#putting this in my homestuck tag actually that shit is painful to read and people do not simply go 'yea shit it is :(' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

betweengenesisfrogs · 7 years

Text

OFF-THE-CUFF HOMESTUCK POSTS #6: THE TRAGEDY (AND SECRET TRIUMPH) OF JADE HARLEY, OR: THE GNOSTIC GARDENER

DISCLAIMER FRAMEWORK

[CHECK THE TAG FOR MORE THOUGHTS]

[Note: Content warning for brief mention of sexual abuse and longer discussion of perceived suicide and associated thoughts.]

Let's talk about Jade Harley.

A common feeling I've seen about the final chapters of Homestuck is that Jade Harley deserved better, that she suffered completely unfairly and arbitrarily in the final timeline.

I actually completely agree. Jade *absolutely* deserved better. Where I disagree is with the argument that Jade's suffering somehow shows Hussie is a bad writer.

I think it's important to recognize that good storytelling isn't always the same thing as happy storytelling. Some stories or parts of stories are *about* suffering. They're tragedy, a form of storytelling I'd define as an examination of a negative set of events: why they took place, why the characters involved couldn't escape them. Done well, this can be as meaningful as any happy ending.

I mean, there's a reason a bunch of Greeks wanted to watch a series of plays about a guy who accidentally marries his mother and then stabs his eyes out.

So when we're talking about good storytelling in Homestuck, i.e.: whether character arcs reach meaningful catharsis, we have to bear in mind that the bad shit that happens to our characters is sometimes the very subject of the story.

In other words, yes, Jade Harley deserved better.

That's the *entire point.*

Now, that said, I actually think Jade does have a happy ending, and a damn cathartic one. But we need to understand the unfair suffering she went through to understand why. What I find fascinating about Jade's arc is that she confronts the tragic, suffering-causing aspects of SBURB and the domain of Lord English more directly than any other character and finds a way to become free of them. It's not that her suffering was in any way merited or right, it's that by rejecting that unfairness, she finds incredible self-affirmation, freedom, and escape in a way that makes her the most direct manifestation of Homestuck's Gnostic themes.

In the causes of her suffering, and in how that suffering is overcome, Jade Harley is the key to the deeper meanings of Homestuck.

The Absent Grandfather

As a person, Jade has suffered unfairly on more than one level. Her later tragedy echoes and recapitulates the tragedies of her childhood, which makes it all the more painful. To understand this suffering, we need to understand her relationship with her guardian, Grandpa Harley.

[A brief digression: at this point, I should probably mention a recent theory by mmmmalo that posits Grandpa Harley as a sexual predator and Jade as a victim of abuse. I feel bad even bringing it up, because mmmmalo seems like a really nice guy, and I really enjoy his work tackling Homestuck from a psychological/psychoanalytical perspective, but I just can't really buy this theory. For one, Grandpa isn't at all characterized as capable of that kind of evil. The closest we come are some dubious feelings about Grandpa from Dave that are clearly him projecting his own issues onto Jade (he's never even met her grandfather), and the odd fact that Grandpa obsessed portraits of beautiful blue women from beauty parlors--discomfiting, but ultimately kind of harmless, unless you really stretch it as a psychological metaphor. To my mind, there really isn't that much to substantiate anything worse here.

Furthermore, the Alpha kids, as ever, offer opportunities to understand the Guardians in more depth, and there's little reason to think Grandpa would be substantially different from Jake English. mmmmalo posits that in DBZ-esque fashion, Jake hitting his head turned him good, but I just don't buy it, especially when Jake's "head injury" isn't actually real--it's one of his excuses for avoiding his own failings. (See the Jane's birthday conversation for how this plays out.) For my money, Jake and Grandpa are pretty similar: nice enough people whose biggest flaw is avoiding responsibility by retreating into the landscape of their own fantasies.

Ultimately, this particular leap is too big a leap for me to take, particularly because I feel like it would need to be addressed on a textual level (like Bro's abuse was with Dirk and Dave) if it was meant to be taken as canonical fact. I feel like mmmmalo's theories are at their strongest when they focus on the psychological experiences of characters, rather than when they try to posit hidden secrets in the canon. The first just feels so much more useful and reliable for me as a method, at least. No shade to mmmmalo, though: I hope he keeps on writing his own brand of fascinating Homestuck analysis for years to come, because he's doing stuff no one else is and it always leads to exciting new approaches.]

