Gamzee Makara

Gamzee Makara, also known by his Trollian handle terminallyCapricious, is one of the trolls in Homestuck. His associated zodiac sign is Capricorn (♑) and his horns resemble those of a goat.
Gamzee uses purple as a text color, and used to alternate between lowercase and uppercase every letter, which (like many things) annoyed Karkat. After sobering up, his lines alternate between all caps and all lowercase. Gamzee's blood and text colors are the least consistent out of any of the characters in the comic, which may be an intentional tie-in to his theme of capriciousness.
==Etymology==
Gamzee was named for Gamze, an active user of the Homestuck forums at the time of the character's introduction. Their name, and by extension his, may be Turkish in origin, as Gamze is a Turkish feminine given name meaning "dimple". “Gamzee” is also phonetically adjacent to the german word “Gämse”, a type of goat.
Makara was suggested by cashewSquared and is a mythical sea creature in Hindu mythology, which several gods and goddesses use as a vahana (vehicle), and which is the Hindu astrological equivalent of the zodiac sign Capricorn.
==Biography==
===Hivebent===
Gamzee played Sgrub as part of the Red Team. His lusus was harpooned in the ocean next to his hive and died. It was later prototyped into his kernelsprite. Gamzee was seen hanging with Karkat and their Jack Noir on Gamzee's planet.
In most doomed timelines, Gamzee sobers up and goes on a murdering rampage. In one of these, he makes part of the code to create their first guardian, which is retrieved by an Aradiabot .
During the fight with the Black King, Gamzee surprisingly does more damage to him than any of the other trolls with the possible exception of Vriska Serket, who lands the final blow. Later, the trolls reach their Ultimate Reward before being suddenly interrupted.
===Post-Hivebent===
Upon Jack's arrival, Aradiabot transported the trolls to the same meteor Karkat had created them in, where they found the computer lab from which they contacted the humans.
Without much else to do on the meteor, Gamzee spent his time dancing around capriciously and began to charge boondollars for a nap on his horn pile. He soon began to show symptoms of withdrawal from his slime pies, however, and at around the same time was shaken by the human Dave Strider's mocking of his religion. In this mentally vulnerable state Gamzee came to the conclusions that:
:#sopor slime was destroying his brain (likely to be true),
:#he is a descendant of the High Subjugglators (true),
:#he is both of the messiahs of his own religion (controversial),
:#he has to kill everyone (highly troubling),
:#and he has to paint pictures with their blood (terrifying).
With his ability to interfere with dream selves, he manipulated the Dream Rooms of Dave Strider and John Egbert to implant Lil Cal and a clown plush resembling Jack Noir, respectively, into their dreams. This would ultimately lead to Rose Lalonde's prototyping of John's kernelsprite with the harlequin doll. According to Gamzee, this made the kids' session "terminal". This is possibly true, as Jack used the Red Miles on their universe, and Gamzee was partly responsible for his uprising through a complex series of events involving placing the dolls there.
Karkat, at this point, regarded Gamzee's declaration as the current greatest threat facing the surviving trolls, even more so than Eridan Ampora's rampage. In a conversation with Dave, Gamzee mentioned that he made friends with Lil Cal after Tavros Nitram's death, and that Lil Cal is the one who told him he should kill all his friends. Since Lord English uses Lil Cal to possess people, this is likely to be true.
Gamzee waited for Equius on a large container holding one of the many genetic abominations that could be found around the lab. He was finally acting the role of a highblood troll, though Equius was confused by this as he believed him to be Terezi Pyrope, because Gamzee was wearing her glasses. They had a rather short conversation, which involved Gamzee calling Equius "peasantblood" and shooting him in the leg with a bow and arrow to make him kneel. Gamzee strangled him to death with the bowstring, causing Nepeta Leijon to leap out of hiding and attack him. Gamzee grabbed Nepeta's hand, broke her wrist, apparently held her in midair, and scraped his own face with her claws. She died offscreen.
