User blog comment:Rhonda the stalker fan!/Rhonda's Random Rankings/@comment-1874924-20181223170236/@comment-1874924-20190115041216

Geoff also had a big role in Bridgette’s 2500-word dreams sequence; but because it was a dream sequence, I suppose it doesn’t count for the purpose of character ranking. And you’re right, Katie and Sadie have grown into sufficiently different characters that they shouldn’t share a ranking spot.

Speaking of recent visibility, Gwen has gotten only moderately less focus than Katie through most of the story, but I think Gwen’s focus tends to be more concentrated in certain chapters, much as it was in the original. Katie’s focus is more uniform because she’s in Heather’s orbit, and Heather is LTDI’s dramatic center of gravity, although Katie has also gotten significant focus apart from Heather, most notably the hypothermia and wendigo incidents. Using the number of times a character is mentioned by name as a reasonable (however imperfect) measure of focus, Heather has about a third more reps than any other camper—nearly as many as Chris, who will normally have the most due to the nature of his role. Among the campers, Courtney and Katie have been dueling for the #2 spot for most of the story, because any storyline or major scene that doesn’t involve Heather’s alliance in some way is apt to involve Courtney.

After Courtney and Katie, there’s a bit of a drop to Gwen at #4, although that margin is less than it’s usually been because Gwen has had more focus the last couple of chapters. Then there’s another fair-sized drop to Cody and Lindsay, and another of similar size to Duncan and the now-departed Ezekiel, who have about half the reps Heather has. Largely because of Heather’s alliance, focus throughout the story has been consistently tilted to the Eagles’ players, with about a 60/40 split.

I don’t think you previously mentioned that tidbit about only three campers making the merge in canon but not in LTDI, but that number is a bit misleading for a couple of reasons. First, since you count returners as reaching the merge, that means only ten didn’t reach the merge in TDI, so three differences is still an overall difference rate of 30%. Second, the seven who reached the merge in both include two who were early outs in LTDI and reached the merge only because they returned, so that perforce meant a big difference in focus for those two in the interim.

Among the true overlap (i.e., the remaining 5 canonical pre-merge boots), four placed within three spots of their canonical placement, but you probably didn’t really notice because they were concentrated in the last half of the team phase; and by then, you (and, presumably, most of LTDI’s readers) had been conditioned to expect significant differences because boots #2-5 all reached the merge in canon.

As for the stars being different, this is partly due to the difference in Heather’s alliance roster. Having Katie and Sadie instead of Beth meant more exposure for the Wonder Twins at Beth’s expense, even without the ancillary storylines, and also affected the alliance dynamic because, for various reasons, Katie and Sadie are more willing to stand up to Heather. The Geoff/Bridgette ship was a major first-half storyline in canon, but in LTDI those two were early boots (with the implication that the good ship Gidgette is sailing offscreen) so other storylines took its place, most notably Courtney’s campaign to reeducate Ezekiel and D.J.’s vendetta. Likewise, Courtney and Duncan’s “good angel, bad angel” relationship with Zeke pretty much replaces the canonical D/C ship. And of course, the canonical early outs who lasted a lot longer in LTDI needed enough focus to justify that.