#it’s a case where the quote unquote villains of the story were more interesting than the main characters

[impossible-rat-babies]

me projecting my character issues on stormblood by giving eyrie issues

[bladekindeyewear]

Book Commentary on Inversion Theory

Alright, as a follow-up to this post, it looks like there’s an actual full bit of Homestuck book commentary (around the pages nearing Rose’s grimdark transformation, Book 6 pg 115, HS pg 3305, thanks @ramiedersedreamer and @zandraxofnebulon) about how Inversion Theory (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) isn’t what we thought.  Quoting and reading it first (not the whole reddit post but that portion at least), then discussion under the cut:

"Rose is a Light player, but her blackout effects result from arguably the nadir of her role as such a hero--that is, when she succumbs to Scratch's manipulations and other eldritch persuasions, and goes grimdark. This truth would appear to lend credence to a line of classpect thinking known as "inversion theory," which really isn't without its merits. This note has just gone to the bother of describing one of its merits, in fact. However, it is possible to get carried away with this line of thinking and use it to evaluate everything that happens in Homestuck. For instance, you could say "Well, Karkat is a Blood hero, and here's where he stops being as Karkatty as usual, so that means he's being the opposite of his aspect. Which means he's being Breathy instead of Bloody. So that means a bunch of other stuff, ipso facto, Homestuck has been EXPLAINED." That's not really the way all this works. Aspect lore runs deep, but it isn't the Rosetta Stone to the story. When in doubt, it's better to remember this: rather than an underlying mystical logic where all classpect roads lead to Deep Answers, HS is a comprehensive nexus of many themes, and all roads lead to the basic idea that this is a tale about kids who are trapped in the universal struggle associated with growing up."

I... hm.  Dammit.  Is that all he wrote??  This slippery author is a master of giving us tantalizing and insightful details without committing to any hard yes-or-no whatsoever.  >:T

I’d been building myself up to reading this all throughout yesterday with gut-wrenching dread that at this late, late, late hour he’d finally given us a definitive “NO” on Inversion.  Instead we get this quite interesting but more vague “eh, there’s merits, but don’t go too far with it”.  Which is...... 

...about as potentially-optimistic as I put it in the previous post, if not moreso?

Andrew’s being careful to lavish odd praise on inversion theory, too.  Which some people are going to interpret as (Option 1) “Nice try, but dead wrong”, like the anon who put a snippet in my inbox initially, and others will interpret as (Option 2) “The big ones are RIGHT, nudge nudge, but stop applying it everywhere cause the fans who say every line of the comic means ‘ghosting inversion’ are looking at the story wrong and annoying everyone”.

As someone guilty of being one of those fans described in the latter half on occasion, I can CERTAINLY agree with THAT last part.  Andrew made it really clear with the ending of Homestuck proper -- “this side shit didn’t matter as much as you thought it did”.  I was so enamored with the classpect system that I thought almost everything was being shown to us through those lenses, at one point -- but even though perhaps more than the random reader might have thought is there, like he says, it ain’t supposed to be no Rosetta Stone.  Even when I WAS overapplying classpect everywhere, the people who did it too often in places I felt clearly un-merited REALLY pissed me off!  I can’t imagine how much more that might’ve been magnified in the shoes of someone who happened to apply the correct, lower amount of classpect and had to put up with me babbling and slathering it everywhere, much less the author’s shoes.

But there is still a big hole in his criticism, one he intentionally seems to have left there to me.  By saying “don’t look for it everywhere”, but ALSO that “there’s more than some merit to it”... I don’t think it’s a stretch to think the truth might not only be somewhere in between Options 1 and 2, but perhaps even closer to Option 2.

Aaaand HERE’s where if you’re someone who HUNGERED for me to admit wrongdoing by sticking with this theory for so long, you’re no doubt angry.  Looking at me as making excuses in the face of this long-awaited OBJECTIVE PROOF OF TOTAL THEORY DISMISSAL... WHY won’t the deluded bastard FINALLY succumb to REASON?  ANDREW HIMSELF spoke up on the issue, IS THIS NOT ENOUGH?!???

