Gamzee Makara

Gamzee Makara, also known by his Trollian handle, is one of the Trolls. 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 going insane, his lines alternate between all caps and all lowercase.

Gamzee was named after forumite Gammy, as well as "Gamze", which is a Turkish word meaning "dimple" or "coquettish look". 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.

Gamzee was a member of the Red Team.

Hivebent
Gamzee was HS 3911 (first) shown in his room, which is decorated with posters depicting demonic clowns. Among the things that litter his room 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 was referenced by Equius, who forces himself to suppress his urges to order Gamzee around because he has "no right to be disappointed by (Gamzee's) conduct." Equius also appears to believe that Gamzee's love of Faygo and sopor slime is harmful to him, as he states, "...you pollute your precious b100d... With your bottled fizzy sugar and soporific to%ins," in HS 4121 (this) conversation. However, when Gamzee becomes sober he does seem to adopt the caste system ideology and even commands Equius to kneel before him. Gamzee is the only purple-blooded troll not seen wearing jewellery, though whether this is because he doesn't care about the system, or because of his juggalo lifestyle, or just because he isn't a sea dweller, is 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 and comes to the conclusions that 1) it was destroying his brain (true), 2) he is a descendant of the High Subjugglators (true), 3) he is both of the messiahs of his own religion (controversial), 4) he has to kill everyone (highly troubling), and 5) paint pictures with their blood (terrifying). In his rage he also manipulated the dreams of Dave and John by implanting 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 and to Jack's uprising.

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.

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. 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. Gamzee is however stopped by Karkat's Moirailing.

In [S] Cascade, Gamzee is seen messaging  on Vriska's Husktop, with Scratch revealing something that upsets him causing him to ask Scratch "" to which Scratch answers ""

Later, he was seen comforting Karkat, before disappearing with Sollux and Vriska's bodies for reasons that aren't yet clear. One year later he had continued to remaining in hiding with only Karkat knowing his location.



At the end of Myststuck Gamzee HS 6725 (is seen), in 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 HS 7163 (confirmed) to be troll blood). It is unknown whether this is the Alpha timeline Gamzee or simply an alternate timeline version of him, although the presence of healed scars on his face from Nepeta's claws would imply he is the alpha Gamzee.

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 Godtier form, Tavros both legless and decapitated), and throws all the parts at once into Jane's kernelsprite, thus creating Tavrisprite. He has done this with other troll corpses/alpha kernalsprites to create Fefetasprite, Erisolsprite, and ARquiusprite.

At some point in the story, before he had his conversation with Jane (in terms of his chronology), Kurloz Makara and Meulin Leijon bring him his codpiece with the assumption that it will be put to use in the aid of their mutual lord. It is ambiguous if this occurred before or after he reconciled with Karkat, and his dialogue with Kurloz must have started after the events he describes HS 5928 (here). It is also ambiguous where his allegiance lies, as in part 3 of Openbound he spoke amicably with Rose, possibly before (from his perspective) he met with Kurloz. He may have prototyped/will prototype Vriska and Tavros with the intention of helping the protagonists defeat and thus have fooled Kurloz, or the opposite may be the case. It is still too early to say.

He was HS 7371 (encountered by) Caliborn on far future Earth later (or perhaps earlier, depending on when the Cherub session took place). 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 somehow managed to survive 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.

Gamzee was later (although presumably earlier chronologically) seen on the planet 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 HS 7889 (set up) the chains that would confine them to their room.

The question of whether Gamzee has actually reached god tier remains perpetually uncertain, with a constant alternation between apparent proof in one update, and it being debunked the next time he appears. Hussie claimed that Gamzee is "HS 7383 (clearly a god tier)", but then admits, "Alright, maybe he's not god tier. Who can really say for sure?". (It was later HS 7918 (confirmed) by Terezi that his god tier outfit is indeed fake.) He then goes 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 HS 7327 (Ministrife) crowd. Additionally, in HS 7575 (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, HS 7576 (this) page shows Gamzee has having healed from all the wounds inflicted upon him by Caliborn.

It's enterely 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.

