Well this is just... weird. I was expecting Zali to be the Orc Meat last Night. I'm not sure whether or not this casts suspicion on her, though. In a way, it does look like Zali sacrificed her fellow Orc Jenny, for the sake of looking innocent, but maybe that's just what the Orcs were going for by killing Spawn instead.
I find it interesting that Zali did not reveal the role of the person she protected until I asked her. If she was an Orc, and making herself look like the innocent Ranger was part of her plan, she would have identified Spawn as the protected right away in order to set up a reason for Spawn to die in the Night, right? Unless she was laying out the bait and I bit it. I do find it interesting that she revealed Rangerness without really any prompting, and in the face of what seemed like a very advantageous situation. I pointed out that the Ranger could protect her during the night, and she right away owned up to being the Ranger. This could be a mistake or a calcuated move.
But I don't know. I really feel like Zali is innocent. I think the Orcs killed Spawn because A) just like killing Zali, they were ridding the village of a known innocent B) they wanted to kill her anyway C) this puts Zali in a slightly shady light.
So, until further notice, I'm going to keep on thinking of Zai as innocent. I personally think it a bit stupid on the Orcs' parts to leave the Ranger alive, for purposes of a rather weak bluff, but oh well.
As to player analysis (particularly of the mad hatter, Jenny) I'll follow up with some of that. I'm not sure about doing as complete an analysis as I did before, or just mentioning red flags for or against innocence. I'll see how tired I get.
Despite this bit of Zali/Spawn confuddlement I'm still in rather high spirits about Jenny's demise. I mean, it's not every day my instincts prove good, so I could be lynched unanimously and still be happy.
Back with more.
X-posted with, er, well when I started this post we were still on page 6.