Post by David Price on Oct 5, 2012 14:51:51 GMT -8
I was approached by several Primogen this last weekend in response to the letter from Emile d'Anglars. I was urged to write a letter with a particular tone, a letter I assured the Primogen that I was capable of writing.
I wrote that letter. It included quite a few fun witty turns of phrase, such as comments regarding Seattle not being in Europe, and commentary that it was in fact the other side of the argument that bid to increase the power of Harpy to reach cross Domains. It took offense to the word "crime" being used so casually, and reiterated that a Harpy's position is only that which the Primogen support - if a Harpy were to claim that it was as scandal to have a Z in one's name and still manage to retain the full support of his Primogen council in doing so, I would advise people to start thinking about changing how they spell their name.
But then I read through the letter again, and I read through Emile's letter again.
This last week Violet Mary, the Grand Harpy of the Camarilla, sent letters to each of the Primogen that were supporting me. She was commenting that they should not have chosen a kindred that did not want the position (or one that was known as Nice, for that matter) to enact the will of the council. I apologize to the Primogen for this situation- I believe there was a miscommunication on my part to Violet Mary. I did say that I did not want the position originally. I did not intend to indicate to Violet Mary that I was unwilling to serve, however. The Primogen honored me with their support and I felt it was my duty to serve the domain how I could.
Interestingly, despite the multiple letters this domain has received, a grand total of one Primogen has removed their support from me. I am gratified by their support.
But I can no longer serve the domain in this position. The letters the domain has received have focused on me, and not on the domain's voice. While I retain the position the Camarilla will always view the situation as my personal power grab, as opposed to the voice of the domain that the position of Harpy should represent. The proper way for me to serve the domain is to step down, and to let a new name take on those responsibilities. I would hope that the next Harpy will retain at least some of what I've done to help set Seattle back on its path to respecting standing.
I would like to take a moment to explain to Harpies everywhere part of my reasons for pursuing this path.
In my time as Harpy, not counting status strips from Primogen or Prince, or any status that would be lost due to the questionnaire currently distributed to the Primogen, I personally have removed over twenty points of status from the kindred of Seattle in the last four and a half months. That's over a scandal a week. Seattle has long had problems with scandals not being called when they should- people of high standing retaining it even when they've lost the respect of the majority of the domain. And that is what I feel status should mean - the respect that a kindred is due. Seattle has not had that for some time.
So there are two questions that needed to be asked - what could be done to fix it, and how did it happen in the first place? The first was fairly straightforward - I began polling the Primogen to see what kindred in the domain deserved respect, and began educating the populace about what should be expected of various kindred's levels of standing.
The second was trickier. Finally I came to realize that the reason people weren't respecting status was because there were too many high standing kindred who were coming to Seattle and then not doing anything worthy of respect. This combined with the fact that high status kindred in the domain were being executed or banished for being traitors combines to form what's called "guilt by association". As an example, the Assamites in Seattle are currently dealing with that same sort of situation- after Marcus McKnight was publicly branded as somebody who was burning churches, and Samuel Lechley attempted to break the sixth tradition, and Seth McManus committed diablerie… the only remaining Assamite is Fausto (and Al-Ishibar, who I am given to understand is just visiting). How is Fausto supposed to earn respect in that situation? Anything he does will be looked at with suspicion and doubt.
The same was true of high status kindred in Seattle. Sometimes it seems like there have been more high standing kindred in Seattle that have been traitors than have actually solved major problems facing the city. This damages the Camarilla as a whole, and it was my duty to fight that however I could.
I felt that if high status kindred were put into a position where they had a strong encouragement to prove their worth, followed by a public statement of support from the Harpy of the domain, this would be a strong step towards fixing the problem. And I felt that temporarily losing a standing would be a small price to pay for having your standing reaffirmed in the eyes of a city that has been burned too many times. Dario received that reaffirmation and I understand he's had a good measure of respect as a result. I am glad my plan worked in that regard. People from outside the city won't be able to have this opportunity, but I'd invite them to come see how much respect Dario receives from the city, compared to Seraphina, who had her status restored by Cecilia (and thus not the Harpy), or with Dragos or Richard Gamble, both of whom came in with that much standing before my declaration.