Before Gamzee was able to confront Vriska and Eridan, he was interrupted by a glowing rainbow drinker Kanaya Maryam, who kicked him in the groin so hard that he was sent flying out of his shoes and off the lab floor. Afterwards, he left some of Vriska's personal possessions and his blood near Nepeta's corpse, to deceive Terezi into believing she had killed them as well. He led her into a trap, which made her fall into the music room, and proceeded to constantly screw with her using Cal. He left a note written in his blood, similar to Bro's note to Dave, that spited her into a duel with Vriska. He somehow found time to collect the bodies of Eridan, Nepeta, Feferi Peixes, Equius, and Tavros and cut off their heads, then set up a mock jury table with the heads (the bodies having been placed in glass tubes), called order to the court with his warhammer and proceeded to observe the Scourge Sisters' meeting. 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, that lured him to the roof where Terezi stabs Vriska.
Shortly after Vriska's death, he resurfaced and confronted Karkat, Terezi, Sollux Captor and Kanaya, wielding the Warhammer of Zillyhoo. Terezi was most assuredly pitch for him, while Kanaya's feelings were, as to be expected from her, ashen. In a full circle of quadrants, Gamzee was stopped by Karkat's moirallegience, resulting in an affectionate hug between the two.
In [S] Cascade, Gamzee was seen messaging Doc Scratch on Vriska's husktop, saying "that's all motherfuckin done white texted bro. NOW WHAT?.". Scratch's unrevealed reply caused him to ask Scratch "AND JUST WHAT THE MOTHER FUCK IS IT" that we motherfucking are? to which Scratch then answered with [S u c k e r s .]
===The three-year journey===
Gamzee calmed Karkat down after Sollux's death before hiding on the meteor with Sollux's and Vriska's bodies. One year later, he continued to remain in hiding with only Karkat knowing his location. Another year later he was seen talking to Rose, revealing that he had begun a kismesissitude with Terezi. Ghost Kurloz and Meulin assembled him a fake god tier outfit, so as to somehow aid Lord English. During an Easter egg in Openbound part 3, Hussie mentioned that Kurloz, Gamzee, and English were all "in cahoots". Kurloz also alluded to the idea that English is in fact the idol of his and Gamzee's religion. Gamzee was later seen in Ministrife with his full god cod-tier outfit on.
Although he wasn't murdering anyone, he was very mean-spirited. He made fun of Terezi's blindness, which partly lead to her fixing her sight, regrettably so. Karkat also revealed that Gamzee had become increasingly pious and self-involved, believing the B2 session was a way to fulfill his role as a subjugglator. This eventually led to the end of their moirallegiance. Gamzee had never talked to Dave while on the meteor; however Terezi's relationship with Gamzee led Dave to break up with her.
Gamzee got ahold of Aradia's (or unlikely Damara's) timetravelling gear and, after he joined the new session, went to the point Jane arrived on her planet. He asked if she would like to have him as her guide and tried to sell her potions (later confirmed to be just troll blood). Then, he opened his mysterious fridge and revealed the conserved bodies of Vriska and Tavros. He threw them into Jane's kernelsprite, which created Tavrisprite. Tavrisprite exploded out of self-loathing, sending Gamzee flying. He similarly prototyped the other alpha kids' kernelsprites to create Fefetasprite, Erisolsprite, and Equiusprite (who quickly becomes Arquiusprite).
Roxy theorized that Gamzee was working for the Condesce, and that he was filling up their kernelsprites so they couldn't revive their ancestors, but later Jane, under the Condesce's control, did not seem to have any knowledge of his intentions . After some Trickster Mode shenanigans, he sent Lil Cal to Jack Noir through the Courtyard Droll, which led to Jack being possessed by English. He hung around on other planets at some point, which angered the recently arrived Kanaya and Terezi.
