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Homestuck/Characters/Trolls One


Elsewhere in paradox space, we examine another planet, forgotten by time. But we will strive to remember. What was this planet's name?

Long before the formation of planet Earth, there was a world called Alternia. Alternia was a world ruled by the trolls, a species who, at least externally, look like humans with grey skin, fangs, yellow eyes, and striped horns. The trolls, too, have found Sburb (or rather, Sgrub), and over the course of the adventure we meet twelve troll children who play it together, split into two sessions of six. However, sometime during the course of their quest, something goes very wrong, and they begin a campaign of petty internet harassment against the kids, who they blame for the incident. Despite their monstrous looks, sinister screennames, and character profiles composed of mixes and inversions of traits from one or more of the kids, the trolls mostly aren't that bad; they were introduced properly in their own sub-adventure arc in Act 5 Act 1, also known as Hivebent, before essentially becoming part of the main cast on par with the kids in Act 5 Act 2.

The Troll players in general

  • Alternate Self: The troll session created a number of doomed timelines. Deceased troll players of these timelines later appear in dream bubbles, some of whom have gone God Tier.
  • Animal Motifs: Quite a bit, seeing as they're partially inspired by the Western Zodiac. Most of these are represented through their horns (Tavros = Bull, Aradia = Ram etc) while others show it through their actions (Karkat = Crab = Crabby, Vriska = Spider/Scorpion = Unpleasantness etc).
  • Anyone Can Die/Dwindling Party: Drops into this later in the story, although there are hints this may be undone completely or reversed in some fashion and there's still the afterlife/memories in the dream-bubbles. A number of them Came Back Strong due to God Tier revives.
    • Everyone HAS Died: Vriska killed Tavros and Aradia (she got better); Eridan killed Feferi, Kanaya (she got better), and the matriorb; Gamzee killed Equius and Nepeta; Terezi killed Vriska, and Bec Noir killed all the trolls' dreamselves.
      • Which was outright stated by Sollux to be their fate under two weeks after the beginning of Act 5, that everyone would die; the fans and the trolls simply thought it meant just their dreamselves.
    • Plot Armor: Only happens to the more Out of Focus and minor trolls though, aside from Vriska (who's character arc was built around her eventual demise).
  • Ax Crazy / Hair-Trigger Temper: Trolls are basically an Ax Crazy species, but most of the high bloods fall into fits of rage constantly. Feferi is the only exception to this, as Gamzee goes insane later on. Even the lower blooded trolls are not beyond this, as the fits of rage from Kanaya showcase. Aradia also rages occasionally, but these occurred while she was in a robot fueled by blue blood.
  • Blue and Orange Morality: Killing sprees are actually a lauded behavior for the higher-ups, hetero/homosexuality and incest are not taboos, but buckets elicit the same reaction one would have from seeing an used condom.
  • Breakout Character: They were not even mentioned until Act 3, and even then they were a written version of The Voice until Karkat was seen at the end of the Midnight Crew Intermission. A few more trolls appeared in Act 4, but the entire cast of trolls was only revealed in Act 5. Yet the way the fandom treats them, they were around from the very beginning. Which in-universe they were.
  • Conditioned to Accept Horror: Living in a Social Darwinist Crapsack World where Eldritch Abominations that can kill at least half the population with a word are acceptable foster parents aside, it's implied that the trolls were specifically guided to play SGRUB which would destroy their world but create a new universe.
    • Doc Scratch is to blame for that after Alternia was Scratched.
  • Demoted to Extra: Tavros, Nepeta, Equius, Eridan, and Feferi have a fair amount of spotlight during Act 5 Part 1, and Tavros was one of the first troll characters introduced, even in Act 4, but all of them were killed off midway through Act 5 Part 2 and have been scarcely mentioned since, save for their deaths being motivation for revenge.
    • Ascended Extra: Gamzee was even more minor than the others, yet he takes a central role in Act 5 Part 2
  • Doomed Protagonist/Foregone Conclusion: In Act 5, Sollux prophesies that all the trolls will die. See Prophecy Twist for more details.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Even without their individual issues, the insane pressures of their oppressive, brutal society combined with the 4-way mess of romantic entanglements, some of which feed off of hatred, means that there was no way they could be anything but this.
  • Famous Ancestor: See Generation Xerox below. Much like how John created the kids' genetic parents, Karkat made infant paradox clones of these ancestors in an ectobiology lab, who then traveled back in time to become themselves.
  • Five-Token Band : Actually more of a 12 token band. The group includes trolls from every caste on the haemospectrum, who have a wide variance in cultural backgrounds, social classes, et cetera. Heck, it even has the obligatory "plucky kid in a wheelchair" role. They're pretty much based on internet stereotypes for that matter as well.
  • Generation Xerox: Each troll has an "ancestor" -- a troll from the past with the same zodiacal symbol and blood color as them, whose appearance, favored weapon and role in Alternian society mirrors theirs. The trolls don't have to follow in their ancestors footsteps, but having someone to live up to gives their life structure, and the trope definitely applies to the ancestors we've seen so far (Marquise Mindfang for Vriska, Orphaner Dualscar for Eridan, Neophyte Redglare for Terezi and the Grand Highblood for Gamzee).
    • This trope is taken to Up to Eleven levels when it's revealed that there was a previous universe in which the Ancestors were the Sgrub players and the main trolls were their ancestors.
      • Also applies in the direction you wouldn't expect; the Ancestors are the genetic children of the trolls, not the other way around.
  • Gone Horribly Right: The pre-Scratch trolls were too peaceful to play SGRUB and had to reboot their session. Doc Scratch and the Handmaid warped their world into something suitably aggressive, causing "our" trolls to speed through the game and ignore small but important things like listening to the Denizens and catching all the frogs to make the new universe's DNA, causing "our" universe to be so fatally flawed it needs to be scratched too.
  • Heroes Of Another Story: The first part of Act 5 fills us in on the characters and key moments in their session, but it's implied that there was a lot of stuff that went on that we don't get to see.
  • Historical In-Joke: The 12 trolls become the creators of our universe, and their memory survives in the form of our zodiac signs.
  • Legacy Character: As it turns out, every single one. Their ancestors are the previous batch from an even less successful session.
  • Mr. Exposition: Part of the point of Hivebent was to show how a different session went. Additionally, Karkat, Kanaya, and Vriska all serve as informants to the kids (and the readers) as veteran players of the game, and Feferi and Aradia pass on info either about dream bubbles or learned from them.
  • My Future Self and Me: Several trolls speak with their future and past selves through Trollian, which allows for Time Travel chatting. The trolls traveling through the Furthest Ring also meet Alternate Timeline versions of themselves through dream bubbles.
  • No Pronunciation Guide: Averted, for their first names, at least. Hussie gave pronunciations on his old Formspring account, though he says that he doesn't care if other people pronounce them differently.

