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hopesplode!: about the hope aspect
fact: to hussie, magic is fake. his attempts at convincing himself fail. therefore, we might conclude that someone else needs to do the convincing.
eridan also believed magic was fake. rose taught him it was real - though he still called it ‘science’ as this worked with what he believed in.
karkat says it’s hope, rather than magic or science, that gives him his powers.
but eridan decides all hope is lost. and because eridan 1) believes in the power of science, 2) believes that all hope is lost, and 3) is the prince, that is the destroyer aspect, he destroys hope (and as a result is destroyed himself)
all this becomes significant if we look into what jake has shown us about the hope aspect:
here are some of jake’s powers as listed by the mspa wiki. jake uses the ‘raw power’ of hope, which might mean he doesn’t need to channel it, like eridan did with his wand. it might also mean he doesn’t necessarily use his powers consciously.
he created an image of dirk which could be seen by others in the dream bubbles - an image of dirk which seemed to hold information unknown to jake himself. in all respects, a real, created copy of dirk. this, it seems, is how jake’s hope aspect might come into play.
the hope aspect seems to mean “belief”, rather than a generic “seeing the light in the darkness” type hope.
friendship is vital to the hope aspect. social influence affects hope.
but eridan was alone, and so was less influenced by the other trolls. this made him vulnerable, because it gave him fewer viewpoints of the world. making him more likely to uncritically believe what others told him. eridan also rarely listens to people - making an exception for those he deem worthy, such as rose with her obvious displays of power.
we see similar patterns in jake. he is naive. he doesn’t listen to people. and he has recently isolated himself from his friends, alienated them. and then taken to believing in caliborn, instead - it was simple enough to earn his trust and his belief.
so we have a boy, who is unaware of his full potential, with powers to make things real through belief, who is listening to and believing in the sincerity of this guy
surely nothing bad will come from this.
