#usual disclaimer that if this is all stuff thats well known and widely discussed already. then uh sorry for the baby steps analysis skfnekf

[telaraneas]

some character analysis musings on vriska, light and luck

i started thinking about this before i even finished homestuck, cause i was already knee deep in classpecting hypmic characters because i am incapable of having more than one hyperfixation at a time without mushing them together lol

anyways, i was struggling with pinpointing a fitting aspect for a gambler character, and someone pointed out that the obvious fit for them would be light, because you know

The Luck Thing.

but the thing is that, like.... i'm actually pretty sure that games of luck and gambles are. entirely antithetical to the aspect of light

like, first of all, obviously i'm approaching things with more context than someone in the fandom at the time whose only frame of reference for light for a long time was rose and vriska, because i can just google the "official" summaries of what each aspect represents and rules over in the hiveswap page. so, it may be cheating, but it did kind of strike me as strange that according to that page, light is all about *knowledge* first and foremost, which kind of goes completely counter to the whole conceit of games of luck- you CANNOT know what the roll of the dice will bring, that's the entire point of it being random

in fact, the entire concept of attacking via RNG mechanics seems more fitting for the description of Void than it does Light (embracing the unknown and things that don't have clear answers)- and those are opposite aspects. so, you know, what gives?

but the more i think about it, the more this discrepancy kind of illuminates many things about light aspect, thief class, and vriska herself

because on a reread: yeah, it turns out vriska herself kind of hates games of chance?? like, for someone whose primary attack method is based on RNG, she absolutely hates RNG mechanics!!

she describes her luck as being terrible, but it seems more like she's just the kind of person who calls everything other than the exact roll she WANTS "bad luck". her frustration with her luck only increading after losing access to a source of verifiable Correct Information makes her come across more like any degree of uncertainty is what she's actually against.

for someone with fuckin dice roll mechanics she seems to really, REALLY despise actually leaving her fate to the dice

and i think that has to do with her being thief class

as in: i think the defining trait of a thief, in terms of what the class says about a character's arc and themes, is that thieves are actually almost counterintuitively NOT the embodiment of their aspect by nature, and in fact seem to often be defined by the opposite OF their aspect, especially in their early life and circumstances; but that's exactly why they crave their aspect so desperately and fight tooth and nail for it

the aspect of light is often summed up as either "knowledge" or "fortune",  and i think the common thread between all the themes and concepts encapsulated by the light aspect is actually the idea of "certainty". to be bound to light is to be bound to things that are certain, knowledge of past or future or just inmutable objective knowledge. shining a light on the darkness of the unknown, as it were, leaving no corner of uncertainty in its wake- which is why light and void are opposite/complementary.

with that in mind, i think this explains a lot about why vriska has luck-based traits but hates actually leaving anything to a roll of the dice: she is a creature of void, whose upbringing and needs and tools are defined by uncertainty and darkness and the unknown, but who is CONSTANTLY striving to eliminate that unknown by shining a light upon it, to kill any possibility of failure and replace it with the absolute certainty of the outcome she desires. she is a person surrounded by the trappings of void aspect, forced to use it as her tools, but who will avoid actually embracing those values at all costs because she had such a relentless desperate need for the safety of light and its virtues

i mean, her defining introductory moment was her putting tavros in a situation that, despite being a dice-based larp, wound up with the dice roll no longer even mattering at all, because vriska had played her cards specifically to make it so that even if tavros rolled the highest possible number, he could CERTAINLY not win. at that point, it's no longer about luck; but unlike terezi's case, it's not about knowing what the other person will do in the event of every outcome, either. it's about making sure that it LITERALLY DOES NOT MATTER what the other person does or doesn't do- vriska has all the cards, and she has them all face-up where she can see them, and she can rest easy in knowing that luck, good or bad, cannot stab her in the back, because she knows with CERTAINTY what fate has in store, because she made it so by her own hand.

this is also why her god tier power is to "steal luck". like yes it's an obvious literal application of her title, but more importantly- what it means is that, after ascending and finally grasping what she so desperately wanted with her own two hands, her reward is that *vriska no longer needs to gamble ever again*. she can just CHOOSE what the dice will show her, usually just the highest roll for max damage.

like, usually the entire point of games of luck is that there is no way to predict the outcome of a roll of the dice, or the flip of a coin, or a fucken RNG mechanic. but vriska, at the culmination of her hearts' desires, has managed to bring her relentless light into the ultimate unknown, to brush away even the archetypal unpredictability of possibility and collapse it into a single certain fate. she's opened schrodinger's box, observed right through its core with her vision eightfold, and decided whether it's alive or dead. who needs luck, when you have knowledge, fate and certainty.

on a semi related note, you know what aspect WOULD probably benefit a whole lot from luck-based combat mechanics?

breath seems to be at least to some degree about just letting things happen, going with the flow, and embracing whatever may come, and as such is usually rewarded with narrative contrivance of the "right thing at the right place at the right time" kind; breath tends to BENEFIT from not really knowing things and not necessarily being super concerned about them either.

case in point: vriska probably would never in a million years have deliberately aimed for a roll that gave bec noir a silly hat, but because john literally didn't think about it and has no luck-manipulating powers or aspirations, he just so happened to roll the one thing that his enemy happens to hate the most lmao