Homesuck: Vriska Rising

[BitVyper]

I don't think I assumed that part of that emotional growth involved killing each other (if Vriska is correct)

I don't think she's right. The game is all about choices, and that is certainly one choice, and if they'd gone that route, yeah they'd probably have come out as just standard adult trolls, but y'know, better. The path they took is more complex, however, and I think the greater challenges mean growing beyond their beginnings. Vriska is experiencing doubt right now, but I think she's focusing it in the wrong direction.

Anyway, it's nice to see Vriska pretty much turning out the way I hoped. I'm also wondering if our species might be the way it is because of Karkat being the major determining factor in how their game was played.

[Archbio]

And here I thought I wrote an overgrown rant about it.

A few people seems to have said things that indicate that they think that there's no distance between what the author of a work intends, what the author says they intended, how the work actually reads and how the reader interprets it.

There's possible distance between all of those things.

So you hate her because she is a thirteen year old girl version of David Xanatos?

Edit: Also that's totally unfair to Xanatos.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Archbio

There's possible distance between all of those things.

Yeah, but Hussie has really gone out of his way to paint the motivations of Vriska as they are, and while maaaaybe it's a valid conclusion that, no, all that is wrong, I'd suggest it's not an equally valid conclusion, because, again, it's been pretty heavily beaten into us that this is Vriska's personality and none of her actions actually counteract that.

There's just not a lot of room for alternate interpretations of the work on this particular issue at this point.

Edit: I mean, I'd still like her if she was an empathy-less sociopath, because I don't like her because she has feelings. I like her because she does shit like the 'gotcher legs' scene. Which makes me laugh. I like her because of her interactions with John. None of that really has much to do with whether she's driven by guilt or just some kind of sadistic need to hurt other people.

Well maybe the interactions with John.

But, it's just that this is the interpretation of her character that is most prevalent looking at the work. It's been stated twice now, by two separate characters, only one of which is arguably an unreliable narrator on this point. And her actions don't really make sense from a pure sadism stand point.

Why wouldn't she have just killed Tavros in that case? Why would she fall in 'love' with him if she was a monster like that? Why would Kanaya fall in love with her if she's as bad as all that? Why would she have Equius build Aradia a robot long before they were ever trapped in paradox space (that is to say when showing remorse wasn't socially viable as a method of manipulating others--besides the dead girl)? Why would she worry about whether John was angry at her even after he said he wasn't?

You COULD hand wave that, yes, but that's all it would be. Hand waving. There's just a lot that makes the MOST sense if we look at it from her just being completely fucked up and incapable of actually showing guilt or remorse other than through violence. Which, considering the fact that she was raised by a giant spider that forced her to feed children to it, isn't all that surprising of a character development. Neither would actual sociopathy for that matter--but then that still leaves other questions about her motivations. Only the guilt-pathy thing she's got going on really ties everything together.

Which is, not so ironically, exactly the way we're supposed to see the character.

[katiuska]

Originally Posted by BitVyper

I don't think she's right. The game is all about choices, and that is certainly one choice, and if they'd gone that route, yeah they'd probably have come out as just standard adult trolls, but y'know, better. The path they took is more complex, however, and I think the greater challenges mean growing beyond their beginnings. Vriska is experiencing doubt right now, but I think she's focusing it in the wrong direction.

I hope that's true, because it would be a lot more interesting that way, and it makes sense that, Vriska, being Vriska, would interpret the game the way she did.

Originally Posted by BitVyper

Anyway, it's nice to see Vriska pretty much turning out the way I hoped. I'm also wondering if our species might be the way it is because of Karkat being the major determining factor in how their game was played.

It's funny, I read that last part just as someone else IMed me with the same thought and wondered if humans' candy-red blood was a clue, so I think that's pretty likely.

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

...Actually, to be blunt, I'm even more surprised by John's reaction to Vriska's confession, rather than Vriska's confession itself. Her doubts feel somewhat natural, but his empathy for a killer (even a presumably repentant one) seems...ugggggggghhhh.

I swear if this is leading to a John / Vriska shipfest I will gouge my eyes out.

Y'know, my initial read was that the conversation killed any red intentions on John's end, now that he's beginning to learn what Vriska is and how different their species are. Maybe I'm just projecting what I want to be true, though. He does seem disturbingly nonchalant about the whole thing, but then again, the Homestuck kids have never really reacted all that much, despite how awful and/or ridiculous their circumstances are to any reasonable person.