Under Aranea's control, he took the Ring of Life from John's room and slept in a refrigerator before John could find it. In his dream, Gamzee gave Aranea the ring, which revived her. It is unknown how long she had been controlling Gamzee. Later, still under Aranea's control, he fell out of the sky and restrained Jane before she could bring Jade back to life, but was kicked off of her by Terezi. Terezi then angrily stabbed him many times, which he did not respond to.
When Aranea's control over Gamzee was broken by Brain Ghost Dirk, the pain from the attack appeared to register; he briefly begged Terezi to stop, speaking in his long abandoned original quirk, before he flipped the fuck out, released a gargantuan "HONK", and punched Terezi in the face whilst cavorting, apparently in a state of incredible rage.
Gamzee proceeded to brutally beat Terezi, still enraged. A horrified Karkat and Kanaya witnessed the scene and resolved to attack him. Gamzee countered Karkat's attempt and threw him into the surrounding lava, presumably killing him. Kanaya's attempt, however, was not countered in any way. Gamzee merely stood there as she split him in half with her chainsaw, although she was vaporized by the Condesce moments later. (One half of Gamzee was smiling and the other frowning, representing the genres of tragedy and comedy, much like his main emoticons).
===New Timeline===
In the new timeline, John left a note for Terezi saying that Gamzee was behind Nepeta and Equius's deaths. For the entire sequence of events up to encountering Vriska, Gamzee is tied up with a horn stuffed in his mouth, thus preventing him from committing any more unfavourable acts. During the meteor trip, he was set free, but the presence of Vriska prevented any of his speculated outside entanglement. Gamzee did not start a kismesissitude with Terezi in this timeline, largely due to Vriska's intervention. However, he still got his fake god tier outfit.
Vriska took his place in many of the tasks he performed in the old timeline, including the alpha kids' prototyping. Gamzee was locked up inside Jane's fridge, along with some of the trolls' bodies, at the victory platform where everyone else was. Vriska stated that she planned on dropping off Gamzee in the fridge into Earth c's ocean so that he can do what he needs to do.
The fridge he was contained in was eventually moved to the Land of Mounds and Xenon to be used as a makeshift table by Jasprosesprite^2. During the events of Collide the fridge was repeatedly knocked around the session by Cans eventually arriving on the Land of Tombs and Krypton (LOTAK). The fridge remained on LOTAK until Lord Jack was decapitated which resulted in a black hole, somehow taking Gamzee, Crowbar's crowbar and Yaldabaoth to future Earth.
===Cherub universe===
When Gamzee was first seen on the future Earth (years before the retcons changed the timeline), it was common thinking that the Gamzee from the old timeline would come into future Earth (and he could have, had he not been sliced in half in GAME OVER). As Yaldabaoth entered the planet while it joined the Medium, it is unclear whether Gamzee was thrown to an earlier point in the timeline or used his own time traveling gear to go back in time.
Gamzee was seen when the cherub egg that would later branch into Calliope and Caliborn crash-landed on Earth. He set up the chains that would confine them to their room. He also presumably provided them with their jujus and food, as well as his own husktop, which contained a copy of Sburb. He is implied to be the one who redacted large sections of the R.L. Tome with Equius's blood, primarily sections involving Lord English, Doc Scratch, and Gamzee himself.
He was encountered by Caliborn after Earth entered the Medium and requested to become Caliborn's guide. An awkward stare-off ensued, and Caliborn abruptly gunned him down with his firearm, revealing that his god tier outfit was fake. Gamzee survived the assault somehow and dragged himself over to the MSPA command tower, where he gave Caliborn a power hub after Caliborn shot him again.
When Caliborn asked Hussie how Gamzee survived, he said that Gamzee's status as a "hilarious, rascally clown" (as well as being the most important) made him unkillable, stating that he is "notoriously difficult to kill for reasons that basically don't make any sense". He was later seen healed from all the bullet wounds as well.
