#rage aspect

I am bleeding, but it's normal.

Now rage is flowing through me.

[GC] Yoooo another rage p\ayer!!! Niiiceee it'ss incredib\y hard to find people \ike uss out on the internetss!!

Manipulate

Witch(-), Sylph(-)

Understand

Mage(-), Seer(+)

Steal

Thief(-). Rogue(+)

Preserve

Knight(-), Page(+)

Destroy

Prince(-), Bard(+)

Create

Maid(+), Heir(+)

Command

Lord(--), Muse(++)

Main / Aspects&Castes / Sway&Species

Class Icons

Oh boy, i'll have a lot of fun explaining Rage with this one.

Mages are Active Classes that always have a supernatural understanding of their Aspect. While you generally don't need to have a Heir that's a natural of their aspect for example, with the Mage they are at least very knowledgeable of it. Their issue is the opposite of Seers, they're normally too close minded with their Aspect and they're either rendered unable or too stubborn to appreciate their opposite.

Rage is the Aspect that deals with Skepticism. While yes a lot of people associate it with Reality it isn't necessarily a thing that defines the Aspect as a whole, since distrust (the word that actually defines Rage) can very well come from lies, pretentions that don't necessarily connect with reality and absurd paranoias as well.

To start off, our Mage would be really knowledgeable or skilled at Rage. Following the common fandom interpretation that Rage represents Reality, our Mage could know everything that's actually real, and they could have a inherent knowledge that they're part of a webcomic, for example. I however think that the Rage Aspect represents a broader idea than that, so here are my examples:

1 - We can have a Mage that's experienced on how they deal with their own Rage, knowing when to use it to benefit themselves and when it's not worth it.

2 - We can have a Mage that always wants to impress everyone by destroying their expectations, trying to be different or even being a contrarian as a whole, and they always know exactly how to succeed at that.

3 - More in line with the fandom interpretation, we could have a Mage that's extremely skeptic and they have an inherent intuition to tell when people are lying.

Now, if you're used to the way i'm organizing my blog, you're probably asking what the heck is the Mage's problem, since we have almost no information of the class at all and the only two characters that have it are not elaborated enough neither had enough singificant screen time? Well, my friend, i've already said it before, and i'll say it again.

Mages are basically reverse Seers in terms of their character arc. While the Seer suffers from having such a loose connection to their Aspect that they risk being corrupted by their Opposite, the Mage is quite literally being restrained by their own main Aspect, rendered unable to enjoy their opposite. Sollux felt so restrained by his and his friends's Destiny (Doom) that he literally forgot to enjoy Life, probably the reason why his pairing with Feferi was done, and Meulin was so focused on her feelings of Kurloz (Heart) that she was rendered unable to come to Mind that her matesprit was manipulating her.

For our Mage of Rage in question, the traits that we gave to them related to Rage might also be the reason that they're too close minded with their Aspect to really know what's going on, to an unhealthy degree.

On example 1, our Mage might be uncomfortable with their nature of being so prone to anger, and that's also the reason why they feel like they're unable to get rid of their anger issues.

On example 2, our Mage can be so attached to the idea of being a unpredictable contrarian that they feel uncomfortable following the common sense, even if that's for their own safety.

On example 3, our Mage will probably be so skeptical of others that they start to feed on their own paranoias, making them distrust EVERYTHING around them, even when there's actually nothing wrong with it.

The solution to those problems are all related to them, similar to the Seer, not let themselves get too engulfed on their own Aspect. They need to appreciate their Opposite a little more, even if that's initially scary for them.

And also, potential powers! (Since we haven't see rage as a physical power or sum)

Alright, this is going to be a pretty long post. Here we go.

Heirs are people that inherit their main Aspect and let it decide how they act. Now, contrary to popular belief, Heirs aren't necessarily naturals of their main Aspect, rather their main Aspect actually guides and shields the Heir from greater harm. As an example, think about how stuff happens with John Egbert on the start of his session. All of his friends are either unavaiable, not paying attention at all to his situation, or unable to help him anyway. If he depended solely on Rose to do the initial Sburb steps, he would've been dead right before entering his Land, and you can see even more examples right after it, like trusting Terezi to fight his denizen early which got him killed and forced Dave to rewind back in time to save the session. Rage is the Aspect that deals with Skepticism. Now, i don't believe Rage is necessarily about realism like the majority of the community says so. I think the IDEA behind the word is right per say, but it's not the exact word i would use to describe it. That's because at least to me, Rage exclusively represents the frustration that you have when you realize things don't work quite as you HOPED them to. Your hope has suddenly been lost, as the harsh reality comes forth. As you can see, while reality is indeed part of what makes rage, it's not exactly the "thing" that the Aspect represents. Your hopes on the subject have been destroyed, and now the only thing on your mind is frustration as those expectations haven't been met. Thats why they're completely opposite ideals.