"When in doubt, be sure to pronounce everything in the least affected manner possible, from an American perspective. [1]"

  • Prophecy Twist: It was initially believed that Sollux's prediction that all the trolls would die was fulfilled, for the most part, by the death of their Dream Selves. It turned out that Dream Self deaths didn't count, and a real self death that led to a God-Tier ascension didn't count either; the only deaths that count are final Killed Off for Real ones. Currently there are four trolls left (five and a half if you count Aradia and Sollux), and Kanaya is planning to reduce that to three.
  • Romantic Dodecahedron: Almost inevitable thanks to the extremely complicated, polygamous, four-part system of the troll species' romantic interaction, which covers everything from conventional romantic love to arch-rivalry, close friendship, and mediation between two parties.
  • Stock Super Powers: All of them play Sgrub and get superpowers, in addition to the few that had psychic powers to begin with. A few alternate timeline iterations of them reached their God Tiers, but the Alpha Timeline has only had Aradia and Vriska reach them as of yet.
  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: While all trolls have black lips (as stated in Kanaya's introduction), the boys and Nepeta are depicted with lips the same color as their skin, i.e. grey. This is because all the other girls apparently do care about fashion enough to wear lipstick. Also, only the female trolls are drawn with eyelashes, and many of them wear eye makeup.
  • Those Two Guys: Eridan and Feferi, Nepeta and Equius, and Aradia and Sollux scarcely appear without each other. Tavros is "That One Guy" by himself, while Gamzee is an Ascended Extra.
  • Troll: Duh. Though Terezi is the only one who's any good at it.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: All the trolls. All of them.
  • Verbal Tic: As detailed on their individual entries, the trolls all have unique typing quirks. These also seem to reflect how they actually speak, such as Kanaya Carefully Enunciating Every Word or 2ollux 2peakiing wiith a lii2p, but it also seems like they use the tics on purpose, as evidenced by Eridan and Feferi typing normally when they have a serious conversation.
    • These also change to reflect the troll's emotional state, as s0llux begins to type like aradia 0nce he is blinded by eridan and kn0cked t00thless by karkat, AND GAMZEE begins alternating caps WITH EVERY OTHER LINE once he runs out of sopor slime AND GOES ALL Ax Crazy.
  • Western Zodiac: Every troll is assigned to one of these. Noticeable through the designs on their shirts:
    • A
    • T
    • S
    • K
    • N
    • K
    • T
    • V
    • E
    • G
    • E
    • F

Trolls: Aradia, Tavros, Sollux, and Karkat

Aradia

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"You once had a number of INTERESTS, which in time you have LOST INTEREST IN. You seem to recollect once having a fondness for ARCHEOLOGY, though now have trouble recalling this passion. It nonetheless has led you to find your PRESENT CALLING, which came through the discovery of these MYSTIC RUINS on which you presently stand, and which you recently DESECRATED OUT OF BOREDOM."

