Uh oh. It’s been a while. Here’s a classpect that WASN’T requested but has been sitting in Google Docs for over a month!

Overview

Sylphs create and heal their aspect, or they create and heal through their aspect, for the benefit of others. Although Sylphs are great at making their aspect, they tend to over-create sometimes. They are very passive and are usually good-natured, but they can wreak havoc when they decide to be active. The challenge of a Sylph is to know when to interfere, and when to hold back their aspect. Sylphs are natural healers, teachers, and helpers.

Hope is the aspect of positivity, imagination, belief, possibility, and righteousness. The challenge of the Hope-bound is to know that positivity isn’t always the best solution or treatment and to be aware of the fact that they might be wrong. The Hope-bound tend to be encouragers, dreamers, and paladins.

A Sylph of Hope creates and heals Hope, or creates and heals through Hope, for others.

Active Equivalent: Maid of Hope

Classpect Inverse: Prince of Rage

Analysis

A Sylph of Hope is, in my opinion, one of the better Sylph classpects, and is a very helpful and powerful Hope player. Creating Hope in others is very constructive and useful, especially if you’re in a Sburb session where Hope is often hard to find. A Sylph of Hope would instill optimism, imagination, and belief into others. Again, this is VERY helpful in a Sburb session. Optimism to get you through your problems and hurdles, imagination to alchemize cool new items and a belief that what you’re doing is right, and that it will turn out great. In day-to-day life, a Sylph of Hope would be a real team player. If other people are feeling depressed, overwhelmed, or hopeless, the Sylph of Hope would be the one to give them a Hope or tell them the possibilities of what they can do to overcome or deal with whatever obstacle they may be facing. Now, they might not be great at offering concrete solutions or permanently solving their issues, but they would be great at helping people through less dire problems, and the sheer abundance of Hope they would Create would be much more effective at easing problems and Rage than many other Hope players. Not only would they simply give Hope, but they might also attempt to make Hopes into reality. If there’s a goal someone else has in mind, the Sylph of Hope would do their darndest to make that Hope real. Maybe someone has an idea in mind for a cool costume or project, or perhaps someone has always wanted to try a new ice cream flavor. Or maybe, there’s a giant pit that poses a danger to the community and needs to be filled. As long as the Sylph of Hope deems the idea righteous, they’d Make the Hope happen. It might take a lot of energy or meddling, but the Sylph of Hope would do it.

I imagine that a Sylph of Hope would be challenged by the fact that they are predisposed toward providing Hope for others. In creating possibilities for others, they deny themselves their own Hopes, which could lead to them becoming Hopeless, and is very bad!! Watch out for statements like: “It’s the last piece of pizza…you can have it!” “Oh, I was planning to do this…but if you want to do that it’s okay…” “Really, I have no problems with you dating them! Go ahead!”

Because Sylphs tend to over-create their aspect, a Sylph of Hope could Make so much Hope that it could prove overwhelming to some, or it would just further infuriate those with problems too big or complex for simple Hope. And while Hope players are great at helping others see the end goal and persevere, Hope is not a very physical aspect, and thus Hope players are not good at offering concrete solutions or advice. Sylphs are healers and natural helpers, however. So they might be better than other Hope players at actually helping people through their problems. Again, Hope is not a physical or concrete aspect, so the advice and guidance of a Sylph of Hope wouldn’t be factual or certain; it would be open-ended and whimsical. A Sylph of Hope wouldn’t tell you exactly what you need to do to handle a situation; they’d give you multiple vague options, or a loosely coherent solution assuming the best.

Because they Create Hope, a Sylph of Hope would be great at creating hopes and possibilities. A Hope that the team will win, a possibility of how someone can escape a one-sided relationship, a Hope that crushes all negative opposition.

