Tol-in-Gaurhoth III (The Saga Continues...)

[Kuruharan]

The length of this is probably going to make people not want to read it and I’m pretty sure I can see how this is going to go, but I’m going to speak my piece anyway. I am pleased to see that there seems to be a general impulse to wait as long as possible.

Okay, the first point is that on DAY ONE The Saucepan Man was the one who first mentioned Evisse’s name as his primary suspect and he mentioned her name three times before I ever mentioned her.

my suspicions are currently primarily directed towards Holbytlass, Evisse and SoN.
-The Saucepan Man post #48

My inclination, therefore, would be to lynch either Evisse or SoN
-The Saucepan Man post #61

Or do I follow my previous strategy and vote for Evisse or SoN?
-The Saucepan Man post #62

(Notice how he had picked the first two lynching victims well in advance of the main event.)

I did not mention Evisse until post #63 when I gave voice to the uneasiness I felt about her. Then in her next post she said something that made me more nervous.

Then in his next post, The Saucepan Man encouraged me in my belief and Evisse suddenly has a much more prominent role in his speech…

Yes, I noticed that too, although it was hedged in such a way as to not look like too much of a reversal.
-and-
I would expect the "supporting" Werewolves to be forthright in their support for the proposals, while suitably hedging their comments with caveats which they could later use to distance themselves from the proposals. Which is precisely what Evisse did
-and-
In fact Evisse seems to be doing a lot of hedging ...

I still have time, but I have pretty much narrowed my vote down to her.
-The Saucepan Man post #76

And then in post #83 he actually voted for her before I did. In fact, he was ahead of me in just about every step on that road.

Now, a good bit of werewolf strategy on DAY ONE is to set somebody up to be lynched by mistake on DAY TWO. I freely admit that I had a rather forward role in Evisse’s death and that played right into somebody’s claws. I light of this we have…

That was what convinced me to vote for her (prompted, as I note below, by Kuruharan)
-and-
But it was Kuruharan's comments that tipped me towards Evisse
-and-
And I am now particularly suspicious of Kuru
-The Saucepan Man post #106

You will note how he immediately began harping on me as his primary suspect and playing up my role in Evisse’s death. That was the moment that I became suspicious of him because I know that I am innocent (and still am innocent, just in case we have a cursed werewolf running amuck).

After I made my post about watching people who were vocal against me, The Saucepan Man goes quiet for hours on end, a fact I noted in post #113, even though if you take a look at his posting record you can see that he was still around during that time. After I say this he pops up less than half an hour later to try to lull to sleep any suspicions my comments might have aroused (post #115)

It was post #120 when I first made an open accusation in Saucepan’s general direction.

In post #124 he contradicts himself (and returns to the old theme of blaming me for Evisse’s death) when he says…

The first is Kuru. He pretty much followed the “under the radar” strategy on Day 1, but ended up edging me towards Evisse and voting for her himself.
-The Saucepan Man post #124

If I was really “flying under the radar” I was not doing a very good job of it if I were so instrumental in his decision to vote for Evisse. In fact, “flying under the radar” implies saying as little as possible although by Saucepan’s account I was egging him on to kill Evisse, which I think I have shown is a matter of some degree of dubiousness (something that I think Saucepan thinks too. More about that below).

In post #128 I repeated my earlier challenge to lynch me and find out if I was telling the truth.

In his next post he says…

What is your evidence against me Kuru? The fact that I voted against Evisse (thanks largely to you)
-The Saucepan Man post #134

Note how he is again trying to tie me to Evisse’s slaying.

In post #138 I called him on his role in Evisse’s hanging (and repeated my willingness to be lynched if it would prove my point.) In post #141 I voted against him and again repeated my challenge to lynch me to test my veracity.

I think at this point I had the werewolves, and specifically Saucepan Man, a little scared. We now get back to the Evisse hanging issue.

In his next post he said…

and I find myself questioning the conclusions that I am reaching.

Take Kuruharan, for example. Earlier today, I was convinced of his guilt on the basis that he edged me towards voting for Evisse yesterday, was directing the voting towards me today and was protesting his innocence too much in the face of very few accusations against him. But this can all be explained innocently. His conclusions concerning Evisse yesterday may well (like mine) have been genuine, he may genuinely (but mistakenly) believe me to be a Werewolf and, if he is innocent, his protestations are understandable.
-The Saucepan Man post #144

Notice how he is now falling all over himself to reverse course and keep me from being lynched because it would have been disastrous for him and probably a couple of his friends as well. He is also in this post utterly pooh-poohing any sinister connotation that could possibly be attached to Evisse’s slaying. This is a complete 180. I think it is not the least bit coincidental that it follows my challenging him on his role in Evisse’s death combined with my repeated invitations to lynch me. He is also trying to downplay any knowledge I may have gained about his role because I’d been accused, even though the accusations against me could hardly be described as “very few.” They were, in fact, repeated incessantly by himself and one or two others who I am ignoring for the present because they are not my targets this DAY.