The Heir of Rage would be someone that often lets Rage make decisions for them, often torn between letting Rage act their way or go and act aligned to Hope. You would assume that this Heir would be very angry about anything ever, right? While yes, this is a plausible possibility, i'd like to go out of my way to give another possible interpretation to the meanings of Rage.

Rage being not solely about "realism" is the point here. Rage is not only "the harsh reality", it is also lack of hope. Disbelief, distrust. Not trusting in anything is the core idea of Rage. This is what i rationalized to bring out my fankid. My Heir of Rage, contrary to his title, it's pretty chill. His problem, however, is that he also suffers with anxiety a lot. He distrusts and gets paranoid about everything he sees, every single time. The problem with that however, is that if you saw my previous analysis about Heirs, you'd know that just because Heirs let their main Aspect guide them, this doesn't mean that they will never bump with their Opposite, and that's exactly what troubles and can possibly end up killing the Heir.

My Heir of Rage is so paranoid that not only does he distrusts stuff, he also begins to feed his hundreds of tragic thoughts out of the blue. His thoughts get really absurd with what could possibly happen, that often he loses focus to what is actually happening. This is the core idea of an Heir of Rage to me, they'll need to let Rage guide them in some way, but this method will often have them also having to deal with Hope in some way. You could also go in the most literal sense, like a Heir that lets their frustration guide them on their methods, but often they feel torn between doing that or waiting and see if the situation in question will get better, etc. The core principle of an Heir is that basically every single time they do something related to "betraying" their main Aspect and going to their Opposite, it's also where their protection fades out and they're probably going to get screwed by the narrative.

Jack Noir is a Thief of Rage. Thief, in that he's associated with a band of rogues, he takes things for himself, he has a high level of independence (as most Thieves do, just look at Vriska and Meenah), tendency to Loot... and Rage, not just because he's one angry customer, but because he's explicitly associated with Romantic Hate (Kimesistude is associated with Rage--also the Spades), and has a Berserker Mode (we only see it before he gets prototyped with Bec, but its hinted at that Slick has it too).

He's a good stand in for Thief and Rage in the Human session--unfortunately, Beta Jack is, in such irony, Hijacked. (Passively, unlike Alpha Jack. Cos gotta tell'ya, I don't think Slick would give that much of a shit about Lil Cal)

But the Thief of Rage bits get deeper, likely showing that Jack is a fully Realized Thief.

... Like most thieves, he has a hostile fence that drives him into his attitude and aptitude for taking things (For Vriska, it was her Lussus, who would eat her, and Mindfang, who "inspired" her by taking her spotlight; for Meenah, it was Troll Society and the Beforus Empress). For Jack, it' s the Black Queen.

... As a Thief of Rage, he takes Rage for himself... which, on a literal scale, usually means getting the shit kicked out of him (everyone directing their rage At Him)... But on a more meta-scale, he also takes the means of Survival (another Aspect of Rage, as an descending parallel to Life).

When Jack is not played "as intended", his mark has a bad habit of dooming a session--or you could say, causing a RAGE QUIT. He gets exiled from the Troll Session? Another version of him pops up and kills everyone and destroys everything. He gets prototyped into Bec Noir, thus gets hijacked? Everything in the human session dies. Slick gets offed? Suddenly, there's nobody keeping Lord English's attention and the worst case happens.

It even extends to Caliborn / LE himself. Caliborn cacks his Jack, and suddenly, sessions later, here comes Spades Slick to clock-block him at vital points--contributing to his final defeat.

Its like narrative spite is built into Jack Noir. Which likely means that the only means to actually defeat him, is to give him what he wants and defeat him on equal terms--IE, make him the Bonus Boss then defeat him.

[ Take his behavior with Bro in the Beta Session. Jack wants a Good Equal Fight. Hell, that behavior goes for rest of the Thieves too--Vriska wants a meaningful Fight, Meenah wants the fight of her life. Having the BIG FIGHT is in the nature of Thieves. ]

( Just another thing that it turns out, Karkat and his Crew fucked up inadvertently by speedrunning their session. )

You have to get Rage to concede on its own terms, or you're going to have a cycle of vengeance on your hands by the most stubborn entity in existence--you can almost admire the sheer determination.

ADDENDUM:

Bec Noir is the worst form of Jack. Like, that's not even Jack fulfilling his core-class. He's a Thief of Rage, a Thief's time is plagued by acceptable struggle. Being handed power is the worst thing you can do to a thief because it robs them (hahah). The core-quest is self actualization, and things that skip that or ignore that, are considering a Loss, not a victory, no matter how seemingly successful or powerful the character becomes.