Hello everybody, and welcome to an entirely infrequent and wholly selfishly motivated series (of) thread(s)! It's been FAR, far too long since I was in the classpecting mines, and my friends! I miss it so, so dearly... So here's what we're gonna do!
Let's talk about the Maid Class! Is it Passive? Is it Active? Who's it paired with?
Before we begin though, lets keep the words of our pal Calliope in mind!
"the +/- distinction can mean many things, bUt coUld be qUite roUghly sUmmed Up in this way: active classes exploit their aspect to benefit themselves, while passive classes allow their aspect to benefit others. bUt of coUrse there's plenty more to it, and that rUle is in no way absolUte. only a starting point for Understanding the dichotomy."
Keep that in the back of your head as we talk, here. Passive/Active is a fun and interesting lense to examine classes with, but it's by no means a catch all or even surefire thing, most of the time! An active player might not always act in a self serving manner. Similarly, a passive player might not always act in the interest of others.
Now then! I'm gonna talk first cause I made the thread and I wanna talk about it, beheh!
So! Speaking as one who thinks she's a maid of blood, I have always been pretty firmly in the camp that Maid falls into the active slot. This may seem a little counterintuitive as the term "maid" instantly conjures up images of servitude. Maids that serve nobility, right? Well! I'd like to instead posit that Maid is meant moreso in the sense of "Maiden", which for me calls to mind a sort of independence. Maidens are unmarried, untethered to any specific relationship! That strikes me as a very active/self-serving sort of moniker! And perhaps going from "maid" to "maiden" is part of what embodies a maid class player's quest.
Regardless, pair that with the observable behavior of some of our maids, and I think even if you're squarely on the "maids are passive" side of the fence you can see *some* credence to my thoughts.
Aradia Megido, our Maid of time. In most instances we see her creating time, or exploting it. She forces her aspect into reality, in some ways. Usually in what I would argue are pretty self serving manners. She creates time for herself by freezing Bec noir in place suring [S} wake. She creates hundreds of time duplicates of herself to distract bec noir once again. Sure, this buys time for ALL of the trolls, but. She is one of all of the trolls, imo. Look also at her powers pre-session! She can summon spirits from beyond the grave. She CREATES some more time for them beyond the mortal coil. And in almost every instance she uses it, its usually for her own purposes. (IE, making Vriska Pay.) Post her own session, she again is seen using her aspect to serve her OWN ends, her own self! She lingers in the dream bubbles. She CREATES boatloads of time for herself by wandering about them in the furthest ring, where time gets wobbly as helllll. I mean yeah she helps out those she finds in them and pals around with them but she doesnt seem too distraught when they start getting vaporized left and right by LE! IIRC, in a discussion with john, she even flat out states that she didnt stay behind in the bubbles to help her friends. She "just wanted to see what happens when everything falls apart," or something to that effect. That sounds pretty dang active to me.
I know I'm focusing BOATLOADS on Aradia (and we're coming back to her in a sec) and that we've got a whole other Maid (Jane) to look at but I'm gonna level with you I am not a Jane liker. Sorry! For the purposes of this argument though, she creates life in others. That seems very passive and she does feel very resigned to crocker corp in a lot of ways. But I'd argue overcoming that, learning when to supress her own life and when to claim it for herself and share it with others, is a HUGE part of her character arc.
Anyways, back to Aradia. There's one more thing I wanna touch on before I turn the floor over to y'all. Beyond Canon. It's the elephant in the room and the most recent piece to our puzzle,even if dubiously canon so! I gotta talk about it. Alt!Calliope addresses Aradia and Dave collectively by saying "Their rapport reflects a unique combination of their matching aspects but greatly differing classes. One a passive but powerful servant to time, the other wielding the aspect like a honed blade." THis led everyone to kind of conclude that Dave was the one wielding time as a blade cause, y'know swords and shit are his jam, while Aradia was the passive but powerful servant.
I! Kinda disagree here. Notice the lack of any gendered pronouns that might indicate who is who in that sentence. Also consider the track record for both characters. Dave has always seemed really resigned to the hero role foisted upon him, and he even tries to give up time travel several times as he believes his actions are futile, iitc (please correct me if I'm wrong here!) while Aradia, as we've already discussed, seemed very active and self driven in how she utilized and interactive with time. Hell, She even CREATES time for herself in BC by fucking off to other timelines just to check out whats poppin cause shes curious. THat again, doesnt strike me as passive. Actively fucking off to go sate your own curiosity? C'moooooon!
All this to say, I don't think Maid is passive. I also dont think it's paired with Knight.
(CRAZY fuckin stringboard, semi-aside incoming) If anything I think it's paired to a passive class in sylph. Every Active/Passive Class seems to have a unifying archetype or concept to them. Knight to Page (a knight and their apprentice), Mage to Seer (Pursuers of knowledge), Thief to Rogue (those who steal), Bard to Prince. (A noble and one of their courtesans) There's a unifying mythology to them! If we consider Maid to Sylph, I feel like there's actually a uniting mythology there: Fae! Sylphs are described as air spirits. If Maid is more "maiden" then servant, I think of like, The lady of the Lake in Arthurian Legend, who always struck me as mystical and fae-like in nature.
ANYWAYS, I've droned on enough! I'm curious to hear what y'all think! Idk if anybody can really sway my thoughts on the matter but I still like the exercise of discussing it out! I'm sure there's plenty of information I've missed out on here and I'd love to hear from y'all!