Now, none of this is to say that Grandpa Harley never had a negative impact on Jade. Her childhood trauma actually concerns him very deeply. As we see in the scene where she imagines him dictating to her in the foyer, she's both nostalgic about her grandfather and angry with him. She's filled with conflicted feelings about him, positive and negative at once. But the harm comes across in a completely different way, a way that's deeply textually supported and fits with what we know about Jake English.

Jade thinks that her grandfather committed suicide.

At least, she does for the vast majority of her life, until Tavros explains otherwise.

At a whimsical tea party with a plush doll, Grandpa seemingly, from Jade's perspective, took his own life. Here's Jade telling the story: GG: i spent years wondering about it! GG: when i was REALLY young, i was sure the doll sitting across from him did it GG: and for a long time i was terrified of the evil blue girl!!! GG: she sort of haunted my childhood and i had trouble sleeping for a long time GG: but of course i got older and realized that was silly, but then i just speculated that maybe it was suicide GG: which was just a really sad thing to think about!!!

Understatement of the century. This moment shaped Jade's entire psychology. Those who have lost loved ones to suicide often report wrestling with a mixture of grief and anger: anger that they were left to pick up the aftermath. For Jade, this was a moment of abandonment. Her guardian, who should have been there to take care of her, took his life and left her alone on a deserted island with only her (admittedly magic) dog to help her survive. For years, she had to take care of herself, to serve as her own guardian in his absence. Grandpa should have been there, but he wasn't. The culmination of the "increasing stakes" of the Beta kids' guardians is that Jade's guardian is dead and gone.

The scene of Jade squaring off against her stuffed Grandpa in the foyer is thus, like many elements of Hussie's writing, played for both comedy and horror at once, a true Hussnasty grotesque. For some time, Hussie builds up the mystery of Jade's guardian (using, I think, Dave’s remarks and Grandpa’s weirdness to build a sense of unease), only to shock the reader with an ugly revelation that carries echoes of horror-movie jump-scares. The man in the foyer is no man, but a symbol of death, a skeleton, a mummy, a rotting corpse in the place where a protector should be.

Grandpa's fatal flaw is absence itself.

[This is maybe the psychological motif mmmmmalo's picking up on? I feel like you could very easily read Jade’s feelings of horror and disgust as an echo of this suicide, and thus see Lord English as a mythic echo of Grandpa's absence as much as his presence. That’s my take, anyway.]

Hence Jade's anger in the foyer. He has left her alone, forced her to take up the responsibilities he failed to uphold. She pretends he's alive and imagines him chiding her for not being prepared to face the wilds alone--a situation she knows he put her in. Hence her snapping back at the corpse that she's already perfectly prepared, thank you very much. The scene mixes nostalgia, grief and anger in the saddest way.

This fits with the way Grandpa is themed around DEATH. Not only is he a mounted corpse, his collections of knights, mummies, big game, and degraded beauty shop photos evoke history and the dead, echoing his undead presence in Jade's life. (They also suggest he carries memories of Jake's friends: an orange knight, a pink girl from a land of pyramids, and a blue beauty, furthering the connections between Grandpa and Jake.)

But Grandpa, like Jake, is also themed around FANTASY. Or ESCAPISM, perhaps. Grandpa lives the life of a millionaire explorer-physicist, the boy howdy rough-and-tumble existence that never existed out of Boys' Adventure Comics and Teddy Roosevelt. His trophies and relics suggest a life of constant fantasizing, a retreat into his own self-image to avoid facing the world. After all, if you move to a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, you never have to interact with anyone else. This is astoundingly consistent with what we know of Jake's flaws: he constructs narratives to hide from responsibility and his own mistakes, from ignoring Jane's anger to ignoring the unaddressed issues in his relationship with Dirk to ignoring Jane's romantic interest in him the moment he finds a convenient excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway. Grandpa seems to be cast in very much the same mode, and his whimsical relics further the theme.

