dave strider is essentially homestuck’s tutorial npc character. before i elaborate i need to establish some stuff;
homestuck isn’t just a webcomic that imitates videogame imagery, it is a game pretending to be a webcomic. at least until andrew hussie drops the reader commands in act four.
john egbert is the reader’s point of view character. he is the method through which we learn how to play both homestuck and sburb. we tend to learn things as he does, and he is most interesting when there is an audience to direct him places (in my opinion, anyways).
with that in mind, i can continue. until his introduction in act four, dave strider is an npc by definition, and he spends a good chunk of his time teaching john how the world works and giving him objectives. here are some examples of that from the first 40 pages:
he’s also the tutorial character in the sense that he’s introducing you to how homestuck’s dialogue delivery works as a series of meandering and occasionally humorous chatlogs. dave as the tutorial npc is formalized when dave becomes davesprite, since sprites are sburb’s skaia-designated tutorial npc figure. and, as soon as he becomes davesprite, he tracks john down to impart some brotherly wisdom
i mean, hell, he pretty much outlines his whole “i am the tutorial character” thing in his letter to john
i think people don’t really recognize this part of his character because for one thing, dave stops being a tutorial npc when you get to order him around in act two, but also because it’s hidden pretty well. i certainly had friends like this who had to teach me how to play video games and bail me out of jams. in some ways, dave is sort of like john’s older brother, trying to nudge him in the right direction and wise up. i guess the rest of the beta kids are like his older siblings too, since he is the youngest and the one who knows the least about homestuck’s inner-workings. he is you, after all.
