This felt like a good idea for something to put out before I put my Knight & Page analysis out there, since I plan on making this a 6 part series. (Potentially 7 if demand for a Lord/Muse addendum is high enough).
So, I'll be laying out my most important philosophies on the subject here for future reference.
Classpecting is...
Point A. Classpecting is malleable.
There is not one rigid, set definition for any Class pair, or any Aspect pairing. The freedom of the author is that they may assign any symbolism to a concept that they may like.
What I mean by this is that people often seem to think that manifestations of an Aspect within Homestuck's narrative paint that object or idea as a concept inherently tied to that Aspect.
Example: Pumpkins & Void. You would not believe the amount of people in the early fandom who swore by the idea that pumpkins were inherently just Void constructs because of their role in Homestuck's narrative.
No? Pumpkins symbolise Void in Homestuck itself and Homestuck itself only only due to a running gag inherent to Homestuck itself.
Anything, with enough narrative basis and existing thematic ties, can serve to symbolise an Aspect. Furthermore, two different authors may have different ideas of what Aspect something represents.
Some authors may see alcohol, for example, as a Void-bound concept owing to its obfuscation of fair judgement. Some may see it as a Light-bound concept owing to the idea of 'in vino veritas' and the tendency of drunkenness to induce truthful confessions. Some may see it as a Life-bound concept owing to its associations with hedonism and impulsive behaviour.
With enough narrative consistence, anything is possible. Homestuck's narrative is not as rigid of a point of reference as some people would swear by it being. This is deeply important.
Point B. Classpecting is not the whole of a character.
I can't exactly phrase this in a satisfactory manner, but... a Classpect is not a personality type in of itself. An individual being a Prince of Heart does not instantly make them Dirk Strider. It merely means that their core value is identity & selfhood, and they interact with it by destroying it. It is that simple!
I see, time and time again, Classpecting blogs acting as if a Classpect is indicative of a character's whole personality and giving guides as to the exact behaviours & quirks a character with that Classpect should have.
I am imploring you to explore wider possibilities when it comes to this. Even if it means sharing a title with a canon character! It doesn't mean you have to just rewrite that canon character because that's not how Classpecting works.
I've seen fanventure characters share titles with canon characters. (Sovereignstuck's Annomi Errata & Dynama Zarrow sharing titles with Dirk & Porrim respectively, and Porrim herself is also a player in that narrative, mind you!)
I've seen fanventure characters share titles with eachother. (Vast Error's Dismas Mersiv is a Rogue of Mind. One of my fantrolls is also a Rogue of Mind!)
In every instance, they are fundamentally different people. I cannot put it any simpler than this.
Point C. Classpecting is always applicable.
That is the perfection of the Classpecting system. You can give a title to any character, from anything ever made. It's not even that difficult if you're half-decent at media analysis!
Quite literally all you need to do is ask yourself two questions.
"What's this character's core value?" and "How do they interact with that?" Do that, and you've got yourself a Classpect.
That's the beauty of it! It's obviously not going to be as airtight as a story that has the Classpecting system baked directly into the narrative, but it's still going to work out!
Hell, do it to yourself! Do it to your friends! The world's your oyster. You can do anything you want, forever, for the rest of time. I'm a Seer of Life! My best friend is a Page of Blood! My mother is a Witch of Hope! Go wild.
Post formatting
For my Classpecting posts, I'll aim to give two related definitions for every Class.
Definition A is the narrative function, what the Class says about the person and how they interact with their Aspect as an abstract concept.
Definition B is the practical function, what the Class says about their role in the session and how they interact with their Aspect as a SBURB construct.
Therefore, we get an idea of both the abstract, personal definition of a Classpect, and the functional, game application of a Classpect.
I'll also aim to give about two or three examples for each individual title about how you could write a character with them, since there are always going to be multiple directions you can take with a Classpect.
Conclusion
tl;dr - what I'm trying to say is this. Classpecting is malleable, easily applicable & capable of saying any number of things, and my posts will aim to give two concise definitions of both narrative and practical function for every title.