And, well... you’re right to be angry.  To be honest, I’m a fair bit pissed off too -- I could’ve used a solid “NO”, traumatizing as it would’ve been to me!

But that’s not what we got, because... *rolls eyes @ author* ...that’s not how Andrew works nowadays.  And as irritating as it is, I also have to respect it a bit.

Andrew has become pretty committed to not full-on table-flipping fan interpretations and fanworks, avoiding forcing one “correct” interpretation (see: central struggle of HS^2 and the villains labeling divergence from canon at all as “bad”) because both interpretations should be rewarded.  If something is REALLY wrong and hurts objective appreciation of the lessons he wanted to portray in his comic, like people plastering Classpect everywhere to the exclusion of the story’s central canon-escaping themes, he’s willing to shut them down... but when it comes to effective-sounding interpretations of the comic that he possibly never intended but “could” have been what he intended?  He’s REALLY careful not to step on them!  Or even sometimes DISTINGUISH them from the ones that he DID intend, sometimes, to keep as many fan interpretations alive in our imaginations as possible.

Which, as someone who pins Inversion’s entire existence on the assertion that “Andrew deliberately intended this and it’s our DELUSION otherwise”, really pisses me off at times like this.  This is a theory hinged on the idea that Andrew had been deliberately hiding INCREDIBLY clever evidence throughout the comic for these intense thematic moves.  All the SYMBOLISM we thought was pointing to inversion would lose an incredible amount of its meaning if it were all an accident.  What about all that cool imagery in the Breath and Blood post?  Did any of THAT really mean what we thought it was there for, like between WV and PM?  Was any of it REAL?  Will we ever even get an ANSWER?  The answer is “no, we won’t”, because Andrew persists in this method of keeping his cards close to his chest even if he has to take them to the damn grave, cause he knows we’ll have more “fun” not knowing ‘em.  That considerate son of a bitch.  >:(

I’m serious -- it really does make me more than a little angry.  I really do wish he’d said more to show us where we’re off-course.

But HS^2 has brought us Terezi telling us that Mind and Heart are indeed opposites.  He MIGHT be holding onto the info because we may get it later in canon itself...

Meh.  I’ll try not to hope too hard.  And I’d better clarify what I actually believe, here:

My TL;DR thoughts on Andrew’s commentary up above are that when it comes to Inversion Theory (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), he’s leaving room for some of the BIG events to have been right or almost right -- say, #1, maybe #2, and only POSSIBLY #3 or #4 -- while telling us to back off and cast SERIOUS DOUBT on stuff that could have more character-driven explanations, especially #5.

If there’s a seriously FUNDAMENTAL transformation in a character that isn’t fully explained by their character journey alone (as kids growing up), involves significant outside interference, and is reflected by countless visual cues, THEN we should want to see if Inversion Theory “has merit” in that sort of case -- while laying it up against other competing theories that account for external interference of a non-Inversion-related nature in their actions too.  Things like pre- and post-ascension Aradia or pre- and post-dreamdeath Jade seeming almost completely different characters?  Or Rose seemingly taken over by the Horrorterrors... only to do nothing to benefit them but throw her mainself at Jack and get killed so she’d be forced to ascend on the moon mission rather than God-tier-die?  I’d say Inversion is worth consideration and -- daresay -- worth believing in, in such cases.

And it still might all be wrong.  There are legitimate ways to read Andrew’s commentary above that would have people screaming that Inversion has been disproven, that the “merits” mentioned were just a nod of respect to the losing side that I’m completely overblowing.  But those seem to me like carefully ambiguous words from a carefully ambiguous man, and if there’s anyone to blame for their ambiguity, it’s Andrew.  Trust me; I don’t like it either.  He’s had plenty of practice saying things in a way that we CAN’T really draw many assumptions from.

