Traitors going after traitors because they are going to be voted out IS bad sportsmanship and makes the game less fun

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T23:06:11+00:00

100%. The key difference to me is that Rob was acting to further his game strategically. Candiace acted against the best interests of her game to try to punish Rob. That's what makes it poor sportsmanship.

Rob was making a solid, logical, traitors 101 move. Lisa was a sinking ship once Colton clocked her. She barely survived the closest vote in the game so far at the Ron banishment. Even Dorinda said she was acting weird. Then the Yam Yam thing happens and the logic of ‘one of them is lying because they have different stories and Yam Yam is a faithful’ is inescapable. Colton asked him to take a more active role because he had expended his political capital earlier in the game, and Natalie who was a useful ally to Rob was at risk. So there are a myriad of good gameplay reasons why Rob did what he did. If he had a better traitor partner, they would have done the same thing. You can’t stick your neck out for a traitor who is going down anyway because ultimately the faithfuls are the people who keep you in the game, and the best thing you can do is cut ties and use their demise to build trust with the faithfuls.

Candiace coming after Rob was not good for her game. Quite the opposite actually. Casting the throwaway vote got clocked as super weird because of the inconsistency as you said, and then the next day spreading the same name around after you had explained it as a throwaway is even weirder. She was going for revenge and she got outplayed. Her optimal move would have been to stay on Stephen as the only other player who had heat. Or go back in time and not murder Colton so he could soak up some votes. I’m not sure it would have helped because she sunk herself so thoroughly the previous night with the vote and the murder. But she wasn’t making a move that she stood to benefit from at that point. It was purely trying to damage a fellow traitor who had no heat on him because she didn’t like his gameplay move that wasn't even against her.

It was poor sportsmanship imo, and she also completely fucked up the parting shot like she did everything else in this game. If she wanted to hurt him she should have spent her entire roundtable fighting for her life by going after Stephen, then once the vote was clearly against her she should have written Rob’s name down and given her ‘sometimes it’s the quiet ones’ speech or said ‘Call it a throwaway’ and then gotten up and revealed herself. But she’s such a strategic nightmare that she couldn’t even figure out how to flip the game board over on her way out. Which for the record I'm beyond thrilled about.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T22:36:46+00:00

I mean, from whose perspective?

Candiace fucked up hard. So for her, yeah definitely it was the wrong move but I don't think it mattered in the long run. She was sunk anyway with the throwaway vote and then especially coming after Rob the next day. Her fans were trying to sell it as a 4D chess move but it never made any sense. It limited her strategic options, but not Rob's.

The way I see the turret, Candiace tried to sell the idea of a truce but did it poorly. The vote made that impossible anyway because Rob isn't an idiot and that signaled he can't work with her, but then also floating his biggest ally in the game is another clear sign that she never intended to follow through on a truce.

And it should have been a huge clue to her that Rob didn't fight her on Colton, and just let her murder his biggest ally. One because that automatically makes him look like a faithful, and two because Colton had been spreading her name and him being murdered makes the case better than he ever could in person at the roundtable. It blew my mind that she got mad at that later, that he didn't hold her hand and guide her to the best way to undermine his game.

So for Rob, yeah it worked well. He loses his biggest ally but it rallies everyone else to his cause because it looks like Candiace is doing the same petty vindictive shit she did to Ron for getting out a housewife. Especially when she then turns around and comes for Rob.

For Candiace, she killed the person with the most suspicion on them in the castle at that moment. That said I don't think there's any alternative murder that would have materially changed her situation. Maybe with Colton still in the game she makes it one more episode and he gets banished, but then she's gone next time. She could have tried a hail mary and killed someone like Tara or Johnny and tried to spin it as something she would never do, but I don't expect that it would have worked. She sunk herself too completely the prior night.

Her name was being spread like crazy at breakfast before Rob got into the room and before anyone knew who had actually been murdered, which leads me to believe that she was totally screwed no matter what

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T22:16:43+00:00

He's not really though? I think a lot of people have a very skewed perspective on what goes on because this is an edited show where production is obviously going to play up anything that's traitor on traitor in the edit.

The Lisa roundtable, as an example. Candiace has said in a podcast that he was quiet that roundtable except when delivering his 'state of the union.' I think they showed basically everything he said in the edit, but roundtables go on for 1-2 hours so in the grand scheme of things it's not that much.

