Gamzee Makara, also known by his Trollian handle, “terminallyCapricious”, is one of the trolls in Homestuck. His associated zodiac sign is Capricorn (♑) and his horns resemble those of a goat.
He uses purple as a text color, and used to type with each letter alternating case, which (like most things) annoyed Karkat. After sobering up, his lines alternate between all caps and all lowercase. (Gamzee's blood and text colors are the least consistent out of any of the characters in the comic, which may be an intentional tie-in to his capriciousness theme).
Gamzee was a member of the Red Team.
Etymology
Gamzee was named by Alyssa after the forumgoer Gammy, as well as "Gamze", which is a Turkish name meaning "dimple" or "coquettish look". Coincidentally, Gamzee sounds similar to the word "Gämse", which is German for Chamois, a european goat-antelope.
Makara is the Sanskrit counterpart to the Capricorn sign, as well as referring to a mythological Hindu creature with the hind legs of an aquatic creature and the forelegs of a terrestrial one (much like the Greek Capricorn). This land-sea duality could be taken to represent Gamzee's highblood status among the land dwellers (and his lack of care about caste when he isn't sober) as well as his own dual nature. His last name might also come from a breed of goats called "Markhor goats" whose horns have a similar shape to his. Makara is also the Arabic word for 'deceit' or 'a scheme', fitting given that he was shown scheming with his dancestor Kurloz. Makara can also be translated to "dragon" in Sinhala. It could also come from the Scottish word Makar, which means bard. In Bangla, Capricorn translates to Makara.
Biography
Hivebent
Gamzee was first
shown in his hive, which is decorated with posters depicting demonic clowns, taken from images of three Insane Clown Posse joker cards, The Carnival of Carnage, The Ringmaster, and The Riddle Box, with horns added. Among the things that litter his hive are bottles of Faygo, an oversized unicycle, a laptop, juggling clubs, pie tins filled with sopor slime, and several bike horns.
Since his custodian is always out at sea, Gamzee wasn't brought up very well. He wasn't taught certain simple things and common troll knowledge, such as the fact that sopor slime is not supposed to be eaten, lest strange things happen to a troll's head. Gamzee's lusus resembles a large mer-goat. This follows the trend of the custodians resembling the zodiac symbol of their charges, as Capricorn is the sign of the goat, or the sea-goat.
Although Gamzee doesn't seem to care about the caste system, he is a higher-up (the highest of the land-dwellers) in the blood-caste system. This is frequently referenced by Equius, who forces himself to suppress the urge to order Gamzee around because he has “no right to be disappointed by [his] conduct”. Equius also appears to believe that Gamzee's love of Faygo and sopor slime is harmful to him, as he tells Gamzee that “you pollute your precious b100d / With your bottled fizzy sugar and soporific to%ins”. However, when Gamzee becomes sober he makes several references to caste system ideology and even commands Equius to kneel before him. Gamzee is the only purple-blooded troll not seen wearing jewelry, though whether this is because he doesn't care about the system or just because he isn't a sea dweller, it's hard to tell.
Post-Hivebent
Gamzee hadn't had much to do or say since Jack's entry into their session. He has simply been seen charging people boondollars for a lovely nap on his horn pile, or dancing around capriciously. That is, until he runs out of sopor slime pies, he stares into the eyes of Lil Cal following his angry departure at Dave mocking his religion, and in his mentally vulnerable state comes to the conclusions that:
- sopor slime was destroying his brain (likely to be true),
- he is a descendant of the High Subjugglators (true),
- he is both of the messiahs of his own religion (controversial),
- he has to kill everyone (highly troubling),
- and paint pictures with their blood (terrifying).
With his ability to interfere with dream selves he also manipulated the Dream Rooms of Dave and John to implant Lil Cal and a clown plush resembling Jack Noir respectively into their dreams. This would ultimately lead to John's prototyping of the harlequin doll. According to him, this made the kid's session terminal, possibly true as Jack used The Miles on their universe, and Gamzee was partly responsible for his uprising through a complex series of events including placing the dolls there.
Karkat, at this point, regards Gamzee's declaration as the current greatest threat facing the surviving trolls, even more so than Eridan's rampage. He says that Gamzee did more damage during the fight with the Black King than any of the other trolls, with the possible exception of Vriska.
In a flashback, we see Gamzee confess flushed feelings for Tavros, which Tavros seems confused by. In a much later conversation with Dave, he mentions that he made friends with Lil Cal after Tavros's death, and that Lil Cal is the one who told him he should kill all his friends. Since the reveal that Lord English uses Lil Cal to possess people, it's been theorized that this is what led to his decline in sanity.
