Homestuck: Un Essai on Classpecting (Pt1)
I've spent so long talking about classpecting on reddit and discord, i felt the need to coalesce it all into something tangible. This is my attempt at this. "Un essai", as we say in french.
If i ever get around to making other parts, Part 2 will pertain to the classes, Part 3 will be per-character analysis of canon. Until then, i won't be focused so much on proving (which is impossible, we'll get to that) the theories expressed here as i will be just trying to express them.
Section 1: What is Classpecting?
Classpecting is a set of archetypes by which to classify characters in a story. Having been made for homestuck and vaguely around Carl Jung's theory of Mythological Archetypes, the prime case to be applied to is gods in mythology, but to a larger extent, any character in any story can be classpected rendering it a useful (probably) tool for writing and character analysis. And, yes, you can use it as a personality type system to assign classpects to real people.
A classpected character manifests their classpect throughout the entirety of their story. There is no room for "They didn't have the opportunity to realize their potential as [Classpect]" or "They refused their role as [Classpect]". from the first second we see them to the repercussions they leave a thousand page after their deaths, the Classpect is always in effect. There is no excuse from this.
The Aspects come in a set of 12 spread in a wheel formation. Each Aspect on its own represents physical, metaphorical and philosophical concepts which are inextricable from our reality. Being on a wheel, each Aspect is either far or close from every other Aspect representing a proportional overlap or lack of overlap between the two's concepts. Aspects right next to each other have much overlap, representing two concepts that are closely tied to each other. Aspects on Opposite sides of each other represent concepts that are Complimentary or Opposite of each other. This is going to be a very useful tool throughout this essai, whenever we make a statement on an Aspect, we'll also make the Opposite statement on its Opposite Aspect. Or Complementary. It gets weird.
Aspects Perpendicular to one another represent concepts that are Independent of each other, being neither overlapping nor opposite. But, well, if you squint at them real hard by the end of this text you might notice a pattern across each pair and its Perpendicular.
The aspects of Space and Time are the aspects of Perpetuation and Finality, respectively. In Human terms, this could be defined as Procreation and Death. Space players are stokers of the forge, breeders of the genesis frog. They create the new universe, which in time will host a session, which will create another universe, which will host another session and so forth, continuing a veritable bloodline of universes. Time players, on the other hand, are tasked with maintaining the timelines, all but one of which are doomed to taper off and disappear along with all its occupants. This involves facing their own death or sometimes causing it, only for the satisfaction that another them, in another timeline, is living on.
I chose "Perpetuation" and "Procreation" very specifically, here. One might think the opposite of "Death" would be "Birth", or that the opposite of "Finality" would be "Beginnings", but eeeeeeh. The nature of opposites is that when we say "Something ends" the opposite statement could just as well be "Something begins" as it could be "Something doesn't end", which each mean something very different. So from Time being the aspect of "The End", we deduce two different hypothetical "Space" aspects. Space as the aspect of "Creating something new" and Space as the aspect of "Continuing something that already exists". The two aren't really mutually exclusive. When Kanaya resurrects the troll race using the matriorb or when the space players make a new universe, they're creating something new, but it's also an extension of the pre-existing universe and troll civilization. It's not like they're creating universes from nothing or inventing a brand new species. Even Calliope's expression of space as artistic creativity manifests as fanfiction, as an extension of stories that have already been written.
My point here is twofold. One, Space as the "Creativity" aspect is kinda bullshit. Everyone in Homestuck is Creative. Rose, Dave, John, even Vriska. The whole story is about everyone coming together to create. Which leads to, Two, the thing that defines Space as an aspect is that element of Perpetuation and Genealogy, one thing spawning another, not just Creation alone.
Another theme that's important to Space and Time is the concept of Universality vs Particularity or, as Homestuck would put it, The Big Picture vs The Small Picture. A concept that is Universal is one that has few different instances, but applies to many sub-concepts, with a concept being Particular being the reverse, many equivalent instances applying to a narrower scope. A common example for this is sciences. Biology outlines the rules by which all life functions, whereas Medicine only outlines the rules by which human lives function. Humans are a subset of living beings, thus, any rule of Biology, Medicine also has to obey, while the reverse isn't true. Hence, Biology is the more universal parent of Medicine, Living Beings are the more universal concept to Humans. And then Chemistry would be the universal parent to Biology, then Physics to Chemistry, you get the gist. So, hypothetically, if you wanted to create a character tied to the aspect of Space and another tied to the aspect of Time (or, say, one of Time's neighbors), you might give the first an interest in a very Universal science, let's say, Physics, and the latter in a more Particular one, for example, Psychology. See where i'm going with this? (I'm referencing Jade and Rose)
The two come together in a final pair of motifs that are common in Spacebounds and Timebounds. Namely, Safety and Boredom vs Thrill and Peril. Space is often associated with the cold and its people are tasked with long boring waits, often lonely. Meanwhile, Time is associated with heat and its players are tasked with danger, violence and difficulty. I'm trying very hard not to get sidetracked into character analysis, but my point here is that Time's "Death" is not just old bones and deserted wastelands. It's the slicing of flesh and the sudden rush of adrenaline. It's hot and it's quick. Space is the one that's slow and cold. It's the growing of plants over months, it's life slowly re-emerging on a deserted wasteland of a planet.