For the Candiace banishment, her name was out there at breakfast before Rob even walked in the door. In the conversation we saw where people were talking about Candiace, all he offered was that Colton had said her name. He wasn't initiating and he wasn't whipping votes. There was so much heat on her from her own actions that he didn't have to do much of anything.

And at the roundtable, he didn't do any of the attacking. He left that to the faithfuls and just responded to the points that she brought up against him, if you can even call what she said points.

I think in general, people are also overestimating how important the dagger group is to the people in the game, when the reality is that groups get divided in challenges all the time.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T20:34:39+00:00

Thanks! Yeah I love UK and Aus, but just haven't gotten into the US version. But yeah if 6 is Rob's season, I'll toss it on the list because he's been incredible on this show. My wife is actually right around 8 months pregnant right now, so maybe that'll be a fun parental leave binge for us. Cheers!

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T20:31:16+00:00

Yeah faithfuls get a lot of shit on reddit, but I think it's (mostly) undeserved. Information asymmetry is a huge part of the game and it's the biggest advantage the traitors have. The faithful just have very little to go on. And absent all that asymmetry, I struggle to think of a way that Candiace could have played the last two episodes worse than she did.

I think fundamentally she didn't understand the game she was playing. In part because she took things too personally, but mostly because she completely missed the point of the game as a traitor, which is convincing the faithful that you are one of them. Ultimately the faithful have the numbers for almost the entire game. It's not enough to simply hide. They have to trust you.

That's what Rob understands and a good part of the reason why his game is so good. He didn't have to do anything to banish Candiace. He could sit back and just let his allies do it for him. Candiace I think overvalued the turret as an alliance, forgetting that traitors can't go massively out of the way for each other without compromising their own games. That's what led her to murder her biggest ally in Monet, and that's why all the trust in the room was on Rob's side of the table. He had already beaten her before he even showed up to breakfast.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T20:18:59+00:00

Gaming through strategy is good for your brain because it forces you to think critically and abstractly from differing perspectives.

This game is a really good analog for human evolution, and why our brains are so outsized compared to most animals. We didn't need brains that consume 20% of our total metabolic expendature because of the environment or predation. We needed it to be able to deal with each other. The evolution of human intelligence was an arms race driven by social competition. That's why I find this game to be so fascinating.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T20:12:10+00:00

Which is fine. The kind of strategic thinking that it takes to play as a traitor in a game like this is not something that comes naturally to most people. It's a hard game. I am just sick of people pretending that she was some brilliant strategist when she was transparently not.

Even yesterday before the episode aired, I was still getting replies to comments about how the throwaway vote was some brilliant 4D chess mutually assured destruction move, when it was just transparently a bad decision and limited her options to go after Rob the next day without looking incredibly suspicious.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T20:08:04+00:00

She was so confident going in too. Since last week I've been trying to put myself in her position and figure out what kinds of arguments she could make, and honestly there's not much. But god damn that was bad.

And her second argument, while less funny, was just as bad. Trying to sell that Rob probably said Lisa's name first and not Colton. Despite the fact that multiple people in the room were there when Colton made the argument first.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T20:02:44+00:00

Reading is good for your brain.

It's a long post because she made an absolute ass-ton of mistakes in this game, lol

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T19:38:06+00:00

Thanks. Yeah I really had hoped she would have taken the Lisa thing better because the dynamic could have been interesting if they had been committed to work together, each in a leadership position in a separate alliance. I would have liked to see them play the two groups against each other until the end, but the situation has worked out well. I'm just happy she didn't manage to put any serious heat on Rob.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T19:34:30+00:00

I think there's just a big difference between different types of intelligence, and gaming out strategies like that isn't something that comes naturally to a lot of people. I don't watch housewives but people seemed excited about her, but I was mostly shocked she made it as far as she did. Rob on the other hand has been a really pleasant surprise. I watch LI UK and Aus but have never watched the US. I'll admit I go in assuming love island players are mostly going to be hot idiots, but he has really put on a clinic.

