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caligvlasaqvarivm · 6 months ago

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Hey, I was just reading your idea for the ending of Homestuck and I noticed that in your write-up Davesprite died, which I found very interesting. I have always thought that Davesprite's survival sort of combated the idea of being bound and doomed to the Alpha Timeline, and the fact that he made it to the end was thematically consistent with escaping the narrative. What is your opinion on Davesprite, and what do you think his purpose in Homestuck is?

I really disagree with this idea that the "point" of Homestuck is to "escape the narrative," as if the characters discovering a means to unstick themselves from the alpha timeline (which is defined as "the timeline that brings about LE", and thus, has always been set up to be something that must be refuted for a happy ending) is not, in fact, part of the narrative. I think people tend to forget that John's aspect, Breath, is literally about choices and freedom, making the Retcon abilities a natural final culmination of his aspect, and that to master these powers, John was required to finish his planetary quest.

Or that when Dave and Rose discuss how much they don't want to finish their quests, the two of them are at their lowest emotional points (Rose having just gone sober and procrastinating talking with Kanaya, and Dave having just been reminded of his lost childhood innocence to the point he broke down crying). The point of them saying they don't want to continue their quests isn't "yeah, man, we're people, we don't have arcs, it's dumb to do quests" - because, again, finishing his quest is what grants John the ability to choose a new future. The point being made by Rose and Dave's reluctance is that self-improvement is hard, gruelling, unpleasant, and uncomfortable - that Rose doesn't want to do hers because it's painful to acknowledge that she was, indeed, a kid who needed guidance, and not the know-it-all-adult she was trying to be, and that Dave doesn't want to do his because it's easier to give up on it than to grapple with his feelings of inadequacy - easier to be a side passenger in his own life than to fight for a better future. We aren't supposed to agree with them that shirking their character arcs is cool and fun.

"They're escaping the narrative" doesn't actually mean anything... it's an odd battle cry that I believe arises from the HS audience's general unfamiliarity with postmodernism (and the fact that the story makes a hard swerve after Game Over in terms of themes and character arcs, which - given the context of Hussie's life and internet presence during and after - is pretty obviously the result of balking at continuing HS for any longer than they had to). Homestuck's storytelling methods, including its meta-ness, usage of the author as a character, etc. etc., are actually quite standard for that genre - having characters be genre savvy enough to comment on the tropes they see and act in defiance of them isn't new, Homestuck didn't invent that, and still counts as being "a narrative." It'd be "escaping the narrative" if John got his powers, grabbed everyone, zapped them away to somewhere the audience couldn't follow, and then the comic ended like that. But that's not what happened.

If we actually go back and look at Davesprite, his baggage is pretty consistently about the fact that he's not "the real dave". When Jade complains about Davesprite, Dave immediately goes "omfg, this is about him being salty he's not the real dave, isn't it". But that's not all that's in play with Davesprite, because Davesprite is a Dave, and thus a way for us to peer into Dave's psyche. Remember what I said earlier about Dave's reluctance to finish his quest stemming from his worries about inadequacy? That comes up again from Davesprite. The reason Davesprite is so concerned with being not the "real" Dave is because he thinks it's proof that he's inadequate (and, by extension, that the people around him are better off without him around).

DAVESPRITE: maybe she was that desperate to finally get away from me DAVESPRITE: between you and me john DAVESPRITE: i didnt really handle things with her as well as i could have DAVESPRITE: oh well maybe real dave will treat her better DAVESPRITE: or not i dont know DAVESPRITE: i did her a favor cutting bird dave out of her life

You know, because he's a kid whose brother was constantly physically abusing him under the guise of him not being strong enough, and Hussie outright says that know-it-all-ism, intellectual assertion and superiority, and mansplaining are traits Dirk tends to have at his worst. A huge amount of Dave/Davesprite's baggage is having spent so much of his life being made to feel less than Bro and not good enough, and then Bro died before Dave could get any closure on that front. And now, as a self-fulfilling prophecy, Davesprite's self-loathing and baggage cause him to ruin his own relationships - thus "proving" that he wasn't worthy of having them.

JADE: jeez you sure have some issues JADE: honestly it has become very tiresome listening to this sort of thing JADE: i thought davesprite had problems JADE: his issues i could kind of understand JADE: i thought you might be different, being the alpha dave and all JADE: but no JADE: you might be even more messed up inside than he was!

Therefore, Davesprite's character arc isn't about how "the narrative" has "doomed" him and he must "escape it," it's about how he (and Dave) need to address the root problem - their self-loathing and unresolved childhood trauma - and move past it. It seems to be a Knight thing to struggle with self-loathing, as Latula and Karkat have deep inadequacies and insecurities too, so addressing these emotional problems is literally part of Dave's arc set out for him by SBURB.

