People sometimes complain that the delegates for each nation are very stereotypical: Jiyel has very logical scholars, Wellin uptight nobles happy to abuse their power, the Skalt delegation is all warrior ladies, Corval scheming courtiers, et al. the brillance kicks in when you think about how each country picks it's delegates: a potential Corvali has to gain favors and eliminate rivals; Jiyel only picks the highest scorers on a test; Skalt picks for a show of power. The very methods they use to pick ensure their delegates will be stereotypical.
Fitting for the only democracy of sorts, Hise has the most relatively equitable method, in which a hopeful delegate has to win a contest; drinking, dueling, ship racing, improvisational poetry, most of which do favor pirate-y people, but there are a few more spots appointed by their leaders for the closest they have to nobility.
Fridge Tear Jerker: you're not the only one to get torn apart by the Matchmaker. Each and every delegate is very likely to have experienced the same. For some, that's not such a bad thing. A few, like Avalie, would be able to take most of it in stride. Others, like Blain and Jarrod, rather deserve to be taken down a peg or two. But then there's those like Lyon, Emmett and Penelope. Imagining any of them having to sit through such a verbal dissection is not a pleasant thought.
A Fridge Horror moment related to the Matchmaker: if you try to make the Matchmaker like you in Week 1 by slipping a drug into her tea that makes people feel pleasant and friendly, it won't work, because as she explains, the Matchmaker has developed an immunity to the drug. The question is, why has she developed an immunity? Have lots of other people attempted to drug her before?
If the Jiyel MC gets sent home by the Matchmaker, she very likely dies of her poisoning.
