by lackadaisicallexicon

I freaking love the hemospectrum. Let’s put that on the table where everybody can see it. Racist? Yep. Classist? Check. Oppressive? Absolutely. But in my opinion, it’s one of the most subtle and brilliant pieces of the comic.

To examine why the hemospectrum is so important, first we have to recognize that Andrew Hussie deliberately did not examine ethnic and racial differences among humans in the comic. By making the characters “canonically aracial”, and making no allusions to their races outside of their having blank, chalk-white skin (even going so far as to make Tricksters canonically white, to emphasize that the humans are typically not so), the author has made it clear that race is not something he wishes to explore with Homestuck’s humans. Yet the existence of the hemospectrum proves that he is not averse to thematic racism. In fact, all the conflicts presented by the hemospectrum subvert the various “isms” they stand in place for.

The hemospectrum, unlike the human concept of race, is inborn. Human racial and ethnic lines easily blur into obscurity, even along lines of color and ethnicity. On the other hand, in trolls there is an objective and pretty inflexible definition of each caste, as well as traits common to the castes in particular. But the idea of any part of the spectrum being superior is very conspicuously destroyed.

Lowbloods are less physically strong than highbloods, but they also are less inclined to violent traits. Lowbloods are more psychically susceptible than highbloods, but they are also more likely to be psychically gifted. Lowbloods live much shorter lives than highbloods, but they exist in far greater numbers. Each trait or advantage given to one side of the hemospectrum is balanced by by a negative trait, so as to specifically prevent any sort of actual superiority from existing.

Even troll language is structured by the author to make fun of classism. The supposedly crass lowbloods use highly formal language (for example, “ablution trap” for bathtub), while Eridan, a member of the highest non-royal caste, refers to using “fridge” instead of “thermal hull” as the more aristocratic choice in diction, a reversal of what humans would consider more noble.

The differences that do exist between the castes, especially the massive wealth disparity between high- and lowbloods, are deliberately engineered. It is clear from observing the trolls’ hives, from Aradia’s tiny cottage to Feferi’s massive castle, that the gap between rich and poor young trolls on Alternia is one created first by amount of building material allotted by carpenter droids, and then most likely perpetuated by funds allocated to young trolls (for example, as shown by Feferi and Eridan own’s possession of expensive and precious jewelry, while Aradia, for instance, wears a frayed skirt). So the wealth disparity is not one borne of natural lowblood inferiority; rather, much as with humans, it is the result of economic discrimination.

The Beforan iteration of the hemospectrum is perhaps the most interesting. While Her Imperious Condescension enforced culling as execution to make the gene pool more potent, Feferi’s method of culling was the norm on Beforus: a dehumanizing casteism, in which highbloods spent their long lives serving lowbloods and the variously unfit, to the degree that being culled on Beforus was horrible to trolls, as it essentially placed them in a padded cage for the rest of their lives. This parallels the harm that “White Man’s Burden” style racism perpetuates in the real world.

For those unaware, “The White Man’s Burden” was a poem by Rudyard Kipling that justified the horrors of imperialism by claiming that white people had the moral responsibility to, at apparently great cost to themselves, civilize the “savage” brown nations of the world. Beforan Feferi, on the other hand, did the same for highbloods, forcing them to “cull” lowbloods at great cost to the latter for her own casteist purposes.

What most clearly demonstrates the author’s attempt to use the hemospectrum to criticize various injustices is the response of trolls to it: the rebellion of the Signless as an analogue to revolutions spurred on by, at least initially, nonviolent protest; the revolt of the Summoner, an analogue to the equally efficacious route of violent uprising; the botched activism of Kankri Vantas taking the place of the most hypocritical and counterproductive members of the social justice movement; and the liberally enlightened feminism of Porrim Maryam showing a more nuanced approach to the fight.

The hemospectrum allows conversations on sensitive issues like racism, classism, and sexism to occur in an alien environment that fosters discussion—even if that discussion is centered around the idea that using the hemospectrum instead of human issues was the cop-out it sounds like. And that’s why I like it so much. It makes people ask hard questions, but in an environment where they can be discussed safely.