TOL-IN-GAURHOTH XII, Erbar Telamarth

[Mister Underhill]

Well, I wasn't planning to do a real in-depth analysis of Fea, but I got into her posts pretty deeply after all. Here's some analysis:

#74 -- Agrees to have "seen something" with Eomer.

Claims to have found "Two known innocents or two known wolves." but doesn't expound on this now or later, as far as I can tell, though I think she hints later that she doesn't want to reveal gifted if she's spotted them, see:

#95 -- "But if I explain my suspicions, I run the risk of getting some people I'd like to keep alive killed off. That's why vagueness makes me happy."

#113 -- "My two suspects, for little reason besides tweaking my nerves, are B88 and LMP." Don't know what bugs me about this exactly -- it just seems a pretty flip way of casting suspicion.

"I'm honored by your opinion of my capabilities, but you're wrong on me. Just because I'm fully capable of pulling off any depth bluff I feel like (most of which include no true work, simply alluding to one and letting your imagination do the work for me) doesn't mean I am."

"I mean... the last part is elaboration, but if you're so confident in my wolvery, you can give me the benefit of the doubt (after all, logic favors me in that I've got a higher likelihood of being innocent than guilty) and have confidence in my skills as an innocent." Her skills as an innocent have only succeeded in drawing a lot of suspicion on herself and accusing innocents. That she hasn't played a stronger innocent game in itself makes me suspicious of her.

Through several of these early posts, she generally toys and teases about the possibility of her being a wolf. This doesn't seem like sound strategy for an innocent wolf, but then again it may be her personality.

#136 -- "I think I'll vote B88 tonight, due to the fact that he works too much like me, and I make myself nervous. Seriously, if I was playing with me in a game, I'd be the first to bandwagon myself." Esty has mentioned this attitude, which recurs in a couple of posts.

This next one is key, and may contain a revealing slipup:

#137 -- Fea Sets up what she thought was a possible B88/Ang double-lynch, but doesn't take responsibility for it, leaving Lhuna to tie-break (or not). Gives excuses for not hanging in til the end of voting as she mentioned she might do earlier. Her tie actually would have lynched Cailin, but since she seems to have been mistaken, we can't credit her with this. She may have actually been trying to save Cailin. This seems big and I don't know why it wasn't noticed at the time. morm actually gives her credit for seeming less suspicious based on how her vote would have actually turned out, rather than analyzing how she thought it would turn out. Fea certainly didn't call attention to the mistake until much later (see below). Instead she gives a long post in #153 about how we should expect the wolves to do anything.
This seems to be a tactic she employs -- floats a theory, then lets your "imagination do the work" -- quick to revise if she's called on it.

Firefoot in #156, of the voting situation Fea created -- "Fea - I could go either way. While I haven't seen anything outstandingly suspicious about her, I wouldn't expect to; nor would I put anything past her. If she was an innocent, she honestly wouldn't know about any of the three (Ang, Cailin, and Borormir); and if she were a wolf her vote for Boromir basically says that she doesn't care which of those three dies and gives the remaining person another option so as not to be overtly protecting Cailin."

FF also seems to have missed Fea's misunderstanding; otherwise her read matches mine -- that Fea made a vote which (she thought) would help protect Cailin but wasn't so obvious as to cast the last deciding vote.
Form's #165 analysis of Fea's vote reinforces the fiction that Fea knew Cailin would have died in a tie, and not Ang.

#166 -- "You should all suspect me simply because there is no proof in my innocence. My word is obviously not good, as if I was a wolf, I'd be lying through my teeth... or, more likely, telling the flat out truth and letting you think I was lying." The bold rubs me the wrong way. "...not good enough" I would have bought. One of those wolfish unconscious slips?

#185 -- Fea brings up the mistake -- over 40 posts later. Maybe she figured she had better bring it up before someone else finally found it. She sure let a lot of time and assumptions go by before she pointed it out, though. Also, Formendacil posted five minutes later, meaning Fea's "admission" post wasn't sitting around at the bottom of the thread for very long. One wolf helping another fly under the radar?

#192 -- Form mentions Fea as "one of his top suspects" but without much reasoning, then votes for me. Wolf disassociating from wolf?

Hard to say what to make of the voting record. I tried to compare Fea's votes to the votes of the known wolves to look for signs of collusion -- with ambiguous results.

On Day One, they're spaced in a way that could equal Fea-wolf. If Fea is a wolf, then she and Form voted very close together on Day Two, which could be a strategy to throw wolf hunters off. Space it out on Day One, bunch it up on Day Two. Fea's relatively early vote on Day Two is a bit suspicious, considering her repeated claims that she's up til all hours and that she prefers to hold her vote in case she spots wolvish behavior.

On the other hand, Form's Day Three vote for her would be risky if they were working together. Could be a bold move, could be read as tending towards innocence. But then again, it wouldn't have been that bold -- everyone was buying into the "Fea set up" theory by then. Confounding, as situations in this game so often are.

In #208, Fea herself was the one who laid the groundwork for the "Fea-setup-by-wolves" theory. "At the moment, I can't avoid being impressed with the wolves' strategy. I'm not sure what the entirety of it is just yet, but I'm impressed. The kill of LMP was... I'd say unexpected, but if I'd been paying more attention (blast my obscenely large amounts of [wenching] homework) to the game, I'd probably have expected it. Who garnered a large number of votes already yesterday? Me. Who kept pointing her sadly inaccurate finger at LMP? Also me. Who looks most guilty because now he's dead? I'll let you fill in that answer."

This all sounds a bit strained to me. Would the wolves really go to all this trouble to set up Fea? Or was their kill of lmp based on suspicion of him as the Seer? The latter seems more likely.

In #238, says she "played with the assumption that [Eomer] was Seer before dropping the idea like a bad habit. I'd rather be assume I'm wrong than actually be wrong again." Her thinking Eomer was the Seer may explain Eomer's death: remember post #166? "...if I was a wolf, I'd be lying through my teeth... or, more likely, telling the flat out truth..."

In #262, Fea floated the idea of double-lynching me with Form -- take down an innocent with her fellow wolf? -- but didn't push hard for it. Could be innocent enough. Says she suspects Form, but I don't recall her talking about him much, and later she says she thinks I'm a bigger problem and pushes for me with only a few votes left to go. Once again gets in her vote relatively early with a somewhat suspicious double-post/dubious explanation: "Sorry to double-post, but I've only just realized that I'd like to go to bed and then sleep really late tomorrow, as it's my only day off from classes and I need the rest." Hrmm...

She got in the first post of the day after Firefoot's death, quickly floating the theory that Firefoot dreamed of her and cleared her (#276). Backtracks in #286 after morm challenges her on her interpretation.

That brings me more or less up to yesterday.

I have to say my gut is telling me Fea. That error on the Day One voting really reinforces the gut feelings I've had about her for some time. If she's innocent, she'll vote early -- maybe even first -- for Enca to help us try to set up the double. It's the only way to clear herself now. Then we'll know if Enca tries to foil it that she's the guilty one.

Fea, if you're innocent, I urge you to vote now for Enca. Don't wait.