The Light Aspect, Sociology, Privilege, and Perspective
One question that many have struggled to answer over the years has been the question of nature vs. nurture. Perhaps one of the most interesting explorations of this question, I’ve found has been in a little Web-Comic I like to call Homestuck.
If you haven’t read Homestuck for yourself you can do it here: https://www.homestuck.com/, I highly recommend giving it a read if you have the opportunity. It’s really short too. Only three pages (wonk)
Oh and if you’re not big on reading Voxus has done some amazing work dubbing over the comic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jMzJaztnFs
One of my biggest draws to Homestuck has been its, unique approach to storytelling and character development. The most notable of which, in my opinion at least, being it’s ‘aspect’ system. Each character is ‘bound’ to an aspect or source of power. There are 12 aspects total and each one tells us about characters in the story and the characters in the story demonstrate to the reader the fundamental concepts or ideas behind each aspect.
I could spend all day rambling on each of the aspects, but I feel like Optimistic Duelist has made great headway into describing the general gist of each one and you can watch his video on the subject here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnUpMxQXvco&pbjreload=10
This blog, however, will be focused on fleshing out and attempting to look into one aspect out of the 12. This aspect is the aspect of perception, attention, and stories. It is the aspect of light. (The best aspect I think atleast)
Natural Sociologists
Those bound to the aspect of Light are described as “ the universe’s knowledge-seekers.” that tend to be, “absolutely dedicated to knowledge for knowledge’s sake.” We see this manifest in Rose Lalonde, a seer of light, who spends the majority of her journey synthesizing information and attempting to learn as much about the game she’s playing in. We see it in Aranea Serket, the Sylph of Light, and her fascination with long-extinct alien cultures and lore. And we see it in one character who I am choosing to keep as a surprise.
One aspect of the description of Light that I think is often taken for granted or ignored is the fact that Lightbounds tend to not take things for granted. According to the Extended Zodiac, “They aren’t overly concerned with laws or norms, either. They often take rules as simple suggestions, instead of searching for loopholes or workarounds.”
As a student at University currently taking sociology, this statement got me thinking. Lightbounds would make natural sociologists in the right context.
What do I mean by this?
Well, each of the Lightbound players seems to have a natural affinity for something sociologist, C. Wright Miller, has coined as the sociological imagination.
The sociological imagination is the ability to step outside of one’s own context to think critically about the forces at play in our lives. It is an understanding that your understanding of the world is shaped by your unique social context and position in society. It is an essential skill in understanding privilege and inequality.
Each Lightbound in Homestuck’s Narrative (and Hiveswap) possesses this tendency to see through different perspectives fairly easily.
In her conversation with Terezi, Aranea sheds light on how Doc Scratch had conditioned Alternian trolls to become violent and hateful through a color-coded caste system.
Rose, a human, often tried to avoid “troll interpersonal politics” outside of her grasp but still attempts to learn how to auspisticize from Kanaya.
Lastly, we get to one of the most controversial characters in the story. The one character that a lot of people’s arms are up in arms about. This character receives a lot of love and a lot of hate. And is my favorite character. There’s a ‘v’ in their name. Their name is…
Zebede Tongva.
Zebede’s route is very informative of the light aspect’s true nature as the privilege checker aspect. The entire route is spent tiptoeing around Zebede’s unfortunate circumstances. Alternia systematically conditioned gold-blooded trolls like him to make huge sacrifices. In his case, he sacrifices his happiness to be a bee-keeper in the countryside away from all other trolls, when he would much rather be around other people. Furthermore, he desires attention and affection but has no one around to give it to him. The reader in effect is encouraged by Zebede’s unfortunate circumstances to question their position in life and whether or not their friend-thirsty behavior is any better than Zebede’s attention-seeking tendencies.
Zebede, as a lightbound, also cares immensely about how he is seen by other people. He wants the reader to not judge him and think he’s lame or a terrible person who should be abandoned.
Okay, but seriously, let's talk about Vriska now.
Vriska Serket: Taking Things Granted to Her
The common and most obvious interpretation of Vriska’s role as a Thief of Light is one who steals light for their benefit. The most obvious representation of this comes in the form of her attention hogging actions.
To put it bluntly, Vriska cannot stand being kept out of the spotlight for too long, and most of her actions appear to be her desperately clawing for relevancy.
