Canon examples: Jake English, Tavros Nitram, Horuss Zahhak
Other Examples: Emil Sinclair (Limbus Company), Kida Tanaka (Fear and Hunger 2: Termina), Jack-O Valentine (Guilty Gear Strive), Denji (Chainsaw Man), Hope (Final Fantasy XIII), Dick Grayson (Robin/Nightwing), Spike (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), Kumoko (So I'm a Spider, So What?), Arya Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire), Bruce Banner (The Incredible Hulk)*
Alignment: +3 (Mostly Passive)
Pages are the fifth most Passive normal class, and the sixth most Passive overall. This places them past the midpoint of the Passive part of the scale and thus closer to Active. Therefore, they are a class that very much wishes to be an active participant, but is often held back by a lack of confidence or ability.
Page is paired with Knight as its more Active counterpart. We don't know their verbs or the construction thereof for certain, but James Roach has said that pages "fight to preserve their aspect." While this implies that "preserve" is their verb, "preserve" is a difficult verb to work with, and "protect" is a fairly close synonym. Therefore, I will be treating "protect" as their shared verb until proven otherwise.
Gender: Male (Non-exclusive)
We have yet to see a female Page in canon, so it's sometimes assumed to be the third "male gender-locked" class. However, Knight is not gender-locked in canon, so it would be rather silly if Page was. Anyway, I've already assigned that to Heir, so I'm considering Page open but male-leaning unless proven otherwise.
Because they are predominantly (but not exclusively) male, there's some interesting gender-related stuff going on with Pages. There's a well-known and oft-derided (for both valid and bullshit reasons) archetype of the "Strong Female Character." I'm not gonna deconstruct it all here, but despite the gender of the Pages we've seen, they line up pretty well with the most problematic and surface-level version of the archetype. This is likely because Dick Grayson's Robin costume seems to have been the model for the Page God-Tier, and, due to the way he is often objectified in his stories, "Strong Female Character Nightwing" is a common joke in comics circles.
Mythological Role: Potential Man
A kid is sent away from home to learn from a master. Some kind of warrior, perhaps a knight or a kung-fu monk or something like that. The boy (because most often, it was a boy) might be a hostage sent to secure a deal between houses, or maybe his parents were impoverished nobles who just couldn't raise him themselves. The kid suffers brutal training at the hands of a seemingly cruel Master. A Master who might be harsh, but they are also the only one who truly sees the Page's potential, and they are determined to bring it out.
In time, under the Master's firm hand, the Page defies everyone's expectations. He grows to surpass everyone, maybe even the original Master. The Page starts out weak and helpless, but grows to be the greatest hero the realm has ever known. Hardship and sacrifice, bullying and abuse, and eventually, EVENTUALLY, reaching his true potential. It's a story of endurance and willpower, of triumph and grace under pressure.
I'm not gonna mince words here. These sorts of stories were created to justify and perpetuate abusive systems. The promise of power at the end of a Page's journey is, for the most part, a false promise subject to heavy survivorship bias. As an extremely meta story, the text of Homestuck is well aware of the dichotomy between the promise of this story and the reality that, far more often than not, it just leads to broken people. It's a deliberate choice that out of the Pages we've seen, they have never fulfilled this potential within the confines of the game.
Game Role: One who Protects [Aspect] or One who is Protected by [Aspect]
The presence of a Page in a session represents an unattainable goal or a power kept in reserve, depending on your perspective. It's something important and desirable to the majority of the players, something they likely lacked in their pre-session life. This the effect of making the Page unusually desirable to certain players. Not necessarily in a sexual or romantic way, though that often is the case, but it could just be an obsessive fascination. This is the "potential" of the Page, and every Page will attract at least one "Master" this way: A stronger player who feels like it is their duty to bring out this potential. Unfortunately, the majority of these Masters end up being abusive and only serve to grind the Page down rather than raise him up.
To keep the carrot out of reach, the game seals the Page's aspect away until either the Ultimate Reward or the absolute most dire of circumstances. Within the Page, this Aspect takes the form of an "Imaginary Friend" who acts as an aspirational figure, spirit guide, alter, or any other role the Page needs to keep them going. When the session seems doomed, this power can be unleashed from the Page in a devastating and likely indiscriminate way, ensuring the end of the session one way or another.
Too passive: Spineless. While Page is still a Passive class, it's getting towards the more active side of things. The goal of ultimate power might be a cruel joke, but in order to succeed, a Page still has to strive for it. A Page surrounded by stronger people, those whose assertive nature completely overshadows the Page himself, is like a Rogue only stealing from himself, constantly self-martyring to appease those around him. Tavros never really stood up for himself until he was already dead, but it was a glorious moment when he finally did.
Too active: Aimless. If, on the other hand, a Page goes actively seeking their Aspect from without rather than within, they will never find it. They can try whatever they want to understand it, and they may very well succeed, but they lack the intellect and creativity to grasp their Aspect like a Seer can. Horuss tried literally everything to understand his Aspect (likely at the behest of Aranea), yet he never even came close.
Inverted: Hopeless. A Page, despite being based on a knight-in-training archetype, is not and will never be a Knight. It's a totally different archetype. Yet some pages will take that acrobatic fucking pirouette off the handle and try to be the hero that they see a Knight as. This, of course, never goes well for them, as they generally lack the combat capability for such heroics themselves, and they will often end up on the end of a severe thrashing for daring to punch above their weight class. Jake frequently falls into this trap.
Origin: A put-upon dreamer who could be so much more than they currently are.
Struggle: To realize just how rigged the system is for them and find a way to escape it.
Reward: Dignity and self-mastery.
At their best: Someone who never gives up.
At their worst: The eternal victim.
Flip it Turnways: The Beast
Example: Bruce Banner (The Incredible Hulk)
"I wish I could use my power now," says the Page. And somewhere, deep in the heart of Skaia, a monkey's paw curls a single gnarled finger...
Pages don't start out strong. If they're lucky, they grow through the course of the story, eventually becoming the most powerful players once they tap into their full potential. But what if that potential started out tapped? What if a Page was the most powerful player before the game even started? Well, Skaia doesn't like Pages having nice things, so In that case, you might have The Beast.
The Beast starts the session with their full powerset available to them, maybe even a sort of Diet God Tier. The only problem is, they completely lack the ability to control these powers. Worse, since their Imaginary Friend is a manifestation of their Aspect potential, it becomes a whole alternate self, one that does not provide any comfort and instead only adds to the Page's abuse. Under certain circumstances, the player blacks out, only to wake up later surrounded by carnage. His struggle therefore isn't to gain access to his powers, it's to get them under control before he ends up hurting or killing someone he cares about.
