Classpect discussion

[AsherCrane]

that's just speculative rambling though i got kind of carried away lol

Well i think that means that your'e just adhering to the purpose of the thread, you did good.

To go a bit into detail about the Knights (since I've had time to think it through)

Dave: Utilizes time and fights to protect others, doesn't actually seem interested in taking credit/"being the hero" just wants to help

Karkat: Unites everyone and fights so that every one can win as a collective, karkat being selfish (or at least trying to be) is when he seems to be his weakest (character-wise)

Redglare: Fights for Alternian justice, secretly fights for The Sufferer's proposed peace/equality (fights for others, don't ask me how she uses Mind effectively)

Latula: One of the few we barely here any thing of besides her Radical-ness, overcoming disability(?), and the Scratch difference between culling (thanks Aranea, big help)

Not that I'll die hard on this opinion, but I'll reposit certain older classpecters' (From MSPA forums, and it's spiritual successor, OmegaUpdate) reasonings for seeing Knight as active. In the same post I referenced earlier (again...) It mentions how "Dave and Rose turned out to be very active players. Dave time traveling all over the place, making a fortune on stocks and such. Rose went on her crazy solo mission to break the game and fight Jack."

Later in that same reply, it says "Jade was especially passive for a lot of the story, spending a lot of time falling asleep (or being put to sleep) at key moments. It wasn’t until she reached god tier as a Witch (said to be a highly active class) that she became extremely active, making lots of stuff happen, rounding up planets and all that. Rose may have been a similar case, being excessively active as a Derse dreamer, but then flipping over to a passive role upon reaching god tier as a passive class."

It had just referred to Dave as being active and how, but offers no mention of him becoming similarly passive like Rose. People took this to mean that Dave must have been active as stated, and was acting according to his role, while Rose was not.

(It similarly mentioned the ways John was passive, and offered no mention of him changing either. That caused people to assume he was a passive class and acting in alignment with it. This has now been revealed to be true.)

[foreverFlummoxed]

-Snippitey Snippitey

well I will admit that yeah i don't officially know whether or noe the knight will be Passive or could turn out to be active, it seems to me that the major argument for the knight being active is "they are really good fighters" or "they use their aspects to fight more effectively than other classes do" but, fighting... prowess... doesn't really, mean any thing... let me explain:

Roxy was most definitely one of the two best fighters in the human alpha session (along with Dirk) and she is a confirmed passive class. Rose is also one of the two best fighters in the human beta session (along with Dave) also a confirmed passive class. Equius and Nepeta, both confirmed passive classes, seem to have been very good fighters for SGRUB, with his strength and her hunting prowess.

Jade, an active player, doesn't even seem to do any major fighting, at all. In cascade, she's the escape plan for everything that isn't rose and Dave, In Collide, she's a DISTACTION for Jack and PM, and then gets punched in the face. For Jake (Pages I suspect to be active) he is definitely the WORST fighter that's been shown in a fight, living on an island full of murder beast and a robot that was built to help him fight, he can't seem to shoot very well in [S] Prince of Heart: Rise up. Tavros seems to choose not to fight, even though he played FLARP, while Horuss seems like the only Page who is willing to fight and uses any skills he has as effectively as he can, being able to shoot a bow without breaking it comes to mind.

I think that even tough that they are called Active and Passive, that that doesn't necessarily translate to "they do more means Active/they do less means Passive" they're more like terms used to describe most of them not all of them. besides, when Calliope is discussing Active vs. Passive it is brought up that Passive classes are usually more team players, while Active Classes usually are more proactive toward reaching the goal but that doesn't mean that either class can do things that the opposite alignment usually do, if needed.

Active

Show

Prince, Thief, Witch, and Lord

Passive

Show

Bard, Rogue, Seer, Heir, and Muse

Remaining Classes

Show

Sylph (most likely Passive?)
Maid
Knight
Page (seems active)
Mage (Most likely Active and paired with Seer)

With the numbers in there ↑, if one class is revealed to be Passive, that would leave only one other class to be Passive (and if one is revealed to be Active then that would mean the number would be split evenly, 2 v 2)

So, what about the pairings? (We have Bard and Prince with destruction, Rogue and Thief with stealing, and Muse and Lord with being important(?)) Seer and Mage are implied to be paired, both being about knowing things and this quote from Sollux (a Mage) about being blind like Terezi (a Seer): TA: fulfiilliing 2ome requiirement for a true prophet of doom. TA: iin order for the vii2iion2 two be riight, that ha2 two happen, and the uniiver2e wiill make 2ure iit wiill. TA: iit2 kiind of liike how a prophet earn2 hii2 2triipe2, by beiing bliind, liike how an angel earn2 iit2 wiing2. Page:2082 If those are paired (most likely) then what is the most logical way for the others to be paired?
Heir (Passive)

Maid

Witch (Active)

Knight

Sylph (Passive?)

