Admittedly, I am a relatively new resident of Fallen London, but here’s my tuppence-worth for Virginia:
After competing in the Forgotten Quarter for the Correspondence Stones, she and I played chess for them. She lost, and is now keeping her word. If actions speak louder than words, well, there’s a concrete example of her integrity.
On a more general note, in my dealings with other Devils and Devilesses in general, I have found them to be much less deceitful than many human Londoners. The Quiet Deviless, for example, invites you to witness Abstractions so you can see the end results yourself BEFORE she offers to Abstract your soul. If that’s not open and aboveboard behaviour, what is?
My point is that despite accusations of being deceitful, the Infernal contingent in Fallen London seem perfectly open about what they do and what their goals are. It’s true that hey use charm to sugarcoat their agenda, but so do most people of all stripes (outside of Watchmaker’s Hill, at any rate).
Virginia’s plan is to improve Londoners’ spiritual, moral, mental and physical health. Is this primarily done out of benevolence? Of course not. She is, after all, a Deviless. But while our health benefits may be a byproduct of a plan to make our souls more valuable to Hell, they ARE benefits for us. While the quality of souls Hell receives will be improved, so will the souls it does not gain - so each person who does NOT sell his or her soul benefits.
But let’s compare Virginia with her competitors.
Madame Shoshana is a demonstrable fraud. Her readings (tea leaves, crystal balls, palms and tarot) are exactly even chances, no more (or less) mystically insightful than a coin toss. The accuracy of her romantic, artistic or investigative consultations is entirely dependent upon YOUR progress, and not upon any so-called mystical “powers” - she is simply observing your conscious and unconscious reactions and thus reading YOU. It’s your body language and your methods of responding to her that cue her “predictions” (which is exactly how these things work on the Surface, as well). All of which reveals that she is a skilled observer of people (as any good politician should be), but also a very deceptive one. She uses her observational skills to fuel belief in her deceptive claim of supernatural, paranormal or mystical abilities. She is a charlatan, and MUCH more dishonest than any Devil or Deviless I’ve met. Virginia seems like Diogenes’ ideal by comparison. Virginia’s end goal may be sugarcoated, but her method is honest. With Madame Shoshana, even the method is fraudulently presented, and her agenda is unclear, even by her own admission.
A bit of investigation reveals that Madame Shoshana has clandestine dinners with Dr. Shlomo, at which she fills her notebook from their conversation. Make of this what you will, from lessons in observation to inside information on the workings of her clients/victims’ minds.
Which brings us to Mrs. Plenty. Mrs. P is only too happy to give you her extremely scathing comments on Shoshana’s chicanery, and yet she continues to employ her, and seems even to admire the latter’s duplicity! Time spent conversing with Mrs. Plenty reveals her to be a coarse and hypocritical woman, whose dinner comes out of a brandy flask. Not the sort of person suited to the dignity of the office of Mayor. When you add to that her Seeking and her husband’s ties to the Masters who brought about London’s downfall, Virginia seems positively benevolent and stable by contrast.
Mrs. Plenty is a passive agent for a hostile alien power which is bent on our eventual destruction as a people and a city. Remember that the Masters (on the whole) do not have London’s best interest at heart, and are (mostly) eager to drop another city on our heads. The best you can say for Mrs. P. is that she wants a quietly disgraceful year to let them find one without interference. While Virginia may also be considered the agent of a hostile alien power, the difference is that it is not in Hell’s interest to destroy London or humanity, only to harvest individual people. Which they do openly, and with their individual targets’ explicit consent. Mrs. Plenty merely wants wealth and power for her own personal enjoyment, while our fair city awaits it’s extinction at the hands of her family’s backers.
To sum up:
Madame Shoshana: a demonstrable fraud. Her agenda is unclear even to herself (or so she claims).
Mrs. Plenty: a vulgar, drunken, hypocritical agent of the Masters. Her agenda benefits only herself, and leads us sheeplike to our fair city’s planned destruction.
Virginia: an honest shepherd. True, some of the sheep are destined for slaughter. But the individual sheep choose that for themselves. The rest of us will gain strength from the process - strength which can serve us in fighting the real evils of charlatans and collaborators.
As with a comic operetta, the harmless seeming characters are the real villains, and the apparent villain is the only decent choice. Topsy-Turvydom, indeed!