Analysis post about [S] Collide

Alright, so I loved Collide. It was such a glorious clusterfuck of powers and personalities colliding with tons of callbacks. And the part that I loved most about Collide was The Felt versus Jake and Arquiusprite. It was so crazy and calamitous. The fight leaked all over the place with tons of things happening on screen at once. The Felt in their typical incompetent fashion had a ton of power, but weren’t very good at using it precisely. What resulted was Homestuck’s trademark fight scenes that are simultaneously clever and chaotic.



Before I get into the thick of it, I’ll rank the flash from best to worst.

1. Arquius (and later Dad) brawling with Cans

2. Jake (and later Jane) scrumming with the Felt

3. Davepetasprite^2 FIGHTs Lord English

4. Karkat’s dance with Clover

5. The Smuppeteers participate in the Jack-off

6. Roxy and her sidekick John fight Condy with a little help from Rose and with Kanaya cheerleading

7. Meenah, Aradia and Tavros flounder against Lord English

8. Vriska.



9. Bec Noir dogfights PM

Wait, what? Why is Bec Noir’s fight at the bottom? If you had told me back in 2012 when I first caught up in that Bec Noir would be the least interesting fight of the final battle, I would have been shocked. But it’s true. Bec Noir’s fight was contained and uninteresting compared to Collide in geneal. Sure, they were teleporting all over the place but it was a way less interesting sword fight than, say, Dave and Bro’s strife way back in Act 3. Bec and PM have been sword fighting for 3 years in-comic and for 5 years out here in the real world. It’s just boring routine at this point. I never even felt like their fight was threatening anybody else.

But it didn’t have to be that way. Just take a look at the best fight in the flash (in my opinion). It’s between Cans and Arquius. That fight has a very similar format. In fact, aside from the dodging and the fist fighting, you might say that it’s almost exactly the same. But you know what the critical difference is? Cans and Arquius affect other characters. They affect the ENTIRE battle. Jack and PM have the power to do that to a far greater degree. Why couldn’t they have accidentally/on purpose teleported characters to different planets? How come Jack didn’t threaten to kill the Mayor or take anybody hostage? Where were the Green Sun’s energy bursts? Jade’s interference in the fight was neat and all but… if Jack’s preoccupation with fighting PM doesn’t threaten the kids in any way, then why does Jade even have to intervene? Two immortals locked in combat until the Green Sun is destroyed. From a meta perspective I know that Jack and Bec’s fight can harm the others but it’s not conveyed in the fight at all.

I still love all the fights in this flash. Even the Jack and PM fight is good once Jade starts interfering (The art during Heir of Grief in particular is fantastic). Karkat versus Clover is perfect because it takes up exactly as much time as it needs to, is hilarious and fitting to boot. Jake versus the Felt is fun as hell. We see a timid boy who’s been made to feel useless and weak get to do what he’s always wanted to do and by the end of it he feels triumphant and happy.



The Smuppeteers have a pretty good fight as well. If there’s one thing that makes it a bit weaker than the Felt fights, it’s that I do kinda feel like there’s too much stationary stuff and empty space in it. It’s possible Hussie ran out of time with that hard deadline on the 6th. But still, I love seeing the conceptual ways that powers combine. Dave’s powers were used to explore the timeline and Terezi’s were used to find the right one. Dirk tries to use his soul shenanigans to bypass Jack’s rainbow powers. Terezi, Dave and Dirk were all indispensible. And I was definitely sold that both Slick and English were huge threats. Not to mention that glorious, cathartic, emotional capstone at the end of the fight.



Condy vs Roxy and the gang was less interesting than the Smuppeteers or the Felt fights. Unlike with Terezi above, we didn’t really see much evidence of Rose using her Seer abilities. She just kinda shot beams of light. That might be okay, though. It’s completely within her character to defy her role to do something that’s not suited for her, and we see her get wiped out of the fight because of it. One weakness is that I feel like John should have been causing so much devastation with the Windy Thing. He blew out an entire planet covered in fire even before reaching God Tier. He also drilled a gigantic hole to the core of the medium. Remember how I said I love chaotic fights? That didn’t stop being a thing. He didn’t even use his windy dodge here. Oh well, I suppose all that would have been hard to animate. The best part of that fight was that Roxy was exactly on point with her weird and fun bullshit. I’m fine with Kanaya serving as basically useless in the fight. It’s pretty vital that she not get perma-killed. Condy herself felt a lot less dangerous here than in she did in Game Over, but in fairness, Game Over only saw Aranea and Rose attacking Condy, and Rose did actually die in both fights, while Roxy didn’t die in either fight. Oh, and there’s also the whole fact that Roxy’s crew had a lot more morale and planning on their side.



Davepetasprite^2’s fight was pretty great. It’s interesting that while all the other ghosts struggled to budge Lord English an inch while working together, every single one of Davepetasprite’s attacks knocked Lord English around like crazy. The main thing I think that would have made that fight 100% perfect is if Lord English sustained exactly one scratch on him, even if it only did surface damage. And also to further reference scratching like the rest of Homestuck does to a dangerously fetishistic degree. Ooh, wait, what if Davepetasprite^2 clawed straight into Lord English’s back, ripped out a heart and crushed it in their hand? Rogue of Heart Zandatsu! (Of course, Lord English would still swat Davepetasprite^2 away, it’d just be for fun.)

The rest of the Furthest Ring stuff was mildly interesting, but nothing I’d really come back for. Oh, except for the Karkat charge at the beginning. That was fun.



I only put in Hussie versus Vriska at 8 because… well, I hope I shouldn’t have to explain why. 8^y

One final thing. The order of characters getting defeated is meaningful. The first set of foes that are defeated are the Felt. It is said somewhere in the comic that the Felt need to be defeated in order for Lord English to be vanquished. Dad pockets Cans, Karkat pockets Clover, Jake pockets the rest of the Felt. Next, we see Jack English being killed. Keep in mind that Jack English contains the original Caliborn’s soul, the one that was banished into the void in the first place. With the Felt gone, Dave can fulfill his destiny and kill him. Then the very next time we see Condy, she gets stabbed in the back. Her immortality curse has come to an end now that its master has been slain. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Jack Noir is defeated but he isn’t killed. All of the most dangerous bosses of Homestuck have been stopped, save for the guy in the Furthest Ring, but that one is somebody else’s responsibility. Ooh, wait, I’ve got a new theory off the cuff right here. What if when Dave does his t1ck t0ck 8r8k H34DS thingamajig at the end of his fight, the implosion causes Lord English’s soul to possess Doc Scratch’s empty vessel all the way back in Intermission 2? That would be cool. Somebody already probably has covered that though.