[Locke cole]

I guess he's trying to be racially sensitive? Or he's scared horribly by what Vriska's done, but knows that he can't do much about it from his end or timeframe, or maybe he's trying extremely hard to give her the benefit of a doubt because she helped him, or something.

The revelation has most assuredly recolored his opinion of her, I think. Just not sure to what extent.

In other news, remember the beep that signaled the cut back to this, after all the rhythmic honks? Got me thinking like maybe it was supposed to sound like a heart-rate monitor.

The beep is Nepeta flatlining

[Krylo]

The thing about John, is that John is the nicest dude in the history of ever. He doesn't really have a jerky bone in his body. There was basically no way he was going to disconnect on Vriska or tell her off or whatever, because it is John.

You could kick John square in the bojangles and as soon as he stopped keeling over in pain he would totally accept your invitation to go get hot dogs and talk about how kicking people in the bojangles is pretty fun.

I'm pretty sure John's probably a little confused more than anything. I mean this is over a chat thing and all. And he's talking to someone who saved his life by convincing him to nap on the god bed--he even figured out that's why she did it all on his lonesome (or at least he's giving her the benefit of the doubt, it was really probably a combination of that and a convenient way to god tier him).

I mean, how do you react to this person who has been helping you and being basically nice to you and who you have never been exposed to their horribleness ever, suddenly telling you that they killed a whole bunch of people, but then felt bad about killing this most recent one and they don't know how to deal with feeling bad about killing this person?

It's pretty much a huge 'uhhhhhhhhhh'.

Especially for someone as kind hearted as John.

[BitVyper]

I hope that's true, because it would be a lot more interesting that way, and it makes sense that, Vriska, being Vriska, would interpret the game the way she did.

The way she interpretted the game would still be right from one perspective. It DID set things up for exactly that sort of scenario.

[Archbio]

Krylo, I personally have no problem with the "Vriska abused Tavros to try and make herself feel better about crippling him" interpretation. That's really not what I was referring to.

But I don't see how that and "Vriska takes pleasure in violence" are mutually exclusive. It think you sort of have to start there for the rest to make sense. I think any mixture of sadism/mind game love/guilt functions as an explanation.

And relying on what characters say about the psychology of characters to establish it is really kind of poor.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Archbio

And relying on what characters say about the psychology of characters to establish it is really kind of poor.

Not when the author has gone out of their way to make the character a supernatural expert on knowing the psychology of other characters.

Story: Terezi is the best at Troll Psychology naturally.

Story: Terezi has magical mind powers that let her understand other people's minds supernaturally.

Story: Terezi is the character who knows Vriska the best.

Terezi: Vriska does x because y.

Terezi being wrong doesn't follow that line at all. If it was Karkat who said all that, or Equius, or Gamzee, then sure.

It also doesn't follow given that her actual actions don't conflict with it at all.

Edit: It's like if you're watching CSI and they bring a character in who is an expert at criminal profiling, and then they profile a criminal, and then the criminal acts exactly within the profile, and then the expert uses the profile to predict how the criminal will react and lure them into a trap, and then someone says "But the expert is wrong BECAUSE".

Except it is this times ten because Terezi also has supernatural powers and a long history with the criminal in question to aid in her profiling.

EDIT2: Unless you mean from an authorial standpoint, in which case I would kind of agree, but suggest her actions also back up the thing the character said, and also that the character only said those things after the readership was clearly 'not getting it' the way the author wanted them to, and so he introduced two separate information dumps in the form of chat logs as narrative devices to help the readership get it. Probably because whatever plans he has for the character aren't going to make sense if half the readership is viewing her as A when he wants her viewed as B.

I'm ok with suggesting Hussie might not be the best author ever (and would totally agree with it, it's a web comic not Edgar Allen Poe or whatever), but at the same time he really has bludgeoned us with what he wants us to think of the character.

EDIT3: I'd argue she doesn't necessarily have to be sadistic, just broken in such a way that she doesn't really know how else to deal with people other than through sadism. I mean, she's obviously sadistic. Look at that grin in Bit's avatar, but I don't think it's one of her driving motivations.

[BitVyper]

And relying on what characters say about the psychology of characters to establish it is really kind of poor.

Er, isn't that like, Lit 101 of analyzing characters? Like "what others say about the character, what the character says about themself, etc etc etc"