The problem with this is the same as with this vote. When given a chance to get to know her, to challenge her beliefs and test them, we will refuse. Cai will forever be that far off figure that is our boss, but never our friend. We will not know her. Or worse, she'll be the meme we've made of her. An unfaltering terminator. A doll shaped by her mom. Someone who values EXTREME JUSTICE above all else.
Calling this a chance to "get to know her, to challenge her beliefs and test them" strikes me as rather inaccurate. This was a choice which was
guaranteed to be a betrayal of someone who had done us a favor, and inflict punishment of some sort on us. Certainly, part of it is an exercise in seeing how much leniency CRX would grant us, but even if that is a part of the vote it is by no means the
main part.
If anything, I think this vote was a way to establish loyalty to Cai and her ideals. Certainly, if we are willing to give up the obligations of reciprocity towards Fu and concerns of personal benefit to be honest with Cai and come into greater alignment with her ideal of justice, that displays our loyalty - and establishes it, because actions have no small part in defining character. But note that that was a question of
loyalty, not
trust.
As for future choices... I don't see why we wouldn't take the chance to learn more about Cai. I see no indication that this vote sets a binding precedent in that respect, given that:
- The vote was MASSIVELY confounded by matters independent of trust,
- It was a close vote anyways, and
- It would likely had gone the other way if we had already sworn to Cai.
Even you want to hold back from giving her our trust, so how can you say that the route isn't burnt? That there is a limit to our loyalty, when we've shown such for no other friend?
I would be happy to extend trust to Cai, if it didn't require a betray of someone else on our part.
We've effectively tied yrsillar's hands here. There's so little we'll learn about Cai from this that there will be no cathartic release. Unless he really pushes it, the update won't even be enough that we could use it to deny the memes. No chance for her to shake the preconceptions people have formed of her.
Well, we were going to reciprocate in either case, which leaves room for character development here.
Even for those that don't have a set vision of her in their head, she's still unpalatable because this is hanging over our heads and every time it pops up it will be just as exhausting as this vote.
Yes, you are right here. I would just ignore it, but I admit that having this as an unlikely-but-possible crisis looming over our head does put somewhat of a dampener on the Cai route.
Which is the biggest problem. This vote poisoned the well. In any other case, yrsillar would be able to give us other chances, even if none would hold the emotional or narrative weight of this one. Now? Even if he does so, most won't take the extended hand. Look at the last ten pages for just a sample of how it's divided us. How toxic the subject is. Sure, they'll be a few die hards about the Cai route, but most people were never fanatics about it. The offer of the Sect was already tempting and the fear of Cai has been an ongoing background noise since the council formed. The fearmongering, the stress, the exhaustion, the straight up lies that came from this vote have made her that much less tolerable, regardless of if it was her fault.
Maybe. Certainly, people seem to have come up with a caricature of Cai that they are now waving around like flags. Then again, I'm not sure if this vote so much generated them as it unearthed them...