Gamzee accompanied Caliborn throughout his quest in his dead session, providing him with the crowbar and giving him advice. He also retrieved Dirk's Lil Cal and Lil Sebastian for him. As Caliborn gathered more servants from his session, he began to ignore Gamzee increasingly.
In Caliborn's masterpiece, Gamzee is sliced in half during the fight between the B2 kids and Caliborn, presumably by Dirk's blade. One of his halves was absorbed into Lil Cal, along with Arquiusprite and Caliborn, when Dirk attempted to destroy Caliborn's soul.
==Personality and Traits==
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. He once paraphrases a complete stanza of ICP's hit single 'Miracles') in a rap-off session with Tavros. His strife specibus, clubkind jokerkind, also references Juggalo subculture. Of these, he uses juggling clubs, possibly a pun on Juggalos. Though he swears very frequently, he is a very good-natured and laidback 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 suggesting that they wait for a miracle.
After his breakdown, Gamzee's personality does a 180; he cuts Karkat off while his friend is trying to warn him about Eridan, and gleefully describes how he's going to kill all of them and draw pictures in their blood; it is implied that he stalked Karkat for a while afterwards, as Karkat repeatedly heard faint honks while carrying Sollux to safety. Gamzee shows no hesitation while killing Equius and Nepeta, even using Nepeta's claws to scar his own face for no apparent reason. He stops trying to kill people after Karkat becomes his moirail, but remains somewhat unstable.
His hive is decorated with posters depicting demonic clowns, taken from images of ICP joker cards and albums with horns added. Among the things that litter his hive are bottles of Faygo, an oversized unicycle, a laptop, juggling clubs, pie tins filled with sopor slime, and several bike horns.
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 the most obvious way. He doesn't like knowing the technology or science behind things, stating that "kNoWiNg ShIt JuSt StEaLs Up AlL tHe FuCkIn MaGiC fRoM mY mIrAcLeS lIkE a MoThErFuCkIn ThIeF." He is very good natured, and has seemingly pacified the imps around his house as he has shared his sopor slime pies with them, referring to them as "PrEtTy DoPe".
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 doesn't seem to care about the caste system. Equius appears to believe that Gamzee's love of Faygo and sopor slime is harmful to him, as he tells Gamzee, "you pollute your precious b100d / With your bottled fizzy sugar and soporific to%ins". However, when Gamzee becomes sober he makes several references to caste system ideology and even commands Equius to kneel before him. Gamzee is the only purple-blooded troll not seen wearing jewelry, though whether this is because he doesn't care about the system or just because he isn't a sea dweller is hard to tell.
The word capricious (which means impulsive and / or unpredictable) is seen in his Trollian handle and 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 unpredictable aspect of capricious may be associated with his belief in "mIrAcLeS" happening all the time. The word capricious is also phonetically similar to his given symbol, Capricorn. After his breakdown, he seems more obviously capricious, to the point where even Andrew Hussie remarks that he has no idea why Gamzee does some of the things he does.
In Alterniabound Gamzee spends his time capriciously dancing and trying to sell access to his pile of horns. As the Trickster Mode shows, this is a direct reference to the dancing shopkeepers in Secret of Mana (a role-playing video game). At one point he offered Karkat a nap in the pile of obnoxious noisemakers for 420 boondollars, a reference to cannabis culture slang. Such would fit well into Gamzee's laidback, stoner-esque personality and use of mind-altering sopor slime; the number is associated with him several other times in the comic.
His breakdown without the sopor slime leads to a change in typing quirk, his lines alternate between caps and lowercase instead of single letters alternating. Equius confirms that these changes in case represent changes in volume, saying that the volume of Gamzee's voice "keeps flu%uating". Gamzee's capricious nature also causes him to leave disturbing messages on the walls, splattering an "are you next? :o)" on one with Tavros' blood.
