Is there a correct way to play the Traitors?

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Dear Reader,

Despite being known and announced as the “Traitors Expert” to you, the lovely audience, I too have felt like strategies/gameplans that I have once held on to are either expiring or evolving from where they were even a year ago. Today, I would like to dive into some of these thoughts and share them with you.

The Traitors is a global phenomenon that has now built strong franchises across the world. Despite the size to which the show has grown, it still remains a baby amongst the Reality TV landscape. With the US and UK franchises only just beginning their third seasons, both the audience and the players are learning emerging strategies as we watch the show play out. 

The early era of The Traitors, alongside prior knowledge of other competitive Reality TV shows, has brought a very fun yet divisive conversation with regard to how one should be playing this game. In Big Brother or Survivor, the gameplay is very nuanced, yet the objective is simple. Vote out the other players, get their votes at the end, and win the title and money that comes along with being a champion.

The Traitors is different. While the barebones objective is to make it to the end and win - the journey is anything but simple. A Faithful is told their game is to find these Traitors and prevent them from immortalizing their shame on the internet.

Step 1: Find Traitors. Step 2: Banish Traitors. Step 3: Profit.

Simple on the surface, yet riddled with complex and nuanced decisions to go along the way. This objective really only is as simple as it sounds for the Faithfuls at the final "Fire of Truth." If they are able to get rid of the Traitors in the finale and end the game, they will win. Whether it is two, three, or four Faithfuls, they will split the pot and be able to claim that they were never duped by the duplicitous Traitors. The journey to the final Fire of Truth as a Faithful can only be described as a roller coaster, a choose-your-own adventure story where a simple cough could land you out of the game before you can say “Alan”. 

I think before I talk about the ways either role of Traitor or Faithful could play, I want to highlight what I believe to be the couple of factors that I think are CRUCIAL to the way someone should play in the event they are on The Traitors. And honestly, I personally feel like these apply to playing any other competitive Reality TV game.

The most important factor in how one should play is located in the mirror. Knowing who you are and how you come across to others should absolutely dictate the type of game that you should play. Not everybody can play from the front and take charge, and not everybody can lean on their charm to take them far. Identifying the type of person you are is vital in order to navigate both the doors you yourself will open and the obstacles you yourself will put in front of you. Are you someone who is perceived to be naive? Good. Let them think you are naive and dupe them with that knowledge to further your game. 

The one other crucial thing that should dictate how you carry forward in the game is one that you will not know about until you are at the castle: the cast that you will play with in this high-stakes game of whodunnit. Depending on the types of personalities that you are met with in the castle, you could either be in a good spot to start or a tough one. Since the dawn of Reality TV, one of the biggest appeals has been the guarantee that personalities will clash. The unfortunate reality is that there is a very, very small subset of people that can plug into any group and thrive.

If you’re like me, you fancy your odds of getting along with many different groups, but you also require time to get there. I am someone who is very easy to get along with and talk to, but I am also EXTREMELY shy and quiet when I first meet people. The degree of shyness varies from personality to personality. So, in a game like this, with so little time to make a first impression, presenting the quiet, withholding front is only going to guarantee that I am looked at as suspicious. But if I know this going in, and I see some people who I believe to be my speed, I am able to gel with them a lot quicker, allowing me to begin to lay down foundations while I proceed to open up to the other folks that I may be shy with at first. 

I say this because I feel like there are many winners across many franchises who have been able to utilize these two factors to navigate their games and emerge victorious. The winner of The Traitors Canada Season 2, as an example, is VERY fresh on my mind. The winner had pages and pages of notes of different scenarios they would adapt to depending on factors such as how they would be perceived, how many people knew who they were coming into the season, and so on. Using this, alongside personally curated outfits and mannerisms, they projected an image to their fellow castle-mates on a level we have never seen before. They made the cast see them exactly how they wanted to be seen. It was an incredible feat, and if you haven’t watched that season yet, let this be an endorsement for you to check it out now!

Now let’s go back to those in the turret/conclave who don the cloak of the Traitor. As I said, their job is easier than the Faithful. They are automatically guaranteed to sleep in the night whilst the faithful have to worry about being murdered. Their odds of leaving the castle are half compared to the Faithful. They do have their own obstacles, though, of lying and attempting to hide those lies from about a dozen and a half people out-of-the-gate. They also have to walk the tightrope of avoiding being double-crossed and backstabbed by their fellow Traitors who may be looking for solo glory. Or are they the Traitor looking for that sole-winner title?

Have they successfully marinated trusting Faithfuls to take to slaughter at the end? Or are they being dragged to the end by a so-called Faithful friend who has them clocked and will be turning the dagger on them at the final Fire of Truth? We’ve seen every iteration of these scenarios play out for the Traitors. We’ve seen Traitors who want to genuinely split the pot with their devious Traitors at the end, and we’ve also seen Traitors who want to stand tall over the rest.

Do you have a majority in the turret? Or are you the outcast amongst your fellow cloaks? Do you have Faithfuls who are going to bat for you? Or are you being looked at? If you have a majority, and there are Traitors better connected than you, they can help keep your name out of people’s mouths. Whereas if you’re riding solo Jason Derulo-style and have suspicion on you, today may be your last in the castle. 