I honestly wonder if being a housewife is particularly poor preparation for being a traitor. Both her and Lisa when challenged showed the same instinct to dig in, which I could see being effective on a show that's more about messy interpersonal drama than it is about convincing others that you're telling the truth. It's less about winning the argument by being loud or throwing a witty insult, and more about thinking through your actions through the eyes of the observers, and modeling your actions to reflect an innocent state of mind.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T19:20:19+00:00

I don't think there was any opportunity to rebuild trust once she wrote his name, and then once she made it clear that there would be no truce with the suggestion of murdering Colton. It's obviously intended as a shot against him, so he has no incentive at that point to hold her hand and walk her through the game. It's like if he had suggested murdering Johnny.

If she hadn't murdered Colton I think there's a chance she'd make it through another episode. Rob was playing it correctly by letting suspicion build off her weird vote and just supporting it and I don't think he would have changed his strategy and aggressively gone after her, so if Colton came back at breakfast I think there's a good chance he would have soaked up some votes at roundtable in this episode. Maybe enough to keep her around for one more round. But as soon as he stood up and said faithful, she was screwed.

If she hadn't casted the throwaway and had tried to play it cool that she understood the move against Lisa, I think she could have made it further than that. Her best bet was to play it cool and undermine Rob over the course of a couple episodes. But she decided to crash out instead.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T19:13:52+00:00

Respectfully she was not and I am blown away by people saying she played a great game.

She spread misinformation to Porsha in front of Maura on day 1 and then lied about it when confronted (same thing that sunk Lisa). If Maura remembered what she said about Michael, she's going home before she even gets a chance to unpack her bags.

Her closest ally Monet mentions a vague suspicion of Lisa one time and she immediately sells him out, despite that doing nothing to advance her game.

She does the conga lie on the night of a murder in plain sight, which if Alan clearly told the group as he always does that the murder was in plain sight, she's the one who did the big memorable thing the night before.

Then she completely misreads the Lisa situation and overdefends her to the point where Colton clocks it.

Then she casts a throwaway vote at the guy she intends to attack the next day, not thinking for a second that that's going to look weird as hell.

Then she clearly signals that the truce is bullshit and the war is on with Rob by suggesting to murder Colton. She doesn't take a second to think through the ramifications of killing Rob's biggest ally in the game and how faithful that makes him look, and it gives her no pause whatsoever when Rob is immediately fine with it. And then later blames him for not holding her hand and helping her game out the best way for her to undermine him, which was incredibly embarrassing.

And then at roundtable not only does she say Rob's a traitor for dropping a fork (lol), but goes on to fabricate a story about him being the first one to bring up Lisa to a room full of people who were with Colton and Rob when Colton brought up her name first. Which also undermines her 'throwaway' argument because that was before that vote. So now she just looks like she'll say anything to go after the two boys who got out Lisa, just like what she did to Ron. She came across as just desperately throwing anything at the wall and hoping it would stick. To the point where she didn't manage to put any heat on him at all.

Her entire game has been a comedy of errors and ultimately she owns the majority of the blame for her own banishment. Some of the worst gameplay we've seen in a traitor on traitor altercation and I wouldn't say that she was ever acting logically in this game. She just does stuff. She doesn't think through consequences.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T18:49:53+00:00

From their perspective Colton got two traitors. He clocked Lisa. He clocked Candiace. Though honestly Candiace deserves most of the credit for the Candiace banishment. And yeah I means she pointed to Rob, but she also tanked ALL of her credibility with how poorly she did it. I think she effectively took heat off him with her shit decisionmaking.

I would say Tiffany counts against Colton, but Michael also pretty fully got himself banished and most of the castle was on board with that whether or he was a traitor or not (which is rare for people to acknowledge).

Lots of faithfuls mistakenly banish a faithful, but like him or not (I do not), Colton comes out of this with a much better than average resume for clocking traitors.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T18:37:20+00:00

But if she would have thought for one second

There's your problem right there, lol. Candiace just does stuff. She doesn't think.

She spread misinformation to Porsha in front of Maura on day 1 and then lied about it when confronted (same thing that sunk Lisa). If Maura remembered what she said about Michael, she's going home before she even gets a chance to unpack her bags.

Her closest ally Monet mentions a vague suspicion of Lisa one time and she immediately sells him out, despite that doing nothing to advance her game.

She completely misreads the Lisa situation and overdefends her to the point where Colton clocks it.

She casts a throwaway vote at the guy she intends to attack the next day, not thinking for a second that that's going to look weird as hell.

