by lackadaisicallexicon

Warning for casual reference to Mindfang’s various crimes (murder, rape).





The Beta trolls’ ancestors are some of the most compelling characters in Homestuck, rich with cultural nuance, drama, and a mystique their human counterparts lack. Whether this mystique is rooted in their place in ancient history, the reverence they are shown in legend and canon alike, or simply in their incredible deeds, there is no denying that one ancestor in particular has not only had a profound effect on the way the story was shaped, but received characterization so in-depth that it’s astonishing this blog has taken so long to write about her.

At the risk of digging myself into an even deeper pit of her characteristic verbosity, I’ll cut to the chase—this is just a little essay on how much there is to love about the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang.

When Mindfang is first introduced, it’s as the only ancestor with lines—even now, with a few brief words from the Condesce, she’s the only one to speak with any degree of depth or detail. The tale Mindfang spins of her conquests; namely, the humiliation of Orphaner Dualscar, the vicious physical and psychological rape of the Dolorosa, and the execution of Neophyte Redglare, are reminiscent of a bodice-ripper. Right out of the gate, she starts talking about who she’s boning.

But even in these contexts, Mindfang is very much the manipulator. Her journal entries reveal, in addition to startling arrogance, a talent for reading the political motives of her opponents and a haughty dismissal of those like Dualscar, who she sees as beneath her notice regardless of objectively higher caste. It’s that arrogance, of course, that leads to her initial defeat at the hands of Neophyte Redglare, and eventually to the early knowledge that the Summoner would be both her matesprit and her murderer. And of course, she even manipulates the reader’s views as the only source of information on the dramas she describes.

In short, Mindfang was a self-obsessed, dramatic, and very powerful woman who learned the limits of her power by underestimating that of others and overestimating her own. But Mindfang becomes much more interesting in light of her copycats, especially the one from the other side of the Scratch.

Aranea Serket, at first sight, is almost nothing like Mindfang. Despite a similar tendency to long-windedness, she’s peaceful, pleasant, and generally viewed by her friends only as a strange psychic. Even her hair is short and much neater than Mindfang’s wild tangle. But it later comes to light that Aranea wishes she could be like Mindfang, adopting a view of her post-Scratch self similar to that held by early Vriska Serket. Aranea molds herself to her romanticized idea of Mindfang, rather than fitting into that mold neatly.

This is interesting because, for the most part, the alpha trolls exhibit the same traits as the beta ancestors, simply under different selective pressures; Meenah’s belief in the power of cruelty as a motivator to act, Kankri’s sanctimonious pontifications, and Porrim’s divorce from the roles of her caste all spring to mind as examples of this. Aranea and Mindfang are the only exception—Aranea is a bookish, long-winded nerd, and Mindfang is her polar opposite.

Aranea’s pursuit of Mindfang indicates that Mindfang underwent a similar transformation. If the pattern of matching personalities holds, that means that Mindfang, like Aranea, was once a young, relatively peaceful girl with delusions of grandeur. Unlike Aranea, though, Mindfang lived in a time and place where living out such fantasies was an excellent way to make it in society. In short, her barbarism was the troll way to be civilized, and so she was incredibly successful.

The tale of the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang is not just one of hubris and punishment. It’s one of how dangerous people can be when their society permits them to live out the power fantasies we all to some degree hold in ourselves, and that’s what makes her character such a winner. Mindfang is a self-made woman, in every conceivable way, and in every universe she stayed true to the character she wrote herself.

