Thanks Buckley! I have no doubt you would have continued to be a very strong competitor. No clickbait!
If Oracle left at six, my preferred resolution was Gustave at five and Margot at four. Considering how strong of a challenge competitor Margot was, I was also thinking about what I'd do if she won immunity at four. I felt reasonably confident that Margot's best move in that case would be to eliminate Madame D. and not me. There's no completely perfect solution to a final four where you want two specific people to move on with you because of the potential for the last person to win immunity.
I'm not uncomfortable to be at the end with anyone. I'm at the end, that's the overall goal. There are reasons I wanted Suzy and Madame D. specifically that are outside the strict scope of loyalty. I wanted to be at the with Suzy because it was ultimately what I had been aiming towards the whole game. I wanted to play this entire game with people who love Wes Anderson content just as much as I do. I still want to see what she would have written for the final film project prompt. I wanted to be at the end with Madame D. because I wanted to play this game with people who shared my enthusiasm to be playing in it. That was always readily apparent in her incredible energy and the fun we had PMing each other. Once we activated the Team Zissou rings she didn't have to keep up the effort of playing to her character and customizing her correspondence with me but she did it for the love of the game.
I can't put a numerical value on my confidence of pulling off a win against them. It wasn't 100%. These are two incredible competitors and I knew that, but I expected to get a fair shake. I played a game I'm proud of and I think there was quite a lot I had already done before the final six to earn the respect of the jury. They both played better social games than I did, though that's not to say I wasn't social. My hope was to present an argument that it was my influence keeping them safe and my actions before the merge which set up a merge in which we could be so successful. I also hoped I could outshine them through my tactical use of items and the ways I took advantage of the twists. I can't really tell you what my entire thesis would have been because it's a speech I never ended up writing.
I actually tried to give Margot a warning that I thought things weren't quite right, without outright saying HEY PLAY AN IDOL IF YOU HAVE IT. There's a very emotionally laborious art to a blindside that includes continuing to have discussions with the people left out of things as though nothing has changed, and Suzy and Madame D. didn't really give us that. I know Suzy was also getting busy with the events she had going on that weekend and that was part of it. The Khaki Scouts group chat was a huge tell, because it went from everyone saying we'd vote either of them no problem, to Margot and I agreeing that we'd rather vote Oracle and the other two never responding again. Nor were we getting any sort of confirmation in direct correspondence until I shook the tree via the trio chat Margot, Madame and I had shortly before deadline to force Madame to respond.
So what was going through my head? The initial reaction to seeing the votes against Margot was, yeah, that's what I was afraid of. The change it precipitated to make me abandon my goal was the just the switch going off in my head that my chances in that final three were heading towards zero. I did feel used, because if either or both of them had just told me they were voting Margot and said they wanted me to vote that way too I would have done it, no matter how last minute it was or how unexplained it was. But I didn't abandon my goal on an emotional decision, I did it for the simple reason of giving myself the best opportunity to win the game.
I feel conflicted about this endgame. I know I'm sitting next to two players who are probably portraying me in the worst possible light because I was never faithful to them. I was involved in an alliance with them from the beginning of the game but the fact of the matter is that alliance was never really important to me, which is why I didn't want to spend any time, energy or words even touching on it directly in my opening speech. Loyalty is a finite resource, the more people you are loyal to the sooner you are a traitor to some loyalty.
To answer your question about comparing the endgame I find myself in against the endgame I wanted:
Getting to the end with Suzy and Madame D. (or with Suzy and Writer before that) would have been a celebration.
The endgame I'm in is just hard work.
Your friend,
Richie
Topic: {Buckley} (Read 241 times)