But another way I’m coming to find is an equal fitting interpretation for Vriska is one who steals context, for their own benefit.
Vriska describes her childhood as one of confusion and doubt. She knew she would have to kill when she came of age to sate her custodian’s hunger for troll flesh. Failure to do so would most likely result in Vriska being eaten alive or losing her custodian (both of which are a death sentence) This doubt persisted until…
Until one day she found a journal written from her ancestor, Mindfang (Aranea Serket), and “took it”. Using this journal, Vriska began to craft herself out of the stories her ancestor left behind. In many ways, it gave her the strength to do what SHE needed to do to survive. She went about killing other children in her games of brutal live-action roleplay. And of course, she internalizes all of her actions over time, gradually obscuring her innocence.
Vriska’s instinctual tendency is to take shit from her environment and use it to construct herself. In specific, she takes light or context whereas a Page like Zebede would receive it from other people (for his own benefit). But what happens when that context is inherently toxic and destructive? What happens when that context is Alternia’s context?
I’m going to take a moment to step away from Vriska because I feel like it’s necessary. But I won’t step far, because it’s kind of impossible to.
Illuminating Principles
Let’s take a look at Vriska’s close friend and romantic partner, Terezi Pyrope.
One thing I’ve noticed that people who are in the Vriska-Hate camp (see, one line in and I’m still talking about Vriska) do is that they are very quick to justify their hatred for her the horrible things that she does.
However, Terezi is never given nearly as much hate or ire for the horrible things that she’s done and does not have nearly as divisive a fanbase.
A detail that is commonly ignored about Terezi was that Terezi helped Vriska kill other trolls before they entered the session. Of course, Terezi paints her actions as morally righteous, the trolls were doing “wicked things” in her mind. To Terezi, justice is blind and retributive. Literally blind. And you know what they say about an eye for an eye…
The core difference between Terezi and Vriska is that Terezi essentially kills for sport, her own ego (her sense of justice), and to uphold Alternia’s messed up system. She plays the most dangerous game with what she perceives to be nothing more than criminals (who happen to be traumatized children trying to survive and make it on Alternia). And this makes sense. It’s a lot easier to kill something or someone if you don’t have a lived or learned experience with them. It isn’t until her way of thinking results in her killing someone who had a history with her that she seriously reconsiders what she was doing.
Vriska, on the other hand, kills because she has very little choice from her perspective BUT to kill. Her world is dog-eat-dog, and people are killed when they are weak. Vriska’s persona is a reflection of this cruel reality. The person that Vriska becomes throughout the comic is groomed by her circumstances. Both of them are. But the hate given to one over the other demonstrates a bias ever-present in the narrative of the lightbound. Information Bias.
The problem with Terezi’s sense of justice then, is that it is founded on falsehoods, and is devoid of compassion and meaning. This falsehood is that people who do wrong deserve to be punished, and it is her duty to meet out or ensure that punishment happens. This way of thinking of course, is reinforced by her position in the Hemospectrum. As a teal-blood, she is expected to carry out and enforce Alternia’s brutal and retributive justice system without remorse.
But the punishment for Vriska’s actions have already happened and continuously happen, and each time it is cruel and horrible. She suffers this vicious and unending feedback loop. She is abandoned by others, who then try to reach out to her, only to be harmed themselves because the wounds she experienced are so immense and vast that no one (but maybe Rose) would know how to even deal with.
Vriska, in typical lightbound fashion, immediately picks up on how bullshit and judgemental Terezi’s worldview and justifications are. She sees right through it.
To be clear, Terezi is not a hypocrite for pointing out Vriska’s actions as fucked up. She’s a hypocrite for labeling Vriska as “wicked” and deserving of condemnation when on a fundamental level, she does the same shit for worse and far less justifiable and unprincipled reasons. In other words, Terezi is falsely aware of her own position and wickedness.
It takes a relationship with a criminal for Terezi to overcome her criminal first, person fifth mentality. Vriska benefits from this relationship as well, as she grows to see that someone out there genuinely loves and cares about her regardless of her flaws and wounds. She learns that she is worthy of love. Of course, it takes Vriska dying and removing herself from the context of Sburb and the spotlight that she can do this.