Inversion

Inversion is when a player changes to act like their opposite classpect, due to ignorance of their own title, or some significant event. The Inverse of the Sylph of Hope is the Prince of Rage, one who destroys Rage or destroys through Rage for themselves. I imagine this inversion would occur when someone doesn’t believe or trust the Sylph of Hope or even causes the Sylph of Hope to feel doubt themselves. The Sylph of Hope would desperately try to convince the other person that they or right, or would try to erase their own doubt. This would cause the Sylph of Hope to inverse into the Prince of Rage. They’d be filled with anger at the other person’s disbelief and would destroy any opposition. Princes also destroy They would also attempt to get rid of any doubts they might have, firm in their beliefs. The Prince of Rage is a scary classpect, so a Sylph of Hope snapping would be extremely dangerous. Being righteous and/or being firm in their own beliefs can easily become a fault of the Hope-bound, and this righteous conviction could easily translate into a chaotic conviction that would bowl over opposition (literally, if things get too intense).

Prospit Vs. Derse

This is a section dedicated to understanding the differences between a Prospitian Sylph of Hope and Dersite Sylph of Hope. Lunar Sway plays a huge part in determining a person's’ character and behavior, which can sometimes make the person more difficult to properly classpect or give off the impression of other aspects. My hope is that this section will help you better understand the differences between these two types of people, and how to recognize the two.

Prospit: A Prospitian Sylph of Hope is basically one of the most, if not THE most optimistic person you’ll find. The optimistic nature and generally good-natured attributes of the Prospit sway combined with the optimism and belief of the Hope aspect, WITH the passive and excessive nature of the Sylph, make for a battering ram of optimism. The Prospitian Sylph of Hope wouldn’t be a very cautious or strategic person. Their belief and optimism^2 with the emotional ‘in-the-moment” decision making accredited to dreamers of Prospit make them a person who doesn’t think too much about things, but has an undying Hope that things will turn out well. When offering advice, they wouldn’t offer one solution; they’d offer many. Imagine a sort of bush, with numerous branches and potential fruits, even though those branches are short and the fruit’s quality questionable. They’d believe there’s always good to be found, and would always Make optimism. They’d be one to fling themselves into any project or cause offered to them that sounds good or righteous and has a result. The Prospitian Sylph of Hope WILL save those penguins, they WILL donate money to that charity, and they WILL build a park on top of that pit!

Derse: A Dersite Sylph of Hope makes for a pretty interesting character. Being a Derse dreamer, they would be much more strategic and thoughtful than their Prospitian counterparts. To this end, their advice would be more thought through and potentially cynical, which could make it much more clear and helpful in the long run. They wouldn’t really sugarcoat things, but they would make sure that their advice is tangible. Instead of spamming the Create Hope button for overwhelming optimism, they’d create a clear, singular Hope to guide others. Instead of believing the best all the time, they would recognize that some things are complicated and twisted. This would mean that they might also be more selective of things they choose to Make real. They would very effectively Make that one Hope real, however, they might come off as uncaring or unbelieving the rest of the time.

Powers

Before god-tiering, a Sylph of Hope would possess an imagination full of the Hopes of others. Guardians other players lost, fantastical weapons they desire, and possibly other versions of players; they might be a version that their real self Hopes they could be, or they could be what another player Hopes they could be. Being surrounded by the Hopes of the other players would help the Sylph of Hope better and more clearly encourage others. At times of great Hope or belief, they might be able to heal wounds. The potency of their healing would correlate with their own levels of Hope and Belief. At a pre-god-tier level, however, it’s unlikely they would be able to do anything more than healing a major wound.

Post-god-tiering, a Sylph of Hope would have a powerful array of unique abilities. The most significant would be that they can actually Create the Hopes of others. If another player Hopes they’ll someday be with their Guardian again, the Sylph of Hope (with enough belief) would be able to Create an imaginary version of the Guardian to be with or fight alongside the group. This concept opens a lot of doors and could be an extremely powerful ability. The Sylph of Hope could effectively Create whatever others Hope for. Do they need an army to help them fight the Black King? The Sylph of Hope would be able to Create the army that they Hope for. Or how about a cool fort? One Hopeful fort, coming up! The power of Hope is built almost solely Belief, so the Sylph of Hope might be rendered ineffective if their belief and Hope is weak. Things are only as real as the Hope-player believes they are, after all. I think it could be possible these Hope constructs might be even more real and physical because the Sylph Creates. I can imagine if the Sylph of Hope was reaching some peak Hopeness or whatever, they could actually Create something real, and not just the “real as long as I believe” real, like, ACTUALLY real. An actual human being, perhaps? This ability just has way too many exciting and powerful ideas, I’m sure the Sylph of Hope would be a VERY interesting character to explore.

