What constitutes a proper story under the Bazaar?

Fallen London
1

We know from the Affair of the Box and the Jack-of-Smiles case that love stories that are manufactured or meddled with are unfit for the Bazaar.

However, we also know from the Wry Functionary’s, Duchess’s, and King with a Hundred Hearts’s stories that the Masters can change love stories so that they end tragically, because tragic love stories are the type most highly prized by the Bazaar.

We also know that it’s possible for the especially canny individual to avoid being made into story fodder, and that some people can even influence stories without risking themselves (I’m thinking of the Waltz that Moved the World, and the conversation you have with Mr. Iron on Sacksmas, and other hints in the game that you can write the stories, not be them).

So… does anyone have any idea how any of this actually works? How someone can influence stories without spoiling them for the Bazaar, and how someone can work in the shadows, avoiding becoming a story themselves?

2

We also know that &quot[f]or reasons best known to itself, Mr Fires sometimes has agents interfere with romances in the public eye …&quot Specifically, he seeks to preserve them when they are in danger of failing. And there is a dedicated group of investigators exploring manufactured love in a very horrible way, as revealed by one of the Ambitions.

It seems that the Bazaar will accept a certain amount of meddling in love stories … or at least the Masters believe she will. But I have no idea where the line between meddling and manufacturing lies.

3

Well. At least we know we can count on Mr. Fires’s agents if we want to spite the Bazaar and have our love lives succeed? Two birds, one stone, as long as you don’t mind working with a Master that exploits its employees.

4

I always thought meddling meant actually rewriting or editing the story on paper so that the ending is fictitious, and that actually playing a role in a love story didn’t constitute meddling as much as just influencing the course it runs. Oh well.

5

The meddling I can think of involves actually doing things to create or change the stories. Spoilers for late Affair of the Box content and the ending to the Jack-of-Smiles case below the cut:

[spoiler]Mr. Fires sends agents to keep couples together because meddling with the love affairs makes them unfit for the Bazaar. At least, that’s what I heard secondhand, so I don’t know if that’s true.

For the Jack-of-Smiles case, as far as I can recall, Mr. Spices had someone enter a man’s dreams to make him murder his wife in his sleep? I don’t remember the details so much as the conclusion: Mr. Spices learned that you can’t manufacture stories by making people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.[/spoiler]

6

In The Silver Tree you learn that Baghdad was considered for the forth city. But it was rejected because there where only stories of love, not an actual love like that which brought Karakorum to the Masters attention.

Certainly this is indicative that true stories of love are valued over manufactured stories.
edited by Odin, All-father on 11/10/2016

7

For what its worth, Mr Spices stated that any love stories that arise from anything Jack-of-Smiles did are invalid and unacceptable. I have suspected that is because the cause - Jack itself - is something that was tainted with the intention of creating stories for the Bazaar.

The Provost’s stories are flat out unacceptable too, because it is not even genuine love so much as the Provost trying to help the Bazaar. But the Masters do appreciate his effort.

Mr Fire’s attempt to extend the romance in Affair of the Box are mostly likely due to his misguided attempt to satiate the Bazaar - he isn’t interested in the Bazaar’s mission to find a real love story.

He isn’t sabotaging the Bazaar’s effort, at least not now. Love stories are drying up in London, so he is playing for time by forcing love stories to go on, useless or not, since the Bazaar won’t move on until it milks London dry. He wants the Bazaar to stick around London forever so he can keep being the Captain of Industry - my guess for his permanent solution would be the M-M33 from Light Fingers.

The Bazaar has a couple of requirements - the story must be of genuine love, and it must not be initiated by people supportive of the Bazaar’s mission. Most of these stories won’t make it without outside help, but there aren’t that many innocent people that help finish them. Which is why you get rewarded for finishing the Regretful Soldier’s love story.

Ideally, it must be an example of love between radically different position on the Great Chain or at least societal structure, but that comes later.

8

[quote=Odin, All-father]In The Silver Tree you learn that Baghdad was considered for the forth city. But it was rejected because there where only stories of love, not an actual love like that which brought Karakorum to the Masters attention.

Certainly this is indicative that true stories of love are valued over manufactured stories.
edited by Odin, All-father on 11/10/2016[/quote]

On this note, it’s worth remembering that the Traitor Empress’ love for her consort played a significant part -indeed, quite possibly the most significant part- in the initial fall of London.