Gamzee waits for Equius on a large container holding one of many genetic abominations around the lab similar to his own lusus. Gamzee is finally acting the role of a highblood troll, though Equius is confused by this as he believes it to be Terezi, Gamzee having earlier discovered her glasses. They proceed to have a rather short conversation, Gamzee calling Equius “peasantblood” and shooting him in the leg to make him kneel. He then breaks the bow he had been using previously and strangles him with the bow string, causing Nepeta to leap out of hiding and attack him. Gamzee grabs Nepeta's hand, breaking her wrist, and apparently holds her in midair, and scrapes his own face with her claws. He is later seen with her blood on his club.
Before he is able to confront Vriska and Eridan he is interrupted by a glowing rainbow drinker Kanaya, who kicks him in the groin bone bulge so hard that he is sent flying out of his shoes and off the lab floor. When Kanaya kicks him out of his shoes, it is shown that Gamzee does not wear socks. Afterwards, the seemingly unhurt dark messiah leaves some of Vriska's personal possessions and his blood near Nepeta's corpse, presumably to deceive Terezi into believing she has killed not only Tavros and Nepeta, but him as well. He leads her into a trap, making her fall into the music room and constantly screws with her using Cal. He leaves a note written in his own blood, obviously similar to Bro's note to Dave, that spites her into a duel with Vriska. Afterwards, he somehow found the time to collect the bodies of Eridan, Nepeta, Feferi, Equius, and Tavros and cut off their heads. He then set up a mock jury table using the heads (the bodies are placed in glass tubes), called order to the court with his warhammer and proceeded to observe the scourge sisters' meeting. At some point, judging by the brown blood seen on his lips, it is assumed that he kissed Tavros' severed head. He left Karkat a note as well at some unknown point between the two previous events, using a combination of Terezi's typing quirk and his own, luring him to the roof where Terezi stabs Vriska. The note reads “bro. SLOPPY M4K3OUTS. NOW. on the roof. H3 H3 H3 >:o]”
Shortly after Vriska's death, he resurfaces and confronts Karkat, Terezi, Sollux and Kanaya, wielding the Warhammer of Zillyhoo. Terezi, the other hand, is most assuredly pitch for him, while Kanaya's feelings are, as to be expected from her, ashen. In full circle of quadrants, Gamzee is stopped by Karkat's moirailing by shooshpapping (though he takes the liberty of calming everyone else the motherfuck down first so that they don't instantly kill him), resulting in an affectionate hug between the two.
Gamzee fondly regards current events at 0:00:00
In [S] Cascade, Gamzee is seen messaging Doc Scratch on Vriska's Husktop, saying “that's all motherfuckin done white texted bro. NOW WHAT?”; Scratch's unrevealed reply causes him to ask Scratch “AND JUST WHAT THE MOTHER FUCK IS IT that we motherfucking are?” to which Scratch then answers with “S u c k e r s .”
On the meteor (old timeline)
Later, he was seen comforting Karkat, before disappearing with Sollux and Vriska's bodies. One year later he had continued to remain in hiding with only Karkat knowing his location. Another year later he is seen talking to Rose Lalonde, revealing he has begun a kismesissitude with Terezi. In that same year he meets up with Kurloz and Meulin in dream bubbles, who assemble a fake god tier outfit for him, so as to somehow aid Lord English. During an Easter egg in Openbound part 3, Hussie mentions that Kurloz, Gamzee, and English are all "in cahoots". Kurloz also alludes to the idea that English is in fact the idol of his and Gamzee's religion. Gamzee is later seen in Ministrife with his full god cod tier outfit on.
It was later revealed by Terezi that although he wasn't murdering anyone, he was still mean-spirited, supposedly more so than any of the other post-scratch trolls. For example, he made fun of Terezi's blindness, partly leading to her fixing her sight, regrettably so, and Terezi's decline in self-esteem. Karkat also revealed that he has become increasingly pious and self-involved, believing the B2 session was a way to fulfill his role as a subjugglator. This eventually lead to the end of their moirallegiance. It has been speculated that this drastic and unusual shift in character had much to do with the meddling of Aranea Serket, who sought to rid Terezi of her Sight by "curing her blindness". It was also revealed that he never talked to Dave while on the meteor, although Terezi's relationship with Gamzee led Dave to break up with her.
Cherub universe
Gamzee at the egg crater's edge.
Gamzee was later seen staying on the trolls' meteor before it passed through a Skaiain defense portal to B2 Earth, before the planet was taken by Jade Harley into the B2 session. He was also seen on the planet after it had been moved to a new star system in a new universe, and the star had become a red giant, destroying the planet. He was there shortly after the egg that would later hatch into Calliope and Caliborn crash-landed there. It would appear that he served as the cherubs' guardian during their infancy, and it was he who set up the chains that would confine them to their room. He also supposedly provided them with their jujus and food, as well as his husktop which presumably contained a copy of Sburb.
