~Violet Valkyrie: The Dahlia Hawthorne Story~
Where do we begin with the tale of Violet in this game? I think it's best to go back two seasons to BB8: Friends and Enemies. At the time, BB8 was widely considered to be Violet's best game. She ruled the pre-jury stage of the game with an iron grip, gathering tons of allies, playing hard in competitions, and aggressively pushing the evictions of some of her largest enemies in the game. She was evicted on the last week the votes would have ever made it possible, and her style of gameplay was widely seen as powerful and independent, making her a shoo-in to win if she ever made it to the Final 2. Coming off of that game, you'd think that be an easy candidate for early eviction and be forced to play that intense, attention-drawing type of game if she ever intended to make it far.
And yet Vi took the exact opposite approach and used it to brilliant effect. It was a complete reinvention of anything people associated with Violet. She completely revamped her social game, building super strong connections from the very start. Not only did she have her incredibly strong alliance with Lily as always, she got herself in tighter with a bunch of other players. She was one of the main founders of Hibana, becoming a super close ally of mine from the start and bringing Ephe, Flour, and Vom into the fold quite soon after. She gained mirdo's trust and a deal with him early on, helping to scout him and working with me to help persuade him to do what he did on Week 1. She had a three person alliance early on with TLS and Mora, getting information from them that way. Even Quaking trusted her a lot early on. That's a ton of players that at some point or another had huge trust in her to take them far in the game. Make no mistake: the Violet with tons of allies in BB8 was nothing close to this Violet, who at the very least was like BB8 Violet except with 3 Ravens by her side or something. Even if something would go wrong, even if mirdo lost trust in her, even if her game was discovered to some degree, she had so many allies going to bat for her that it simply didn't matter. She had managed to set herself up to be even more invincible than she was in the past.
There's a reason I gave this the title it has, and that's because I feel like Vi's game in a way mirrored the strategy of Dahlia Hawthorne. At the beginning of the game, she was this Dahlia, who uses her social skills to avoid suspicion:
She managed to convince tons of players that she was on their side, protecting herself and eliminating any chance of a quick elimination in this game. Instead of taking control over everything, she made schemes in the background, beginning to eliminate the enemies and threats to her game. But the method of this was so different than it was in the past, with her not needing to win a single competition before the jury stage of the game (except for the Parroting immunity challenge, where she did super well, scoring her first social comp win ever). It was already a powerful reinvention of her past games.
As the game progressed, Vi began to take the game into her own hands, winning competitions and eliminating the players against her. She had become this more powerful Dahlia:
She emerged from under the radar to begin to take control of the game. Mora, who recognized how strong her and my games were? She backdoored him in her HOH. When people began to see her as the strong player and threat she was, she was placed on the block, but it barely mattered. She won the POV to save herself and evicted a target in Aria. Just as Dahlia was so hard to catch, with so many people in awe of her and willing to lie and sacrifice themselves to save her from being convicted, Violet, despite her known status as a major player, was able to stay around, surviving a unanimous vote in the Triple Eviction on the strength of her connections.
By the end of the game, Violet was a known power player, and began to fight for her spot at the end. She had transformed into her ultimate form, the power player we knew her as in BB8:
Even with her full power as a
spirit medium power player and comp beast revealed to all, Violet was still a force to be reckoned with, going for her goals, winning the F5 HOH comp, surviving a nomination at F4, and being super close to victory in Part 1 of the F3 HOH. Her hard work and eight amazing weeks put her one spot away from the finale, allowing her to make it back to her greatest finish in PBBB.
Violet, I've said so much that you have played amazingly this game and have so much to be proud of for a reason, and that was your game. You, as one of the best PBBB players of all time, still managed to reinvent your strategy to be more effective than ever, with your strongest social and strategic games of all time, removing any reliance on the comp beast Violet of the past. Not only that, but you removed pretty much all of your past mistakes as a player, especially avoiding the fights that had made you a target in the game. It was amazing witnessing you grow as a player and do so well this season. There's a reason I had to evict you at the end here, and it was because of your amazing game and your great reinvention of yourself as a player. And even then, it crushed me to do so, knowing how hard you'd worked, how well you'd played, and how close friend of mine you are.
By adapting to the situation, changing her playstyle, gaining trust with her social game, and making strategic moves to get to the end, Violet definitely played a game easily deserving of a win.
