Okay, so, Homestuck is over, yes; we sort of haven't gotten a direct, full explanation of the classes or aspects from the author, and we might not at all, unless the epilogue is informative enough or if Hussie shares what his intentions were with it. However, from studying the comic itself and acting to contemplate the more subtle information and themes dropped within all the pages of those arguing kids, it becomes possible for us to determine what the aspects and classes are supposed to mean-- at least to an extent
I've personally been looking at a few blogs about this that speculate the roles of classes and aspects and base their evidence off of in-comic evidence, and probably with some speculation, though not to an abstract sense. When I look at and understand a lot of what's been said there, and then see the definitions that we have here and how we've presented them, I kind of feel like we don't have a complete understanding of what the classes/aspects are supposed to mean. Also, there are a few people on-site who aren't that into Homestuck or don't read it at all, so the only source of information they have for classes and aspects are the few pages that are on the wiki-- those pages are incredibly uninformative, as they only list the aspects names (not what they actually represent or anything along with them) and ideas about what the classes do (the pages only provide one definition of what the class does to the aspect; first of all, the interpretation that's copied around the wiki may be incorrect, so it might be better if we include more speculation about it, and second of all, the classes have more to them than just what they do to the aspect! Princes (and Bards, to an extent) act more like the opposite of their aspect, Pages start out doubting their abilities but can become extremely powerful once they learn their potential, Knights are also have self-doubt but keep it hidden behind a façade-- and many more things!). I personally believe that it has led some people on the wiki to develop classpect titles for their characters that aren't really as fitting as they could be! ((Also, I know that they could have looked on the MSPA Wiki, but I sort of think that their interpretation of information tends to be pretty unreliable; if it is, they have it buried in the "speculation" pile, have only the abilities of a class or aspect user listed in the "information" section, and apply it with a lot of other speculation that seems to be pointless and draws away from it; if anyone looked on there I'd bet they'd just skim through it since it's so long and conflicting, and they probably wouldn't be exposed to reasonable definitions of it.)) ((Also, Zoshi's Classpects sub-page is actually a lot more accurate for things than the previous ones were, even though it could use a little improvement, so please only let the above paragraph apply to the much older Classpect subpages))
Now, I think I kind of got lucky here. When I gave Mori a classpect, it ended up being Prince of Doom (originally it was Gent of Curse, but later for some reason I decided I wanted Prince of Doom). Now that I know more about Homestuck, the classes, and the aspects, I feel like this is actually incredibly fitting for Mori's character, in ways that I didn't know before. A Prince of Doom would act like a Life player-- Life, representing chaos, power, optimism, maybe even selfishness, and, well, Living! Notice how, though Mori has connotations with death and even death-related powers, they still try hard to cling to life in the main timeline and do what they want, to the point of appearing heavily afraid of death? Meanwhile, Doom represents order, sacrifice, pessimism, and restraint. Mori is literally a follower of Chaos-- you can't tell me that this isn't fitting (I know that Light and Void also have connotations of order and chaos, but neither light nor void are actually all that fitting for Mori, to be honest). Yes, you could note that Princes drawing away from their aspect would conflict with Mori's actions of being sort of orderly, being pessimistic and restrained at times, and also making quite a few sacrifices-- however, a Prince is supposed to learn to respect, and partially even embrace, the aspect that they are meant to destroy (examples: See what happens to the Prince of Hope after he shows no respect or second thoughts after destroying clear symbols of hope? And see how the Prince of Heart felt really down during when he was actively suppressing the individuality and uniqueness of his friends? yeah, the universe tends to stop working well for you when you're rejecting your role). Mori doesn't actively make sacrifices or play by the rules, but they are able to respect and even embrace those things in order to live their life. Mori's respect for sacrifice and rules are what allow them to get by as well as they do, you could say-- which is why I believe I got incredibly lucky when I picked Prince of Doom for their classpect without knowing as much as I do now.