A rather spooky female troll who organized the Troll session. Before the beginning of the story, she was murdered by Vriska, by means of a mind-controlled Sollux. However, prototyping her Kernelsprite with the head of a frog statue and her own ghost brought her back to life.

In Sburb, she is the M. Her trolltag is "a".

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When God Tier Aradia and a memory Aradiabot were in the same log, the Aradiabot used her old typing quirk and Equius' color to distinguish herself. The Aradiabot quickly abandoned the typing quirk, but kept the color.

Universal Tropes

  • Because Destiny Says So: Most of what she does is because the voices of the dead tell her to do it. Later this ties into Timey-Wimey Ball, as it's implied Aradia herself is the voices of the dead guiding her. Or more accurately her time duplicates.
  • Emotionless Girl: As a robot and a ghost she's almost emotionless, but when she's alive, she's much more upbeat.
  • Expendable Clone / More Expendable Than You: Justified. Duplicates created by time travel which doesn't cause a Stable Time Loop are doomed to die anyways and treated as expendable.
  • Expy: Her personality when alive is a lot like Jade, and her text post-revival even has people confused occasionally because they have nearly identical quirks.
  • Extraordinarily Empowered Girl
  • Hearing Voices: Explicitly one of her powers.
  • Leitmotif: psych0ruins [2] and Arisen Anew.
  • Meaningful Name: Her discovering Sburb set the The End of the World as We Know It in motion. (If linear causality has any meaning with all the Weird Time Shit going on.)
    • Aradia is the name of a goddess of witches, portrayed as the messianic daughter of the goddess Diana and the god Lucifer. Lucifer is a Latin word (from the words lucem ferre), literally meaning "light-bearer", which in that language is used as a name for the dawn appearance of the planet Venus, heralding daylight. Venus in Aries is in its detriment, because Aries is the opposite sign to Libra, which Venus rules.
    • Megido is a shortened form of Megiddo, which is what we get the word armageddon from. It's also a place that a number of religions believe the final battle will take place.
    • apocalypseArisen
  • Me's a Crowd: Her time powers can be used to create an army of alternate future selves.
  • Messy Hair
  • Mind Over Matter: To spectacular levels.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: She's a psychic alien ghost time traveler merged with a frog-statue-prototyped sprite who's haunting a robot body fueled by blood which eventually exploded because her soul turned into an immortal fairy goddess of time who is the descendant of a forced apprentice to an mob boss/eldritch demon of time/personification of death and now acts as a dream psychopomp. Yeah.
  • Off-Model: No one can seem to figure out how her horns are supposed to work. If you watch [S] Make Her Pay, they're all over the place.
    • According to Andrew, her horns "curl whatever way looks best for the scene."
  • Out of Focus: Zigzagged, she takes center stage a few times but ends up being relatively unimportant overall.
  • Psychic Powers: Levitation and Telekinesis at least. And hearing the voices of the dead.
  • Power Floats: Though being dead helps a bit... and just plain being psychic period once she's not so dead and actually not dead at all.
  • Prescience Is Predictable: Gets hit with this hard.
  • Rapunzel Hair
  • Shout-Out: Eventually becomes an immortal master of time.
  • Stable Time Loop: In a nutshell, how she gains her Crosbytop and discovers sGrub to begin with. Given that she is also the Maid of Time, a lot of her actions revolve around this.
  • Strange Girl: She's always flirted with the trope, but the recent spotlight on her cheerful, enthusiastic fascination with death seals the deal.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: Aradia uses her time powers rather infrequently but still has them, especially now that she's ascended to her god tiers.
    • The trope naming line gets directly quoted in one of her later themes.
  • Triang Relations: Close to Sollux; secretly lusted after by Equius
  • Uncatty Resemblance: Her lusus, seen in flashback, has curly ram horns like hers.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Easily the most fatalistic character before her revival, both due to her vantage point as the Maid of Time and due to having lived with voices telling her the future much of her "life."

{{quote|[[color:#a10000:PAA: and here i was thinking we were finished taking 0rders fr0m v0ices! PAA: weve 0nly swapped the imperatives 0f the dead with th0se 0f 0ur future selves PAA: wh0 are als0 dead FAA: yes it seems that way PAA: 0h well it was an enj0yable reprieve fr0m fatalism while it lasted PAA: id nearly managed t0 sav0r it FAA: an err0r narr0wly av0ided then]] }}

Pre-Death Aradia

Ghost Aradia

  • Broken Bird
  • Creepy Child
  • Dead All Along: Ghost Aradia is the first iteration introduced.
  • The Eeyore: She is very g.
  • Ghost Amnesia: Not only can she no longer remember what it was like to feel anger, she more or less can't remember ever having felt it at all. Bear in mind that the angriest moment in her life was directly prior to her death. She doesn't seem to have forgotten how she died, but her own emotions regarding what happened that day are a rather shocking thing for her to have forgotten.
  • Prophet Eyes
  • Soul Power
  • Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: She has the blank eyes, long black hair, and tattered school uniform for it.