Relevant Michael Guy Bowman Song: Dawn of Man
My bitter beloathed and Sweet beloved. Alright, here it goes. Mind... Is NOT an aspect about the consequence of one's actions *Vine boom sound*. Mind and Heart are about the opposition of Culture vs Nature. This is seeable superficially in the two corresponding trolls. Terezi is themed around Laws and Justice whereas Nepeta is an honest-to-gods Feral Child who lives in a cave. Mind is the aspect of Social Constructs, the parts of identity that are Acquired from the influence of Society, whereas Heart is the aspect of Innate Nature that is unique to an Individual.
A person's identity is always defined by the balance of these two aspects and for every weight added on the side of Mind, Heart lightens, and vice versa. To be in a State of Pure Nature, Heart without Mind, you would have to find yourself completely isolated from other's influence, past and present, physical and psychological. From the things others have made for you or left for you or taught you, intentionally or not. Reaching this perfect State of Nature is when no other exist and you are free from all external influence. The perfect State of Culture would be the entire opposite. You take in everything made by others, you let them entirely define who you are, and when you reach a point where you could be swapped out of your situation for any other person doing the same without a shred of difference, that's when you've reached it.
Obviously these two Pure States are just hypotheticals. In practice, there is no corner of this earth anyone could go to be free from human influence, and anytime anyone takes in new information they exercise their own personal judgement on it, even involuntarily. Everyone is defined by both Nature and Culture, but it still remains that each person is closer or farther to either one or the other, be it by an inch or a mile.
Earlier i made a bit of a leap from "Heart is about Nature" to "Nepeta lives in a cave". The trick is, the word "Nature" is a Homonym. Saying "Something's Nature" refers to its identity, but "Something that's in Nature" refers to its location, its environment, Wilderness. Culture and Nature are each commonly associated with an environment, namely Civilization and Wilderness, respectively. It's generally believed that it's easier to connect with your inner Nature if you are in Nature (Wilderness), and similarly that Culture forms through areas of dense human Civilization. As all things, this is something of a spectrum. If you ever want a character that's half and half, you might put them in a rural or suburban setting or something.
Obviously, though, Culture and Nature aren't what gave Mind and Heart their names, that would be the third opposition, that of Reason vs Emotion. Just as every identity is a product of Culture and Nature, every action is the product of Reason and Emotion, and it's not hard to see which corresponds to which. Every person is born with a full breadth of Emotion, whereas Reason has to be acquired and Nurtured through education and knowledge. Reason is precise and consistent, everyone using reason within the same context will reach the same conclusion, provided they use it appropriately. Meanwhile, Emotions are vague and chaotic and will vary from person to person. So why use them? It's obviously better to use the motor for action which results in precise, consistent, logical actions, right?
I'll tell you why, it's because of that one fucking caveat. "provided they use it appropriately". Reason is an exhausting and slow thing to use and there is only so much time and effort you can give her. And she will always ask for more. And worst of all, when she inevitably fails you, she will boast her strength and say "ah, you could've researched more knowledge, you could've given things more thought. Had you been more Rational, Rationality would've not failed you so". But it's a lie, she 's gaslighting you. You can never be so Rational that Rationality will never fail you. Meanwhile, acting on your Emotions is much less tiring and much faster. Emotions will only ask you for a penance and when you inevitably fail, he'll only tell you "Well, you got what you paid for".
Tying all the way back to the beginning, Mind and Heart also have the motif of their own kind of rule. Mind, aspect of Culture, Civilization and Reason, is also the aspect of Law, clear sets of defined rules made by the government which can be followed logically and have the pretension of applying to all "equally". Meanwhile, Heart, aspect of Nature, Wilderness and Emotion is also the aspect of Instinct. Hunting Instinct, Battle Instinct, Sexual and Romantic Instinct. It's a pretty big grab bag if you want to write a Heartbound character, you can ask "what do they have an instinct for? what does it make them do?" and from there it writes itself. Maybe. Sometimes it fails, admittedly.
