More analysis. Prolly gonna be another long one.
SerialClergyman
The first thing that occured to me as I read the game is that he really didn't seem to be aware that scum don't have a nightkill. The
post in question is pretty subtle and not easy to fake. I don't agree with Elvis that this automatically exonerates him from being scum, I've played whole games as scum while having the wrong ideas about my own powers because I didn't read my PM closely. But it is a fairly strong point in his favor (and pretty much excuses him from being the first to suggest imprinting everyone). It's mostly downhill from there, though.
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The first post of his I found slightly problematic is his
post 115, in which he advocates not imprinting anyone for the first time, despite voting to imprint Elvis and himself still (this was before they went all buddy-buddy). He later claimed that he left the imprints vote due to not having thought about it, which is somewhat dissatisfying considering the post I linked in this paragraph, which clearly indicates he thought about it. It's not a major gripe, but I still have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to his stance on imprinting. So stay tuned. For the record, I highly doubt that E_K and him are scum together, so I don't give much credence to the theory that them imprinting each other is anything but coincidence.
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First instance of his fluid stance on imprinting:
Post 146. Also the beginning of his love affair with Elvis_Knits. Only seven hours after declaring that no one should be imprinted, he's down with a plan that has him and elvis imprinted. When I first read it, it made me uncomfortable how easily he embraced the hand that Elvis extended to him. Considering her plan directly contradicted his previous (and later) stance on imprinting, it gives me the feeling of a scumbag taking advantage of the fact that he had just been "cleared" by another player.
I'm gonna deal with this now without providing links (I can already feel this becoming another monster post): One constant issue I had with the way he handled his connection to Elvis is that he almost exclusively argued against the accusation that they are scum together. I currently lean towards Elvis being town, and I feel this is a natural approach for a scum-player who is establishing a strong link to a town-player. By repeating over and over that they are not scum together, he's laying the groundwork for when one of them ends up dead. Dead townplayer -> "told you we're not scum together". Dead scum -> "why was he so adamant that they're not scum together?" This is a fairly week point against him, but it's another thing that fits with SC-scum.
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Post 184 is the first big one, in which he accuses Starbuck of being scum with Deathnote, despite never mentioning any suspicion of DN previously (he shot down DN's strategy on page 1, and that's it). Two problems with this:
1. Starbuck's so called defense of DN wasn't actually unreasonable from a pro-town perspective.
2. Even if you don't think her stance on DN was reasonable from a pro-town perspective, I really don't see how you can jump to the conclusion that they are buddies, unless you have a previous suspicion on DN
This seemed not to be the case for SerialClergyman. And indeed, he followed that post up with a vote on Starbuck.
To me, this reaction to her first real post of the game was completely overblown. And knowing now the alignments of Starbuck and DeathNote, it's easy to see why scum-SC would have linked them so heavily together. I'll get back to this later.
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Lo and behold, SerialClergyman confirms that he's
not actually suspicious of DeathNote, except for the fact that Starbuck is defending him underhandedly. This is completely backwards to me. How can you consider the defense of another player underhanded if you're not actually suspicious of that player? I don't get that sentiment at all from a pro-town perspective. Someone makes somewhat neutral comments about another player I don't consider scummy, I don't bat an eye. On the other hand, when I'm scum and a hapless townie makes comments about a scumbuddy that can be construed as a defense, it presents an opportunity for attack. The fact that SC swooped down on Starbuck like a hawk immediately like that despite claiming a lack of suspicion of DN indicates to me that he was keenly aware of the fact that DN is scum.
Of course, there's also the fact the he is pushing Starbuck and not Deathnote, but I don't really count that against him at this point despite how it looks in retrospect. If he's actually town and truly believes in this twisted logic, it would make sense for him to go after Starbuck first.
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Where it starts being a problem is
here. The way he pre-emptively clears DN in case Starbuck turns up town (and further condems her in case DN comes up scum) rings major alarm bells for me considering what we now know about the alignment of these two players. He took this even further when he presented his crazy lynch-scheme later on.
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And here we are, the
big one. I have to quote it because it's so juicy:
SerialClergyman in Post 311 wrote:I have a suggestion. Lynch DN, imprint me. If I'm wrong, and he's town, I'll be the next lynch, and I'll tell you all what my power was and where I used it and what I found. If I'm right, we lynch Starbuck and imprint me and elvis.
How does Elvis feel about this now that we know the alignment of DN and Starbuck? Not only is this a ludicrous attempt at a power-grab (his scheme involves him getting imprinted twice!), it also conveniently sets up the lynch of a pro-town player. Of course, this is in hind-sight, but considering he
wasn't actually suspcious of DN on his own
, I really cannot comprehend at all how a town-SC could have thought this was a good idea.
Of further note, he has once again changed his opinion on imprinting (he previously changed back to a no-imprint stance). It won't be the last time.
By the way, the fact that he offered to
be lynched himself shortly after is
not
a point in his favor. Not only because, if he is scum, he's trying to set up the lynch of Elvis with it (who, again, I currently don't believe to be scum), but also because offering your own lynch in general in such a situation (namely D1 with no information) is incredibly counter-intuitive to a pro-town player, especially a good one. I consider it a scum-ploy in most cases (all cases if the player in question is not an idiot, which I don't believe SC to be).
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At this point, I'm skipping over a bunch of stuff I would have commented on if this post wasn't so damn long already. It's mostly a bunch of what I consider crap-logic concerning probable scum-behavior and probabilities in general. For the record though, he's back to a
no imprint-policy.
One instance of crap-logic I want to point out though, because I consider it
severe. Here, SC pulls out some completely arbitrary numbers out of his ass to demonstrate that scum are statistically unlikely to bus on D1 in an effort to discredit the notion that he could be bussing Deathnote, completely disregarding the fact that Deathnote started the game in an incredibly anti-town fashion, not to mention apparently has a reputation for being a less than stellar player, and would have therefore screamed to be bussed if he was scum (and he was). The whole argument is a complete and disingenuous fabrication.