Personality
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. Another possible reference to his design as a juggalo could be his strife specibi, which is clubkind. 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 HS 3923 (the most obvious way). He doesn't like knowing the technology or science behind things, stating that "". 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  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. Such would fit well into Gamzee's laid back, stoner-esque personality also in the time lines later on in the game have the number 420 mixed in several times in several different ways ex.) PAST terminallyCapricious [PTC] 420 HOURS AGO responded to memo.FUTURE...terminallyCapricious [FTC] 0:42:00 HOURS FROM NOW responded to memo.

He has a hidden darker 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 HS 5258 (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, implying that he speaks calmly every other line while YELLING ON EVERY OTHER MOTHER-FUCKING LINE. In this form, he holds the lower-blooded trolls in high contempt, even more so than Equius, and demands that they "kneel" in his presence. 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 serial killer mentality 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 HS 4121 (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.

He seems to have an obsession with collecting the bodies of his victims and has been observed beheading them, preserving them in glass tubes and, according to Kanaya, HS 6257 (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.

Gamzee's prowess with multiple weapon types may be a result of his dangerous jokerkind strife specibus, apparently allowing him to use any weapon as a wildcard.

Relationships
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.

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 are (or should be) moirails. This relationship comes to fruition after Gamzee's flipout. It is later revealed that their moirailliance as ended, due to Gamzee not holding up his end of the relationship.

Gamzee also appears to have a strong relationship with Tavros. They form one of the worst rapping duos in, well, all of paradoxspace. Tavros's mood and text seems a lot more confident and mellow when talking to Gamzee, thus making them closer friends than anticipated. They also refer to each other as "bros" in a respectful way, also copying each other's faces as seen HS 4023 (in this conversation). It is strongly referenced that Gamzee once had flushed feelings for Tavros, seen in HS 5886 (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.

After finding Tavros' corpse, Gamzee is seen with his HS 5927 (blood on his lips) implying that he tried to revive him (Although this is questionable, as he states that he wants to kill ALL of the trolls) or just had sloppy necrophiliac makeouts. It is unknown if Gamzee has any knowledge of Tavros and Vriska's complicated relationship.

He has lots of other friends too. Friendship is beautiful. Life is beautiful.

However, what isn't beautiful is the VIDEO for the Insane Clown Posse song "Miracles". Gamzee calls the song "BlAsPhEmY" after Dave HS 4718 (sends him) a link to it. The result led to Gamzee engaging his Hero Mode with an interesting purple 'lightning' effect surrounding him. He has also shown signs of kismesis affection for Dave before kicking off one of the best rap offs in the history of paradox space.

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 "HS 005988 (shooshes)" and "HS 005989 (paps)" seem to have ended his rage.

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.

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 Ampora 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 HS 005338 ([S] Equius: Seek the highb100d), a genetically engineered knight creature very similar to his lusus can be seen inside the tube.

Trivia

 * Gamzee was named by Alyssa after the forumgoer Gammy.
 * Coincidentally, Gamzee sounds similar to the word "Gämse", which is German for Chamois, a european goat-antelope.
 * Gamzee is seen to be one of three trolls trolling Jade on HS 3290 (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 HS 4529 (two) HS 5260 (memos), 420 hours before they had began, and Future Gamzee responded to a HS 5261 (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).
 * 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 an inebriated man on drugs becomes excited upon seeing two rainbows in the sky at once and contemplates the meaning behind it.
 * Gamzee's two main emoticons, depending on his personality, are :o) and :o(, which are reminiscent of the masks of Tragedy and Comedy.
 * This is further referenced by his god tier wings.
 * 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.
 * Gamzee's obsession with "MiRaClEs" is a reference to the Insane Clown Posse song of the same name.
 * 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 months before it appeared in the comic. He repeatedly emphasized it as being canon, and it was later HS 6725 (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 Makara, in Openbound 2, for a currently unknown reason.
 * In a short, 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.
 * When Kanaya HS 5424 (kicks him out of his shoes), it is shown that Gamzee does not wear socks.
 * 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 HS 5119 (one page), he is referred to as "the most important character in Homestuck"; however he is HS 7384 (later) described by Hussie as ""
 * 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.
 * Gamzee's zodiac symbol is Capricorn, which is represented by a sea goat. A goat is often seen as a Satanist symbol, which could be reference to him becoming an antagonist.
 * While an alternate timeline version of Gamzee has been mentioned by Aradia in the comic, Gamzee is the only remaining troll whose alternate timeline versions have never had any confirmed appearances in the comic, much less any confirmed deaths.
 * 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.