- For the pre-scratch version of this character, see Meenah Peixes.
- "Betty Crocker" redirects here; for the company sometimes called by that name, see Crockercorp.
Her Imperious Condescension, also known by the eight-letter ancestral title the Condesce (/ˈkɒn.dɛs/ kon-dess), is the ancestor of Feferi Peixes and the empress of Alternia during and before the events of Hivebent, as well as during the lifespans of the trolls' ancestors.
Biography[]
As the Alternian Empress[]
She was responsible for banishing adult trolls from Alternia after the rebellion of the Summoner, apparently to diminish the risk of rebellions. It is also noted that she has an extensive lifespan and contact to a “deep undul8ing monstrosity” which is later confirmed to be her and Feferi's current/future Lusus, Gl'bgolyb, for whom she competed over with other prospective heiresses that shared her blood color.
She possessed a mental connection to Gl'bgolyb that allowed her to curb the power of the Vast Glub. The farther away she was, the weaker her connection with Gl'bgolyb would be, which weakened her ability to prevent the Vast Glub and at the same time swayed Gl'bgolyb's allegiance towards Feferi.
Her longevity allowed her to live up to and beyond the time of the Reckoning, and she possessed the ability to give others the gift of sharing a lifespan as long as hers with a "touch" (a possible reference to the healing "Royal Touch" or "King's Touch" accredited to medieval and later European monarchs, or, more probably, a link with Feferi's role as the Witch of Life or the Condesce's pre-scratch role as the Thief of Life).
She survived both the Reckoning (due to her absence from Alternia) and the Vast Glub (due to her blood color) and traveled back to Alternia arriving 612 solar sweeps after the Reckoning. Upon her arrival she found her planet in ruins and her race practically extinct, ending her long reign over Alternia, but she would be offered a new purpose.
As English's Servant[]
She was chosen to replace the Handmaid as Lord English's servant, becoming his "emissary" to the places he is unable to reach himself. In order to do so, she had to kill the adult Handmaid, who had been waiting for this ever since she started to serve English.
She works under the pseudonym Betty Crocker (similar to Doc Scratch and Lord English). On post-scratch Earth the Betty Crocker logo is rebranded to the Condesce's Imperial Cypher, practically confirming Betty Crocker's identity as the Condesce.
It should also be noted that Jane, as the "heiress apparent to a baked goods empire", is first introduced on "2x3prong day", which presumably relates to the Condesce's strife specibus.
On pre-scratch Earth[]
She took on the identity of a pastry baroness named Betty Crocker, and married known humorist Colonel Sassacre. Upon Nanna and Grandpa's arrival and the death of her husband shortly after, she adopted and raised the two under a cruel and miserable household.
By the age of 13, Grandpa developed a taste for adventure and ran away with the family dog, though his sister stayed behind, in fear of what the Batterwitch might do if she found out. Afterwards Betty Crocker taught Nanna the art of baking, which she passionately practiced in the hopes of surpassing her wicked mentor.
One day when Nanna mentioned the departure of her brother to Crocker, she revealed the true origins of them both, such as how they weren't actually siblings at all and came to Earth from portals in the sky! And that she is determined to keep them separated, as they're destined to marry and have two children who will save the world.
With that information, Nanna began a plan to take down the wicked witch, discovering many of her secrets, such as the fact that she isn't even human at all! But just as she was about to put her plan into action, the Baroness vanished without a trace, but not without leaving the company to be inherited to Grandpa instead as one final jab.
That is possibly the point where she went to the post-scratch universe through unknown means.
On post-scratch Earth[]
Roughly the same events ocurred in the post-scratch universe up to the arrival of Jade English and John Crocker's meteors. The Condesce was even more cruel to them than she was with her previous children, even rumored to have gone so far as murdering their pet dog. At some point, Grandma ran away to escape from the witch's abuse while Poppop remained, growing up to be a legendary comedian.
Jade started her own company as a rival to Crocker's Crockercorp to remind and instill the Batterwitch of her greatest fear, her master Lord English, taking on his surname and creating all sorts of inventions bearing his image. In Grandma's rebellion however, Betty Crocker eventually confronted her child and killed her for insubordination. Little is known of the conflict, except that Grandma was gravely wounded by her trident and was able to get away, only to die from her wounds before reaching home. The witch then destroyed Grandma's home shortly after her grandson found her corpse.
On the events of 2x3prong day, the Condesce ditched her Betty Crocker persona and finally put her long-awaited plans of world conquest into action, the start of which is seen here. Once she took over Earth, she began establishing a variety of seemingly random and nonsensical laws such as humans reproducing through donating their genetic material to drones or artificially changing the color of humans' blood to establish a blood caste system, most likely done to restore the conditions of her rule in Alternia.