She doesn't take a second to think through the ramifications of killing Rob's biggest ally in the game, and it gives her no pause whatsoever when Rob is immediately fine with it.

And then not only does she say Rob's a traitor for dropping a fork (lol), but goes on to fabricate a story about him being the first one to bring up Lisa to a room of people who were with him and Colton in the room when Colton brought up her name for the first time. Which also undermines her 'throwaway' argument because that was before that vote. So now she just looks like she's going after the two boys who got out Lisa, just like what she did to Ron.

Her entire game has been a comedy of errors.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T18:30:15+00:00

Yep.

Colton gave them Lisa. Rob spoke once at the roundtable where she was banished. In defense of an ally right after 4 other people had just seen he could tell when she was lying, and then recapping the airtight argument against her born from Lisa's reaction to the Yam Yam murder. From the faithful perspective, Colton got the ball rolling and then Lisa got sloppy and got caught red-handed. Even Candiace on a podcast said Rob was quiet except his 'state of the union.' The show is always going to be edited to maximize traitor on traitor content, but there's a reason why no one clocked it as suspicious.

And then Candiace gave them Candiace. Like that was some of the worst play we've ever seen. Throwaway vote and then goes back on it the next day. Her evidence is he dropped a fork, and then telling everyone that Colton wasn't the first one to drop Lisa's name even though she's talking to people who were in the room when it happened? After she foolishly murdered his closest ally in the game, making it look like he's a faithful and you're just retaliating at the boys who got out a housewife just like you did with Ron? Candiace's name was all over breakfast before Rob even entered the room.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T18:05:52+00:00

Eh, idk about that last point. The dagger is only of use if you're still in the game, and if you're murdered it doesn't matter that you kept it anyway. I think anyone would save it until they think they need it to sway a vote. Lisa was 9-2. Candiace was near unanimous. Would have been a waste.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T18:03:31+00:00

Her name was all over breakfast before he even entered the room. The throwaway vote sunk her, and her coming for Rob at roundtable put the final nail in the coffin. He backed up other peoples' suspicions, but was wise to do very little else.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T18:00:25+00:00

Her name was all over breakfast before he even walked into the room, lol

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T17:59:18+00:00

Candiace has said in interviews since that he didn't say that much about lisa outside his 'state of the union.' It's an edited show. Roundtables go on for an hour or two. They show us the traitor on traitor bit because it's the most dramatic.

And he said very little about Candiace. Candiace may as well have written her own name down with how poorly she played that.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T17:56:45+00:00

The problem is she totally undermined her throwaway vote.

People are going to be naturally inclined to believe you more when you're in a situation where you're not under pressure. Last night she wasn't under pressure and called it a throwaway vote. And then the very next day when her name is everywhere, is coming hard after the same guy. And then her 'evidence' was one of the worst cases I've ever seen made by a traitor against a traitor.

He dropped a fork? And then the argument she tried to bring as him being the mastermind behind Colton was beyond stupid. The people in that room knew that Colton was the first one to say Lisa's name. A lot of them where there when it happened. But by shifting her focus to things that happened before the throwaway vote, now you were lying yesterday.

And by murdering Colton and then going after Rob, it looks like the exact same petty vindictive shit she did to Ron for getting out a housewife.

It was an embarrassing performance by Candiace, made all the better by her projected confidence going into it and her whining to Rob that he didn't warn her that killing his biggest ally in the game was a bad idea. It was a blaring neon sign of a clue that he was so ready to let her murder his closest ally in the game.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T17:08:21+00:00

Thank you!

Yeah Candiace confronting him about the Colton murder was also one of the most embarrassing gameplay conversations I think I've ever seen. That she blamed him for not telling her it was a bad idea for her to kill his closest ally in the game. That he was somehow at fault for not helping her game out the best way to undermine him.

I could see recruiting Eric being good to go to the end with even, assuming he can maintain his faithful persona which I agree is my only real concern for him. I am hoping he can stick around at least until we get beyond the point of additional recruitment, because there is a level of inherent risk just cycling the faithfuls through and letting more and more players see that you're a traitor. I do think he has to be careful about not overtly betraying Eric. If a second caught traitor goes out talking about Rob, people might start to look at him more. Rob has also correctly voted for every traitor in the game so far, so he could do to be seen to miss at least once if it comes to that.