Andrew: She's basically every girl from every Japanese horror film ever. Whoops canon I guess.

  • The Stoic: This is her attitude, "I'm 0K with it" is sort of her catch phrase.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Clearly has her own agenda while playing the game, although most of what she does is guided by the voices in her head.


Aradiasprite / Aradiabot

  • Battle Couple: With Equius.
  • Casual Kink: Her and Equius's relationship is pretty evocative of BDSM. That and she kisses him passionately after beating the crap out of him.
  • Doomed by Canon: The Aradiabot was shown to explode several months before it happened. Ended up being a Meta Twist however, as Aradia was revived into her God Tiers and the robot exploding was simply a symptom of that.
  • Frogs and Toads: After second-tier prototyping her frogsprite with herself. Reverted when she reaches her god tiers.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: Prototyping her sprite with a frog was critical to the trolls' success. Why? The Black Queen hates frogs [3], and refused to wear her prototyping ring because of it.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: How her doomed temporal duplicates become doomed temporal duplicates.
  • Mood Swinger: Her emotions tend to be level, unless she gets enraged whereupon she simply goes nuts. At least Sollux simply alternates between 'be2t damn hacker ever' and 'everythiing 2uck2 god why even try'.
  • Not So Stoic:

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[to Karkat] color:#a10000:its n0t like a decisi0n y0u are ab0ut t0 make will invariably lead t0 every problem we have and will ever face as well as the great und0ing itself<br/> just keep listening to y0ur angry impulses it will all be fine

  • Slap Slap Kiss: Literally, with Equius.
  • Twitchy Eye: Her emoticon 0_0 is accompanied with an eye tic in Alterniabound.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Aradiabot, with her restored emotions, finally meets Vriska in the Medium and beats her, both physically and telekinetically, to near death. Eventually it seems like she's just laying into Vriska's unconscious body.
  • Verbal Tic: After prototyping her Kernelsprite with a segment of the Frog Temple and her own spirit, she occasionally will let a "ribbit" slip in her Trollian conversations.

God Tier Aradia

  • Badass Boast: "You're done with dying."
  • The Chessmaster: One of the better examples of the Trolls, she organizes much of the events of Cascade and together with Feferi is the mastermind behind the dreambubbles; however she willingly steps down afterwards to hold Jack off.
  • Deadpan Snarker: She has a tendency to do this after her revival, though still good naturedly.

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  • Fan Nickname: Alive-radia
  • Letters 2 Numbers: Averted. she drops the quirk once she is brought back to life for real and opts to talk like this!
  • Maid Of Time On Fire: Done to her dreamself by Bec Noir, and how she Came Back Strong
  • Ms. Exposition: On a couple of occasions, starting here and here.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Ever since her god-tier revival, she has display a fascination with death after spending so much time in the dream bubbles, to the point of getting excited over having a "Corpse Party" for Sollux's dead body. Sollux calls her out on this, and Terezi thinks it's charming and funny she's become such a ".
  • Only Sane Man: In a sense; the more insane a troll, the more odd their quirk is, and Aradia post-revival has no quirk at all and speaks perfectly normally.
  • Power Gives You Wings: When she ascends to God Tiers.
  • She's Back: And HOW.
  • Slasher Smile: Upon Jack Noir accidentally waking up her dreamself and causing her to God Tier her smile can only be defined as this.
  • Take a Third Option: Aradia has a choice: she can either let Jack go and die now, or hold him in place as long as she can and die when she eventually runs out of power. Her solution? Dodge into Jack and teleport to the Green Sun.

Tavros

♉

"You are known to be heavily arrested by FAIRY TALES AND FANTASY STORIES. You have an acute ability to COMMUNE WITH THE MANY CREATURES OF ALTERNIA, a skill you have utilized to CAPTURE AND TRAIN a great many. They are all your friends, as well as your warriors, which you pit in battle through a variety of related CARD AND ROLE PLAYING GAMES. You used to engage in various forms of MORE EXTREME ROLEPLAYING with some of your other friends before you had an accident."

A rather awkward troll with huge horns, who is paralysed from the waist down; he has a childish disposition and upbeat personality regardless.

In Sburb, he is the P. His trolltag is "a".

He has allocated his STRIFE SPECIBUS with the LANCEKIND ABSTRATUS.

For a brief period of time later in the story he became Jane's sprite, along with Vriska. Came Back Wrong applies heavily here. See that character's section for tropes applying to it.

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Sollux

♊

"You are apeshit bananas at computers, and you know ALL THE CODES. All of them. You are the unchallenged authority on APICULTURE NETWORKING. And though all your friends recognize your unparalleled achievements as a TOTALLY SICK HACKER, you feel like you could be better. It's one of a number of things you SORT OF BEAT YOURSELF UP ABOUT for NO VERY GOOD REASON during sporadic and debilitating BIPOLAR MOOD SWINGS. You have a penchant for BIFURCATION, in logic and in life. Your mutant mind is hounded by the psychic screams of the IMMINENTLY DECEASED."

