Homestuck Troll Castes: A Future of Inequality
Trolls in Homestuck are a space-faring alien species from the planet Alternia, governed by a vast imperial regime that spans the edges of their galaxy. Despite their advanced technology and ancient culture, their society reflects humanity's oppressive tendencies. Blood colors are divided into twelve castes, officially named according to the Hiveswap Extended Zodiac: rust, bronze, gold, lime, olive, jade, teal, blue, indigo, purple, violet, and fuchsia. Rustbloods occupy the lowest caste, while fuchsiabloods reign supreme. The divide between lowbloods and highbloods falls between jade and teal: lowbloods (rust through jade) face oppression, while highbloods (teal through fuchsia) hold privilege.
The hemospectrum, as this caste system is called, is not merely a fictional construct but a powerful allegory for real-world systems of inequality. It reflects how human societies often impose rigid hierarchies based on arbitrary traits, such as skin color, gender, or class, to justify systemic oppression. By examining the complexities of troll blood color and its societal consequences, we gain insight into the ways privilege and marginalization operate in human societies.
Blood hierarchy loosely follows a warm-to-cool spectrum, with lower blood castes also being referred to as warmbloods and higher castes as coolbloods. Yet, this categorization is imprecise. For instance, fuchsia is considered a warm color in traditional color theory, while both olive and jade are cool colors. Individual trolls' blood colors may also not fully match the standard hues used to define their caste, illustrating how these rigid classifications fail to capture the nuances of their world.
Even the official terms for the blood castes can be misleading. The purple caste, while officially named “purple,” would be better described as "violet," as violet is a shade of purple closer to blue on the color wheel, while the violet caste's color leans closer to red. Arguably, the labels for these two castes should be swapped. This discrepancy is highlighted by Karkat calling Eridan’s blood—part of the violet caste—as “purplier” than Gamzee’s, who belongs to the purple caste. These inconsistencies reveal the arbitrary nature of the caste system’s labels, which mask deeper systemic inequalities.
These dynamics parallel the categorization of racial identities in humans. Terms like “white” and “black” fail to encompass the full spectrum of human skin tones, which vary based on pigmentation. Similarly, racial divisions are largely social constructs rather than rooted in biology. Though certain genetic traits, such as the prevalence of the Duffy negative blood type among African-descended populations, exist. Both troll blood color and human racial categories reflect the imposition of rigid structures on naturally fluid realities.
Troll blood color isn’t merely superficial; the abilities and corporeal differences between trolls of each caste vary. Lowblood trolls are generally physically weaker than highbloods but possess psychic abilities that grant them unique mental strengths. Aradia, a rustblood, can commune with the dead, manipulate objects telekinetically, and induce trolls to sleep. Tavros, a bronzeblood, can psychically communicate with animals. Sollux, a goldblood, has laser vision, hears voices of the soon-to-be-dead, and telekinesis. These abilities vary in strength and variety depending on the individual troll.
In contrast, highblood trolls possess higher physical strength and resilience. Equius, an indigoblood, is so strong he struggles to hold glass cups without breaking them. Feferi, a fuchsiablood, can leap great heights from water. Vriska, a blueblood, can continue functioning after suffering severe injuries—such as losing an arm and eye—without immediate medical care. While these traits divide trolls, the boundaries of these powers between them are not absolute. Physical strength and psychic abilities intersect with each other regardless of blood caste.
The abilities of trolls—both psychic and physical—are fluid across castes, yet the higher castes still maintain systemic power over the lower ones. For example while Sollux is technically the most powerful psychic among his peers, he is vulnerable to Aradia’s ability to make him fall asleep, despite her being lower-blooded than himself. Aradia can also physically overpower higher-blooded trolls like Equius and Vriska with her telekinesis. Kanaya, a jadeblood with no psychic abilities, is also able to outfight and kill higher-blooded trolls like Eridan and Gamzee. These examples show that while powers can vary between castes, highbloods still dominate Alternia due to the systemic oppression.
While highbloods are less likely to have psychic powers, exceptions like Vriska exist. Vriska can read minds and mind-control others, though her abilities cannot affect every troll. She is unable to invade the minds of Equius and Aradia, though she can with others like Tavros, Sollux, and Karkat. Her mind control seems more effective on lowbloods than highbloods. It is implied it is not blood color that makes a troll vulnerable to her psychic manipulation but the vulnerability of their mental state. Sollux, who has bipolar disorder and so swings from manic highs and depressive lows, can only be controlled by Vriska “half the time".
