R2M19 Jojolity Concurrence

Judge Pucci (Logic), Concurring:

This is gonna be a long Jojolity delib (and it’s a concurrence at that so it doesn’t even impact scores), and many have already given well-earned praise, which I’m even usually conservative with. As a result, some might say this delib has no point. However, I’ve long said that I prefer to vote/delib when I have something novel to say, and I’ve been mulling over these strats for days, so allow me to delay results by a bit.

Zeroth, I’ve said the standard for Philosophy Jojolities so many times that frankly if you don’t know them going into Round 3, god help you. “Define the philosophy and reify your definition with mechanical plays”—see many of our and my past delibs for how this legal rule was derived, particularly my R2M16 Jojolity Delib. I start at square 0 because the Constitutional value for Jojolity delibing is “(primarily mechanical) incorporation”, looking for creativity, robustness, and integrality.

‘Robustness’ was a word we took a while to come to, rejecting words that precluded the possibility of high scores for one singular play or framework that has a profound impact on the strategy as a whole.

As I read the strats themselves, I was impressed by the narrative, but didn’t find the Jojolity to have a strong impact on the tactics themselves. Fredrick still plays as a swarm/minion user, and Gishimmar attempts to close the gap and devour him, but they already play within D RGE, so one could question the resulting materiality. I was reminded of my comments on ‘Rkto’s strat whose “emphasis on setplay and lasting injury to wear down Amal fits the [Embody Death Philosophy Jojolity], but part of me wondered if it’s similar to ‘doing the Jojolity by using one’s Stand; put another way, how much would the Strat have changed if a different Jojolity assigned?’”

Put two other ways, “is the Jojolity just a fresh coat of paint over usual play” and “would the strat be materially different had another Jojolity been given”? These counterfactual concerns are persuasive and illustrative of a “lack of implementation”, but they suffer the same flaws as all counterfactuals: they didn’t happen so we’ll never know if it would be materially different.

In that Pollyanna delib, moreover, I mentioned that Narrative can become Mechanical, even if the standards for such a conclusion are “I know it when I see it.” Given the clear emphasis on Narrative and Creative weaving of humanist themes into meditations on the nature of godhood, sin, and power, it would be stupid to conclude that this gets lower than an 8.

Given my observation of ludonarrative synergy (which is what netted Type-03 a 9 to Pollyanna’s 8), I had concluded that I would give flat 9s if I delibbed. But given this concurrence is still going, you can tell that it doesn’t end there.

10s are notoriously and understandably difficult to get; building on the standards of 0-9s, to push to a 10, I simply ask whether a strat “makes me feel things,” which speaks to the “transcendent” connotation of a 10. Yet, I’ve similarly emphasized that a 10 doesn’t need to be perfect—they just need to make me ‘feel.’

I gave flat 9s to Amal and Rkto, took a shower, then changed them to 10s. I internally gave flat 9s to Gishimmar and Fredrick, then walked around DC for a day, mulling over the strats.

I think Jojo is about three things, most convincingly of which is “cosmopolitan localism” (or “localist cosmopolitanism, depending on the scope you look at the series)—a celebration of the localities, the particulars of places and cultures from New York City to India to a Japanese suburb to Italy to the 1890 Continental US. A localism that I think is best espoused by the late Anthony Bourdain.

A localism that I’ve been vocal in saying Joint/JJOCT has lacked.

When we decided on T6’s location and I claimed Morocco as my place of interest, I found a (children’s) book on the country, which included a recipe for Chicken Tangine. I didn’t have a tagine pot, but I followed the recipe as best as I could. I fucked it up a few times (the potatos and carrots were undercooked the first time, I misapporotioned the seasoning for the chicken the second), but stuck with it and it’s become one of my favorite recipes, to the point that I order it when I go to DC’s many Mediterranean restaurants.

We’re a bunch of young adults largely in the US and Canada; we don’t have firsthand experiences with these places, but we can at least point to them and say “this is cool!” and maybe learn something from them as well. This isn’t an exam where you’re trying to answer an arbitrary list of questions correctly, but a buffet, whose dishes you’re showcasing and updating as you learn and understand. You mess up the chicken, you make it again, and you learn how to better season food as a whole.

COLOSSI has had the reveal of “Wah is a demon” in their back pocket for a few months, but wove it into the history and mythology of the Fertile Crescent here and brought it forward into context of T6 and general meditations on the nature of sin. (Fuck you, Augustine, bite this pears.) Fredrick performs a more syncretic analysis of ancestor worship across the globe and ties AE’s assigned Greek God, her syncretized Punic goddess analogue, Tanit, and the match location itself, to further highlight Fredrick’s delusions of grandeur as rooted within (the breaking) of his familial ties. I can easily praise the weaving of all these threads into single strats (Judge Discloud does a more comprehensive job than me), but frankly I’m more impressed by the willingness to try something so ambitious.

This isn’t a first attempt for these teams either; you’ve seen their past work with Philosophy Jojolities, and my grades have fluctuated slightly as they’ve refined their approaches to them. (See generally R1 Rkto, R1 Solsbury, R2 Jamir/Izuru, R2 Marissa, et al.) But it is in the attempt, iteration, and reattempt that you learn and you proceed. Progress isn’t a straight line, but as a judge, I’m blessed to be able to take a step back and see the growth and culmination here.

Indeed, I recently reread the strats. Do you know what I felt in return? Gratitude.

Maybe the reason why it didn’t immediately register is that the strats “met my expectations”, met the desire for people to engage with the setting and weave it into their own work in the spirit of that cosmopolitan localism. The strats did everything I could ask for without realizing that I had asked for it. Fitting then, that they were helmed by newcomers unburdened by the patterns of past tournaments but supported by veterans whose work I greatly respect.

Respect does not put you above reproach. It’s important to not rest on one’s laurels, and doing the work once doesn’t mean you’ve done it forever. I’ve given my comments on ludonarrative and tactical influence above: another frontier to continue on, new suns to chase, heights you may still climb. But you would never see those peaks, if you didn’t reach this one.

It’s not an exam and never think of it as such, but you did get the assignment.

Flat 10s. Now pass the salt; COLOSSI, how long did you grill this thing for!?