Page

(The crappy alignment doesn't imply anything it's just for a crappy visualization, who knows, it may have two in the same column that are paired)

TL;DR: I think team player or not should be the first thing looked at, then how classes proceed with goals, and finally fighting strategy, rather than prowess.
I think all that rambling had a point? I think I may have lost it at some point, though.

[overThinker]

TL;DR: I think team player or not should be the first thing looked at, then how classes proceed with goals, and finally fighting strategy, rather than prowess.

definitely agree. i don't know if you're familiar, but homestuckexamination on tumblr has a lot of comprehensive analysis of each classpect and it pretty much coincides with what you're saying. they predominantly define passive as "selfless" and active as "selfish" which falls pretty closely in line with canon characters and their respective classpects (assuming you adhere to their proposed definitions of each class).

so yeah knights definitely seem passive to me. every canon knight is significantly more concerned with their companions than they are with themselves (latula and mituna, davesprite saving john, dave dying for jade in the game over timeline, dave fighting with rose over who should sacrifice themselves to destroy the green sun, karkat being a leader, karkat hating himself and being extremely humble, etcetera etcetera etcetera).

and although it's confusing at first, pages can very readily be thought of as active when considered through that lens. no pages in canon are exactly "selfless" (jake constantly vaunting his supposed love for adventure, grandpa neglecting joey and jude in hiveswap, tavros constantly talking about self esteem, horuss willfully ignoring rufioh's breakup in openbound). canon also seems to perfectly agree with something that i heard optimistic duelist say a while back, that "pages are active because they primarily engage with their aspect through others serving it to them, whereas knights are passive because they are usually the ones doing the serving." tavros and vriska show this with vriska guiding him through their session (effectively serving him breath in the form of direction and motivation) and dirk and jake show this with dirk's devoted willingness to "train" jake and inspire him; to serve him hope. i suppose that jane also "serves" him hope, by lying to him about her crush so as to avoid hurting his feelings or putting him in a difficult position. it definitely gives more meaning to the page class though, and makes their rumored "untapped potential" visible.

[AsherCrane]

Couldn’t you rule Mages as passive pretty easily by that logic?
Sollux created Sgrub under the impression it would save the planet (I’ve heard people claim it could be active, as he wanted to leave stop the voices, but It doesn’t seem like that’s part of his goal here. He asks Aradia if she thinks leaving will stop the voices, but still seems like he’s going to go through with it whether or not it does), and immediately attempts to abort it when he finds out it’ll destroy them (despite knowing it’ll take him to another dimension, and thus he’ll be safe anyway).
He also gets himself killed to safe Feferi, fights Eridan to save everyone from Jack (It’s ignited because Eridan wants to join jack, which Feferi fears might lead Jack back to them. Sollux agrees with her, and the fight begins. So even if it’s not wholly selfless, it’s not wholly selfish either), and kills himself again in order to get the meteor safely to the moon. These are all the most important doom-related things I can think of for him, and all of them seem to be partly if not fully selfless.

As far as Meulin goes, if we go by the selfless vs selfish definitions, and thus can discount Kurloz’s mind control of her, she doesn’t really do much beyond offer to set Meenah up with Karkat. I suppose that could be an instance of selfishness, maybe, since it’s more self interested, although she is still offering to do it Meenah’s sake in some ways, but it doesn’t feel like it would outweigh the fact that everything that Sollux seems to have done in the story was for the sake of someone else.

[overThinker]

Couldn’t you rule Mages as passive pretty easily by that logic?
Sollux created Sgrub under the impression it would save the planet (I’ve heard people claim it could be active, as he wanted to leave stop the voices, but It doesn’t seem like that’s part of his goal here. He asks Aradia if she thinks leaving will stop the voices, but still seems like he’s going to go through with it whether or not it does), and immediately attempts to abort it when he finds out it’ll destroy them (despite knowing it’ll take him to another dimension, and thus he’ll be safe anyway).

you raise a good point. maybe in the instance of mages and seers, selfish and selfless manifest more broadly in their personal relationship with their aspect? rose as a seer seems very detached from light, only engaging with it when it's absolutely necessary for plot progression and for her companions, and terezi as a seer seems to focus entirely on other people's minds, rather than her own. same with kankri, he doesn't focus at all on how he's personally affected by blood, and instead focuses on the blood aspect in relation to others. none of those seem very self-concerned to me, so maybe a better distinction between passive and active would be "concerned with oneself" vs. "concerned with others."

as for sollux, every sacrifice he makes seems to be strictly concerned with himself, as altruistic as they may be. he predicts and brings about his own death instead of foreseeing the death of others (which is what i presume a seer of doom would do), and after his half-death, he's very motivated by self interest with how he chooses to stay behind with aradia (opting to leave the story entirely rather than stay in it and further expose himself to risks).

