OK, I may have been wrong to wring my hands over the Sad Puppies. Oh, not over what they’ve done or who they are. No, their actions have been despicable (to quote my favorite duck) — at best inconsiderate, at worst vile. But also, maybe insignificant. I, and most people upset with this debacle, have talked about the Sad Puppies and then also, the lesser Rabid Puppies. I suppose that’s because Brad and Larry and company keep coming up with justifications for their horrible behavior that somehow feel like they need a response, and Vox and his RPs just stay horrible. The Sad Pups are the public face. They seem like they are part of the great whole of fandom, just ones that have picked up a disease, a paranoia, while Vox and the RPs seem to be some outside force of evil. Let’s face it, the man is not exactly subtle. It’s hard to find anyone in modern society who think women shouldn’t vote, so Vox is special.
But the point of all this is, I may have had it backwards. It is distinctly possible that the Sad Puppies had very little effect. That actually, this is the Rabid Puppies and then also, to a lesser extent, Sad Puppies. The Rabid and Sad Puppies slates overlap, so we talk as if it is the Sad ones that won, and then a few Rabid ones. But it is the Rabid ones that took the day. What if the Sad Pups actually failed again, they just happen to have the same entries as the Rabid Pups?
It is getting complicated with both disqualifications and withdrawals (two today), but as best I can determine, the RPs originally had 7 more on the ballot than the SPs, and all of the SPs except one, in a fan category, were on the RPs slate.
I saw this more or less at the beginning, but the Sad Pups are everywhere, so…they are the ones I focused on. But I think now that’s all wrong. They are an also ran. It’s all about the Rabid ones. For days Sad Pups have tried to say anyone who doesn’t like their plotting (that’s me) should stop talking about Vox Day as he is irrelevant. Nope. I think we should be almost exclusively talking about Vox. It is Brad and co that might be irrelevant.