Heck, even the Redditor transcribing this summarized their thoughts in a way that draws some assumptions I don’t believe are there:

Mostly I think it's just interesting that he's actually addressing Inversion Theory, and the gist is basically "it's a cool idea and has some merits, but the classpect system and story are not quite that formulaic." Sorry BKEW. At least we know Hussie has been paying attention to our wild theorizing.

--which is a rebuke drawn on the common interpretation that Inversion describes too “formulaic” a classpect system, especially with specific-class inversion like Seer <-> Witch and such.  But IS that what Andrew is saying? Andrew criticizes the overapplication of aspect theory in describing everyone’s actions page to page, but does that mean a quote-unquote “rigid” system (I’m not going to play out the old “specific-class-inversion-is-too-rigid” vs “youre missing the flexible potential a fixed system gives” arguments again) is ITSELF an overapplication of classpect to people’s actions and personalities? Is he perhaps hinting that only Aspect stuff mattered in Inversion cases and the Witchy Rose class stuff was just a separate thematic thing that fits by coincidence??  What does it mean? WE DON’T KNOW!  AND IT’S PISSING ME OFF AAAARGH

...I think I’ve said all I can think to say for now.

I mean, I’m glad Inversion Theory wasn’t outright disproven.  I think it’s neat.  I have a lot of emotional investment behind it, and being told it was all a worthless goose chase would have made me vomitously sick!  But as I struggled with at the end of Homestuck proper, constant ambiguity shows a fair bit of disregard of its own, and both ending AND epiloguing Homestuck not only without a “yes” on this but without even a clear “NO” has caused me more gutache and poor feelings across MONTHS than either answer ever would have given me.  I thought we’d earned that by getting through it, that we wouldn’t have to wait for YEARS and then STILL get cockteased like this.  And I wonder how much I’m going to regret, later, that this wasn’t just a clear, simple “NO”.

I’m being told there’s an upd8 just now and I should read it.  I’ll get on that.  Cy’all.

[the-desolated-quill]

Two Riders Were Approaching... - Watchmen blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t read this comic yet, you may want to before reading this review)

As we hurtle head long into the third act, Two Riders Were Approaching provides a story that comes the closest to a more quote/unquote ‘traditional’ comic book narrative. With nuclear tensions rising and World War Three imminent, Daniel and Rorschach must work together to deduce the identity of the ‘mask killer’ before it’s too late.

At the core of the issue is Dan and Rorschach’s relationship. Their partnership is something that has been talked about throughout the graphic novel, but this is the first time we actually get to see Nite Owl and Rorschach in action, and it’s legitimately fascinating to observe.

When I first read the graphic novel, one question kept bugging me throughout. Why the hell would Nite Owl want to work with someone like Rorschach? A violent, bigoted, right wing conspiracy nut. It can’t just be a marriage of convenience because Dan does express genuine affection toward Rorschach numerous times throughout Watchmen. Of course I was much younger at the time, so I didn’t understand all the nuances until now. See, what Alan Moore does such a good job with regarding the Nite Owl/Rorschach dynamic is using them to illustrate the flaws and dangers of centrist politics.

Now before I go any further, I just want to clarify one thing. I’m not necessarily saying there’s anything wrong with holding a centrist view. I myself identify as a centrist, albeit slightly left leaning. However there is always a risk when it comes to taking a centrist stance of becoming so neutral to the point of being complicit, maintaining the status quo even when it serves as a detriment to others because they don’t want to take sides. I can understand wanting to come across as fair and balanced, but fair and balanced doesn’t necessarily mean both sides of a debate have equal weight. There are some topics where there is no neutral stance you can possibly take. Do women deserve the vote? Should black people have rights as white people? Should gay people be allowed to get married? There’s only one correct answer to those questions. Trying to take a centrist view here wouldn’t be fair and balanced. It would be perpetuating a harmful system of discrimination and inequality. Both sides of an argument aren’t always equally valid. And yet, especially recently, we’re seeing a growing number of (usually white) centrists trying to take a neutral position from a moral or political standpoint. We’ve all seen those cringeworthy pictures of people posing with their Trump supporting friends wearing a MAGA cap, saying how politics shouldn’t affect a strong friendship. Donald Trump is a racist twat, and while not all Trump supporters are necessarily racist twats, they are complicit in his racist twattery, as are the people who claim to be liberal and yet still hang out with those guys, wringing their hands and asking why can’t everyone just get along.

