- 1,280
- 1,120
So, as it currently stands, a handful of Homestuck profiles are rated as 1-A based on the following:
Now, what does "dubiously canon" mean? Well, it ties into the following explanation from Rose Lalonde at the beginning of the Homestuck Epilogues:
Now, this is where I can get into the meat of my argument: the 1-A feat mentioned above, due to coming from a dubiously canon source, should not be applied to the base canon. Besides the fact that "dubiously canon" content is, as I have just shown, not exactly 100% true, the Homestuck Epilogues are furthermore advertised as "Tales of dubious authenticity," Homestuck^2 is subtitled "Beyond Canon," and really, even the very term "dubiously canon" suggests that it's not totally canon.
So, if all of the above is accepted, what is going to happen? It's pretty simple:
This is actually perfectly fine for justifying 1-A as a whole, but the thing is, the game where this feat comes from (Pesterquest) is dubiously canon.
Now, what does "dubiously canon" mean? Well, it ties into the following explanation from Rose Lalonde at the beginning of the Homestuck Epilogues:
Basically, Homestuck is defined by three different levels of canon: inside canon, which is unconditionally true and will always have some degree of relevance and essentiality to the world at large; outside canon, which is conditionally true and is usually irrelevant and inessential, but not totally false; and non-canon, which is not true at all, and so, however relevant or essential it may be, it carries no weight and is effectively meaningless.ROSE: Just because certain events take place outside of canon, it doesn’t mean those events are non-canon.
JOHN: oh.
ROSE: In other words, there is an important distinction between events which can be considered to occur inside canon, outside canon, and those which are not canon at all.
ROSE: The day we went through that door and claimed our reward, we passed a threshold between continua marked by differing degrees of relevance, truth, and essentiality.
ROSE: Those are the three pillars of canon.
JOHN: what?
ROSE: Any event said to take place inside canon will have nonzero values of relevance and essentiality, while maintaining an absolute foundation in truth, by definition.
ROSE: Whereas events outside canon have diminished values of relevance and essentiality. Or, for the most part, can be considered neither relevant nor essential at all.
ROSE: But such events can’t be said to be untrue either. Instead, it’s better to regard their truth value as highly conditional.
ROSE: Are you still following?
JOHN: oh, yeah. totally.
ROSE: So to be clear, everything that’s taken place here on Earth C since we exited canon can be considered completely irrelevant, and for the most part, absolutely inessential. Yet none of it can be called untrue.
ROSE: At least, up until precisely today.
JOHN: ok.
JOHN: then what does non-canon mean?
ROSE: Events that are formally non-canon have no truth whatsoever, by definition.
ROSE: They may have relevance and essentiality values that are nonzero, or even quite high, but only as projections along an imaginary axis, resulting from highly subjective frames of reference.
ROSE: But due to those events having no truth, and thus carrying no real weight, the other properties are basically rendered meaningless.
Now, this is where I can get into the meat of my argument: the 1-A feat mentioned above, due to coming from a dubiously canon source, should not be applied to the base canon. Besides the fact that "dubiously canon" content is, as I have just shown, not exactly 100% true, the Homestuck Epilogues are furthermore advertised as "Tales of dubious authenticity," Homestuck^2 is subtitled "Beyond Canon," and really, even the very term "dubiously canon" suggests that it's not totally canon.
So, if all of the above is accepted, what is going to happen? It's pretty simple:
- Any "inside canon" characters who currently scale to 1-A (Lord English, Aradia Megido, the Horrorterrors, Andrew Hussie, John Egbert, etc.) will be downgraded.
- Any "outside canon" characters who are part of "inside canon" profiles (Ultimate Dirk, Enlightened Feferi, etc.) will be split into their own profiles. This would also include Aradia and John, since their 1-A keys are based on their showings in Pesterquest.
- Any "outside canon" characters who are completely separate from any "inside canon" profiles (MSPA Reader, etc.) will be unaffected.