I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that the epilogues (and pesterquest too) seem to portray Jake in an honestly very disturbing way, frequently painting his emotional damage as something to be laughed at or disgusted by. Why do you think this might have happened?
Honestly? I dunno what kind of thought processes went on there in specific, just that the end result is jarringly immature. Of course, pulling back from taking ’Homestuck’ as the sole subject of our analysis & looking at things like our media landscape in general, it’s doesn’t feel uncommon at all.
This goes back to Jake’s roots as an attempt to subvert the mold of the expected ‘action hero boy’ protagonist. He’s overly emotional, two-faced, dependant on his sexual appeal, acts in seemingly irrational ways (to the great rage of the viewers), cannot properly control the ‘fated great power’ his aspect gives him despite having it, and constantly relies on the help of the male character for whom he serves as a love interest— in other words: he’s written like the action movie girl.
From the point of view of the text, its “funny” to laugh at jake when he’s in distress because he’s a grown man being raped by women— or a girlyboy being taken advantage of by evil gay predators. The joke is that manly men don’t get assaulted, they use their fists; and if they are victims of assault then they were never worth being considered manly men to begin with. (It’s not for nothing that caliborn characterizes him as a girly boy.) In a society that operates through a masculine-o-meter to randomly dispense rewards (I’m talking about our society, by the way) his behavior is framed as the direct opposite of a respectable, honorable hero. You could call jake’s treatment ‘misguided’ at best, but it just feels… unfortunate, regressive, and disappointing.
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