For Jade, though, Grandpa's ESCAPISM has also been harmful. Because Grandpa left her what must have seemed the ultimate moment of escapism: a tea party with a stuffed blue doll. Think of what Jade must have thought later: that Grandpa went out lost in daydreaming about a beautiful blue girl. That maybe he planned that as a way to end it all. Her anger is fueled in part by the fact that he ran away from the responsibility of raising her, into his fantasy world instead.

Of course, as readers we know that's not true: Tavros was the one who, through Bec, shot the gun. But there's a grain of truth in Jade's perception of the situation: while not suicidal, Grandpa was being irresponsible. Lost in his silly tea party, he missed the fact that his granddaughter was about to shoot herself with a flintlock pistol. She was saved by Tavros's redirection, while he paid the ultimate price for his distraction.

So Grandpa's flaw, like Jake's, is one of absence and escapist irresponsibility, death and fantasy. Grandpa really did harm her by his absence. And in his absence, all he left her with was necessity.

Jade takes care of herself, because what else can she do? She feeds the dog. She does what she needs to do to survive. She goes about her day. She defines herself in opposition to her grandfather: if he was irresponsible, she will be responsible. She will do what's necessary, no matter what it takes.

And she represses the fuck out of her grief.

This is way buried for most of the time we know Jade, but it comes to the surface when we meet Jadesprite. See, in addition to having a reminder of her Grandfather's mortality, Jade has spent her life face to face with her own. Her dreamself, which represents the one place in her life where she let herself go along with fantasy and escapism, is already a stuffed corpse. Consciously or subconsciously, she knows that happy escapist world will also die. When she prototypes that body, though, she's acting out of responsibility and necessity as part of an effort to defeat the threat of Jack Noir. She expects that a version of herself will share that desire.

But Jadesprite presents what is to her the most nightmarish possibility: that she might prefer living in the fantasy to responsibility. She tries to comfort her alt-self at first, but quickly becomes disgusted that a version of herself could feel that way. But it's not surprising: Dream Jade was the only version of herself who could let herself lay down responsibility and necessity and admit to herself the extent of her fear. Unfortunately, this isn't the way Jade would like herself to be. Jadesprite is exactly what she represses. There's a seeming moment of catharsis when Jade and Jadesprite become one, but, as I've noted before, Hussie ultimately suggests that spritefusion isn't enough to fix what Jade struggles with.

None of this is Jade's fault. It's the way she's been shaped by the outside force of her grandfather's death. Her grandfather was flawed, she lives with the consequences, picking up the pieces of the loss, doing things out of necessity.

SBURB recapitulates that tragedy, forcing Jade to reckon with her trauma and her perception of her own relation to it.

The SBURBan Tragedy

Is SBURB evil? I used to see it that way. These days I'm not so sure. Conversations with revolutionaryduelist have shown me that, despite its dangerous side, SBURB is usually presented in a neutral light in canon, more amoral than deliberately cruel. It's a Game that can be put to different purposes. RD argues that SBURB is ultimately little more than an extension of its players' wills, and I find a lot of reasons to agree.

As I've argued before (particularly in my Self Pile Essay, though my feelings have evolved since), I strongly feel that the ending of Homestuck relies on a critique of SBURB, that it depicts the Game as inherently tragic. You wouldn't think this would jive with RD's notion of "do what you will," but I actually think these two perspectives can be easily reconciled. A Game that's an extension of everyone's wills can still have a tragic effect on its players, especially on those who don't realize their own power within the system. I'm sure we can all think of times when the wills of others were an oppressive force in our lives. Our critique of SBURB, then, is really a critique of the uses to which the Game has been put, by overpowering wills like that of Caliborn/Lord English, who makes the alpha timeline bend to him without realizing how much it echoes his own limitations.

Like Grandpa Harley, Lord English (the unseen conductor whose riddle is absence itself) forces others to reckon with the implications of his choices. The complex web of time loops and paradoxes LE leaves in his wake forces our heroes to act out of necessity and to take responsibility for their escape.

So while I might talk about SBURB in negative terms here, understand I'm talking about the mess of all the loops, all the implications of the many harmful wills and choices our kids have to deal with. Jade in some ways most of all.

Initially, Jade experiences SBURB as a positive force in her life. It allows her freedom and happiness; companionship among the people of Prospit while in her most optimistic, worry-free mindset. She participates in its necessities, its enforced time loops, not out of obligation but in connection to her dreaming happiness.