However, not as many people are entirely lucky to get an extremely fitting title without knowing much of anything about Homestuck, its classes, and the aspects. I'll take this opportunity to BULLY Fire point out Fire's character Delinius. Now, if I remember correctly, Fire chose Heir or Rage? Or Knight of Rage, one of those. I can't find where he put this information but I know it's one of those-- pretty sure it's Knight of Rage, since his reasoning for choosing it was that "Delinius weaponizes rage". Now, I first can say that "weaponize" isn't the best word for the Knight class; rather exploit could be used, seeing as it appears in the comic as a description of a Knight player. However, the Knight part of the classpect isn't the one that I particularly have a problem with-- it's the Rage part. Now, I don't want to pick on Fire in any way-- with the little information he has about the aspects, it's perfectly reasonable for him to believe that Rage would be fitting. I personally find Rage to be a little fitting for Delinius, just a bit, but I know there's definitely a better match for him: Light.
- Now, let's talk a little bit about Rage, to explain it: Rage is believed to represent cruel, frustrating resignation at reality-- or the appearance thereof. While Hope, Rage's opposite, is about one's belief in the breadth of possibilities open to them for pursuit, for delivery into reality, Rage is how one's perception of them is narrowed considerably through anger and fear. Though all aspects, I believe, require at least a dozen keywords to be efficiently explained without deep elaboration, here's one that I find most fitting for it: Conviction. While Rage might be fitting for Delinius' combat side, it's extremely contrasting to his personality. Delinius may turn his anger into a weapon, but he's in no sense fearful, and he doesn't use it for conviction: he's more hopeful of possibilities than he is convicted to act solely upon a single one. Other symbols of rage? Negative emotions, revulsion, familial strife? Doesn't sound much like Delinius at all, if you ask me. The conviction and resignation to do what's hard and necessary MIGHT be something Delinius can deal with, since he's supposed to be a "heroic hero guy friend" and all (most of the time,), but it doesn't happen enough for it to be such an identifying characteristic of Delinius, and not something that qualifies Rage as the most fitting aspect for him.
- So now, let me talk about and try to convince Fire to change Delinius' aspect to Light. I believe that, no matter the class (except Prince or Bard because that would make him act like the opposite of Light; and being a Prince/Bard of Void isn't fitting, either), Delinius seems like a dead ringer for a Light player. First of all, let me talk about the obvious thing that someone who doesn't even know about Homestuck stuff that much could point out: Delinius is heavily connected to light itself, like actual light, not particularly all the stuff that the Light aspect represents. A lot of his abilities are about light and sunlight, and a lot of other stuff about him connects to the sun. For those who don't know, the symbol that god-tier Light players wear is literally the sun. Okay, now to the meanings of Light as an aspect. Light is information, illumination, agency, clarity, luck, fortune, activeness, and importance-- that which demands attention. Now, before I even go further into it: if you can look at those words and tell me that those aren't all MAJOR describing words for Delinius' character, then I'd have to believe that you're drunk/don't know who Delinius is. Let me go into the first section of that: "information, illumination, agency, clarity". Delinius is extremely understanding of people, mostly because he takes notice of them a lot, but also because he literally has an internal ability to have light be shone on the secrets of others. Like, literally, there's a description for Mori/Delinius' relationship somewhere that includes the information of a scene where Delinius says that he knows about Mori's dark magic abilities and them having the Book of Shadows-- those are LITERALLY as much of symbols for darkness and obscurity as you can get, and he's still able to shine light on it and know about the information. Not only that, but Delinius says that he also knows [((I'm not sure what exactly it was, but it's either supposed to be that Zaion is Mori's ancestor, that Delinius has met Zaion (who he knows to be Mori's ancestor), or Delinius heard some things about