Karkat noted that during the battle with the Black King, Gamzee delivered an incredibly damaging attack, doing the most damage of any of the trolls in a single blow. But Karkat also says that afterwards Gamzee "WENT BACK TO SPACING OUT FOR THE REST OF THE BATTLE", implying that, while attacking, he was enraged or else acting abnormally.
This is strikingly similar to the fury that seemed to seize him after Terezi attacked him, leaving it possible that the Black King, much like Terezi, made a huge mistake and attacked the seemingly defenseless Gamzee, and incited his wrath. In both cases Gamzee seemed focused on attacking only the one that had attacked him (even though in the case of Terezi he could have attacked Jake or Rose).
He seems to have an obsession with collecting bodies and beheading them, preserving them in glass tubes and, according to Kanaya, kissing them, sometimes. This appears to be the case, as when he is seen sitting next to Tavros's beheaded body, his lips are covered in Tavros's 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. Alternatively, due to his feelings for Tavros, he may have attempted to revive him with a kiss. When trying to sell Tavros's blood to Jane, he says it will cause one to lose the use of their legs, but make them "an EXCELLENT kisser".
==Relationships==
===Tavros Nitram===
Gamzee appears to have had a strong relationship with Tavros. They formed one of the worst rapping duos in all of paradox space. Tavros' mood and text seemed a lot more confident and mellow when talking to Gamzee. They also referred to each other as "bros" in a respectful way, also copying each other's faces. It is strongly referenced that Gamzee once had flushed feelings for Tavros, 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 Gamzee's red feelings.
After finding Tavros' corpse, Gamzee is seen with Tavros's blood on his lips, implying that he tried to revive him or just had sloppy necrophilic makeouts. It is unknown if Gamzee has any knowledge of Tavros and Vriska's complicated relationship; he may have simply never been told of its complexity.
Interestingly, Gamzee appears to show genuine sadness when talking to Dave about Tavros's death; he refers to him as his "best friend," a title otherwise only bestowed upon Lil Cal after Tavros's death. These feelings may be more reflective of the aforementioned flushed crush he had on Tavros, especially considering that he cut his head off, seemingly to carry it around and kiss it. Like many other things about Gamzee, though, his true feelings are ultimately unknown.
===Karkat Vantas===
Gamzee (at least originally) saw Karkat as his "bEsT fRiEnD", despite a strained relationship from Karkat's end, which became worse 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. Although Karkat orders Equius to kill Gamzee, he later admits that he was not only Gamzee's best friend, but Gamzee was his best friend as well. Nepeta's shipping wall shows her opinion that Karkat and Gamzee should be moirails. This relationship comes to fruition after Gamzee's flipout. It is later revealed that their moirallegiance has ended, due to Gamzee not holding up his end of the relationship. In the Game Over Timeline, they eventually become hostile to each other after Karkat and Kanaya watch Gamzee maim Terezi on the Land of Frost and Frogs and charge at him, but to no avail as Gamzee uses Terezi's cane to stab Karkat twice in the chest and drop him into the lava.
===Kanaya Maryam===
Kanaya and Gamzee had little to no contact or relationship prior to Hivebent. After his flip-out, Kanaya interrupted a three-way showdown between Gamzee, Vriska and Eridan by kicking him in the shame globes hard enough to send him off a cliff, but he was later unharmed through mysterious means despite the high fall.
She voiced her intention to kill him after he began stealing bodies, but she was stopped by Karkat. However, she remained suspicious of him for the rest of the trip aboard the meteor, suspicion which would later prove well-founded when he was revealed to be working for Lord English. In the Game Over timeline, their hostility culminated in Kanaya finally chainsawing Gamzee apart before dying herself.
