This election was a sham. Here is why.

This election was a sham. Here is why.

in Cutthroat Politics

Posted by: Chesed.2890

Chesed.2890

Honestly, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND THOUGHT EVON WAS GOING TO WIN?

I will tell you who; People that didn’t have a clue.

Let’s just put out there what should be blatantly obvious to everyone. Ellen is very clearly someone’s Mary Sue. For those that don’t know what that is, here you go: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mary%20sue.

From a tragic beginning with the loss of her parents, she grew up and went on to become the hero of Southsun Cove, instrumental in both dealing with the Karka uprising and in liberating the refugees from their shady contracts with the consortium. After the attack at the effigy ceremony, she led the wounded to safety, launched an investigation, then ultimately led the attack on the aetherblade base to bring the culprits to justice. She then went on to hijack the zephyrite flagship and flew it straight into a thunderstorm, where she rode a bolt of lightening straight through the mists and landed on a strange new planet in a far off universe in an alternate reality. She looked around in disbelief, muttered something about a wrong turn in Albuquerque, then spat in the primordial ooze, thereby ensuring that a race of humans not unlike those on Tyria would come to dominate this new planet, which they would eventually come to call “Earth”. Her accidental masterpiece complete, she flies back home the same way she arrived, just in time to win an election and take her place among the Council.

Now to summarize Evon’s backstory: dude took out his superior with a dagger to the neck, took over the warband, then established a trading company. Despite being portrayed as a crook ("He who lifts it, gets it, AMIRITE?), somehow there is absolutely no cheating in the election and he doesn’t leverage his connections with the trading company to give himself an edge (It makes no sense he would sell voting packages for both him AND Ellen).

But wait, the script writers aren’t done! No way in hell we can let Evon win. How should we divvy up the campaign promises? Oh I know, let’s do this!!

(continued below)

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Posted by: Chesed.2890

Chesed.2890

Ellen:
*I will discount waypoint travel AND PUT MONEY IN YOUR POCKETS (nevermind that it’s never explained exactly how this person managed to get the owners of all the ASURAN gates all over Tyria to run discounts for a whole month)….

*In keeping with my backstory, I will host an event called Southsun Survivor to celebrate my heroic victory over the Karka and the reclaiming of….wait, what? Evon is going to hold an event called “Aspect Arena” that celebrates and pays homage to the rich cultural heritage of the Zephyrites? Crap, people will love that. Wait, AND the games will be much shorter while awarding more voting tokens, thereby increasing the likelihood that Evon supporters will have more votes to cast for him? OH HEEEEELLLLLLL NO. I WILL BE HOSTING ASPECT ARENAS! DO YOU HEAR ME, ANET? ASPECT ARENA IS MINE.

*Also, I will be sponsoring rotations that the other guy is promising, as well as research into a Fractale that is game-relevant and that the devs are probably actually interested in working on.

Evon:
*If you vote for me, I will give you the privilege of paying me less of your hard-earned RL currency to buy these keys that nobody in their right mind pays money to purchase anyways.

Is handed a piece of paper by the Anet storywriters Ehh? What’s this? What happened to my brilliant idea about a competitive game of capture the flag that celebrated the rich cultural heritage of the Zephyrites? What? I have to host this game in Southsun where people run around with arrows and bats and kill each other until only one person is left standing? Did you kids go to sleep watching Hunger Games last night? What idiot would run their campaign around this? kitten YOU ANET, THIS IS NOT FAIR!!!!!

continues reading Anet script Also, I will sponsor a rotation of games that the other person will also sponsor, and I will sponsor research into backstory from GW1 that nobody cares about. …….Uhm, Anet, I can’t help but get this funny feeling that you don’t want me to, you know….win?

To summarize:

*Ellen offers perks that are inconsistent with her backstory but that have broad-player appeal. Voting for her will effectively leave more of your hard-earned gold in your pockets, while her opponent insultingly offers to let you spend less money on his junk that nobody really wants. Aspect arena has much faster turnover, provides a better shot at a splendid chest (everyone on the winning team gets one, as opposed to only one person in survivor), and I suspect awards more tokens to its player-base per hour than survivor. Seeing as to how Ellen supporters are likelier to play her game, it’s reasonable to assume that, on average, her supporters are going to have more votes to cast for her than an Evon supporter who spends an equal amount of time playing Survivor. Some scholars may argue that Evon supporters could always farm Ellen’s game and vote for Evon. I actually did that. You know how often I ran into Evon supporters in Ellen’s game? I will give you a hint: it was underwhelming.

*Like the Bond villain who brilliantly rises to power but then inexplicably blunders in the face of the suave super-hero, Evon is deliberately made into a caricature of a crook, a sharp contrast to Ellen; our righteous, honorable, and agonizingly perfect Warrior!Sue.

When you consider how Ellen has been built up for the past half-year, I think any reasonable person could have easily imagined that, like the crooked banks behind the Great Recession, she was just too big too fail.

When you consider just how rigged the whole thing was from the beginning, you have to give credit to the people that actually voted for Evon. They were naive enough to think that their vote would actually make a difference. But the horrible, horrible truth is that Evon was never meant to win. When they were busy scripting this whole event, the writers made doubly-sure that no reasonable, self-respecting person would vote for the filthy charcoal over the immaculately polished diamond…..

This election was a sham. Here is why.

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Posted by: Leablo.2651

Leablo.2651

Honestly, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND THOUGHT EVON WAS GOING TO WIN?

I will tell you who; People that didn’t have a clue.

How brave of you to state this after the fact. True courage.

This election was a sham. Here is why.