In Caliborn's session
He was also encountered by Caliborn on the planet, after it entered Caliborn's session. After requesting to be Caliborn's guide, an awkward stare-off ensued, and Caliborn abruptly and messily gunned him down with his firearm, revealing that Gamzee's god tier outfit was fake. He survived the assault and dragged himself over to the MSPA command tower, where he tried to give Caliborn a Skaianet hub to use as the tower's power source. Caliborn responded by shooting him again.
When Caliborn asked Hussie how he survived, Hussie claimed that Gamzee is clearly a god tier, but then admits, “Alright, maybe he's not god tier. Who can really say for sure?”. It was later confirmed by Terezi and Karkat that his god tier outfit is indeed fake. Hussie also went on to say that Gamzee's status as a “hilarious, rascally clown” (as well as being the most really important) makes him unkillable, stating that he is “notoriously difficult to kill for reasons that basically don't make any sense”, and that he is “personally not aware of a single timeline in which this codpiece packing moron dies”, the latter of which corroborates the lack of any dead Gamzees in the Ministrife crowd. (Gamzee is the only remaining troll whose alternate timeline versions have never had any confirmed appearances in the comic, much less any confirmed deaths). Additionally, in this page, Caliborn states that Gamzee is both invincible and eternal, owing these attributes to “MIRACLES”. Whether what Caliborn says is due to his lack of total comprehension of time at this point in the story or if it is Hussie himself speaking through Caliborn to clarify the situation is yet unknown. To further cement Gamzee's invincibility as fact, this page shows Gamzee has having healed from all the wounds inflicted upon him by Caliborn.
It's entirely possible that Gamzee's invincibility is due to an external meta-fictional fact, commonly known as "Joker Immunity". This trope explains that an enemy character with enough importance and popularity can never be killed for real. It gets particularly punny due to the name of the trope, which was created after Batman's "hilarious, rascally clown" nemesis. It may also be a reference to the popular Juggalo idea that "Wicked Clowns will never die".
Gamzee accompanied Caliborn throughout his quest in his dead session, providing him with a juju breaker given to him by Kurloz, and giving him advice. However, as Caliborn gathered more servants from his session, he began to ignore Gamzee increasingly.
In Caliborn's masterpiece, Gamzee is shown to be cut in half, during the fight between the B2 kids and Caliborn. Dirk was seen next to Gamzee when he was cut in half, implying that he was likely the one who did that. This is further supported by the fact that his weapon of choice is the only one among the alpha kids which could slice someone in half. One half of him is then imprisoned in Lil Cal, along with Arquiusprite and Caliborn. Whether the two halves were smiling and frowning, like in [S] Game Over, and, if so, which side was sucked into Cal, remains to be seen.
B2 session (old timeline)
NOTE: It is unknown if Gamzee's actions in Caliborn's session came before or after his actions in the B2 session, but since he lost his fake god tier wings when Caliborn shot him, and is shown to be missing them in the B2 session, it is likely the former came first.
Gamzee, after ascending to cod tier.
At the end of Myststuck Gamzee is seen, in his god tier clothing while in possession of Aradia's (or possibly Damara's) music box time machines, asking Jane if she would like to have him as her guide, to which Jane (im)politely declines. Gamzee asks her to reconsider before attempting to sell her potions (which have been confirmed to be troll blood).
After Jane insists that she does not want him to be her guide in LOCAH, he steps down from her refrigerator the Chest of Whimsy, saying that someone has to be her guide, and proceeds to pull out the dead bodies of Vriska and Tavros (Vriska in her god tier form, Tavros both legless and decapitated), and throws all the parts at once into Jane's kernelsprite, thus creating Tavrisprite. Tavrisprite then exploded out of self-loathing, sending Gamzee flying. He has done this with other troll corpses/alpha kernelsprites to create Fefetasprite, Erisolsprite, and Arquiusprite.
Roxy Lalonde theorized he was working for the Condesce, filling up their kernelsprites so they couldn't revive their ancestors. Since both Gamzee and the the Condesce seemingly serve Lord English, this is possible. However, it should be noted that Jane Crocker under the Condesce's control did not seem to have any knowledge of his intentions. He was seen witnessing Jane's transformation into Trickster Mode, and responding with distaste. He later sent Lil Cal to Jack Noir, with the help of the Courtyard Droll, leading to Jack being possessed by Lord English. He is shown to still be in the B2 session after the pre-scratch kids and remaining trolls arrive, stealing Rose's velvet pillow and honking, angering Terezi.