Finally, i have to mention Love, because it's obviously such a large part of every Heartbound in Homestuck. But The word "Love" can refer to a lot of things, many of which are very much Rational or Cultural. So maybe it makes more sense to call it devotion? The Disciple, Nepeta, Meulin and Dirk are all pretty strongly characterized by their Devotion to their relationship or prospective relationship. I’m trying to get a clear cut answer here, but honestly, i kinda think you can rhetorize it into being any form of love, as long as you consider just "Love", as a word, as an important part of your Heartbound character. Maybe such a vague and chaotic term being so central to the Heartbound is just fitting for the aspect? Then for Mind, the opposite of Love should be Hate, right? Personally, i think that'd be a pretty interesting angle to take, but in Homestuck it seems more likely to me that the opposite of Heart's Love is Mind's Apathy. Terezi was plagued with a need to Detach herself from Vriska, and later Gamzee. And it plays a role in her relationships with John and Dave. Maybe. Let's move on, i hate Mind.
Relevant MGB Song: Back to the Jungle
Hope and Rage are the aspects of Coherent Belief and Incomprehensible Truth. Here's an example of a truth: this morning, i ate an apple. But how can i prove that i ate an apple? Well, for one, i remember eating it. For two i felt its taste. But can i prove that my memory of eating an apple is correct? What if i'm just misremembering? Maybe if someone else saw me eat the apple that could prove it. But then what's to say they're not remembering incorrectly themselves? What's to say they're not lying about seeing me eat it for their own nefarious goal? Even at the very moment i bite into it, what's to say there isn't a tiny devil following me everywhere and everytime i bite into an apple he instantly vaporises it into a parallel dimension before casting a spell on me which perfectly simulates the every sense of the bite i would've taken? Devils don't exist you say? Well, maybe they're just really really good at hiding. You don't know.
Ridiculous as it may be, there's no way to prove any of that is or isn't the case. Because every truth, from the most benign to the grandest of scientific theories, is fundamentally impossible to prove perfectly. For every proof will always demand another proof in turn. You can inch ever closer to that 100%, but you can never reach it. At some point, to do anything in life, you have to skip over that gap of infinite proof and start to just "assume" things. That there's no tiny devil in your mouth, that people aren't lying to you for no discernible reason, that you're not misremembering everything, ever. You will never truly know anything. Knowledge will only ever be a lie you tell yourself, a figment of your imagination that simply has yet to be disproven. A Belief might not always be true, but unlike this "Knowledge", it actually exist, it can be attained and used.
This is what Hope and Rage are. Hope represents that leap by assumption while Rage the endless chase of proof. As you've seen, when the line of skepticism is pushed too far we inevitably begin to devolve into insane questions like "is there a tiny invisible fiend gripped to my palate?". But, obviously, you can just as well hold it too close. If you always stick to your first assumption, soon enough you will find yourself in a world entirely divorced from Reality, a mere product of your Imagination.
This brings about the second dichotomy of Hope vs Rage, Order vs Chaos. The thing is, in homestuck (and i'd argue: in our reality too), the Truth is rarely all that Orderly. Think of cal's journey, going back and forth through universes to get mashed in the souls of four separate guys and then becoming an ingredient to the end of reality. Think of how the troll's universe dies. Some alien mafioso kills another alien mafioso, but she had a magic hat from a cue-ball headed puppet that lived on the moon so when she dies it blows up the universe. If you asked the common alternian troll "How will the universe die", most likely they'd answer either "Heat death, i guess" or something from clown religion, a simple answer, cohesive with their understanding of the world. In a world where the truth is fundamentally chaotic, an orderly, more understandable Lie is often more practically applicable or at least more comfortable, even if incorrect.
Alright, that should be enough. Hopefully i've conveyed the meaning of Rage as the aspect of Truth and its Pursuit, in relation to Truth as fundamentally Incomprehensible, Irrational and most importantly Unreachable. Meanwhile, Hope is the lack of Pursuit, thus Comprehensible, Rational, Reachable. That said, there's quite a few interesting motifs that emerge from this, so let's go over those.
For one, as you've probably noticed, Hope concerns itself with Fiction or Imagination and Rage with Reality. If Hussie's commentary is to be believed, the reason Gamzee starts killing people is that he suddenly gains meta-insight as to the fact that he is a parody of juggalos; a joke character in a fictitious story. Jake, as a hero of hope, can bring a figment of his imagination into his reality. Gamzee does the opposite, he brings our own reality, one that is even more real than his, into his own. Or allows it to come into his own. Because he's a bard.