A moody troll afflicted with bipolar mood swings, with an incredible knack for hacking.

In Sburb, he is the M. His trolltag is "t".

He has not yet allocated his STRIFE SPECIBUS with any KIND ABSTRATUS, as after all, a high-level psionic has no need for weapons.

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Aradia: Hey! Why are you out of your dream bubble?
Sollux: Am I not supposed to do that?

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  • Goggles Do Something Unusual:He starts wearing Feferi's goggles after he goes blind. Odd though that may seem, he's never before needed extra protection so much for that part of his face.
  • Got Me Doing It: After dying and being revived as a dreamself by Feferi, he's sort of taken on Feferi's penchant for fish puns and glubbing, though not as often as her.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: See Determinator, above.
    • Does it again by sending the Trolls and their meteor to the Green Sun faster than the speed of light. But see Unexplained Recovery.
    • And ultimately averted as he decides to stay behind at the Green Sun and move on, staying dead for real.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: Very much so, as pointed out by Terezi:

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  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Pretty grumpy and rude most of the time. Gets fussed at by Feferi & Aradia a lot for it, but he's not really that bad in the end, much like Karkat.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: The universe is playing him for the biggest chump, he's totally aware of it, and every time he tries to get out of it Aradia's there to remind him that he can't. He only adapted the game in the first place because he was under the impression it would save the Crapsack World he lives in. He's justifiably bitter about everything that's happened and thinks that they will die no matter what. Also sets up the network for the other trolls' trolling attempts on the kids, even though he says he only did that to get everyone to stop bothering him.
  • Leitmotif: The La2t Frontiier
  • Mad Oracle: Bipolar Prophet
  • Meaningful Name: Made a computer code that may depend on two Universes ending.
    • His actual name is based on Castor and Pollux, twins in Roman/Greek mythology that were transformed into the constellation Gemini.
    • Also, "Sol" and "Lux" mean "sun" and "light" in Latin.
  • Mind Over Matter
  • Mismatched Eyes: His eyes are the same color as his glasses, one red and one blue. Or they were, before he went blind. And are again later.
  • Mood Swinger: Between complete apathy and rage to rival Karkat's. Though once he loses the lisp and dying voices in his head he stabilizes.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He gave a computer code that would curse everyone he knew to the one guy most likely to execute it in a fit of blind, stupid rage.
    • He adapted Sgrub after being led to believe that it would kill its players but save the world, intending to make a Heroic Sacrifice. Of course, it actually does the exact opposite.
  • Opt Out: Decides to do one after he returns as a half-ghost to the asteroid with the surviving trolls, Dave and Rose. He could stick around, but he's tired of the adventure and would prefer to run around with Aradia through dream bubbles.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: He can be considered this after leaving his dream bubble. Karkat calls him a "half ghost", but he's not the most reliable source.
  • Prophecy Twist: For the reader. Early on, Sollux predicts he'll die twice, and that he'll go blind before he dies. At first it looks like the prophecy was fufilled with Sollux's death by the Vast Glub (where he was replaced with his Dersite Dream Self) and the death of his Propitian Dream Self by Jack Noir. Future events would then suggest that neither of those deaths actually counted. When Sollux was blinded by Eridan, several readers interpreted it as the first "death" in his prophecy and that he would be Killed Off for Real later on. While he did die from a Heroic Sacrifice, he had already left the afterlife (due to Achievements in Ignorance and Timey-Wimey Ball).
    • It seems that Sollux's prophecy doesn't include Dream Self deaths or God-Tier ascensions. As such, it's hard to say if he died once or twice for the purposes of the prophecy - the Sollux that piloted the meteor to the Green Sun was technically his Dersite Dream Self.
  • Psychic Powers
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Thanks to his Mismatched Eyes and BIPOLAR MOOD SWINGS, Sollux plays this trope by himself.
    • After losing the lisp and no longer having the voices of the dead in his head, he becomes very calm and collected, essentially becoming the blue to Karkat's red.
  • Superpower Meltdown: See Eye Beams, above.
  • Technicolor Eyes: Alone among the trolls aside from Terezi's damaged eyes, Sollux's eyes are solid blue and red, with no pupils. Each eye can alternate between colors too. Later when Eridan injures him, they turn black and he goes blind. When his dreambubble self shows up at the Green Sun, his right eye is white and the left is still black, and he regains part of his vision.
  • Theme Naming: Sollux's Zodiac sign is Gemini.
  • The Stoic: He reacts surprisingly well to getting blinded and getting his teeth knocked out.
  • Uncatty Resemblance: His BICYCLOPS has one red eye and one blue eye like he does.
  • Unexplained Recovery: He somehow still exists outside of the afterlife even with his real body dead (although technically that was the body of his Dersite Dream Self).
    • Possibly explained by his Doom powers (which are still ambiguously unknown), and regardless, he still plans to stay at the Green Sun and move on, in essence staying dead.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Gets manipulated by Aradia into making Sburb. When he finds out the truth he tries to call it off, but it's just too late.
  • Western Zodiac: Gemini.


