Active Classes aren’t Selfish (Nor are Passives Selfless)
Been giving it some thought lately. I think the passive and active dichotomy being distinguished between Selfishness and Selflessness isn’t helpful. I think more useful terminology to describe it would be, self reliant and interdependent. Active classes (Self Reliant): Are individuals who enjoy life through improving their own circumstances and situations, not necessarily at the expense of others. Passive Classes (Interdependent): Are individuals who enjoy life through improving the circumstances and situations of others through their aspect. I use these terms instead of Group-Oriented and Self-Directed specifically because of the connotations of Selfishness and Selflessness, which I get into in section 3. Below are the specific problems with viewing classes in terms of activeness and selfishness. 1. It’s a bullshit and criminalizing dichotomy. Selfish (presumably active classes) are seen as parasitic, dependent leeches. Selfless characters (presumably passive) are seen as codependent perpetual victims. Both are extremes. Never mind that someone pursuing their own individual goals can have a positive ripple effect on the world around them. And far be it to conceive of the idea that someone can actually derive pleasure and sustain themselves, solely by helping others rather than being concerned with their own situation 24/7. A good example of this would be a Page of Light (first thing that came to mind). A Page of Light may pursue their own goals (as a self reliant is inclined to) but along the way encounter other individuals on a similar path and through interacting with them empower them. This will always come back to benefit the page in some way, but the fact that the page benefits in the long-term from the arrangement is not mutually exclusive from the fact that they helped someone else. This also gets rid of the stipulation that all thieves and princes are assholes who can’t meaningfully contribute to or coexist with society in any way. 2. The ideology of selfishness and selflessness in the narrative seems to be exactly what hampers the characters from actually being happy in the first place. Vriska feels like she’s “Selfish” for just existing, so she attempts to compensate by being as “Selfless” as humanly possible to disastrous effect (once again it’s an extreme). If Vriska actually took care of herself she would ironically be happier and more inclined to make the world around her better.
Kanaya has the opposite issue. Everyone around her keeps telling her she’s too selfless, so she feels this need to stop herself from trying to help people she would otherwise help. And, as a result, she feels like she’s constantly working against herself because in truth, helping others is the way that she practices self love. It doesn’t help the fact that Kanaya’s approach to help is very motherly in nature. Even Jake is inflicted with this. He believes he needs to be selfless to his friends otherwise he isn’t worthwhile to them and contributes NOTHING to their lives. This idea that Jake exists only to serve himself or others with no inbetween is what makes Jake feel awful about himself and constantly second guess his contributions to improving his friends lives by just being a good friend. The idea that a character is being unfulfilled by doing what they are the most happy doing is what prompts them to take extreme destructive behaviors (See Aranea: Who believes that she also needs to be Selfish to be worth something). The issue has never been that characters need to strike a balance between being selfish and selfless. It’s that the characters are forced to think of themselves in those extreme terms in the first place and subsequently condemn themselves before they even have time to figure out who they are. 3. It’s practical as fuck (for classpecting). You can figure out whether a character is Active or Passive simply by observing their reasoning for doing what they’re doing. If they have an issue with being selfless then they are interdependent (passive). They might see themselves as a perpetual victim for helping others or incompetent at being of use to others causing them to withdraw from their relationships or procrastinate from taking necessary action to help others.
Conversely, if a character is accused of being too selfish by others or feels like being selfish is bad they are self reliant (active). They might beat themselves down over feeling weak and incapable, pushing themselves hard to become a pillar for their friends while simultaneously harming themselves and their friends in the process. The resulting behavior is boundary violation and being domineering (”I’m doing it for your sake so don’t complain, you selfish bastard”) mentality.
Once again this does not mean that the active player IS selfish. It means that they are perceived as selfish by those who think in terms of extremes. It also does not mean that the passive player is selfless either. Those two concepts mean literally nothing and are misleading. TLDR: The terms selfish and selfless are bad traits to assign to passive and active classes due to their extreme and condemning nature and are, in part, representative of the core ideological conflict the characters face in the story. To find a balance between being selfish and selfless, you have to disregard those concepts entirely.
