience every possible type of romance at once, a sort of soul-fulfilling relationship no one else has ever been shown to even be able to comprehend, aside from (possibly) the Sufferer, her romantic partner. With this additional information, we can draw a new association: experience. In addition to suffering personal doom, Sollux was able to experience Doom in a way no other character has, having had a total of 5 possible lives, as opposed to the usual 2. Meulin herself, meanwhile, must have had quite the long list of past romances for her to be notably unlucky in love. With this new association of experience and knowledge, possibly better defined as comprehension, we can posit that Mage is the active counterpart to Seer, experiencing what the other observes, and enacting what the other foresees. This is made more likely by what Caliope said regarding the manifestation of abilities when a player is either resistant to their calling or corrupted by outside influence. Both Rose Lalonde and Sollux were extremely resistant to their callings, Rose resistant to Light as an aspect and an active enough person to have issue with the passive role of Seer, and Sollux being apathetic to his role as Mage, and outright hostile to his aspect. This notably manifests with Rose and her connection to the Outer Gods and Noble Circle of Horrorterrors and Grimdarkness, but most interesting is something mostly ignored about Sollux: he heard the voices of those soon to die. Being that foresight is a Seer ability, and death is governed by the aspect of Doom, it can be implied that Seer and Mage are a knowledge-based active-passive pair. This is then furthered by actually examining the actions of Rose during her time spent rejecting her role: rather than passively using Light to observe the world around her, she used her connection with the beings of the Farthest Ring (Void powers, possibly) to actively and physically tear her planet and session apart in search of information, before outright experiencing the Grimdarkness of the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors; in effect, Rose can definitely be stated to have acted entirely opposite to a passive Seer, instead functioning as an active learner. With this direct connection between passively observing an aspect vs. actively experiencing and learning through an aspect, it is extremely probable that Mage and Seer are an active-passive pair, with one focused on observation and the other on experience. As such, we may finally give a (possible) definition to Mage: “One who experiences and comprehends their aspect.” As for the abilities of a Mage, once again, actual information on the combat abilities of ANY Mage stands at a sum total of nil. However, there is an inlet to allow us to guess at the standard abilities of a Mage: the actions of Rose Lalonde prior to accepting her role as Seer of Light. Assuming that the above paragraph is correct and that Rose’s rejection of her class and aspect both caused her to invert entirely, this would make her abilities at this time comparable to those of a Mage of Void, allowing us to now infer the abilities of a Mage. As such, the following paragraphs will continue based upon this assumed connection. Firstly, as an active knowledge class, it may be posited that Mages function on a very simple, very old concept: skill and experience are worth more than strength and power. While they might not be the most powerful of classes, possibly being some of the weakest in raw ability, Mages are better able to understand their aspect than any other class and, thus, can apply their power in ways no other class can replicate. In this, it would be akin to the difference in between a 20-pound sledgehammer at full swing (25635 joules) vs. the force of a 12.7mm bullet with a 52 gram powder load (20195 joules); while the hammer obviously has more power, the bullet is more dangerous because of how its power is applied. As such, I would expect that, at lower levels, a Mage would have a fairly comprehensive understanding of their aspect, something which would allow them to actually accomplish things with it even where others would find it useless, such as Sollux’s use of the impossibly-difficult-to-use Turring Tarpit that is ~ATH, or Rose’s use of the Zoologically Dubious. Also, it is likely that Mages specialize in “special-damage” for combat; that is to say, it seems likely that a Mage would deal damage through magic or other esoteric powers, rather than by hitting things with shaped pieces of metal, like how Sollux used his psychic abilities instead of an actual weapon, or how Rose so heavily invested in her Thorns of Oglogoth. This, though, does come with the qualifier that we have never actually sees Meulin fight, and while it is possible that she fights with the same weapons as her Dancestor, it isn’t ever actually evidenced. After reaching God Tier, though, I expect Mages to be an interesting class, acting as a sort of, “Jack of All Trades, Master of None,” type, having the experience and comprehension of their aspect to affect any actual effect they want with it, but lacking the specialization or raw power of other classes. As such, they could be expected to actually wield their power in ways no other class could even dream of, having the fine control and understanding needed to do almost anything, but would probably lose in a straight up fight to another class unless they specifically leverage the fight against their opponent. To give an example: between a Prince and a Mage, the prince would be far better at destroying things, so an actual fight would end in the Prince’s favor; however, while the Prince has more raw power, the Mage would be able to, say, specifically protect themselves better, or manipulate their aspect more freely, while the Prince only has destruction to his name.