From my experience, nowadays a plurality of classpecters and classpecting resources have accepted a certain set of class pairings. Of course, you have the indisputable Prince(-)/Bard(+) and Thief(-)/Rogue(+), and the not indisputable but very rarely disputed Mage(-)/Seer(+). From there, the usual pairings go Knight(-)/Page(+), Witch(-)/Heir(+), and Maid(-)/Sylph(+).
But the latter pairings are only speculation -- just speculation that has kind of... settled into a groove. It's not much of an active topic of debate anymore, and arguments on that topic often end up floating in the void, to be read only by enthusiasts and not have much effect on the broader understanding of classpecting. There just hasn't been as much appetite anymore to sit around like Greek philosophers lecturing at eachother about how a Page is a featherless biped.
(To be clear, that's not to say that these pairings are wrong. There's plenty of good arguments for them; optimisticDuelist's Force and Flow series very much stands the test of time. Nor is it to say that absolutely no one has been questioning them! To those of you who have been championing your own class interpretations, you have my respect! ^u^)
I'd just like to bring into public discussion the equally good arguments to be made for other class pairings among Sylphs/Heirs/Knights/Witchs/Maids/Pages! (as of right now also known as SHKWMP, pronounced shkwump). Witch(-)/Sylph(+) is a classic one, and I honestly think you could pair Maid with just about any of them bar Witch and make a pretty good case for it. And that's not even touching the discussion on whether Knights, Pages, Maids, and sometimes even Sylphs are active or passive!
So, what do you think about class pairings? Do you have any unusual ones you believe in? How much stock do you put into verbiage and inversion? How do you define Active and Passive? Argue your cases! :>
Until the Patreon proves me otherwise, I'm backing Witch(-)/Seer(+). By my reckoning they're the "optimization" duality; a Seer pathfinds the best possible axis of their aspect (e.g. Seer of Mind = scans possibilities and identifies the ideal locations to make alterations to), and a Witch concentrates their aspect to spike in intensity around them (e.g. Witch of Space = main non-First-Guardian-related ability seems to be size manipulation).
Well, nothing is more important to classpecting than cute little clues left almost definitely nonintentionally in the narrative. I think Witch and Sylph are active/passive counterparts because Kanaya says that a sylph is Sort Of Like A Witch But More Magical (of course, a witch channels and interacts with magic, but a Sylph, being an elemental creature, IS magic! Which suits a class known for its passivity.) And I think that Maid and Heir are counterparts because it would be cute if John and Jane had counterpart protagonist classes--also consider that a maid and an heir are conceptually linked, as servant and scion of magical nobility.
This post was a Magic Mirror production. Problem Soothe, now playing in a theater near you: https://magic-mirror.neocities.org/problemsoothe/ps0000
re:Ruki, Witch/Seer is an interesting one! Especially with Jade's visions...
re:magicmirror, I definitely agree about the cute little cues. One of the main issues I have with Witch/Heir is that it has like... zero common ground thematically, and those themes are important! While Witch and Sylph make perfect sense together -- both witches and fairies are magical outsiders. Witches stick to themselves in their huts away from the world, while fairies pop in and meddle in human affairs. Maid/Heir I'm not 100% sold on yet, but it would indeed be cute ^u^
so you suggested it as being unable to be compellingly argued, but four years ago I updated my guide with a Controversial Change: I used to have Maid(-)/Heir(+) and Witch(-)/Sylph(+) but I abandoned those in favor of Sylph(-)/Heir(+) and Witch(-)/Maid(+).
and now i'm going to argue it!
Sylphs as healers and Heirs as creators are pretty set in stone, and I think that healing and creating are pretty inherently similar. I describe Heirs as effectively healing in the way that a tree recovers from being carved into, by growing and growing until the carving is a much smaller part of its whole. The thematics are a little rough, but I think of the Lady of the Lake and King Arthur. the Lady of the Lake is obviously water-y because. you know. lakes. but she's still easily read as a fairy, and also Sylphs are more broadly defined as otherworldly, graceful women. I think it works well enough.