Now, healing. At this level, the Sylph of Hope would have the basic healing powers that other god-tier Sylphs would have. However, as stated before, the exact power of their healing would depend upon their own Hope. Remember, the Sylph of Hope heals through Hope. So if their Hope is weak, they won’t be a very effective healer. If they have incredible Hope (Sylphs tend to create an over-abundance of their aspect, remember), they could effortlessly heal their teammates, and with an insane amount of Hope, they could even revive a dead player. Sylphs can also heal things related to their aspect. Aranea is a Sylph of Light, an aspect about relevance and information, strongly related to vision and seeing. Hope is an aspect of belief, possibility, and positive emotions. So, a god-tier Sylph of Hope would be able to cure depression, filling up the lack of positivity and belief in the future. Temporarily or permanently? I’d say permanently, but a weaker Hope and/or stronger depression might make the “cure” less effective.

Session Strategy

The Sylph of Hope would be a VERY good player. With healing, positivity, and some pretty sick powers, having a Sylph of Hope in your session would be incredibly beneficial. Hope is an aspect of positivity and belief, things that can run low in your typical session of Sburb. All of the canon Hope players we’ve seen have been very bad at…well, bad at Hope. I feel that Hope players, in general, are responsible for keeping Hope up; making sure nobody is going crazy or is losing Hope for the session and the future. So having a player who excels at healing low Hope and creating new Hope would be extremely beneficial to the emotional health and stability of the team. To reap the full rewards of this great classpect, go god-tier. If I had to rank all the classpects based on how soon they should god-tier, the Sylph of Hope would definitely be up there in the top 20. Creating Hopes is a POWERFUL ability! I like the Sylph of Hope because their powers make them one of the best offensive Sylphs. Couple that with their great healing powers both physical and emotional, I’d confidently say this would be the best Sylph to have in your session. As the rule goes for everyone, you don’t need to god-tier, but having a god-tier for the final battle against the Black King would be incredible! If they god-tier earlier though, they could maybe use their Creating Hope powers to create an army or something to help other players on their planet quests. The Sylph of Hope would be responsible for healing the broken Hopes of the players, first and foremost. However, I’d imagine they’d also be great alchemists as they CREATE HOPE. You might want to put the Sylph of Hope in charge of ALL alchemy, considering their passive nature. They’d use their great imagination to create epic items and weapons, certainly better than some of the other players could come up with. So I really see the Sylph of Hope playing a mostly supportive role in their session; keeping everyone chipper and Hopeful, and alchemizing items and weapons. Keep in mind they wouldn’t be a great planner or leader. Hope is not about having a plan. As stated before in this analysis, a Sylph of Hope wouldn’t have concrete plans or answers, they’d mainly provide generic encouragement. The only thing to watch out for would be the Sylph of Hope losing Hope themselves. Because they create and heal through Hope, losing it would essentially handicap them. This is especially important for the final battle against the Black King. If the Sylph of Hope is Hopeless going into the final battle, their powers would be kaput and their healing would be nonexistent or minimal at best. As stated earlier, make sure that the Sylph of Hope doesn’t deny themselves their own Hopes and dreams just because someone else might want them.

TL;DR: The Sylph of Hope is a supportive optimist that gives others Hope and turns dreams into reality with their imagination and excessive nature. They have the power to make things real and heal through their belief. They are one of the best Sylphs, hands down.

Parting Words and Thanks

Man, I really should make these faster. With the Summer here though, I’ll have much more time to play video games and watch Netflix write about Classpects! If it’s any worthy excuse, I want these analyses to be the most in-depth and extensive analyses done for any given Classpect. Thanks to optimisticDuelist for the sweet Class and Aspect cards! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch Parks & Rec.