As the kids' game goes on, though, Jade loses Prospit and her dreamself, and loses, too, the easy release from herself that they represent. Like all the kids, she becomes aware of the threat of Jack Noir, and directs her responsible mind towards the necessity of dealing with him--leading of course, to her clash with Jadesprite. Later, this focus shifts to take in the true cause of everything that went wrong in their session: the unseen guiding hand of Lord English.

We all know what happens to Jade because of this. In the original timeline, all our kids' efforts fail, and all of them die in the events of Game Over, Jade first and most surprisingly. John retcons the timeline using his retcon powers, and achieves victory by changing the course of events. However, it's a victory that causes Jade to suffer deeply: in the final timeline, she loses and grieves John and Davesprite, her closest friends on the Battleship voyage, and for a time wonders if she was responsible for their horrifying, baffling death. Later, she learns from a mysterious sentinel (Alt-Calliope) that it was all part of a larger plan. This is a relief to her, but as much as she'd like it to, it doesn't erase her grief.

This is brutally, totally unfair. And that's the point.

I've seen folks point out that the retcon could have gone many other ways: for instance, merging the populations of the meteor and the battleship. That's true, but it misses the point a little, I think. The Retcon is an arbitrary solution to a large problem in Paradox Space, acting out of necessity to bring Caliborn's will to a close. Remember that John didn't choose how his retcon would go: he worked it out with the Game itself through his Denizen. Not only did the Game bring forth the very tools to end Caliborn and close his time loop, finishing what his will started, it also worked out the logistics of the timeline that would get them there. And that's the tragedy.

John had only the vaguest idea how his actions would affect Jade, knowing only that either he would die or people would grieve him. By working with his Denizen, he mastered his powers and managed to create a reality where everyone could escape the will of Lord English. But it created an awful situation for Jade, and indeed, he's horrified when he finds out that was the result.

For me, the victory our kids experience over Lord English and his will as manifest in SBURB isn't presented as an unambiguous one. Rather, it's triumph mixed with shades of tragedy. John's reformulation of reality has consequences. The loss of our kids' coherency of self (see the Self Pile) is one of them--I do think it's meant to be at least a little disconcerting that it's new versions of our beloved characters who get the victory. And it's Jade who represents that tragic element the most, because she suffers the brunt of it. The fact that Jade suffers because of the Retcon tells us that for all the positivity of the final scenes of Homestuck, there's still a dark side to the system of SBURB.

Because there was never any point at which any of this took place outside the system of SBURB. It gave Caliborn what he wanted, and then took it back again, not because it had any intentions towards him, but because his will was self-defeating and self-limited. And through the Denizens, it gave our kids the escape they wanted: but they still had to deal with the necessity of responding to Caliborn's intentions, and perhaps SBURB'S own limitations, too. It could give them an escape, but not without certain consequences.

It's no coincidence that Denizens make a resurgence near the end of Homestuck. They are the Game's way of engaging in dialogue with its players, and they preside over every aspect of everyone's ending. Yaldabaoth gives Caliborn his deal, while Echidna signs off on the birth of the Genesis Frog once she's had a chance to inspect its guardians. Echidna is also the one who guides Alt-Calliope towards ending Caliborn's reign. And Typheus lets John become a retcon master so that he can win his friends their complicated victory.

Thinking about this has helped me make sense of a scene that initially baffled me. Near the end of Collide, the story turns absurdly positive: our kids win victory after victory over every opponent they were facing. And then, suddenly, disconcertingly, the scene begins to fade out and flash with static, while strange cries are heard. Then it freezes, and the mechanical contrivance that Hussie once used to represent Homestuck's Acts and narrative is all we can see, frozen in black and white.

Those strange sounds are the sounds that played in scenes with Denizens. And not just any Denizen: the specific whale-song we hear is the voice of Typheus, the Denizen who helped John negotiate his retcon and who, through blowing up a duplicate John and Davesprite on LOWAS, is the most directly responsible for Jade's suffering.

The message of the end of Collide, then, brought spectacularly home by this juxtaposition of victory poses and sudden distance, is that the victory achieved, while real, was negotiated by the systems of SBURB and Skaia every step of the way. This, too, is the message of the Spirograph that suddenly appears at the end of Act 7: our kids have left the Game for good, but the Game goes on without them, and always will.

