All villains that try to be the main villain after Jack suck

[Darth_Energon]

And I mean all of them. HIC, Lord English, Dirk, they're all lame.
Scratch isn't what I'd call a main villain and Caliborn is just a little gremlin until he becomes English so I won't count them.

[Generalrabogolfo]

You're, objectively, right.

[tajazzled]

not wrong

[calamityCons]

Jack Noir was one of the best villains in Homestuck in part because we could see two ways his narrative could go: one where he single-handedly says FUCK THIS and kills the Black Queen himself (Beta Kids), and one where he admits he needs help (Alternian Trolls). The one who admits he needs help winds up creating his own city on a desert planet and having a kickass life of whacky mobster shenanigans, fighting against the Felt who apparently die multiple times and time travel and give him something fun to do. The one who doesn't becomes an all powerful fucking bloodthirsty demon who winds up impossibly bored by all the senseless killing. He gets everything he ever wanted, but it isn't enough, and he's so bored, and he wants something interesting to happen, but there's something broken in his brain because he keeps thinking maybe killing more coffin-stuffers will help him feel something but it just plain doesn't. Meanwhile Spades Slick actually cares about shit because he's NOT all-powerful, and he actually has to face some hardship which evolves him into a more nuanced character.

Give a bloodthirsty tyrant a ring and he'll constantly search for something more to fill that empty void of "it's not enough" in his soul. Give a bloodthirsty tyrant a taste of his own medicine and he can actually be on the same side as you for a while.

He's a wonderful villain.

[Bahinchut]

yas queen preach

Id add to this that, in spite of his merits, caliborn probably did more harm to lord english as a villain than good. Hussie tried to pull off the same trick he did with Jack Noir/Spades slick, but instead of parallel selves Caliborn is literally a past version of english (or at least so we thought.) This means that instead of just giving context to English's actions and motivations, Caliborn is a direct stand in for English, with almost all of English's actual actions needing to be explained by other characters like aranea and vriska. this is muddied further when we learn that Caliborn isnt actually english, hes more or less one fourth of english. I dont think any amount of meta-narrative wank can justify writing that poor.

[BrobyDDark]

If you cut out Lord English and Hi-C, Bec Noir holds his own as the main antagonist, consodering he is DIRECTLY tied to the character arcs of half the cast at that point in the story, directly opposing them instead of just being some musclebound shithead blipping about Paradox Space and destroying stars, or a huge bitch for no reason.

Contrast with Spades Slick, who was a main character even more so than the Alpha Kids were, in my opinion. Though, his story isn't nearly as exciting without Lord English.

I personally feel the other villains are so lame in comparison because they're...extra forced into the story. HiC feels superfluous, as English already fit the niche of being the uber boss nobody could beat, and had his younger self to act as the obnoxious monologuer.

Meanwhile, the cherubs are lesser analogues to the trolls, and are constantly, without fail, interrupting shit that COULD be interesting. Both Calliope and Caliborn are, honestly, obnoxious and do kinda ruin things while the focus is on the Alpha Kids. But without them, English is just some big dude with mouth-lazers and a vore fetish.

But Bec Noir... Bec Noir means business. He directly opposes ALL main character groups, and is ready to abuse the SHIT outta his god powers to just murder some teenagers.

[calamityCons]

Bec Noir also has a lot of deep, personal reasons for the kids to fight him. Rose went ballistic against him not only because he killed her mom, who she has a complicated relationship with, but also surprise-stabbed her best friend John RIGHT NEXT TO HER and that threw her into an unbridled rage that could only be stopped by victory or death. Dave struggling to come to terms with his Bro whom he loved dearly in spite of being kind of scared of him, suddenly being dead. Davesprite's grievous injuries at the hands of Bec Noir. Jade and John's guilt in allowing Bec Noir to exist. Rose and Dave's guilt in allowing the Green Sun to exist. And fuck, dude, John loses his mind when he sees Bec Noir in the dreambubbles again, and that fight he had would've been really cathartic if it wasn't cancelled at the end by John waking up and disappearing.

Man, it was pretty annoying seeing Jade of all people trying to stop PM from killing the son of a bitch in Collide. PM's probably got the biggest beef against Bec Noir out of the whole cast, and Jade shouldn't really be the kind of person who doesn't want to get rid of the monster she partly felt responsible for creating. What even is a consistent character arc in Homestuck though.

[Bahinchut]

Bec Noir also has a lot of deep, personal reasons for the kids to fight him. Rose went ballistic against him not only because he killed her mom, who she has a complicated relationship with, but also surprise-stabbed her best friend John RIGHT NEXT TO HER and that threw her into an unbridled rage that could only be stopped by victory or death. Dave struggling to come to terms with his Bro whom he loved dearly in spite of being kind of scared of him, suddenly being dead. Davesprite's grievous injuries at the hands of Bec Noir. Jade and John's guilt in allowing Bec Noir to exist. Rose and Dave's guilt in allowing the Green Sun to exist. And fuck, dude, John loses his mind when he sees Bec Noir in the dreambubbles again, and that fight he had would've been really cathartic if it wasn't cancelled at the end by John waking up and disappearing.

