- Sep 20, 2018
- 3,208
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First of all, Kathleen uses more than just an unthinking carrot and a stick. Her manipulation of Hana is direct but entirely carrot; the whole point is that Hana is effectively clubbing herself with her own stick. Likewise her decision to leave punishments entirely in the hands of a drugged Veronica in the event of a tie in the punishment game shows a very precise application of the stick then ensures the girls will be busy blaming each other in addition to Kathleen. I count that as successful manipulation. Would she have done even better if she'd successfuly hidden her involvement? I doubt it.
Second, why do you think Kathleen blew her chance to get the MC to indulge himself with the cattle prod? Even if that was her top priority (which is debatable), her approach strikes me as pretty reasonable. Sure, it can fail if we as the player choose to defy her, but that would be true of ANY approach. Kathleen could have gone all out and set up a super-subtle scenario where the MC stumbled upon a chance to abuse an unlikable person without anyone else learning about it- and remember, she only has two weeks left in the competition so the clock is ticking - and I'm still not going to let the MC do it because I don't like that sort of thing. Whereas if I did enjoy tormenting girls in an AVN, Kathleen's approach would have been more than sufficient.
Even if we try to take the player out of it and look strictly at the 'canonical' baseline Edwin, I question the view that a subtle approach would be more effective than an overt one. We *know* the MC is tempted to indulge his sadism. What's holding him back is his vestigial conscience, strengthened by Victoria's admonishment to bottle his anger so he can fit in to society. To break that down Kathleen can't just present the MC with opportunities, she needs to challenge the basic premise. And that's precisely what she did with her birthday present: gave the MC a chance to explore his darker impulses in a safe and technically licit setting. If that wasn't enough to tempt the MC, I'm skeptical a subtler approach would have done better.
Subtlety is a great tool for manipulation, but it's best used when the manipulator needs to isolate themselves from the consequences of their manipulations or prevent their own reputation from influencing the victim. When it comes to tempting the MC, neither of those apply. Embracing the consequences of sadism (and encouraging the MC to do the same) is very much the point, and if the MC balks at that purely to spite Kathleen then he isn't what Kathleen is looking for in the first place.
So yeah, Kathleen's MO is decidedly unsubtle, but a) that doesn't make her ineffective, and b) that doesn't necessarily indicate she's incapable of subtlety in a situation that really demands it.
They were definitely filming, the question is whether that tape will ever be seen outside the Club. My guess is no. When you're running an illegal prostitution ring, I don't think you release videos of the event that can easily be traced back to Club employees and/or their known associates.
