Swiss got introduced as the first satyr and with him satyr culture. I think his name here is really interesting! I've seen people associate it with the cheese which is funny but it felt more like an intentional dig at (Western) European politics instead. The parallels to specifically Switzerland aren't 100% accurate but I still wanted to point some out :)
- Swiss is really into politics and he gives us some exposition about the political system of the satyrs. It's a (meritocratic) democracy and they haven't "had a king in a very, very long time"(which speaks for the democracy to be also quite old). Sounds pretty familiar already, the Swiss people are known for their (direct) democracy and being one of the few European countries that haven't had their own kings (but still being mostly autonomous)
- Swiss talks about wanting to become a "Politrician", a mix between a politician and a patrician and would you look at that, around the 18th century Switzerland had (in some parts) a civic patriciate in place :) obviously an analogy to ancient Rome as well but European states have always tried to emulate the old Romans
- "Rise and Fall of the Barley Fraternities"(p. 888) splits society into three (four) groups! Now bear with me here, this is (to me!) quite reminiscent of the four language groups in Switzerland. The first two fraternities are pretty much on equal footing (hoofing), the third one is already pretty bad (in Swiss' opinion) and the fourth might as well be nonexistent! Much like the German, French, Italian and Romansh language groups in Switzerland, in that order (German and French speakers are quite well accommodated with German speakers being the biggest group followed by French, Italian speakers are already considered a language minority and have their struggles with accessing certain services; Romansh is a language that's often forgotten about and is legally required to be considered an official language only when it's needed for communication with a Romansh speaker, most of whom speak one of the other languages anyway).
- Swiss is racist and conservative, pretty much in line with Switzerland (it's half past 2 in the morning, I hope I don't have to go into detail for that lol)
My conclusion, basically, is that Swiss (and satyr culture!) is heavily critical of certain European democracies! It's very refreshing to see that take in media, especially from the USA. I had fun finding these parallels tbh, and I'll leave some stats to think about below (//-^)
55% of Swiss people (age 15-88) say their family status and language are identity-forming, followed by job and education/training (52%) and nationality (46%). Really makes you think about our monocorn, huh :)
sources: wikipedia for the correct english vocabulary, swiss federal statistics office for the numbers (from 2023), own experience as a European (very open to fact checks ofc!!)
^by tushyfatnocap on picmix (//y▽￣)╭
I don't have any analysis to add, but I just wanna say that this was really interesting to read and I think you're on to something :]
— matpat
dirk is a dagger, swiss is a swiss army knife.
@a1m3v: Hehe thank you (//_^)/ Writing this up was really fun and I'm glad someone else is interested in Homestuck's commentary on European democracies (now just imagine the other satyrs being connected to other countries as well...rich kid Luxembourg satyr...)
@gaurdiancryogeneticist: Didn't even know that there's a dagger called dirk (//_@;) Swiss does have all these blades, that's a good catch! Can't believe I forgot about Swiss army knives (//w-)
^by tushyfatnocap on picmix (//y▽￣)╭
Not European but now i'm picturing a Canadian satyr who is all faux-progressive and white-savior-y (horse-savior-y)
Spades Slick is a butch lesbian 2k25 (Big Felt doesn't want you to know)
im also not european but i also noticed the like greek aesthetic going on and how that also ties into like. conservative ideals. i hope they rlly lay it in lol
