If I remember one of the destinies correct, only Mr. Wines still actually believes the Masters can accomplish their mission to unite the Bazaar with the Sun. At this point, they are all deep down pretty much exactly like Mr. Fires in the sense that they just want to bleed the seven cities dry of any resources they can. It’s also made rather obvious that they are growing not only impatient, but also resentful, of their obligations to the Bazaar. The fact that there is becoming less and less time between the falls of the chosen cities leads one to believe they want out as fast as possible and don’t truly believe love between two beings on the Great Chain is truly possible.
My point, with the above in mind, is the Masters are basically only collecting love stories out of obligation at this point. edited by loredeluxe on 2/1/2016
[spoiler][quote=Kyria][…]The Jack of Smiles stories might be unusable because they are too common, too random and too pointless. So many people have been victims of Jack, there’s no real purpose or motive behind Jack’s actions[…][/quote]
It’s not simply a matter of quantity, consistency, or purpose, it’s that the Bazaar or their agents (the Masters) were involved at all, or so the general consensus was when I saw discussed previously what actually makes a story useless to the Bazaar. If it was simply consistency or purpose the Masters themselves could come up with all the stories the Bazaar needs, or pay others to do so. But that doesn’t serve the Bazaars purpose of demonstrating organically occurring cross-chain love.
Well, they seem to collect written works, but how exactly the Bazaar makes use of those isn’t clear. If they read them to it, if it itself reads them, or if it somehow absorbs them. They likely have their own agents observe and report those stories that aren’t already circulated or to be found in written format. Of course the only precedence I have for any of this is during Uncovering Secrets Framed in Gold you can yourself relate the events of the story and what you learn directly to the Bazaar by telling it a story. This is what leads to the Passion destiny becoming available.[/spoiler] edited by Zharend on 2/3/2016
My take on that story - the Masters influence the stories all the dang time, but the Jack case was a failure because their influence was far too direct. It was a case of Mr Spices basically knocking on some dude’s door and saying "hey, your wife’s cheating on you, you should kill her." (Or whatever the precise details were - I can’t recall them exactly right at this moment.) Sure, it’s a plenty tragic story, but it’s got this great big Master-shaped deus ex machina plopped right in the middle and providing 100% of the driving motivation. Badly-written story, got rejected by their celestial publisher. With the unfortunate consequence that all that dude’s knives are now haunted - and, if that weren’t bad enough, they’re not even haunted in a cool gothic magical realism "and his terrible passion lives on in his work" way, because the story got buried, so its results just seem like random violence.
This intrigues me. The masters were hired? By whom? From where?
And if they’re employees of some sort, does that mean they’re being paid? In what? they don’t seem to lack for material wealth.
[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]Sure, it’s a plenty tragic story, but it’s got this great big Master-shaped deus ex machina plopped right in the middle and providing 100% of the driving motivation.[/quote]
I suppose questioning the magnitude of their involvement is fair, since to say they can’t themselves or through their schemes touch a story whatsoever would make it hard to collect even a single story, with how many machinations they have at any one time. But as that relates to the Nemesis story, I believe it still makes it utterly useless, since they were ultimately the driving force behind the murder of your relative. No matter how many dead drops they went through, their objective was still, "Murder this person," it wasn’t simply the byproduct of another scheme. (Unless I have something about the ambition wrong, but I don’t think I do, though I suppose this is off topic anyway.) edited by Zharend on 2/3/2016
This intrigues me. The masters were hired? By whom? From where?
And if they’re employees of some sort, does that mean they’re being paid? In what? they don’t seem to lack for material wealth.[/quote]
Major spoilers below. Read at your own risk.
They were hired by the Bazaar itself. The Bazaar, a giant space crab, wants to prove to the stars in the sky that it should be able to love the sun, a being that is much higher up on the great chain than it is. Of course, the sun does not reciprocate these emotions. To prove that their love should be able to exist, it is collecting love stories featuring people of different statuses to show that love should not only exist between beings of equal status.
I’m not sure if this is off topic (because the current subject of discussion is on something else) But I just finished the Affair of the Box Storyline. And it got me thinking…
The Masters are trying to find/gather/make love stories. (I’ll leave how much of their influence makes it useful or not, up to someone else.) What’s stopping a master from contributing to one?
Like… Mr. Fires. It’s clear he doesn’t want to move onto another city. He loves London, infact. Could that not be counted? He loves London so much, that in a possible destiny your player character is the one to replace him. He also loves tinkering with devices like engines and dirigibles and other more mechanical stuff. A love for one’s work, for building and machining and making things with skill is still a form of love, after all. Maybe it counts? Maybe it doesn’t. But I know for certain Mr. Fires loves London and he seems to love machines…
I think what the Bazaar wants are love stories between actual beings. Love in general (to an item, a concept, etc.) doesn’t really help with the Bazaar’s end goal here (that is, to prove that love between beings in different places in the Great Chain should be allowed).
I’m not sure I agree with that analysis, dov. While it’s true that the… spoilers follow for Ambition: Light Fingers
…horrible experiments at the Orphanage turned out to be useless to the Bazaar’s goals, that was because they were manufactured, not because they weren’t between two beings. One of the NPCs was specifically forced to fall in love with the Orphanage itself, and all manner of other twisted reflections on the nature and possibility of love were attempted there.
And here the PC thought they were just going to chase after a big shiny diamond. O, Fallen London, how we do love the way you subvert expectation!
[quote=Lady Taimi Felix]I’m not sure I agree with that analysis, dov. While it’s true that the… spoilers follow for Ambition: Light Fingers
…horrible experiments at the Orphanage turned out to be useless to the Bazaar’s goals, that was because they were manufactured, not because they weren’t between two beings. One of the NPCs was specifically forced to fall in love with the Orphanage itself, and all manner of other twisted reflections on the nature and possibility of love were attempted there.
And here the PC thought they were just going to chase after a big shiny diamond. O, Fallen London, how we do love the way you subvert expectation![/quote]
The Masters don’t seem to like each other, they’re always squabbling. They seem to be in some sort of indentured servitude. Mr. Wines seems to have gone straight out psychotic from the strain. I can’t figure what kind of non-compete contract they all must have signed to still be "employed" by the Bazaar after all these thousands of years that would make it worth the while of any sentient being.
Their failures - The Jack-of-Smiles story and other cruel experiments, show that they have no understanding of humanity, no interest in it, and they are increasingly desperate to hurry "things" along.
Have they been promised emancipation from the Bazaar at some point? Have they been trapped somehow, and are making the best of it?