Why Inversion: BladekindEyewear vs(??) HomestuckTheorist

Last night (and this morning as a reminder, through some asks), I stumbled across a very nice… argument? Against class and aspect inversion, made in a reblog of one of my posts.

And I’d like to start a reblogged discussion with its writer, homestucktheorist! Though, the thing is, um…

I’m not exactly sure we disagree on much! HomestuckTheorist just draws the opposite conclusion for some reason. Hm.

I’ll go through his post step by step. EDIT: And at the bottom, I’ll list the alternative theories currently warring against Classpect Inversion, and why I think Classpect Inversion is most likely.

homestucktheorist:

Good evening. I’ve heard a lot about Aspect Inversion lately, in both the Tumblr and Reddit Homestuck communities. It seems a lot of people are super gung ho to the max about this theory and its implications for our non-God-tiered players, but I feel that a lot has been taken out of context and built upon nothing more than (innocently) mistaken supposition.

Oh! I just noticed that homestucktheorist was an account made just for this post.

Maybe they did this because I waited too long on the post I was going to do about the alternative theories to role inversio- Ah! That’s what I’ll do: I’ll do it here! Skip to the bottom if you want that.

But anyway, on with HT’s post. (I’ll call him/her HT as shorthand.)

For those who don’t know, the theory of Aspect Inversion is one in which a character switches their mythological role through various circumstances. It was hinted at in the comic itself here: UU: it is certainly possible that we may have common groUnd with oUr ancestors when it comes to oUr aspects, and the way oUr abilities reveal themselves to Us. i coUld not rUle this oUt.

UU: bUt there is always more to examine.

UU: for instance, a hero of life and a hero of doom have aspects as different as can be.

UU: bUt if their classes are different enoUgh as well, that is, one active and the other passive, remarkably there is a chance they coUld end Up with very similar abilities!

UU: player abilities may also manifest in ways in defiance with their aspects if they are heavily resistant to their trUe calling. or, if corrUpted in some way by an oUtside inflUence. Kind of vague, isn’t it? But so very, very tantalizing. The implications are quite profound, and many of them are explored thoroughly in bladeKindEyewear’s own theory blog. You can’t navigate his site for less than a few moments before stumbling upon an extensive and thought-provoking analysis of Aspects, Aspect Inversion, and their potential role in the story. Indeed, it is from bladekindEyewear that I find the inspiration to write this article myself. See reblog. You see, while he is a talented and passionate theorist, I don’t think he’s necessarily going down the right track. The lynchpin of the “Bladekind Aspect Theory” is the line from the aforepasted dialogue wherein Calliope implies that a player’s powers can manifest in defiance of their aspects if they are heavily resistant to their true calling, or if corrupted by an outside influence. The prime example used by Bladekind is the supposed inversion of Rose when she went “grimdark.”

Quickly, I wish to note: while what Calliope said to Roxy was perhaps the ‘lynchpin’, the standout element of canon confirmation, it wasn’t at all our only evidence that this was the case…

According to Bladekind, because Rose was both heavily resistant to her true calling and influenced by the Horror Terrors, she inverted her class from a Light player to a Void player. This is backed up with the fact that any who attempted to spy on her via Trollian found her blacked out, similar to any who try to spy on Roxy.

LilDurandal has a large post on the evidence for Rose’s aspect inversion. (After her dreamself merger, Rose was exhibiting plenty of personality changes and actions associated with Void, being curt and withholding information, destroying the code-filled journals, et cetera.) Later, I made another post, claiming that Andrew had been dropping hints that Rose’s class inverted as well, a Seer to a Witch, and highlighting a bit more evidence.

And by extension, back to HT…

With this example taking the lead, it’s logical to assume that each Aspect has an opposite pole, and that perhaps even their Classes have opposites of their own. This is further backed up by another tidbit leaked by Calliope when she discussed Active and Passive classes.

If a Seer and Witch are truly opposites, there’s a heap of evidence that Jade was inverted to a Seer of Time before her dreamself was killed.

I’d like to note that Seer<->Witch class inversion is the only class inversion with concrete evidence. Everything else is highly speculate, and based on a class chart which I have confidence in but could be wrong.