I'll get the Knight:Page analysis done either today or tomorrow, and the rest of the Class posts will be staggered releases in order of poll results. Thus, the order is going to be:
Knights & Pages, Deficiency and Exploitation.
Mages & Seers, Experience and Comprehension.
Witches & Heirs, Adherence and Manipulation.
Princes & Bards, Instability and Destruction.
Thieves & Rogues, Inundation and Redistribution.
Maids & Sylphs, Maintenance and Generation.
And, potentially...
7. Lords & Muses, Absolution and Dominion.
And then, subsequently, the order for the Aspect posts, which I've decided based on relevance to the canon, roughly speaking anyways...
Space & Time, Genesis and Terminus.
Breath & Blood, Fluidity and Stability.
Light & Void, Potential and Simplicity.
Heart & Mind, Instinct and Dialectics.
Life & Doom, Progress and Stagnation.
Hope & Rage, Conviction and Iconoclasm.
I look forward to the next post. Until then, take care.
2026: Year of the Extended Zodiac+ Revival!
Part 59/168: Violet-blooded Knights (suffix: -alt/-lta)!
Aquariusalt: Derse Knight of Hope | Aquaniusalt: Prospit Knight of Hope
EMBLEM of the ZEALOUS | EMBLEM of the MAGICIAN
Aquibornalt: Derse Knight of Rage | Aquicornalt: Prospit Knight of Rage
EMBLEM of the HEDONIST | EMBLEM of the TEMPEST
Aquittariusalt: Derse Knight of Void | Aquittaniusalt: Prospit Knight of Void
EMBLEM of the ENIGMA | EMBLEM of the ELEGANT
Aquapialta: Derse Knight of Light | Aquapiolta: Prospit Knight of Light
EMBLEM of the ECCENTRIC | EMBLEM of the MAVERICK
Aquazalta: Derse Knight of Mind | Aquaralta: Prospit Knight of Mind
EMBLEM of the POLITIC | EMBLEM of the CONTRARIAN
Aquagalta: Derse Knight of Space | Aquagolta: Prospit Knight of Space
EMBLEM of the CAMPAIGNER | EMBLEM of the ESOTERIC
Aquolta: Derse Knight of Heart | Aqualolta: Prospit Knight of Heart
EMBLEM of the OBSESSIVE | EMBLEM of the PUPPETEER
Aquacenalt: Derse Knight of Blood | Aquaceralt: Prospit Knight of Blood
EMBLEM of the AVANT-GARDE | EMBLEM of the FORETOLD
Aquaminilta: Derse Knight of Doom | Aquaminolta: Prospit Knight of Doom
EMBLEM of the IDIOSYNCRATIC | EMBLEM of the TILTED
Aquaunalt: Derse Knight of Breath | Aquausalt: Prospit Knight of Breath
EMBLEM of the SPONTANEOUS | EMBLEM of the WHIMSICAL
Aquariesalt: Derse Knight of Time | Aquaristalt: Prospit Knight of Time
EMBLEM of the HEROIC | EMBLEM of the RENEGADE
Aquascesalt: Derse Knight of Life | Aquascilta: Prospit Knight of Life
EMBLEM of the OFFBEAT | EMBLEM of the CHARITABLE
Next group is Fuschia-blooded Knights with updated signs! Reply/reblog letting me know if I posted your sign! Vote on the poll on the Teal-blooded Knights post to choose the next class to be covered by this series!
the thing that i find funny when people classpect "jerk with a heart of gold" characters like susie as knights of rage is that like, no you're doing it wrong, knights tend to hide their aspect from others until they feel comfortable showing it, a knight of rage would be shy about showing their anger not the other way around xd
they should be from their opposite aspect if that's the case (knight of hope in this situation)
yea the last name is kinda 6oring 6ut who cares!!!
