Worst Character?

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Notchine
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by Notchine » Tue Jun 13, 2023 8:55 pm

Literally every character to exist after the end of homestuck qualifies for this equally.

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Re: Worst Character?

Post by bigmansThunder » Fri Jun 16, 2023 6:14 pm

Hot take but i despise Dave. His irony stuff can get pretty annoying and on top of all that he just feels mary sueish, specially as act 6 goes on.
I also really hate his character arc and the way his relationship with Bro was written.

Dont even get me started on Davekat either.

Its a shame too cuz he was pretty cool in acts 1-5 but i guess thats a common pattern with this comic.

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Re: Worst Character?

Post by ForkOfSpoon » Sun Jul 02, 2023 2:06 pm

doc scratch i HATE him so much. so so much. LE/caliborn is fine
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by AutisticTussler » Tue Jul 11, 2023 1:27 pm

I've got to say, Alternate Vriska (aka [Vriska].) Vriska is fine, sure, I used to hate her, but now I agree she's at least an okay character. But AltVris? All she does is whine and moan and she's just so annoying. And on top of that, she's got an ugly haircut. And no, this isn't Vriscourse because I'm talking AltVris, not Vriska.

Also as a (former) Tavros kinnie, I wouldn't say I like your tone very much.
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by FurretKnightofMind » Mon Sep 11, 2023 3:54 pm

croooooonus

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Re: Worst Character?

Post by Shaddytheguy » Wed Sep 13, 2023 1:52 pm

I think it depends on what we're talking about when we say "worst". A lot of this revolves around who you do or don't think is funny, who did or didn't do something good/bad, or our very subjective ideas of what does or doesn't constitute successful character progression (itself a value judgement as the idea that characters need to change for a story to be great is subjective). But I don't take Eridan being a little incel Nazi piece of shit as him being a poorly-constructed character. I hate him as a person, but he has a negative character arc that's executed relatively well, and then he gets the fuck out of the way (by dying).

Out of the humans, Jane sticks out to me as the one with the most-inconsistent writing. I don't hate her or anything, but she has a lot of stuff going on in her introduction and not a lot by the end. She was a fan of pranks, baking, sitcoms, and sleuthing/detectives. There are a lot of ways you can play with those things. They don't all have to survive (remember when Dave was supposed to collect dead things? me neither), but past A6A5, I can't remember her exhibiting a lot of traits other than misery. She's easily the least fun. Which isn't necessarily a flaw! Her being a bad friend, her not knowing how to handle things, that's all justifiable, but again, you need something. A6A6I5 is one of the worst chapters in the entire franchise for a number of reasons, but one is the scene where Jane meets Nanna, is subsequently introduced to Other Nanna, and then nothing happens. We don't get any real interaction, there's no introspection on how different they are, it's just a pie in the face and then we cut to something else.

Jane strikes me as someone who should have a lot of trauma. Within the thematic confines of storytelling, I mean. She's been secretly groomed and abused by The Condesce her whole life, but this is just not treated like a real issue at any point. It's not like Dave where he acts like it's no big deal, the overall tone and focus of the story never really cares. Sure, she goes Crocker-tier, but that's not really viewed in-universe as the product of years of psychological manipulation so much as it is just mind control, same as Jade. I see people sometimes refer to it as removing her inhibitions or whatever, but...that's not how people work. Yeah Jane was kind of shitty, but she doesn't "deep down" want to turn Jake into a sex slave. That's just a roided-up extrapolation of her lust-but-not-love for him and her being a bit selfish. This is where Post-Canon actually succeeds, shaping her into a neo-batterwitch who wants to manipulate industry and the state to a fascist end. It feels abrupt because the original comic never really talked about that, but better late than never.

