The flaw in the traitors

[Dumbles]

Not sure if this has been discussed before as it’s my first time watching the traitors!

Every evening the traitors name three possible people who they might murder. Then to keep up suspense for the viewer the two who aren’t killed come in last the next morning at breakfast.

Why don’t the faithful realise from previous series that the last two to return are also faithful? Then from a process of elimination they can narrow down the traitors.

What am I missing?

YANBU - it’s a clear plot hole
YABU - there’s more to it

Sorry meant to quote Adelstrop!

Yes I really like The Mole! I think it also makes more sense as the mole is secretly trying to sabotage the missions. I think it would be much better if they had to do the same in the Traitors.

In s1 they did this. In s2 they started mixing it up and Traitors were in the last few.

I keep seeing people talking about this "flaw" and it's driving me bananas!

The Mole used to be a round of one series of The Adventure Game - it was always Lesley Judd.

It’s basically a guessing game, but it’s very entertaining watching them thinking how clever they all are.

I assume that outside the tight format of breaking down long days into a programme of less than an hour, the editors must deliberately omit lots of conversations between the contestants about production decisions, or changes in production decisions since previous series. Like asking the Rail Replacement late arrivers where they'd been holed up for three days.

I'm assuming someone, at some point has said, 'Look, the only difference between a traitor and a faithful is that a traitor got tapped on the shoulder at the first round table! They didn't cast a separate category of Natural Evil, Devious Personalities as traitors!'

The only genuinely unpleasant behaviour seen so far this season was the thoroughly unpleasant ostracism of Kas, who was left wandering around like a lost soul trying to find somewhere to eat his lunch without tight groups of the others giving him side-eye. And the vast majority of those involved in that were faithful.

(I do also wish they'd found a better term for those who aren't traitors -- using 'faithful' as a noun is so clumsy...)

They recruit another traitor as it is an easy way to get rid of someone. They accept, they get chucked under a bus at banishment; they turn it down, they'll get murdered as traitors put a target straight on their backs!

Especially as Harry last year couldn't say it and could only say "Fateful"!

They do indeed edit out production chat. The closest they leave in is that "they" must have chosen one of the sisters or "they" may have gone for strong women.

There was a contestant in Australia called Paul I think and he was almost completely edited out for talking about production constantly and making people swear on their kids/families at the round table.

If they really had the time, they should do two versions of The Traitors so you can choose. One where you get to know who the Traitors are and one where you don't, with the Traitors also doing interviews as Faithfuls!

I'd love to watch it without knowing then going back and watching it again when I found out to look back at reactions, etc.

I must start watching the follow up programme as I can imagine it being fascinating hearing the stories from the banished about finding out.

I would have been left on the floor of the editing suite, so!

I was reading an interview with one of the Series 1 competitors who talked a bit about behind the scenes stuff, including the fact that there was, according to her, one 'welfare person' for every two contestants, continually monitoring their welfare and checking if they needed snacks, as well as a psychologist you could go and chat to. Interesting to think of the sheer numbers of people on set who need to 'disappear' in post-production, quite apart from the camera and tech crew.

One other thing that interview told me that I'd always wondered about was when and how the murdered person was told they'd been murdered. Apparently that scene where they walk into the room and pick up their murder letter from the armchair is filmed in the morning when the rest of them go off to breakfast.

The whole thing is completely bollocks of course, but it's entertaining bollocks.

I mean, for about the first 15 days it literally makes no odds whether traitors get voted out, as they just get to recruit new ones anyway so all that happens is 1 person gets booted out each day in addition to whoever is murdered.

It would be a better game if that didn't happen, but that obviously would make for shit tv if they got rid of all 3 traitors to start with and no more could get recruited.

The sequences are all heavily edited with multiple retakes and different shots . Logically nothing actually happens in the order we see it on t.v. Going into the round table seems to happen at night last thing but it does not always.

Yep, this is why they say they didn't sleep well - I was so confused in S1 because I thought well, if nobody has come to get you by 1am then surely you can go to bed. I read they get up, have breakfast in the airport hotel and then drive to the castle to pick at the fruit/croissants etc. while someone gets murdered.

