- For the pre-scratch version of this character, see Damara Megido.
Damara
was Aradia Megido's "ancestor", and the Handmaid to Lord English.
Biography[]
Unlike the other ancestors, Damara's meteor arrived after her descendant's did, long after the Reckoning had already occurred. Rather than landing on Alternia, Doc Scratch redirected it to the green moon, where he raised her personally in a locked room with a fourth wall.
At roughly the same time as Andrew Hussie's arrival in Scratch's building the Condesce began to approach Alternia after a 612 solar sweep journey from the edge of the galaxy. Scratch took this opportunity to show the young Damara the final battle between herself and the empress, who would take over her role as English's servant. Taking Hussie's sudden burst into the room as a chance to attempt an escape, Damara was stopped on the rooftops of the green moon by Lord English himself, who reminded her that there was no hope for her to leave given that, after all, he was “ALREADY HERE”.
She went on to be his “apparatus of terror and suffering” for “millions of sweeps”, using time majyyk to appear throughout Alternian history and intensify the conditions on the planet so that the trolls would be well-equipped to play Sgrub. Earning a reputation as a "“demoness”", she was more feared than her master, who showed himself far less often.
At the end of her life, she met the Condesce in Alternian orbit and was killed, thus passing on the role of English's servant.
Connections to Aradia[]
The Handmaid's title is a reference to Aradia's class; after reaching the god tiers, Aradia herself is referred to as a “H4NDM41D TO TH3 M4ST3R OF D34TH”, a figure Terezi Pyrope describes as “4 M4N W1TH 4 FR1GHT3N1NG SKULL FOR 4 H34D 4ND 4 T3RR1BL3 HYPNOT1C GL4R3”, transparently alluding to English's role in Alternian mythology.
In death, Aradia is referred to as acting on the instructions of her “ANCESTORS”; while this seems initially to refer to her forebears as a group in much the same way Aranea Serket later uses the term, Andrew Hussie suggests[1] that thanks to her time travel Damara herself may have been able to communicate with her "descendant's" ghost.
References[]
- ↑ Andrew Hussie. "The text mentions "ancestors" here pretty casually. This is before ancestors became more of a thing in troll lore. So for now the term appears to be used in the more generic sense, referring to a potentially very large group of nameless, faceless forebears whose ghosts Aradia is communing with. (It's still entirely possible that's what's going on here.) But with the context provided later on, it seems "ancestors" here is actually referencing twelve very specific individuals who are figures of legend in troll history. It's even more likely it's referencing one ancestor in particular: Aradia's, the Handmaid. The Handmaid was groomed by Doc Scratch to serve Lord English by traveling around time causing all kinds of trouble throughout history, specifically to bring about these events. So unlike the other ancestors, the Handmaid is the only one whose job was actually to make all this stuff happen, thus making her the most logical target of this reference. This being the case, it raises the question of how Aradia was receiving "instruction" from the Handmaid. She can commune with the dead, but...the Handmaid isn't dead. She was cursed with immortality for as long as she serves English, and can hop around through time. So does this mean she met with Aradia in person at some point to dispense orders? It's entirely possible. If it happened after Aradia's death, it would also mean Aradia wasn't communing with a dead ancestor to receive instructions. It means a living ancestor was communing with a dead Aradia to give instructions." Homestuck: Book 4: Act 5 Act 1, p.136.