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While there will always be some differences in opinion, there is absolutely a large degree of objectivity involved in scoring, based upon a personal/shared understanding of the sport and its history.
What we've seen is a massive trend of inflated scores that goes beyond a simple difference of opinion and instead is about the judges handing out the highest scores they possibly can, without a realistic reference point. I love this post that explains it as a symptom of capitalism - http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/sh...s-Free-Skate&p=1413804&viewfull=1#post1413804
Then of course there are all the usual unobjective biases in the scoring of this sport that have always existed - scoring on reputation and momentum and because of the most financially lucrative outcome for a competition, rather than the skating that actually happened. I would also argue the scoring system itself has warped the sport such that people don't even recognize many aspects of great skating anymore, since they have been so abandoned (largely because the scoring system doesn't reward them).
I gave out ONE single +3 GOE grade in this competition between both the SP and the LP - to Mirai's Layback in the SP. Even that element Mirai herself has done better in the past on a pure technical level, when she was younger and able to do some amazingly fast and ultra-flexible layback spins. My +3 score was based upon the movements in the spin being directed timed with the phrasing of the music; I don't think I've ever seen a very high quality layback executed with changes of position exactly in accordance to the music like that. It was brilliant.
Now, it's true that in the current scoring system there aren't "1.5" and "2.5" increments on the GOE (although the ISU may be implementing them soon), however even if I was forced to score with only +2 and +3 as options, the only other +3's I would have given out would have been for Rika Hongo's choreographic sequence in the LP and Mao Asada's step sequence in the LP. Maaaybe also Miyahara's step sequence in the SP. So at most that would be 4 grades of "+3" given out over the entire competition. I challenge anyone to argue why any other elements in this competition possibly could have deserved "+3" on the GOE. I can point out many instances of other such elements throughout the history of the sport (and even in this competition alone) that were much superior to the ones the judges gave "+3" to in this competition, which objectively means those scores are not accurate. If you want to argue "well the judges are just following guidelines", then I would argue both that those guidelines are inherently flawed and also the term "guideline" means a principal which should be roughly followed, rather than 100% taken as exact and unmovable.
The same goes for the PCS. Over the whole competition the highest score I gave to any component was "9" and I only even gave that out twice - once for Ashley's choreography in the SP and once for Mirai's interpretation in the SP. Again, I challenge anyone to engage and argue why any component from this competition should have been higher, when you look at what these competitors did compared to the heights that have been reached in this sport. If you consider anything from this competition to be a mid/high '9' or even a '10', then you are directly telling the entire world of figure skating "this is the standard of absolute excellence/perfection". However, such a thing would be a lie and that lie inherently devolves the quality of the entire sport, because competitors think "oh, okay, that's all I have to do to get the best score then".
So who loses out in the end as a result? The audience does. Figure skating is PERFECT for the current world we live in, where competitive performances can be quickly shared and watched across all manner of social media. But, not many people care anymore, because the level of artistry happening in figure skating is generally lower, "less exciting", than what they can find elsewhere.
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