[MENTION=35381]Gemini[/MENTION], you said this in the showmance thread (and gave me another brainworm in the process!) :
I'm curious, what do you think would have happened if he had just shot her down 100%? Do you think she would have been evicted soon after? I keep trying to work it out. Would Jade have given up? At what point did he need to shoot her down and not take it back? After the first kisses in the first weeks? After sharing a bed 4 weeks in?
What does everyone think would have happened if he HADN'T taken it back. If he had just gone with it from the start, or at least after they shared a bed the first time? Would he have been popular? Would she have been AS popular? If they had continued their relationship but managed to stay friends with everyone and not isolate themselves, would they have made the finals together? Or would Ed just have draggged Jade down with him sooner?
Please discuss...lol.
I really don't know. That post of mine was referring to Ed's popularity in response to a call that he was the victim who couldn't have done anything. I was just disagreeing and saying there was plenty he could have done that probably would won him more fans. Not sure what it would have meant for Jade if things had have been different.
Jade already had a huge fanbase before she was even allowed to pursue Ed at all due to the marriage task. She seemed to pick up the majority of the Drade fanbase as well when Drew ran completely off the rails with Tully...and I think that's saying something because guys as pretty as Drew are usually the ones that get the support. I should add that I wasn't a Jade fan in the first couple of weeks. I had a preconceived idea of what she was going to be like, and I adored Drew at the time and thought she was batshit crazy for not returning his feelings. With time though, as Drew became more and more unlikable and I realised that Jade was actually nothing like the preconceived idea I had of her, my alliances switched and I never looked back. Suddenly my anger with her for not liking Drew was replaced with respect when I started to see what he was really like.
It's impossible to tell if Jade would have gone as far if Ed had have properly shut her down and JadEd stopped early on. I can see it from both sides. On one hand I think she would have been more popular in general because from what I've read around it seems like the Ed stuff is the only thing anyone really had against her. However on the other hand, due to not having that hate she copped due to the Ed stuff, there may not have been as much motivation for her fans to vote hard. She also got a massive groundswell of support in the final week when Ed left, and from what I read, that seemed party from sympathy and party from people liking the person she was without him. She's always had a huge fanbase, but I'm not sure if she would have gotten so close to the win without that late surge.
I'm not shocked she made the top 3, but I am a bit shocked she beat Tahan and got within 2% of winning.