question for eridan fans

I like that I want to pelt him with rocks

lots of school shooter fans in this thread

He's fun to draw. purple is my favorite color, what can I say.

I'm not to pleased whenever he opens his mouth though. Incels are meant to be seen, not heard :3

(bait has been planted)

everything he believes in is mere aesthetic, none of it is truly held. he's so weak in his belief in his supremacy that he makes exceptions. if he actually believed in seadweller superiority, he would haven't made any, friends or not.

it is an act, nothing more. what he lacks in belief, he makes up for with his sense of obligation.

and that's the beauty of his initial character. he is the dutiful vassal to his liege. he obeys not out of ideology or conviction but because it is what he was designed for. he constantly has to convince himself of the things he does and "believes" in. he'll believe what he needs to in order to fulfill his obligation to the highest caste, and in order to keep himself sane, a little bit of his own agenda of wanting to commit a genocide to establish seadweller supremacy.

so what happens then if the dutiful yet unconvinced subject, born to orphan those around him to satiate the hunger of something that shouldn't have been his duty, is released from his duties, no longer needed, no longer obligated to do anything beyond what he actually wants to do?

maybe he'll mellow out, surely in his time doing his duty or outside of it, he has made some comrades. peers to give him new purpose.

but who needs friends when you're finally relieved of all obligations? why burden yourself with more? not to say he didn't try, even at his most dire hour, he tried. not that he should have, it would have been a betrayal of his actual character.

he lost the things that gave a place for his belief, alternia, the game made sure of that. now he plays a game he seemingly doesn't even care about. he kills because he is used to it, and it made sense to his self.

for killing was once purposeful, it is now merely play. he has ascended the need to work, to kampfen, to toil.

his belief in seadweller supremacy and his want to genocide landdwellers was merely a mask to something else.

his belief in his self, and his want to kill.

kill what? nothing really, it could have been anything. his wanting to kill landdwellers could have been his most merciful belief, why carry the ache of having to orphan those around you? why not kill both of them? why make them suffer? it would take too much time, it would be too cruel, maybe.

but he doesn't need to concern himself with that anymore. he can just kill now and what better than those immediately around him? what better than himself?

he knows bec noir would kill him immediately, he just wants to convince others to join his act of omni-suicide.

and why make just one person kill your surrounding biomass? why not make one of the biomass kill him as well? duel your unrequited love's new play toy in hopes that he kills you, destroy the matriorb, so that you may sow the seeds of anger and vengeance against yourself.

for eridan, death is the one constant, one essential thing to his being. this is his hope.

he didn't need to be "redeemed", he is his own redemption. this is why i am an eridan fan.

@sinistralsatria

my question about your reply is this: who is "his liege" in this scenario that seems to want him to slaughter and/or orphan all of the landdwellers?

It's not his ancestor Dualscar, who died long before he landed on Alternia. I mean, I suppose he could have some kind of Mindfang journal posthumously influencing him, but we never see that.

It's not Condy, who needs subjects in order to keep the gears of her empire turning.

It's CERTAINLY not Feferi who is constantly scolding him for being a casteist shithead to all their friends, and it's probably not his horsedad either.

He was raised by a wild animal in a civilization with borderline-0 adult influence. Any idea he might have of what he is "designed" to do would be a direct result of propaganda telling him that he is inherently better than the people around him.

You've written a very long post as though Eridan is some kind of tragic figure who has been objectified by his duty to the throne or something but ultimately every line of dialogue that comes out of his mouth shows that he is in fact the one that treats others like objects.

You're saying "everything he believes in is mere aesthetic" and then in the very next paragraph that "wanting to commit genocide" is "his own agenda" - something that is not at all part of his "obligation to the highest caste"

To me Eridan is a very simple minor antagonist. His purpose is to show that incels are dangerous. That they treat the people around them like possessions. And that if they aren't willing to budge in that regard, then they shouldn't be suffered, because they will cause severe damage to people around them if they're allowed to keep acting that way. He's a very successful piece of writing in that regard, but I have a hard time understanding any other interpretation

Now IF the liege in question was Lord English (via his influence on society), that could be interesting, but personally I find Condy and the Handmaid as much more compelling tragic victims of Lord English in that dimension, considering they actually meet the man personally. Or similarly, Vriska as a tragic victim of his Doc Scratch aspect.

I like him because his chud swag is cool and I relate to him a lot(weird asocial incel that nobody likes)

There's more to that, maybe... I am not one to put so much into words so often...