If I was a Werewolf, do you really think that I would be taking on the role of "sacrificial wolf" to draw attention away from the others?
-The Saucepan Man post #144

As a matter of fact, I can positively attest that this is a quite viable werewolf strategy. It is not as if this has not been tried before . Let a highly visible wolf attract all the attention, delay its own death as long as possible, and then hope one or both of the others can slip through unnoticed at the end. I must say, if that is what the wolves are trying to do, it has certainly been working well thus far.

In post #147 he drops Son of Numenor’s name in from out of nowhere, returning to his secondary punching bag from DAY ONE.

But I will stick to my beliefs. And to put an end to this silly suggestion that I am somehow in league with SoN
-and-
And SoN's behaviour does seem the least explicable to me out of everyone.

So I shall vote for:

++ SON OF NUMENOR
-The Saucepan Man post #147

Notice how after that point he kept harping on Son of Numenor, keeping him in everyone’s mind.

And then we have today. A better job of flying under the radar you will never see. I could have taken a lesson or two from him on DAY ONE my ownself, if flying under the radar had been my intention. He makes one post (because he would be too painfully obvious if he did not) and then beat tracks for the tall grass. While he is gone, he does indeed fall off of most people’s radar, mainly due to the phantom drawing attention to himself and some other people stirring the pot.

Then we have my post #209 where I say…

I'm afraid the whole point of Saucepan Man laying low was to have people forget about him in his absence. It seems to be working to the necessary extent of getting people to give him another DAY.

And, LO AND BEHOLD…what happens. The Saucepan Man comes galloping back out from the tall grass trying to pooh-pooh the idea that there is anything sinister in his vanishing completely. Other parts of this post are also a real lu-lu.

But you all have your own minds and were perfectly capable of rejecting the arguments that I was putting forward.

As I noted before, you seem to have hooks through everybody’s jaws and you are now trying to pull on them by trying the whole “Oh, poor, poor, pathetic Saucepan” routine.

While he ever so reasonably and scrupulously avoids directly pointing any fingers at anyone (since as he admits, his advice has repeatedly led to the worst sort of mistakes) he does certainly give the village a shove in the direction of hanging the phantom. And in post #226 he is still at it. I personally think that even if he is not a werewolf, the very fact he is nudging us in that direction is a perfect reason not to hang the phantom this DAY. As he says, he’s not been right yet. At the very least we should do something that he does not want us to do. (Now just watch and see what he wants us to do…)

Now, a few other pieces of business…

Put bluntly, TP is either a wolf or an innocent who is helping the wolves by distracting our attention with his own suspicious behaviour, and slinging enough mud around to fill a horse paddock.
-Fordim

I fail to see how you of all people can be particularly accusatory in this regard. As far as I have observed this has been something of your own MO. I also fail to see why you can suspect the phantom over The Saucepan Man in this area. As a matter of fact, I think that if you are really honestly of that opinion you’d hang The Saucepan Man far sooner than the phantom.

I'm only saying that the damage to us is minimised if we kill an innocent Phantom rather than an innocent Spm.
-Fordim

A Saucepan Man who has specifically instigated the hanging of two innocents over a phantom who did not take a leading role in either (in spite of what might be said about the phantom’s motives in this…)? I’m skeptical of your reasoning (to put it mildly). Ockham’s Razor and all that…

Now I realize that all this is going to be construed that I am defending the phantom. That is not really my intent. I don’t know if the phantom is a werewolf. He might be. I’m intent on getting The Saucepan Man hung and this DAY I don’t really care about anybody else. I’ll worry about them later if I live to see it.

What I disagree with here is the course of action that a large number of you seem to be bent on taking. To me the evidence reads that there is a much stronger possibility that The Saucepan Man is a werewolf than the phantom. This does not mean that I believe the phantom is not a werewolf. It does mean that I think we should hang the Saucepan Man first and then see what happens before we start acting on different speculation.

However, no matter what I say you will believe I’m trying to defend the phantom. If you hang him and he proves to be a werewolf, I suppose it will look bad for me. But it’s looked bad for me already and as I said before I have no particular objection to being lynched if snapping my head off will put sense into some others. However, if he is proved to be innocent, perhaps then you will be in more of a mood to listen. (Although if he is proved innocent then I will probably be killed during the night because that would be the safest time to put me out of the way before anybody could start listening to me again). Of course, I thought you would be in more of a mood to listen today…

To ensure that Shelob cannot accuse me (again) of not having the courage of my convictions…

++ THE SAUCEPAN MAN

(Although on the other hand, Fordim does seem to spend an awful lot of time justifying hanging people he thinks might be innocent. This is his second one in a row. Notice how he has also made a rather strange adaptation of my own logic from DAY TWO.)

I also have no doubt that those of you who go to bed will just pop in to vote without reading all this and that this will all be ignored by those who do read it. Oh well, fortunes of war and all that sort of thing you know.