My take on Reborn characters Classpects

[Helixas]

Hey, so there's a couple of things to explain, so while i was spectating the playthrough of one of my friends of Reborn i was thinking about doing something fun, and since i recently was reading Homestuck at that time and fascinated with it's mechanics i decided to give a Classpect to the main characters of Reborn, i know what you might be thinking, "What is a Classpect?".
A Classpect is a mechanic that appears in Homestuck, is mythological Class that the players in Homestuck are able to archive, when they reach this mythological rank they are given a Class which allows them to manipulate their Aspect in a certain way dictated by their Class, i'll give a summary of the meaning of each Class and what the Aspect means:
Witch: One who manipulates [Aspect]
Sylph: One who heals their/through [Aspect]
Maid: One who creates [Aspect]
Knight: One who serves others through [Aspect]
Page: One who serves themselves through [Aspect]
Heir: One who changes/is protected through [Aspect]
Mage: One who knows [Aspect]
Seer: One who understand/see through [Aspect]
Thief: One who steals [Aspect]
Rogue: One who steals [Aspect] for others
Prince: One who destroys through/the [Aspect]
Bard: One who allows the destruction of [Aspect]
Lord: One who controls [Aspect] for themselves
Muse: One who influences [Aspect] for others
 

And now i'm going to explain what each Aspect means:
Time: Flow of time, from past to future and the course of time of certain actions.
Space: Physical space, from height, mass, weight, position and many more ways that space affects everything.
Breath: From literal wind to direction and freedom and the change that this brings.
Blood: From literal blood to the connections and leadership of you and the others.
Heart: Emotion, soul and all that makes someone unique and the self.
Mind: Wisdom, creativity, ideas and the way of thinking of the mind.
Light: Can range from light to enlightenment/intellect of one and even fortune/chance.
Void: Can range from darkness to the meaningless and the non-existent.
Hope: The power of belief and holy with an infectious positivity of it.
Rage: The power of rage and negative emotions along with the invigorating might.
Life: Life essence and lifespan of all that is living and created.
Doom: Destruction and the decay of creation and life.  

I gave each of the characters an Aspect based on their actions during the game, which might have led me to believe that they would be a certain class or Aspect, in case you are confused/curious of why i chose the Classpect for certain character, feel free to ask away, i would be also glad to see your takes for Classpects for the characters! without any other further ado, here you have, THE CHART!

[Helixas]

(Yes, Victoria has 2 classpects because i couldn't decide which one fitted her best, i forgot to delete one of them)

[deltaFrappuccino]

I hope you don't mind the necropost too terribly, Helixas. As we have previously discussed this topic, I've decided to put my two cents here as well. However, those two cents have gained interest and turned into roughly ten bucks, so here goes:

 

Titania is Bloodbound to me. Biased because of a Titania introject, but it suits - Knight still works, as a passive class, one who serves others through their aspect, or one who serves their aspect through others. She very much plays the passive role in her relationship with Amaria, and taking Classpects as a narrative device above all else, she attempts to serve Amaria through their supposed "bond" which kicks off a fair bit of midgame. I think it's important to remember that Classpects define a character's role in a story moreso than they define the character by personality - aspects especially define how they interact with the world, their reactivity, more than their personality or activity. However, I will attempt to look at both for my arguments. Kratos from God of War is a character who, similarly, has obvious surface-level connections to an aspect - that of Rage. However, he is most truly bound to Blood, between his bondage to Ares, and his relationships with the likes of Faye, Atreus and others in the Norse saga.

 

There can be an argument made for Hope in terms of Titania being the first to suggest Taka simply leave Meteor, for example, but, ultimately, the player is the one who is the deciding factor in Taka doing as much. Maybe you could argue Shelly, but Shelly really plays more of an active role in her own story than Titania plays passively. Even arguing Hope for her relationship with Amaria is flimsy, as it is made clear that Amaria knew it wasn't real, but that Titania was allowing her, for the time, to leech off of the relationship itself regardless. Arguably, even the reason Hardy is so high-ranking from a narrative perspective is from his hardened relationship with his sister, as she abandoned the Rock type to become the Steel leader. As such, I find little reason to apply Hope as an aspect to Titania's reactivity, or others' reactions to Titania, and for activity/personality, I find little reason to say Titania shares much in common with Hope either.

 

That being said, Hope and Rage are the two most difficult aspects to talk about, of which we have only three and two examples in Homestuck respectively, and two of each are destroyer/opposition classes, which means we will likely never get a true grasp on how these aspects are supposed to work narratively. The characters in question are also mostly unfortunate caricatures, and Jake English who exists for the sole purpose of being the "hot man" for most of his time in canon and post-canon. This is mostly because both aspects are meant to be taken less seriously and are implicitly built into those caricatures. Tumblr does a better job of explaining the reasons than I ever could.

