Did I miss something where James is sort of a garbo person? He seemed fine to me, maybe a bit of a degen since he gambles for a living. Mason is terrible, David was mostly ok but he did some very questionable things that pushed him down quite a bit.
i watched most of his run and in his interviews he always talked about nice stuff about how he loves his friends and family. heās not openly leftist online, tho. iām being optimistic that he is being shrewd about not wanting to alienate anybody. he mentioned during the goat tourney that he wanted to be a media personality
ken being a left wing mormon is awesome, and his twitter rocks
He has a personality similar to many of the online poker crushers of a decade ago. Not necessarily terrible, but not too charismatic obviously.
Yea, seems like a good guy just awkward
Yup, I get the impression the toughest part of preparing for Jeopardy for James was not appearing aloof and douchey.
Iād love to see him go on to do some kind of game show hosting too, but his role would have to be the trivia master you have to beat, a la The Chase or Win Ben Steinās Money.
Iāll admit that my antipathy for James mostly hinges on that constipated look he has when answering questions eta also shit talking Brad when heās hopelessly behind was kind of a dick move
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James being anything like Mason or DS is quite the hot take.
By almost all accounts of other contestants he was nice. All the 2+2ers who knew him seemed to think he was a nice guy. Donated a good bit of winnings to charity.
Also, the shit-talking Brad seemed more like ball-busting between friends than anything malicious. Iām legit surprised that anyone saw it any other way.
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I donāt know, I thought both ken and brad seemed pretty genuinely taken aback right when it happened.
Looking at their twitter feeds it seems pretty clear it was just trash talking among friends, even if James line was pretty harsh.
Here is a video of trivia dodgeball between Brad and James, and this was before James run
Definitely seemed like James was just ballbreaking there. All three appear to be friends or at least friendly with each other outside of the game. They just didnāt expect it in that environment.
James seems pretty likable to me. Heās not as funny as Ken but heās way more interesting than your average contestant.
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Seemed good-natured to me. The delivery was all wrong for someone who was trying to be mean-spirited. Also, James may be a bit aspy, but heās not a moron. I think he is aware enough to know that genuinely berating opponents would look bad, so he wouldnāt intentionally do that. Heās drawing live to some serious post-Jeopardy prospects, so image has to be important to him.
Also, there are virtually no other accounts of him being a giant douchebag. There is one account from one other contestant that was highly suspect. Otherwise, everyone thought him to be a nice guy.
The far more likely explanation is that he was just joking around and (apparently) he didnāt execute wellā¦
For sure the trash talking on the show and especially on Twitter was all just fun kayfabe kinda stuff.
Yeah, I totally agree, it was definitely intended to be good-natured and not mean-spirited. I think as SUB said āthey just didnāt expect it in that environment.ā
But in the moment, I still think both of them were shocked that he actually said it. Ken was bent over laughing and finally just said āWow!ā. And both Ken and Brad use a palms-up gesture which translates to āDude, what the fuck?ā
Iām sure no feelings were actually hurt, since theyāre all, after all, game show millionaires.
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If itās legitimate kayfabe and Brad was in on it then of course thatās different. I just felt really bad for him in that moment. I canāt imagine being on a national stage like that, doing something youāre known for being one of the greatest of all time at, failing as hard as he did and then itās topped off by your opponent twisting the knife. Poor Brad. 
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Maybe he should have worked harder in preparation. No sympathy!
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In Bradās twitter bio he has it say ātell your sister to stop calling meā and then quickly scrolling thru itās clear those three like each other and like to roast each other.
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Lol, looking at Bradās Twitter led me to Jamesā Twitter. His current picture:
Nice.
Brad just ran hot on finding daily doubles and cold as ice on getting them right. I donāt think he took it too hard.
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His DD answers definitely cost him, but his buzzer speed and recall on regular questions were clearly lackluster too. Someone pointed out that his win in the Team Tournament a while back obscured the fact that his particular rounds that he played were also weak, so maybe we should have seen this coming.
I remember he was pretty weak in the first round but I thought I remembered him playing a lot better in the final.