ok this is 6ased on my friend dom, i think they would pro6a6ly change something a6out their x's like equius 6utt pro6a6ly not % or may6e they would do o's like using 0 instead, if anyone has a good idea for a typing quirk kinda related to puzzles tell me!! uhmm they use a knifeKind abstratus and they have a neutral feeling a6out themselfs, how that would translate to the heart aspect i do not know,, i was thinking they summon clones of herself and like get up to hijinks
so yes they really like puzzles, dom decided to take di6s on dying first in my story HAHA so i was thinking they get really confused 6y the game and die via the meteor right as they enter the medium (so that they atleast dont die STRAIGHT away)
The Knight of Hope's role is defined by "Utilizes the Hope around them or in them". The Knight of Hope is an active hope-bound player, and will be most likely to serve the role of support in breeding the Genesis Frog, and also to make sure the session does not have an excessive lack of their aspect. (Skip to the next orange text if you just want the Knight of Hope analysis ultimately)
Knights are the active part of the Exploitation duo, their passive counter part being a Page. They're able to use their aspect as a weapon and shield, and out of all the classes they appear to be able to gain the fastest 'control' over their aspect. Another common trait among knights is their shield, or mask. All canon knights in the Homestuck webcomic share a common part of character, that being their persona they project onto the world. This persona can be projected directly, or indirectly.
Latula Pyrope, or the Knight of Mind, is the best example to use first, seeing as her persona and her real self are both incredibly different from eachother and debunked rather early when we meet her. Latula's character on the surface can be explained in one word: Radical. Her entrance is on a skateboard, and her manner of speaking is exaggerated and falls under the archetype, the "Cool Girl". While we didn't necessarily get a lot of development outside of her appearance in the first Openbound game, it's enough to know that she has a mask she puts on around everyone- or rather, almost everyone. In a conversation between Latula and Porrim, Porrim is rather direct in debunking her facade, labeling it as a product of internalized misogyny and a "need to prove to others that girls can be just as cool as boys". And Latula agrees to the point about the radicalness being a facade, though she doesn't appear to agree to the other parts of Porrim's thesis regarding her persona, and even says it's exhausting keeping the behavior up at times. Another way she puts up a shield is how she hid her disability of not being able to smell, given if it was revealed she'd be culled (coddled, in Beforan terms). On the topic of culling, another Knight shares the same struggle and way of living when it came to hiding their oddities. Of course though, culling on Beforus has a much different meaning than culling on Alternia.
Karkat Vantas serves as the Knight of Blood, and is one of the most popular characters among the fandom. Sorry for breaking my semi-formal tone, but if you haven't met at least one Karkat kinnie during your time in the Homestuck fandom, have you really been active in it at all?? Moving on, Karkat is best known for his double-cull status as a citizen on Alternia. Not only is he a mutant, having candy red blood instead of his caste's default color, but he is a member of the Lime caste. Once thought to be extinct, there's small members of the Lime caste still alive, or so it's theorized. Of course, we don't really get the liberty of immediately knowing this upon first seeing Karkat. His shirt symbol is grey, his text color is grey, and its remarked on multiple times how he hides his true blood color. Sounds familiar, doesn't it now? He hides the color of his blood to avoid certain death, and actively worries when his cover seems to be blown. When he's stabbed by Jack, and when Terezi tells him that she knows of his blood color, through all of these he appears to be rather stressed out. Sure, you can count that as his regular attitude, but it's evident that he freaks out even the slightest more when the shield he built to hide his blood breaks down even by a fracture.
Now, what about the proficency of a Knight? Knights are obviously a very powerful classpect, being able to utilize the environments store of their aspect and their own internal hold. While a Page may exploit it for others, a Knight exploits and uses their aspect for themselves. Dave Strider, our only god-tiered Knight, showcases this perfectly. He utilizes Time, creating clones and also sending himself into the past back in a doomed timeline to prevent the doom from happening once more. These offshoots assisted his teammate's efforts, but were also a benefical aspect towards himself. Being good with your aspect doesn't just mean the literal manifestation of your aspect, seeing as time can be symbolized in things such as death or music. A big chunk of Dave's character comes in through Music. His object for initiating the Scratch was a giant disc, and even before the game he showed an interest in music.
Before we move onto the aspect part of the analysis, I do want to touch up on the additional role of the Knight. Dave and Karkat both helped their space player breed the Genesis Frog, and while we can't just automatically assume this will go for every Knight, it can be seen as an educated guess. We can also use Latula's bond with Porrim to infer that they could've had interactions/bonding moments that were caused by them working together to breed the Genesis Frog. But that's just a theory, a Class Theory.
