The entire idea that Dirk would ever value self-preservation over his commitment and responsibility to his loved ones is completely inconsistent with his character as we saw it in canon. Using a seven-year timeskip as an excuse to completely alter a character's characterization without having to offer a single real explanation for the changes, or at least a throughput of understanding how we got from point A to point B, is lazy and bad writing. There's leaving things for interpretation and speculation and then there's just not fucking bothering to write something you should because you don't give a shit about narrative consistency. If Hussie wanted to write a new story, maybe write something other than homestuck??? Or don't make it a direct sequel to the last story which you masquerade as the conclusion to the last story.Rob wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:39 pmSure, but the characterization and motivations of multiple characters changed between Act 7 and the Epilogues as a natural consequence of time passing and Hussie wanting to tell a new story. Continuing to live in the fanon universe of Candy was tantamount to death for Dirk, the suicide was a formality. While self-preservation is always going to trump commitments to others I strongly suspect he views the Candy universe as a type of death for his friends as well and this is not just a self-centric enterprise.
Also it's pretty disturbing that Dirk's gratuitously graphic and disturbing suicide is being treated so flippantly by both the story and the fandom. But okay, whatever. All of everything that is inconsistent about Dirk's character is totally okay and nobody should complain because he MAYBE thinks he's trying to help his friends in some twisted way. Possibly. We don't actually know!
First of all, we are talking about good and bad as per Dirk's own morality and perceptions, and to him, bad is anything that leads to his friends and loved ones being hurt, ESPECIALLY by him. In the past, Dirk has expressed that he literally is not able to bring himself to intentionally and meaningfully hurt the people he cares about, EVEN if it would for their own benefit in the long run. He may accidentally hurt them anyway unintentionally, but he beats himself up about that enough to know he wouldn't want that if he could prevent it. If you're going to have a character's morals just completely flip on their head, maybe that's an important goddamn detail that deserves at least a smidgen of narrative focus. Or not.Rob wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:39 pm`Good` and `bad` aren't objective states of the world, they depend on context and viewpoint. For a story to happen there must be conflict: events that the reader will take as bad and need solving have to happen. From the viewpoint of a character of the story (especially one that is cognizant of their place in that story) those events are necessary for their and their friends continued existence. It's this, the preservation of the people he loves, that what makes the acts worth doing.
Also. NO. Stories DON'T have to have conflict, at least not in the form of 'events that the reader will take as bad'. And moreover, stories don't need to have villains to have conflict!! My god! Lots of stories do have conflict, they are the most simple and common way of creating engagement in a narrative, and villains are the most simple and common way of achieving that, but they aren't the ONLY way for a story to keep being written. That's just goddamn ridiculous, not to mention reductive???