On re-reading Gumshoe (I should point out that major credit should be going to Ard for getting on his case quite so early, which is presumably a major part of what drew NK1):
Early day one play groups Guildenstern and Whim together. This connects with Gilgamesh's final post at
#227, which is clearly their final toss of the dice in hoping that we won't be able to differentiate between the two of them. I'm a little flummoxed by his vote on Guildenstern at
#54, but by the time it's removed at
#87 there was never any real threat of it taking hold (Oddjob at
#81 is the only one in the frame who says anything even remotely implying that a vote might be heading towards Guildenstern).
Come day two and suddenly (
#129) Guildenstern is forgotten and Whim's his second spot after his continued push for Oddjob, and at
#160 he downplays the relevance of my case on Guildenstern (in
#157), and okay, I think that's pretty damning in itself, actually. This Guildenstern love continues in
#167, and
#173 again pushes Whim over Guildenstern.
#175 actually weirded me out at the time, but I didn't comment on it at the time and since forgotten it. He phrases the current vote structure as two conflicts of Gumshoe versus Oddjob and Axem versus Smithers, and kind of pushes for one scum from each pair. Sure, whatever. What's important here is that there was a
third direct conflict - Gilgamesh versus Guildenstern - that he didn't draw attention to. Unfortunately I can't press this as strongly as I'd like as it could simply be that he was keeping the attention off of Gilgamesh, but I can't help but think the importance was to keep it off a scum pair.
This leaves
#196 - The Final Wurgle - in which he professes an intent to vote for Whim, but then moves to the weasels on the Axems' behest, in which I have to decide just how genuine all of those internal ninja edits are.
And man, even in day three he professes the likely scum team as 'Whim/Guild/Gilga' (
#216), the emphasis being on Whim. Incredibly minor point, but it's the minor things that really make the glue for me after the big things have made the structure relatively sound.
So yeah, I'm not sure I even need to bother reading up on Guildenstern and oldWhim. I remember well enough how badly/scummily Guildenstern had been playing, and Gumshoe/Guildenstern buddy buddy with Gilgamesh there as the back up bussing plan just looks so damn clear with that.
I
am now going to re-read Guildenstern and oldWhim while waiting for Oddjob to pop his head in again, but I'm announcing at this point my clear intent to vote for Guildenstern.