He later took the Ring of Life from John's room, and hid in Dave's refrigerator, before John could use it to revive Calliope. He then goes to sleep, and dreams in the Furthest Ring. At this point he is revealed to be under Aranea's control, and gives her the ring on Rose's velvet pillow, reviving her. It is unknown how long Aranea has been controlling Gamzee. However, when Terezi realizes that both of their actions led to her eyesight being fixed, she begins to theorize that the two of them are in cahoots. Aranea considers relinquishing control over him, but takes it back when he begins to talk, which she finds annoying. Later, still under Aranea's control, he falls out of the sky and hits Jane before she can bring Jade back to life, however he is kicked off of her by Terezi. Terezi then angrily stabs him many times, which he does not respond to.
However, when Aranea's control over Gamzee was broken by Brain Ghost Dirk, the pain from the attack appears to have registered; he briefly begs Terezi to stop, speaking in his long abandoned original quirk, before flipping the fuck out, releasing a gargantuan HONK, and punching Terezi in the face whilst cavorting, apparently in a state of incredible rage.
Gamzee proceeded to brutally beat Terezi, still enraged, before grabbing her and performing an "ATOMIC DOUBLE JUGGALO BACKBREAKER," flipping high into the air and slamming her down into the ground head-first, snapping the stone platform they were on into two pieces. As Terezi is about to tumble into the lava, Gamzee suddenly grabs her by the wrist and pulls her from certain death, swinging her back onto the platform before wrapping his arm around her neck and flipping off a horrified Kanaya and Karkat, who, after looking on, resolve to attack him. Gamzee counters Karkat's attempt by stabbing him two times (in the circles of his symbol) with Terezi's cane and throwing him off of the platform, leaving him to sink into the surrounding lava, presumably dead. Kanaya's attempt, however, is not countered in anyway. Gamzee merely stands there as she splits him in half with her chainsaw, although she is vaporized by the Condesce moments later. (One half was smiling and the other frowning, representing Tragedy and Comedy, much like his main emoticons).
New Timeline
In the new timeline created by John's retcons, Terezi was able to figure out that Gamzee was behind Nepeta and Equius's deaths, and for the entire sequence of events up to encountering Vriska, he was tied up with a horn stuffed in his mouth, thus preventing him from doing any more unfavorable behavior. During the meteor trip, he was set free, but the presence of Vriska prevented any of his speculated outside entanglement.
Gamzee did not start a kismesissitude with Terezi during the three-year journey on the meteor, largely due to Vriska's intervention, as well as Terezi not having low self esteem (as she did not kill Vriska). However, he still got his fake god tier outfit, as confirmed here.
Unlike in the old timeline, Gamzee left the meteor along with everyone else upon arrival in the B2 session. Vriska took his place in many of the tasks he performed in the old timeline, including the meteor's arrival on Earth (although she captchalogued it like Jade did, rather than landing on it) and prototyping sprites pre-arrival. Gamzee was locked up inside Jane's fridge, along with some of the trolls' bodies, at the victory platform where everyone else was. Other characters have stated that they plan on dropping off Gamzee on Earth in the future so that he can raise the cherubs, just like he did in the events we observed when the story focused on Caliborn.
The fridge he was contained in was eventually moved from the victory platform to LOMAX to be used as a makeshift table by Jasprosesprite^2. During the events of Collide the fridge was repeatedly knocked around the session by Cans eventually arriving on LOTAK. The fridge remained on LOTAK until Lord Jack was decapitated which resulted in the destruction of most of the planet, leaving Gamzee's fate ambiguous. (As both Gamzee and the "Juju Breaker" Crowbar were on LOTAK at the time it was destroyed, it is assumed that this how they arrived at Caliborn's Earth. This would also explain why Earth would have a Denizen, Yaldabaoth, despite not being a planet generated by a version of Sburb or Sgrub, as Dirk's Yaldabaoth may have also been transported.)
Personality and Traits
Gamzee appears to be the troll equivalent of a Juggalo, belonging to a cult of capricious minstrels, and his text is littered with references to Juggalo subculture. So much so, in fact, that it's something of a miracle in itself that he hasn't uttered the phrase "fuckin' magnets" yet (at one point, in a rap-off with Tavros, he paraphrases a complete stanza of ICP's hit single 'Miracles'). Another possible reference to his design as a Juggalo could be his strife specibi, which is clubkind jokerkind. Of these, he uses juggling clubs, a pun possibly on Juggalos. Though he swears quite a bit, he is a very good natured and laid back troll. He is without question a supportive friend and will do things and make sacrifices, even stop eating sopor-slime pies and drinking his wicked elixir, Faygo, at the request of a friend. Because of his magnanimous personality, Gamzee will frequently act as an advisor or even a therapist to his friends, such as Karkat and Eridan, if they are experiencing emotional stress, though his usual counseling involves them waiting for a miracle.