Jade's experiences show what the costs of that might be.

The Gnostic Triumph of Jade Harley, Witch of Space

And yet.

Jade also achieves victory. An even more powerful victory, in fact. In a deeply Gnostic moment, she confronts the arbitrary suffering of SBURB in a way none of the other kids ever do. She directly confronts the Game, and the cruel intentions unleashed through it by Lord English, by moving beyond them altogether and claiming her own agency.

It's Davepeta who helps her see it.

Once, Jade thought she was responsible for her friends' deaths. Later she learned from Alt-Calliope it happened as part of SBURB's cosmic plan. She was able to take some comfort in that: but it didn't keep her from her grief. When she meets Alt-Calliope again, Jade continues to try to make sense of her experiences through the lens of necessity, through the lens of a responsibility she has to fulfil.

Let's look closely at the difference between what Calliope says about the Space role, and how Jade interprets it for herself.

CALLIOPE: why the hurry? CALLIOPE: you have already proven your heroism in the moments when it was needed most. CALLIOPE: it is important to know when the greatest good is best served by remaining dormant. CALLIOPE: whether that burden is for close to eternity, or only a few more minutes. CALLIOPE: it is something to learn as a space player. CALLIOPE: space falls back. it yields. hosts the play silently. CALLIOPE: then, it roars to life when its time comes, showing all who is really the master. CALLIOPE: and so too when the time comes, it collapses in on itself, taking all else with it.

Calliope argues that Space is about patience, that patience itself is heroic. But Jade interprets this to mean that loneliness and suffering are a cross she must bear. As she says shortly afterward:

JADE: as a space player... someone who "falls back" as she said JADE: maybe being pushed aside by fate, and like JADE: being deprived of important people and experiences JADE: no matter how painful it is, or how much you feel like you need them JADE: i guess thats just how it goes for us JADE: i think i never appreciated how much of a burden your aspect was to you JADE: but i think im starting to get it now JADE: it just took a long time to figure out what mine really meant

But that's not what Calliope is saying. Alt-Calliope is talking about Space, to be sure, but she's talking about it in terms of her own role. Alt-Calliope is a very different person from Jade, one who is entirely comfortable with placing her identity and agency in the hands of necessity, with sacrificing everything for necessity. But what works for Alt-Calliope won't work for Jade. Jade needs friendships, needs her own life and happiness outside the Game in a way Alt-Calliope does not. (And a Muse of Space is a very different creature than a Witch of Space, a much more active and self-oriented role.)

And Calliope knows this, too. While she teaches Jade about her own understanding of Space, she doesn't ask that Jade follow her into the Green Sun, nor does she ask that Jade construct her life in the same exact terms. Again, it's Jade, not Calliope, who tries to suggest that losing all her friends is her Space-y burden to bear. Calliope, however, reminds Jade that they're very different creatures, and need different things:

CALLIOPE: you are still quite young, and your kind is soft. CALLIOPE: the ability to absolutely dominate is better housed in a being designed for seclusion, singularity of purpose, and remorseless resolve. CALLIOPE: it is too much for one like you.

(And here the domination Calliope's talking about isn't just Lord English's, but her own Muse of Space response to that domination, the reshaping of Paradox Space by falling back and then roaring to life.)

Calliope suggests that Jade might choose to go along with the sleep that keeps her from being a danger in the final fight, but she doesn't require it. Instead, she says:

CALLIOPE: if you must have advice, i will give you some similar to that i gave your other space-playing friend. CALLIOPE: i told her to live, where before she had not. CALLIOPE: so too, you are similarly imprisoned by various inertias. CALLIOPE: these weigh on you. CALLIOPE: you are a child, belonging to a race for which that distinction is understood to correspond with experiences of "enjoyment." CALLIOPE: perhaps you should try to have, CALLIOPE: "fun."

Calliope doesn't need what Jade needs. But she knows Jade is more than a means to an end. Jade needs fun, she needs friendship, and she needs happiness. Even though Calliope sees advantage in Jade remaining asleep, she goes out of her way to tell her about the alternate possibilities that might free her from imprisoning inertias.