Number Two, The theme of Madness is common to both Hope and Rage, but in different ways. The former is perhaps the more understandable kind, narrow-mindedness and twisted convictions, madness from a blindness to Reality. Meanwhile, Rage's madness is the kind i displayed in the first paragraph, paranoia and nihilism, born from, well, Rage against Reality.
And Three, Religion and Faith. We see an interesting pattern with Faith in our Destroyer Trolls, Gamzee is the one who's Religious, but his Religion turns out to be literally True as it prophecises the coming of Lord English. Meanwhile, Eridan proclaims to use Science, which many would consider opposed to religion, to power his wand, but in reality is manifesting his title as the Prince of Hope through his belief itself in science. This sort of illustrates a point i want to convey through this essay, that Motifs, like Religion, Madness and Fiction, like Wilderness, Love and Death, are not the beginning and end of classpect analysis. What really matters is the substance underneath, the meaning of that Motif within context. And for some of the classes that have a less-than-direct relationship with their aspect, like princes and bards, it can be important to play in that gap between the Facade and the Meaning.
Ok, so, story time. Something like 2500 years ago, there was this old dude called Socrates who went to a party. At the party, there was this guy called Gorgias who claimed to be a very good Orator. So Socrates asks him "Well, what does an Orator do?" And Gorgias answers "An Orator is someone who gives speeches". Socrates replies "Well, many people give speeches. Doctors give speeches pertaining to health. Businessmen give speeches pertaining to wealth. So what does an Orator's speeches pertain to?" And so Gorgias replies "Anything! An Orator's speeches are ones which convince people, regardless of subject.". So Socrates asks "And to what end?". Gorgias continues: "The best of Orators have the Power to bend Tyrants to their will. They have the Power to convince wretched criminals to follow justice or law-abiding citizens to fall into villainy. Wealth, Status, Feasts. With some twisting of the words, An Orator has the Power to convince anyone to give them anything they want". Socrates is unshaken. "And?", he asks. "What good is Power for he who holds it?".
You can bend tyrants, criminals and honest citizens alike, but if you don't know right from wrong you'll be no more than another tyrant yourself. You can have Wealth in the billions and not end up any happier, Status which surrounds you with conniving enemies. You can have feasts of Sugar and Fat every day, but in time it will make you sick. Power is not a good thing for he who holds it. It's not a bad thing either. It's a benign thing, its worth entirely dependent on the Purpose to which it is applied. This is what the Aspects of Life and Doom correspond to. Power vs Purpose. Purpose can mean two things. Self-serving Purpose, applying Power in a way to attain what one Wants, and Moral Purpose, applying Power in a way to attain what is Right. Socrates believed every human fundamentally wanted to be morally good, and that evil only exists because they fail. This simplifies morality a lot because now anyone who does right by themselves, who applies their Power to a good Self-serving Purpose, necessarily also does right by Morality. And Vice-Versa. But this conception is obviously far from universal. I'd say you can take either definition as to what "Purpose" means, really, and it'll work out alright.
When looking at the Life aspect, it's easy to take it as an aspect of natural life. But really, where are these themes reflected? The aspect's symbol is an algae, Feferi's land is "of grass" and Jane sprouts plants on her long-dead planet over a single page after entering trickster mode. Is that it? I mean, plants are certainly a symbol, but there are much more persistent themes for these characters. Like, Wealth, Royalty, Lifespan and Food, specifically Baked Sweets. The reason i bring up Gorgias is because in it Wealth, Social Status and Unhealthy Foods are the explicit representatives of Power. Wealth and Social Status are obvious, they're just forms of Power, just as is Physical Strength which Feferi occasionally exhibits in phenomenal amounts and as is the Psionic Powers the Condesce abundantly thieves for herself. But Baked Sweets?
The second big opposition between Life and Doom is Pleasure vs Pain. For Socrates, Pleasure was something benign to avoid when you should, but otherwise indulge in when you could, and the reverse for Pain, accept when you should, otherwise avoid when you could. People who lack Purpose can't do the should parts, they indulge in pleasures that lead them astray and avoid the punishments they are due. When the Goal is to remain in good health, someone with bad Purpose will eat unhealthy food because it's tasty and avoid their medication because it tastes bad. Anyone Purposeful damns themselves to feel more pain and less pleasure in the name of what is right, be it for themselves or morally. So the Baked Sweets are a Symbol for that, they're delicious, they're unhealthy, they funnel money straight into Sea Hitler's pockets.