Karkat

♋

" You have a passion for RIDICULOUSLY TERRIBLE ROMANTIC MOVIES AND ROMCOMS. You should really be EMBARRASSED for liking this DREADFUL CINEMA, but for some reason you are not. You like to program computers, but you are NOTORIOUSLY PRETTY AWFUL AT IT. Your programs invariably damage the machines on which they are executed, which is just as well, since you like to believe you specialize in COMPUTER VIRUSES. When you mature, you aspire to join the ranks of the most lethal members of your society, the THRESHECUTIONERS."

An ambitious, misanthropic young troll who is almost always angry at everyone, but most especially at himself.

He is the K, and is the leader of the Troll Session. His trolltag is "c".

He has allocated his STRIFE SPECIBUS with the SICKLEKIND ABSTRATUS. He was the first troll to be introduced, both visually and over Pesterchum, and is the "main" Troll protagonist.

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    • Poking too much about his blood is a good way to set him off too.
  • Big NoD34TH F4NG1RLLittle No: With Karkat, it's hard to tell, but when Gamzee lost it...

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  • Grumpy Bear: A given, being the Foil of the relentlessly optimistic John.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper
  • Hates Everyone Equally
  • Heroic BSOD: When Sollux dies.
    • Later on he sits in completely stunned silence after seeing Eridan murder Feferi and Kanaya.
    • Suffers a THIRD one right after the previous when he finds out Gamzee is sober and Ax Crazy
  • Hidden Depths: Who would have thought him an amateur psychologist?
    • To the point that Eridan actually seeks him out for advice despite his presumably inferior blood and race. And Karkat actually calms down and promises to help work things out with him..
    • In general Karkat seems to calm down and actually become useful when people give him the respect he thinks he deserves -- but they almost never do that because he's Karkat.
  • I Hate Past MeGC: H4H4H4 TH4T W4SNT 3V3N 4NY SORT OF PUN YOU DOOFUSFuture Me Pisses Me Off: Future Karkat and Past Karkat argue between each other at every opportunity, Future Karkat because Past Karkat hasn't wised up to the situation, and Past Karkat because he feels Future Karkat has gone soft. His feelings about Present Karkat aren't much better.
  • Hot-Blooded
  • Ironic Hell: He views Land Of Pulse And Haze as this, because of his own mutant blood color.
  • Infamous Ancestor: Karkat's ancestor was mentioned in passing over the span of about two sentences in Mindfang's journal. Why? Well, leading a revolt on such a scale that not only did the Highbloods have to work to put it down, but then forbade any mention of both it or the Cancer symbol, public or private, may have been a factor.
  • The Insomniac: He's gotten maybe one solid night's sleep over the last several months.
  • Interspecies Romance: As of the beginning of the second half of Act 5, it has been revealed that he once harbored blackrom feelings for John.
  • It's All My Fault: During the first Heroic BSOD.
    • Somewhat about Sollux's ~ATH curse as well.
  • Jaw Drop: This panel after seeing a bunch of shocking revelations. It's become a fandom meme.
    • His exact pose is replicated later when John throws a bucket at him.
  • Jerkass: The guy's one of the biggest jerks you'll ever see, even when he's being amicable and helping people through their emotional problems.
    • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: ...but he is actually a relatively nice guy and he does care for his teammates and, eventually, the kids.
  • Jive Turkey: With anyone else this might have been obnoxious, but with Karkat, it's just plain hilarious.
  • Jumped At the Call: Because he wanted to be a leader and prove himself as somebody important.
  • Large Ham: He tends to be overly dramatic when he's angry.
  • Leitmotif: Crustacean, which is later remixed for his walkaround theme.
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Goes a step further even than this, deciding that he has to troll John backwards through the timeline so they will never even be able to speak of their first conversation, when Karkat accidentally revealed his hatecrush.
    • He also doesn't want to remember that he created all the trolls in an ectobiology lab, just like John did.
    • And, yet again, he doesn't want to tell John about what he did to Gamzee, because John wouldn't understand the Blue and Orange Morality behind it.
      • More like Blue and Orange Moiraility.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: In Hivebent, none of the other trolls really care about him enough to tell him about any of this end of the world business, and again as everything falls apart at the end of their session. He just goes along with Jade's plans because there's nothing else to do. To top it off, Jade won't tell him what's going on either, as she is trying to avoid an Information-based Ontological Paradox.
    • He blocks Terezi after believing she's been killed by Gamzee (he only found her glasses), and doesn't know she's going to confront Vriska until he runs into her right after she does it.
  • Loving a Shadow: Inverted; Karkat watched John grow up and immediately hated him, but he never interacted with him until Sburb/Sgrub.
  • Mad Libs Catchphrase: $ Shared with Terezi.
    • Dropped to a large extent as he actually develops as a character and stops antagonizing the kids.
  • Man On Fire: Seen for a brief moment in [S Jade:Enter], before the demon engulfs Prospit and Karkat's dreamself in green fire, after he heartbreakingly recognizes Jack Noir as the demon.
  • Meaningful Name: Karkata is the equivalent sign to Cancer in Indian astrology. On top of that, Vantas is a pharmaceutical used to treat prostate cancer.
    • Also, the Hindu name for the Cancer sign is "Karka".
    • Taken to even more meaningful heights when it turns out that he gave the kids' universe cancer, i.e. being a Cancer Geneticist. Mixes with Incredibly Lame Pun.
    • His title "Knight of Blood" is at first simply a vicious-sounding name, but once you take into consideration the importance of the trolls' blood color based caste system (and where Karkat is placed in relation to it), it is pretty relevant.
    • A carcinogen is something that causes cancer. A geneticist that causes cancer. Karkat created himself through ectobiologic cloning.
    • carcinology is also the study of crustaceans.
  • Motor Mouth: At one point during Act 6 Intermission 1, he makes a point of shutting up when told to. A page later he gasps for air because he apparently wasn't aware that you don't have to hold your breath not to talk.