Now what's there for the Hope aspect? A lot more than meets the eye, actually. When people think of Hope, not just as an aspect but as a concept in general, people think of possibilites, the good in the world, the future. Hope represents optimism, and the belief that life will get better and the manifestation of that. Jake English is our only god-tiered Hope player we see in action, acting as the Page of Hope (Amplifies Hope or through Hope). When Jake English first god-tiers, his journey as a page is basically a forced speedrun activated by the Sylph of Light, Aranea Serket. We can see his powers as a hope player and page player in the massive Hope-splosion he causes, which seems to an extent to be able to overpower just about everything in the vicinity. In the comic, we see that he's able to overpower GrimBark Jade, and also manage to make a part of his own imagination (Brain Dirk) real. A lot of this is exaggerated and a product of both the Page aspect's overwhelming potential but too the amplification and growth caused by Aranea's intervention. While it's definitely an exaggeration and a long run for what Hope is, it is our best lead from the start. Given Jake is the only god-tiered Hope player in canon, it's a good start to go off of.
Using the Hope-splosion, we can infer Hope has a lot to do with potential and possibilities and of course as previously discussed, optimism. When mirrored with it's opposing aspect, Rage, we can see how this ties into their pairing. Hope focuses on what can be, and what the future holds, while Rage is something that focuses on the present and what is. I explained more about the Rage aspect already, as seen in some of my previous classpect posts. We can use this as a sort of base to ponder what Hope is as an aspect- by using the complimentary aspect to determine its purpose. The reason I now call it complimentary is because I was reading a post the other day and they mentioned something that Alternate Calliope (or Alternatively, the god-tiered Calliope) had said, where Space and Time aren't inherently opposing aspects, in fact they work together if anything. On the surface you see the aspect pairings as opposites, and it isn't wrong to assume that, but upon further investigation we can come to the conclusion that while the aspect pairs do represent opposite or conflicting values, they also represent how balance is a key element in the creation of everything. I'll dive more into that in another post, so for now let's focus on Hope & Rage. Rage embodies negative emotions, the truth, and bringing the truth to the light no matter how bad it is. If that is what Rage embodies, then how about Hope? If we go off just making it the opposite, then Hope would embody everything positive we feel, idealized realities, and keeping ourselves optimistic no matter what. It's a superficial view at first, however it is also insightful.
The positive emotions are a good start, and are definitely a big part of Hope. It is in the name after all... but what about the other parts? More specifically, the idealized realities? When looking at Hope players, we tend to limit ourselves to just the basic Homestuck cast, leaving us to just Jake, Eridan, and Cronus. None of them are bad, and Eridan is a good example of Hope as an aspect in a more twisted way, but its a very limited window. Thankfully though, we do have another source of information when it comes to Hope bound players.... drumroll puh-leaaseee, because the source is none other than Hiveswap! I see so many people brush it off, but the characters are an incredibly good example for representing their aspects. For Hope in particular we're going to talk about the one who bears the sign of Caprinius: Chahut Maenad. Chahut is one of the trolls revealed in the first troll call, and appears in Act 2 of Hiveswap as well in the spin-off Visual Novel styled game Friendsim. Chahut is best described to be dedicated to her cause, that being her religion and her duty as a subjuggulator. She acts as a preacher in clown church, and is shown in Friendsim to be very dedicated and sharing with her religion. Her dedication and passion for this falls in line with Hope like a the final piece does in a puzzle. She has the passion and positivity that manifests as belief and trust in the Messiahs, and her ideals and actions go hand in hand with the religion she follows. Hope is all about believing in what you trust at your core, and following your positivity even through the darkest tunnels. Chahut and Jake both embody the best parts of Hope... but what about the worst of it?