This leaves Jade somewhat confused. She wants to make sense of her life in terms of the mandates and loops of SBURB/Lord English, fulfilling every necessity. But Calliope rejects that notion for Jade and emphasizes the difference between their species.

So when Davepeta comes along, Jade is wrestling with the strangeness of the Calliope encounter.

JADE: calliope said i was too strong or something JADE: but she also said i should have "fun" so JADE: i dunno JADE: i guess im just waiting around for the right moment

She's trying to make sense of Calliope's offer while still trying to see herself in terms of necessity. Davepeta, though, rejects that completely. When Jade tells them her statement above, trying to describe herself in terms of someone who "has to" be pushed around by the rules of Space, Davepeta responds extremely skeptically:

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < so THATS what space means? DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < bein lonely??

Note the incredulous extra question mark. Jade continues to try to describe herself as someone who has to follow the mandates of others and systems outside her control. And yet as she talks about it, she reveals how dissatisfied she is with that notion of herself:

JADE: but i think that can be one of the results of gaining a deeper understanding of it JADE: or becoming connected to it more... JADE: i dunno, this stuff is all pretty mysterious :p JADE: i dont have it all figured out yet obviously JADE: i just feel pretty sad that as i get closer to understanding my abilities and true nature JADE: it apparently means being deprived of some important experiences JADE: like i get closer to my aspect, but further away from everyone i love, and further from... JADE: feeling like a person? JADE: its just a really empty feeling after a while JADE: empty like... JADE: space i guess JADE: heh

I don't think we're to take this as an absolute statement. While there's truth in Calliope's depiction of space as receptive and patient. I think we're to take these lines as Jade wrestling with her own feelings about the way she should be. Davepeta doesn't argue that Jade should accept this description of herself. Instead, Davepeta opens up a startling alternate possibility: that Jade is more than necessity, bigger than her circumstances, larger than her suffering. If Jade's suffering is an echo of the arbitrary unfairness of the way SBURB divides up our protagonists' selves to bring Lord English to an end, then Davepeta suggests that the key to escaping suffering is to see the self beyond those individual identities:

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but you werent actually deprived of important experiences DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < stuff like us dating and johns stupid birthday parties and playing shitty ghostbuster mmos DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < that stuff all happened to you, its just you dont have access to the memories DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < they didnt happen to shape this particular version of yourself DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but they all played a role in helping like "greater jade" grow if that makes sense DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < everything that ever happens to every version of you is an important part of your ultimate self... like a superceding bodyless and timeless persona that crosses the boundaries of paradox space and unlike god tiers or bubble ghosts or whatever, it really IS immortal DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but in your physical form there are all these partitions in your mind that prevent you from remembering any of that which makes your existence f33l totally linear DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < which is probably for the best! DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < in a regular body s33ing all that would be too overwhelming DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < in an advanced sprite form like mine tho its fine DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < i guess the same spritey magic that makes it possible to suddenly understand so much is also what makes it possible to make it bearable all at once DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < not even just bearable actually sorta liberating and cool DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < and after it sinks in for a while you start coming to this understanding of a greater self

AVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < im not COMPLETELY sure because im not like some sort of ASPECT MASTER but DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < my avian slash feline intuition tells me that all roads will lead you here eventually DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < gaining the d33pest possible understanding of any aspect will bring you to the same final conclusion about your ultimate self DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < so maybe thats starting to happen for you too DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < the space aspect sounds like a hard and lonely road to travel... i think they probably all are DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but youre gettin there jade DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < you are doing great and im so proud of you!

Once again, this isn't Davepeta saying that Jade needs to be happy about what's happened to her--they acknowledge that living in SBURB is painful, a hard and lonely road for anyone of any aspect. But seeing oneself as this "ultimate self" allows one to see a bigger picture, to find meaning in one's actions even when buffeted by what seems to be the cruelty of fate. In a Game whose tragedy is that divides people up into different manifestations of themselves, each going to an arbitrary fate, that's the way to find victory, to find happiness beyond each tragedy. That's the balance that Homestuck's ending is deeply concerned with, and Jade Harley represents it all: both the suffering and the remedy.

Davepeta's proud of her for coming this far. I'm proud of her, too.

