WW XXXIX - Do Werebalrogs have wings?

[Shastanis Althreduin]

Phew, 21 hours. Okay, I'll go back and read some stuff.

[Kath]

Um, Shasta you know that time was from when you last posted right? From now you've only about 17 hours I think.

[Nerwen]

I guess I'm bound to reply to this. Legate, is (wilfully?) distorting my comments.

1. My "for want of a better candidate" comment on Rikae did not mean: "I think you're innocent but I'm going to lynch you anyway". It meant: "I'm voting against you because you're the only one I suspect at this point, in preference to some random person who has done nothing to arouse my suspicions."

On the whole I thought she was more likely to be the cobbler than the balrog– or if not, that she was acting as a de facto cobbler, and as such was a liability.

(That suggestion originally came from Legate, by the way.)

What am I, new here, to make of people telling me, "Oh, it's just her playing style"? How am I to know whether to believe you?

Once again– I voted for Rikae because she was the only one I suspected at all.

I may have cast the first suspicion on her, but it was other people who built that up into a case in my absence. I seem to recall Legate being one of the prime movers, but I'll have to go back and check.

Because Mac seemed to gather votes far too fast, she tried to save him by starting another bandwagon.

2. I did not "try to save" Mac. I suspected a number of people; he was just one of them. Gil was another. (I now think he's innocent.) It was looking to me as though we were going to get a repeat of the "no trace" voting of the first Day, so I decided to widen the field. As simple as that. (I was actually following Nogrod's lead, in case no-one has noticed.)

3. Legate, in his list of my posts, has left out one. He says I only made two posts. I made three.

The one he has left out (#108) was the one where I analysed Volo's posts and suggested his death might point to Macalaure and/or Gil-Galad. Someone– Kath, I think– was dismissive of my effort, saying that Volo hadn't said enough to be worth considering. However, we now know Mac was indeed a balrog. So... why did Legate not mention that post?

Oversight?

Deliberate oversight?

Legate, with his "weasel words" and twisting of facts, is starting to smell balroggish to me.

[Nogrod]

I'm wishing to see Nerwen alive also toMorrow. I'm somewhat happy with her reaction.

I've just enough time to vote...

From the enigmatic people I find most suspicious

++ Sally


I'm not altogether happy with my vote but as I need to fly now I'll have to settle with it.

I hope to meet you toMorrow, hopefully with one balrog less among us.

[Brinniel]

Of any clues that The Might might've left us, it seems most obvious that he dreamt of Nogrod Night 2. The way he went from suspecting and voting for him Day 1 to completely trusting him on Day 2...it only makes sense. So for now, I'm ready to believe Nogrod's innocent. As for who Might dreamt of the first Night, it's not so clear. I agree it is possible he dreamt of Mac. Though he gathered some suspicion, Mac clearly was not going to be lynched Day 1 and if Might had voted him, it would just been a throwaway vote. So, he went with his next suspect at the time: Nogrod. Of course, it is quite possible he dreamt of someone else entirely Night 1, but we can't know for sure.

Legate is a complete toss-up right now. Either he's innocent, or he's a balrog taking advantage of the fact that the seer thought Legate was innocent. For the time being, I find Legate leaning more on the innocent side, mainly because I haven't really had a reason to suspect him before. But I won't eliminate the possibility he could be a baddie.

Kath I remain suspicious of for her ongoing arguments against Nogrod the previous Days. She really did keep going on about him, and said relatively little about anyone else. I don't recall she even mentioned Mac, who was obviously receiving the most suspicion at the time. And upon everyone discovering that Nogrod is most likely innocent, any balrog could say, "Whoops, my bad."

Legate makes some excellent points against Nerwen, and I'm beginning to think she's not as innocent as I once thought. I would like to take a closer look at her, though it will have to be done later.

About our "enigmas": There's so little substance from them right now, I feel like voting for one would have to come from wild guess. But even scarier is letting a possible balrog among Sally and Shasta slip under the radar. I'm still not sure what to do about them.

I also need to take a look at Mac's posts and see if it's possible to pick up anything from them.

[Shastanis Althreduin]

Hey, I /am/ trying to be more active. Honest!

Anyway, I'm not good at in-depth analysis. It's hard for me to type out things like that.

Some mental notes I made, reading back through the thread:

It's pretty clear that Might dreamt of Nogrod on Night 2, as has been said. However, Legate is a mystery to me. Helpful, yet if Nerwen is to be believed, a bit word-twisty. I think I'll go back and look at him in particular.

[Nerwen]

At the risk of protesting too much, I'd like to address the “Nerwen lynched Rikae! She must be evil!” argument in a bit more detail.

Seriously, what is going on? I did not lynch Rikae all by my lonesome.

Rikae was lynched by the following seven people, in order of voting:

Rikae.
Brinniel.
Gil-Galad.
Volo.
Nerwen.
Legate of Amon Lanc.
Nogrod.

I've re-read the Day 1 posts, and it looks as though a lot of the push to lynch Rikae came from Legate of Amon Lanc himself. Remember his "Rikae's a liar" business?

Legate is, at the very least, being a bit of a hypocrite.

I'm not accusing him of balrog-hood at this point, even though he's making what I think is a very dubious case against me. He may have, as he says, got carried away– if so, I feel that what set him off was not really anything I did, but the fact that Macalaure stated his belief in my innocence, more than once.

Well yes, that does look bad for me. Except– would Mac have been so vocal in support of a fellow balrog? Remember, no-one was accusing me then. There was no reason for him to defend me. My own opinion is that his comments about me were simply a blind.

I will be back later with some more general comments.

[Shastanis Althreduin]

Okay, I've gone over pages 1 and 2 with a fine tooth-comb and I must say that Legate and Brinniel are seeming the most suspicious to me at the moment.

I'm going to side with Nerwen, at least for the moment; the lynch of Rikae Day 1... well, it seems to me that Legate pushed it more than Nerwen did.

Also, a statement of Brinniel's discomfits me. On page 2. I believe it was (I'm bad at quotes, sorry) the statement about "not wanting to risk Rikae coming back on Day 2 and sounding innocent", which translated to me as "not wanting Rikae coming back on Day 2 and defending herself".

[Shastanis Althreduin]

Okay. So I like Legate's points on Nerwen, but I'd rather go back and read for myself. Reading up one or two posts, Nogrod seems to be rather defensive of Nerwen. More later.