Zaion through knowing Siegler and talked to Mori about it; sorry that I don't know what it is/can't find where it was written, but this is basically what it's about))]. This is more into information and clarity, not only for himself, but for others, as well; which is why I believe that a number of classes, passive or active, would be fitting for him with the Light aspect. Oh, also there's the fact that he gets information on future events such as the Reckoning and makes preparation for it. ((Sidenote I don't know where to put: he can also be forgetful sometimes, too; as seen when he mixes up information about which iteration of Sanford he's talking to when he refers to his knowledge of Sanford's past in Chanukwanzaa; the fact that he knows this information is more supportive of his connection to the Light aspect, and the fact that he misattributes it? Well, not everybody's perfect, and it is healthy to be accepting and understanding of the opposite of your aspect, as well)) The next part of that is "luck" and "fortune". Sure, you can argue that Delinius isn't always lucky and fortunate, but it doesn't mean that he never has it. There are a lot of situations where Delinius, though powerful as he might be, can't fight his way out of a situation against someone (either through being less powerful than someone or not wanting to hurt them), and yet, he has the tendency to escape the situation. Yes, he does often get out of trouble by using his intelligence ((also a connection to information)), but a lot of the time he does get lucky and fortunate to find a way out of a situation himself, or be freed by someone else. Also, if you consider "fortune" to be like "fortune-telling", then he does have information about the future from a few sources, so it also works that way. Let's skip activeness because who cares and move on to the last part of this: "importance-- that which demands attention." Now, I know what you might be saying even if?/ especially if? you are FITH. You might be saying "Delinius isn't that important a character, he's more of a minor character compared to the main protagonists", or "Delinius tends to stay unknown", or "Delinius doesn't DEMAND attention, that would be narcissistic", or something like that. First I sort of want to say "that which demands attention" can be taken in more ways than one. And, to be honest: Delinius kind of is important. Maybe not in the sense of "he's seen a lot of the time during important plot events" exactly, but looking at his character you can see importance and attention-grabbing qualities littered all over it like a highway where people throw their trash out the windows and nobody comes to clean it up. The fact that Delinius is saved and turned into a Soul Flame due to Dwin's influence instead of the other people in his family that died that day? Must be pretty important. The fact that he's able to survive the witch hunts, and is actually RIGHT THERE among a number of others when (In Hankvl's planned chapter of TPS) Jericho, who helped stop the oppression from Green Day-related organizations, did his first public protest? Being the single person to establish a corporation to give refuge to people who are still being oppressed for being magic-users? Not only in the main timelines, either: Delinius, out of everybody else, becomes the leader of the Dwin religion? Delinius, Delinius "Flameyman" Rupert Langton, out of EVERYBODY in an entire timeline (Wau) that was completely erased from existence by Algidas, was the only person saved and brought to a different timeline by Chronos? Hell, he's literally so important that he's getting the sole attention of major deities! And the fact that he's recovered from Wau-- it's like he's literally refusing to fall to irrelevance. And then, you know something about that Delinius in particular? He finds the other iterations of himself so important, he goes across the timelines solely for the purpose of helping them out! His importance is even affecting an iteration of himself so much that the Maintanencekeeper doesn't consider anything else important enough to act upon. And, as for qualities that draw attention to him and get it? Whether he's in all the news because he's being accused of committing arson, or literally lighting up the room and drawing attention to himself by not being "a motherfucker who's not bioluminescent or some shit", he becomes a center of attention in any situation. Come on, if you still don't think that Light is the best aspect for Delinius, you're out of your mind, friend.