Notice how i haven't talked about Life and Doom as aspects of Life and Death. Listen, i'm not saying they're *not* aspects of Life and Death, but we have Space and Time as the aspects of Perpetuation and Finality already, so you have to think of Life as "Life close to Finality" and Doom as "Death close to Perpetuation". Sollux spent his whole session hearing the psychic voices of the people who were about to die and he himself knew he was going to die multiple times over, yet once it was all over he didn't even end up being fully dead. Doom isn't about being dead, it's the aspect of the anticipation of death. It's the aspect of fear and anxiety. It's about being Doomed, not being Dead. Mituna didn't even do shit with death, just some non-descript looming threat.
So what's the opposite of that, for Life? What's the opposite of the anticipation of Death? I kinda don't know. I guess it'd be the lack of Anticipation of Death. Prospit Jane, Nana and Feferi all died very suddenly, it's even made clear that The Condesce dies from being stabbed in the back from where she didn't see it coming. But on the other hand, that's not rare at all. Everyone who dies in homestuck dies pretty suddenly, regardless of aspect. If anything, someone who didn't die suddenly is Meenah, who woke up one day and went "hmmmm, today i will kill everyone with this fucking bomb i found". Yes that's how it really happened. But maybe that's "lack of fear of death" in its own way. I'm really just thinking out loud at this point.
I don't have a better conclusion than this. Life and Doom section Over.
RMGBS: With the World Sitting on your Shoulders
The aspects of Light and Void represent the opposition of Knowledge vs Mystery. Except, SIKE!! You really thought, eh? In actuality, the aspects of Light and Void are the aspects of Set Fate and Possibilities. Except x2 SIKE COMBO, WRONG AGAIN, they're the aspects Certainty and Uncertainty. Except EXCEPT LEGENDARY x3 SIKE COMBO, it's actually all of them, because all of these are the same thing, which i will now attempt to demonstrate over however many words. Now, for a totally not abrupt transition.
Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment where you would put a cat in a box that has a random chance of filling with poison gas at any moment. While the cat is in the box and cannot be perceived, there is a random chance that it could be alive and a random chance that it could be dead, which you could calculate as a mathematical function from the chance of the poison being released at each moment and the amount of time the cat has been in there. When you open and look inside the box, you will find the cat to be either alive or dead, but the thought experiment suggests that, before then, the cat is not either alive or dead, but rather its state is the probability itself, as defined by the aforementioned function. Of course this doesn't happen with actual cats, it's a metaphor meant to illustrate the behavior of subatomic particles, but it's the principle at the core of the aspects of Light and Void in Homestuck. And this time, it's something hussie uses prominently in the Lalondes, not just something i pulled out of my ass like Gorgias was. Sorry Gorgias.
Let's take a concrete example: In "[S] Jade: Enter", John is about to prototype Jack Noir with a blind armless doll, when Vriska stops him. This causes Becquerel to prototype himself, creating Bec Noir. So, Vriska is the one responsible for creating Bec Noir? Well, actually no, you have to take it from Vriska's perspective at the time. She had already seen Bec Noir in the troll session, so it's already Certain that something or other would have created him. She can't change that. What she can "change" is only what's not already certain, in this case, both from her perspective and from the reader's perspective, how Bec Noir came to exist. So in good Narcissist, she makes it be herself. Good Job Vriska! I say "change" in quotation, because, you guessed it, there was no set "how Bec Noir came to be" until then, only a nebulous array of Possibilities, and Vriska picked her favorite and made it Certain.
The same thing happens with Rose. She sees they are doomed to fail the session, so rather than try to win she goes "fuck it" and starts tearing the session apart, searching for a way to survive despite failure. She cannot change failure to success because it is Certain, it is Set in Fate, that they will fail. The only Ambiguity is the context of that failure. Hopefully you see what Light and Void interacts with now. It's not Knowledge as mundane wisdom over this or that discipline. It's Knowledge in a deterministic time-traveling context, where to Know something is to become powerless to it.
Knowledge is the mechanism by which Fate is Set. An event is Set in Fate because the characters Know of it, be that because they've seen it mundanely or because they've divined it through mystical means. And, obviously, their Ignorance is what leaves events Unset, Uncertain. But that isn't limited to in-story characters. The most important character in setting Fate, arguably the only one that matters, is You, the reader. The things you see and know of Homestuck are the pages the comic shows you and only those pages. Once Hussie releases a new page its event is Set forever. Go back to that page at any point and it will never have changed. (Yes, except that one time where that was the point.) On the other hand, any event not shown through the comic is subject to any number of interpretations. Like how The king fight or the Denizen fights went. It's only Set that it happened in a given way if the author goes back and shows us proof of it at some point, even though physically in-universe it should have happened all along as we followed different events.