Admittedly as a side effect, kindred who were high status but were unable to back it up in any meaningful way would have their status removed. It would seem to me that people who are going to be an embarrassment to themselves would rather have it happen as part of a blanket "everybody has to deal with this" as opposed to being singled out and embarrassed. So I felt that this was clearly a win-win situation, and made sure to make it public so that anybody who did not want to have to deal with this situation would not come to Seattle.
And yet, two weeks later several kindred did. I may have seemed a little harsher than intended because of the proximity to the initial announcement. While people have lambasted me for my words of accusation, it was always my intention to include the option that they were genuinely here to help.
I'm sure many people will comment that I could have resolved this whole situation just by saying the sentence "Cecilia has her status of Persuasive returned to her." There's a few problems with that, though. And they all pretty much boil down to the fact that I don't believe the domain respects her enough for her to deserve to have that much status. Regardless of whether the reason for the loss was valid or not, her actions in this city has not led to the populace being very impressed by her. Saying "Cecilia has her status restored to her… and now it's gone again." might appease some people or counter some arguments, and I've had a few people suggest I do just that. But I really think that's silly, and if doing so would actually solve anything I would be embarrassed to solve a problem in that manner. So I'm not going to do that. I recently sent a questionnaire to the Primogen asking how they feel about many of the various kindred in the domain. If they return a vote that Cecilia deserves more status, I'll be the first one to applaud her restoration of respect.
I mentioned that I was resigning the position of Harpy. I do not do so in admission of defeat, or because I believe I was wrong in my actions, or even because things are too difficult to deal with. I am stepping down because I believe the position of the city can be best solidified by a successor interpreting my actions and the will of the Primogen council, and because I honestly have more important things to be doing than arguing over this. As I will be detailing more in my Harpy report, Bruce Cook, our Sheriff, died this last week taking down an infernalist. I feel that spending my nights repeatedly detailing my position in this matter of status will distract me from what should be my primary focus, the safety of the domain.
I have asked most of the high status kindred of the domain as to which positions they feel they could perform. Out of the kindred that said they could perform the job of Harpy (and are not otherwise occupied in other positions), Heron has the most status. I would suggest that the Primogen consider him for my replacement. I will of course continue to perform the duties of the position until a change is final.
I wrote that letter. It included quite a few fun witty turns of phrase, such as comments regarding Seattle not being in Europe, and commentary that it was in fact the other side of the argument that bid to increase the power of Harpy to reach cross Domains. It took offense to the word "crime" being used so casually, and reiterated that a Harpy's position is only that which the Primogen support - if a Harpy were to claim that it was as scandal to have a Z in one's name and still manage to retain the full support of his Primogen council in doing so, I would advise people to start thinking about changing how they spell their name.
But then I read through the letter again, and I read through Emile's letter again.
This last week Violet Mary, the Grand Harpy of the Camarilla, sent letters to each of the Primogen that were supporting me. She was commenting that they should not have chosen a kindred that did not want the position (or one that was known as Nice, for that matter) to enact the will of the council. I apologize to the Primogen for this situation- I believe there was a miscommunication on my part to Violet Mary. I did say that I did not want the position originally. I did not intend to indicate to Violet Mary that I was unwilling to serve, however. The Primogen honored me with their support and I felt it was my duty to serve the domain how I could.
Interestingly, despite the multiple letters this domain has received, a grand total of one Primogen has removed their support from me. I am gratified by their support.
But I can no longer serve the domain in this position. The letters the domain has received have focused on me, and not on the domain's voice. While I retain the position the Camarilla will always view the situation as my personal power grab, as opposed to the voice of the domain that the position of Harpy should represent. The proper way for me to serve the domain is to step down, and to let a new name take on those responsibilities. I would hope that the next Harpy will retain at least some of what I've done to help set Seattle back on its path to respecting standing.
I would like to take a moment to explain to Harpies everywhere part of my reasons for pursuing this path.
In my time as Harpy, not counting status strips from Primogen or Prince, or any status that would be lost due to the questionnaire currently distributed to the Primogen, I personally have removed over twenty points of status from the kindred of Seattle in the last four and a half months. That's over a scandal a week. Seattle has long had problems with scandals not being called when they should- people of high standing retaining it even when they've lost the respect of the majority of the domain. And that is what I feel status should mean - the respect that a kindred is due. Seattle has not had that for some time.