Moreover, Ultimate Self is in play, and in general, the comic has suggested that every iteration of every character is an extension of the original character multiple times. It's not just Dave and Davesprite who conflate themselves and play with the idea that they are ultimately the same guy - the Dancestors see their Alternian counterparts as being extensions of themselves, for example, and Heart players are explicitly said to have journeys of splintered selves, which can also be caused by certain classes in other aspects. What this concept of Ultimate Self brings to Dave/Davesprite is twofold:

First, it means that which Dave is "real" is moot - they are both equally real, and equally relevant, because they are facets of the same ultimate person. I think there's a reason that the person who brings up the Ultimate Selfhood spiel in the truncated ending we got is a mixture of Nepeta (the Heart player I think was intended to achieve Ultimate Selfhood in Hussie's original planned ending, since that's so Rogue of Heart) and Davesprite, who explicitly says that his baggage has been resolved by realizing that he's a part of this greater whole - in other words, finding acceptance with his place in the world, and with that acceptance, finding within him the well of strength needed to go fight LE (or, symbolically, to fight for a future free of what LE represents - which includes the shitty stuff that Bro imposed on him).

Second, what it means is that Davesprite dying (and getting to join the Game Over crew in killing LE) is, at worst, a bittersweet ending. Part of the Ultimate Selfhood spiel is that ALL characters will eventually reach that enlightened state as a final culmination of understanding their aspect (read: completing their personal growth journeys), so as long as a character survives the ending (which I believe all of them were originally intended to do), then eventually - even if off-screen - that character will remember being their other iterations, and doing the things their other iterations did. In a sense, all the dead ghosts from the bubbles (besides the dancestors, who are an antagonistic force overall) get to live on through the surviving cast.

So what I've given to Davesprite in my ending is this: he talks to Nepeta and is told about Ultimate Selfhood, which comforts him WRT his place in the world and helps him deal with his feelings of inadequacy - we see him dead in the bubbles, where he and (Dave) get to fight/talk and complete their character arcs by reaching an understanding with each other - and then we find out that he died by playing a vital role in the fight against the Jacks, a kind of culmination of his acceptance of himself and his duty to choose a brighter future, which isn't fully a sacrifice/death because there's an explicit understanding that Dave will one day come to be Davesprite and (Dave) as well.

And then Davesprite and (Dave) go to fight LE, because LE is the villain of this story. He directly symbolizes immaturity, cruelty, and the worst parts of society - a child who deliberately stunted his own emotional maturity via greed, selfishness, and ambition, combined with the worst aspects of Equius (a casteist), Gamzee (a religious fundamentalist), and Dirk (Bro).

Let's not forget that Bro became as bad as he did because he was under the influence of Cal, and that an aspect of Dirk is literally part of LE. (Dave)'s arc - his reluctance to fight LE because of his self-loathing - has a clear trajectory of picking up his sword to fight LE not because the game or Grimbark Jade are telling him to, but because (Dave) decides that he deserves to fight for a better future, one where the things LE stand for are consigned to the void. Even if (Dave) himself is not able to directly enjoy this future, post-retcon Dave will, and via Ultimate Self, so will (Dave) and Davesprite, in due time.

As God Tier!Calliope says, and as I believe is how we should view the struggles of those who wind up in the dream bubbles:

CALLIOPE: you don't need to do anything. CALLIOPE: be who you've become, and who i didn't. CALLIOPE: consume the fruits of an existence i could never understand. CALLIOPE: live.

The dead, doomed, and irrelevant - including Davesprite and (Dave) - are the ones to fight and defeat LE, and by doing so, they symbolically render him "nothing more than a bad dream". Moreover, Caliborn explicitly says he's orchestrating his own defeat: if Caliborn has it his way, then everybody loses. Game Over was part of Caliborn's plans BECAUSE it would render everybody dead and in the dream bubbles, where they'd be in position to fight and kill him. This is the ending he's chosen - one where nobody gets to survive, and his servants, the Condesce and the Jacks - get to impose their will on what remains of the new world.

What he wasn't counting on was that the Heir of Breath would gain the ultimate power of Breath - the power to choose something new. Using this, he's able to create a timeline free of LE's will. He isn't escaping the narrative, but he IS shaking off the alpha timeline - symbolically, shaking off the shackles placed on them by cruel ancestors, creepy uncles, abusive guardians, and messed-up society. These survivors are then able to fight and defeat LE's living servants, thus clearing the path for a new universe free of his influence.

(Dave) and Davesprite dying, fighting LE in the bubbles, and being sucked in by the black hole are part of the ultimate sacrifice, a culmination of their arcs and a will to defeat the cruelty that defined so much of their lives - and that is what lets them reap the Ultimate Reward.

#homestuck #dave strider #davesprite #NOW. i will admit I'm still rereading the later parts of the comic #and that i'm a huge troll stan #so i might have missed some stuff because i'm not as invested in dave as a lot of other people are #so feel free to correct me or supplement my evidence

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