Guest post by @mortharris



I like insects, I like aliens, I like fairies, and I really like things that are all three at once.

Trolls, therefore, are a species tailor-made to my interests, and their mythological consistency in displaying their fey and alien qualities is something that I think all Homestucks can appreciate.

Now, you might be saying, “Fairies? How the dink do trolls resemble fairies? They’re aggressive, militaristic bug aliens. How is that a fairy?” If you are not, you may skip this paragraph; if you are, I will shake my head sadly and recommend the works of Terry Pratchett, as well as a quick glance at the Wikipedia page for “elf”. Modern tinkly, flowery, mischievous-but-not-malevolent conceptions of the fairy folk are heavily influenced by the works of William Shakespeare and Victorian romanticization of nature. In their original legends, however, they are better known as snatchers of men and minds and inflictors of pain and disease … and utterly cruel.

That’s sounding a lot more trollish now, isn’t it? Most early English descriptions of fairies sound very Serketive (which is interesting, given Vriska’s fairy outfit). Either they’re malicious killers like Vriska, murdering out of spite, or they’re haughty controllers like Aranea, playing with people’s minds because they think they know better. Her Imperious Condescension also fits the model of a haughty fairy queen.

Even the name “troll” emphasizes their fey qualities. While the troll species takes its name from Internet trolls, who themselves take their name from a method of bait-fishing, trolls are also, of course, a mythological beast. Furthermore, just as many Earthly trolls turn to stone in sunlight, Alternian trolls avoid sunlight to protect their eyes and skin.



And, when trolls go God Tier, they are gifted with insectoid wings, reminiscent of bowdlerized Victorian fairies. Apart from their distinct larval stage, these insectoid wings are really the only indication we have in-comic of trolls’ insectoid nature (although I have about 1800 words of detailed xenobiology headcanons related to this, since insects are weird enough to justify just about any bullshit alien biology Hussie made up). In other respects, they’re just off-palette humans with horns and fangs, and, occasionally, wings. This appearance is far more consistent with a “fairy” creature than an “alien” one, which makes sense, since trolls are technically from an Earth analogue rather than an alien planet. And what is Fairyland but another Earth, or another dimension taking on the shape of Earth for us?

But the trolls also have alien qualities, and these are qualities promoted by current folklore. Aliens are “the demons, fairies and youkai of a society more jaded by science” (Jonathan Wojcik, 2011); the way we tell stories about aliens is no different to the way we tell stories about fairies. Over the years, Western culture constructed a model of what a “fairy” looks like, and we’ve done the same thing with aliens. Not only do trolls fit older models of what a fairy looked like, they fit current models of what an alien looks like.

First and foremost, trolls are grey. The “Grey” alien has been widely recognized since the 60’s; it makes sense to us for aliens to be grey, and so the trolls better fit into our conceptions. The trolls, or at least one troll in one timeline, also controls human society. The idea of the reptilian conspiracy has also been around for a while; Hussie merely changed the lizards to fish, keeping the trolls still recognizable as aliens by sticking close to our cultural conceptions. And their insectoid nature, conquering spacefleets, and rigid biological caste system is reminiscent of our cultural concepts of insectoid aliens – Heinlein’s Bugs, Card’s buggers, Starcraft’s Zerg.

(Image from the Starcraft wiki)

Trolls draw from both ancient and modern mythology, combining a wide range of design features into one cohesive whole. They’d be great as a species on their own, but Hussie, as usual, does us one better: he ties the fairy and alien parts together.



Fairy and alien mythology already have many similarities; fairies and aliens both abduct humans, for one example, and who can tell whether it’s that time in Fairyland runs slower or abductees have experienced time dilation from space travel? While Alternians do not abduct humans, they do possess great mental powers, as fairies and aliens are both often shown to have; even the hostile superiority complex of the Alternian Empire is a quality often shared by both fairies and aliens. All the fey qualities that Alternians possess make sense for an alien being, and all their alien qualities resemble those in myths of fairy creatures.

But Hussie gives them another similarity that I haven’t seen in other media. Fairies are, traditionally, vulnerable to iron. Not only do Alternian trolls use biotechnology rather than mechanical technology, but their caste system is most dramatically shaken by the presence of mutants whose blood presumably contains a ferric compound – and one mutant disguises his blood colour with a sigil of iron. With some Earth invertebrates having blue blood based on copper instead of iron, and Pratchett’s rather alien elves and Roddenberry’s elvish-looking Vulcans and Romulans having green blood for similar reasons, the hemospectrum itself ties into both well-known fairies and aliens and into the insect qualities that define Alternians.

Trolls are a complex species. They combine a great number of disparate elements from both ancient and modern folklore into a cohesive and inventive whole. They are a good species–in a cool, creative sense, if not a moral one.

