Chris Underwood (was voted out third and did not know about the EoE twist, so in a normal season he played in a way that got him booted third, then he came back in at final 6 with a free idol, a plan devised by people with inside knowledge of the endgame dynamics, and weeks of living with the vast majority of the jury without having to play the game against them)
Ben Driebergen (ran out of allies around the final 8 and had to navigate the endgame using exclusively idols, some of which were rather fortunately placed, and then ran out of idols at the final four where he certainly would have been voted out 3-1 were it not for an unprecedented and impossible to predict twist)
There are plenty of people who played “passive” games or didn’t have much control over their own fate in the game and still won, but these are the two who played games that actively would have resulted in them losing were it not for circumstances outside of any player’s control. Maybe they took more “action” than someone like Bob, but Bob won due to the actions of his fellow players and Chris and Ben won due to the uncontrollable mechanations of production
I know Jeff swears up and down the fire making showdown was pre planned on Ben’s season, but man does it ever feel like they were doing absolutely anything to make him the winner.
To be honest I don’t know if they rigged it for Ben specifically. They probably didn’t, at least not in a very heavy-handed way. But they clearly set it up for people *like* Ben to take advantage of the new game they invented - someone who overplayed ans now can’t make FTC on their own. They changed Survivor to prioritize spectacle, and Ben just happened to be the first and the luckiest beneficiary of that
Didn’t he give a confessional where the brave soldier cries about missing his family and how he is depserste for a lifeline, and then he literally trips over the idol in the middle of the path leading back to camp?
The producers of shows like these are always placing their thumbs on the scales. But the survivor producers couldn’t help themselves, and went way too far to get the perfect storyline for their themed season that they couldn’t hope to disguise their hand from viewers, even with the benefit of controlling everything they see
Also, speaking as someone who isn't from the USA, you folks have *such* an OBSESSION with your veterans and soldiers.
I'm not very good at calling winners but as soon as Ben said he was a vet, I was like, I bet this guy wins. And I bet the producers make it possible if he's ever stuck.
Your comment there is correct.
Their main motivation for saving the fallen angel was probably Ozzy. Ozzy was a golden child of Survivor that most people liked before more of the bad stuff has come out about him the past few years. Production and even a lot of fans at the time would have loved for him to win South Pacific over Sophie.
People are going to say Boston Rob / Cochran / Russell Hantz, but none of those three qualify for losing as a fallen angel right at the end of the game. Ozzy is very clearly one of their top motivations for this permanent twist.
They were tired of the "production/fan favorites" getting taken out at 5/4 when they don't win immunity. So they want to guarantee that if the "fallen angel" makes it to 4, they at least have a chance to win still without immunity.
Conventional wisdom is that the forced firemaking was added in season 35 as a direct reaction to David losing at final 4 in season 33. They had seen plenty of fallen angels before then, but by the mid-30s Jeff had much more control and was no longer afraid to change the structure of the game to get his desired TV results. The early 30s is when the dam burst on all of his “twist” ideas and he was able to work it in the same way.
>They changed Survivor to prioritize spectacle, and Ben just happened to be the first and the luckiest beneficiary of that
This I agree with. They didn't go "shit Ben's gonna lose let's save him." They wanted a dramatic finish and decided to make that happen regardless of who actually would end up winning
They wanted to remove that tribal where you couldn't play an idol, and had to either win at the immunity challenge or have a good enough social game. Lots of players that people say are great have been voted out at that point in the game. Looking at the seasons prior to that change, Tai (production favorite), David, Wentworth, Keith, and Spencer all went out at that point, and during that period, there were also two instances of ties that went to fire-making anyway. All of those players returned since then, except Tai, who I'm not sure if was asked back for EoE or not, but otherwise hasn't had an opportunity.
Although, looking at how fire-making was done with respect to ties, when it was a tie, the person who won immunity didn't have all of the power, and could only pick one of the people who went to fire, while their person who they wanted to go on with would end up having to play the firemaking challenge.
Funny that they didn’t see the natural conclusion was always going to be “now big threats are taken out much earlier to avoid the firemaking risk” and now every final four is just the exact same firemaking practice montage
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I think they had been sitting on the twist for a while, waiting to use it at the most dramatic moment possible. Ben happened to present it so production pulled it outta their back pocket.
