If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying

“If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying” is Bael-Sharoth’s playful maxim for treating rule-breaking as evidence of effort rather than failure. In the campfire scene, the expression converts a disputed shortcut into a boast: Bael-Sharoth is not merely trying to make the fire burn, but trying hard enough to use every available advantage, including powers Six regards as magic.

The Campfire Dispute

The expression arises after Bael-Sharoth attempts to build an upside-down fire, a method Lucy Morningstar had shown him that was supposed to produce less smoke and burn longer. When Six doubts his ability and suggests that she handle the fire, Bael-Sharoth offers to let her build the next one if his attempt fails. Six rejects the proposed arrangement, explaining that she does not make unnecessary deals with Demons. Her refusal establishes the rule-bound position against which Bael-Sharoth’s maxim will push.

Bael-Sharoth then recasts the disagreement as a bet. If he can start the fire within five minutes, he will receive the first smore; Six tightens the terms to three minutes to make the contest more interesting. The wager gives the expression a concrete social function. Rather than arguing abstractly about competence, the two turn the fire into a timed test, with the first smore as its prize and the method of success as the point of contention.

Meaning in Use

To Six, Bael-Sharoth’s intervention is plainly cheating. He reaches over the logs, sprinkles something silvery onto the wood, warns her to stand back, and tells her not to look directly at the fire because the material burns hot. A flash then throws Six’s shadows across the surrounding trees, and intense heat reaches her back before she turns to find the logs merrily ablaze. The speed and spectacle of the result make her objection practical rather than theoretical: Bael-Sharoth has won the three-minute challenge by introducing an advantage unavailable to an ordinary fire-builder.

Bael-Sharoth answers her accusation with the maxim, “If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying,” delivered with a smug look. The line is therefore both defense and celebration. It denies that the shortcut invalidates the wager, while also presenting resourcefulness as a higher form of commitment than adherence to an unspoken fair-play standard. The expression’s comic force comes from the mismatch between the small domestic prize and the extraordinary means used to earn it.

Science as a Loophole

The statement also exposes Bael-Sharoth’s habit of shifting categories when challenged. Six calls the act magic; Bael-Sharoth says it was technically science. He explains that he recently discovered that some of the metals he can produce are highly flammable, and he connects that discovery to improvements in human technology over the last few centuries. His defense does not remove the shortcut; it changes the vocabulary surrounding it. By calling the technique scientific, he presents himself not as a cheat but as an experimenter exploiting knowledge.

This distinction is deliberately unstable. Bael-Sharoth is a demon, and the ability to produce metals is not presented as an ordinary human skill, yet the fire’s ignition is framed through material properties rather than an openly named spell. The maxim occupies that gap between magic and science. It allows Bael-Sharoth to claim both extraordinary power and technical legitimacy, making the language of rules flexible enough to preserve his victory.

Relationship with Six

Six’s responses keep the expression from becoming a solitary boast. She challenges Bael-Sharoth’s competence, rejects a deal with him, accepts a bet on clearer terms, and then calls out the method he uses to win. Her skepticism gives the scene its opposition, while Bael-Sharoth’s proud response—“That’s my girl!”—reveals that he enjoys her resistance as much as the successful fire. He treats her refusal and competitive adjustment as signs of kinship rather than disobedience.

The exchange consequently makes the expression part of a familiar pattern between them. Six insists on boundaries and tests the fairness of the contest; Bael-Sharoth responds through improvisation, technical explanation, and theatrical confidence. Their disagreement does not break the interaction. Instead, the wager creates a shared game in which Six can object to his methods while still accepting the challenge, and Bael-Sharoth can bend the rules while still honoring the result he promised to achieve.

Narrative and Thematic Significance

As a recurring expression, “If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying” crystallizes the scene’s tension between formal rules and practical results. Six’s objection represents procedural fairness: the contest should be won under recognizable conditions. Bael-Sharoth’s maxim represents instrumental ingenuity: a successful method is justified because it demonstrates initiative. The narrative does not turn the disagreement into a major moral crisis; it gives the principle a comic scale, allowing a supernatural feat, a family-like exchange, and a competition over a smore to occupy the same moment.

The line also gains force from the immediate contrast between Bael-Sharoth’s confidence and the physical danger of his method. He wins quickly, but the flash and intense heat require a warning to stand back and avoid looking at the fire. His success is therefore not effortless in presentation, even though it is magically or technologically accelerated. The expression defines trying not as slow, conventional labor, but as the readiness to take risks, exploit hidden resources, and claim the outcome before anyone can disqualify the method.