CONDESCOURSE: )(er Imperious Controversiality

[JakeMorph]

fuck it if nobody else is going to open this can I guess I'll do it

the condesce shows obvious fascist tendencies, and homestuck's general take on that is that fascists get killed and don't get character arcs afterwards. i'm not gonna complain about that!

but I am interested in the condesce as a nuanced character moreso than all of homestuck's other fascists. the fact is that she was interested in a future for her race beyond the influence of lord english - essentially the same goal that the signless had! and despite the power that generally tends to be ascribed to her, outside observers like Porrim have forwarded that she was being pulled around like a puppet by other villains for most of her career - consider thief/thief parallels. in a similar vein, I think there's evidence to suggest the condesce was more of a figurehead than an absolute dictator on her homeworld, and that the reason she fucked earth up so bad is that she basically didn't have a fucking clue what she was doing because she spent her life flying around exploring new planets rather than actually participating in politics.

[VASKA]

I think the idea of the Condesce as a mere figurehead of Alternia's government is an interesting but not very accurate one. It's hard to say anything about Alternia's government at all since Homestuck lore can be wildly inconsistent and Hussie was not trying to build a realistic, detailed and storied world with real history when he made Alternia- his intent was to make something interesting, but more in line with parody, so Alternian culture and government were constantly subject to change and almost always went for "what's funniest" or "what's most fucked up", with Hussie's sense of humor sometimes making those one and the same.

I do think the Condesce was a very powerful and active political figure from what we've seen though. If I recall correctly, it was her decision to banish all adult trolls from Alternia, and that's big call to let a puppet make, and on top of that we get a lot of hints that the role of juggalos on Alternia was to enforce her will- Hussie calls subjugglators "enforcers" multiple times on his formspring and old forum posts, and the role of the Grand Highblood seems to have something to do with law enforcement, since he was the authority Dualscar attempted to turn Mindfang in to. It seems that, at the very least, all the major decisions on Alternia were made by the Condesce, although Terezi alludes to "senators" implying there are elected or appointed offices in Alternia's government and the purple bloods seem to have their own semi-legal system supplied by their religion, with the Grand Highblood acting as pope-president.

We have no way on speculating what role violet bloods play in government, since the only two violets with any real character are Eridan and Dualscar, both of whom weren't politicians but had a weird alien equivalent of an especially prestigious blue-collar job, orphaner. Eridan mentions he's part of an aristocracy, so it's possible they play the role of lobbyists and patrons?

But at the end of the day, it does really look like the Condesce is responsible for structuring the system the way it is, and it benefits primarily, and possibly only, her. Her actions certainly aren't good by any stretch, but I think it's very easy to read a sort of misguided concern for her people into her character, especially after all the hard work she put into reviving them in B2 and her attempt to reach Alternia to stop her species extinction despite the fact that she, personally, would remain unharmed.

[egg]

sexy sexy sea hitler, milf of a hundred billion trolls

[bathtimebird]

I fucking love Condy. Her backstory is so entrenched in Hussie tier worldbuilding that it turned her from a boring villain to a great one. Plus she's sexy as hell.

[JakeMorph]

snip

even if it was the Condesce stated to have scattered all but the children throughout the galaxy after the Summoner's rebellion, that's no reason to believe it was entirely her idea or even that the order literally came from her mouth. there's strong precedent in the story for her to have been manipulated into taking certain actions by certain shadowy figures pulling Alternia's strings (or even the narrative itself!), considering she is outright stated to have been really just the Lo+rd's slave all alo+ng [...] thro+ugh manipulatio+n by his cunning emplo+yee, and considering this exact thing happens to Vriska:

It's already evident that Doc Scratch has been manipulating circumstances to help this gruesome series of events unfold.
[...]
One reading of Doc is as a manipulative devil-creep in the model of many fictional characters who fit this description; he's a fairly recognizable and traditional presence in the story, when viewed that way. A less traditional reading centers on his role on a metatextual level, as a nefarious, all-knowing, profoundly evil alt-author presence. A guy who has the full powers of the author, who essentially IS the author with certain dark authorial impulses greatly exaggerated, while functioning as a character in the story who can speak to and influence other characters in support of an evil agenda. (That is, the summoning of yet another, even more satanic alt-author being into the comic.) Viewed this way, his conversations with other characters take on a different quality. Normally, the author remains a disguised presence and influences the thoughts of characters with an unseen hand, simply by writing their thoughts directly into their heads, their words into their mouths. This alt-author is essentially doing the same thing, but as an actual character and a known presence to those he influences. He whispers in their ears, gets them to do the nasty, terrible things that are latent within their nature to do, which I as the unseen author easily could have done myself through a conventional writing process.

if vriska was partially influenced to do what she did by Scratch, the condesce was literally given the reason and the means to do so by him in the form of gl'bgolyb.

even though the Condesce used scratch's gift to delegate oppression to the subjugglators, whose unique abilities and exceptional brutality made them natural enforcers, in the same breath the land dwellers are referred to as a self-governing body (notice that despite being royalty, Dualscar has to grovel before the Grand Highblood to have anything done about the criminal Mindfang, seemingly lacking the authority to do anything about it himself) - a fact reinforced by Equius' insistence that the highbloods and sea dwellers are enemies and not allies. a great example of the Condesce's relationship to clowns given to us directly by the comic is the way she utilised the Insane Clown Posse on earth; even though she seemingly had them put in place as a a puppet regime, she also gave them carte blanche to carry out their idiotic whims to the extent of pumping Faygo through the world's plumbing in place of water. Dirk's own theory is even that she just loved the idea of delegating the extreme subjugation of the world's population to a pair of demented clown rappers rather than doing it herself.

this whole setup is clarified even more when Porrim describes the situation on Beforus which could be superficially o+bserved as a matriarchy o+n a fuschia-do+wn basis, but where o+n a practical level all o+f the enfo+rcement and po+litical po+wer go+verning mo+st classes was delegated to+ the higher [Cobalts, Indigos and Purple]s (and remember the purples are dominated by a cult that glorifies the coming of Lord English - the very same goal Scratch had in shaping Alternia in the first place).

the comic even goes as far as to say that the Condesce only goes off to scour the galaxy for planets on her own personal flagship is because she thinks she has an unshakable grip on the throne, even when other evidence suggests that's not the case. I think we're supposed to see Meenah running off to the pink moon as a parallel to this; it is in Meenah's nature to skirt responsibility by flying off into space. I would even argue that Scratch was taking advantage of this very fact by putting her in charge post-Scratch at all, even when everything else seemed to be under his control; by putting a woman he knows has a penchant for letting other people take her responsibilities at the 'head' of Alternia, he's ensuring there's room for him to manipulate things to his whims while keeping the 'superficial matriarchy' Porrim talks about in place for the sake of giving trolls a false sense of security.

I think there's also something to be said, in this line of thinking, about the fact that the Condesce wasn't actually gifted any superpowers by Lord English until after Alternia was already dead - another parallel to Meenah, who only arrived into relevance in the dream bubbles after the other ancestors had been pissing about in there for thousands of years already. the Condesce's role in the plan wasn't on Alternia; she wasn't necessary there. her role was on Earth, killing off humanity and leaving the planet ready for the rise of Lord English. and he didn't need a politician for that! he just needed someone who was good at letting other people fuck shit up for her.

obviously i'm not saying that the Condesce was completely devoid of political power or that her hands are clean of the atrocities committed in the names of Alternia or the Betty Crocker empires; rather I don't think she cares enough to have a proper hand in how things are run in her regimes, and is perhaps more of an enabler. i think Meenah is a thrillseeker rather than out-and-out malevolent, in a way pretty similar to, say, Terezi, and blaming her outright for the structural and moral problems with Alternia is kind of like blaming Vriska's random monster mother for the way she turned out as a teenager when there are obviously more sinister influences at play.

[rookie1978]

she's kinda hot
that's all i got to say