DH is obsessed by what we can see of the food, and keeps saying 'Those croissants look like shoe leather' and musing on where the nearest fresh croissant is available to a catering crew in a castle somewhere vaguely near Inverness.

I did imagine they had a more substantial breakfast first thing in the hotel, as they're clearly not hungry for the on set one and are just drinking juice and fiddling with the odd croissant. And obviously the whole thing would be rather less dramatic if everyone was horsing into their sausages and eggs and ignoring the door. 😀

I know lunch is an opportunity for people to chat and plot in small groups but I couldn't handle eating off my lap in an armchair while theorising about strategies and tells.

One thing I do wish Faithful would ask more, especially in the later stages of the game, is why people haven't been murdered

that annoyed me in the last series. Harry got a shield and made a song and dance the next day about how he would have been murdered otherwise. But no one asked him at the round table how come he wasn’t murdered when he didn’t have it

I think this will be my last year watching it,
it’s boring now

Yeah. The same things play out over and over and it's primarily a guessing game. I'll finish this one bur I don't think I'll bother again.

They mixed it up today and Linda was in the last group to breakfast! Must have read mumsnet and realised I was on to them 😂

They stay at the airport hotel, so likely eat breakfast there, the filming will be late morning of the breakfast scenes, hence why they aren’t hungry, most will have eaten,

im not sure of the logic of asking people why they have not been murdered, who knows the answer to that.

i think this season is excellent. I think Linda is soon for the off though, she looks guilty much of the time, and is not pulling off the acting as well as she thinks. So will be interesting to see who the replacement traitor is.

The editing is obviously back engineered. But that’s fine!
the round table at the end - they obvs film it all then editing it to focus on the people who are most under fire to make it look like it was inevitable it was their names who were most chosen.
I bet the actual round table going in for ages and ages.
The whole thing must be exhausting take part in, I’d find it so stressful!

I'm assuming someone, at some point has said, 'Look, the only difference between a traitor and a faithful is that a traitor got tapped on the shoulder at the first round table! They didn't cast a separate category of Natural Evil, Devious Personalities as traitors!'

Well… presumably producers and / or a psychologist have thought about who ought to be a traitor? Not natural evil etc but either willingness or a propensity for that role.

My ongoing sadness with the show is how - shock to no one - if you are different you arouse suspicion. Yin was a quirky Asian woman, for example, and I think Kaz’s race was more of a factor than his being a doctor. I’m autistic and I would absolutely be voted off for not looking shocked enough/happy enough/being talkative enough etc. Obvious but no less sad for it.

I think they need to cast a range of types, as well as a range of ages, sexes etc, who will give ‘good TV,p’, but I think they need to consider everyone as at least a potential traitor, as anyone could be recruited. I know the choice of the initial traitors is made after an interview with Claudia by her and the production team, and they do ask if the person wants to be a traitor or faithful, but that will be after they’ve been cast as a contestant.

Recruit and then throw them under the bus so the Faithful have “caught” a Traitor and the other traitors can hide in plain sight.

and yes sadly breakfast is editing!

It's all edited and that's fine but there are flaws with this for sure

1. How are they expected to solve a mystery if there are no clues whatsoever. The traitors should be asked to sabotage tasks etc so the rest can logically deduce who might have done it.
2. The number of traitors is too small. There should be more of them from the very beginning and there should be no recruiting. That would make it really worth to traitor-hunt. As it stands, they are just being replaced and they always reach the final.
3. In the current format there's no point in eliminating traitors. You just have to try and stay in the game and only act on suspicions at the end.

It's not a logic, reasoning game as such. It is just about how do I not get voted out and how do I stay under the traitors' radar. And as everybody is just concerned about saving their own skin, the whole thing becomes very random. They banish anybody and everybody as long as it's not them.

It's good tv for now, but it's not a reasoning/ skills game.
I do hope they'll keep working on the format.

You're forgetting that Maia said all that but then voted for someone else.