by @ohthewhomanity​

Rogues are one of the few classes whose abilities are explicitly defined in Homestuck canon. According to Calliope, Rogues are the passive counterpart to Thieves. A Rogue is “one who steals”, specifically one who steals in order to benefit others. We can assume that while Vriska Serket, Thief of Light, steals others’ luck for her own use, a Rogue of Light would give that luck to someone else.



“Steal” doesn’t actually seem to be the right word for what a Rogue does. “Steal” implies that one is merely taking from another, and that a victim is left with nothing. But after reviewing the abilities of Homestuck’s three Rogues, I find myself preferring the term “redistribute” to describe their actions.

Rufioh Nitram has been discussed before on this blog as someone who steals freedom, but his Alternian incarnation, the Summoner, didn’t seek to take other people’s freedom for himself. When he started his rebellion, highbloods had much more freedom than lowbloods. His goal was to overthrow the old regime and start a new era of equality–that is, to redistribute societal freedoms, and leave everyone with some freedom, rather than merely taking all the freedom the highbloods had and giving it to the lowbloods, leaving the highbloods with none. Beforan Rufioh, who seems only interested in stealing for himself, hasn’t achieved his full potential as a Rogue of Breath.

Nepeta Leijon is a Rogue of Heart, so the concept she redistributes is the soul, or identity. While she never reaches God Tier and her powers never become as literal as they might have, she has a purrdilection for roleplay, which involves taking on other identities. On the meteor, she and Equius roleplay as each other, achieving two goals: each attains a greater understanding of how they both feel in response to their friends’ recent deaths, and their positive and negative emotions are shared, leaving neither with too heavy a burden at the moment.

When Nepetasprite is prototyped with Davesprite, the resultant Davepetasprite^2 is much more self-assured and confident in their new, combined self than they ever were before. Nepeta’s presence in the sprite causes a redistribution of her and Dave’s identity traits; his use of irony combines with her use of roleplay to create a more genuine kind of self-expression, and their respective anxieties and securities regarding how their friends view them ultimately balance out. The result of this redistribution is undeniably beneficial to all involved–not only does Davepeta feel great about themself, but they’re also motivated to help Jasprose and ARquius feel better about themselves, and to help take down Lord English.



(It’s possible that we will see another application of Nepeta’s Rogue of Heart abilities when Davepeta confronts Lord English, but until then there’s nothing to do but wait.)

Roxy Lalonde, the only Rogue in canon to reach God Tier, shows a wide variety of redistributions. If we treat Void as the opposite aspect to Light, which represents knowledge in addition to luck, then Roxy definitely handles redistribution of “lack of” knowledge: now and again, her powers block out the Cherubs’ viewscreens, keeping Caliborn from both knowing too much and using that knowledge to meddle with her game. While I was planning this essay, @marathemara pointed out to me that Roxy’s behavior as a Rogue of Void involves a bit of wordplay. She “causes voids in the Carapacians’ stomachs to disappear”, effectively robbing them of their hunger by redistributing pumpkins across space and time. Eventually, Roxy learns how to “steal the essence of nothingness” from ideas, creating many Perfectly Generic Objects on her quest to restore the Matriorb.



Despite how Roxy’s powers may appear on the surface, Rogues don’t make new things. The Matriorb didn’t really come out of nothing; it came from a combination of the idea of Matriorbs, what Matriorbs represent, and Calliope’s influence as a Muse of Space. Rogues take what’s already there–knowledge, ideas, and emotions–and rearrange and redistribute until something new comes of it–new understanding, and new chances.

Put another way, Rogues work with the cards they’ve been dealt and manage to make a difference anyway. To all observers, they appear to end up with a different, better hand of cards than what they started with–but really, they got there via the bad hand and a lot of improvisation. Not only do I find the Rogue method totally cool, but I also think we can learn from it and apply it to real-life problems. We might not always be in a good situation, but we can always work with what we have towards a better situation.