What does it mean to be a hero?

Dave and Rose contended as much with their identity as heroes as they did with the more conventional challenges. They both started out with a lot of preconceptions about themselves and what they aspired to be, and those ideas effected their quests and their stories all they way from one universe to the next.



Both kids had an arc that was foreshadowed all the way from act 5. Rose was supposed to realize her folly, control her hubris and become a team player. While Dave was supposed to pick up the sword and kill the boss. But now…

In this post retcon timeline, neither of them seem set up to do any of that anymore. Dave has rejected his role as a traditional hero and there are at least hints that Rose is about to do the same with her sburb role.

Strap yourselves in, this’ll be a wild ride of a through the character arcs of everybody’s favorite beta paradox twins from the dark moon circling the furthest ring.

Lets start with their lands



Rose’s land was a giant pastel princess passive aggressive clusterfuck designed to encourage her to literally tear it apart.

It was the pink isle of planets, the equivalent of that beautiful pony she got for her 13th birthday

Dave’s world and quest was full of teen boy stereotypes- a paradise of fire and mechanical things, with denizen’s based on large carnivorous terrors of pirate captains everywhere, a direct contrast to Rose’s shy herbivore turtles.

Jade and John’s worlds are both much more gender neutral. The color palettes can’t really be assigned to either toy aisle (snow, frogs, glowing mushrooms, woodlands). It could be that gender identity, as well as identity in general (what I should be vs who I am) were given physical form on Dave and Rose’s respective planets because identity was a huge issue for both of them.



Side Note: Derse dreamers seem to have planets that are more gendered than Prospit Dreamers, I’m not sure if that means anything or it’s a coincidence. But gender roles and sburb deserves its own gigantic post…I’m gonna keep this one focused on Dave and Rose.

I had to add a cut because this post is VERY VERY LONG

The Quests -

Rose was supposed to tear her session apart, this had to happen in order for the crew to have a chance in hell of winning the unwinnable 24 hour game. They all had to take short cuts, and Rose did her best to figure things out without much help from anyone else besides a certain white cue-balled enormous tool doc scratch.

Dave’s quest was also framed heavily by his land.

While Rose chaffed against all that pastel princess handholding, Dave interpreted his quest as being something that somebody else with more man-hero qualities could have done better.



He couldn’t just pull not-excalibur from the stone, he had to break it. because Dave feltl like he wasn’t a manly enough hero dude to force it out whole, nor did he have a pure enough man-heart to make the stone cough it up voluntarily.







Both Derse kids went whole hog through most of act 5 act 2, going along with the roles assigned to them by both themselves and the game. And theennnn, the unthinkable but inevitable happened-

Rose’s mom died, and Rose placed all the blame on herself.

Moments before, Doc Scratch let Rose know that her game breaking ‘magic’ powers were not her own. They had actually been given to her by beings beyond the furthest ring. This whole time she hadn’t been subverting anything. Instead she had had her strings pulled from behind the scenes by both the game and her sources of information.



Nothing that Rose encountered wanted her to have autonomy, this is arguably true for all the kids but it effected Rose the most. The desire to have automony, to go her own way and find her own path was such much a part of her life before and during the game.

At nearly the same time, Dave’s bro died, but he didn’t blame himself for his death. He just decided ‘oh shit Jack murdered someone I cared about, I need to take revenge even though it won’t work.'

The key is that Dave wanted to go after jack because that’s what a hero is supposed to do. His natural inclination was not to go charging off after murderer.

Rose on the other hand, got so angry that she gave herself over to dark gods for the chance to beat jake into a bloody pulp.



^this is not the face of a girl who needed to goad herself into getting violent with an omnipotent wolf-dog.

Dave and Rose’s Roles in the game are at odds with their nature. - Rose is action oriented and a soloist. She stops at nothing once she has a purpose-



Dave is much more of a team player- (cue rad montage)

^^doomed himself by going back in time to stop john & jade from dying, then turned into a bird so that he could help alpha timeline dave learn the ropes.^^

(end Dave Helps Out with Timetravel- the montage - Also I think everyone should have a Dave butler)

Dave is more concerned with keeping everyone safe and on track than breaking new ground or defeating the game. Ironically, Rose is better suited to be in the traditional hero role of ‘Dude in front, squaring off against boss’ while Dave would most naturally be in the middle some where supporting the rest of the team during a boss fight.

But Dave decided to hell with communication and team work, I’m going to suicide on the dog boss because being a hero means standing up to the bad guys when they do you wrong!

Yeah so Dave’s stupid-brave suicide mission turned out a lot worse than Rose’s-

Jade shot him, then Karkat of all people had to talk Jade through the accidental murder of her good friend. Dave dumped all of that stable time loop heroic sacrifice malarky that he’d been struggling with on her, then left her to kiss his bleeding corpse before he double-died on Derse. It’s safe to say that this wasn’t one of Dave Strider’s Proudest Moments.

Later on he used this event to explain his refusal to use his powers in the original timeline. Death by Jade also happened in the reset timeline, and though he didn’t mention it directly, it was still the reason he stopped time traveling back in act 5.

pre-retcon



Dave realized that time travel lead him into a situation that was categorically terrible.



post-retcon -



Dave realized that a combination of the game(stable time loops) and his own ideas about needing to 'be the hero’ had led him to a place he didn’t want to go as a person. Like pre retcon terezi, he was painted into a corner of heroic death by his own ideas about what he should be - all that 'proper masculine behavior’ and heroism that he had 100% bought into at the time– as much as Terezi bought into her 'eye for an eye’, 'all criminals must be punished’, 'justice is blind’ ideals.



