[The Saucepan Man]

Well, I have reviewed the entire thread and shall share my conclusions.

I am not going to bother responding to Kuruharan's "evidence" against me at length. I have little time, and more important things to say. My posts are there for all to see and I am happy to stand by them. Before moving on, though, I should point out that I have never sought to deny my role in the deaths of Evisse and SoN. In fact, I think that I have been fairly forthright about this. It is the only real evidence against me. The rest is pure speculation or, at worst (for me), statements that can be taken one way or the other. And, if we are to condemn people for having wrongly accused or voted against innocents, then we should look at everyone who has strongly accused or voted against not only Evisse and SoN, but also the phantom and Firefoot. Which is just about the entire village.

Now to more important matters.

First off, I remain pretty sure that Fordim is innocent. I did begin to doubt him again overnight, given that he outlined the "shortlist" of the phantom, The Only Real Estel and me fairly early on yesterday. But, as I have said, he did it too obviously for me to really set much store by that. There are others that did it far more subtly. Also, Firefoot effectively defended three people on a number of occasions yesterday by indicating that she found them less suspicious of others. They were Fordim, The Only Real Estel and me. I believe that Fordim was the beneficiary of Firefoot's Guardinaship on NIGHT 2 because (1) she already suspected him as being innocent, (2) he would have been an obvious choice for a Werewolf assault, and (3) because, on DAY 3, she not only defended him but echoed his reasoning in her own posts. I think that she felt that she could probably trust him.

But who is guilty?

I was fully prepared to find some evidence to dispel my suspicions over Kuruharan. I have found none. And now his determination not to consider any possibility other than that he is right and his insistence, verging on the evangelical, that I am a Werewolf and should be lynched (even though I have, as he says, gone easy on him in recent times) confirms my suspicions. I am convinced that Kuruharan is a Werewolf.

I don't think that anyone has cast doubts in mormegil's direction yet, not serious ones anyway. Well, I am about to.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Here's what I believe has happened so far.

On DAY 1, mormegil mentioned fairly early on that he suspected SoN and the phantom (both known innocents). He settled on the phantom, and pretty much argued for the phantom to be lynched from then on up to the end of DAY 3. Kuru, meanwhile, stayed fairly quiet for the first half of the day, posting every so often, but remaining non-committal and saying little of help to the village. I think that the Werewolves had identified their first victims as the phantom, Fordim and me, and perhaps Kuru was planning on gunning for Fordim or me on DAY 1. But when the opportunity presented itself to have Evisse lynched (as a result of Shelob's vote and my speculation), he took it. He was the first to point out the "hedging" elements in her posts and made out that these seemed to implicate her. In fact, I think that (knowing her to be innocent, which I did not), he cottoned on to the fact that she might be the Seer. After all, he's not stupid, our Kuru. They could not be sure, though, so mormegil voted for the phantom, and was probably quite please to see that both Fordim and I had attracted a vote each too by that stage. Kuruharan's vote for Evisse gave her 3 votes to tie with the phantom at that stage and, with Fordim and I there too, the Werewolves must have been fairly happy at that point. The voting then went against Evisse, and she was the one lynched.

DAY 2 opened with mormegil bringing up the fact that TGWBS's death overnight implicated Fordim. He tried to make out that this was not the way that it should necessarily be seen, but he put the idea in everyone's heads. Shortly afterwards, Kuru seized on what he thought were inopportune words by Fordim in order to try and implicate him. But the two of them spent most of the day between them trying to implicate the phantom and I. Mormegil carried on with his accusations against the phantom, while it did not take long for Kuru to start stirring up suspicion against me.

One thing that I noticed at the time about Kuru on Day 2 was how very defensive he was. Reading through the day's proceedings again, it is incredible just how defensive he is, notwithstanding that there were only two people who made any kind of serious accusations against him that day. Almost from the outset, his posts had a defensive tone, probably because he realised that people might seek to make something of his role in Evisse's death. He stepped up a gear when I cast suspicion on him, and again when Firefoot indicated her doubts about him. As both Oddwen and I pointed out, it was strange for him to behave like this when it was only Firefoot and I accusing him. I think that this is one of the few mistakes that he has made, but he got away with it.