Man, it was pretty annoying seeing Jade of all people trying to stop PM from killing the son of a bitch in Collide. PM's probably got the biggest beef against Bec Noir out of the whole cast, and Jade shouldn't really be the kind of person who doesn't want to get rid of the monster she partly felt responsible for creating. What even is a consistent character arc in Homestuck though.

This always struck me as strange. It feels like Collide and onward, the comic tried to pretend like Jack received some sort of redemption arc. He's spared by PM and treated by Ms. Paint while Spades and UJ are killed mercilessly. Big city theorists like optimisticDuelist will even pose that he DID get a redemption arc, which is just wrong. He got opportunities for a redemption arc. There are panels where he looks a little pensive, but he could just as easily be exhausted from fleeing for three years. When he enters the dream bubbles, he's faced with all the murder and destruction he caused, but he doesn't react to it. Him and PM share a moment of peace when they see the havoc Lord English is wreaking, but this isn't explored. It's just a visual in a soundpage.

And then Collide happens, and all is forgiven. As if to leap from one story-beat to another without having to do any of the leg work. Jack Noir is spared. A lot of the decisions around this part of the comic baffle me, but none more than the decision of which Jack lives. Sometimes I wonder if the final few hundred pages were written by several people at once.

[rookie1978]

I LOVE caliborn/lord english but Noir should've remained the primary antagonist and after all the shit he did im still fucking appalled he wasn't. The supposed super main bad guy Lord English was namedropped after act 1 in the first intermission and then didn't show up until act 5. That's not big bad material. How many people did Jack kill? How many guardians? How many trolls? Kids? Multiple times, even? How many sburb sessions did he fucking ruin? Jack disobeying his 'code' and betraying the Queen is NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. He was the game eating itself. Way more interesting with so much more potential.

[rubs juice]

I LOVE caliborn/lord english but Noir should've remained the primary antagonist and after all the shit he did im still fucking appalled he wasn't. The supposed super main bad guy Lord English was namedropped after act 1 in the first intermission and then didn't show up until act 5. That's not big bad material. How many people did Jack kill? How many guardians? How many trolls? Kids? Multiple times, even? How many sburb sessions did he fucking ruin? Jack disobeying his 'code' and betraying the Queen is NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. He was the game eating itself. Way more interesting with so much more potential.

LE was too much hype to little delivery, and Jack delivered without any sort of warning at all. It's what makes him a great villain, and it's what makes Slick a good anti-hero/antagonist. If LE had more screentime, or more "down time" (aka him interacting without being in constant battle or destruction), he could be able to rise up to be a villain just as good as Jack, in my opinion. But he doesn't have that set up, and his whole status as a villain feels weak for it.

I personally like the idea of where HS² is going, with Dirk being the villain, who knows he's a villain, and he's gonna try to be the worst villain he possibly can. It has a similar essence to Jack, in a way. A lot more calculist and laid back, but still something you can compare and contrast.

[burnt2ashleys]

Not much of a topic to elaborate on, but I'll give my thoughts on the villains.
Jack Noir is a good villain because he hails from carapacians, who don't really have character depth (some sort of call-back to Problem Sleuth, perhaps), which increases his effectiveness as antagonist, because simple objectives are easier to work with and understand. Plus, he has the longer and more elaborated set-up, intertwined directly with the cast we've read the most (the Beta kids), so the stakes are, obviously, higher (not truly, but apparently. He won't destroy all of the metafiction as we know it, but he's capable of hurting the kids we've read a bunch about, so they are higher in one sense, even if not in another). However, this isn't the case with other villains, and they fail in their own, unique ways.
Lord English is hyped up as a force of nature that one must escape rather than confront (cue Doc Scratch mentioning how Lord English is accounted by Paradox Space whereas Jack is a loose cannon), but as the story progresses, he takes a quality of a dragon, the ultimate antagonist that MUST be destroyed, which contradicts the previous set-up and creates a jarring effect. Needless to say, it falls short of what could've been, a terrifying behemoth that can't be dealt with due to his nature, and must be worked around rather than faced. This is only exacerbated by the appearance and definition of jujus, and how LE can ONLY be defeated if the house juju is used, making a clear McGuffin chase case for the dream bubble cast, along with the whole host of characters seemingly destined to fight Lord English, which includes but isn't limited to: Spades Slick, Dave, Jake, Eridan and Cronus. What of the Intermission, then, that tells us to our faces about how Die's doll is the key to defeating LE, but later on, this fact is never expanded upon and the doll itself is never used?
)(IC falls flat because whatever depth there is to her isn't given to us directly, but INdirectly through Meenah, a tertiary character that goes up the ranks to become secondary for whatever reason. Even so, there is no reason for the reader to feel attached or care about her other than the obvious fact that this character stands in the way of the cast from completing their objectives. We know that she is playing for her own side, wishing to break away from English's curse and establish a new troll empire, but this is kept so vague, so unelaborated, and we're given such little time to grow acquainted with the character that there is no chance for us to see her as anything more than an annoyance. Why should we care for someone who's played as such a grunt and that has basically no attachment to the cast? Dave puts it very well when regarding Lord English, and I believe that it works for her too. The greatest offender, I think, by far, is her complete and utter nerfing from [S] Game Over to [S] Collide. What the hell was that even, man? You was throwing planets like nothing gurl! The fuck?
My problem with Dirk runs on a little deeper because of a couple of reasons, and attach directly to Homestuck as it became as a whole. First, the complete upheaval of an otherwise fine and wacky character like Bro (whose ""abuse"" was completely in line with the absurdities present with all households of every one of the kids, and here I remind you that Rose attempted suicide, Jade taxidermized her own grandfather and John attacked his dad with a hammer, so why should Bro be singled out as the devil in a setting where this is seemingly commonplace?), for what I can only assume is to prove a point, to make every self of Dirk an asshole. Which ties into my second point, that he "drowns in himself" and becomes an even bigger asshole, giving this message that no, Dirk stopped making an effort to become a better person and decided to just say "Fuck it." and be the asshole the whole narrative requires him to be. I could paint this romantically by saying that, oh, Dirk is a tragic character who has to be the asshole for the sake of the story and his friends! But I'll rather paint this as the message being that, no matter how hard and where you look, there isn't a single abstractable future where you change for the better, and that sometimes it's just best to give up and double down on what defines you, for better or (in this case) worse. A message I fundamentally don't subscribe to. Now, I'll admit that I'm more opinionated on Dirk than the others, and that's because I can't, in fact, make a full analysis on where things go bad for him as a villain, I didn't read the Epilogues fully, and I don't intend to in the near future, but I do have a general idea of where he goes as a character, and I'm basing my opinions on that. Once again, opinions, not facts. I'm not checkmating atheists here with facts and logic, folks, just giving my couple of centigrades on the matter.