Witch and Maid are actually a lot easier to argue for in terms of thematics, I think. Brooms and shit. Cinderella. idk, the vibes are right I think. but I had a harder time justifying the actual class stuff of it to people. but here's what I've got:
Witches manipulate and change their aspect. in practice, they can change it so much that it's nearly unrecognizable. Feferi is a perfect example of this, because by facilitating the creation of the dream bubbles she blurs the line between life and death more literally than just about anything else I could think of.
Maids, I think, also somewhat change how their aspect works, but not in such a direct way. a lot of people have described Aradia as having healed/tidied up the timeline to keep it from going doomed, and I don't think it's completely unreasonable to read it that way, but how did she do that? well, she brought in a bunch of doomed Aradias to get the job done! I describe Maids in my guide as "reinforcing" their aspect, effectively covering for the weaknesses of it in a way that, similarly to Witches, can result in breaking the rules a little.
Jane's one revive rule makes the most sense to me as a tampering with the rules of the game. there are very specific ways in which you can be brought back to life in SBURB, and it makes sense to me that Life players usually are not an exception to that. SBURB is a GM allowing the Maid to rule of cool their way into cheating the system a little.
all in all I'm still to this day destroying my brain trying to figure classpecting stuff out, but this has stood the test of time in my guide for a while now so I figured I should share it
the epilogues are the best part of homestuck
personally im a fan of dahniwitchoflight's analysis< https://dahniwitchoflight.tumblr.com/post/134405250722 >
her theory is that there are 6 manners of interaction with the aspects which form 3 respective pairs:
Destruction & Creation
Manipulation & Comprehension
Application & Relocation
([active] and [passive] []action])
Prince and Bard destroy
Maid and Sylph create
Witch and Heir manipulate
Mage and Seer comprehend
Knight and Page apply
Thief and Rogue relocate
to my knowledge the classes are also mostly based on the jungian archetypes, which i do wanna properly study sometime again (i do not remember much from school philosophy class)
of these i can only place some with confidence unfort but its a fascinating scaffold imo
and can provide a decent foundation to understand the classes more overall
i dont think its a perfect match ultimately but still interesting
i dont know how much stock we can put solely into the characterisation of classes in the comic but i could see how certain configurations lend themselves for interpretation of different class pairs
ie the witch/sylph idea (tho i dont think one should take kanayas comment too much to heart) since sylphs in the comid have been... rather meddlesome and """annoying""" to quote some characters
that could work for the manipulation approach, in that the sylph tries to convince others to interact with their aspect in a certain way
but i do think dahnis theory is more fitting still
in part bc one of the most priminent acts of a sylph we have seen have been "healing" adjacent powers
aranea healed wounds, and unlocked (or maybe forced) (her idea of) the best form of a character
and her plan was to "heal" an entire timeline (which i still think is cool as fuck; i cannot understand how so many people in the fandom hate her so much (i guess its just bc of the trauma of causing the GAME OVER timeline ish but still))
she brought forth ""fortune"" in others and to me that very much supports the creation sorting
and kanaya as well tried to create a "better space" (room) for vriska
as well as "fixing" or "creating" means of proliferation of both the universe and her species
meanwhile the Heir inherits and is beholden to their aspect
and is Manipulated by it in extension
john is avoidant and oblivious, and also free (this is not to be read as character bashing, i think its one of the most important parts of john and i love him for it)
anyway i probably wont be able to phrase all of this much better than dahni herself did
and i also kinda am a little spent on brain power atm
so i just really recommend reading her post that ive linked at the top
tossing in the hand grenade of us knowing from a reddit ama that pages "fight to preserve"
*flees*
IMO Opacifica's Class and Aspect theory is the most robust towards maintaining Homestuck's metanarrative of... meta-narratives. They go in DEPTH here on their AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26869882 (they also have their Aspect theory there too in the same series, which is also some of my favorite).
The Classes are based on different relationships the characters can have with their Aspect, but in an organic way that I think is a lot more specific holistic than a lot of single word/phrase descriptions of like. "Heirs embody their aspect" (which always made me WTF).
The Aspects imo are even more interesting in how they serve the overall narrative and are also from a psychoanalytical perspective.
I really recommend reading the essays!!!!