Go ahead and read all those links before we continue. Because here’s where HT starts to tread a path I never alleged, and attribute opinions to me I never had.

But is this really what happened? Is it truly so simple? Does it take such little effort for a character turn from a Seer of Light to a Mage of Void?

NO.

It does not take “so little effort” to invert. I’ve posited that a player can ghost traits that hint to their inverse from time to time - harmless and usually unhealthy personality aspects, when frustrated or under duress, that fit their inverted role, and are sometimes important for them to appreciate to become a fully realized player - but to fully invert, it takes inundation in one’s inverted aspect, often outside interference, and often massive emotional trauma.

Do you remember what Rose went through before she started truly trudging down the path of darkness?

TT: Sorry, John.

TT: I’m just nervous about it.

TT: About whether telling you what you definitely will or won’t do will alter a predetermined outcome.

TT: The result would be a splintered timeline, and we would all be sentenced to eventual oblivion.

TT: I’m presently optimistic this has not happened yet, and this is still the alpha timeline. I’d like to keep it that way.

EB: oh, wow.

EB: you mean like when i died in another dimension, because terezi hornswoggled me?

TT: Yes, sort of.

TT: It isn’t much fun, John.

EB: what’s not?

TT: Living for months in an offshoot reality, waiting for the curtain to drop.

Rose merged her memories with a version of herself who had spent months doomed, drinking, listening to the horrorterrors, and waiting to die.

And that only started her on the path, granting her the resolve to alchemize the Thorns of Oglogoth.

Rose had to watch their one-day session fall apart around them. She had to commit to a suicide mission. She had to stumble across a view of her mother’s bleeding corpse. And then she had to look into a malevolent cueball exposing the very motives of the Horrorterrors to her eyes.

This isn’t a 'sudden switch’. It’s a massive upheaval of one’s personality.

Let me quote one of the replies I already found to HT’s post (actually how I stumbled across it in the first place), by dendrago:

(Reposting from my Reddit comment. I feel it needs to be shared here.) Okay, a point I think should be made here. Inversion isn’t something that happens willy-nilly whenever things get tough for the player. It’s not a small occurrence, nor is it one to be taken lightly. It is caused by serious trauma or major intervention by outside forces, and the only way Rose snapped out of hers was by dying. (Dying really sobers you up quick.) Yes, it’s entirely valid that a player’s aspect and class are not only their powers but also their effect on reality and their very personality itself. However, can you honestly say it’s impossible for a person, not just in the game but in real life, to start acting completely differently after a traumatic event? Even in reality, these kinds of changes don’t just simmer off on their own over a short period of time; they require an event just as major to the trauma itself and most often the help of friends to overcome. Though he may overdo it with some of his theories, such as overdiagnosing inversion on some occasions, I’m a supporter of BYB and especially of classpect inversion.

Emphasis mine.

Have you heard of Jungian personality types, through Myers-Briggs tests and the like? The scores you get representing various measures of your personality such as introversion/extraversion, and coming out in dichotomic letter form like “ISFP” or “ENTJ” or similar?

Well, did you know that the system states that under prolonged stress or sudden trauma, individuals can fall into the grip of their inferior functions, using their opposite letters instead of their preferred ones? :)

Moving on to more of HT’s stuff:

I think that this is a very linear way of thinking for too nuanced a concept. One has to understand that these Classes and Aspects are a matter of fate. They are not just the determining factor of one’s abilities in Sburb, they are the definition of that player’s role in the perpetuation of existence; chosen before their reality came into being by the temporally cyclical providence of Paradox Space; etched not just in stone, but in the very fabric of their Universe. This is not something that is idly switched back and forth depending on how a character feels emotionally. Consider Rose, who is the only character to have “inverted” in the entire comic. As a Seer of Light, her powers are thus: ARADIA: as a knower of all fortune she can see the circuitous path that will lead to the most favorable outcome for everyone Rose Lalonde is, was, and always will be, a Seer of Light—this is her role, her destiny, and there is no changing what is already woven into the fabric of Paradox Space.