But does this understanding work for Jade? Does it free her from the way she saw herself as an instrument of fate, a tool of necessity? I think it does. Because after talking with Davepeta, Jade starts to live her life differently.

We see this clearly in Collide and the events leading up to Collide. Jade was ready to accept that she had to stay asleep merely because it was what others expected of her. But Davepeta convinces her that she should wake up if she wants to wake up:

JADE: i guess im just waiting around for the right moment DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < nah thats dumb DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < you should be able to do whatever you want JADE: really? DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < well at least she was right about the having fun part DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < maybe thats what she meant?? DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < maybe she was leaving it up to you in a mysterious way JADE: leaving what up to me? JADE: the decision to wake up?

Davepeta's message to Jade, informed by their deep understanding of life beyond one lifetime, is that Jade can do things for herself, rather than do them as a reaction to necessity. And the secret is that that choice makes all the difference.

Jade does choose to wake up, and after waking up, rejects any idea that she should go back to following necessity, or other people’s commands:

DAVE: jade DAVE: god dammit DAVE: GO BACK TO SLEEP! JADE: NO WAY!!!!! :P

JADE: i am very much awake! JADE: and i intend to stay that way :)

Jade chooses to take Calliope up on her offer: she chooses to go have fun. For the first time, she pursues her goals completely and utterly for her own reasons. She chooses to take on the mission of dealing with the Omnidogs Bec Noir and PM...pretty much because she wants to. And she does it in her own way: she doesn't get in a fight, but plays with her dogs, recreating the fun times in her life with Bec by warping around and dancing around in the sky with them.

While she ends up getting punched out by PM, it's mostly comic: she isn't hurt or upset--she had a fun time, and did what she wanted to do. She's asserting her own agency, not responding to the will of anyone else, be it Lord English, Dave, John, or any of the other players. She takes on SBURB's boss mechanics in her own terms and enjoys herself doing it. And what she's able to achieve by this is *reshaping the rules of the Game.* Because of her, PM beats Bec Noir. For the first time in the known history of SBURB, White beats Black, Prospit beats Derse, entirely thanks to her presence. This change is subtle but huge. It represents what Jade's doing on a cosmic level: she's creating the Game, creating her reality, for herself, not responding to anyone else's intention, but putting forth her own to shape the world.

The Gnostics of ancient times said that the material world we lived in was merely an illusion created by the tyrant Yaldabaoth, and that all we needed to do to escape his tyranny was to look within ourselves. Because we were made of the same stuff as the True God, filled with the same wisdom as Sophia, and if we could truly know ourselves, could know exactly who we were, we could walk back through the gates into the Garden of Eden, knowing that we were God, part of a true divine reality bigger than anything Yaldabaoth could understand.

So, too, does Jade Harley, GardenGnostic, in that moment, know that she is bigger than anything that once defined her. Not her grandfather's death and failings, not her role as a link in the prophecies of Skaia, not Jack Noir, and not the limitations of a single Jade in a tragic timeline. None of those things define her. She is greater still, the JADE beyond Jades, and she has just as much power to make SBURB, to make all of Paradox Space what she wants it to be as any would-be tyrant. She stares Lord English in the eye, and knows she is as great within this contest of wills as he is. They all are.

And that makes Jade a little bit different from her fellow gods: she knows in full what the rest of them are only beginning to understand.

When we next see Jade after Act 7, in the Credits sequence, we see her growing plants again after a long time away from her garden, returning to her own personal Eden, and we see her spending time with John, Dave, and Karkat--all the people that she loves.

Knowing who she is, she has escaped all the inertias that once bound her, and is turning reality into what she wants it to be.

In the world of SBURB, that's the way to find a happy ending.

[Next time: Maybe I’ll do that reception of the ending thing I promised last time? Or maybe not? Maybe I’ll be too busy playing Hiveswap? Maybe life is full of infinite delicious possibilities, and we’re all riding this magic train out to the Pleroma together? Who knows, man. Who knows.]

#jade harley #grandpa harley #homestuck analysis #jake english #homestuck #off-the-cuff homestuck thoughts extravaganza 2017 #gnostic influences #gnostic themes #alt calliope #space aspect #freedom to live #THE ULTIMATE SELF #homestuck ending #understanding homestuck #suicide cw #csa mention

282 notes · View notes