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That's it for D1, almost. Are you exhausted yet?
I will note again here that his hammer on Deathnote is not a point against him, but rather the first sizable point in his favor. If he is scum, he did the town a huge favor by not allowing any imprints to go through. Nothing was lost, a lot of information was gained, a scumbag was killed. Of course, you could WIFOM this to hell and back or speculate that all imprint candidates were protown, but I chose not to venture down this path.
If the hammer was a point in his favor, the
beginning of D2 certainly isn't. Of course, there's the matter of his continued push against Starbuck, which is a lynch he essentially set up the day before, but there is more:
1. He once again offers his own lynch. I still find it scummy.
2. He forcibly reminds everyone "NOT TO IMPRINT ANYONE". This starkly contrasts his stance on D3 which basically amounts to "now that we have information, we're ready to imprint" (I will discuss this further once I get there),
The second one is fairly big to me. D2 would have been the ideal time to imprint, coming off of a scum-lynch. He later excused this by stating that one should go for a lynch as long as there's a strong suspicion, but that's bullshit to me. The read I'm getting here is that he was set on carrying out a preconceived plan to bulldoze Starbuck and not actually interested in the best course of action for the town.
As an aside, I don't appreciate the fearmongering ("if I wouldn't have interefered, scum wave have gotten imprinted") either. It actually diminishes the point I made above that his hammer works in his favor. If his stated reasoning for dropping the hammer was "better risk/reward if we get rid of this scumbag and do imprints later", I would have considered it pro-town. The reason he did provide doesn't work for me. Of the people likely to be imprinted, he only ever commented on one of them in a negative capacity.
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The rest of D2 was pretty much him lynchmongering Starbuck and offering his own lynch again and again. It's not very substantial on the whole. One thing I did notice just now though which didn't occur to me on my initial read-through is that he repeatedly
links Starbuck to VMD. I don't remember off-hand where I got the notion that SC and VMD are probably not scum together, but this could be an indication that they in fact are (also,
this, notice a pattern?).
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Here is something I want to bring to everyone's attention: His stance on imprinting on D2, for example in
Post 522 or
Post 524. Keep this in mind for future reference, it's important.
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Actually, and luckily for you, The stuff from the last paragraph was to be kept in mind for not so future reference, as I'm skipping ahead to the beginning of D3. And guess what SerialClergyman wants to do?
Imprint people, of course. Now first of all, this is almost comically inconsistent. Not that long ago, he was in favor of lynching 5 times in a row,
irregardless of Starbuck's alignment
. It took one line from Elvis to change his mind. That in itself I find
very
fishy.
Even more gravely, it fits with a pattern I see very often in scum. SerialClergyman was unflinchingly tunneled on Starbuck (and a small number of perriferal players) and fiercly against imprinting. Once he had achieved his goal, he was suddenly without suspects (he bases his analysis in this post purely on wagon-placement, which is not a very promising way to scumhunt, to say the least) and so changed his tune on imprinting. Again, this strongly reads to me like he was working along the lines of a pre-conceived plan and not at all interested in what was
actually
in the best interest of town at any given time.
Ah, and I see that this post contains one of the things that made me think he is not scum with VMD, the fact that he goes to her as a suspect now that his crusade against Starbuck is over. Not his top suspect though, so it's not as strong of an idication as I remembered it.
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His
actual reason for suspecting Limerickx is crap, as has been pointed out by Limerickx. It also doesn't take long for him to
back down from VMD. He is completely without strong suspicions at this point and seemingly going for imprints for a lack of better ideas. And this is the guy who wanted to lynch 5 times in a row the day before.
Limerickx on the other hand interprets this as him turning to imprints because he's on the chopping block. I disagree, but appreciate his questioning, as it produced nuggets like this:
SerialClergyman in Post 755 wrote:I was always in favour of turning to imprints. It was only when we had a good lead on scum that I thought imprinting was a bad idea.
This is a bold-faced lie
. Here, I will quote it for you:
SerialClergyman in Post 524 wrote:8 townies now. There are 3 scum. So if we never imprint, we could have 5 lynches before we're even, whereupon I'm not sure what happens.
Given I'm pretty sure of the towniness of 4 players, I'm so into that plan
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Farside has done some questioning about his sudden willingness to imprint (I think it was her), so I will not extend this post further by repeating it, but suffice it to say that I also don't see why he didn't have those sentiments after the Deathnote lynch. And I will repeat that the "because we had a lead on Starbuck!" excuse is bullshit.
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Aaaaaand, I think I will stop here. One more quote though:
SerialClergyman in Post 828 wrote:I honestly need too much time and it's just a theory at the moment. I'm OK with the people likely to be imprinted so I'm not too worried.
Last I heard, he
wasn't.
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Closing thoughts:
His acts, almost all of them, scream scum to me. Points in his favor are the fact that he seemingly wasn't aware of the lack of a scum NK (fairly strong point in his favor), his hammer on DN (very mild point in his favor, considering his stated reasoning) and the fact that I have some doubts about him being scum with my second top suspect (mild point in his favor).
Finally, if he is scum, he is a good actor. The thing that made me doubt myself the most on my initial readthrough was how boldly he went about his crazy schemes and the air of honest delusion that surrounded him at times. But having compiled this analysis, I have very little doubts.
I want him dead.
[i]Mgm laughed nervously, his cheeks flushing in the faintest of blushes. "Patrick... I only wanted to be with you... that's why I put the game to night, so Glork would get killed."[/i] - the heartwarming conclusion of Face to Face Mafia
