#Tyto plays PoE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kingdomoftyto · 4 months

Note

Ah, POE has entered its Murderstuck phase. (Seriously though I'd be interested in seeing your classpects for the detectives after you finish the game)

AT LAST I have beaten the game and can answer this ask!!

Short answer:

Long answer:

[Reminder that in addition to the canon info on aspects from the Extended Zodiac, I also like to take into consideration the excellent old theories {aspects} from bladekindeyewear, a lot of which seem to have made their way onto the MSPA wiki {classes}!]

I'm going to try desperately not to overthink this too badly by psychoanalyzing the characters and their growth over the course of the narrative, because for past attempts at this sort of thing I've had people tell me my choices are way off base lol. As a result some of these will be a little more straightforward than my usual fare.

And, it JUST SO HAPPENS that when I go with my gut instincts like this, the full cast (minus Senior) lines up pretty perfectly with the full set of 12 aspects! That's too beautiful to ignore, so I'm sticking with it. >:)

Anyway, let's get into it:

Incompetent/Ideal Detectives: Heir of Mind

This one's kind of a no-brainer. The Denouement is without question a Mind power, anticipating possible outcomes before they happen. Not to mention Mind's general association with rationality and logic--necessary traits for any detective worth their salt. Mind is also all about your choices and how they change you, echoing the themes of growth and optimism for things to get better, even in the face of despair. It feels right to me if Wato and Saika to share a classpect, particularly the Heir class considering each of them literally inherited the Ideal title from the other. Heir is also thought to be a passive class, which suits their shared tendency to guide the other detectives to finding the solutions rather than solving every little mystery by themselves.

Doleful Detective: Rogue of Doom

Oh boy. In a brighter world, Doleful could have EASILY been the Light-bound of the group. His entire shtick is being supernaturally lucky--even to the point of tragedy. He would have been the group's Vriska, except with troubles that were no fault of his own. HOWEVER, clearly, the reality of who Doleful actually is paints us a very different picture. What we get instead is someone whose entire existence circles around the ideas of sacrifice and suffering. It becomes an obsession for him, both as a detective (as seen in his primary contribution to the group being putting himself in harm's way) and as the Duke (as seen in... his entire outlook on society). As a Rogue, his purpose is to "steal" the suffering of the masses, in his own twisted, pessimistic way, and because this is a passive class, he does it in the most indirect way possible.

Renegade Detective: Bard of Rage

This fucker is Gamzee Makara. I mean just look at him. He has the hair and everything.

...No but seriously, I'm not even joking with this. Go read the Extended Zodiac's description for Rage and tell me that's not Renegade in a nutshell. "Contempt for falsehoods, including the stability those false ideas can impart." "Would rather tear down a system and live in anarchy if they think the system is built on faulty premises." "Difficult to convince otherwise once attached to an idea." He's SO single-minded in his beliefs that he dies with a grin on his face just because his death follows his twisted worldview (which, wouldn't you know it, is another thing he shares with a certain purpleblooded troll). He also incites literal chaos and anger among the other detectives, particularly Workaholic, pulling them into similar delusions of there only being a single, violent way forward.

Armor Detective: Knight of Space

This man is pure physicality. He's simple, in every sense of the word. Just a huge, solid wall, an impenetrable barrier to all threats. He has a single solution to every problem, and that's to position himself in between danger and the people he wants to protect. And of course he's a Knight: his greatest asset--nay, his very essence--is the material suit of armor he's equipped with at all times.

Rowdy Detective: Maid of Breath

What is Breath but the embodiment of movement? As the athlete of the group, Rowdy definitely does plenty of that. But Breath also implies direction, bringing to mind her hanafuda cards, which she consults not to seek external guidance but to reinforce her own decision. Once she's pointed herself at a target, there's no stopping her. (Plus also, y'know. There's literal breath, and she has a pretty good sense of smell lmaO.) Maids, at least in the theories I follow, are an active class, and Rowdy is a prime example, manifesting her own forward momentum and allowing no room for doubt.

Downtown Detective: Thief of Heart

Heart is the aspect of identity and, relatedly, of facades--something Downtown knows all about. Outwardly, she presents a cheery, playfully snarky personality, but this is only one of many layers of masks. Her mastery of these countless faces are what makes her so skilled at manipulating other people. She sees effortlessly into what makes people tick, steers the conversation to revealing the info she wants, and then, like any good Thief, snatches up the resulting spoils. Heart also, however, refers to the unchanging core of what makes a person who they are, and to me this is highlighted by the way Downtown holds so tightly to the memory of her friend Miyuki, no matter how far she sinks into the Duke's web of lies and death.