His fetch modus is miracle-based; he does not understand how it works and doesn't care to find out. Sometimes he just likes to pick things up and watch the colors. He and Rose are the only characters who have thought to retrieve items from their sylladices in the most obvious way. He doesn't like knowing the technology or science behind things, stating that “kNoWiNg ShIt JuSt StEaLs Up AlL tHe FuCkIn MaGiC fRoM mY mIrAcLeS lIkE a MoThErFuCkIn ThIeF.” Vague allusions to his strange horns were made, which turned out to be the bicycle horns strewn on his floor. Sometimes he accidentally steps on one and scares the shit out of himself. He is very good natured, and has seemingly pacified the imps around his house as he is sharing sopor slime pies with them, referring to them as "pretty dope".
"Capricious" means impulsive and/or unpredictable, so this may be an indicator of his personality although most of his actions and conversations have shown him to be more silly and spacey than impulsive. The fact that capricious means unpredictable would go along the lines of how Gamzee believes in “mIrAcLeS” happening all the time- also, in thesauruses, it is seen as synonyms with arbitrary (which means "whimsical, chance") and eccentric. The word capricious could also refer to his given symbol, Capricorn, which shares the same root word.
Gamzee spends the Alterniabound Flash capriciously dancing and trying to sell access to his pile of horns. As the Trickster Mode shows, this is in a direct reference to the dancing shopkeepers in Secret of Mana. In one such instance of his 'Horn pile innkeeper shit', he offered Karkat a nap in the pile of obnoxious noisemakers for 420 boondollars, a reference to the cultural marijuana reference of 4:20 (or his arc number by the same value). Such would fit well into Gamzee's laid back, stoner-esque personality: His name can be translated from Turkish as "janed", or high from smoking pot. In the timelines later on in the game, the number 420 is mixed in several times in several different ways, for example:
- “PAST terminallyCapricious [PTC] 420 HOURS AGO responded to memo.
FUTURE...terminallyCapricious [FTC] 0:42:00 HOURS FROM NOW responded to memo.”
KNEEL. >:o)
He has a hidden ominous side to his personality, which is in line with him being capricious. Since this is the case, a lack of the sopor slime that was suppressing this nature has proved downright terrifying.
His breakdown leads to a change in typing quirk, his lines alternate between caps and lowercase instead of single letters. As noted by Equius, his volume “flu%uates”, implying that he speaks calmly every other line while YELLING ON EVERY OTHER MOTHER-FUCKING LINE. He seems to hold the lower-blooded trolls in high contempt, even more so than Equius, and demands that they "kneel" in his presence, and when Equius fails to do so, Gamzee shoots him in the kneecap, forcing him to genuflect. He also becomes, or perhaps always was, a crack shot with a bow, capable of taking out an incredibly powerful prototyped enemy with two arrows in the eyes. Gamzee's capricious nature also leads him to leave disturbing messages around the walls, splattering an “are you next? :o)” on one with Tavros' blood.
He asphyxiates Equius to death with a broken-bow garotte, bringing Equius to the happiest and most ironic of all possible submissive demises. It was the best fuckin miracle he ever did part of. He then bludgeons Nepeta to death. Curiously, he appears to be missing one of his clubs after the encounter, but also takes her blue claws as trophies.
Karkat has noted that during the battle with the Black King, Gamzee 'flipped the fuck out' and delivered an incredibly damaging attack to the Black King, doing the most damage of any of the trolls in a single blow. Karkat also notes afterwards, that he “WENT BACK TO SPACING OUT FOR THE REST OF THE FIGHT”, implying that, while attacking, he was enraged or else acting abnormally.
This is strikingly similar to the fury that seems to have seized him as a result of being attacked by Terezi, leaving it possible that the Black King, much like Terezi, made a huge mistake, attacked the seemingly-defenseless Gamzee, and incited his wrath.
In addition, it would also make sense that such a rage would be targeted towards the one who sparked it, as he would only have attacked the Black King in his theoretical first rage, and he seems to be focusing on Terezi in his second, not attempting to attack Jake or Rose despite having ample opportunity to do so.
He seems to have an obsession with collecting bodies and has been observed beheading them, preserving them in glass tubes and, according to Kanaya, kissing them, sometimes. This may be more than a suspicion, as when he's seen sitting next to Tavros's beheaded body, his lips are covered in blood. This obsession may or may not have a connection to his ancestor's practice of painting his walls with the blood of his victims. Alternatively, due to his feelings for Tavros, he may have attempted to revive him with a kiss.
Gamzee's prowess with multiple weapon types is a result of his dangerous jokerkind strife specibus. Fittingly with its' name, it seems to give him the ability to use almost any weapon with terrifying skill. Prior to this, he used the clubkind specibus.
