#claspect analysis

Let's start with the class - Knights are the active weaponization class, one who uses or manipulates their aspect like a weapon for their own benefit. This isn't to say that Knights can't be a team player, but more so that they use their powers more selfishly than, say, a Page. Knights have a few quirks that are common across all of them, namely their insecurity surrounding their ability to use their aspect or their interaction with their aspect in some way, shape, or form. Not only that, but Knights tend to be more long-winded than other classes, as in, they like to ramble a lot. It doesn't have to be about anything specific, but they do like to yap.

Hope is the aspect of belief, of possibility, of literal hope. I like to think of Hope like a branching tree, full of possibilities and options. A Hope player is more in tune with these possibilities, and a Knight of Hope is one who can use those possibilities and literal hope to protect and defend their allies, as well as attack their enemies.

Knights, however, tend to represent the one thing their session lacks. Therefore, a Knight of Hope's session would be... rather hopeless. Perhaps something had gone wrong pre-entry, but it would be the Knight's job to get over their insecurities and bring their aspect into the session, as their sessionmates desperately need it.

Powers of a Knight of Hope would include being able to fight towards and force the session onto a more hopeful and better path, manipulate dreams (and dreamselves, to some extent), and most importantly, rally the rest of the session to a hopeful demeanor in their darkest hour. After all, the most important first step you can take when approaching a fight is believing that you will win, and a Knight of Hope will be able to instill this belief. In fact, the more their session believes, and believes in them specifically, the stronger they'll get in combat.

So a Witch is the active manipulation class, its passive counterpart being the Heir. Witches are known to be bubbly and friendly, but lacking control over their aspect. They have a tendency to hide their true feelings for the sake of making those around them happier. 

Breath is the aspect of communication, freedom, and direction. Freedom and direction inherently sound contradictory, but think of it as having the freedom to take whichever direction one chooses. 

Then, a Witch of Breath is one who manipulates the freedoms she and others in her session have, and can easily change the direction of the paths they walk. But she lacks control, as stated above, so while it’s likely she’ll have great communication skills and be able to allow information to flow freely between the members of her party, it’s also just as likely she’ll be letting secrets slip, things told to her in confidence will reach the wrong ears. This is made even more likely if your session has a Light player or Void player. It becomes the Witch’s goal, then, to know what needs to be said when to get things done. 

Page is the class of passive weaponization/protection, its active counterpart being the Knight and inverse the Thief. Huh, no wonder Tavros and Vriska spent a lot of time in their session together. Interesting. Hope is the aspect of trust, dreams, belief, and ideals. Hope is about multiple paths, multiple possibilities and choices, about opening doors. 

Pages as a class are designed to give their session the aspect, and the more realized the Page, the better they are at giving their aspect. Take, for example, Tavros scraping together an army of ghosts to face Lord English. He gave them a direction, and allowed Meenah to communicate with them openly by having her stand on his horns. He may have been a doormat, but he’s perhaps the most realized Page we have in the comic. 

A Page of Hope, then is supposed to bring into their session opportunities. Jake did that when Aranea unlocked his powers, the Hope-splosion serving as more or less a diversion. Pages are an open conduit for their aspect, allowing it to pour into the session upon full realization. Jake managed to make a second Dirk simply by believing in an image of Dirk he had in his mind strongly enough. Let’s not forget that his Hope-y powers overwhelmed Jade’s powers from the Green Sun - Hope is not an aspect to be trifled with. 

I may say this a lot, but a fully-realized Page of Hope is perhaps the most, if not one of the most, strongest claspects in the game. It overpowers the Green Sun, it overpowers Princes and Bards... but that’s the power of Hope. If you believe in Hope strongly enough, it will return the favor. 

Maids are the passive healing class, their active counterpart being the Sylph and their inverse being the active/destruction Prince class. A Maid’s goal is to serve others with the overabundance of aspect that they possess. Breath is the aspect of direction, communication, and freedom, and is often associated with wind, mail, and other free-moving things. 

A Maid is one who starts their stories being serious about their aspect. I’d picture a zealot in a way, but about having as much freedom to do as they please. They’d have many different avenues to go down, but not really want to limit themselves. In fact, fining direction in life would be both hard and easy for them - they have the ability to do what they want, but don’t want to restrain themselves in any one particular path. 

Seers are the passive knowledge class, and generally start off with incorrect or misled assumptions surrounding their aspect. Time is the aspect of chronology, destruction, and literal time. It’s also closely associated with death, and is more so the aspect of death than Doom is. This is because its opposite is Space, which is also the aspect of creation. As things are born, so must they die at some point, it’s only natural. 

So one with misguided opinions or incorrect facts surrounding destruction and death... would probably be the worst person to have on a demolition crew. They probably really enjoy watching things break, but would probably often call out how physically impossible certain special effects in movies are. They’d also probably like media that portrays time travel, I imagine certain franchises that touch on the possibility would really get them going. Perhaps, with their misguided opinions and information, they’d think time travel was realistically possible? Not to be the one to burst your bubble, but in the real world, our world, time travel isn’t possible. The germs and diseases we carry could wipe out the entire population of humans in the past, just as going forwards in time would be deadly for us of their past. But I bet a Seer of Time would cling to the idea, or perhaps have some clue on how a time travel device would work, but of course would be wildly wrong about it. 

Knights are the active weaponization/protection class, their passive counterparts being Pages. Knights represent what their session lacks, and must overcome their insecurity surrounding the aspect they’re so good at using in order to provide their aspect for the session. 

Mages are the active knowledge class, their passive counterpart being the Seer. Unlike the Seer, the Mage has an innate and inborn knowledge of their aspect. Early-game, a Mage is theoretically better than a Seer, as a Seer spends the early game re-learning their aspect and removing their old, incorrect knowledge and habits. Mages are charged with figuring out how to teach others about their aspect in a way that makes sense, and often their land quest revolves around teaching or somehow creating their aspect with their knowledge. 

Void is the aspect of nothingness, of paradoxes, a lack, an obscurification, and is usually represented by darkness. Void, as the opposite of Light and knowledge, is perhaps the biggest oxymoron I’ve ever seen when paired with Mage. Theoretically, however, a Mage of Void would know a lot about nothing. Or rather, what’s probably considered to be nothing - the void between sessions, paradox space, horrorterrors and the occult would be all of the Mage of Void’s specialty.