I truly think most of the Beta Trolls are pretty good at what they're made to do. You're supposed to hate Eridan, be sympathetic towards Kanaya and Nepeta, grow to like Equius, be uncomfortable around Gamzee and get pissed off at Vriska. The weak link here is Feferi, but for different reasons than our other life player. Feferi isn't a bad character, she's just the least. I don't know if she has the literal least dialogue out of the trolls (though I suspect she does), but she has the least chances to exhibit strong character traits, and takes very few of the chances she gets. I can describe Terezi, Karkat or Sollux, but Feferi is just "she seems nice" (except when she's calling Jade slurs, apparently). She doesn't get in on any of the mean girls interplay, she doesn't have any big interactions with the humans, and her sole two characters to have a dynamic with are Sollux and Eridan. Both secondary trolls in terms of prominence, but importantly, one she breaks up with in his first appearance (to not interact with again until she's being killed by him), and one whom she has a mostly-offscreen relationship with. I think Hussie knew this, hence the existence of Fefetasprite, a joke character whose premise is that they are made of two side characters and never gets a single line before she dies. But like...that's not really that funny. You could have taken that time to, I dunno, actually make me care about them? It's even more telling that Nepeta got to live on through Davepeta, while Feferi ended up by the wayside. If it were me, I'd just dial up her little speeches about "reforming" her fascist hellscape, and then leave her be after the product of that fascist hellscape inevitably kills her, because neoliberalism is a politics of fools. How intentional is Hussie's political commentary? Answer: however much is convenient.

After that...I dunno, most of the alpha trolls are on the same level for me. They trend between "completely forgettable" and "racial stereotype". Huss said in one of the book commentaries that A6I3 was, and I quote, "Actually Kinda Bad", so I don't know if I need to spend much time on them. Kinners aren't all like Cronus, Mituna did nothing wrong and shouldn't be blamed for involuntary vocalizations, not being able to smell is a real disability, and holy fuck just change everything you can about Kankri and Damara. Kankri is just a caricature of "SJW" archetypes that were dead and buried in the ground even at the time, and while I've seen some people say he represents a certain form of overzealous activism from privileged persons (a lot of white people are obsessed with racial savior narratives even as they are fighting racism, for instance), within the text it's just an excuse for Karkat to become Hussie's rantsona. Damara, on the other hand, is just the stereotypical sexualization of Asian women...and that's it. Can't even do the respect of properly translating her dialogue.

Anyway that's all I got. Runner-up goes to Gamzee for becoming utterly boring post-A5.

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Re: Worst Character?

Post by AutisticTussler » Mon Feb 26, 2024 9:46 pm

Now, I've already mentioned Cronus, AltVris, Scratch, and Hussie, but, removing all the other characters mentioned in this thread by me or otherwise, I'd say Davesprite is the worst unmentioned one. IIRC He made fun of John's dead dad, something John STILL hadn't coped with, or even reacted to!
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by nepeta » Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:32 am

jane crocker just annoys me for no reason. i have no idea why but it's maybe the weird fanart of her that has made me hate her so much. i also just feel like she's a bit of a clone of jade harley (one of my favorite characters)
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by Shaddytheguy » Tue Feb 27, 2024 12:46 pm

I don't think Jane is like Jade at all, other than visually at least. I mentioned why she's the weakest of the humans for me personally, but NONE of her character flaws overlap with Jade's, and her shtick when communicating with her friends doesn't fill any of the existing niches carved out in the first half of the story. This is probably because the Alphas are tormented by personal dysfunction from the very start, where the Betas got along so well John and Dave didn't even notice they were being pitted against each other as props in a years-long war between crazy troll girls until Karkat told them, and even then they didn't care.

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Re: Worst Character?

Post by nepeta » Wed Feb 28, 2024 8:48 pm

true. I think I just went haywire and thought; "JADE CLONE AAAA" I'm not a big fan of how the alpha kids are VERY similar in some ways to the beta kids. :jadesob: I think there could have been some differences that would've made them better. Image

pretty much one is a spinoff of one another, and ALMOST just looks the same. when it comes to copying and pasting some parts of designs from older media, I am quite picky about it because I'd like something new. like how most of the trolls are pretty different from each other design-wise and personality-wise. it's just hard for my brain to stay interested because some characters are the same. like how John and Dave have a close romantic-ish relationship further into the comic, and so do Jake and Dirk. :what: it just feels oddly recycled to me and boring. I can understand why some people are not big fans of the newer generation of kids, because it just feels all the same in some way. but, some do have attributes that make them better and more interesting to read. I could be wrong though, because. I read the original more often because I adored the trolls and just everything about the comic. the first Homestuck just has a place in my brain that will not leave because it engaged me very well. the visuals, the chat clients, the software, everything just kind of glued together and made it just fun to read.
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by Aeroplane » Sat Mar 02, 2024 8:44 pm