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Posted by: Zaxares.5419

Zaxares.5419

Gnashblade sold voting packages for Kiel because at heart, he is still a businessman, and true businessmen take their profits wherever they can, even if they find it personally distasteful.

Besides, Evon already DID try to buy votes by sprinkling Vote Reminders everywhere containing a token amount of cash and a little note from him. Obviously it wasn’t enough.

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Posted by: Weirwynn.2390

Weirwynn.2390

Honestly, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND THOUGHT EVON WAS GOING TO WIN?

I will tell you who; People that didn’t have a clue.

Let’s just put out there what should be blatantly obvious to everyone. Ellen is very clearly someone’s Mary Sue. For those that don’t know what that is, here you go: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mary%20sue.

Just an FYI: You have no idea what actually makes a Mary Sue a Mary Sue, and linking urbandictionary of all places isn’t helping your case.

The key flaw of a Mary Sue is that they overcome the key conflicts of a story without effort or drama—they simply “have the answers,” be those physical or intellectual in nature. Being that it is the players who resolve the conflicts she is a part of, she therefore cannot be a Mary Sue. At worst, she would be a schemer who gets others to do her work, though I don’t see her that way personally.

This election was a sham. Here is why.

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Posted by: Chesed.2890

Chesed.2890

Honestly, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND THOUGHT EVON WAS GOING TO WIN?

I will tell you who; People that didn’t have a clue.

How brave of you to state this after the fact. True courage.

Honestly, I thought about posting this rant about a week ago. But then I decided to give the player-base the benefit of the doubt. Now that the results are out, I can at least finally give voice to what I’ve been having to hold inside of me this entire time: that this election was a kitten SHAM.

This election was a sham. Here is why.

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Posted by: Chesed.2890

Chesed.2890

Honestly, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND THOUGHT EVON WAS GOING TO WIN?

I will tell you who; People that didn’t have a clue.

Let’s just put out there what should be blatantly obvious to everyone. Ellen is very clearly someone’s Mary Sue. For those that don’t know what that is, here you go: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mary%20sue.

Just an FYI: You have no idea what actually makes a Mary Sue a Mary Sue, and linking urbandictionary of all places isn’t helping your case.

The key flaw of a Mary Sue is that they overcome the key conflicts of a story without effort or drama—they simply “have the answers,” be those physical or intellectual in nature. Being that it is the players who resolve the conflicts she is a part of, she therefore cannot be a Mary Sue. At worst, she would be a schemer who gets others to do her work, though I don’t see her that way personally.

Oh yes, because there was always a doubt about how those events were going to turn out. They were scripted, just like this event….

This election was a sham. Here is why.

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Posted by: Alaundria.9573

Alaundria.9573

You seem to know absolutely everything about videogame politics, as well as and the subtle workings of human psychology. Thank you for your in-depth analysis.

And if you are going to condescendingly link definitions, at least use TV Tropes. Nobody takes UD seriously: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

(edited by Alaundria.9573)

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Posted by: Banquetto.9521

Banquetto.9521

Another link that might be relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude

This election was a sham. Here is why.

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Posted by: Weirwynn.2390

Weirwynn.2390

Honestly, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND THOUGHT EVON WAS GOING TO WIN?

I will tell you who; People that didn’t have a clue.

Let’s just put out there what should be blatantly obvious to everyone. Ellen is very clearly someone’s Mary Sue. For those that don’t know what that is, here you go: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mary%20sue.

Just an FYI: You have no idea what actually makes a Mary Sue a Mary Sue, and linking urbandictionary of all places isn’t helping your case.

The key flaw of a Mary Sue is that they overcome the key conflicts of a story without effort or drama—they simply “have the answers,” be those physical or intellectual in nature. Being that it is the players who resolve the conflicts she is a part of, she therefore cannot be a Mary Sue. At worst, she would be a schemer who gets others to do her work, though I don’t see her that way personally.

Oh yes, because there was always a doubt about how those events were going to turn out. They were scripted, just like this event….

The same can be said about any work of fiction. Predictability does not equal Mary Sue. It can still be bad writing, of course, but seeing as you created a thread just to claim this one label applies, the fact that you’re simply wrong is rather relevant.

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Posted by: Null.9743

Null.9743

Chesed, I definitely agree that Weirwynn is correct here.

There are definitely things wrong with Kiel and her campaign but it’s just incorrect to say that she’s a Mary Sue. I know this is a Gary Stu (male Mary Sue equivalent) but Wesley Crusher is the perfect example if you’ve ever seen Star Trek: TNG. Young, attractive kid is incredibly intelligent and has the answer to every problem.

Ellen fits the ‘thrown above her rank by events in the story’ bit but she doesn’t have some sort of magical problem solving ability. If anything, she’s a total tool that relied on us to fight her battles and is getting manipulated by a Norn.

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Posted by: SiegHawk.7981

SiegHawk.7981

people just vote for kiel like they cant think outside the box.for god sake, its time to change the story up and make a better lore. apparently people dont seem to enjoy Kiels lore.

Dragonbrand [EAT]
All I want is pure destruction!

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Posted by: kiwiburner.2186

kiwiburner.2186

OP nailed it, RECOUNT PLEASE.

“poopsock made it past the filters!” -stinkypants.8419

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Posted by: DeWolfe.2174

DeWolfe.2174

people just vote for kiel like they cant think outside the box.for god sake, its time to change the story up and make a better lore. apparently people dont seem to enjoy Kiels lore.

And yet, maybe Kiel has better lore and that’s why we voted for her? Maybe the majority of votes were votes for the story, over personal interests. If anything, the results speak favorably to the character of the players. Especially when the “hard core” crowd had a distinct advantage by the fact that the more your played, the more votes you could cast.

[AwM] of Jade Quarry.