Relationships
Tavros Nitram
Gamzee appears to have had a strong relationship with Tavros. They formed one of the worst rapping duos in, well, all of paradox space. Tavros' mood and text seemed a lot more confident and mellow when talking to Gamzee. They also referred to each other as "bros" in a respectful way, also copying each other's faces as seen in this conversation. It is strongly referenced that Gamzee once had flushed feelings for Tavros, seen in this pesterlog, even suggesting that they should make out at the end of said conversation, although Tavros seemed speechless at the idea, leaving it unknown if he shared the red feelings. His love for Tavros is further indicated here when he says the brown potion (e.g. Tavros' blood) will cause you to lose the use of your legs, but make you a great kisser.
After finding Tavros' corpse, Gamzee is seen with his blood on his lips implying that he tried to revive him or just had sloppy necrophiliac makeouts. It is unknown if Gamzee has any knowledge of Tavros and Vriska's complicated relationship; he may have simply never been told of its complexity.
Interestingly, Gamzee appears to show genuine sadness when talking to Dave about Tavros's death, and as mentioned above, he may have tried to revive him; he even goes so far as to refer to him as his "best friend," a title otherwise only bestowed upon Lil Cal after Tavros's death. These feelings may be more reflective of the aforementioned flushed crush he had on Tavros, especially considering that he cut his head off, seemingly to carry it around and kiss it. Like many other things about Gamzee, though, his true feelings towards Tavros are ultimately unknown.
Karkat Vantas
Moirails Forever
Gamzee apparently sees Karkat as his best friend, despite a strained relationship from Karkat's end, becoming a huge understatement later on. Gamzee doesn't take Karkat's insults seriously, and always checks up on him. Later on, Karkat is shown as expressing worry about Gamzee when he disappears, afraid he's gotten hurt, and even says that he should maybe look for him later. He is also horrified by Gamzee's new personality, trying desperately to snap him out of it. Finally, Karkat admits that he was not only Gamzee's best friend, but Gamzee was his best friend as well. Nepeta's shipping wall later shows her opinion that Karkat and Gamzee should be moirails. This relationship comes to fruition after Gamzee's flipout. It is later revealed that their moirallegiance has ended, due to Gamzee not holding up his end of the relationship. Gamzee and Karkat eventually become hostile to each other after Karkat and Kanaya watch Gamzee maim Terezi on LOFAF and charge at him, but to no avail as Gamzee uses Terezi's cane to stab Karkat twice in the chest and drop him into the lava.
Kanaya Maryam
Kanaya and Gamzee have had little to no contact or relationship prior to Hivebent. After his flip-out, Kanaya interrupted a three-way showdown between Gamzee, Vriska and Eridan by kicking him in the shame globes hard enough to send him off a cliff, but he was later unharmed through mysterious means despite the high fall.
She voiced her intention to kill him after he began stealing bodies, but she was stopped by Karkat. However, she remained suspicious of him for the rest of the trip aboard the meteor, suspicion which would later prove well-founded when he was revealed to be working for Lord English. In the Game Over timeline, their hostility culminated in Kanaya finally chainsawing Gamzee apart before dying herself.
Terezi Pyrope
In the third part of Openbound he confirms that he has secretly started up a kismesissitude with Terezi, stating that she hates him for what he is but not enough to kill him. He doesn't want Karkat to find out about this, as he thinks Karkat would kill him for it, the exact reasoning behind Gamzee's belief that Karkat would kill him is unknown. Much of their relationship is open to speculation, as their only on-panel interaction following their kismessitude involved Terezi's attempted murder of Gamzee and his own retaliation. While their full dynamic is open for interpretation, the story largely portrays it as unhealthy, given that rivalry is key, and the relationship eventually turns bad enough for Terezi to try to kill Gamzee. In addition, while Gamzee appears to be more or less the same as he was three years ago, while Terezi's mental health and self-esteem appears to have declined. Assigning all the blame to Gamzee would be incorrect, given Terezi's guilt over killing Vriska, and her belief that her dancestor, Latula, is much more accepted and radical than her, though Gamzee has definitely had some role in this, mocking her blindness to the point that a combination of these three factors leads to her getting the eyes healed, a decision she is shown to immensely regret. However, post-retcon, Terezi seems to have avoided a black relationship with Gamzee altogether, apparently due largely to Vriska's influence, and the relationship ultimately remains no more than a pitch crush from Gamzee's side that may or may not be the result of Aranea's control.
Other Trolls
At the beginning of Hivebent, it seems Gamzee is on friendly terms with most of the other trolls. Due to his infinitely casual attitude to life, he is unaffected by Karkat's insults, Equius' bossiness or Eridan's emotional theatrics, all of which have been known to grate everyone else's nerves.