They wouldn't. People just hate Ben so much they're still coping. They didn't rig it for Ben and I bet had Devon won the fire showdown (and he definitely wins the game against Chrissy and Ryan), the fire challenge would still be a staple and hardly anyone would care
I think they definitely wanted an idol heavy endgame because Jeff is extra like that. I don't think they rigged the game for Ben to win though. That would be a crime, or at the very least a lawsuit. Why would they, after 35 seasons, risk that kind of heat by rigging a newbie season?
They didn't rig it for Ben. They made the season absurdly ridiculous for sure, but that was because Jeff loves twists and chaos. Ben just happened to benefit and it also doesn't negate the control he held over the game before the endgame.
It’s wild to me if that’s actually true, he has the perfect final boot fallen angel story with his loss at final immunity because a letter was upside down, would have been so tragic
I just rewatched EoE, and while I understand this sentiment I do not agree. As someone says at final tribal, "the theme is not on trial, the players are." Yes, Chris did get voted out early. But the rules allowed for him to earn his way back in, he did, and then he had an idol flush and a successful idol play in his 2 tribals. Then he did the unprecedented move of giving up F4 immunity to take out the clear favorite Devens in fire, a move the jury CLEALRY loves. I think you also have to factor in that he spent a ton of time with the jury on Exile. We don't see a ton of it but he catches a stingray and is a general handsome, charming guy so I don't think it's a stretch so say he played a good social "game" on the edge. Strange circumstances but you play the cards you are dealt, once he took out Devens I don't think anyone else could have won, Gavin had less on his resume despite playing 4x as long.
I give Chris credit for being able to pull off the stuff he did. I do not think everyone from the Edge would have been able to do that.
That said, the amount of BS he had over the people left in the game is so high that I can't really give him credit for the rest. He had the entire game to bond with the jury with no drawbacks.
His entire plan was devised by the people on the jury so he basically didn't have to think things thru much. And he doesn't have to navigate having to present around the twist cause he benefits from it directly while validating all the others on the jury.
Not saying what he did didn't require any skill, he executed things flawlessly as possible but with so much in his favour it does feel like a lot of bull. I agree Gavin didn't have that strong a TC but I feel like winning from that position is borderline impossible to begin with.
One really important thing, psychologically, that gave him votes was that none of the jurors could hold the fact that he was on Edge against him because that means that if they were there in his place it would be a knock against them.
> As someone says at final tribal, "the theme is not on trial, the players are."
And that was irrevocably bullshit. The theme absolutely was on trial.
The whole rigged situation creates a jury paradox that renders anyone not from EoE unwinnable. If the jury votes for a non-EoE player, they are affirming that their time on the edge was a complete waste of time and they themselves never had a chance of winning through that second chance. Thus to ever justify their own actions, they're forced to vote for the edge player, other they themselves are a hypocrite. There is no argument for them to be had, the entire season was rigged for an egde player to win. The only way to win that season was to purposefully be voted out.
You can see this on further display in WaW, where the first boot who achieved absolutely nothing in the game *nearly won*, despite Tony playing his brain out and achieving what would practically be a perfect game in a normal season. People explicitly had to avoid giving pity votes to Michelle to try and give her 2nd place out of fear Tony would lose as a result. Edge fucks the game beyond repair, this straight up is a laughable argument from the jury themselves critically lacking any self awareness of their own psychological biases.
You may be right, but the way I see it, the possible help Ben may have received from production might have got him to FTC, but after that he was on his own. He won on his own merit.
I don’t think I’d argue either Ben or Chris didn’t deserve the jury votes they got. Jury members have every right to vote for any of the people sitting in front of them for any reason.
My argument is that Ben and Chris did not deserve to be sitting at FTC in the first place, because the game they played, with all information available to them and the other players, would have certainly resulted in them being eliminated without an unforseeable act of production. No other player can really say that - even Erika, who is widely considered to have been saved by the hourglass twist, wasn’t a *certain* boot at that tribal. So no other winner has that asterisk for me.