Though at first the Condesce wants to rebuild the troll race, the clones she creates are psychically killed by her "pet", who was brought on her battleship along with a number of other lusus species. It is possible that, as she bred several of the lusii in secret for a long time, she may have done so using some form of ectobiology (as she likely did with the trolls and humans). This being the case, the monstrosity she controls may be a clone of the original Gl'bgolyb, as it apparently has many of its characteristics and powers.
The Condesce gradually floods the world through melting of the ice caps and somehow brings Carapacians to Earth, likely through the powers of her master. Over time she also hones the psychic skills of certain members of her lost troll society for herself, demonstrating specifically the symbols of Vriska, Tavros, Sollux, and Aradia, which can explain her easy conquest of post-scratch Derse. She also has control of post-scratch Earth's first guardian, making her especially formidable.
As the Queen of Derse[]
She took over post-scratch Derse some time ago as shown in this Flash, most likely having killed and replaced that session's Black Queen. She sent out her archagents to kill the dream selves of the future players, including the heiress to Crockercorp.
However, when she directed the Draconian Dignitary to investigate the Prince of Heart's activities, she discovered that he managed to kill the Hegemonic Brute she sent out and started a rebellion, to which she sent out some Imperial Drones after his real self in retaliation.
Her plan of dream self assassination was a complete failure, as she not only managed to just kill one of the four nobles, but two of her archagents were now incapacitated, one of which was her best agent Jack Noir, who was incarcerated in Prospit jail. While she was attempting to negociate her agent's release, the Draconian Dignitary convinced her into giving him the Queen's ring to solve the Prince problem (he dosen't solve it).
Five months later, the witch decides to take matters into her own hands and controls God Cat to teleport the Rogue of Void Roxy Lalonde directly to Derse, where she then puts her in prison. Later she intervenes a Serious Business conversation involving the Dignitary and Dad Crocker about hats and orders the dersite to give her ring back.
She later shows up in her flagship above Derse and shoots Psionic blast of energy from her eyes at its moon, destroying it and making Dirk and Roxy ascend. When Jade arrives the session, she uses both her ability to commune with animals and to manipulate people in order to take control of her. She then makes Jade teleport the tiaratop onto Jane's head, also placing under her control. They send Dirk into the Furthest Ring and capture Roxy and Jake to her.
Jade interrogates Roxy, revealing that the Condesce has captured her with the intent of having her materialize a new Matriorb by stealing its nonexistence. The Condesce seeks to hatch the new orb on a planet far from Lord English's reach so as to restart the troll race outside of his influence.
Game Over[]
She later appears on the scene of very concentrated dramatic tension on the Land of Frost and Frogs, where Aranea Serket had been stirring up trouble. The Condesce fires a psiioniic blast over a large portion of the planet's surface where the scattered fight was taking place, killing Kanaya Maryam in the process. Aranea, enraged at the destruction of her plans, control dead Damara Megidos to launch the Land of Light and Rain at LOFAF in an attempt to kill her. The Condesce jumps out of the way, but her ship is destroyed. Aranea tries once more, this time with the Land of Crypts and Helium, but the Condesce hits back with the Land of Heat and Clockwork, destroying both. While Aranea deals with an attack from Terezi Pyrope the Condesce fields a similar assault from Rose. She throws her 2x3dent at Rose, impaling her in the chest. After retrieving her weapon, she fires a psiioniic blast in Rose's direction, who only narrowly avoids the blast, saved by Roxy. She then faces Aranea again, grabbing her by the throat, flicks the Ring of Life off her finger, and immediately snaps her neck. She then throws Aranea into the nearby wall of fire who dies a Just death.
Retconned timeline[]
In a new timeline retconned by John Egbert, Vriska Serket is present on the meteor and puts Jade to sleep before she can teleport the others away, a factor the Condesce did not anticipate. Vriska regarded her a high priority target, and sent John, Rose, Roxy and Kanaya to deal with her on Derse.
After a long battle, with involvement from Jane's Dad, Nannasprite and Jasprosesprite^2, the Condesce seemed to gain the upper hand over her adversaries, but was dealt a surprise killing blow from behind by Roxy with Dave's Bro's sword.
Personality and traits[]
Though the Condesce has a reputation as a calculated absolute dictator, like any true queen she is quite vain, and her speech contains much of what would be considered colloquial vernacular on Earth. Some important decisions of Alternian policy, such as the banishment of adults from the trollplanet after the Summoner's rebellion, are credited to her; however much - if not most - of her career seems to have been spent lightyears away from the planet participating in wars against her empire's alien enemies, which she continued to do for at least thousands of years. Delegation was a key aspect of her rule, to the point that she gave over most of the day-to-day running of her regime on Earth to the Insane Clown Posse. All this reflects her demonstrated personality pre-scratch, where she fled from the role of empress to instead live alone on Beforus' pink moon.
