A Detailed Election Poll [Please read explainer]

Fallen London
#1

With this poll we hope to acquire a better idea of how much support each candidate has.

Terms explained

Strongly supportive means you’ve already decided, you’re not going to change your mind, and you’re going to do everything you can to see that they win in terms of actions and materials.

Moderately supportive means you plan on supporting them, but you don’t plan on going all out in terms of actions or materials, and there’s the possibility you might change your mind.

Mildly supportive means you’re leaning towards this candidate or don’t really plan to spend many actions or materials supporting them.

If you plan on supporting more than one candidate, pick option 10 and post which candidates you’ll be supporting and to what degree.

‘Strong opposition to all of them’ means you refuse to support any of them on principle.

‘Mild opposition to all of them’ means you’re looking for the lesser of three evils. You’re still trying to figure out who to vote against, in other words.

Undecided means you genuinely don’t know at this point who you are going to be supporting. That, or you want to hear more from the candidates themselves before making your final decision.

Pick option 14 if you’re planning to sit out the election entirely in order to focus on the new Mr Eaten content.

Negative Partisanship Poll

To get a better idea of the electoral landscape I’ve devised a poll on negative voting - i.e., voting against a candidate rather than for a candidate.
edited by Anne Auclair on 6/20/2016

#2

My friends, my friends, my friends. Sinning Jenny? A Master’s agent. If you were horses confronted by an open gate, would you turn around and ask for the stable boy to be put in charge? If you might win a revolution, would you place another monarch on the throne?† I cannot deny her supporters’ passion — though I question in which room it belongs — but if this is to be the result, you may as well cancel the election. It shall have no appreciable effect.

†Yes, you clever heckler, go ahead and convince London to emulate the French.

#3

[quote=TheThirdPolice]My friends, my friends, my friends. Sinning Jenny? A Master’s agent. If you were horses confronted by an open gate, would you turn around and ask for the stable boy to be put in charge? If you might win a revolution, would you place another monarch on the throne?† I cannot deny her supporters’ passion — though I question in which room it belongs — but if this is to be the result, you may as well cancel the election. It shall have no appreciable effect.

†Yes, you clever heckler, go ahead and convince London to emulate the French.[/quote]

I’m just hoping she replaces the constables with monster hunting ninja nuns.

#4

Jenny has the legs to win.

– Mal

#5

I like sinning jenny, but unless her campaign is very strong, or the jovial contrarian’s is very opposed to my principles, I will not be voting for her. The bishop I refuse on principle, an unknowing servant of creatures far worse than are held in hell.

#6

[quote=Robin Alexander]I’ve gone with undecided . . .

The only one I wouldn’t support would be the Bishop; I’d need to know Jenny and Jovial’s campaigns to make a choice, specifically which factions they may be aligned with . . . Jenny oddly has both positive and negative ties to the masters, so would a vote for her betray or support my loyalties to them? It’s hard to say. I do hope we’ll get some stories or information regarding all three, so we can make an informed choice.[/quote]
I’d think it would support wines and oppose veils. I mean, it’s not like they’re a coherent faction. The vast majority of murders of Masters seem to have other master’s knowingly aiding it.

#7

Strongly supports The Bishop of Southwark! We can win this time!, and the acceptance of hell in the city is to a degree comparable to insanity.

Mildly supports Sinning Jenny… Anyone anti-Vake has my support.

Strongly opposed to the Jovial Contrarian! The man flip flops on everything and he’s likely to fuel the anarchists when he’s in power!
edited by TeslaWalker on 6/18/2016

#8

Well, now we know that Seeking will actually have some impact on the election.

#9

[quote=malthaussen]Jenny has the legs to win.

– Mal[/quote]
Jenny definitely has the legs to win this race.[li]

(I’m surprised nobody made that joke already.)

#10

I’m genuinely surprised to be on a bandwagon that looks like it’s winning in terms of forum-goers (who knows how the wider populace will feel?!).

I’m strongly supportive of Sinning Jenny. To be honest, it’s a choice that’s no choice to me. In terms of characters, I like all three; I still like Jenny best.

The Jovial Contrarian strikes me as a bit of a prick (can I say that here? should I edit my post? :P), the sort of &quotdevil’s advocate&quot who so commonly stonewalls real-life social activism, but he would still be fun to watch (and perhaps has hidden depths).

The Bishop is completely untrustworthy unless you share his identical priorities (INVADE HELL 2016) and I cannot help but distrust his &quotconservative radical&quot outlook, even if that has significantly less negative implications in the fictional world of Fallen London, and even though I admit I outright find the Bishop the most entertaining, to the point where I’m tempted to vote for him just to hear more of his glorious dialogue. (Rarely have I laughed so much reading a character speak.)

However, Jenny is a double-whammy for me; a lady candidate, and a positively portrayed sex worker. This is super rare in fiction. especially the latter!, and strikes home for me in a big way.

Given that she also seems very much like she’s be a competent mayor in-character (she’s also a hyper-qualified & competent executive of a business which is marginalized by its nature, and clearly good at politicking given her character background & motivations and concerns she must juggle), it would be hard to get me to vote against her.

Even if I personally felt ‘eh’ on her, I would probably still vote for her, and I’m not ‘eh’ on her, I like her character and I’ve found her ridiculously entertaining every time I’ve seen her (rarely) show up.

I’m of course not saying that anyone else at all should choose based upon this calculus. I’m only saying why, for me, it is no choice, in the end.

Now, put the Cat’s Chiefest Claw up as a candidate, and we’ll talk. (Badass awesome non-binary characters of color for the win! <3)

#11

I like the jovial contrarian because, while he’s a devil’s advocate, the frustrating, and fun, part is he always has a good point. Regardless of whether you indicate revolutionary or masters, he has a good argument why they shouldn’t hold too much of your loyalty. He seems to be a neutral in a world where matters are complex.

