[ooc] on recent canon
Feb. 9th, 2011 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
musclebeast_nutThis weekend's updates threw me for a loop as far as characterization and my hold on it goes. Equius is--was?--a lot more devoted to the blood caste system than I had previously bargained for, which is partially my own fault for not considering Andrew Hussie of all people could not possibly push something to the extreme.
Equius was instructed by Karkat, the head of the troll's team, to fight and kill any of the murderous trolls currently on the loose in the Veil. He could not promise that could or would happen at all solely because two out of three of the trolls are higher in the caste than he is; Karkat is entirely outside of the hemospectrum, unclassed. When he finally did go to confront Gamzee, he died by strangulation. He died because he could not bring himself to resist what someone higher on the hemospectrum wanted.
That's what had me most upset about this update! Ask the rest of the cast, I was upset. And still am, a bit. Equius is stated to be the strongest troll even before the group of twelve entered Sgrub and we're given very striking evidence of that when he simply leaps to reach his first gate and when he's shown defeating large game enemies with just a couple of punches--no weapons at all. He's so strong he's actually incapable of using weapons. He is able to endure a lot. If we were to take only Equius' ridiculous physical strength and capacity into account, he should not have been able to die by asphyxiation. As stated by Hussie himself, twitching one muscle in his neck would have been more than enough to snap the bowstring, proving Gamzee's tactic utterly useless. But because Equius was facing the one land-dwelling troll who is higher on the hemospectrum than him, he sat there--kneeled there--and let it happen. He did not for one second resist being strangled to death. That is the extent to which he is dedicated to the hemospectrum and how it defines what he does or does not do.
I'm not even going to touch the sexual implications present in the last few pages he's the focus of. Please, just don't ask.
How does this potentially affect the way I've been playing him? I'm honestly not sure yet. There are some relationships to canon castmates that will have some subtle tweaking done for sure, but I'm just going to be treading carefully for a while in this regard. What I'll probably end up paying more attention to is how and when to use the horse puns Equius was shown to use in the latest game. It's a little frustrating because he never made such ridiculous puns ever before in canon, nor was he ever portrayed actually discussing his emotions, so it's difficult to know how often it would even be okay to pepper them in. On the whole I am just going to proceed with caution and hope for the best.
Equius was instructed by Karkat, the head of the troll's team, to fight and kill any of the murderous trolls currently on the loose in the Veil. He could not promise that could or would happen at all solely because two out of three of the trolls are higher in the caste than he is; Karkat is entirely outside of the hemospectrum, unclassed. When he finally did go to confront Gamzee, he died by strangulation. He died because he could not bring himself to resist what someone higher on the hemospectrum wanted.
That's what had me most upset about this update! Ask the rest of the cast, I was upset. And still am, a bit. Equius is stated to be the strongest troll even before the group of twelve entered Sgrub and we're given very striking evidence of that when he simply leaps to reach his first gate and when he's shown defeating large game enemies with just a couple of punches--no weapons at all. He's so strong he's actually incapable of using weapons. He is able to endure a lot. If we were to take only Equius' ridiculous physical strength and capacity into account, he should not have been able to die by asphyxiation. As stated by Hussie himself, twitching one muscle in his neck would have been more than enough to snap the bowstring, proving Gamzee's tactic utterly useless. But because Equius was facing the one land-dwelling troll who is higher on the hemospectrum than him, he sat there--kneeled there--and let it happen. He did not for one second resist being strangled to death. That is the extent to which he is dedicated to the hemospectrum and how it defines what he does or does not do.
I'm not even going to touch the sexual implications present in the last few pages he's the focus of. Please, just don't ask.
How does this potentially affect the way I've been playing him? I'm honestly not sure yet. There are some relationships to canon castmates that will have some subtle tweaking done for sure, but I'm just going to be treading carefully for a while in this regard. What I'll probably end up paying more attention to is how and when to use the horse puns Equius was shown to use in the latest game. It's a little frustrating because he never made such ridiculous puns ever before in canon, nor was he ever portrayed actually discussing his emotions, so it's difficult to know how often it would even be okay to pepper them in. On the whole I am just going to proceed with caution and hope for the best.
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Date: 2011-02-10 12:14 am (UTC)fuckberry :D
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Date: 2011-02-10 12:18 am (UTC)DON'T SAY THAT WHERE HUSSIE CAN HEAR YOU, OH MY GOD.
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Date: 2011-02-10 12:20 am (UTC)Keep in mind that in Camp, there are humans. A lot of them. The situation has changed! In canon he did not develop much, if at all, and you shouldn't feel off for it! About the only time I can think it coming into play is if... Gamzee gives you actual orders. Which is something in canon he'd been trying to get out of him for quite a while it seems like! I'm not so sure it is the hemomspectrum in general, or rather Gamzee's specific case of being the highest land dweller, without being a purpleblooded oceandwelling social enemy.
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Date: 2011-02-10 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 09:04 pm (UTC)But my take on all this is that, among everything else, this was a situation stacked against Equius hugely. Psycho Gamzee is certainly proving himself to be really good at the mindgames, who even knows where that came from but damn. He did draw out the confrontation, toying with Equius and hitting some very personal weak spots, the submission thing sure, not to mention using a bow and breaking it can't in any way be an accident. Plus Equius himself had been filling himself with doubt and doom about facing Gamzee from the start, pretty much psyching himself down, and once things started going badly that would have a way of making his doubts seem all the more right.
I don't mean to downplay that sitting there letting himself get strangled is a part of who Equius is. It's a weakness of his, and things played out in such a way that that weakness was exacerbated and ended up at the forefront at a crucial moment, but that means that always had the potential to happen. I'm trying not to do your character for you but I keep reading Equius as hugely confused and conflicted in that scene, tons of screwed up ideas and impulses and crossed wires stirred up in his brain, and so he freezes up and goes completely passive for the highblood because that's so basic and fundamental for him. If it had been different, if Gamzee had just jumped right out of the shadows at him and Nepeta right after Karkat messaged him, well maybe a different set of impulses would have won. Who knows. Boy fell prey to the worst things about himself in the end, they were a liability and they got used against him.