Her many attempts to enact her own will onto the people of Earth resulted only in mass deaths of her own subjects, indicating a level of ineptitude or even inexperience in a position of true power. Her main success was in playing the part assigned to her by her own ruler, Lord English. A more feminist interpretation of the Condesce suggests that she was “really just the Lo+rd's slave all alo+ng”[1], and the Condesce showed interest in giving the troll race a chance to grow “beyond the reach of her cruel employer”; whether the culmination of this plan would have truly resulted in a more benevolent troll race, however, or merely the enactment of more cruel ignorance from an unrestrained Condesce, is up for debate.
Powers and abilities[]
As a member of the fuchsia caste, the Condesce's lifespan is unthinkably long, having explored the stars for thousands of years without any sign of slowing down. Her role as Thief of Life may have also contributed to her longevity, as she was able to “extend [one's] lifespan to match her own”; unlike other Heroes of Life, however, while she could extend life, she could “never restore it”. After her return to the Reckoning-scarred Alternia, she was afforded further “power and immortality” by taking Lord English's curse of “conditional mortality” from his previous Handmaid; what boons were afforded to her other than continued immortality, however, such as potential access clockwork majyyks, is not clear.
Through experimentation on the human race, the Condesce was later able to unlock more of her potential abilities as a troll; namely the mind control and animal communion usually more common to blue and bronze bloods and the pure psionic power usually only found among mutants of the gold caste.
Relationships[]
The Condesce was the object of Dualscar's flushed ambitions, though it would seem that she did not reciprocate. On Earth, she ended up entering a (presumably flushed) relationship with Colonel Sassacre.
Although she is Lord English's servant, she appears to hate him with a passion.
Trivia[]
- The troll writing on her battleship says "Battleship Condescension", which has the same initials as Betty Crocker.
- The shortened form of her title, "Condesce," could be a pun on the real title on Contessa, which is what Italian Countesses are called.
- This choice could also be related to the stereotypical Italian-American affectations used by the Condesce, Meenah, Eridan, and to some extent, Cronus.
- Nannasprite referred to Betty Crocker as “baroness”, which matches the other eight-letter titles of the ancestors.
- Dirk later on also referred the Condesce as the Baroness.
- Mindfang and the Draconian Dignitary both call her a witch. Feferi's mythological role is the Witch of Life, while Betty Crocker is also commonly referred to in-universe as the "Batterwitch".
- The Condesce seems to have some sort of connection with the Witch class; as she has had some kind of relationship with every known Witch player; Damara's post-scratch self, the Handmaid, was killed by the Condesce; Jade was under her control for a short time up until her death; and her descendant and Heiress, Feferi, was the Witch of Life.
- In part one of Openbound, Meenah even calls her a “waterbitch” - in addition to being quite accurate, it's also a near-spoonerism of "batterwitch".
- "Glorious Monarch" is a title of the Black Queen (whom the Condesce replaced), which so happens to start with the same letters as "General Mills".
- Jake refers to her as “sea hitler” and “FISH HITLER”. Likewise, Roxy calls her “SNORKELBITCH MEGAHITLER”.
- While communicating via Serious Business she speaks similarly to Meenah. This could possibly mean that all post-scratch ancestors talked like their pre-scratch selves (as Aranea and Mindfang do, and Jane and Nanna do, more or less) or is just coincidence with the Condesce.
- It's shown here that the mind-controlled Jane and Jade, while still acting with the best interests of the Condesce in mind, are more than just puppets for her and have at least some measure of autonomy.
- The Condesce's giant hairdo is reminiscent of Gl'bgolyb's tentacles.
- The Condesce is shown as a black silhouette, just as every other Troll Ancestor is. This is a stylistic art choice and does not reflect her literal appearance.
- She shares some parallels with the pre-scratch "main" villain; both killed a guardian of a Strider and were defeated by their kid's swords.
- As Vriska got time-traveling gear in the post-scratch timeline, she enabled both Jack and the Condesce's ascension to try defeating them later.
- Both overthrew a Black Queen and took their rings as well.
References[]
- ↑ Openbound part 1. “PORRIM: Yo+ur po+st-scratch self, who+ grew up to+ be the empress, was really just the Lo+rd's slave all alo+ng. Implicity during her lo+ng reign, thro+ugh manipulatio+n by his cunning emplo+yee. #An excellent ho+st”