In my opinion Nite Owl serves as the pinnacle of extreme centrism. He may not be as right wing as Rorschach, but he is complicit when it comes to his extreme methods and views because they’re superheroes and what they’re doing is for the supposed greater good. The scene in the bar hammers this point home very effectively. Rorschach of course used similar violent means of interrogation back in the first issue and you’d think now that Nite Owl is with him that he’d show a bit more restraint, but no. Rorschach is still just as violent as he was before and Nite Owl doesn’t stop him or resist in anyway, instead reassuring everyone around them that they’ll try and keep their interrogation brief. In fact it’s Rorschach that ends up restraining Nite Owl when he finds out about Hollis Mason’s murder and threatens to kill one of the Knot Tops.

Ah yes. Rorschach. Now he is the most interesting part of this issue for me. Presented as being sociopathic and intolerant throughout the entire novel, here we start to see another side to him. There’s obviously the moment I just mentioned where he stops Dan from committing murder, but there are other moments too. Near the beginning of the issue, we see the two of them going to Rorschach’s residence to pick up his spare uniform and journal (which is very bloody convenient, isn’t it? The spare uniform I could believe, but a spare journal too? He just happens to have a spare journal lying around in case he lost the other one. When does he have the time to copy his notes wholesale just in case he misplaces one copy? Doesn’t the guy sleep?) and they encounter Walter’s landlady who had been spreading misinformation accusing him of trying to sexually assault her. Rorschach, understandably, takes issue with this and starts to berate her, calling her a whore. She begs him not to say that in front of her kids because ‘they don’t know.’ The implication being they all have different fathers. At which point, in a rare moment of pity, Rorschach leaves her be. There’s clearly a strong parallel between his landlady and his mother and the reason he drops the argument is because he see’s one of her young boys crying in fear, which seems to remind him of his own unhappy childhood. He’s never going to be considered a good person any time soon, but considering the vile and atrocious things he’s done in past issues, this moment feels significant.

Another significant moment is in the Owlship with Dan. With the police hunting them, the two have to lay low for a while before continuing their investigations into the ‘mask killer,’ which leads to a lot of stress and arguing. Dan finally snaps and shouts at Rorschach, chastising him for his behaviour. You think you know what’s going to happen because we’ve become so familiar with the characters’ MO, but Rorschach surprises us yet again by instead apologising and shaking Dan’s hand, calling him a good friend. 

This is why Rorschach is such a great character and why Watchmen is such a great book. This small, but touching moment adds some real humanity to his character. As horrid and extreme as he is, you can’t help but feel slightly sorry for Rorschach as you realise that throughout the story, his attempts to reach out to Dan have been in an effort to win back the trust of his best and only friend. It’s a tiny detail, but it helps elevate the character to something more three dimensional as opposed to just being a conservative strawman.