That's why Arquiusprite can pop up at random during the final showdown against Caliborn, he's abusing the fact that we haven't seen him in the large gap since his last chronological appearance. Even though it's ridiculous that he made it there, it's Possible since we haven't seen what he's been doing since. Every other sprite also had access to that same gap, but he's the one who abused it because he is part voidbound.
The last two themes i want to talk about for Light and Void are ones that we've already been surfing over for this whole section, namely, The Narrative, in-universe and out-of-universe. Marquise's Journal, Aranea's exposition booths, Rose's Complacency of the Learned. The first two are responsible for large swats of Troll Worldbuilding outside their Session and the last is Prophetic to Homestuck itself, at least post-scratch. It's not just a consistent characterization, by becoming in-universe writers of their own, Lightbounds actually Set events of the story just as the out-of-universe writer does. You can jam Rose's walkthrough into that list, too, although it doesn't show much new to us, the Readers, it fulfills a similar function in-universe for Kanaya.
And the other one, out-of-universe The Narrative. When you have a Voidbound, the narrative itself avoids looking at them, and when you have a Lightbound it sticks to them for way too long and the author themself comes out to try to marry her in a way that is not at all creepy to do to a 13yo. Ok, but jokes aside, this only happened for Equius and Vriska, so the whole "avoided/followed by The Narrative" thing isn't really mandatory or anything, but they're pertinent examples of how the Lightbounds and Voidbounds may interact with the fourth wall. The Readers and Writer are the ones who "Set Fate", so the two Aspects necessarily include some measure of being able to fuck with them.
RMGBS: Tomorrow's Gonna Come
Breath and Blood is possibly the most popularly understood Metaphor amongst the aspects: Breath stands for Freedom, Blood stands for Bonds, right? But what does that mean, and how are they opposed?
Let's take an example. Capitalism. If the government gives businesses the right to create whatever they want, however they want and sell it however they want, then, inevitably, evil businesses will cut corners on quality and lie on marketing to reduce costs and increase profit. How are good businesses supposed to compete, then, when everything they can do within the bounds of morality, evil ones can also do and then more? In a Free system, Evil has a wider arsenal than Good. The only way Good can triumph over Evil, is through sheer force, by being that much better and stronger than Evil that it can win even without resorting to Evil means. The only thing to do, then, when Good finally triumphs, is to wield the power they've attained to tear down the Free System and put in laws and restrictions that say "if you do something evil, i'll do you more harm than you'll gain". And so in this new system, Evil is forced to fight at equal arms with Good, rendering it indistinguishable. In our earlier example, this would be consumer protection laws, i suppose.
Now, suppose Evil triumphs over the Free System instead of Good. Since it's so biased for Evil, it would make sense for it to keep the Free System in place and protect it, right? But what we have to remember is that Evil actors don't have an allegiance to doing Evil the way Good actors do to doing Good. Evil people want to help themselves, not Evil itself, so when standing atop a system that allows all sorts of miscreants and opportunists to claw their way to their throne, they will also tear it down in favor of a system of laws and regulations, this time which says "if you do something that's bad for *me*, i'll do you more harm than you'll gain". Back to our example, if you don't bind the freedom of these businesses, they'll abuse their resources to crush constructive competition or arrange the market so that customers have no alternative, no choice, no freedom to "vote with their wallet", as the capitalists mythologize.
The point is, blame it on Malice or blame it on its own nature, but Pure Freedom is a Fragile thing, fated to be destroyed. Like shell to a crab, Freedom needs Laws backed by Force to defend itself against assault and hold its flesh together, lest it crumble under the thrumming of its own Breath. The word i would put as opposite to Freedom, it's Binding. Both in the sense of being bound, unable to act, and in the sense of holding a structure together, making it resistant to change, to assault. Freedom is Volatile in nature, prone to change, while Blood is Stagnant, resistant to it. Breath escapes in and out of the body, but Blood is locked within the veins. You see the vision, right?
