PicoBlog

It was a fascinating study in human behaviour. I've spent a bit of time on the Traitors reddit and people HATE that series. As I understand Oz has cancelled the show in the wake of it (was before the recent UK & US series blew up so perhaps they might change their minds).

People hate it because it was so frustrating watching the faithfuls fail to spot the obvious - but I'm with you, I think subconsciously they all knew what was going on and were scared and acted on instinctive self preservation. And I also think that's why viewers hated it so much, because it's a deeply uncomfortable truth about human nature and group dynamics. Someone said that it was basically coercive control and I think that's bang on.

I don't actually think Sam played it all that well either, I think it was a combination of intimidation and a certain chance that there weren't enough strong figures at key points to organise against him or speak out at the round table and call out what he was doing - ie: you come for me and I'll take you down.

Psychopaths/sociopaths don't tend to have good models of others' inner lives and motivations and I don't think he did, which is why he blew up at the end when Camille didn't follow the script, even though she had no reason to do as he wished. In an interview afterwards she intimated that there was much more that was cut where he blew up at her, a real narc rage outburst.

Incidentally I thought it was a bit of a cheap trick to introduce the 'Traitor's dilemma' at the end from nowhere. Given there is no way to 'win' a prisoners' dilemma dynamic - if you trust then you're the sucker - then if it was coming then the remaining traitors had to ensure that they manipulated the situation to make sure there were no other traitors left by the end. The ending was inevitable once the producers stepped in.

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