Void Aspect - Tumblr Posts

Gordon Freeman's classpect: and why you're all wrong about it

well forgive me for the hostile-sounding title there, but as it stands i'm yet to see a single other person with this take.

the unanimous agreement for gordon's title seems to be heir of hope - which i will give credence to as making a lot of sense at face value. the heir is the class of the typical 'hero' and hope is the aspect of belief, faith, deficiation, angelic symbolism. on paper, it works perfectly for a man held in such high regard as a saviour and liberator.

but what of gordon's personality? what little of it we see, of course.

the heir of hope argument applies a classpect to gordon not as a person, but as a concept.

gordon freeman the concept is an heir of hope, for sure.

but gordon freeman, the man?

gordon freeman, the scientist who was late to his first day on the job? whose brief glimpses into his personality include blowing up a man's casserole for no clear reason and solving every problem with a crowbar?

the gordon freeman who has been jumping from trauma to trauma for twenty years under the machinations of a sinister interdimensional bureaucrat?

hear me out here.

gordon freeman is a bard of void.

now, i should probably explain my thoughts on the bard class and the void aspect before going any further, since this entire take hinges on my very specific take on both things.

in my eyes, the bard (the passive destroyer) is somebody who initially ghosts adherence to their opposing aspect, until a traumatic incident or dire crisis suddenly pushes them into an influx of their real aspect. they change their tune from passively destroying their aspect in themselves to passively destroying through their aspect. bards are capricious, unpredictable people who are often cowardly, avoidant or lazy in their ways.

the aspect of void, the antithesis of light, deals with the eldritch and the unknown. void is shadow, void is doubt and obsfucation, it is by its very nature unknowable and exists in the dark corners of one's mind. void is narrative irrelevance given (a lack of) form.

so, how does this fit into gordon freeman's narrative?

let's get into his head.

gordon freeman is a man who, prior to the black mesa incident, has lived his life adhering to knowledge and science. he's studied, got a degree, probably quite passionate about science. the statistics, the thirst for knowledge and understanding, all of this paints a picture of light.

light players are the ultimate students, as the extended zodiac says, they are the knowledge-seekers who wish to understand the world around them and comprehend the most fortuitous path better than any other.

the guy shows up late to his first day on the job. a man with more degrees than should be feasible and he can't even show up to work on time. this is the first hint of gordon being a bard, it's an incredibly lazy and capricious action that also hints at his passive destruction of light through his lack of fortune.

and it's that fateful test that changes everything - you all know the one i mean.

the one that suddenly inundates him with void. suddenly, gordon's world is unknowable, incomprehensible, he is a slave to the plot and forced to keep driving forward a narrative to which he ultimately has no say in. it's another example of the traits of a bard, who generally do seem to be reduced to narrative devices. (we see this a lot with gamzee.)

gordon is consumed among the alien and eldritch, and emerges from black mesa's ruins anew. a man whose existence is defined by contradiction, doubt, obfuscation, and everything that void stands for.

we see it again and again throughout the series. his very existence within the combine's rigidly defined, meticulous and mechanical empire defies principle. he is the anticitizen, his presence within their world is a contradiction just by his very being. he is undocumented, an anomaly that shouldn't be. and that scares the shit out of them.

and it should! because, as a bard of void should, gordon destroys their empire through void. his very existence is enough to spark the revolution (which in itself is tied to the aspects of hope and rage) and the destruction he brings about is through his nature as the anticitizen. the contradiction, the hole in their logic. he casts doubt upon the system that they've forced into place and he does so while continually being surrounded by the eldritch and the unknown.

he does so while in servitude to the eldritch, actually. i think that g-man himself is a player of space (to be more specific, i think he is a lord) but i think that there is also a lot of void symbolism within the g-man's character and his 'employers' more specifically.

and you know what really cinches my argument?

gordon freeman, player of void, embodiment of the unknown and the obsfucation, of the silence and emptiness, of the doubt and darkness?

he never utters a single word.

i will revise this entire thing once i wake up tomorrow because it's currently 10pm for me and this is going to look incredibly lazily worded/formatted when i get up in the morning

but for now i suppose you can all take this rambling mess of uncoordinated madness and tell me how wrong i am

THOUGHTS ON MARBLE HORNETS CLASSPECTS REAL QUICK THAT I'M GONNA EXPAND ON LATER PROBABLY

Jay is definitely a Light player, constantly motivated by a search for the truth and largely kept alive by his own dumb luck and fortune; plus there's the whole 'bringing attention to everyone involved by posting everything on fucking YouTube' thing.

Tim is a Heart player, which seems pretty obvious given his alter-ego of Masky. A great deal of his angst comes from his lack of self-control and his fear of what he does when he dons the mask; the crux of Tim's arc is rejecting his other personality and trying to get a solid grasp on his own emotions.

Alex? He's a harder one to pin down, but I'm gonna say Void. He does begin his arc as fairly Light-focused (a pretentious college film student who wants to put himself out there into the spotlight) but when you consider his primary role in the narrative? Alex is the one desperately trying to spread obscurity and obfuscation because he believes the mere knowledge of the Operator is dangerous - he's motivated to create secrecy and destroy truth & relevance in the name of covering up the cognitohazard that is the Operator.

Brian is really fucking with my head right now. I feel like he's also somewhere on the Light-Void dichotomy? He operates in shadow & secrecy but at the same time he's obsessed with spreading the truth of everything and taunting Alex with the knowledge he holds. His constant tendency for mind-gaming also makes me wonder about Mind? (Which would work quite nicely alongside Tim being a Heart player to place both them and Jay/Alex as opposites.) Also arguably more tied to knowledge than Light, and I did just mention he's fucking with my head.

No strong thoughts on Jessica yet either, but my gut tells me Breath? I'm not too sure, but I guess there's an argument to make that her arc is about freedom from the Operator and disconnection from everything else going on around her.

Experimenting with new formatting here so my posts are more uniform (as opposed to being some late-night stream of consciousness). also pretty colours

MARBLE HORNETS EXTENDED ZODIAC SIGNS

NOTE: the only character with a canon birthday is Alex (and he's an Aries) so I'm just going off general vibes for the rest of them

JAY MERRICK: TAURPIO, Sign of the Student

TIM WRIGHT: SCORO, Sign of the Wondrous

ALEX KRALIE: ARITTARIUS, Sign of the Astronaut

BRIAN THOMAS: AQUAZA, Sign of the Politic

JESSICA LOCKE: LEUS, Sign of the Flexible

Me: hey can u take this test (extended zodiac)

Friend: yeah sure

Me mentally:shes gonna get light

Friend: i got void

Me: O_O

Laterrr

Hey other friend can you take this test

Other friend: yeah sure

Me mentally: they're gonna get time

Other friend: I got void

Me: HUH????