- Despite all this, though, I do find a few contradictions to the Light aspect that Delinius presents. The destruction of information is considered relative to the Void aspect, the exact opposite of Light. When does Delinius destroy information, you might ask? When he's burning all the papers that the people at LDZX/I&Q don't want people outside the company to see, like he was apparently hired to. Yeah. That's a bit of a red octagon for the "Light aspect is perfect for Delinius" automobile. There's also the fact that he sometimes goes into such a rage that he has, he throws away sense, reason, and second thoughts, in order to fight with bursts of rage and blatant disregard for his enemies. That may seem like throwing away intelligence for animalistic behavior (intelligence perhaps meaning information I guess?), which could very well be taken that way, but I kind of see it a different way; he's fighting for his life with everything he's got, fighting so that he can continue to stay important and relevant, throwing away any submission to his enemies in order to maintain his life. I'll remind you all, if I didn't say this already: submission is one of the qualities of the Void aspect, giving in to irrelevance and unimportance. I mean, I kind of doubt that Delinius is fighting for his life just so that he can stay important and relevant, but he's not submitting to the wills of the people he want to end him. And either way, it takes a lot to get him like that. There's also the argument that Delinius seems irrelevant or unimportant a lot of the time: he doesn't always show up in major plot events like a lot of the stories to change things in some way. However, he is important in his own way, and in a lot of ways, even if it's not what's most commonly seen. As for the first thing, destruction of information... I don't really have anything to say about that which justifies it as him being the Light aspect. But, hey, even the Seer of Light acted like the opposite of her aspect in a major way at one point (literally doing the Void thing), so, it doesn't mean that there can't be some flexibility with things, you know? Also, I'd like to argue that maintaining balance, or at least a respect for the aspect opposite of yours, is a good thing, as it can be especially dangerous to indulge only into your aspect (I'm looking at you, Heir of Void who remained submissive, Rogue of Heart who didn't do the logical thing, Prince of Hope who went against his role entirely, and Thief of Light who wanted so badly to be important/have every important role that it would've ended up getting people killed).
Anyway, that's the end of my sort of "example that we can come up with better-fitting classpects for our characters"/"argument thingy to convince Fire to change Delinius to an X of Light". Oh boy, that was actually really long. I didn't expect it to be. ANYWAY, like I said, I feel that there are a number of examples of characters who have classpects could have classpects that are exponentially more fitting for them, and I think that, at least for the ones who are listed as being in S---B Sessions, we should try to rework them to make them all more fitting and sensible. I'd probably go on to bring up a few more examples of things I know and how they're not fitting titles for the characters, but honestly I feel sort of worn out from typing up the example of Delinius, I was doing that for a while, so anything else I might want to comment about I'll do later
Also, if anyone has different interpretations about some classes/aspects from what I've presented here, feel free to talk about it; I do feel confident about my beliefs about this stuff but I am willing to listen to other theories if there is evidence for it, I'll probably at least include whatever you've thought as an addition to a class/aspect description, or perhaps another counter-thought off of it
UPDATE - PART TWO: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
Hey, I'm here again to ramble on things. Let's get right to it instead of rambling for too long so that this isn't too incredibly off-putting to read.
First off, I'd like to suggest; I don't particularly think we should use non-canon classes and aspects. Now, I know, this is pretty lame-sounding of me, and I'm sure a majority might be against it because of how it can limit our options and junk, but I really think that more classes and aspects besides what is already given to us is unnecessary. My reason is that Hussie thought these wll out really well. There's twelve aspects and twelve classes, making for 144 different combinations already laid out for us to use, and, honestly, they can be done to fit any type of character you could think of. They're so far-reaching that we really don't need any more-- and that's if we could find a character who isn't well-fitting with any particular combination of a canonical class and aspect.
And, alright-- I get that Chance and Curse would be heavy contenders for still being things we use since we have used them quite a lot more often than most other fanmade aspects, but I also argue that if we're going to pursue the use of fanmade aspects in our canon, they should match up to the quality of canon aspects. Things may look relatively simple and straightforward, but they're not all that-- the canon aspects can mean a lot of things, and they normally need at least a few paragraphs of description for one to accurately understand them-- or, in the least, about ten keywords encompassing pretty much everything and about four things that are used to represent the aspect as symbols. If we can get to that level with our aspects-- without having them be pretty much copies/slight fusions of other aspects, then, well, I won't have anything to argue against.