Later on, Gamzee does a graceful fucking pirouette-swan-dive off the deep end, possibly because of a combination of running out of slime for his pies and having a major faith crisis because of the video Dave showed him. This puts him into a rage that causes him to make the kids' universe "Terminal". Gamzee has now declared his intentions to murder the rest of the trolls to show them the new interpretation of his religion. However Karkat's combinations of shooshes and paps seem to have ended his rage. During the 3 year meteor trip Gamzee distanced himself from almost everyone on the meteor and, together with his dancestor, Kurloz, started working for Lord English. Eridan, Nepeta, and Feferi, each of whom had almost no relationship with him, come to terms after becoming Erisolsprite and Fefetasprite by agreeing on a sound policy of "fuck Gamzee". The non-prototyped version of Sollux also holds him in low regard, calling him a braindead clown who eats toxic slime. Interestingly, Sollux seems to have had a brief vacillating concupiscent crush on Gamzee during Karkat's and his showdown on the roof, where also Terezi develops a black crush on him, and Kanaya an ashen one.
Lil Cal
Gamzee appears to have a relationship of some kind with Lil Cal. During one of his conversations with Dave, he says that Cal will "help (him) refigure out what's the real reality about the miracles." Given Gamzee's inexplicable devotion to Caliborn, as well as the fact that Lord English has already been heavily implied to be the central figure(s) of Gamzee's religion, it seems strongly likely that Cal influenced Gamzee's service to Caliborn to an extreme degree, if not his entire descent into madness, considering the fact that the curse within Cal came from and is controlled by English.
In the same conversation, Gamzee tells Dave that Cal was the one who said to kill all of his friends. Although it's unclear when exactly Gamzee came into possession of Cal, this may also imply that Cal is the entire reason behind his flipout, or a major factor - crisis of faith and lack of sopor slime notwithstanding. It is clear that he had Cal at least before his attack on Equius and Nepeta, however, as he is seen using him to toy with Terezi, leaving ample time for Cal to have influenced him.
It is eventually revealed that Gamzee's kinship with Cal stems from the fact that Gamzee himself is in fact a part of Cal, along with Caliborn and ARquius.
Dave Strider
Gamzee has an intense reaction to the VIDEO for the Insane Clown Posse song "Miracles". Gamzee calls the song "BlAsPhEmY" after Dave sends him a link to it. The result led to Gamzee engaging his Hero Mode with an interesting purple 'lightning' effect surrounding him. Notwithstanding this reaction, however, they get along surprisingly well, to the point that Gamzee states that he likes Dave, although he immediately follows it by saying he wouldn't mind adding Dave's head to his collection. He then invites Dave to "slam a little," and they both proceeded to have one of the best rap-offs in the history of paradox space.
Lusus/Kernelsprite
Gamzee's lusus is a giant goat-like sea creature. It had apparently often been out to sea instead of caring for Gamzee as a custodian is supposed to - about the only useful advice it ever gave Gamzee was "keep away from the ocean". It was killed after Karkat ran the Mobius Double Reacharound Virus, speared by what appears to be a harpoon or something similar. It has been speculated that Eridan is responsible, possibly because of his hatred of littering—revenge for Gamzee throwing trash into the sea, or just his genocidal tendencies toward land dwellers. Opposing this theory is the fact that Eridan's weapon is Ahab's Crosshairs, a rifle that shoots energy blasts, not a harpoon gun. Although, there is a regular harpoon pointed towards the sea in Eridan's window...
When Gamzee is sitting atop the tube on [S] Equius: Seek the highb100d, a genetically engineered knight creature very similar to his lusus can be seen inside the tube.
Gallery
Trivia
While trivia sections are fine, it might be a good idea to merge some of this material into relevant sections of the main text, because this trivia section is bloated.
In particular: This trivia seems a little off; this could easily be included as random facts in the text.
- Gamzee is seen to be one of three trolls trolling Jade on this panel
, though he never took a keen interest in trolling the kids in the first place. - Gamzee's juggling clubs resemble the PX3 Vegas club by Play.
- Gamzee has done some actions featuring the number 420, in reference to his apparent use of drugs, as April 20th/4:20 pm is a day/time centering around Marijuana and other drug culture.
- Past Gamzee had responded to two memos, 420 hours before they had began, and Future Gamzee responded to a memo 0:42:00 hours from the present.
- Gamzee has also marketed with the price of 420 boondollars. In Alterniabound, he offered Karkat a nap in the pile of obnoxious noisemakers for 420 boondollars. In Myststuck, he sells every potion for 420 boondollars each (leaving poor, naive Jane to wonder why they're all that price).
- The [S] 3x SHOWDOWN COMBO page url contains the number 420.
- Past Gamzee had responded to two
- In a conversation with Dave in Act 5 Act 2, Gamzee speaks of a “DoUbLe mEtApHoR AlL ThE WaY AcRoSs sKaIa :o)”, a reference to a viral internet phenomenon commonly known as Double Rainbow in which a man becomes excited upon seeing two rainbows in the sky at once and contemplates the meaning behind it.