 

Some... kinder interpretations of the Rage aspect include a character's confusion, narrative dissonance, plot holes, complications, and other such things that would make me more inclined to put Terra in the Rage aspect, and, frankly, nobody else. Cal, while "angry" in his first appearance, is like Kratos in the way that from the understanding of aspects as narrative-driven titles, it makes no sense that he would be Ragebound. Opposite of that, Hope is a character's sense of clarence, narrative consistency, closure, and essentially what people think Paladins are in D&D; "consistent but boring." Titania doesn't really have that sense of "straight and narrow" writing that makes the aspect, she is inarguably one of the more human, flawed characters, who is also one of the most reactionary - she's not a caricature as Hopebound and Ragebound are made to be from the classpect narrative standpoint. Additionally, the Hope aspect in the sense of closure is also antithetical to her character - "Happily ever after just means the author stopped paying attention," and if you haven't found it yet, then that's good, because "your story isn't over."

 

If we're closing my thoughts on Titania with a quote, we might as well start my thoughts on Amaria with one as well: "Misery loves company like I love her. That's why we're alone from now on." While not as solidly in my head as Titania is Bloodbound, Amaria is Spacebound because of an important aspect of Space that is never actually brought up in the Extended Zodiac description, and yet one of the first solid things we learn about any of the aspects at all - the aspect is inherently tied to loneliness. It's why we have the conversation between Kanaya, Jade and Calliope at the end of the comic. It's why Jade's Pesterquest route is called "The Loneliest Girl In The World."

 

Doom isn't unreasonable, albeit not for reasons listed in your aspect descriptions - doom is not only destruction and decay, but also narrative conflict, as well as change and renewal. Doom is ever-changing, it's why Sollux is described as being bipolar (although I do have reservations about the representation). Life is, antithetically, stubborn and changeless. This antithesis is mentioned in the Extended Zodiac descriptors for each aspect. Amaria may seem capricious - after all, it's part of the reason she's so controversial. However, I'd say that while it's more acceptable to me that Amaria would be tied to the aspect of narrative change and especially conflict, it makes more sense to me that she would be tied to the aspect of the environment, setting and especially that of loneliness.

 

Amaria seems to feel like she's the only one making an effort. To an extent, one could agree with her - she (at least as of E19) has to be pushed over the edge for her to reach a breaking point, and while she's always under the pressure and could snap at any moment, she's making an honest effort not to, she tells Corey as much. She was one of the first leaders to sign onto the new league and was vital in its restoration, she is one of the leaders doing the most to restore the region to health and beauty, and she feels very alone in this. Initially, she dismisses the player because she doesn't think they can or will help her rescue the Popplio. She is willing to trust Ace, and I find this interesting - it might be because she finds it so hard to trust those closest to her. Titania lies to her, Florinia lies to herself, and Julia never seems to be taking the situation very seriously, so when Ace is willing to divulge information, and is willing to take the situation as seriously as she is, she might feel like she's finally found someone who can truly help out and make the same effort she does. Is any of this factual information? No. But it's been one of the character interactions I've been most interested in since E19's arrival.

 

And, of course, from a character perspective, the one she loves doesn't love her back. She knows this. Of course she's lonely. From a narrative perspective, she is destined to come out of this story alone. That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course, and she even comes out of it healthier than she ever was before - but that's why I think she's so suited for Spacebound. Her entire story revolves around her learning to let go and become her own, independent person, and I think that is what is most important. Her story does not end in tragedy, destruction, or a state of limbo or stalemate, she actively gets better by the time Another Time rolls around, and definitely seems to be getting there in her character epilogue. As such, I feel Doombound is an unfair assessment of her narrative - and, I'll say it one more time, because I think it's the most important thing to take from this mini-essay; the most important aspect of analysing someone's classpect is how the narrative affects them, or how they affect the narrative.

 

As for class, since I don't think "one who manipulates loneliness" really works (although I can see a few obvious arguments that it does), Mage works well under my own interpretation of "one who learns through their aspect" (whereas Seers are "ones who understand through the use of their aspect"). I don't really have as much to say on this that I haven't already.

 

Now, do I have opinions on other characters? Yes, and while I could probably write a lot, either equal to or greater in length about Florinia as well, I agree with the sentiment of Seer of Mind and find there to be less reason to. I find it frustrating that "Maid of Void" is such an aesthetically-perfect classpect for Luna because I hate when people choose a class and aspect for a character based purely on aesthetic, but it's also a narratively-sound classpect for Luna as well. Apart from that, I haven't really done any in-depth character analyses from a classpect-narrative standpoint, so I'll leave other characters for someone else to figure out if they're so inclined.