Karkat, whose candy-red blood lies outside the hemospectrum, suffers marginalization on Alternia. As a mutant, his blood color makes him a social outcast; its discovery on Alternia would result in his execution. While Karkat’s friends do not treat him as an outcast, he struggles with internalized self-loathing and is in constant conflict within himself. Despite Karkat being neither lowblood nor highblood he is still vulnerable to Vriska's psychic control, suggesting that mental state rather than blood color determines susceptibility.
These dynamics mirror real-world systems of oppression. Lowblood trolls’ psychic abilities symbolize the mental resilience and strengths cultivated by marginalized groups in response to systemic abuse. Yet this same abuse erodes their mental health, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation. This pattern is mirrored in human societies, where marginalized groups often experience disproportionately higher rates of mental health issues due to suffering systemic inequality.
The Alternian Empire systematically exploits lowblood trolls with psychic abilities, targeting them in ways that are not applied to their highblood counterparts. Lowbloods are more likely to develop telekinesis, a power the empire harnesses by conscripting the most powerful as 'Helmsmen'—living engines and batteries that power its space fleets. Their telekinetic abilities are harnessed to enable interstellar travel, ensuring the empire's expansion while subjecting these trolls to a life of exploitation.
Oppression in Alternia is not confined to lowbloods. Vriska, a highblood, also suffers under the system. She is forced to kill other troll children—primarily those of lower blood castes, as depicted in Pesterquest—to feed her lusus, a monstrous caretaker that serves as a troll's parental figure and is essential for their survival. Alternia mandates that any child without a living lusus be killed, regardless of blood color. This system compels highbloods like Vriska to participate in preying upon lowbloods, harming them even as they benefit from privilege. While Alternia does not directly exploit Vriska for her mind-control powers, it forces her to use them for survival, molding her into a tool to subjugate lower-bloods.
Physical strength, while beneficial for survival, also reinforces the oppression of lowbloods. It mirrors the way physical dominance has historically been used to enforce male superiority in patriarchal societies. As men’s physical strength allows them to overpower and control women. While men may not need to physically dominate women, the power to do so remains a central aspect of upholding patriarchal structures. In both troll society and human patriarchy this physical advantage becomes a tool to uphold systemic inequalities, perpetuating the dominance of those at the top.
Troll society is divided not only by blood color but also by two distinct races: sea-dwellers, who can breathe air and water, and land-dwellers, who can only breathe air. Sea-dwellers belong to the highest castes, from violet to fuchsia, while land-dwellers span from rust to purple. This division is more than just social; it’s physical, as sea-dwellers live in or near the sea, while land-dwellers inhabit the land.
This physical separation further entrenches the power dynamics between the ruling sea-dwellers and the subjugated land-dwellers. By living removed from land-dwellers, sea-dwellers not only avoid direct interaction with those they oppress but also ensure that their power is harder to challenge. Land-dwellers face significant difficulty in attempting to overthrow the sea-dwelling elites, as they would have to venture underwater to reach them. This makes it even easier for the ruling class to maintain control over the land-dwelling majority.
This mirrors how, in human societies, the wealthy often live in gated communities or secluded areas removed from the poor. These spaces are designed to consolidate wealth and influence for the wealthy, preventing the poor from accessing the resources and opportunities that might allow them to challenge the status quo. By keeping their living spaces separate, the rich reinforce their dominance, creating a physical and psychological divide that sustains them.
The sole rulers of Alternia come from the fuchsiablood caste, who are some of the most physically powerful trolls. However, their dominance stems not from their strength but from their lusus, Gl’bgolyb, a creature whose voice grows more destructive with volume, killing trolls starting with the psychically vulnerable lower castes and onwards. To silence Gl’bgolyb she must be fed the lusii of other trolls, orphaning countless and perpetuating a cycle of exploitation. While this process averts immediate catastrophe, it ensures that future generations remain at constant risk of extinction.
This dynamic mirrors environmental destruction in human society, where the elite maintain power by exploiting resources at the expense of the planet's future. Resource exploitation may enrich humanity in the short term, but unchecked destruction poses long-term threats to everyone. Many humans are forced into exploitative practices to sustain this system, ensuring the elite’s continued dominance. Similarly trolls are compelled to sacrifice their lusii to feed Gl’bgolyb, a necessity for their collective survival. Marginalized groups bear the brunt of these environmental consequences, much like lower castes suffer the worst from Gl’bgolyb’s wrath.