===Terezi Pyrope===
In the third part of Openbound Gamzee confirms that he has secretly started 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, as he thinks Karkat would kill him for it; the exact reasoning behind Gamzee's belief that Karkat would kill him is unknown. Much of Gamzee and Terezi's relationship is open to speculation, as their only on-panel interaction following their kismessitude involved Terezi's attempted murder of Gamzee and his own retaliation. While their full dynamic is open to interpretation, the story largely portrays it as unhealthy, given that rivalry is key, and the relationship eventually turns bad enough that Terezi tries to kill Gamzee. In addition, while Gamzee appears to be more or less the same as he was three years ago, Terezi's mental health and self-esteem appear to have declined. Assigning all the blame to Gamzee would be incorrect, given Terezi's guilt over killing Vriska, and her belief that her dancestor, Latula, is much more accepted and radical than her, though Gamzee has definitely had some role in this, mocking her blindness to the point that a combination of these three factors leads to her having her eyes healed, a decision she immensely regrets.
However, post-retcon, Terezi seems to have avoided a black relationship with Gamzee altogether, apparently due largely to Vriska's influence, and the relationship ultimately remains no more than a pitch crush from Gamzee's side that may or may not be the result of Aranea's control.
===Other Trolls===
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. He also says he's scared of Vriska. However, in the author commentary for Homestuck: Book 5: Act 5 Act 2 Part 1, Hussie says, "The best explanation for why Gamzee says he's scared of Vriska, in my opinion, is this: he's flat-out lying." He was saying it to maintain his cover as a decent guy (when in reality, he was never a good person).
Eridan, Sollux, Nepeta, and Feferi, who had almost no relationship with Gamzee, come to terms after becoming Erisolsprite and Fefetasprite by agreeing on a sound policy of 'fuck gamzee'. The non-prototyped version of Sollux also holds him in low regard, calling him a braiindead clown who eat2 toxiic 2liime. Interestingly, Sollux seems to have had a brief vacillating concupiscent crush on Gamzee during his and Karkat's showdown on the roof, where Terezi also develops a black crush on him, and Kanaya an ashen one.
===Lil Cal===
During a conversation with Dave, Gamzee thinks that Cal will help him refigure out what's the real reality about the miracles. Given Gamzee's inexplicable devotion to Lord English, it seems strongly likely that Cal influenced Gamzee's service to Caliborn, if not his entire descent into madness, considering the fact that the curse within Cal came from and is controlled by English.
In the same conversation, Gamzee tells Dave that Cal was the one who told him to kill all of his friends. Although it's unclear when exactly Gamzee came into possession of Cal, this may also imply that Cal is the entire reason behind his flipout, or a major factor - crisis of faith and lack of sopor slime notwithstanding. It is clear that he had Cal at least before his attack on Equius and Nepeta, however, as he is seen using him to toy with Terezi, leaving ample time for Cal to have influenced him.
It is eventually revealed that Gamzee's kinship with Cal stems from the fact that Gamzee himself is in fact a part of Cal, along with Caliborn and Arquiusprite.
===Dave Strider===
Gamzee has an intense reaction to the video for the ICP song "Miracles", calling it "BlAsPhEmY" after Dave sends him a link to it. The result led to Gamzee finally engaging his Hero Mode many pages after the other trolls did. Despite this reaction, Gamzee and Dave get along surprisingly well, to the point that Gamzee states that he likes Dave, although he immediately follows it by saying he wouldn't mind adding Dave's head to his collection. He then invites Dave to "slam a little, and they both proceeded to have one of the best rap-offs in the history of paradox space. They do not talk during the meteor trip, however.
===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 is responsible, possibly as revenge for Gamzee throwing trash into the sea. Opposing this theory is the fact that Eridan's weapon is Ahab's Crosshairs, a rifle that shoots energy blasts, not a harpoon gun. However, there is a regular harpoon pointed towards the sea in Eridan's window...
When Gamzee is sitting atop the tube on [S] Equius: Seek the highb100d, a genetically engineered knight creature very similar to his lusus can be seen inside the tube. ==Trivia==*Gamzee is seen to be one of three trolls trolling Jade, though he never took a keen interest in trolling the kids in the first place.