What you have to understand is that I completely agree with the above, except for a note about the statement I bolded!!!

Your player role IS etched in stone. It’s who you are and how you operate, down to your very soul. You will be better at your role than anything else, because Skaia saw down to your core and knew what you could be. And trying to oppose your role, oppose the very nature of who you are and what you’d best love doing, is inherently unhealthy, and will lead to misery and misfortune.

Even Jade Harley, who I alleged inverted as well, was not as helpful and healthy as she seemed when playing a Seer of Time. She slept through everything, her existence marginalized, didn’t believe that she could make a substantial difference in anything (as evidenced by Jadesprite’s confessions), and her signature accomplishment while inverted - arranging the robo bunny as a present to John - caused Jack Noir’s ascent!

By forcing narcolepsy upon Jade, Vriska interfered with Jade’s ability to feel capable and relevant, Jade knowing anything she tried to accomplish could be cut short by a sudden snooze with only the invincible Bec to rely on to take her home. And in forcing dreams and reality to mix for her so often, having Jade swim in the clouds of Prospit’s eclipses with Skaia, Vriska inadvertently inundated Jade in a prime source of the sight of Time. Over the course of years, this resulted in her inversion. It didn’t happen 'lightly’, and it wasn’t healthy, either. As Jadesprite evidenced, Seer-of-Time-mode Jade was in no state to stay heroic amid stress.

When she went grimdark, her powers were clearly manifested in defiance of her Role—take note my labor to avoid saying “inverted”—due to the influence of the Horror Terrors. She did not become a Mage of Void when entering into contract with the Horror Terrors. She was still a Seer of Light.

Witch of Void. Not Mage! Passive understanding to Active understanding wasn’t at all the flip, here. …ahem.

Anyway, let me further clarify something. You’re right: Rose was still a Seer of Light! She is, was, and always will be a Seer of Light!

This is why I said “playing a Seer of Time” with Jade. What my inversion theory alleges is that you may act out the powers and personality of the opposite of your role, and only the opposite of your role. Your true role, and true calling, never changes.

But her powers were twisted and mutated by the dark pact to which she agreed and instead of seeing all fortune, she became blinded to it, and in so doing blinded others to the same. This also led to the near downfall of their entire party. After all, she, John, and Dave all died around this time. This is less an inversion and instead a total shut down of a fundamental aspect of her being. That’s aspect with a lowercase a. This is all just as Calliope said. A player’s powers can often manifest in ways that are similar to another Class and Aspect. Rose was a Seer who, if you’ll pardon the hyperbole, closed her eyes. The Light went out. This can easily be interpreted as a power of Void, but it wasn’t. Not really. A dim light is still light, indeed. Nothing about Rose’s destiny changed.

Nothing about Rose’s destiny changed indeed. But are you still disputing that the power Rose harnessed was Void?

Andrew has been hinting this to us all along. Do you recall Seer: Ask, the page when Rose looked into the ball and went fully grimdark?

This is the panel on the page right after it.

Yes, her viewport is going dark, just like Roxy’s powers etc etc. But that’s not the point. Why did Andrew cut to this view for two pages, just to cut straight back to Grimdark Rose? We’d seen the viewport blackout before… why show it to us again in this specific fashion?

Kanaya is viewing the event through Equius’s lenses - a Hero of Void’s - and doing so through the cracked black shades that symbolize Void and the shattering Furthest Ring!

Furthermore, her grimdark speech was unintelligible lovecraftian gobbledegook, much like Roxy’s typing while submitting to alcohol is garbled and hard to read into at times: because Void is the aspect of the obfuscation of information!

Andrew’s been telling us this. Hiding it here and there. Just like all the “Witch” stuff he threw around with Rose! We just didn’t know to look until Calliope spoke up.

