I’ve been in a writing slump for quite some time. I’ve sat around pondering what articles I could
create and as I reach my last term at university I feel time slipping away to share my thoughts
and write things that truly matter. Perhaps I’m not changing the world with this article but the
Traitors has been my latest obsession that I’m excited to share.
I first discovered the traitors at the beginning of last year. For anyone who’s somehow missed
the hype: the traitors is a reality game show where up to 25 members of the general public are
put in a castle and three players are selected to be traitors while the rest are named as faithfuls.
The group are tasked with earning money through daily challenges while at the same time
figuring out who the traitors are and catching them before they get killed first. This season
especially there has been a huge amount of discourse regarding the strategies players use as
well as the choices they make. As a psychology student I’ve found myself completely caught up
in the conversations being had. Please be warned that there will be spoilers ahead as I go into
depth about this latest season.
So to begin with, seemingly the choice of traitors at the beginning is strategic by the producers
and this season they made the unique choice to create an all women cohort of traitors: this was
when the “sisterhood” was created. This was when we were introduced to Linda, Armani and
Minah. From the get go Armani tries to integrate herself into the “faithful” crowd by being the
loudest voice and not shying away from confrontation. She gave the other traitors constructive
criticism and told them they needed to step up or they’d be found out. Ironically, Armani was
immediately found out as a traitor and kicked off the game, reducing the sisterhood to a
twosome. Linda and Minah supported each other for quite a few episodes as they flew under
the radar.
Part of the difficulty of being a traitor is that it shapes the player’s entire identity – the difference
with Linda and Minah was that they agreed to support each other and only threw each other
under the bus when they really had to. In past seasons, traitors have been very quick to betray
each other with some intentionally setting out to come out on top. The definition of a traitor is
quite fluid as every player competes differently with varying levels of deceit and treachery.
The faithfuls were very interesting this season. I began the show with Kaz being my favourite
player, he’s a GP and came off as a very genuine as well as intelligent player. This of course
meant that he didn’t last long. He became the target of some quite nasty abuse from a group of
faithfuls who quickly ostracised him from the group and left him isolated on his last day before
being banished. It’s hard to know why people are voted off the show sometimes but in this case
it seemed like a simple case of jealousy. A player made the statement that Kas was “a doctor by
day and murderer by night”. This was a classic example of being othered by the group and it is
clear when contestants are grasping for straws. This incident did feel like unconscious racism by
the other players where they will just sometimes dislike someone for a reason “they just can’t
put their finger on”. This is part of the challenge with the show, unless you’re analysing strategy
then you just have to make a guess and in extreme stress situations, people will fall back on stereotyping and unconscious biases. To succeed in a season of The Traitors UK you have to be smart but not too clever, vocal but not too loud and incredibly faithful.
If faithfuls are seen to act in a self interested way or anything contradicting the group then the
suspicions are quick to land on them. An example of this was in the first UK season where the
faithfuls make a toast. A player called Nicky was immediately called out and banished as she
didn’t raise her glass like the rest of the players. What the faithfuls failed to take into account
was that Nicky only had one arm as she had entered the game with the goal of winning enough
money for a prosthetic. It only takes a vocal few to make decisions for the entire group.
The overarching gender of “traitor teams” is very interesting as traitors can recruit replacements
as they inevitably get caught through the show: Claudia made an interesting comment in the
second season as the traitors continuously recruited only men. She came in and pointed out
that it was “just like the old days” with all the men taking over power. Interestingly, it seemed that
in season 2 there were constant betrayals between the men but in season 3 all the women were
working together as a team with the aim of finishing the competition united. Unfortunately, not all
good things last and the sisterhood was slowly found out. Minah made use of the opportunity to
recruit and picked Charlotte, for context Charlotte had some suspicions on her at the beginning
of the show but this fizzled as more discourse came to the surface.
This was when the tables began to turn as the newest recruit immediately made the choice to
betray her teammate. Minah was still cluelessly speaking about what a good team they were as
Charlotte spread seeds of doubt in the fellow faithfuls and setting Minah up for failure. This of
course got a hugely negative reaction from the public as Charlotte “went against the sisterhood”
and became what has been coined as an “unethical traitor”. Some have speculated that she
found it easy to take on a deceitful role as she had been lying to all the players from the
beginning. She entered the show with the strategy that she would put on a Welsh accent to
appear more trustworthy (which is hilarious in of itself) but it seemingly worked for her as she
made it all the way to the final episode with a minimal amount of questioning over her faithful
status.
Justice is seemingly a huge element to the game and the way the public perceives certain
events. I found myself not having a firm position throughout this season. I typically root for the
traitors throughout the game as they have the hardest jobs to fulfil but as soon as Charlotte
acted “unethically” I was rooting for her downfall.
This show is the perfect environment to show how stress can reveal unconscious bias and how
individuals view their competition. I’m incredibly excited to be tuning into the season finale
tonight for the last episode of this excellent tv show.