@capmics I like his music actually... if that's what you mean..

re:miniquinny999

i didn't say he was a good follower, his want for genocide is purely his own selfish fascination and not feferi's, who his only obligation to her was to kill lusii for she couldn't stomach it herself.

he was beautiful when alternia was around. when the horrible things he did had some purpose, to alleviate the burden of the highest caste.

he didn't have to do this, really. he could have told feferi to kill lusii by herself, she is the most powerful in the hemocaste after all. why did he do this then? out of relational obligation, in exchange for moirallegience. his other want besides to kill, his base want to form a connection.

what i wanted to point out was that his want to kill overcame his want for relations. it is the one thing he is sure that he is capable of doing.

i didn't intend for him to sound tragic, i intended to point out his selfishness and egoism.

re:goosey

i don't see any real conflict in your interpretation of eridan with mine beyond the main point of "he is like this because he convinced himself" vs "he is like this because he enjoys this" but it seems very minor in our overall enjoyment of him.

i'd like to reiterate that i believe his genocidal wishes, his sea dweller supremacy, and such, are just masks of his nascent belief in his own self over others and his want to kill.

why i believe this, is because of that one really funny part in homestuck where karkat tells him to stop killing angels, and he just continues doing so. so i will point out two things:

-this is, in caligvulasAqvarivm's words, best friend. so if relationships really mattered that much to him at this point, why doesn't he listen to his potential moirail? or if he believes in duty, his leader?

-what does killing angels do to further the sea supremacy agenda when you are one of two seadwellers left with no waters to call your own? with a seadweller, who you fear has no longer any use for you?

i will end this post by saying, that none of what i said in this thread is a defense on his behalf, my poor attempts at rationalizing his actions is not a defense of his actions. who would want to defend a sociopath like eridan anyway?

I love eridan im an active rper so I’ve deep dived into his character and to be honest even if he is a douche most of the time he is so much more! he was forced to grow up so young he’s afraid to show interest in something childish because he wants to seem like a mature person, he’s rude because thats just how his world works he needs to act high and mighty he wants relationships he wants friends he wants someone but his ego gets in the way he can’t pick up clues and lacks a lot of things that makes someone likable however it’s kinda sad I personally understand him and that probably affected how I like him but he’s just a sad outcome of his environment and I just love good writing!!

im a biased aquarius. However, I will say some takes i agree with have been said here already from @goosey and @the1woomy!

quite simply: i read homestuck in highschool and for better or for worse thats the kinda character I was into at the time. i was also at one point very insistent that pale erikar could.. not fix him but at least could have avoided some things lol

why do i still consider him a fav now is certainly in part nostalgia based fondness. i have an erigrub plush i half-jokingly refer to as my son. i also think the fandom has simmered long enough that we have started to see more interesting takes on all the characters really. the story has become a playground where we can dig as deep as we want in the sandbox and wear whatever lenses in our goggles that we so please. Well its always been that but people have become far more willing to engage in that since the main comic ended. put that boy into Situations and read way too deeply into them

okay i guess i'll be the first to admit it. eridan ampora has been wiring several fans anywhere between $500-$2000 a month to stan him. i could have kept my mouth shut, but i can't take the dishonesty anymore. in the wake of this revelation i want everyone to remember: be kind to yourselves, be considerate of each other, and do not investigate any paper trails that may or may not involve houseboat purchases off the coast of barbados

I don't like when people project their own bias onto a character and then attack people for liking that character, based on the fanon construction they've created inside their own head.

I'm pretty ambivalent towards the trolls, and Eridan is just another troll to me. He's rude? Wow. He's space racist? People love Equius, and he's way more committed to the bit. He's weird about relationships? Huh? Have you read Homestuck? Did you somehow miss Terezi's shenanigans with Karkat, Vriska's with Tavros? EQUIUS? AGAIN?? Trolls are literally the narrative impetus for that kind of bullshit, Eridan ain't special.

The only reason I can think of for Eridan hate picking up the way it did is that he killed off Feferi, so if you're a Feferi die-hard you're maybe bitter about that. (But hey, blame Hussie for that one).

This is what the "how come people hate Eridan but love Equius when they're BOTH racist!" argument looks like to me:

Like, who exactly is "people"? Because if you look in any discussion about Equius you're guaranteed to find people making the exact opposite "how come people hate Equius but like Eridan??" claim. and there are plenty of folks who hold no particularly strong affections toward either of them!

missing the forest for the trees aside. the initial question was (or at least reads) to be in good nature, a bit of curiosity towards those who have different opinions. It is unhelpful to then argue or dismiss the people who are being addressed by the original question is it not? especially when done in poor faith or mockery.

