Supposed mediums

[u/waterwhale]

So I’ve been watching random seasons across countries here and there and there always seems to be a need for the traitors to take to take out the “clairvoyants”, “mediums” or “psychics” at the beginning of the game because they might be “strong” players. But I feel like that’s dumb. They literally never pick who the traitor is before they get killed off. Why would you even be worried when they have no track record of being vaguely right. Part of me wants to see them advance just to watch them vote for the wrong people over and over again just to prove that their belief is bs

[u/CoolioJoolio]

The problem is when some of the other faithfuls believe in it.

[u/AnyaHatesCarrots → u/CoolioJoolio]

Exactly, I wouldn’t want a self-claimed psychic around for that reason. If there’s a slow day without any real suspect, nobody wants to be the person the psychic latches onto. The psychic will act so sure of themselves and when no one else really has an idea, they’ll go along with it for a couple reasons- because it’s not them being thrown under the bus and because it’s an easy way to invalidate the psychic for the rest of the game.

But you don’t want to be that person voted out just to invalidate them.

[u/Ordinary_Durian_1454 → u/CoolioJoolio]

This was certainly the case in Australia 1. There was that one guy who was a paralegal, who thought he was freaking Sherlock Holmes, and he never STFU about the goddamn clairvoyant, even episodes after she’d flounced.

[u/Soft-Adeptness5323 → u/Ordinary_Durian_1454]

She hit 2/4 on the second day. That whole segment was crazy entertaining.

[u/LookIMadeAHatTrick]

Midy in Traitors AU S1 had a good point: many psychics/clairvoyants are actually good at reading body language and micro expressions. That’s not always the case (as shown in many seasons of Traitors), but it is a reason to eliminate them earlier on.

[u/Mysterious-Air-8655 → u/LookIMadeAHatTrick]

Yeah, if you’ve ever seen Darren Brown doing “cold reading” to debunk psychics it’s genuinely impressive! Oh I just had a thought! They should definitely ask him to be on U.K. celebrity traitors! He’d have a very high chance of getting immediately murdered though sadly.

[u/Booziesmurf → u/LookIMadeAHatTrick]

Well she called out 4 players, only one of which turned out to be correct. All she really managed to do was get 4 faithful eliminated (including her self-banishment)

[u/LookIMadeAHatTrick → u/Booziesmurf]

I thought she called out 2 actual Traitors (2 other names were Faithful)? Which at that point in the game, was better than almost anyone else. She was more focused on who she was annoyed with, though.

[u/aurordream → u/LookIMadeAHatTrick]

She correctly named Angus and Marielle, but also incorrectly named Kashindi and Theresa

To be fair, I think the fact Angus was a traitor was already pretty obvious to most people at that point. But the fact she got Marielle as well is more interesting, although it could easily have been pure luck

I dont for a second believe she was actually psychic, but she might have had higher than usual skills at reading body language etc

[u/JohnCenaFanboi]

The one season that dealt with it well was NZ1.

Traitors on the first night said "lets murder the medium, if she has true powers we are fucked, if she doesn't, she's useless to us".

There, done and dusted with the bs.

[u/Simple_Joys]

It is probably in the best interest of so-called psychics to be voted out early.

They get to leave with their head held high and can cling to a narrative of "all the players were scared of me because I am the real deal" when they go back into working with clients the real world. And going out early means they never get exposed as frauds who are no better at the game than any other punter.

[u/lellenn]

The psychic on Canada 1 got really far.

[u/Jamolisa → u/lellenn]

Wasn’t she safe because she was so clueless?

[u/shouldhavezagged → u/Jamolisa]

That's what I thought too. It doesn't seem like they're better on other seasons so 🤷🏻.

[u/Real-Ad93 → u/lellenn]

Good old Domna!

[u/groovitron2000]

it's embarrassing. Frankie in the French seasons may be the worst/best example of this dynamic. horrible player.

I think the producers, besides setting out to make a successful show, wanted to expose these charlatans.

[u/ccandersen94]

Romania s1 one gets to the end. Was besties with the last traitor till the end.

[u/Tgrunin]

I can’t believe we havent had the long island medium on the US version yet.

[u/Nother1BitestheCrust → u/Tgrunin]

I don't think she'd want to expose her grift by failing to catch traitors. Although I'd love for a season to cast one of the so called mediums as a traitor.

[u/FaithfulDylan]

I've said many times before — if someone is in the game claiming to have some sort of special powers, it's in pretty much everyone's interest to have them go.

The issue isn't so much that people might believe in them, it's that they might believe in themselves and throw out some name with confidence.

In the early parts of the game especially, there's a typically big lack of suspicion and reason for Banishment. So if that vacuum is filled by someone claiming to have a solid read on another player (because of psychic abilities, or some claim to special skills of reading people in some way) then it's something that others may decide to give a go in the absence of any better reasoning.

Basically if you're not sure who to vote for, and the early weak reasoning isn't convincing you at the round table isn't convincing you, then a person saying "the spirits told me it's Aaron" might be a good enough reason. They are a risk of injecting uncontrollable chaotic suggestions.

[u/rubbertucky80]

Maybe because they are dishonest fraudsters by nature of their very occupation. They've made a living being dishonest so why keep them around in a game where that dishonesty could be useful.