re: seven

i'm afraid i have to disagree. sure, john had 7 years of characterization, but what was the nature of this characterization? he is frequently a character whose feelings and desires are sublimated to the plot, who represses his feelings about a lot (for example, the death of his father). not a lot about his character really changes in any meaningful way over the course of his arc in homestuck; rather, his arc is defined by "his" being used by outside forces (vriska, terezi, sburb, etc.) to perpetuate their own goals. for example, he is the character that receives the retcon powers, but does this mark any real change in his character development? not really, it rather ultimately serves the end of fixing the alpha timeline so that sburb may perpetuate itself through the creation of a new universe.

i think this also ties in with the issue you bring up of john having "MAN GRIT off the charts", which supposedly problematicizes the canonization of june. "man grit" is a trait that within the narrative is projected onto john, by both his father — through the feats of strength that are required to uncover the notes he's left for john (and note how often john isn't the one who actually performed the feat) — as well as the game, which tracks the growth of his "man grit" when he levels up on the echeladder. john refers to himself as man grit in homestuck (pg. 7376: "JOHN: wow, she's really down for the count, isn't she. / JOHN: i got a lot of extra punching practice in my fight with the skull jerk. / JOHN: maybe i gained a bit too much man grit for my own good?"), but note how he refers to it as something he gained, not something that is inherent within him. what this reflects is how sburb instrumentalizes certain ideas about child-rearing in order to perpetuate itself. each character's planet presents them with a packaged quest to facilitate a certain kind of development for sburb's own benefit, as the only real end is the creation of a new universe and thus the perpetuation of the cycle.

i think this all becomes a bit more clear if we view sburb as in a way a metaphor for society, as something which perpetuates itself through the inculcation of certain ideas and values into children as they grow up and develop. as a character, john pretty much just "goes with the flow" of this cycle, without really questioning it that much. so in that way, i think the reading of june egbert is actually a very useful way of understanding john not just within the context of the epilogues or hs:bc, but in the actual comic of homestuck as well.

lastly, i just want to ask how making june canon would "erase" the character of john? i think that framing it as an issue of character arcs is unhelpful, as the idea of the character arc is something which the characters of homestuck themselves problematize in the original comic (pg. 7507: "ROSE: I seriously have the DUMBEST arc anyone could conceivably imagine. / DAVE: rose we dont have fuckin "arcs" we are just human beings"), and the mere existence of the epilogues shows homestuck's preoccupation with troubling the assumptions of traditional narrative arcs. where do narratives begin and where do they end? what is the purpose of telling things as a narrative? these are questions that homestuck raises, and i think that june egbert is a great way to pursue that questioning.