I like sinning jenny, but what little i saw of her was not that interesting- She was a vibrant character, but one I didn’t see enough in/of to develop an interest, and certainly not enough to feel like i know what she’d do. She had a backline role with one interaction at all, and then i never saw her again. Meanwhile the contrarian felt like a big part of the storyline he was in, and even when i disagreed with him, i’m sure i’d think he had a point, because i’ve never seen him truly lack one.

He’s a moderate candidate, and that’s something neither likely liberal jenny nor the almost-certainly conservative church can offer.

#12

[quote=thedeadlymoose]However, Jenny is a double-whammy for me; a lady candidate, and a positively portrayed sex worker. This is super rare in fiction. especially the latter!, and strikes home for me in a big way.

Given that she also seems very much like she’s be a competent mayor in-character (she’s also a hyper-qualified & competent executive of a business which is marginalized by its nature, and clearly good at politicking given her character background & motivations and concerns she must juggle), it would be hard to get me to vote against her.[/quote]

This captures a lot of why I’m voting for Jenny.

I enjoy the Bishop’s dialogue and character, but by that same token he doesn’t exactly have the temperament for the job. I don’t know the Contrarian that well, but I’m not sure about the merits of voting a Groucho Marx skit into office.

#13

[quote=Grenem]
He’s a moderate candidate, and that’s something neither likely liberal jenny nor the almost-certainly conservative church can offer.[/quote]
Some might argue that the Bishop is the true radical and Jenny an anesthetizing conservative (literally).

#14

The Contrarian, I think, is the kind of leader London needs in times like these, with the city plagued by radical factions of all stripes and by colorful personalities demanding all eyes on them. He’s thoughtful, disciplined, and clever. He works well with complex and nuanced issues, considerers every side of every argument, and actually enjoys the endless debating and speechmaking likely required of the mayor’s office. Things will probably move more slowly, if at all, with him as mayor, but considering the kinds of people who hold political influence in London, perhaps that’s for the best.[li]

#15

Strongly support: the Bishop!

And really, in a world in which devils and Hell demonstrably exist, wouldn’t people think again about this secularism business all the revolutionaries and radical academics are on about?

#16

This is an excellent write up that neatly describes my feelings about the Contrarian. In a real world dominated by &quotradical factions&quot and &quotcolorful personalities demanding all eyes on them,&quot I find it hard not to support someone who can recognize, and engage with, the values of others.

In a way this is also why I like Sinning Jenny as a candidate. Her attitude towards others (as I infer from the Waltz) is one of valuing people for who they are. These aren’t the same, but they share a breadth; I appreciate it.
edited by MrBurnside on 6/19/2016

#17

[quote=Anne Auclair][quote=Grenem]
He’s a moderate candidate, and that’s something neither likely liberal jenny nor the almost-certainly conservative church can offer.[/quote]
Some might argue that the Bishop is the true radical and Jenny an anesthetizing conservative (literally).[/quote]
Well, yes. But regardless of how you’d correspond them to the liberal vs. conservative- (and my take is the bishop is a pre-fall conservative, jenny is a pre-fall liberal, maybe moderate, but who knows when it comes to london society now. I mean, the people in charge want to gather love stories to take to a star.) - we can rely on the contrarian to not be too tightly tied to either side. He has loose ties to all factions- he’s popular enough to get invited to parties, and speaks against both masters and revolutionaries alike. He doesn’t care who he offends, and he’s got far less obvious main factions than the bishop. Sinning jenny is definitely my second choice, but she’s in a prime position for leveraging from the church and from the masters.

#18

The largest benefit the Contrarian has is that he will properly consider and strike down all destructive legislation he can as he is operating from a position of knowledge and skepticism. (Also he is fun at parties)

#19

Pretty sure the latter is actually false. It’s more that he’s entertaining than fun. Usually he spends the entire time finding people to argue with, and is drives the more stiff people into fits of rage or heart attacks, while the less stiff ones just be impolite or just evade argument entirely.

But when you’re not the one debating him, it’s entertaining. Either they lose gracefully, giving a nice performance, or they manage to get enough of a concession from him everyone treats it as a victory, which is always a very impressive performance, or you get a really nice piece of gossip as someone loses their temper with him. And while he’s not always able to display an entertaining debate, it’s never his fault the debate is dull- his opponents just didn’t put enough thought into it.

#20

[quote=Grenem][quote=Anne Auclair][quote=Grenem]
He’s a moderate candidate, and that’s something neither likely liberal jenny nor the almost-certainly conservative church can offer.[/quote]
Some might argue that the Bishop is the true radical and Jenny an anesthetizing conservative (literally).[/quote]
Well, yes. But regardless of how you’d correspond them to the liberal vs. conservative- (and my take is the bishop is a pre-fall conservative, jenny is a pre-fall liberal, maybe moderate, but who knows when it comes to london society now. I mean, the people in charge want to gather love stories to take to a star.) - we can rely on the contrarian to not be too tightly tied to either side.[/quote]
Not disputing your characterization of the Contrarian, but I don’t think pre-fall politics are anything to go by here. Jenny is quite young, she was probably born after the fall. The Bishop is middle aged, he was probably a child when London fell. Both figures are very Neathy. Jenny is a leading figure in London’s commercial establishment and a prominent associate of Mr Wines. The Bishop is one of the leading enemies of the soul trade and commercial relations between London and Hell. Politically, the Bishop wants radical changes to the status quo and Jenny wants, at best, some superficial reforms to preserve said status quo.