My Little Thought Tree

https://youtu.be/fn_DsAneQzo

It's becoming very hard to title my videos about The Traitors in a way that a) still keeps them accessible for my majority non-UK audience but also don't all sound the same. This is a video I'm happy with, though. Focusing on the effects of an in-group/out-group mentality and how often it influences the players voted out in the game show The Traitors.

I've made two videos this season, both made before the release of last night's episode 10 and it's nice to see some of the points I've raised are sort of proven true.

On another note, episode 10 saw perhaps the most ridiculous, infuriating roundtable I've ever seen, in which no contestants at all even raised the traitors names for suspicion (although those roundtables are obviously edited). We saw all 5 faithfuls having a big argument accusing each other with a disastrous end. Surely, surely the pain of that defeat will now force them to reevaluate their thought process? Although with only 4 faithfuls left and the Traitors controlling two of the votes, is it too late for the faithful to possibly win? I think it's...unlikely both of them are banished before the end.

Episode 10 (which the above video is not about) was kind of turned on its head by the contestant James being given a dagger that allows him to have 2 votes. The traitors chose who to give the dagger to and many of the faithful were convinced Matt had given him the dagger...with the logic that Matt knows James wants to vote him out, so as a traitor, he gave it to the person he would least want to give the dagger to...in order to throw everyone off. It would be a ridiculous, stupid decision to make, as Matt argued repeatedly. Nonetheless, they all reversed it and said "but that's what a traitor wants us to believe! I think it's a genius play of deception."

Of course it's not. It would be laughably idiotic. There's no way Matt would do that but this is how the lack of perspective and breathing space in the Traitors inhibits their thinking. The dagger has been this extra unexpected twist at a time they're already feeling very stressed, coming towards the final. That uncertainty plays havoc with your perceptions and you end up settling for the only notable theory there is. The only shred of evidence available. "What if Matt gave James the dagger as a double bluff?" when there are no other available theories, it is a choice between "having no evidence for anything" or "maybe having evidence for something, no matter how unlikely." The second option relieves more stress than the first, so I don't think their votes are entirely unsurprising. Stupid. Fascinating. But also understandable.

Anyway, here is a video focusing on earlier episodes of the season.

https://youtu.be/kNiLwOov1bw

This video was genuinely meant to be 10 minutes long. It ended up 3 and a half hours because I just kept feeling my "constructive criticism" was too easy to make. It's too easy to just say "the season should've included this idea, or done someone's arc this way, or replaced this aspect with this alternative idea" ... but is any of that true? How do you know an idea that sounds great in your head and sounds great when you explain why it would be great...how do you know it actually fits into the story? That it compliments the flow of the story? That it informs the existing ideas and themes? You have to at least roughly jot out where things could go in order to see the pitfalls with the idea, so that's what I tried to do. I couldn't help myself. This video is nowhere near as thorough as my Harry Potter series but it was still an interesting exercise where I consider myself somewhat successful.

I did get bored and rush the editing, however. I hadn't planned to make time in my schedule to edit something long, so you've got a very slapdash mash of icons occasionally overlaid a Dave's Walks and often not. I doubt anybody cares too much about that bit though.