However, I'm not sure how close we are to that, seeing as I still don't understand what most of these fan aspects are about and why they exist... ("Tech" really beffudles me-- it sounds to me like the theme of the aspect is technology and machinery, and if an aspect can't apply to anyone who has no access to such things, like pretty much any civilization or species by around its stone age, then it shouldn't really be an aspect. It should be more about character and personality... or maybe it is and I just didn't realize it because no one's elaborated on it for shit). As a thought, Chance and Curse could be kept, but they do need fo be explained and elaborated on at least
Next up, we have my ideas for new, possibly more accurate classpects for the characters I feel need it... this'll be a bit long. Now, I haven't done my research for everyone just yet, but I'll be trying to get as much as I can up here if I feel it isn't the best we could do for a character. Since this is going to be sort of a long list, I probably won't be giving too much justification for each one like I did for Fire unless it's challenged. Here we go:
- Revelian would be better as a Knight of Blood. Knight is a really good class for Rev, for sure, but Space isn't quite that fitting-- Blood would do better.
- Lazro should not be a Light player. Rather, he should be a Breath player. Blood and Breath are opposites, so think about the contrast for Rev and Laz. Rev is an important, serious, responsible, static hero (all Blood things), while Lazro is more of a minor character, very unserious (unless he's ooc), doesn't have/want or isn't trusted with responsibilities, and he's very unpredictable-- literally "teh moast random".
- Samuel I feel would be better as a Seer of Space. I'll be honest, I'd be against the Scribe class even if I wasn't going as in-depth with the classes as I am, because most of the only information on it makes it look like a pointless copy of Seer/Mage/whatever. I put his class as Seer because it does fit him tho. Space I feel is better than Mind; Sam is more creative and imaginative than logical, analytical, and impersonal. Also, Mind is about the mask you where when you don't want to act like your true self; say, if you're normally warm, friendly, and playful, but you know a situation calls for seriousness so you out the real you aside and act how you're expected to. Only for Mind players they'd do it almost all the time. Abd I feel like, though Sam can go into serious mode, he's definitely way more true to himself than not.
- Shane would be an Heir of Doom. Just... Tech is obviously about non-organic, robotic stuff, and Doom encompasses that in its bigger thing, and Chief is... I don't fucking know, but I'm willing to bet that Heir is way more fitting for him than that.
- Taku might be an Heir of Light, Masa I think would be a Maid of Mind, and Thristel-Immo could be a Knight of Life. I don't feel like I need to justify them here that much because they're my characters.
- Ivan I feel would be a Mage of Hope. I already covered what a Mage is, and Rogue, the current class, is one that struggles with a decifit or inability to even accept receiving one's aspect, which I feel is... not as fitting as Mage, for him.
- Hankvl at least should be a Seer of Chance instead of a Mage. Mages do stuff with what they know, Seers tell other people to do stuff with what they know. Seeing as all of Hankvl has been telling Hankvi things while sitting on their bum, Seer is definitely more fitting.
- Murtaw/Pensiver... well, I just don't feel like he's a Knight at all. Heck, I feel that Maid of Chance would be WAY better for Murtaw... for Pensiver, I could go the same, but I could also take a page out of the Fan Theories Book and say that Pensiver is INVERTED to a Bard of Curse, which, for him, sounds 120% cooler and more fitting than Maid of Chance.
- Mjura would probably be a Sylph of Blood, because that's 1000000% him; same aspect as Revelian. Sylphs are analytical and have troubles acting on their own opinions sometimes when they need to. Also, I figured that Kuipter would be a Knight of Rage... because of the fact that Rev and Mjura share an aspect and Rev and Kui share a class, I figure it would be good to have Sauphara share a class with Mjura and an aspect with Kuipter. I dare all to argue against me on this.
- Did we already decide something for Dr. Sand? Either way, my suggestion is that he's a Knight of Hope.
I know I didn't explain a lot pf these too well, but I'll be happy too if anyone has any questions on it. That's all I have to ramble about