by lackadaisicallexicon

Homestuck adores resonance. It could be said, with minimal exaggeration, that the entire story of the comic is built on cultural and mythological icons; but, in one particular case, Hussie seems to have decided it wasn’t enough to simply borrow and twist. Instead, with licorice, spice, and most things not nice, he made Jack Noir.

I’m going to cover Jack across universes and instances in this essay, as his character can’t be captured by any particular instance of his being. Rather, Jack’s character is one of the most dynamic and malleable in the series, and not exemplified by any specific iteration. As the only named NPC in the game, Jack immediately sticks out as special, and in every universe, he proves that he is.

The first characteristic we are introduced to, the one posited as his central trait in his introduction, is his overwhelming efficiency—even though he hates his job, he’s good at it. According to the Draconian Dignitary, Jack’s the best pen-pusher on Derse, and he proves it in his B2 incarnation (henceforth B2 or Union Jack); while in Prospitian prison, he completes piles of papers taller than he is. The consummate micromanager, the existence of civilization on post-apocalyptic Alternia is entirely the work of the A2 Jack (henceforth Spades Slick), such that his removal from the timeline reverts the complex civilization, complete with gangs and casinos, to a barren desert.

Despite this efficiency, though, nearly all incarnations of Jack develop to lose this trait. The first Jack we meet, in the Beta Kids’ session (henceforth Bec Noir), is that universe’s “cancer” prototyped with the wildly irrational and omnipotent Becquerel, resulting in a general loss of reason—he goes from reluctant pen-pusher to genocide in a single day, such is his instability. The pattern is repeated after the Scratch; B2 Jack is simply an archagent until he is thrown into prison, upon which point he accidentally murders more people than the average serial killer manages intentionally, shortly before being driven mad by a puppet and blowing up Prospit’s moon.

Caliborn and the trolls, being more pragmatic, never gave Jack the chance at power in their sessions. Perhaps this is why Spades Slick, deprived of the power that drove his other selves mad, instead turned to mortal criminal enterprises and became a gangster instead of a raging spatial mass murderer. But, on the whole, the currently active Jacks exhibit a drastic polarization of their original traits: Bec Noir, who became a regicide over a dress code dispute, is now tired of being chased by his crush and consciously protective of Jade; B2 Jack, who seemed fairly even-keeled, has been driven to levels of violence beyond any of his other incarnations; and finally, Spades Slick is now the leader of a larger, even more dysfunctional gang and has a nonlethal romantic interest.



It’s one of the best cases for self-determination in Homestuck. Jack is emphatically an argument for “nurture” in the “nature vs. nurture” debate; even though his characteristics and baseline personality are constant across universes, the nature of the work he does and the way it affects him subtly changes who Jack Noir is to every player team. The players shape the Jack by dictating his environment. To find that they have power in their narrative, they need only look to the angry bureaucrat forced to live in it.