Hey fellow edgicians (If you will allow me the honor of still including myself as one). I just wanted to pop in and say I still read edgic and thought you guys had a marvelous season. Parvati's edit was actually a beautiful return to classic winner edgic (introduced nicely, forgotten briefly, momentum builds to climax) after a few seasons of hero winner edgic (always complex, twinged with doubt, still the one we are meant to love). The conversations like the ones you are having now are actually one of my favorite parts of the process (along with the episodes 4-7 reveal of winner picks, which always reminds me of edgic pulling out a Polaroid photo and shaking it as the winner develops) so I wanted to throw in my two cents for what it's worth (likely right around 2 pennies ironically).

The Edgic Cheeseburger

Edgic is like a great Cheeseburger (Apologies ahead of time to the Veggie Edgies, feel free to exchange the metaphor for one involving salad and dressings) in that at it's core it is ultimate simplicity (beef and cheese on a bun) but each of us might like it best with varying degrees of different additions (ketchup, mustard, onion, relish, pickle, sesame seeds, mayo, bacon, lettuce, etc) The current conversation strikes me as one about an edgic condiment. It may not be everyones cup o' tea, but for some they can't imagine edgic without it. I personally have always been a plain man so these things to me seem unnecessary and a bit of a time and energy drain. But hey, if you like mayo on your burger, go for it. However, the essentials will always be the burger, the bun, and the cheese.

The Edgic Bun

It's plain, basically tasteless, yet somehow crucial to the whole experience. It doesn't get any style points but it wouldn't hold together without it. In the edgic universe Visibility and Tone are the top and bottom buns in the edgic cheeseburger. They really are the most technical, scientific portion of the process that happens here. They seem periphery but are so essential to identifying which characters the editors are pushing to the middle of the pack. As boring and mundane as the Visibility and Tone can seem there is no edgic Atkin's diet, they are absolutely necessary. In fact these two elements are the main reason the MORD has proven effective. These ratings are easily incorporated into a 5 point scale and give a good indication, both by episode and season, of how a player is being edited. It's the Character Ratings that make that process a little shaky (more on this shortly), because of which it seems to me the best bet would be to separate those out of the equation and make a VTDiff or Visibility Tone Differential and leave the Character ratings on their own. Speaking of which...

The Edgic Beef

It's the heart of the sandwich, the protein and the point of the whole endeavor. These are the Character Ratings in the edgic cheeseburger. How a player is edited (not who they are, how they are edited, can we please remember this?) can be broken down into the 5 basic ratings of Edgic (INV, UTR, MOR, CP, OTT). This is plenty more subjective than the bun before is. The difficult is that we want to desubjectify (English is a fluid language, right?) it and make it a five point scale (in this metaphor, rare, med rare, medium, med well, and well done). But the edgic beef falls much more in line with how the supreme court once defined obscenity, "I know it when I see it". We use the ratings to help us ID patterns and developments but really we are all just trying to identify the best tasting hamburger. So how then do we process this? I think by breaking down the individual components and instead of using a 5 point scale use a grading scale (similar to the way beef is graded). A character can receive points in this scale (or lose them) independently of other characters, and at the end of the day, the players with the most points are the ones we should be paying attention to. We all know that an UTR is not nearly as damaging in episode 4 as it is in episode 1 or 11, or that the first UTR is not nearly as damning as the 4th in a row, so why not reflect that in some sort of system to grade the beef. There will never be a perfect system for grading the character arcs as they reflect the editors intent, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. (Long, drawn out, numerical example of how it might work at the end. Seriously, you didn't think I would peek my head in and not get mathematical on you, right?)

The Edgic Cheese

The final part of the cheeseburger is the most controversial. Is cheese essential? Though there are a few who just eat burgers, I think most will agree that cheese is a prerequisite portion of this fine American food. In much the same way the Complex Tribe theory has had a long and controversial life in edgic. The difficulty is that the concept this theory identified (that the winner is surrounded by the drama) was incorrectly tied directly to the tribe. So when Mr. Burnett began to shake things up with the tribal idea (late merges, no merges, three tribes, switcheroos) we were left with an antiquated name for a still viable concept. Call it "Slight of Hand Theory" or "Distraction Theory" or whatever you want (I'm kind of partial to calling it "The Waldo Ultimatum" after the Where's Waldo books where Waldo is on every page but surrounded by fake Waldos vying for our attention), but the idea that the editors will want to tie the winner to the main events of the story and yet highlight others in that story is still completely sound. This is easily the most subjective part of the process but still an essential one. Where do the editor's want us to look, and where should we be looking instead? Who is the distraction and who is the hidden? Which hand is the magician indicating, and which hand actually holds the coin? Who is a Waldo and who is the fake Waldo?

In Closing

The bun, the meat, and the cheese. The VTdiff, the Ratings Grade, and the Waldo Ultimatum. These are the essentials, the core elements to this process and the things upon which this artistic science was erected and still stands. During the season I think these three foundational questions will lead you to the winner almost every time with nary a need for the edgic condiments. But hey, if you want some Mixed tone ketchup on there, or some Strategy rating lettuce, or maybe a bit of Second Person Visibility Bacon to round it out, who am I to judge? You make your edgic cheeseburger however you see fit, just don't forget the key ingredients that make it possible.

Dice

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An Example of Independently Scoring Ratings:

Episode 1: INV (-5), UTR (-2), CP (+2), OTT (-1)
Episodes 2-6: INV (-3), MOR (+1), CP (+1), OTT (-2)
Episodes 7-end: INV (-4), UTR (-1), CP (+2), OTT (-1)

2 OTTS in a row (-2), 3 in a row (-4), 3 UTRS/INVs in a row (-2), 4 in a row (-4) (each addition in a row another -4)


Taking a gander at last season would reveal these ratings scores after episode 6:

Eliza 6
Parvati 4
Cirie 3
Ozzy 2
Jason/Erik/Tracy 0
Alexis/Ami -1
James -5
Kathleen -8
Amanda -9
Natalie -25 (you think that's bad? scroll down.)

Going into the finale the scores would look like this:

Parvati 10
Cirie 9
Amanda -4
Natalie -47 (a feat that shall never be matched.)

I don't have the time (today at least) to run the numbers on every season but it seems like a good indicator at least.

Here are the numbers for the previous winners (post Amber)

Chris: 1 after 6 eps, 15 before finale
Tom: 2/14
Danni: 0/2 (yuck)
Aras: 4/13
Yul: 6/16
Earl: 6/16
Todd: 7/11

Point of clarity, I'm not attempting to change the way edgic is done, simple giving my personal preference on how I come to the winner. I just thought I'd put it out there for debate and conversation. Plus I flat out miss you guys. For all I care you can make a separate Edgic Cheeseburger thread or just ignore it all together, either way I wanted to get it in print. Enjoy Gabon, and maybe I'll pop in a few times.