I haven't bothered to think about it and I don't dislike any of the characters really as they're all fun and unique and contribute a lot.
I think it's probably one of the Dancestors but I don't know who, I honestly think of them all as a whole, a unified mass of "could've been better".
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by Aeroplane » Sat Mar 02, 2024 8:46 pm

Aeroplane wrote:
Sat Mar 02, 2024 8:44 pm
I haven't bothered to think about it and I don't dislike any of the characters really as they're all fun and unique and contribute a lot.
I think it's probably one of the Dancestors but I don't know who, I honestly think of them all as a whole, a unified mass of "could've been better".
Obviously I know this is supposed to be about characters I actually hate hate but I don't really think of art in that way.
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by ForkOfSpoon » Tue Mar 05, 2024 9:10 am

no this is a valid opinion...
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by Aeroplane » Wed Mar 06, 2024 4:42 pm

ForkOfSpoon wrote:
Tue Mar 05, 2024 9:10 am
no this is a valid opinion...
That's rare for me all of my opinions are usually elitist shit
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by recklessWizard » Wed Mar 06, 2024 8:13 pm

I will group my most hated characters into 2 groups: one for Canon (literally homestuck) and Beyond Canon (epilogues, beyond canon)

Canon: Vriska and Jake
Vriska was honestly alright for me overall pre-retcon, before she died, I hated her but afterwards during act 6 I thought it was more of a natural progression for their character and it made sense a bit. Post-retcon Vriska just sucked. Don't even get me STARTED on how it makes absolutely no sense she survived. I didn't like Jake's personality a lot of the time and there were times where he really should have been pissed but he wasn't, and he was all like 'golly gosh chaps' and stuff like that.

Beyond Canon: Jane
I already didn't like Jane in the original Homestuck, but it wasn't really that important to me as a reader. Now she is a power-hungry dictator who not only fucked up the Candy timeline (trying my hardest not to mention Gamzee rn), but will probably eventually fuck up the Meat timeline, at least on Earth C.
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by hagriddenHound » Thu Oct 10, 2024 1:06 pm

old thread but i figure i might as well add my thoughts

worst addition to the story? jake, but i don't hate him, or nepeta

least favorite? rufioh or nepeta </33
nepeta had potential if the fandom didnt reduce her to "little baby who needs equius' protection and whose only interest is other peoples relationships"
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by awsumMoth » Sun Oct 13, 2024 3:14 am

well obviously it's homosuck damara.
  • the trolls were made to portray "internet archetypes" or whatever that means.
    the ancestors were made to do that same purpose but amplified a fuckton
    using this, we can deduce "the regular trolls > the dancestors"
    im gonna pretend as if the humans and the regular trolls are on the same level
    NOW we're making it even MORE shitty by making it caliborn's
    " humans/the regular trolls > the dancestors > homosuck versions of the dancestors"
    im saying damara is the worst dancestor because i dont like lowbloods
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by CarltheCarl » Fri Nov 15, 2024 5:17 pm

obviously, I think we all know who canonically the worst homestuck character is

it's Cronus, no punchline here that guy just sucks
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Re: Worst Character?

Post by wolfkitty42 » Sat Nov 16, 2024 11:26 am

i think 4 me personally it's probably horuss. love/hate relationship with him honestly

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Re: Worst Character?

Post by alternativeSymphony » Sun Dec 01, 2024 10:46 pm

I've always had a completely unjustified and inexplicable hatred for Tavros. I have the same attitude towards him as I did Jeff Andonuts in my first playthrough of Earthbound. Without reason, I immediately hated his character from the moment of his first appearance in the story. While my demeanor toward him DID change once he was further developed in the Hivebent arc, I really just never liked the guy.
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