but you're right about meulin, there's almost nothing in canon about her that corroborates this interpretation. i'm so frustrated that mages are narratively neglected lol we could really use some clarity on this

[foreverFlummoxed]

Couldn’t you rule Mages as passive pretty easily by that logic?
Sollux created Sgrub under the impression it would save the planet (I’ve heard people claim it could be active, as he wanted to leave stop the voices, but It doesn’t seem like that’s part of his goal here. He asks Aradia if she thinks leaving will stop the voices, but still seems like he’s going to go through with it whether or not it does), and immediately attempts to abort it when he finds out it’ll destroy them (despite knowing it’ll take him to another dimension, and thus he’ll be safe anyway).
He also gets himself killed to safe Feferi, fights Eridan to save everyone from Jack (It’s ignited because Eridan wants to join jack, which Feferi fears might lead Jack back to them. Sollux agrees with her, and the fight begins. So even if it’s not wholly selfless, it’s not wholly selfish either), and kills himself again in order to get the meteor safely to the moon. These are all the most important doom-related things I can think of for him, and all of them seem to be partly if not fully selfless.

As far as Meulin goes, if we go by the selfless vs selfish definitions, and thus can discount Kurloz’s mind control of her, she doesn’t really do much beyond offer to set Meenah up with Karkat. I suppose that could be an instance of selfishness, maybe, since it’s more self interested, although she is still offering to do it Meenah’s sake in some ways, but it doesn’t feel like it would outweigh the fact that everything that Sollux seems to have done in the story was for the sake of someone else.

honestly, Mages are the hardest to analyze for due to being the class that is shown/talked about the least in comic (Calliope talks about her role as muse multiple times, Kanaya is almost always around, Vriska, Gamzee) but it isn't really just look at one thing and decide either, it has to be all things, i'm not saying your'e wrong, but Jade being an active player, barely seemed like she wanted to do things for herself, when it came to actually doing things however she seemed to then lose sight of the team/goal moving forward, Feferi included. Sollux also seemed helping others as a goal aligned, but then he would take charge immediately whenever he thinks up a solution by himself (see: deciding to stop the game after learning it destroys the world page 2086, jumping to Feferi's aid in her and Eridan's argument, I couldn't find it but there is a Sollux quote iirc that goes something like "ii plan on liiviing much longer than anyone el2e here.") and brash action without discussing with the team is something Dirk does quite frequently.

Then again with the Muse being the most passive class, and Lord the most active, and something about some classes being more active and passive than others, perhaps Witch and Mage are just the least active Active Classes (I have seen Opt. Duelist and while i can't just say "Yes, This man right here is perfectly right in all the classpect things," I do believe he is very close, if not mostly right)

On the other end: let's say Mage is Passive, what would it pair with? The only Classes it could possibly pair with would be Witch (the only confirmed Active without a pairing) Sylph (unlikely) Knight, Page, and Maid. Confirming another Passive class would only leave one other possible class to be passive, it's also really tricky when Sylphs seem like an obvious Passive Class. Tricky business.

[AsherCrane]

Sylphs being an active or passive class is something I’ve been struggling with ever since Aranea, desu. Because Aranea is incredibly self-focused despite claiming to do things for others. A primary example of this is said by Meenah when she says:
“MEENAH: araneas deal is
MEENAH: what shes doin now isnt much different from how she always did stuff
MEENAH: the stuff she does is never about the things shes actually doing
MEENAH: its about what those things M-EAN and makin sure everyone KNOWS what they mean
MEENAH: and above all makin sure everyone understands how important she is cause shes obviously the source of all that critical M-EANING without which all action would be pointless right? “

Yes, it’s making sure everyone else knows what things mean, but it’s above all making sure everyone knows she’s the source of it. Similarly, her whole goal with game over was to make sure that she fixed the timelines, so she would be in charge. Her healing Jake was purely to further that goal. So, while I do imagine she’s more on the passive end of active, at the most, a lot of her actions seem fairly self-centered under the guise of being altruistic.

As far as Kanaya goes, from what I could tell, it seemed to be implied that part of the main reason she was fussing with Vriska was because she had a flush-crush on her, which could be perceived as active as well.

This does, naturally, run into the problem of the fact that Kanaya’s cutting off of Tavros’s legs and desire to restore the mother grub seeming to be mostly other centered actions, but at the very least, I wouldn’t say Sylphs are as obviously a passive class as they are generally taken to be.


On the subject of Mages, I will be honest and say if there was one question I could ask Andrew Hussie about Homestuck and have it answered honestly... “What is the Mages’ verb?” would be it. However, Sollux was trying to fix the world through Sgrub, initially, saved Feferi through his doom, saved the meteor group through his doom, and Meulin trying to set Meenah up with Karkat could be seen as trying to fix a problem, so I could potentially see Mage and Sylph paired up.

