I would argue that the underlying assumption in a lot of posts is that being more or less overtly villainous correlated with having fewer or more supporters, and I don’t think that’s true.
Not all players have characters whose decision making matches up with or even has much of a relation to the standards and ethics of the real world, whether in politics or in other aspects of their lives. Gul makes decisions based on their own complex code which is based on aesthetic principles and emotional resonances, and is utterly unlike my own.
Not all players take the role-playing aspect very seriously either, and many just vote for whichever candidate seems most interesting to them (which is what I actually do, and then make up a justification for Gul to vote for them afterwards).
Many players really like highly motivated villainous characters, and are far more likely to vote for them than for anyone who seems too ordinary (myself included).
I also think millea makes a very good point about characterization.
Feducci’s expanded character in the election built very fluidly from what we already knew about him and what was implied through his actions and dialogue. In contrast, the Princess seems to have put on a new public persona, complete with an entirely new face, which while strategically and practically a good choice does distinguish her from Feducci in a very interesting way.
I would argue that she used to have much more of a Feducci-esque badass, outwardly sinister vibe, at the Feast of the Rose, in Destiny: Appetite, in The Gift, and in The Marriage of Feducci (where Feducci claims that she’s just like him). Her confession two Hallowmases back added a lot of pathos to her character as well, but in a way that didn’t contradict her surface-level image, in a way similar to Feducci’s confession.
Her characterization in Sunless Skies is explicitly fake, she’s intentionally disguising her nature, motives, and actions from everyone, including the player, and there are hints of the personality we know underneath. Her story can’t be finished yet, so who knows how it will end, but so far she’s been ruthlessly conniving for power and knowledge, leaving trails of corpses in her wake, and covering it up with a glamorous façade.
Her character in the election, in both personality and appearance, suggests a sort of trial-run for this disguise. It’s not as complete, and she’s not as comfortable in it, but she’s clearly trying to come off as innocent and charming. Still, beyond the most superficial level, it’s clear she’s still the same character we know and love.[li]
Still, that overtly sinister, monstrous aspect was something a lot of people really liked about her, and while being willing and able to disguise yourself so thoroughly, and to then try and bulldoze that disguise through people’s objections in a city where everyone’s already abjectly terrified of you is pretty interesting, in that it’s exactly the kind of calculated image-control move that every candidate in the election made, it’s not necessarily the kind of interesting that people found compelling about her in the first place.
But if we are going to talk about villainy, explicit vs implicit villainy, and how that might interact with their changing characterizations and people’s perceptions of them, I’d be happy to jump on board.[/li][li]
Coming back to Feducci then, I think a lot of people, again myself included, disagree with the idea that he’s outwardly "villainous" at all, since almost everything he does is easily characterized as just part of his job. He’s a spy for the Presbyter, who has a well-established interest in Hell, to the point that there’s multiple stories across multiple games that take the time to explicitly spell that out for us. He spends time in Hell, helps with their revolution and uses the goodwill he’s earned to get a position on the Ship of Lights. The SoL, which is at one point during Feducci’s term as its captain crewed by captured London prisoners of war, is as we already know primarily assigned to the rivers of death, and traveling the lands around the Far Shore, so being its captain is massively useful intelligence-gathering. This is barely subtext. His mayorship of London was even explicitly sponsored by the Presbyterate. So it’s very easy to look past the immediate appearance of Feducci’s actions and see him as just a somewhat ruthless man doing a difficult job, just like every great game agent and a significant portion of the player base.[/li][li]
The Princess is also, from where I’m standing, incredibly sympathetic, with a complex and difficult relationship with her family and her country, conflicting motivations and desires, and a significant tragic element to what she does. But it’s on a surface level much easier to disconnect her motivations and backstory (lonely and neglected among the enormous weight of history, given tremendous responsibility but no real power other than that which she carves out for herself, envious of the opportunity her older sister has to live freely and happily away from the palace and the Neath but afraid of ruining their relationship, worried about caring for and raising her own little sister because she’s afraid no one else will, ashamed of how her family has to hide their faces and live in catacombs despite being raised on tales of how important and amazing they’re supposed to be, alienated from almost everyone in the world by the people’s fawning adoration and terror, her siblings’ dismissal, and her mother’s seemingly compete disinterest) and her actions (she takes red honey and manipulates people and schemes for power in order to make her mark on the world). [/li][li]
[/li][li]While the link is totally understandable, it’s easier to dismiss off hand (why doesn’t she just do something else!) than the link between Feducci’s motivation (he’s a spy who loves adventure and freedom and self-determination, who lives for the thrills and the chance of failure) and his actions (he goes on undercover spy missions, fights in revolutions, schemes to gain information, and tries daring if sometimes impossible plans). If someone’s going to be obnoxious and small-minded, it’s not unlikely that they would sort the Princess into a "sympathetic villain" box and Feducci into a "badass antihero" box, depending on what they think about their respective goals and means. That’s a reductive reading of the characters, but it’s not uncommon. [/li][li]
[/li][li]And let’s not forget that, as millea wisely pointed out, Feducci’s actions never do harm to the player without their consent, and he’s outwardly friendly and jocular with them. Now, if your character, like mine, has a very different concept of harm and compassion than most people do, that’s totally irrelevant, but it’s clear from peoples’ posts in this very thread, among others, that they view the Princess as an oppositional character who would willingly harm them and their friends, and Feducci as a more neutral character, someone more likely to harm people they don’t care about than people they do. [/li][li]
How important are any of these points? What effect did they have on how people voted and how they interpret the characters, proportionately? I have no idea. The voting information isn’t out, and we don’t know how many supporters of each candidate backed what other candidates in the past. Plus the forums make up such a tiny portion of the player base that making assumptions about how people feel about the characters based on the posts on here is like judging the full body of media criticism based just on what the people in your film studies class think.[/li][li]
[/li][li]EDIT: More legible formatting.[/li][li]
edited by Gul al-Ahlaam on 7/5/2018