Rose, on the other hand, kept using her powers to prepare for the next game session, but the death of her mom haunted her. In the doomed timeline, this guilt became a major driving force of her character arc.

Rose never got past her mother’s death in the old timeline. She drank to feel closer to her memory and worried about being a disappointment to her teen alt universe mom. She kept catching glimpses of Roxy but was always snatched away before they could connect. Rose never went looking for Roxy, even when they entered the new session.



In the new timeline, Rose didn’t hang onto the idea that she was a shitty daughter, and it shows in her confidence levels. Rose talked about her personal planet quest in both timelines - The handholdy one that smelled strongly of feminine stereotypes as much as LoHAC stunk of masculine ones.

pre retcon -

Rose’s personal planet quest isn’t important anymore, even though she feels it should be.

post retcon -



It’s a seemingly small change, but now Rose knows why she never was interested in the quest instead of believing that her feelings are invalid. This is a Rose who regained whatever self confidence she lost because of act 5 tragedies. Rose and Dave were able to spend part of those three years learning from the past instead of hiding from it. I THINK THIS IS GOING TO BE REALLY IMPORTANT TO THE END GAME YOU HAVE NO IDEA

That confidence allows her to take this extremely weird and meta revelation seriously-

Rose is aware of her character arc, and that it has gone nowhere in this timeline. She’s no longer questioning her gut feeling that her planet’s quest is no longer important. Instead she’s asking the tough questions like ‘i am an important person so why was my arc replaced by the lalonde sisters comedy hour?’ This is the most meta-aware we’ve ever seen any of the good guys except maaaybe Vriska, when she inserted herself into the creation of Bec Noir.



What does all this self awareness mean for the Derse Kids? -

Once upon a time, Dave had a CLEAR story purpose-

His next god tier level was ’Pimp Slayer’ and his personal quest was all about acquiring a sword with the eventual goal of KILLING LORD ENGLISH or trying to kill lord english –

DAVE: Apply sword to LE until one of you dies.

In post retconland, Dave went gone a step further. He completely rejected his old idea of heroism, and that idea of heroism and masculinity is the kind of shit that Caliborn is all about in the most overboard way possible-

Caliborn’s paradigm is a scary place, never get stuck in it.

Dave essentially rejected the worldview of Homestuck’s final boss, this could be very important.

Rose never had a hinted at path beyond ‘most likely to get possessed by horror terrors and/or fall prey to her own hubris’, but she was a Seer of Light-



Parts of this class don’t fit Rose at all. She’s down with sifting through future events to find the most fortuitous outcome. But the idea of standing back from a fight and supporting your allies is something she struggled with. Rose wants to discover all the answers herself, she wants to be front and center in the fight. Alright, most of this is speculation. I can’t think of a single instance where Rose came out and said ‘I feel stymied by my character class’. But she certainly felt antipathy toward her land and her personal quest.

The first thing Rose did when she entered the game was take down a giant ogre in one shot by stabbing it in the eyeballs with her knitting needles then rode it’s torso down the mississipi. David, just give your sister the sword so that she can fight LE, you can be the seer for awhile it’ll be fine.

ROSE is right, her character arc has been derailed–but why? The answer might be Caliborn. –



Hear me out, this timeline was created by powers given to John by Caliborn’s old weapon, so the mean green machine’s ideas about gender roles and the natural laws of reality could be influencing the post-vriska-never-death timeline in fundament ways.



Rose could be realizing that she’s been sidelined, possibly in favor of her brother- Mighty Hero of Homosuck

I realize that Caliborn’s misogyny doesn’t explain Vriska’s rise to power as clearly, but she was never featured in homosuck as having anything to do with anyone. Double Roses, Jade and Jane asleep on the floor, davekat and the slight goofiness inherent when one person can suddenly fix everything (remember the magical lollipops?)

This could be a blessing in disguise. One of Rose’s huge problems in act 5 was being Dr Scratch’s ‘unwitting apprentice’. I wonder if Rose is going to find a way to be more effective if she’s not being funneled down the path of personal growth by the game? Maybe both siblings will have to be something more than an Knight and Seer in order to beat LE.

Ever since act five, the story has been telling us that Dave was supposed to kill Lord English. Dave has now rejected everything that was shoehorning him into the role. He does not want to be the dude with the badass sword who will go toe to toe with the big green skull guy.

Pre-retcon Dave didn’t like the role either and never figured out why.

Post retcon dave can look at the situation and say 'This traditional masculine hero stuff is bullshit, it’s not how I do things or who I am’. Dave seems set to figure out how he’s supposed to be a hero, rather then try to conform to society’s/the games/caliborn’s idea of heroism, and his conclusion might be what lets the beta kids avoid the fate Caliborn illustrated in his puppet theater.

The traditional bad guy vs good guy showdown to the death might not be the only option anymore, just because two dersite dorks have gained a deeper understanding of themselves and their situation. There are other kinds of heroism.

May 9, 2015 with 2,646 notes