[foreverFlummoxed]

It is very unfortunate that the nature of the information revealed in classes, through light observation, leads to an inconclusive result of Passive or Active and then whenever it's revealed whether a class is one or the other (no matter if it's Passive or Active) every one can say "oh yeah, that makes total sense, I was right/completely wrong before and still agree" (unless they're one of those "everything that is said every is wrong" types)

Ambiguous until proven confusingly true/false, such is the nature of Homestuck

[AsherCrane]

For foreverFlummoxed’s suggestion of knights being passive, I offer this segment of commentary for consideration.

"Even though the trolls are at the end of their adventure, the attitude of everyone under Karkat's leadership is pretty much the same as it was when they began: much skepticism and ridicule surrounding his orders, with no one particularly inclined to take him all that seriously. Maybe it's because they're just used to acting this way by now. But the deeper reason is that all of Karkat's orders, everything he insists on as being ""urgent,"" revolve around some unwitting need to serve his own objectives rather than something that serves everyone's needs in a clear way. At the beginning, he was desperately trying to pull the team together to play Sgrub, but mainly so he could prove himself as a great leader and a ruthless warrior. Here he's trying to get everyone on board with harassing some alien kids they don't know, basically for some combination of satisfying his own petty grievances and wanting an excuse to hate-crush on John some more. So when everyone's response to his ""plan"" is some variation on ""Dude, this makes no sense at all,"" it's because...it doesn't."

[Bahinchut]

queen of brap

[AsherCrane]

Well, the most recent chapter of h^2 directly refers to Aradia as a Passive but powerful servant of time. Maid class passive confirmed?

[shlechter_wolf]

Hello. I am a big fan of classpect theory written by bladekindeyewear. I have a project to define classes and aspects of characters from another fandoms. If anyone is interested, send me a message. I'd like to discuss it with someone.

[loomingDoom]

I personally wouldn't put Classpect as an absolute for how character acts and what they want or wish to do. Many character sometime go against what we have been told about Classpects. I think the best way to look at what the characters does to then extract information about Classes is to look at if they're being forced to act, if they're happy in how they are acting and so on. Because it seems that the further a character drift from their classpect, the more miserable they are, which i think is something Opt Dualist pointed out in some of his videos.

[AsherCrane]

I personally wouldn't put Classpect as an absolute for how character acts and what they want or wish to do. Many character sometime go against what we have been told about Classpects. I think the best way to look at what the characters does to then extract information about Classes is to look at if they're being forced to act, if they're happy in how they are acting and so on. Because it seems that the further a character drift from their classpect, the more miserable they are, which i think is something Opt Dualist pointed out in some of his videos.

That's a fair idea. Does Opt Duelist provide examples?

[loomingDoom]

Rose when going Grimdark essentially acting and expressing powers similar to a Void player. I forgot which Class he specified but i think it was Prince of Void.

[foreverFlummoxed]

I believe the example with Rose was "Witch of Void" due to both the blackout and her (at the time) strong affinity for dark majyyks, which would be a common theme for witches in fantasy

Other examples provided by Optimistic duelist involve Characters imitating the roles of their Guardians or Ancestors (genetic and Symbolic for Scratched universe sides) and with Hiveswap, examples of caste members imitating the classes of the 12 beta trolls and 12 alpha trolls for the reason of Alternia's history being shaped by the Alpha trolls and molded to create the perfect SGRUB players of the Beta by pushing the roles they are meant to play onto all caste members (Terezi is into Law and consequences to be the perfect Seer of Mind player because Alternia forces that upon all Teals, rinse and repeat for the other 11 including forcing Mutants into hiding)

As I've said before: while i don't believe Optimistic Duelist's multitude of theories in this regard are perfectly correct, they are probably very close and the "classpect doesn't mean this is how they are and they can act outside that but not perfectly" is one of the more "this is probably mostly right" adjacent theories.

[loomingDoom]

That's pretty much my opinion too.

Optimistic Duelist has pretty good theory and reasoning for most things. Its just sometime I feel he reaches a bit too far to get meaning out of things. I wouldn't say he's 100% correct but he's mostly correct regarding Class and Aspects personally. But again. Classpects aren't rigid. They're influenced by many things. Influenced by the general concept of them, the interpretation of the character, the potential past and future of a character, character archetypes and so on.

[MP the OP OG]

I think all thieves have the attitude of "I decide what's right or wrong" or "I do what I think is right, fuck what everyone else thinks of me"

[loomingDoom]

I think all thieves have the attitude of "I decide what's right or wrong" or "I do what I think is right, fuck what everyone else thinks of me"

It aligns very well with Meenah, Vriska and Condesce so I'd agree!

[AsherCrane]

From Beyond Canon (Referring to John): "embodiment of the aspect of freedom."

Discuss?