Celebrity Traitors’ Hannah Fry accidentally exposed the exact voting tactic she researched

Professor Hannah Fry spent weeks developing a mathematical strategy to catch Traitors, only to make the exact kind of vote her own research warned her about on Celebrity Traitors.

The Cambridge mathematician analysed previous series of the BBC show before entering the castle, using principles inspired by Alan Turing’s codebreaking work to develop what she hoped would be a near-perfect way of identifying the show’s secret villains.

Via BBC

But there was one rather significant problem with her approach: Hannah initially expected to play as a Faithful, rather than becoming a Traitor herself.

Her research suggested that nervous Traitors often make what’s known as a “burn vote” during the first three or four episodes. This involves voting for someone who isn’t already a major target, allowing them to avoid taking sides while keeping their own identity under wraps.

According to her analysis, 23.5 per cent of all votes cast by Traitors followed this pattern. It was precisely the kind of suspicious behaviour Hannah had been preparing to look out for.

Then Maya Jama and James Acaster recruited her as a Traitor, and suddenly she was on the other side of her own mathematical equation.

During a tense roundtable, Hannah found herself under serious suspicion and voted for Jerry Hall in what appeared to be a panicked attempt to divert attention away from herself. In doing so, she seemingly recreated the very voting behaviour her research had identified as a potential giveaway.

Via BBC

Fortunately for Hannah, the Faithful weren’t quite as quick to spot the pattern as she might have hoped. She survived the roundtable, while the group ultimately banished Faithful contestant Julie Hesmondhalgh instead.

Most Read

Christa Pike ‘angry’ as she shares message from prison after surviving lethal injection

Bella Ramsey on Celebrity Traitors made me nervous as a queer person, but then came Ross Kemp

It’s time for week three, so here is the full episode schedule for The Celebrity Traitors this week

Her theory had also accounted for one important complication: the Faithful can be surprisingly chaotic when it comes to identifying the Traitors among them. That may have helped Hannah escape the consequences of her own suspicious vote, at least for now.

Still, viewers were quick to notice the irony of the mathematician’s predicament. After all, spending weeks working out how to catch a Traitor is one thing. Avoiding detection when you’re the one doing the scheming is another entirely.

Hannah also offered a defence of her approach, explaining why she believes the Faithful can make things harder for themselves by targeting the wrong people.

“I’m cautious about everybody,” she declared. “The mistake that we see the Faithfuls make time and time again is they take the people that stand out, the most trustworthy, the people who’ve got a reputation for being smart… and then the Faithful kill them and then you weaken the Faithfuls overall.”

Via BBC

Her comments are particularly interesting given that she’s now secretly working against the very group she’s discussing. First, she referred to the loyal contestants as “the Faithfuls”, rather than speaking as though she were one of them. She also used the word “kill” to describe what happens to players, a slightly revealing choice of language from someone supposedly on the side of the Faithful.

Neither comment proves that she’s been rumbled, of course, but combined with her voting behaviour, they’re the sort of details that could become significant if suspicion starts to build.

Tonight, Hannah and fellow Traitors Maya Jama and James Blunt will face another major decision as they target either Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Beckett or Ross Kemp, or attempt to murder Leigh-Anne Pinnock.

For all the latest news about Celebrity Traitors, like The Holy Church of The Traitors on Facebook. 

Featured image via BBC iPlayer.