As for the black tentacle spooky bullshit that was coming out of her wands? That is easily attributed the inherited powers of the Horror Terrors, which are as mysterious as they are magical. This has nothing to do with her Aspect or Class. This was just regular ol’ magic, which is clearly real and always has been. I will stress this again. The only part of Rose’s “inversion” that was related to her Aspect was the inability for others to see her, similar to a Void player. And yet still it was the power of Light, however corrupted, that manifested during this change. Besides, “going grimdark” is not a common event. It is not a game mechanic in Sburb. Rose’s case was special. In fact, any case in which a player may find themselves resisting their role could be considered a special case. That’s the beauty of the mythology of Homestuck. Each adventure is unique despite sharing a common template, and the ascent to one’s realizing their full potential is rife with struggles and doubt. It would ruin the importance of their personal destiny if they switched sides every time things turned bleak.

“Going grimdark” is not a common event because your soul has to be systematically turned against its best interests for it to happen. It is necessarily unhealthy and unfortuitous. And each time we see it happen, the results are bound to be progressively worse. We initially thought that the Horrorterrors were indeed responsible for Rose’s powers, but…

TT: And while I’m at it, I should discard these useless wands, because apparently the power was in my little black heart all along. Is that right?

The evidence came to suggest that they were an extra channeled source for power that resided within her - the potential to disastrously oppose her aspect, harming everything around her and marginalizing herself into oblivion. After all, they persisted in blacking her out even as her dreamself after dying once, as if she was still inverted… and only God-Tier ascension righted her. And there was her adult version post-scratch to note, too!

Adult Alpha!Rose, Roxy’s past guardian, blacked out monitors all over the place too, after all. Was she being controlled by tentacle demons all her life? Because Calliope seems to deliberately suggest otherwise… in the full context in which we received this very idea.

UU: the void aspect is fascinating, thoUgh.

UU: its heroes preside over the essence of lack, or nothingness. the obfUscation of knowledge, or its oUtright destrUction. […] TG: so when u cant see me

TG: when im doin my voidey thing or w/e

TG: what do you see is it just a black screen

UU: pretty mUch! :U

TG: hmmmmm,..

UU: hmmmmm?

TG: its just that footage of my mom does that too

TG: like blacks out and stuff

TG: mom was a notoirious scourge to the papayazzi

TG: or i mean

TG: the womom who im supposed to be genetically descended from

TG: *womam

TG: know what i mean?

UU: i Understand what yoU’re getting at, yes.

UU: it is certainly possible that we may have common groUnd with oUr ancestors when it comes to oUr aspects, and the way oUr abilities reveal themselves to Us. i coUld not rUle this oUt.

UU: bUt there is always more to examine.

UU: for instance, a hero of life and a hero of doom have aspects as different as can be.

UU: bUt if their classes are different enoUgh as well, that is, one active and the other passive, remarkably there is a chance they coUld end Up with very similar abilities!

UU: player abilities may also manifest in ways in defiance with their aspects if they are heavily resistant to their trUe calling. or, if corrUpted in some way by an oUtside inflUence.

UU: bUt it is rather clear to me yoU are one who embraces her aspect qUite heartily, even if yoU are not aware of it. ^u^

What Calliope is really trying to say here - what she was stepping around, avoiding 'casual spoilers’ - is now obvious.

“Your mother wasn’t a Hero of Void… she was a Hero of Light opposing her role!”

With - as you mentioned earlier - some more evidence that points to classes inverting as well.

Aspect Inversion is a cool idea, don’t get me wrong. It’s certainly fun to think about and it’s cool to think of what would happen to our heroes if they ended up turning into badguys. But it simply does not jive. On technical level, it is grossly misinterpreted from the source material and is in no way supported by anything shown in the comic thus far.

GG: I just want to go to sleep and not wake up forever.

*Cough.*

On a philosophical level, it defies everything we have learned about our heroes as individuals. “Classes” and “Aspects” are too integral to who they are and who they are meant to be. The strength of a player may waver, and their faith may wan, but who they are as a person will never change. It’s actually a pretty heart warming message. Let’s all contemplate it.

It is a heartwarming message, as their true calling, what they’d be happiest doing, will never change! We never disagreed on that.

Which is why I find this entire argument a little funny. Don’t you think?

Alright, now that I’m done with HT’s post, it’s time for something I’ve been negligent in answering for the longest time: What are the acceptable alternative theories to Role Inversion?

Let’s see, where were those asks…

Anonymous asked you (2012-12-28 05:17):