Bookworm Detective: Mage of Light

I said I wasn't going to get too into character growth in these analyses but HEAR ME OUT. The obvious aspect for Bookworm would be Void, right? Her manner of speech literally obfuscates her emotions behind the detached wording of a third-person narration. Plus she's goth as hell. But much like with Rose Lalonde before her, I argue that this is because she starts out with her aspect "inverted", and that her self-actualization comes in the form of her embracing her true nature: Light. Light can mean fortune, as I mentioned in Doleful's entry, but it is also knowledge and clarity. Bookworm's greatest weapon is her encyclopedic recall, and this is put to best use only when she begins to open up to and cooperate with the other detectives. The sense of triumph Wato (and I) experienced every time she felt confident enough to speak in first person should be more than enough to prove that the Void clinging to her psyche is only holding her back from her full potential.

Posh Detective: Seer of Hope

The aspect of Hope can best be summed up as "fake it 'til you make it", and if that doesn't encapsulate Posh as a person, then I don't know what does. Even with her family fallen on hard times, she relies on a carefully constructed facade of wealth and influence to convince others of her abilities. Though this performance isn't always the most convincing to the other detectives, her stubborn refusal to abandon it is no accident on her part. She has convinced herself that her aspirations of rank and prestige (both within the Detective Alliance and in society at large) will manifest if only she can inextricably associate herself with the role. As a Seer, her job is to passively guide others with insight related to her aspect--which brings to mind her naively confident guesses that fail to be correct on their own but can and do divert the discussion indirectly toward the solution.

Mystic Detective: Sylph of Blood

With a name like Van Helsing, he had to be Blood, right? It just feels right with his occult proclivities. But even on a metaphorical level, Blood first and foremost represents the bonds between people, an appropriate theme for the group's resident father figure. Mystic is known for solving his cases with exceptional compassion and patience, emphasizing how the primary source of his success is his ability to connect with those who had otherwise been abandoned. These helpless clients, along with his more direct ties like his adoption of Bookworm and his gentle mentorship of Wato, bring to mind how Sylphs are specifically known to be a "healing" class.

Workaholic Detective: Prince of Time

Time can be a difficult aspect to explain. Like Space, it tends toward the literal, though even in that sense I feel Workaholic is the best fit for it, what with his fixation on past wrongs and his relentless, sleepless march toward his target like a clockwork automaton. In a more figurative sense, Time can be associated with inevitability or even entropy, which evoke Workaholic's single-minded pursuit of justice despite knowing his own destruction was likely to occur alongside Renegade's. Princes are famously referred to as the "destroyer" class, and he certainly fits the bill, both erasing time with the sense of urgency created by his betrayal and also directly cutting short the "time" of those he killed.

Gourmet Detective: Witch of Void

The Void aspect represents both literal nothingness (like the hunger that plagues Gourmet even years after the tragedy that nearly starved her) and also secrets (like the undercover role she played for the FBI). Even Gourmet's facial expressions tend to be vacuous, revealing nothing of her true thoughts or motivations unless she reaches a breaking point. Witches are a vaguely defined class but are thought to be an active one, perhaps breaking the rules of their aspect to their advantage. If so, this could be connected to Gourmet's superhuman gastonomy and sense of smell--imagine an all-consuming black hole, where our very understanding of physics starts to break down--but either way she definitely wields both her hunger and her secrets with deliberate precision.

Techie Detective: Page of Life

Techie's is the classpect I am least certain/happy about, but to be perfectly honest I don't think ANY of the aspects are a clean fit for him. That said, of the ones that do feel related, Life seems like a decent choice for a few reasons--not the least of which is his well-established habit of anthropomorphizing inanimate gadgets and robots. One could say he "imbues them with life". I would argue that, like Bookworm, Techie is still early in his growth, and this is reflected in my assigning him as a Page. Pages are known for being the slowest to bloom but with some of the greatest potential of all the classes, which rings familiar when one considers the sections of his profile that describe him "stagnating" in the rankings and apprenticing under a capricious dandy. With proper support and guidance, Techie would certainly be on track to do great things with his future. While Renegade accuses him of relying on others too much, Techie's willingness to sacrifice his chair to save the others--even when that would mean giving up his own independence--serves as proof to me that he's well on his way to embodying the quintessential Life-bound trait of putting others' needs before his own.

...And, uh, that's everybody! Unfortunately these assignments mean the party's session was doomed the moment Workaholic fried himself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ No frogs for you, detectives!

#Process of Elimination #Tyto plays PoE #Process of Elimination spoilers #ask #Anonymous #this post a couple days later than expected because I initially tried putting it in a bulleted list and tumblr ate half of what I wrote :^)#even on a second pass though I think this might be one of my favorite posts I've ever made on here lmao

7 notes · View notes