Eridan Ampora, the Prince of Hope, and one of the more complex characters of the Beta Troll line-up. He isn't one of the best characters morality wise, but when it comes to Hope, he shows the less brushed upon side of it. When Hope is taken for granted as an aspect purely for optimism and possibility, they brush over Eridan and account his actions purely as a mirror of the complimentary aspect of Hope; Rage. But when you look more into his story, and why he did what he did, it falls into line with Hope. People forget that the reason Eridan lashed out wasn't just out of anger, but rather seeing that his way was correct. When he approached Feferi in [S] Kanaya: Return to the core, his approach and motive wasn't fueled by Rage, but rather a misguided sense of Hope. His idea of royalty sticking together, and his plan to find Jack and join him were an effort of preserving his own life and Feferi's. His plans were Hope aligned, but his methods were corrupt and unable to accomplish what he wanted. As a Prince, his destiny was to destroy Hope or through Hope, and that he did. His Hope in living and not losing to Jack was what fueled his actions and led to the death of Feferi, the injuries of Kanaya and Sollux, and the destruction of the Matriorb. His destruction of Hope mirrors the creation of Rage when you see it for face value, and in a way he did create Rage for himself, but ultimately he ended up purely destroying Hope for others. And when Hope is gone completely, the only thing left is Rage.
Hope can lead to dark places when unmonitored, and using Eridan as a tale of caution can help us to recognize our own behavior and use of Hope. It is the aspect of possibility, optimism, and often times a valuable component in a session where everything seems lost. Hope has the ability to save a session, and accomplish what it seen as impossible. But you cannot have Hope without Rage, and if you lose the balance between the two, the optimism of Hope can turn into a deadly weapon that could lead to the end of what is good and right.
The Knight of Hope would be a crucial player to keep on your side, since being able to wield Hope as a weapon is an incredibly useful trait. As seen before, Hope is powerful and can be the difference Life and Doom (Badum-Tss!) for a session. A realized Knight of Hope would be powerful in providing and utilizing Hope for their session due to the lack of it, and when it comes to powers, exploiting the possibilities around them and the optimism of themselves and others could lead to overwhelmingly good outcomes for battles.
Acting as the support of the Space player (if there is one) is a good job for the Knight of Hope, given they'll be aiding a literal manifestation of what the future holds and an idealized reality most likely. With their knightly leap and natural grasp over their aspect, it's very likely to assume the breeding of the Genesis Frog will be smooth as can be. But what if there is no Space player? What if, say, you have a Space player who is incapaable of breeding a Genesis Frog? What then, would that entail for the Knight of Hope? Well, it'd be simple really... the Knight of Hope has the possibility to exploit the Hope there already is in the session prevent the Tumor from going off, since it's likely the session would be Null/Doomed. Utilizing their powers when god-tiered, they'd be able to exploit what there already is and use it to delay a future where death and the end of life is seemingly inevitable. Of course, they wouldn't be able to completely destroy the Tumor, rather instead they'd have to utilize or find ways to change their session's fate. Of course, instead of delaying the death of their teammates through the session's Tumor, they could also find a way to exploit the Tumor for good. How so I'm unaware, but with Hope anything is possible. ;)
Now what for personality? As discussed prior a Knight has proficency in their aspect, as well as a shield relating to their Aspect in order to defend themselves and hide themselves. A Knight of Hope's shield would likely be built around their own optimism and beliefs, shielding themselves from the reality around them. Alternatively, they could hide their optimism and instead be intensely pessimistic. A Knight's shield has a million ways to be presented, and to go over them all would take a while... so if you have a Knight of Hope character, I encourage you to dwell on it yourself instead of relying on my words for their shield. When it comes to the Knight of Hope's proficency, it's to be expected they'd have a strong connection to Hope spiritually and physically. To throw ideas out there, they could live in a literal fantasy world or something close adjacent, having an idealized reality built around them and we could see how their optimism is being reinforced by it. They would also likely be connected to their own ideals indefinitely so, knowing just what they want the world to be like and have so many overflowing ideas of just how to accomplish it.
Overall, a Knight of Hope has the potential to be a super strong player. With their natural efficency in Hope and the Knightly Leap, it's a strong class to have on your side. But don't focus purely on the good, and keep an eye on them, for Hope can turn from good to bad incredibly quickly just as the tides can change.
