Dirk Strider is Rainbow Dash [Meta-Analysis]

During Homestuck, Dirk is shown to have a Rainbow Dash poster in his room, and he's also aligned with horses throughout the story in a way that makes it clear that horses are his thing for some reason. Now, this post won't be about how Dirk is in fact a Brony or whatever, this is going to be a post that minutely expands on the idea that Dirk Strider has qualities that are similar to Rainbow Dash, and what that says about his character as a whole.

Firstly, in order to do this I think we have to start with explaining who Rainbow Dash is, she's a pony from the tv show My little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

In the show, there are 6 main ponies (The Mane 6 for short) and each of them represents a good trait that makes up the "Elements of Harmony". Rainbow Dash is the Element of Loyalty, and is often shown in the show having to battle between being loyal to herself or to her friends. There are plenty of episodes when Rainbow Dash is given a chance to do something selfish and further her own social standing or experiences in life over caring for her friends.

Another interesting aspect about Rainbow Dash is that she is the cause of each of her friends gaining their Cutie Marks. A long time goal for Rainbow Dash when she was younger was creating a "Sonic Rainboom" which is like a normal sonicboom but it creates a Rainbow effect in the sky. No pony had ever been able to achieve something like this, until Rainbow Dash and she got her Cutie Mark this way. The rest of the Mane 6 also saw this Rainboom in the sky at the same time and each of them got their Cutie Mark because the Rainboom inspired them so much that it aided them in their talents.

Now that the short explanation of Rainbow Dash is done, I would like to point out the similarities between this pony and Dirk Strider. For one, Dirk Strider is someone who strives to be an inspiration to other people and who constantly wants others to look at him as some sort of beacon of promise and change. A force for good if you will. And similarly, Rainbow Dash wanted to create the Sonic Rainboom not just because it would be an impressive feat but because she wanted other ponies to be impressed BY her and thought something like that would get her in the good graces of heroes she's looked up to in the past.

However, Dirk always falls short in his endeavors and lets his self-loathing get the better of him. He has a lot of confidence, but does he have self-worth? The two things are not the same; a person can be outwardly confident but have little love for who they are as a person.

It wouldn't be unfair to say that Dirk uses his own bravado to make other people think he has everything under control, but really he doesn't think as highly of himself as other people do. And this is a similar inner turmoil that Rainbow Dash goes through because even though Rainbow Dash has a lot of impressive feats in the show, and is a pony that a lot of ponies in Equestria would say is incredibly "cool" she constantly chases after the next big thing because what she really wants is to accept herself. Throughout the show she wants to be a "Wonderbolt" which is this elite class of Pegasus ponies who do air shows and stuff, she views them as heroes and wants to become one really badly.

She also looks up to "Daring Do" another pony who goes on adventures and who writes about them in books that Rainbow Dash reads a lot about. Even though Rainbow Dash strives to really be seen as "cool" as the people around her she ends up learning the valuable lesson of self-acceptance and that she doesn't have to rely on other people to think she's cool as long as she's actually helping the people she cares about.

Dirk Strider, unfortunately, did not get to meet any of the mythical heroes that he looked up to as a child. So, he always had this idealized version of them in his head that just didn't match with the reality around him, and none of those idealized versions were keen on telling him to just give himself more of a break. In a way, it seems like Rainbow Dash could not only be viewed as a pony that has similar traits to Dirk, but one that he would even look up to and want to be like because Rainbow Dash learned a lot of the lessons that Dirk didn't learn. And also, because Rainbow Dash achieved more than Dirk did with his own personal goals.

In a way, Rainbow Dash is like the embodiment of everything Dirk Strider hoped to be, which is a person who gets to meet their heroes and have their heroes think they're cool and also be the center of everyone else's hopes and dreams. However, these are not the actual point of Rainbow Dash's character, she worked hard to obtain all of these things and the real prize at the end was her thinking she was the coolest pony when she originally didn't have a high opinion of how cool she was to begin with.

If Dirk Strider ever learned to just like himself a bit, I would say that would be the start of him being pretty cool. One could say about...20% Cooler...