Classpect Musings
Classpects, for anyone who does not know, is a magic system created for the web comic Homestuck. Each major and minor character in that comic (with some expectations) gets something called a Hero Title or Mythological role. This Hero Title is made up of two parts: a Class and an Aspect (thus the name).
Aspects are the 12 fundamental forces or elements of reality. The aspects are Space, Time, Mind, Heart, Hope, Rage, Breath, Blood, Life, Doom, Light, and Void. Generally these Aspects are paired with their opposite elements (Time is the opposing aspect to Space for example). Classes on the other hand describe how a character will utilize their aspect. There are twelve normal classes which are Maid, Sylph, Thief, Rogue, Witch, Heir, Mage, Seer, Page, Knight, Prince, and Bard. There are also two, much rarer, Master classes which are Lord and Muse. These are also paired like the aspects but with an active and passive counterpart system.
Together, the characters Class and Aspect describe what part of reality they wield control over and how they are able to wield that power. For example, the main character John Egbert is an Heir of Breath. Once he becomes powerful enough he is able to become (inherit the powers of with the heir title) the wind (which is one of the elements under the Breath Aspect). Aspects also can have more symbolic properties, such as breath symbolizing freedom, which allows John to inherit freedom from his father by taking his car out of his dads wallet. It's a weird comic! Aspects can even be interpreted metatextuality, such as breath representing freedom from narrative constraints, which plays out when John is able to escape the confines of a single comic panel. Obviously this is a decently simplified explanation of classpects, but I think it will work for now! If you are interested in more in depth explanations I have always loved Optimistic Duelist’s videos on the system!
The most fun and interesting part of classpects is how easy and fun it is to interpret many different meanings from a hero title. It allows for very interesting analysis of even very minor characters. Something that I have done with classpects is move beyond the characters of Homestuck and begun assigning classes and aspects to characters from other media I like. I currently have 220+ characters classpected at the moment in a loooooooong spreadsheet I have. I mostly go about this by analyzing the habitual actions of the characters as well as the themes and metatextual aspects of a character.
A character I can use to exemplify this is Misa Amane from the anime Death Note. I have her classpected as a Witch of Heart at the moment. I chose heart as her aspect because some of the themes associated with that aspect are passion, romance, persona’s and role play. Misa has extreme passion for what she does and who she loves. She is extremely devoted to Kira, and later falls deeply in love with Light when she meets him. She also deeply cares about her career. She also frequently uses personas and role plays throughout the story. She pretends to be Kira for a short period, wears disguises to figure out who Kira really is, effectively hides her identity as the second Kira once she regains her memory, and generally loves to change her appearance frequently. I chose witch as her class because witches are generally given the habitual action of changing or manipulating their aspect in a very active manner. While not as smart as Light or L in the story, she is shown to be extremely manipulative and cunning especially when it comes to utilizing her passion and personas. She is able to get Light to date her even when he believes it would reveal him to be Kira, her plan to blackmail TV stations is nearly able to be done if L wasn’t there to stop her, and many other things.
All in all, analyzing characters through this system is very fun for me! So I thought I would share that with you all!