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  • The Movie Buff: as part of his Foil nature to John - although Karkat specialises in Troll Romantic Comedies, making him an expert at deciphering issues of Troll Romance.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Apparently he always apologizes profusely and asks if they're still friends whenever he blows up at Sollux. Which is often.
    • And then a serious use when he runs Sollux's code, and again when Sollux dies.
    • Later, he realizes that his hurry to beat the Black King instead of find the penultimate frog led to the Cancer in John's universe and all the post-game problems in his.
  • The Napoleon: There are some hints that he might be shorter than usual, but in any case his overweening ambition, short temper, and nubby little horns qualify him as a Napoleon. His overcompensation is about his position as a hemospectrum outcast and not height, though the principle is the same.
  • Narcissist: Inverted. Karkat practically is his own kismesis with his future & past selves, whom he loathes intensely, something that unsettles him when he thinks about it and provides fodder for mockery by Terezi and others.
  • Never My Fault: Zig-zagged. Karkat is less likely to accept responsibility for his actions and more likely to blame his past or future selves. Even though they're him. But when REALLY bad things happen, he blames himself for it if he had even the slightest involvement in it.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • He executes Sollux's code. You know, the one that curses everyone the user knows. The result is not pretty. However he really didn't have a choice in it; Aradia went back and corrected the timeline so he had to. If she hadn't Gamzee would have gone crazy much earlier and killed all the Trolls.
    • His haste in beating the game without properly understanding the frog breeding process gave the kids' entire universe cancer.
  • Not Now, Kiddo:
  • Only Sane Man: Plays this role to the rest of the trolls; compared to all the others, he really is shockingly normal, he comments on this, specifying that the only troll in the group who is more sane tends to be Kanaya.
  • Pet the Dog: What's on the fridge, Karkat?
    • Generally does this a lot, especially in his conversations with Kanaya and Terezi, and eventually John and Jade.
  • Please Wake Up: PLEASE TELL ME THAT'S JUST HONEY.
  • The Power of Blood:
    • He befriends (pre-Spades Slick) Jack after he finds out they have the same blood color.
    • The only person we know Karkat tried to kiss back to life is Kanaya. It couldn't work due to her dead dream self, but she awoke as a troll vampire anyway.
    • He is the Knight of Blood. What that means is unknown, but common fan speculation revolves around the above.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Has a fascination with romantic comedies.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gave a particularly excellent one to Vriska. And a smaller one to himself.
  • Red Herring: Disregard that crying Karkat seemingly about to get murdered by Gamzee, they're both okay. Seems to have been an alternate timeline at the moment.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: With John. To put it in perspective: John's battle theme is titled "Showtime", whereas Karkat's is "Showdown". Also literal in that Karkat's "theme" color is red, while John's is blue.
  • The Resenter: Towards John, to the point where he develops a crush on him. Kismesis crush anyways. Eventually, he becomes friends with John. He ends up resenting his past self as well, unable to believe the way he acted mere hours ago.
    • He is not fond of Dave either.
  • Revealing Injury: His blood color was revealed when Jack stabbed him - but only to Jack (who didn't particularly care) and the readers, as most of the other trolls still aren't aware of his blood color.
  • Sanity Ball: He's pretty calm as he points out Jade's hypocrisy in going apeshit on Jadesprite after the conversation she had with Past and Future Karkats simultaneously.
    • Pretty much has one any time he's not going ballistic.
  • Sanity Slippage: Over time, due to a combination of insomnia and mortal terror of Gamzee.
  • Screw Yourself: A running theme (and possible fetish), see Freudian Slip. There's also this:

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  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness / Sophisticated As Hell: Can occasionally lapse into this while swearing.
  • Shipper on Deck: Ships John/Rose and Dave/Jade here.
    • Actually closer to the opposite, as he only 'ships' that because he think Interspecies Romance would be gross.
      • That's what he says, anyway. The memo in question presents about five reasons why he might be doing what he's doing, and none of them are any more or less likely than the others. Troll mentality sure is weird!
    • This turns out to be foreshadowing: Jack kills Rose and Dave, so John and Jade have to revive-kiss them.
    • He also ships Jade/Jadesprite (at least mentally) here
  • Ship Tease: With Terezi most of all. They've dated in canon, although the current state of their relationship is nebulous, though they are seemingly still together in at least one quadrant.
    • He's also had some Ship Tease with Jade (matespritship mostly), Gamzee (moiraillegience, which was eventually confirmed), and Dave (kismesisitude), and it's subverted with John; ever since he confessed his hate for John, they've pretty much had no Ship Tease and have instead become friends.
  • Shonen Hair
  • Single Troll Seeks Kismesis: Karkat is worried that his high standards will stop him from ever finding that "Special Kind of Hate." Then, when he finally finds someone he deems worthy of his Blackrom, it turns out their species doesn't work that way.
  • Sinister Scythe: Well, a sickle.
  • Sir Swearsalot: Distinguished from the other foulmouths by being a meticulous swearsmith; he proudly hand-crafts his obscenity for special delivery. When he's being friendly, or even contrite, he's still casual with the generic f-bombs.

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  • The Sleepless: Apparently went almost a month through the entire Troll session without sleeping once. While sleep seems to be less of a requirement in the Incipisphere, it's still pretty necessary and Karkat mentions occasionally that he is incredibly tired. In all of canon he's only been shown to be asleep for an hour or so.
  • Sour Supporter: He at least appears to be trying to help out John and the other kid protagonists, but that doesn't mean that he treats them with any kind of respect whatsoever. It turns out, it's quite legitimate: His future self is simply less hostile towards them as he develops a friendship with John.
  • Stealth Pun: He's always feeling rather crabby.
    • And his weapon is....a claw-like sickle.
  • Still the Leader: "Officially" hands off command of the Trolls and Humans to Rose (who in turn acknowledges John as her leader) but in practice he keeps telling people what to do. Lampshaded in that nobody else really cares who their leader is.
  • Surrounded by Idiots: Karkat practically lives in this trope.
  • Survivor Guilt: Hits him HARD when the "Troll Murder" storyline kills over half of his team.
  • Team Dad
  • Team Mom: In spite of his permanent irascibility, he really does look out for the rest of the team, and counsels them in romance issues thanks to his familiarity with trollish romance films. The sign of Cancer is associated with motherhood.
  • Together in Death: With Terezi. In an alternate timeline. Twice.
  • Trauma Conga Line: Started with him witnessing Eridan kill Feferi, Kanaya, and the matriorb, and continued on from there. Now that he's regrouped with Terezi, Kanaya and Sollux, and now that Vriska and Eridan are dead and Gamzee is somehow neutralised, it looks like it might have finally let up.
    • It seems to have started up again, as Terezi has finally lost her patience with him and he is left with only himself to argue with.
  • Theme Naming: Karkat's Zodiac sign is Cancer.
  • Took a Level In Kindness: While 'kindness' would definitely be stretching it for Karkat, he's certainly less hostile and more willing to work with people progressively after Hivebent.
  • Tsundere: His tsuntsun obviously dominates, but beneath all that swearing he seems to have a genuine soft side.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Sollux. He's vitriolic with a lot of his other friends too, like Gamzee and Nepeta, but they usually aren't angry back at him.
    • In Interspecies matters, he and John seem to have developed into this. Particularly since Karkat once saw John as a Kismesis
    • In these two conversations he basically admits that all the trolls are his best (hate)friends and he loved his lusus.

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  • Warrior Therapist: The other Trolls come to him for relationship advice.
    • It works in just about every single instance too, which is odd since everything he knows is from his love of romantic comedies.
  • Western Zodiac: Cancer.
  • When He Smiles: Karkat, usually being his cantankerous self, has a smile of both relief and contentment when he goes pale for Gamzee.
  • White Knighting: He flames his own past self for being rude to Jade. Jade is unimpressed.

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  1. ↑ CAR-cat, tuh-REH-zee, GAM-zee, TA-vros (rhymes with HAVE and GROSS), neh-PEH-tuh, eh-QUEE-us, eh-RI-dan (combine names Erin - n + Dan), uh-RAD-ia, fuh-FERRY, SAW-lux, VRISS-kuh, kuh-NIGH-uh
  2. ↑ A partial remix of Ruins (With Strings) which recieved another remix later associated with WV called Ruins Rising.
  3. ↑ As frogs represent the creation of a new universe
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