I bring up these questions and scenarios because I genuinely think the simple objective given to the Traitors at the start of the game is anything but. Let’s say there are 50 questions and scenarios that can happen to a Traitor. So many of them clash with each other and could crash you out of the game. But that same combination of situations could be the road to victory for another. Of the eight completed seasons of the English-speaking franchises of the show, we’ve seen many different outcomes play out. Even amongst the games that the Traitors have won, the way they played their game and got to the end has been so vastly different that I can tell you I do not think there is a clear-cut way a Traitor should play.

The Faithfuls have their own complex web of navigation and movement to select from. Whilst they are told they have to find and banish a Traitor, I personally disagree with this notion. I believe the objective of the Faithfuls is to IDENTIFY a Traitor. What they do with that next is completely dependent on the style of game they want to play, their own motivations and desires.

See, if you identify a Traitor, you can do so many different things. You’ve unlocked a branch that can split into many different avenues. If you choose to push that Traitor out, are you doing so because you are hoping to land yourself into the turret with recruitment? Or are you just trying to help the Faithful by pushing a Traitor out? If you’re keeping the Traitor in, are you going to begin cozying up to them to avoid being murdered in the interim? Or do you intend to go to the end to cut them at the Fire of Truth? Are you self-motivated, or are you team-motivated?

Whilst most of us in the competitive Reality TV sphere have long identified that the Faithful game is very much a solo game masked as a team effort, there are still some that see it as a “Good vs. Evil” endeavor, in which they will always look at getting rid of people on the basis that they are Traitors and Traitors alone. This might be the only definitive way I would say is the incorrect way to play The Traitors as a Faithful. The reality is, if you are SO vocal in doing so, the remaining Traitors are not going to give you the satisfaction of being celebrated by the castle for long because they are not going to wait to get got by you as well.

Other players are silently adapting the Sandra Diaz-Twine school of thought: as long as I’m not the one going, I will vote out a Traitor or Faithful. Why? Because in order to even BE in the conversation to win with your beloved Faithfuls at the end, you have to make it to the Fire of Truth with a small subset of people. Those people can and absolutely do consist of both Traitors and Faithfuls. You’re trying to lock up your spot in that group, but you do not have the benefit of trimming the cast with murders at night. You have one vote at the Roundtable and a dream. You have to get your way the old-school way: make bonds and social connections, and then subtly nudge those connections to use votes the way you would like them to. 

But also, the reality is we’ve seen players come in with the mindset that they want to play a certain way, and then can’t help but land where they do. All of these ways to play are well and good until you’re in the line of fire for blinking or taking an ill-timed sip of your drink. Now you’re playing the survival game. But there are also some that will actively try and get some early suspicions on them as a means to avoid being murdered. The Traitors LOVE to keep people with suspicions on them as bait to be banished at the Roundtable. So, as long as you can avoid being banished, suspicions can be good for you in the night… to an extent.

I think because of how chaotic The Traitors is as a show, and with how little the players will have to navigate with as far as information goes, this game is inherently unpredictable, even more than other shows. There are going to be players that absolutely break the mold and the game with masterful performances, but they will be few and far between. Because the reality is: there isn’t a tried and true way to play The Traitors.

You can’t just get numbers together, dwindle them to the Final 6, and then play from there. Because of the different roles, different motivations, different permutations and combinations of win conditions, plus the uncertainty that you even get to the Final 6 with the role that you began with, these plans will go by the wayside QUICK. I do think there are optimal ways to play The Traitors. And while I do think there are incorrect ways to play The Traitors, I, Pooya, do NOT think there is one correct way to play The Traitors. 

As a format, The Traitors is a show first and a game second. There are and always will be people who do not enjoy the show because the game format is skewed towards the Traitors. But I cannot begin to explain how much I love this show. It is extremely thought-provoking to me to the point where I often think about a lot of these different scenarios, situations and decisions made in the game. I fell in love with competitive Reality TV for the social game of it all. The connections are made with ulterior motives, the connections are made with genuine feelings, and the connections are broken with inner struggles. The Traitors is riddled with a lot of those, alongside poor gameplay, optimal gameplay, and popcorn-worthy television.

This week's Traitors US Season 3 episode gave us all of this and more. The Roundtable is a blessing for good television and a heartache for early departures. The Turret is a vehicle for murder, but an arena for a clash of personalities. Breakfast is breakfast, and who doesn’t love breakfast?

I am beyond grateful that I get to talk about this show weekly, and I am so happy to find passion in a show I believe in. I legitimately could continue talking, as I genuinely feel like I have even more to say and questions to answer that in writing this, I have opened up for myself. So, maybe we will get the opportunity to expand on these thoughts in the future. But for now, I thank you for reading all the way to this point.

Sincerely, 

The Duke of Deception

Pooya AKA The Duke of Deception is the host of RHAP’s Traitors podcasts and is without question, one of the global experts on Traitors strategy.

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