*Before the moving to Homestuck.com, the [S] 3x SHOWDOWN COMBO page url contained the number 420.
*In this conversation Gamzee speaks of a "DoUbLe mEtApHoR AlL ThE WaY AcRoSs sKaIa :o)", a reference to the viral internet video Double Rainbow, where a man becomes excited upon seeing two rainbows.
*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 got the music video from Betty Crocker a year before its actual release, 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 on Tumblr months before it appeared in the comic. He repeatedly emphasized that it was canon, and this was later revealed to be true.
**Gamzee's title as the Bard of Rage could be a tribute or reference to the clown bard from Problem Sleuth.
**His codpiece is a reference to Bard Quest and the Bard's noble quest to find a fitting Codpiece.
*In a short Tumblr Q&A session, 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 reader's interpretation.
*Gamzee strangling Equius with his own bow may be a reference to the Salvation Run arc of the Batman comics, in which Joker strangles Splitshot with his own bow.
*Karkat has a fairly plot-relevant (though temporary) moiralligence with Gamzee. While possibly coincidental, it is worth noting that the two tropics on Earth (the regions to the north and south of the equator) are the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn (Cancer and Capricorn being Karkat and Gamzee's signs, respectively). Cancer and Capricorn are also opposite signs in the zodiac.
*Gamzee is referred to as "the most important character in Homestuck". Hussie later contradicted this, however, saying, "Well, ok. Maybe not the MOST important. But he's still really important!"
**This is likely related to Kanaya's statement that Dangerous People Can Be Really Important Maybe Even The Most Important Sometimes.
**In Cascade, Lil Cal was shown 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.
***Lil Cal contains Future Gamzee's soul, complicating the issue.
*Gamzee and Eridan inherited their classes from each other’s dancestors. Dualscar met his end at the hands of the Grand Highblood, which manifests when Gamzee and Eridan both attempt to kill each other, and also in Cronus's unease around Kurloz.
*Gamzee is depicted on the "XVIII: The Moon" card and the "XI:Strength" card (with Kanaya) in the Homestuck Tarot Card Deck. He is featured on the "Five of Cups" card. He can also be seen on the "King of Swords" card with the rest of the red team, and on the "Five of Wands" card with most of the pre-act six cast.
**His appearance on the Moon may be due to the strong associations between fear, fantasy, and the card. His appearance on Strength displays the inverse nature of the card, which is unreliability and cruelty.
*His horns are similar to those worn by the hyena Ed in The Lion King during the "Be Prepared" number. Like Ed, Gamzee is originally a harmless fool, but becomes more dangerous later on in the story.
*Gamzee foreshadows his true relationship with Lord English when he says: "I FINALLY GOT MY MOTHERFUCKING UNDERSTAND ON TO WHO THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS ARE. they were always both me. :o) AND ALSO MOTHERFUCKING ME. Do:" This is found to be true, as he is part of English.
*He is the only Lord English component who is a Prospit dreamer.
*Being cut in half in GAME OVER is possibly a reference to Persian mythology, in which a character Jamshid (a powerful leader with a name describing dual nature, and phonetically similar to Gamzee) who has previously warred with the leader Zahhak is split in half by a saw, but quickly avenged by fire. This rivalry may have been the basis of Gamzee killing Equius, as Equius's last name is Zahhak.
*Gamzee was never seen as a ghost in the dream bubbles.
*Hussie states to Caliborn he's "personally not aware of a single timeline in which this codpiece packing moron dies." As proof, he is sliced in half twice without receiving a dead tag. This could be a hint to part of him being Lord English.
*Calliope's fake horns look quite similar to the horns in the poster of Gamzee's introduction. Oddly enough, the poster immediately left of that depicts a clown with "U" shaped horns.
*His theme Blackest Heart has leitmotifs of John Carpenter's The Thing theme.