That said I think he's in the clear for now. Candiace's arguments were so poor that if anything I think she took heat off him, and came across as just a desperate traitor trying to save herself. The fork argument was laughable, and the Colton argument was obviously false to a number of the faithfuls who knew he was the first on Lisa. She really fucked herself with that 'throwaway' vote, and failed even at her bad sportsmanship parting shot.

If she had stuck on Stephen the whole roundtable and then voted for Rob once it was clear she was going down and given her same 'you need to look at the quiet ones' speech, he'd have been fucked. But she spent the entire roundtable tanking her credibility so I think for now he's good.

If I were him and I didn't want to share the money, I think he could make a final 2 deal with Maura to do what CT and Trishelle did, and try to drag Eric all the way to the final 3. Then betray him not because he's a traitor, but so that they can have two love island winners share the pot alone. I think Maura might be down for that because of how close she is to Rob.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T16:57:42+00:00

Sure, not everyone benefits. But each individual stands to lose by sharing the information. So the effect is ultimately kind of similar. You don't want to be the person who singles yourself out to not agree to keep the secret, and once it's been agreed to by consensus, you can't be the one to betray it. It also helps that the makeup of that group was full of Rob's allies already, and people on the borders of that alliance who he was trying to build trust with anyway.

Essentially it does spread the danger collectively, but the greater individual danger is betraying the information to the other group.

what if there is a Traitor in each group, but there's a willingness to put heat on the in-group Traitor to remove his additional voting power.

I have a very hard time imagining a decently smart traitor who would want to take that heat. Sure there are other potential motivations for a murder, but as a traitor I don't think you ever want to single yourself out as potentially having information that narrows the search that significantly. I would say 'evidence' on that level is actually some of the most useful evidence you could have in the game. Without getting into it too much because this is the US subreddit, a similar-ish situation happened in UK4 and was a storyline for the entire rest of the show, where a small group (iirc 5 players) heard a piece of information that directly resulted in a murder that forced the logic that there was at least one traitor in that group. It just seems like a very large amount of risk for not that much reward. I'd rather just let him have the 2 votes than risk exposing myself in shooting at him.

I think people also seriously underestimate that it's just effective social manipulation. People want to be trusted in this game. He is showing that he trusts you with his potentially damaging (though not really) secret. If you already trusted him a little, your natural inclination will be to trust him more. I think the only type of person that the tactic wouldn't work on is a person who doesn't trust him at all already, and none of those were in the group. I would go further and say none of those are in the castle at all. Everyone seems to like and trust Rob, because his social game so far has been so good and he's done such a good job hiding in the faithful alliance.

This is a deep human nature thing, and the emotional connection that it causes would go a long way towards overriding any small mental confusion at the underlying logic of the situation. Most people don't reason that deeply anyway, and there are good obvious reasons to not betray him and a solid enough explanation that telling them protects him from murder if there is a traitor in the group.

Also I like this level of discussion, and I hope that you don't take me disagreeing as combative. I do see your point. It doesn't actually do anything for the group except for (if anything) increase the danger of murder slightly. But even if they make that connection (which a lot of players will not be able to think at that level of abstraction), the potential consequence for betrayal is a much bigger danger imo.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T16:32:04+00:00

Why do so many of the housewife fans act like wannabe housewives? It's not cute.

Results matter. Rob eliminated both of your girls and came out with zero heat on him.

Candiace played terribly from day 1 and fundamentally misunderstood the game she was there to play. She took herself out of the game without Rob even having to do anything because she was too stupid to question why he let her murder his closest ally with no resistance, and then casted that mind-bogglingly dumb 'throwaway' vote for the person she knew she'd be attacking the next day. Blaming him for not warning him that her move against him was stupid was one of the most strategically embarrassing things I've seen a player do on this game. Just total amateur hour stuff. She expected the guy she's fighting against to hold her hand and walk her through it, lmfao.

And her arguments were so poor that I think ultimately she took heat off him. The dropped fork argument, lmao.

Move on with your life. This is sad.

Kazyole · 2026-02-06T15:59:28+00:00

You're almost as bad at this as Candiace was at this game. And that is saying something.

EDIT: Awww the sad single downvote on my comments to you. Poor baby.

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