When Pride Turns to Folly: The John Vasa Story, By Z.D.S
I would like to preface this by saying that John has been a friend of mine for a long time, since near the beginning of my military career. There even was a time when he and James F. Zor were the two people I was closest with on Graal. However, there is an issue that must be addressed.
Unfortunately, I believe that over the past few years, John Vasa, or John whichever one of his pokemon card collection of last names he is going by, has been consumed by, and become the true embodiments of all the main issues that plague the military community. He has become increasingly ignorant, easily manipulated, entitled, and has developed one of the most inflated egos I have seen in a long time. As much as I would like to talk to all of these issues, I will only be talking about his inflated ego and extremely entitled behavior. I believe these, and the examples of these, can be learned the most from. Many in the community have large egos, feel entitled to positions/ranks, or are just too prideful in general. This is something to be wary of, too much pride inevitably leads to folly.
The first example of this with John is well known, but not documented anywhere on this wiki as of the writing of this piece. It took place during the New Sarovian Empire, over the summer of 2016. The NSE was running to a fair amount of success, Emperor Constantine had done a good job building an empire. I was a part of the government of the empire, but still mainly acting as an advisor as I have in many guilds. There were two named princes of Sarovia, Outlaw and John. Both actually did very well in their positions, however, Outlaw was less willing to blindly follow every decision Sherlock made, thus John was the favored prince. Despite John being the favorite prince of the emperor, the members of the guild favored Outlaw. Outlaw's personality fit that of a leader much more, and he was actually able to handle a crisis, unlike John, who was only comptent when things were going well. At one point James F. Zor returned to the game, and Sherlock saw this as an opportunity to implement a "council", to have some say on the affairs of the empire. James was chairman of this council, and I myself was a member.
One day, Sherlock called a meeting with the council and the two princes. He informed us that despite the success of the empire, he had grown tired. He felt he was wasting too much time on graal, pretty much no lifing it the entire summer, not getting as much sleep, etc. He said he wanted to take a break so that he can attempt to have an actual life for the remaining part of the summer. He asked those present how they think him "leaving" should be handled by the guild. John immediately started clamoring to take up the position himself. John, in the aftermath of everything, would claim that Sherlock had promised that he would be heir to the throne should it ever come to it. However, nothing Sherlock said or did in the meeting would even give a slight indication that John's claims were true, or if they were that the offer was serious. In the meeting, Sherlock continuously asked for more suggestions. John continuously begged to be given the position himself. James, myself, and outlaw all had varying suggestions as well. In the end, it was decided that the new emperor would be selected by a vote amongst government members and military officers above a certain rank. After the vote, Sherlock announced the results, and that the new emperor of Sarovia would be Outlaw.
This announcement began the first time I saw myself truly disappointed in John, and what I still hold to this day to be the sorriest display of bullshit ever to be seen in graal military history. First, John seemed to maturely accept the decision, and congratulated outlaw. We dismissed from the meeting, and Sherlock announced the results to the public. About five minutes after, John invited me to his guild house, he had a handful of soldiers there and told me they were planning a coup to contest the throne. Another five minutes later, he instead decided to break off his guild from Sarovia, rename it, and create an enemy guild. Ten minutes after that, he had rejoined Sarovia, but was still plotting with his few loyalists. Five minutes after that, he and James F. Zor invited me and told me they were planning on remaking James' old empire, Valikorlia. I agreed, as the old Valikorlia had been fun. John then renamed his guild for the second time to Valikorlia, and made himself king. James had believed as Valikorlia was originally his, and that he had been king of the other Valikorlia's, that he would be king again, so he informed John that unless he led it, he prefered John not use Valikorlia. John then renamed the guild again. This cycle continued for a painfully long amount of time, in the end John went through 6 guild renames, 2 planned coups, and two hours of everyone's life. While Outlaw and Sherlock were trying to calm John down during this, he was completely unable to accept that he wasn't chosen to be emperor, and continued his irrational tantrum, which unfortunately lead to the fall of the New Sarovian Empire that very night.
Now, everybody makes mistakes now and then, that is perfectly understandable. However, in the aftermath of your mistake, you should at least have the dignity to admit your mistakes and the wisdom to learn from them. I asked John about this whole Sarovian incident about a year after it went down. He still to this date believes everything he did was 100% justified. In his warped sense of reality, he has deluded himself into believing the entire thing was a pre-orchestrated conspiracy by James and Outlaw to seize power from him. To clear this up, James was against the idea of voting for a new emperor, he wanted the council to take a higher role, but to also give BOTH princes more weight among the council, as to make their positions more worth, when his idea failed to be chosen, he abstained from the vote for emperor. The officers of the military, however, all preferred Outlaw. There was no bribery or pre-planned conspiracy, the people within the guild simply felt that he was the more worthy candidate. Had John recognized this, even in the aftermath, and at least acknowledged his mistake rather than create some convoluted 4chan conspiracy theory to excuse it, than I probably wouldn't even be writing this. Sherlock, who now has John wrapped around his finger, recently admitted to me in a private conversation that John had been in the wrong there. John however is too prideful to admit the mistake he made over a year ago that destroyed what was arguably the only good era of Sarovia.
Now, if that example isn't enough for you, there is a more recent, albeit in some cases more minor, showing of John's several issues. As I mentioned earlier, John collects names like they are pennies. One of the families that John was a part of was Magnus, the Royal Family of Imperia. Magnus is a family that dates back to early 2014. John, for a laundry list of reasons, was kicked from the family, as well as the guild, "Magnus", towards the end of the summer. He realized this eventually, and eventually, when Xinke, who is one of the head members of the Magnus Family, logged on over Thanksgiving of 2017, confronted him over it. Xinke at the time gave John a brief explanation of why he was kicked and moved on with his day. Unfortunately, this did not sit well with John, his fragile ego was too damaged by the fact that a family could possibly kick out the great John Vasa. So, he went and begged for his master, Sherlock/Constantine, to take advantage of the "kicking glitch", which allows for a member of a guild to remove others within it even if they do not have the kick permission. Sherlock, having experienced John's fragile ego, decided to help, but did not have access to the guild. Instead of giving up here, however, Sherlock dug into his files containing personal information on members of the community, and used the personal information of James Kazakov to blackmail him into allowing access to his account so that the glitch could be performed to wipe the guild. The guild was wiped, and John and Sherlock denied any involvment, despite overwhelming evidence contrary.
The fact that simply being kicked out of a guild he was not actively a part of would anger John enough that he'd beg Constantine to use the glitch to wipe out an innocent family guild, filled mostly with people who rarely even played Graal anymore, is nothing short of absolutely pathetic. Many people in the community have inflated egos or feel entitled at times, but none so much as John Vasa. John has developed, in recent years, to perhaps the most egocentric and vain person in the current community.
Despite all of this, I do not believe John is beyond redemption, but he must first look past his pride though.
To those reading this who think they can learn from the mistakes of John, just remember, having pride is great to an extent, but in excess, it will always lead to folly.
-Zearos D. S'ahlesius