But now of course, it’s time for the big reveal. Turns out the ‘mask killer’ was Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias the whole time. I’m going to talk more about his character in the next issue, which focuses very heavily on him. For now I’ll just say that it’s a good twist that was expertly built up throughout the course of the graphic novel, however I do feel that Alan Moore fumbled it a bit toward the end. While Nite Owl is trying to break into Adrian’s computer, Rorschach delivers this very clunky monologue about Egyptian beliefs and practices, which ends up giving the game away too early. The reason why the reveal works is because Adrian has been used sparingly throughout the story. We know that his superhero alter ego has an Egyptian theme, but this is a background detail that doesn’t really register until now. It sounds silly to say, but at no point did I ever suspect that the mastermind behind ‘Pyramid Transnational’ (the company behind many of the suspicious goings on in Watchmen, along with Dimensional Developments) was the Egyptian themed superhero. But that’s because we’ve only been exposed to Ozymandias every now and then, just enough to keep him in the back of our minds, but not so often that it gives the game away. It’s a masterstroke, if you think about it. However, thanks to Rorschach’s clunky monologue, the reveal becomes really forced rather than having everything falling into place naturally. There’s no moment where the reader goes ‘oh duh! of course it’s Adrian!’ because the reveal is being telegraphed way too heavily. It’s a serious misstep in my view and I wish Moore trusted the reader a bit more rather than having to explain everything in a giant infodump.

However what I especially love about all this is how intentionally ridiculous it all is. We see Nite Owl and Rorschach talking and acting in a very melodramatic fashion. Someone is killing off superheroes in order to try and start World War Three and only they can save the day! Tra la laaaa! It’s once again all about the fantasy of power, until they learn that Ozymandias, one of their own, is the true villain, at which point the fantasy is broken and things get a lot more complicated from here on out. Not that it wasn’t complicated before, but this is the first time the characters themselves acknowledge it’s complicated, which again says a lot about them and their fantasies. Anyone less than a superhero is easy to deal with, but a superhero betraying them? Now that’s more serious.

Before his falling out with DC, Alan Moore had expressed interest in doing a Watchmen prequel about the Minutemen, which I would love to see. But after reading Two Riders Were Approaching, I would also love to see a prequel series about Rorschach and Nite Owl’s partnership in the sixties. It’s clear that we’ve only really scratched the surface of these characters as here we are, ten issues in, and there’s still so much to unpack and learn about them. It would have been nice to have seen them in their element and how it fell apart. We’ll probably never get to see it sadly (yes I know Before Watchmen exists. I’m talking about Alan Moore coming back to Watchmen), but at least this issue gives us a tantalising glimpse.

[mimeparadox]

Sark, Subordinate Baddies, and Flexible Loyalties

(With apologies to @derevkosark​.)

If there’s one line that can be considered to be the iconic Sark line, the one that exemplifies who he is, it’s “my loyalties are flexible.” It’s a good line, and David Anders delivers it well.

It’s also the line that ruined the character.

I don’t think it’s a terribly daring to suggest that Sark worked most consistently during Alias’ first two seasons (and even more specifically during the first), and that season three and four’s attempts to do something more substantial with him were largely unsuccessful. Bringing him into the Covenant made so little sense as a character move the series had to lampshade it and pretend they’d answered the question of why he’d done it.  Introducing his father became a dramatic dead end, and one that brought about the wrong kind of thematic resonance—another character with parent issues? His relationship with Lauren was better, but had no center or consistency, its nature shifting depending on the episode.  Even his season four story—which was entirely optional, given that he was no longer a series regular and didn’t need to appear—felt entirely unearned, and seemed to miss the point of his character entirely. Somehow, the more focus the character got, the less he seemed to work, and it wasn’t until season five’s “Bob” that he was at a place where he was actually fun again.  

(It’s worth noting that Sark’s declaration of flexibility comes in “The Telling”—the last episode of season two. This does not at all feel like coincidence.)

The ironic thing is that Sark wasn’t a character that needed much focus.  Characters of his ilk rarely do. Roan, from Nikita, was used perfectly effectively while also being a man of very few words; even though he’s a consistent presence throughout the first two seasons, we never learn much about him, and that’s fine. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for Martine Rousseau, who is absolutely fantastic throughout the first half of Person of Interest’s fourth season (and less fantastic upon her return later in the season, although she’s hardly alone in that), and Anthony, Elias’ leiutenant. This isn’t to say that any of these characters would have necessarily been harmed by additional development, but its absence didn’t hurt them. So why did additional focus, in fact, appear to harm Sark? 