[calamityCons]

Hard agree on Lord English and )(IC, ESPECIALLY the Condesce. She's just a useless lackey with no personality and no emotional connection to rally behind. Meenah =/= Condesce, in the same way Spades Slick =/= Bec Noir =/= Union Jack, or John Egbert =/= Poppop Crocker, or Dirk Stider =/= Bro Strider

[JakeMorph]

First, the complete upheaval of an otherwise fine and wacky character like Bro (whose ""abuse"" was completely in line with the absurdities present with all households of every one of the kids, and here I remind you that Rose attempted suicide, Jade taxidermized her own grandfather and John attacked his dad with a hammer, so why should Bro be singled out as the devil in a setting where this is seemingly commonplace?)

I'm not gonna bother refuting ALL of this but the comic makes it pretty clear that Rose isn't actually attempting suicide, in the sense that the text literally says EMPTY SUICIDE THREAT

Hard agree on Lord English and )(IC, ESPECIALLY the Condesce. She's just a useless lackey with no personality and no emotional connection to rally behind. Meenah =/= Condesce, in the same way Spades Slick =/= Bec Noir =/= Union Jack, or John Egbert =/= Poppop Crocker, or Dirk Stider =/= Bro Strider

while it's easy enough to say those characters do not equal each other, it is the reason they're introduced in the comic. Andrew says as much in the commentary for the beginning of the intermission: having multiple versions of characters running around in different circumstances independent of each other allows the story to explore different facets of the one character simultaneously. that's the only reason Meenah got introduced when she did.

that being said I think the Condesce was treated with a disappointing lack of nuance during the endgame given all the Good Guy Meenah we got.

[calamityCons]

Hard agree on Lord English and )(IC, ESPECIALLY the Condesce. She's just a useless lackey with no personality and no emotional connection to rally behind. Meenah =/= Condesce, in the same way Spades Slick =/= Bec Noir =/= Union Jack, or John Egbert =/= Poppop Crocker, or Dirk Stider =/= Bro Strider

while it's easy enough to say those characters do not equal each other, it is the reason they're introduced in the comic. Andrew says as much in the commentary for the beginning of the intermission: having multiple versions of characters running around in different circumstances independent of each other allows the story to explore different facets of the one character simultaneously. that's the only reason Meenah got introduced when she did.

True, however, that doesn't mean they are the same character and should be judged with that in mind. Davesprite and Alpha Dave are not the same person, and in fact Davesprite has a lot of angst about not being The Real Dave. Jadesprite and Waking Self Jade are two different people who react differently to things. It's similar to how identical twins have the exact same DNA but can have extremely different personalities and life paths.

[JakeMorph]

sure, but at the end of the day Homestuck takes an intrinsically nature-over-nurture position with the whole Ultimate Self thing. obviously Meenahs 1 and 2 aren't exactly the same person, but Meenah 2 is going to be inherently less fleshed out if one doesn't take into account the context of Meenah 1.

alas, poor Meenahs. we did not know them enough

[Flame_Warp]

I can't agree about HIC, which I expounded upon here because for some reason I found that an easier format to get out my thoughts on her than just responding in here as I initially intended.