Lightbounds Put Moral Greyness into Perspective
The reason I mention this dynamic between Vriska and Terezi is that it tells us a lot about the “moral greyness” of lightbounds.
Many people believe that lightbounds are morally grey because they are naturally inclined to take actions that cause harm and do damage but also have high payouts. I think that is incorrect. Lightbounds are not much different from normal people.
The difference is that unlike every other character in the cast, their actions are put under a microscope. In reality, every character in Homestuck is morally neutral and only ceasing to be this when looked at by those who oppose their ideals. Lightbounds understand this and are able to put into perspective.
When I was a kid, I always felt watched by my parents. Whenever I would do something they didn’t like they would correct me and get angry with me. Often time, resulting to insults about my intelligence and harsh criticism. Words like ‘retard’, and ‘invalid’ were thrown about often. And the result of this repeated treatment was that every time I felt like I was being watched, I felt like my capacity to mess up grew exponentially and I would be hurt as a result. I felt alienated and unaccepted and I felt like I need to derive my worth from others (and sometimes I still feel that way).
Vriska and Zebede in my mind are people in a similar situation. They want desperately to be cared about and loved. But the details people choose to focus on seem to be their mistakes and flaws and the consequences of those traits rather than their personhood. Vriska’s developed “character” as an amoral and horrible person is put under a spotlight by the narrative. We see her jump Tavros off a cliff. We see her kill Aradia using her boyfriend and we see her blind Terezi (mind you this happens after Terezi severely wounds her for the former incidents). But we also see her attempt to fight Lord English and stop his reign of terror. We see her struggle to right the wrongs she does to others in twisted Alternian ways.
Optimistic Duelist has pointed out that the aspect of light seems deeply tied to gnostic beliefs (https://medium.com/@RoseOfNobility/rose-lalonde-at-the-heart-of-the-world-e4c5120c3529)
Information Bias
In Gnosticism, Eve (from the bible) is considered a heroic figure, in her pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the world. She bites the apples and laughs at those who would oppose and subjugate her. Sound familiar?
However, this view of Eve is not the only view. The Christian interpretation of the biblical origin story paints humans in a more sinful light. Eve is viewed as treacherous, and the cause of all of the suffering in the world.
Your view of Eve will change depending on the social context you ‘fortunately’ occupy. If you’ve been force-fed Christian/Catholic Dogmatism your entire life like I have and have not been exposed to opposing ideas (knowledge), you will come to view her actions as immoral and worthy of treating her with contempt.
But IF this story were true, it is undeniable that the world we have today (including all of the good things like your friends, family, their unique traits that you appreciate, etc) all exist as a result of her sin. And so does your ability to shape and invent the reality you occupy.
The way we define and look at things, in turn, determines how we operate and treat that thing. A lightbound is deeply in tune with this fact and seeks to operationalize themselves/define themselves and their reality using what is around them, even if that thing is garbage. That is their resourcefulness at work. There’s a saying that goes “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.
Vriska’s existence in Homestuck presents us with a disturbing truth. Under the right circumstances, all of us (yes you too) can and do actually do genuinely shitty and harmful things to each other. But knowing this gives us four valuable lessons.
Four Wise Ideas of the Lightbound
- Always know what you’re fighting for and why and honor that. If you’re fighting for a world of love and compassion or are spurred into action because of a lack of those things, you need to make sure to do your best to stay true those values. Otherwise, what’s the point?
- Individually we are weak, but together we are able to overcome our weaknesses and construct a better world for ourselves, and each other.
- The world isn’t black and white. But there are things that are true and false that we can use to guide us.
- While you may have the ability to judge and condemn others, maybe you should take a hard look at where you stand yourself before you throw stones in glass houses. You are neither good or evil. You are human.
The last one to me is the most important one. Once again this isn’t saying to never call a spade a spade. But to look closer instead and maybe you’ll find its more than that. It is a message of empathy and close consideration. It is a message that tells you that regardless of who you are, what you’ve done, you are worthy of love. And anyone who tells you otherwise is just plain wrong.
And I think it’s one we could all use if we’re going to fight to improve the world.
Thank you so much if you managed to sit through and read all of this. I hope what I wrote spoke to you on some level or at the very least got you to think differently about your relationship to the world and other people.