regardless i find it hard to believe that its SO unthinkable that someone would genuinely like eridan when antagonistic, rude, and/or evil characters have always been popular across most if not all fandoms for a variety of reasons. Sometimes even an irredeemable nature is the Appeal to those who like to dissect character motivations and "what if" scenarios. There have already been plenty of variations on interpretations of and approaches to eridan's character in this very thread. Is that not interesting in of itself? the possibilities? to discuss varying interpretations with someone and come out the end with a more enhanced understanding of the character?

anyway speaking of equius did anyone else follow the hopeless-gods tumblr blog? such a cute au, understandable why it was spun off into its own thing though. such is the way of getting highly invested in au-afied blorbos

@sinistralsatria:

Thank you for the clarification, I feel closer to understanding where you're coming from. The angle that he defaulted to violence because it was the only thing he really new is fairly compelling. Hiveswap gives us a look into what kind of life paths are expected for all the castes, but with our only new seadweller being Trizza it seems the only role for our fishy friends is... Comedically evil rich people lol.

(Not sure why Goosey's post got deleted, but I glanced over it and I nodded at much of what I saw.)

Ultimately I can respect any take that recognizes that Eridan is selfish. It's true that he's lonely and has suffered at the hands of his society but... well that's true of all the trolls and of all incels. Society sucks and everyone suffers for it at least a little. Eridan is one who has suffered somewhat less so.

Killing Feferi was an unacceptable reaction to the circumstances, and his general entitlement towards her is really grody. I'm sure it did come from a place of genuine loneliness - incels don't just wake up and arbitrarily decide to be mean to women after all. A story just doesn't have room to have every kid get an overall sympathetic tilt or a redemption just because they're teenagers. They're ALL teenagers, and they're all on equal footing, and some hypothetical perfect-world version of him is probably capable of turning his act around. But that's not what happened.

The reality is that he kept hitting on all his friends, because friendship was never enough for him. Despite the others being vocally uncomfortable with his advances, he felt that he deserved his quadrants filled above all else. And people with that kind of fixation on romance have always annoyed me, in fiction and in real. When he didn't get what he thought he deserved, he turned to lethal violence - including on the Matriorb which never did shit to him even if we take his entitlement at face value. Because it is an egg.

ALL THAT BEING SAID....

I will probably take my leave from this thread. Unless they add pings and someone pings me with a reply that is really epic and insightful or something. I have already said my favorite parts about Eridan's character and I'm not super interested in finding a deeper enjoyment of him. I'm even less interested on shitting on the picnic of people who already do like him. I'll admit I have a contrarian streak and things like shipping and woobification really get under my skin even in cases where it's harmless. I'm glad fandom in general has accepted into their hearts that they can like a guy that sucks, maybe even BECAUSE he sucks, and that just because they like him doesn't mean he's any less sucks. (After all I clap and cheer when Jack Noir is on my screen)

Have a drawing for the road folks :]

@JakeMorph, I know the forum doesn't have a reply feature yet, but that's no excuse to vaguepost.

I feel like most people don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about Equius, and he isn't without his fans either. That's very different from the situation Eridan has always been in, where he's extremely polarising. I didn't mean to suggest that the fandom at large loves Equius or anything, or that he isn't without his haters, but clearly there's something else going on that leads so many people to feel so strongly about Eridan in either extreme.

Which honestly might just be characterisation. Equius is kind of a humurous, over-the-top personality, and Eridan just complains a lot. I would love it if we could be that honest about the situation, instead of moralising about trolls, who were always meant to be insane, messed up fantasy aliens.

I wasn't vagueposting, I was addressing the post directly above mine, and being totally clear about the specific point I was addressing therein. My intention was to be the opposite of vague and you had no trouble figuring out what part of the conversation I was contributing to, so I don't think the situation necessitated me adding any customary @s or RE:s to make myself any clearer.

I'm just saying the feeling you have based on your experience doesn't align with the feeling I have based on mine. I agree that Eridan is polarising, but I haven't ever got the impression that he's uniquely so, and the long list of lovely comments about him in both this thread and at least one other "Eridan appreciation" topic on the board backs up my impression that among a vast majority of fans he's a very well-liked character.

I've also generally found that the few readers who dislike Eridan on "moralising" grounds tend to dislike Equius for the same types of reasons, and I really don't see how that's as hypocritical as you're suggesting it is - yes, Homestuck's population of aliens are almost universally strange and antisocial, but only a select few of them take decidedly villainous roles. Of course nobody in the comic's cast (humans included) is exactly a shining paragon of virtue, but it's not like the comic is somehow above making moral judgements on, like, the guy who can't bring himself to protect his girlfriend because he's too obsessed with submitting to other men, or the guy who committed genocide on his entire race because he got mad that his girlfriend broke up with him. If people dislike them it's because the comic wanted us to do so and gave us good reasons to do so