Starting to sound like Maria is the host of these games.

Anyone else thinks Maria is the host? She's certainly dressed like one.

Kill her

Cannot imagine that lady being the host.

BEAT HER ASS SHALIAH!!!!

I mean, main reason why I didn't voice my suspicions that Maria's the host before was because it seemed like an obvious red herring (and it's the primary reason I'm STILL having second thoughts saying that she's deffo the host) so...

Neck snap incoming...

tbh I expect anyone associated with SMILE to have a manic smile forced on them.

Either Maria is the host, or Maria is the infiltrator. The host seems like the more plausible possibility. And if these phones are only short range coms - then it's very likely that the rest of her team got farmed for XP already. (Or otherwise killed, but "farmed for XP" is the most likely branch of that.)

Of course, with how the game's set up - how clear and transparent the big-picture rules aren't - this could also be a unique perk, just for her, that she received in her vault. I doubt it.

There's some pretty strong arguments for Maria being the host:

For starters, there's what we already know conclusively:

1) Maria voted to kill Jay-Jay, and then gave a, frankly, terrible excuse for why she did it.

2) Maria was the one who came up with the idea of extorting someone with a gun in the "Apples and Oranges Trade" round.

Neither of these behaviors prove she is the host by themselves, or prove anything other than that she's treacherous and underhanded. But consider some circumstantial evidence:

1) She was placed in a Ward with no challenges and even food in place, arguably the most hospitable Ward and one that gave the players in it a clear starting advantage of prize money they could use to buy off other players such as Cleaners.

2) Equally significant is that the other people in her Wards were people who either couldn't easily communicate (Three) or who were inherently more suspicious by comparison (The Smile Player, and I suppose Three as well) while Maria looks relatively normal and trustworthy.

If you look at her from the assumption that she is the Host and look for evidence that would frame her as such, even situations like her accusing Levin as being the murderer of Infinite look suspicious: If she's really the host, prize money probably means nothing to her outside the context of the game, so the loss of some prize money likely matters little to her as long as she doesn't end up in someone else's crosshairs. Being wrong about Levin and losing money for it LOOKS like a loss that makes her look less clever and more of a threat, but could in reality cost the Host, presumably affiliated with the Smile Foundation already, anything of significance.

In a game like this, if you don't want to be a target, you try to blend in with the herd, not stand out deliberately.

@Tom I can't imagine her not being the host. She really seems like she's uniquely ill-suited to be in any death game. The only question is whether or not her behavior is an act or not.

I had thought she was one of the saboteurs, and that she was the other person with the global order. Maybe even the person Heusten was after. Destabilizing foreign nations might explain her skull icon back in ward #3.

Maybe this was answered already: Why have the host in the game at all? It seemed like Smile was able to track everyone, so I doubt they needed an additional pair of frail mortal eyes…

I want to know why the game would even let them know there's a Host in the first place. Do we even know what "Host" means in the context of the game? The Host may not even work for them and it's just a player title with some other implication.

I want to know why the game would even let them know there's a Host in the first place. Do we even know what "Host" means in the context of the game? The Host may not even work for them and it's just a player title with some other implication.

Really should've led with "Oh they're probably dead due to the ghoul."