I should note that, on DAY 2, mormegil and Kuru mildly pointed the finger at each other, but only mometarily and they have not otherwise come close to making any serious accusations against each other.

By the end of DAY 2, with SoN lynched, the phantom and I (the Werewolves' two chosen targets for DAY 2) both look likely suspects. The phantom because of the nature of his posts and me because I led the voting against SoN. It seemed to them that they had an opportunity to try to limit the voting to two or three innocent Villagers, thus guaranteeing that at least one innocent would be lynched (and possibly two) and that the Werewolves would be safe. As I have already indicated in my first post today, they succeeded in doing so. They decided, I believe, that one of them would go against me (the more likely suspect), while the other two would go against the phantom. They also concluded that the phantom and I would try to implicate each other. The phantom fell for that. I did not (although I had no option but to vote for him in the end).

So, on DAY 3, in his first post, mormegil put the phantom, Fordim, Firefoot and I firmly on the "shortlist", on the basis of our votes for SoN. Two on that list are known innocents, and I know one and believe the other to be innocent. Since the phantom and I were the most suspicious at that stage, they figured that we would become the centre of attention, and both of them spent the rest of the day encouraging the other Villagers to vote against one or other of us. Mormegil stubbornly ploughed his phantom furrow, while Kuruharan took great glee in making long posts against me setting out his "evidence" (see above). At one point, mormegil pretended to waver between voting against me or the phantom, perhaps further seeking to implant in people's minds that there was really no other choice. But he voted against the phantom - in a good piece of timing I might add, since it tied the phantom and I on two votes. Perhaps they would get their double lynching after all. Although I suspect that mormegil was probably right when he said that he had calculated that I would probably survive and they figured that this would be the better result for the Wolves, since Kuru would have been heavily implicated if I had been lynched, whereas morm had attracted very little attention up to then.

A few more things to be said about DAY 3. Kuruharan implicated Firefoot and Shelob as my "cronies". Well, we know that Firefoot was innocent and, on this basis, I believe that Shelob may well be too.

Also, in a modestly phrased, but actually quite arrogant, post (#188, mormegil stated:

Originally Posted by mormegil

I honestly feel that I was saved by the guardian last night. I say this because who else has been as vocal as I against those who are most suspicious.

The Werewolves knew that Firefoot had been successful on NIGHT 3 and that, if Firefoot was killed on NIGHT 4, we would be looking to establish who it was that she had protected. I think that mormegil was subtly trying to earn himself a little capital (as Kuru calls it) here.

Of course, one person is missing from the above summary of events. And that is our third Werewolf. This is almost certainly one of the "quiet" members of the Village. Personally, I suspect Holbytlass because she referred to the 2 Villager shortlist fairly early on on DAY 3 and questioned whether there were any other suspects. I am, as noted above, least suspicious of Evisse out of the "quiet" bunch. I remain, however, uncertain about the identity of the third Werewolf.

So there we are. That is what I believe has happened. It's the result of looking at the entire pattern of events over the last few days - how things have developed, rather than just specific comments and votes that led to a lynching. And my conclusion is that we should vote for Kuruharan today (as I am more certain of him than I am of mormegil).

And finally, Kuru actually got it right first time round about us possibly having only one day left. When he said this, I thought about it and worked out that, if we hang an innocent today and the Werewolves find the Cursed Villager tonight, the game's up. Similarly, if we hang an innocent, the Werewolves find the Hunter tonight and the Hunter unwittingly kills an innocent. It seems to me that this is more likely to occur to a Werewolf (because it plays a part in their planning), so perhaps Kuru realised that it might be incriminatory shortly after saying it and then tried to pass it off as an "innocent" mistake.

I shall have time to review comments tomorrow, but I shall be at work, so I can't post too much. But, unless I see compelling evidence as to why I should vote for soemone else, I shall be voting for Kuruharan.

(Apologies for the length )