How Good Are The Traitors?

Last week, we saw the comeback of this year’s Celebrity Traitors series. As a family, this causes great excitement in our house because we really enjoy working together to come up with theories while watching each episode – and frankly we’re as rubbish as those taking part in the series. It’s so interesting that people think they can tell who is lying and who is not – they interpret any little things and come up wanting in most cases. We revel in it because sat at home we can see behind the curtain and that’s one of the joys of this show. The audience is in on the ‘joke’. If only it were like that in real life and business.

And we’ve even got the Traitors board game which is fascinating to play and it’s fun to string each other along and keep each other guessing – are we faithful or are we a traitor?

For those who don’t know, Traitors is a TV reality game show based on a psychological game of deception, manipulation and trust. Consisting of contestants, known as Faithfuls, the celebrities live together while secretly trying to identify the Traitors amongst them. Each night, the traitors secretly choose someone to be eliminated from the game or ‘murdered’. The concept originated from a Dutch series called ‘De Verraders,’ and has been adapted into massive international hit versions, especially in the USA, Australia and now the UK. Each due of episodes, this year strung out on a Thursday and Friday attracts an audience of millions followed by a half hour ‘chat’ with those banished and murdered, alongside previous contestants, both the famous and those ordinary folk who have gained some fame from being part of it.

This artificial show, putting people into an artificial situation is fascinating creating a situation which can mirror real life, although in real life it isn’t all fun and games. In real life secrets and lies can play out over months or years to terrible effect. Given that we might all recognise these behaviours in our lives – or in our workplace – it’s that familiarity which, I think, makes this show such a success. We can all imagine ourselves to be traitors or faithfuls and we can all imagine how we will react to being under pressure. Would we choose to save or support someone, or would we choose to deceive? Will that depend on how someone behaves, how they look, whether we like them or not? What factors will be at play for us?

A group of contestants (either celebrities or everyday people) move into a remote castle to compete for a massive cash prize for a charity of their choice (for the normal Traitors’ game it’s for a personal cash prize). The host, Claudia Winkleman secretly selects a small group of people known as The Traitors and there are usually three at any one time. Their goal is to stay secret, manipulate the group and avoid detection. Each night, they meet in secret to murder/eliminate one faithful from the game. If any traitors make it to the final episode, they steal the entire prize fund. The Faithful, however, are expected to work together to detect who the Traitors are and banish them from the castle. They must rely on behaviour, patterns and gut instincts to sniff out the liars. So each episode involves a game, a banishment and a murder and 1,000 manipulations in between.

If you don’t want spoilers, don’t read the next section yet!

In week 1, a series first, Richard E Grant was banished for being a traitor almost immediately. It’s really unusual for the Faithfuls to catch a traitor straight away but Richard did give the game away by declaring himself a traitor only minutes after being selected by Claudia Winkleman, by accident. Richard admitted that it was accidental and spent the rest of that show trying to act his way out of it – unsuccessfully. Even his fellow Traitors voted for him because they realised it would look suspicious if they didn’t. We also lost Amol Rajan who was murdered by the Traitors. Everyone thought this was for being a threat and asking uncomfortable questions. But it wasn’t. In this series, the Traitors could question two Faithfuls and choose one to join their number. Amol was one of those and he was not chosen, thus he was ‘murdered’. But the Faithfuls don’t know that.

This week, we lost two more contestants. The first being Bella Ramsey, the actor, who was murdered by the traitors due to using their intellect and risking exposure to the group. For us this choice made sense and we had guessed it would them who would be chosen as their insightful chats suggested they would guess – but even more they attracted a ‘fan club’ and those who attract followers are always dangerous. They are natural leaders and a group will follow them and Faithfuls like that are the most dangerous of all.

Then, the banishment of the week was fellow actor Julie Hesmondhalgh. Despite voting for Julie in the first episode as potentially the most trustworthy in the group due to her (over) friendly demeanour, many of the Faithfuls had been persuaded by the round table that she was a Traitor, when she was in fact a Faithful. As a family, we found this fascinating to watch because there was a real play off between her and Hannah, an actual Traitor and Julie just came out as the unlucky one. For a game of deception, it was interesting how true to herself Julie was. Yes, she knew she was a Faithful but was also quite outspoken during the game and challenges. Could this have put her on the back foot? Could this have caused others to question her integrity? Yes it did. She was standing out too much early on in the game and that made her vulnerable. The Traitors were clever in just dripping a little poison into the mix during the day as others were whispering about Julie and Hannah.

Michael Sheen also commented on this in the second episode, saying: “It would be such a cruel move to take the most trusted of our group and make them the most suspected.” Miranda then added, “Cruel, but very, very clever.” Leigh Anne also became emotional while speaking at the round table and clearly felt that Julie was being unfairly treated. Hannah puts forward an interesting theory, about the Traitors perhaps intentionally putting the spotlight on Julie because she ‘has a great reputation and stands out’ so that she gets killed, to weaken the Faithfuls overall. People listened but this decision was on a tightrope.

As a viewer, it’s fascinating to see the ways in which human psychology is challenged in this game. You could argue that the show acts as a live social experiment that exposes how humans make decisions in high pressure environments. It explores herd mentality and the powerful ways in which contestants can abandon their own gut instincts and beliefs when acting as part of a larger group. We saw this multiple times in this week’s two episodes. Miranda was adamant that she believed Hannah was a traitor but actually voted for Julie. The same can be said of Sharon, who also ended up voting for Julie unexpectedly.

Whilst this seems completely maddening and illogical to us viewers at home, there are forces acting within the castle that we can’t comprehend when we aren’t living it and the Faithfuls are blind.

 For example, the fear of isolation and standing alone is something many of us will have faced at some point in our lives. There’s also the argument of cognitive ease. We can’t imagine how tiring it must be to lie consistently and have to hide your motives. The environment is designed to cause paranoia and under this intense stress the brain can take mental shortcuts. It’s easier to listen to a loud and confident voice rather than to continually analyse the behaviours of 15 other people. Perhaps this is the point though? Does joining the herd guarantee survival for the Traitors?

And some are staying very quiet when they are not known for being quiet. What about Michael Sheen, Joe Lycett and this time Ross Kemp? Are they playing a masterful game or are they just muddling through trying to work things out?

Ultimately, the herd mentality creates a sad loop where the Faithfuls voted out one of their own because voting out a Faithful means the spotlight is taken off the Traitors. Hannah really had to fight in this week’s roundtable, and it was interesting to witness her tactics and she came so close to being the second Traitor on the rack. But when you listen back slowly to what she says, she played it very well. Her tone of voice and body language was very calm and collected unlike Julie who got louder with every turn and even began laughing at one stage.

In life and business, we have probably all come across different situations where our morals have been challenged. This is also evident in the Traitors. As a viewer though, it is incredible to note how over 65% of communication is given non-verbally. This is why it’s so important to make others feel welcome and to consider this when meeting someone new. Equally, body language can be a great tell if someone is lying. We look forward to seeing what happens next week…my feeling is that James Blunt is now in the firing line. Let’s see if I’m right…