There can only be two fuchsiabloods alive at any given time: the empress and the heiress. The current empress, the Condesce, rules all trollkind, and Feferi is the heiress. Upon reaching adulthood, the heiress is expected to fight the empress to the death for the throne. However none have succeeded in dethroning the Condesce since her rise to power, as she has eliminated generations of potential successors. This system ensures that authority is never shared and remains concentrated in a single ruler.
Lifespans among trolls vary by caste, with rustbloods living up to 50 years and fuchsiabloods thousands or even millions of years. Highbloods, while not as long-lived as fuchsiabloods, may outlive generations of lowbloods which allows them to consolidate power across centuries. Similarly, in human societies, elite families use inherited wealth and influence to entrench their dominance across generations. Troll highbloods can leverage their longer lifespans to exploit laws and accumulate resources, maintaining their dominance over shorter-lived lower castes. This is also among highblood castes as purplebloods, who can outlive bluebloods, can devise strategies so far-reaching and long-term that they are beyond the comprehension of bluebloods.
However, the deadly violence ingrained in troll society prevents most trolls, regardless of blood color, from reaching their natural lifespan. For fuchsiabloods survival past adulthood is virtually nonexistent due to the Condesce’s killing them off. Her longevity symbolizes how authoritarian regimes endure for so long, staying in power until forcefully removed. Her reign can only be ended by the death of the ruler, as her dominance will persist until violently overthrown.
The Condesce has enforced her will upon all of trollkind, but not without resistance as there have been rebellions aimed at dismantling her system. The most notable rebellion, led by a bronzeblood named the Summoner, nearly succeeded in overthrowing her. To prevent any further challenges to her rule the Condesce exiled all adult trolls from Alternia, forcibly drafting them to become soldiers in her fleet of space battleships to wage wars against alien species in the name of Alternian glory. By doing so she stripped trollkind of its collective power and leaving behind only the young to be easily indoctrinated to become new generations of soldiers for her regime.
This strategy ensures that any threats to her reign—whether from rebellion or usurpation—are neutralized. Exiled trolls, now fighting external wars, serve as tools for the Condesce’s imperial ambitions. This tactic of exile is both a punitive measure and a way to keep the castes in constant conflict, preventing them from focusing on dismantling the oppressive societal structure.
The Condesce’s methods mirror those of real-world human powers, who maintain control through displacement, militarization, and the subjugation of their populations. By forcing all trolls to engage in external conflicts with aliens, she keeps their internal struggles suppressed, allowing herself to retain power with less challenges. In the same way, oppressive systems throughout human history have used external wars to distract the populace from internal issues and onto a foreign enemy.
The tragedy of troll society lies not only in the suffering of lowbloods but in the destruction of potential across all castes. Even fuchsiablood heiresses, at the pinnacle of the caste system, are trapped in a system that forces them to serve the Condesce's interests. As Feferi is compelled to feed lusii to Gl'bgolyb—not only to maintain the power of the fuchsia caste but also to protect trollkind from extinction. Though she longs to reform Alternia, her position as heiress leaves her powerless to change the unjust laws that govern the planet. Even if she were to overthrow the Condesce, the system would still enforce a new fuschiablood's will upon trollkind. While Feferi might be a more benevolent ruler, she would still wield power over the castes by force.
Alternia doesn’t need a change in ruler; it needs the dismantling of the caste system to create a more equal society. The Condesce’s power is not inherent but sustained by the complicity of others. Trolls are conditioned to uphold oppression, with highbloods using their privileges to maintain dominance—yet even they are trapped in the same cycle. If all trolls—highbloods, lowbloods, sea-dwellers, and land-dwellers—united to eliminate Gl’bgolyb, they could dismantle the Condesce’s grip on power. Instead, division allows her tyrannical reign to persist.
Trolls have the potential to build a society rooted in cooperation and mutual support rather than oppression, creating a future where all can thrive. Despite trolls having evolved beyond human capabilities and technological advancements, troll society remains plagued by systemic inequalities. Much like human societies, for no matter how advanced a people may become, the flaws of inequality can and will persist if nothing is done to prevent them. Ultimately, Homestuck reminds us that without addressing the root causes of systemic oppression, societal progress will always remain incomplete, harming everyone within it.