Of course, the Government's Laws are not the only thing that binds. Reality, Time, Will, Weakness, Conscience, Ignorance, Shame, it's no use trying to list them all. From universal to particular, the number of shit that Binds is Innumerable. But this is technically an essay on Homestuck, and in the context of Homestuck, Breath and Blood are much more personal aspects than what i've been talking about thus far. If you want to know the canon meaning, than it's probably closer to Individual Freedom versus Responsibility through Human Connection. Blood is the Idea that, through Human Connection, be it parent-child, friendship, lovers or even just colleagues or allies, through these we are able to be helped for the things we can't do on our own and our life is made more meaningful, but we also become dependent on those people, be it morally, psychologically or physically.
But, y'know... what if you wake up tomorrow and, as if struck by revelation, you decide you now hate your spouse, hate your family, hate your circle of friends, hate your work, hate your hobbies, creative projects and everything which once gave you joy. And you decide you want to cut all contact from everyone you once knew, run up to Alaska and become a carpenter who makes boxes. out of wood. In Alaska. What would prevent you from doing that? Well, you'd make parents who never see their child, siblings who'd never see their sibling, friends who'd lose a friend, seemingly through no fault of their own. You might have a child of your own or a pet who depends on you for their daily life. What'll happen to them? And of course, you'll have to move your stuff all the way up to Alaska, the stuff you want to keep at least. And can you even erase so much of your presence in the age of the internet? Someone's bound to find you and pester you again.
I think some people do live like that, like they might move to Alaska tomorrow, keeping the minimum amount of friends, minimum family, minimum stuff. And some of them, most of them even, never even end up doing the move. And on the other hand you have people who do their best to cultivate their social circles, their friends, family, their ties to the world. And then, one day, they wake up, realize they hate everyone, hate everything and they move to Alaska. I'm not really in any position to tell mortals how to live their life, but it seems to me that not one is better than the other. You never know when Alaska will get you. Or when it won't.
Section 3: Application and Conclusion
Ok, initially i was planning to keep this all mysterious and let you come to your own conclusions, but turns out it's kind of important for the upcoming section. So here goes: One pair being perpendicular to another means they are completely independent in conception, but, as you might have noticed, they often pertain to the same kind of concept.
The most obvious imo is Hope-Rage and Light-Void, they pertain to information. Light and Void are the aspect of the Known and Unknown, Hope and Rage to the False and the True, two different properties of information. We already stated in Hope-Rage that knowledge is fundamentally impossible, but information can still be close or far to being known, to have this or that level of certainty. Mind-Heart and Life-Doom are the Aspects of Actions or Identity. Every Action is spurred by Natural and Cultural motors and every Action is done with a given amount of Power and Purpose. One is the perspective of Why, the other of How. And our Actions in turn define who we are, our identity. People are either the product of their Nature or their Culture (or in 90% of cases both) and are either Good or Bad (or in 90% of cases benign). Finally, Space-Time and Breath-Blood are the aspects of Progression. You can think of things in the universe as progressing towards either Entropy or Propagation, as things that end or things that grow, or you can think of how they're progressing, through Volatility or through Stagnant Consistency. Idk, maybe that one's kinda weak. kinda too universal. But you get the gist.
When classpecting a character or yourself, the first step is to find the aspect. The class doesn't matter yet, every class, even the pages and princes, fundamentally revolves around one of these twelve concepts. I've tried to find "new aspects" in my time, new ideas that wouldn't be covered yet, but i can't do it. They always end up overlapping in part or in whole with the existing ones. But maybe i lack imagination or smth.
In general i think classpecting irl should be done by oneself by understanding the aspects and system and coming to one's own conclusion, classpecting someone else or classpecting based on a quiz is bad practice. But also, like, damn, "bad practice". We're out here talking about le funny webcomic's magic system, commit whatever "bad practice" you feel like. Now, in the wise words of Nikola Tesla: Deploy the Diagrams.
When viewing the wheel, you can think of someone's aspect as not just one of twelve values, but an entire position on the wheel. And being a position, chances are it's not going to be dead middle of the aspect, nor is it always going to be on the perimeter. The question then becomes proximity, the closer you are to the center of the wheel the closer you are to entering every other aspect's territory, the harder it is to tell which one is yours. Which sucks. You can also have a situation where your strongest connections are split through two non-adjacent aspect, landing your position in a non-colored in zone. Which also sucks. This generally never happens with fictional characters, because they are made with intent, but humans, are born without reason, prolong themselves out of weakness, and die by chance, as we all know.
The position thing is, actually, not something i'm just completely making up on the spot. The Extended Zodiac quiz kinda works like this. It computes your score for each pair by mixing in the score of its neighbors, meaning if you score, say, 4 marks on Hope and Life and 2 marks on Breath, you'll end up with 6 marks on Breath and 5 for the other two, meaning you'll be assigned Breath. This is something i disagree with, personally. Your aspect is whichever is strongest and if there are multiple strongest then it has to be one of them. The position should only be used as a tiebreaker and to find out how fucked you are.