- Purple is the color of death in some East Asian countries, while simultaneously being the color of royalty in European countries, which might relate to Gamzee's desire to kill the trolls as well as his hereditary nobility.
- When he was sober, Gamzee was also possibly dual-natured (sort of). Because he had looked into lil Cal's eyes, it is possible that beneath the mind control, there was a part of him that was still a happy, care-free, whimsical clown. (However this is unlikely as the degree to which looking into Cal's eyes affected his decisions is unknown.
- Gamzee's obsession with "MiRaClEs" is a reference to the Insane Clown Posse song of the same name. Ironically, when he watches the video he becomes enraged, screaming “This... Is... Motherfuckin... BlAsPhEmY!!!”
- Dave, believing Gamzee to simply be a crazed Juggalo, sent him the music video months before it was publicly released, causing Gamzee to begin reconsidering his faith. It was likely done deliberately to trigger Gamzee's antagonism.
- When filled with murderous intent, Gamzee's eyes are shown to be dark orange and even red, rather than the golden color that trolls' eyes normally are. This is likely an artistic interpretation for his current mood.
- Gamzee's god tier design was revealed by Hussie in a donation sketch on Tumblr months before it appeared in the comic. He repeatedly emphasized it as being canon, and it was later revealed to be true.
- Gamzee's heroic title as the Bard of Rage could be a tribute or reference to the clown bard from Problem Sleuth.
- Gamzee's codpiece in his fake god tier outfit is a reference to Bard Quest and the Bard's noble quest to find a fitting Codpiece.
- It appears that Gamzee obtained his codpiece from his dancestor, Kurloz, in Openbound 2, for a currently unknown reason.
- In a short Tumblr Q&A session, Andrew joked that Gamzee is the shortest of the twelve trolls, deliberately going against what he considered most people's assumption that he was the tallest. He later confirmed that the trolls height and other aspects are up to the readers interpretation.
- Gamzee strangling Equius with his own bow may be a reference to the Salvation Run arc of the Batman comics, where Joker strangles Splitshot with his own bow.
- On one page, he is referred to as “the most important character in Homestuck”; however he is later described by Hussie as “Well, ok. Maybe not the MOST important. But he's still really important!”
- This is likely related to Kanaya's statement that “Dangerous People Can Be Really Important Maybe Even The Most Important Sometimes”.
- In Cascade, Lil Cal was shown to be sitting on Gamzee's lap at the time, so he may instead be the so-called "most important character", as his connections to various antagonists suggest.
- This is likely related to Kanaya's statement that “Dangerous People Can Be Really Important Maybe Even The Most Important Sometimes”
- Gamzee, along with Eridan, are one of the few post-scratch trolls that inherited both their class and aspect from the same two pre-scratch trolls. The only other examples are Karkat and Terezi. As the Bard of Rage, he inherited the Bard class from Cronus Ampora and the Rage Aspect from his dancestor Kurloz. Dualscar met his end at the hands of the Grand Highblood, which manifests in the 3x Showdown where Gamzee and Eridan both attempt to kill each other, and Cronus' unease around Kurloz.
- Gamzee is depicted on the "XVIII: The Moon" card and the "XI:Strength" card (with Kanaya) in the Homestuck Tarot Card Deck. He is featured on the "Five of Cups" card. He can also be seen on the "King of Swords" card with the rest of the red team, and on the "Five of Wands" card with most of the pre-act six cast.
- His appearance on the Moon may be due to the strong associations between fear, fantasy, and the card. His appearance on Strength displays the inverse nature of the card, which is unreliability and cruelty.
- His horns are similar to those worn by the hyena Ed in the Lion King during the Be Prepared number. Like Ed, Gamzee is originally a harmless fool, but becomes more dangerous later on in the story.
- Gamzee foreshadows his true relationship with Lord English when he says: “I FINALLY GOT MY MOTHERFUCKING UNDERSTAND ON TO WHO THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS ARE. they were always both me. :o) AND ALSO MOTHERFUCKING ME. Do: ” This is found to be true, as he is a component of Lord English.
- Being cut in half in GAME OVER is possibly a reference to Persian mythology, in which a character Jamshid (a powerful leader with a name describing dual nature, and phonetically similar to Gamzee) who has previously warred with the leader Zahhak is split in half by a saw, but quickly avenged by fire.
- When Gamzee goes insane as a result of running out of slime, his eyes gain a red tint to them. When blind, Terezi also shares this same eye colour, which could be referencing the idiom "Blind Rage".
- It is likely that his inability to die is due to an interesting game mechanic.
- His theme Blackest Heart ♫ has leitmotifs of John Carpenter's The Thing theme.