Part of it is simple villain decay. Sark’s first few appearances were all about emphasizing just how badass he was, as he almost single-handedly destroyed FTL and K-Directorate. We didn’t know a lot about him, but we knew he’d succeeded where McKennas Cole had failed—and McKennas Cole had almost killed everyone. And that air of danger remained through most of season one.  By the time season two ended, though, Sark had ceased to feel like a threat. His impressive feats had slowed to a trickle, and he’d been defeated and/or captured too many times, to the point where him getting trussed up Hannibal Lecter style in his season four appearance feels like an extreme overreaction. But that’s secondary to the real reason why the character no longer works, and that’s the fact that his flexible loyalties completely undermine him as a character.

What do we know about Sark, that first season?  We know that a) he’s quite young, and b) his position within the Man’s organization allows him to serve as the Man’s proxy, suggesting that he is not only skilled but also reliable.  This suggests some sort of relationship with Irina, one that goes beyond boss/subordinate. The popular fan theory is that she played a pseudo-maternal role, making him a sibling of Sydney’s, emotionally if not biologically.  

This element—the deeply important pre-existing relationship we don’t know much about, is a key reason why flunkies can get away with not having much focus. How do Roan and Percy know each other? How do Irina and Sark?  Martine and Greer? We have no idea, but what we see of their relationship suggests a lot of interesting things, even if we never actually get them.  

So Irina and Sark have a relationship. Why, then, are Sark’s loyalties quote-unquote flexible?  Why would Irina trust him at all if that is the case?  And it’s not as if the statement is inaccurate. Even if one believes that Sark is acting according to Irina’s instructions in “The Telling” when he sells her out, that doesn’t explain why he chooses to remain with the Covenant, or why he eventually chooses to go freelance.  Imagine separating Roan from Percy / Division without explanation and trying to tell stories with him. What exactly would those stories involve?  

Granted, Sark is made to join the Covenant partly because Irina is out of pocket for all of the third season, but that’s a less-than-satisfying explanation. For one, the writers didn’t know that would be the case when they had him suggest that he’ll work for whomever is most convenient.  Second, Irina’s absence didn’t mean they had to divorce Sark’s character from hers; it would have been the easiest thing in the world to just use him as her proxy, the way Katya was later used. Or, heck, suggest he was infiltrating the group on her behalf. Or suggest that he actually felt betrayed by Irina, so he’s now adrift. “Sark is loyal to Irina” gives you a starting point; even if circumstances mean you can’t tell the story you’d like, it at least gives you a direction to follow. Once you remove Sark’s loyalties, you’re left with nothing, and you’re forced to come up with stuff about him being the heir to a half-a-billion-dollar fortune just to give him something to do.

There’s also the problem that for someone whose loyalties are flexible, they oftentimes weren’t flexible enough. I’ve already mentioned his inexplicable attachment to the Covenant, but there’s also his reluctant partnership with Irina and Sloane at the tail-end of the series, which degrades to the point where he admits he has no idea what he’s doing there, but still not enough for him to just sell them out. A truly wild card would have helped the good guys as much as he helps the bad guys, and yet the only episode where a willingness to do so is in evidence is “Bob.” Flexible loyalties (or seemingly flexible loyalties) can be very fun—Nikita uses them to fantastic effect, both in the character of Cyrus, and with most of the show’s core cast—but on Sark they’re largely a bore, because there’s rarely an actual question of where he’ll land.    

In the end, is about consistency. You can have a character with variable loyalties, but there has to be something underpinning that variability.  Given that characters like Sark’s core is their relationships and loyalty, they can’t just be undermined nilly-willy.  Unfortunately, this is precisely what Alias did.