Let's go through the different possible cases you can get from filling out the wheel.
The Simple-Case: One strong connection to an aspect. This is the easiest, normalest scenario and makes the aspect evident. Incidentally, this wheel setup is the only one here that's not made up. It's mine. This is what my wheel looks like. Isn't it beautiful?
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The Border-Case: Strong connection to two neighboring aspects. The second simplest scenario, break the tie either by position or by referring to the Tricross Theory and finding whichever cross you like the most.
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The Split-Case: Strong connection to two nearby aspects, with a gap in the middle. If the position ends up in one of the strongest connection aspects, then that's the tiebreaker, but the splitcase is particularly troublesome when, if the gap is deep, the position can end up in the middle of a non-colored zone, and then i don't feel you can use it as a tiebreaker. But at least you know which general area of the wheel your aspect is, so you have a lot more to work with than some others we'll see below.
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The Blank-Case: No strong connection to any aspect. In cases where all aspects are equal, the extended zodiac would default you to Space, but, eh, idk. The concept of defaulting to something is only necessary because the test is imprecise, so rather than ask "what to do when the test fails" we should be asking "what kind of person is prone to making the test fail". And so, my semi-ironic recommendation is: "Pick Void". Ambiguity? Unreadability? Absence of Observable connection? Yep, that's inherently a connection to Void.
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The Struggle-Case: Strong connection to two near-opposite aspects. This one's common for people trying to find a classpect and possibly the hardest one, there's no easy solution. My advice would be: start with the class. I think most of the time starting with the aspect is better, but a Struggle-Case is often the result of difficult-relationship classes like Princes and Seers, so once you narrow down the possible classes through finding your activeness-passiveness level the answer might jump out. This essai only covers aspects tho, so, good luck with that :)
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The Tear-Case: Strong connection to three equal angle aspects. Consider picking breath if breath is of them, because being unable to settle down like that is pretty breath-coded. Otherwise, try the tricross theory. Otherwise, go bother the gods about it, i can't help you.
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The Lost-Case: Strong connection to four or more equal angle aspects. Just pick Breath. One of them has to be close enough to Breath. Pick Breath.
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The Bird-Case: Two or more close aspects with one or more near opposite aspects. What you do here is ignore the "wings", the isolated aspects, and treat what's left as a bordercase.
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The Borderstruggle-Case: Two bordercase connections in a strugglecase formation. Be real, now you’re just fucking with me. Refer to the strugglecase then bordercase.
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And that's it, that's all of them.
One thing that can't happen is having a connection to two opposite aspects, ex Blood-Breath. Having a connection to Blood necessarily requires having an inverse (negative) connection to Breath. If you think you or your character has a connection to both an aspect and its opposite, you're misunderstanding something. Either reassess your understanding of that aspect or individual, or write that pair down as 0.
It goes with saying, but this all can be applied to both real life and fictional characters.
3.3: And when I look into the eyes of Beatrice…
My goal with this essay was to write something different from everything else that's been done before. Something that doesn't summarize itself into a simple list of bullet points, where i define and explain the words i use, not just as words of the english language, but as concepts. I wanted to make a theory of aspect that was both Universal and Applicable, to homestuck, but also to any fiction, and, eventually, to Real Life. But if it was so easy to be different, everyone would be doing it. I wanted to show that the Aspects are more than just the base objects that serve as their symbols, like "soul" or "time". I mean, a "soul" isn't even a thing that's real, it's a religious concept. If you're atheist you don't even believe in souls. The Aspects, the things godhood pertain to, are greater than mere objects which can be bent by will or by fiction. They are things that humans have pondered for millennia and they are things that, should humans come to be razed from this earth, the people that walk it next will also ponder for millennia.
I make no delusions that this slab of text is perfect. I barely make delusions that it's comprehensible, frankly. I mean, the part about Alaska? what the fuck was that about?? There's clear bias from my own political, social, philosophical stances and experiences. I'd love to have made something that's Perfect and Unquestionably True. But, i'd also like to think i made a good case for why that would be impossible in the first place. I've been writing this thing for years now, maybe if i leave it, let it simmer, comeback in six months or another year, i can pour more hours into it, make it better, bring it closer to that "perfect". But that won't remain any less true, then. So, if you're seeing this, it means that i've finally made it. And I will be purified of all that I no longer miss.