So there are two questions that needed to be asked - what could be done to fix it, and how did it happen in the first place? The first was fairly straightforward - I began polling the Primogen to see what kindred in the domain deserved respect, and began educating the populace about what should be expected of various kindred's levels of standing.
The second was trickier. Finally I came to realize that the reason people weren't respecting status was because there were too many high standing kindred who were coming to Seattle and then not doing anything worthy of respect. This combined with the fact that high status kindred in the domain were being executed or banished for being traitors combines to form what's called "guilt by association". As an example, the Assamites in Seattle are currently dealing with that same sort of situation- after Marcus McKnight was publicly branded as somebody who was burning churches, and Samuel Lechley attempted to break the sixth tradition, and Seth McManus committed diablerie… the only remaining Assamite is Fausto (and Al-Ishibar, who I am given to understand is just visiting). How is Fausto supposed to earn respect in that situation? Anything he does will be looked at with suspicion and doubt.
The same was true of high status kindred in Seattle. Sometimes it seems like there have been more high standing kindred in Seattle that have been traitors than have actually solved major problems facing the city. This damages the Camarilla as a whole, and it was my duty to fight that however I could.
I felt that if high status kindred were put into a position where they had a strong encouragement to prove their worth, followed by a public statement of support from the Harpy of the domain, this would be a strong step towards fixing the problem. And I felt that temporarily losing a standing would be a small price to pay for having your standing reaffirmed in the eyes of a city that has been burned too many times. Dario received that reaffirmation and I understand he's had a good measure of respect as a result. I am glad my plan worked in that regard. People from outside the city won't be able to have this opportunity, but I'd invite them to come see how much respect Dario receives from the city, compared to Seraphina, who had her status restored by Cecilia (and thus not the Harpy), or with Dragos or Richard Gamble, both of whom came in with that much standing before my declaration.
Admittedly as a side effect, kindred who were high status but were unable to back it up in any meaningful way would have their status removed. It would seem to me that people who are going to be an embarrassment to themselves would rather have it happen as part of a blanket "everybody has to deal with this" as opposed to being singled out and embarrassed. So I felt that this was clearly a win-win situation, and made sure to make it public so that anybody who did not want to have to deal with this situation would not come to Seattle.
And yet, two weeks later several kindred did. I may have seemed a little harsher than intended because of the proximity to the initial announcement. While people have lambasted me for my words of accusation, it was always my intention to include the option that they were genuinely here to help.
I'm sure many people will comment that I could have resolved this whole situation just by saying the sentence "Cecilia has her status of Persuasive returned to her." There's a few problems with that, though. And they all pretty much boil down to the fact that I don't believe the domain respects her enough for her to deserve to have that much status. Regardless of whether the reason for the loss was valid or not, her actions in this city has not led to the populace being very impressed by her. Saying "Cecilia has her status restored to her… and now it's gone again." might appease some people or counter some arguments, and I've had a few people suggest I do just that. But I really think that's silly, and if doing so would actually solve anything I would be embarrassed to solve a problem in that manner. So I'm not going to do that. I recently sent a questionnaire to the Primogen asking how they feel about many of the various kindred in the domain. If they return a vote that Cecilia deserves more status, I'll be the first one to applaud her restoration of respect.
I mentioned that I was resigning the position of Harpy. I do not do so in admission of defeat, or because I believe I was wrong in my actions, or even because things are too difficult to deal with. I am stepping down because I believe the position of the city can be best solidified by a successor interpreting my actions and the will of the Primogen council, and because I honestly have more important things to be doing than arguing over this. As I will be detailing more in my Harpy report, Bruce Cook, our Sheriff, died this last week taking down an infernalist. I feel that spending my nights repeatedly detailing my position in this matter of status will distract me from what should be my primary focus, the safety of the domain.
I have asked most of the high status kindred of the domain as to which positions they feel they could perform. Out of the kindred that said they could perform the job of Harpy (and are not otherwise occupied in other positions), Heron has the most status. I would suggest that the Primogen consider him for my replacement. I will of course continue to perform the duties of the position until a change is final.