I’m with stupid: How The Traitors proved playing dumb is the smartest move in the modern age
Share:
As thoroughly decent doctor Kasim gets banished on the popular BBC show, Helen Coffey questions whether intelligence has become a hindrance that should be hidden at all costs if you want to get ahead. People keep on telling me about how clever Kas is.” These 10 simple words, though complimentary on the face of it, may have unwittingly sealed an innocent man’s fate.
![[Series two’s Ivan wasn’t smart enough to play dumb]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/03/11/newFile-7.jpg)
Uttered by Leon about his fellow contestant Kasim on the BBC’s explosively popular strategy gameshow The Traitors, they planted a seed of suspicion that rapidly grew into a veritable jungle. For three consecutive nights, the poor good doctor was hauled over the coals at the Round Table, increasingly ostracised from the group and forced to defend his unimpeachable character, before being unceremoniously banished at the end of the fourth episode. He was, of course, a Faithful all along.
If you’ve never watched the show, the premise is simple: a group of strangers are thrown together in a Scottish castle to play the game. At the beginning, a small minority of players are secretly given the role of Traitor; everyone else is a Faithful. Each night, the Traitors pick a Faithful to “murder”, eliminating them one by one from the game. Each day, the whole group has a Round Table discussion to guess who they think could be a possible Traitor, at the end of which one person is voted out or “banished”. In the final round of the game, if there are only Faithfuls left, they split a sizable prize pot between them. If even a single Traitor remains, they win all the money instead.
