‘Categorically wrong’: Former Traitors star debunks intriguing fan theory about how to spot a Faithful

Series one contestant laid out the evidence against the popular fan theory

The Traitors star Ivan Brett has disproved a popular fan theory about how contestants might be able to easily identify which of their fellow players are Faithfuls.

After the third season of the BBC game show launched on Wednesday (1 January), fans took to Twitter/X to speculate that the order of the contestants’ arrival at breakfast might provide a clue as to who is being honest about their Faithful status.

Viewers suggested that the final few players to turn up to the dining room in the morning usually tend to be Faithful contestants who narrowly avoided being “murdered” by the Traitors the previous night.

Traitors fans speculated that this pattern might be used in order to create more tension for the viewers at home, and that noting this might help players to avoid inadvertently “banishing” the wrong contestants at the round table.

However, season one contestant Brett, an author and games designer, soon weighed in to debunk this theory by looking back at examples from past series.

“Quite often I’m told how because the final two or three players arriving for breakfast on #TheTraitors are always Faithful, this is a game-solving clue that the other players never use,” he wrote. “Well, here’s why the Late Faithful (Laithful) strategy is categorically wrong.”

Brett went on to note that while “in season one this tended to happen, it didn’t always”, and pointed out that in the fourth episode, Traitor Amanda “was last to turn up to breakfast”.

“Nobody was murdered that night, but they still used it as an opportunity to break that Laithful pattern,” he said.

“But even without that, you only spot this pattern of no Late Traitors (lators?) if you *already know* who the Traitors are,” he continued. “Faithfuls are sus[picious] of everyone and only discover traitors once banished. We all tracked votes, friendships, but breakfast arrivals were not being counted.”

Some viewers suggested that players should look more closely at the order of their fellow contestants’ arrivals (BBC / Studio Lambert)

Brett then noted that although the season two contestants would have already watched the first series and therefore might be more aware of how the show was constructed, they’d be wrong to assume that the producers would keep repeating a pattern.

“OK, you say, but when watching the show it’s obvious,” he wrote on Twitter/X. “So why didn’t season two’s contestants use the same info? Well, I hope they didn’t…”

He then pointed out four examples where Traitors were among the final contestants to turn up to breakfast.

“So if you’d tried the Laithful strategy in season two, we can all agree you’d have been barking up the wrong croissant,” he concluded. “I think it’s fair to say, this myth should be busted.”

Author and games designer Ivan Brett appeared in the first series of ‘The Traitors’ (BBC)

The third season of the show has brought an unexpected twist to the usual Traitors format.

During the first episode, host Claudia Winkleman told contestants that the players who make it to the final will no longer reveal whether they are a Faithful or a Traitor once they have been banished.

This change to the rules of the game will ensure that players must rely on their instincts to work out whether any Traitors are remaining in the castle, which could make their final decision much more difficult.