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[quote=Estelle Knoht]For what its worth, Mr Spices stated that any love stories that arise from anything Jack-of-Smiles did are invalid and unacceptable. I have suspected that is because the cause - Jack itself - is something that was tainted with the intention of creating stories for the Bazaar.

The Provost’s stories are flat out unacceptable too, because it is not even genuine love so much as the Provost trying to help the Bazaar. But the Masters do appreciate his effort.

Mr Fire’s attempt to extend the romance in Affair of the Box are mostly likely due to his misguided attempt to satiate the Bazaar - he isn’t interested in the Bazaar’s mission to find a real love story.

He isn’t sabotaging the Bazaar’s effort, at least not now. Love stories are drying up in London, so he is playing for time by forcing love stories to go on, useless or not, since the Bazaar won’t move on until it milks London dry. He wants the Bazaar to stick around London forever so he can keep being the Captain of Industry - my guess for his permanent solution would be the M-M33 from Light Fingers.

The Bazaar has a couple of requirements - the story must be of genuine love, and it must not be initiated by people supportive of the Bazaar’s mission. Most of these stories won’t make it without outside help, but there aren’t that many innocent people that help finish them. Which is why you get rewarded for finishing the Regretful Soldier’s love story.
[/quote]

This post was very helpful. Thanks!

So, I was told Mr. Fires wants the Bazaar to stay in London as long as possible, but I was confused about whether his meddling was intentional sabotage of the love stories or not. It seems like a Master of the Bazaar would know better. In my mind, if the Bazaar doesn’t find a suitable love story, it can’t leave, so ruined ones achieve his goal of delaying the Bazaar, too. That was my interpretation, anyway. I never finished Affair of the Box because I’m using it to grind Mourning Candles. Do you have echoes from where it lays out Mr. Fires’s schemes?

The Smiles case makes things so much more confusing. If the intention behind a story can ruin every other stories that touch it, how in the world do people like Millicent and the agent from The Waltz that Moved the World operate? It would have to take some extreme subtlety and careful monitoring of your thoughts and motivations, wouldn’t it?

Also, can you elaborate on this? By innocent people, do you mean people not affiliated with the Bazaar, or…?

10

Except enough ruined stories and the Bazaar, and the other Masters, will go for a Sixth City that would have fresher love stories. Which is the case now. By providing the appearance of stories the Fifth City remains for now, as does its Captain of Industry

11

The Bazaar can choose to move on when it determines that a city has lost its supply of love stories, which is why Fires try to drag it out. He may or may not understand that meddling means disqualification, but he is certainly trying to keep the Bazaar around.

Getting a suitable love story is probably not enough for the Bazaar to go. At the end of SFiG you may have provided one, but the Bazaar certainly didn’t immediately fly off. Its goal is not just one story, either, but as many as it could find to prove its point.

[quote=Lamia Lawless]
Also, can you elaborate on this? By innocent people, do you mean people not affiliated with the Bazaar, or…?[/quote]

No idea about affiliation. But it seems the criteria is more like &quotif you helped push this story along, you better have no knowledge about this story being something submitted to the Judgement&quot. Of course, I have no idea how are the stories examined so eh.

Rewards by the Master posthumously are fine, it seems - you do get paid after finishing the Regretful Soldier’s love story, and the game mostly assume you are not doing it for the Bazaar as it is a very early story.

Millicent might be a special case (after all she boinked a tiger and had a sunbath and irrigoed her mind), and love stories happen with or without her involvement anyway. She mostly just take your gifts, and she didn’t exactly say her stories are for the same purpose. I am not too sure about her in the first place anyway, aside from the fact she boinked a tiger.

Jack-of-Smiles is too entirely supernatural and loud, presumably, so the stories will fall apart immediately on closer examination if the Bazaar use them. Considering how old it is, it is very possible that the Masters were really crude and forceful with him, too.
edited by Estelle Knoht on 11/13/2016

12

Got it. Thanks!

Also, I’ve been informed that it is possible to finish Affair of the Box and still be able to grind for Mourning Candles.

13

[quote=Lamia Lawless]Got it. Thanks!

Also, I’ve been informed that it is possible to finish Affair of the Box and still be able to grind for Mourning Candles.[/quote]

Finishing AotB won’t lock you out of box grind. The only thing that can is Turncoat.