The Traitors - a moral for our age

Like many others, I watched The Traitors unfold week by week on BBC television, a game set in a remote Scottish castle where a small group of anonymous traitors are set to beat their fellow contestants to win the pot of gold. Throughout the series, two characters defined the game: Harry, a worldly soldier the arch-villain and Molly, a beautiful, young, enigmatic girl, the faithful friend. As now widely known, in the final episode Molly is betrayed by her friend and loses him, the game, and the gold. The emotions in the final scene were raw, distressing and all too real, and have left me disturbed. But how can two people on a television game show generate such deep emotions? 

For me, this final episode is symbolic of the times in which we live, and touch a deep subconscious awareness of the troubling morality plaguing the world, where duplicitous self-interest and greed win over trusting innocence and naivety. To the world at large, Harry is extolled as a hero who wins by knifing everyone else, while Molly is attracting a crowd of vicious-tongued, anonymous critics on social media, for the simple act of trusting and believing another person. 

Molly and Harry together personify, through the characters they portrayed on The Traitors, and the deep psychological divisions within each one of us. Even in their private lives, they show a major divergence. Molly has a stoma, a severe disability at any age, yet she has overcome this with huge strength, and now has a passion for inclusive representation as a model with disabilities. Harry is hugely fit and able-bodied, with all his needs provided for in the army. 

We are all a conflicting combination of faithful or traitor, good and bad, virtue and evil. It is the balance between both characters that define our own being and behaviour. As people, they both are a balance of these characteristics as we all are, but this, I feel, is why the episode was so disturbing. It reflects a far deeper, Jungian archetypal psychology, to the extent that Molly and Harry have become subconscious icons on a par with the fundamental archetypes of Greek tragedy.  Harry reflects the morals of our age, where in politics and business we see corruption and deceit triumph over Molly, who reflects compassion, loyalty, faithfulness and integrity. These are the two fundamental agencies of humanity, and are the basis, not just of stories or myths, but our own deeper personalities. This is why the episode affected me so deeply, and continues to haunt me.

Colin and Ann

How much this contrasts with our weekend in Luxembourg to attend a funeral of a wonderful role-model of selflessness. Ann Buckland was the wife of my best friend Colin (who died during the Covid pandemic). She had gone for a long walk as she often did, but did not return by nightfall. Her son, Tom, flew out and helped organise a massive search effort, but in vain. Her daughter, Sarah, then tried to retrace the route her mother might have taken, from the evidence of her known walks and where the dogs on the search had led the party. She continued walking, stopping at each junction to reason which way her mother might have turned. Finally, it was Sarah who discovered the body, miles from home, and in deep woodland where Ann had probably become disorientated as it grew dark. Colin, I have already talked about following his death (see Memorial Service for Colin) in 2020. Both were completely honest, trustworthy, and unselfish, doing so much for the community and for the people they met. I had known Tom and Sarah as babies after Ann's marriage, and to meet again was very moving and brought back so many memories of a wonderful couple and two very dear friends. They very much reflected the good in life, supported by their deep faith in something more than themselves.