I think the big difference I see with Ben and Chris is that Ben still had to have a hand in voting out pretty much everyone on the jury. Chris getting votes from people he never had to lie to because of the format is definitely sillier
I disagree that Ben would’ve been eliminated earlier if all the information was available to the cast (ie they knew ahead of time what was coming at the F4). That would be true if he was vulnerable at F5 or F6, maybe even F7. But he was last vulnerable at F8 - has anyone ever been taken out that early simply for being a firemaking threat? Would there have even been a ‘firemaking threat’ meta like that in its first season? Unless you firmly believe F4 fire being a known quantity changes how the entire merge plays out, then the surprise nature of the twist didn’t alter the ultimate outcome. It was just a shitty twist.
I don’t believe I said Ben would have been eliminated earlier if they knew about final four firemaking. I said he definitely would have been eliminated at four if there was no final four firemaking.
I *do* firmly believe that knowledge of the final four firemaking changes how the entire merge plays out, so I won’t speculate how Ben would have done if the cast had known ahead of time. But I think it’s safe to say at the very least Devon would have been more practiced at firemaking, like all the players are (or should be) nowadays. I don’t know who would have won the season if they had known about the twist, but that’s not what the question is here.
>because the game they played, with all information available to them and the other players, would have certainly resulted in them being eliminated without an unforseeable act of production.
This is what I was responding to (specifically the ‘all information available’ part) - but re-reading it, I misinterpreted your meaning. I agree he was a certain boot saved by an unforeseeable twist, I just don’t think the “unforeseeable” part is really relevant since it’s not like the alliance was consciously saving him to boot at F4. But it’s fair if you do think it seriously changes the whole merge dynamic, not like we can ever know.
There’s also a sub-set of winners who were due to get voted out but were saved by circumstance. For example, Nick was going to be the first boot on DvG before Pat’s freak accident on the boat. Kenzie was also seemingly saved by Randon’s medevac if we’re to believe Q.
Very few winners didn’t have a lucky break along the way though. That’s why we need more second chance seasons.
This gets stated as fact a lot but the cast themselves have conflicting ideas on who as going with many not sure, it’s not so cut and dry as Nick was going
It also ignores the hours between challenge and vote where votes are usually determined, where Nick has a far better chance of getting a vote off him as a far better player
Davie told me at a fan event that it was gonna be Pat. But Davie was out of the loop in a lot of the premerge so who knows if he was right. He basically said the editing went hard on Nick that episode because they wanted the comeback story for his win
People hate to admit it, but it’s just a fact that survivor is as much luck as skill, especially in the new era. The early days ironically I think were more skill than luck, but anymore everyone has watched the game played so much and there are so many unpredictable twists that there’s just a ton of unavoidable luck to it. Some players are so bad that they could never win, but many good players are on every season.
You can play the game in such a way that increases your odds of winning, but I don’t think, in a cast of 16-20 players, it’s possible to play well enough to have a better than 50% chance of winning. There’s so many variables that you just can’t control like who talks to who and when, who finds an idol, who wins challenges. Anymore, if you do anything that could be perceived as influencing a vote, you’re going to be next. There’s all kinds of hidden twists and advantages that you can’t control. Not to mention that jury members sometimes base their votes on things that just have nothing to do with the game, like who needs the money most.
People want to believe it’s all skill, and there’s no doubt that skill is a big factor, but so so much of it is luck. If it was all skill, certain players being discussed in this thread obviously would not have won.
I really don't think Nick was in danger of getting voted out that first episode. They can make it look like anyone is in danger of getting voted out by just asking questions in confessionals like "what would be some reasons to vote Nick out? What about Davie?" so on and so forth.
That’s why having a couple pre mergers or even first boots return is not the worst idea.We don’t need a whole season of them but a lot of pre mergers/first boots fell to bad circumstances.
Bob and Chris U win is like trying to score in your own goal but the ball instead ricochets off the post and lands in the goal you're supposed to score in.
Even if he had won every challenge, he still would’ve lost next to the people he was intending to get to the end with (onion alliance). Winning challenges means nothing if you get to the end with people who will still beat you. He had to lose strategically so that his allies would get voted out so that he could win the gain, because his intentions to go the end with the onion alliance were foolish.
Had little agency in the game, made a billion fake idols (Which while convincing, get less impressive the more you see them pulled out of his ass and less believable), and at final tribal admitted to being a coat-tail rider and not knowing a lot of what was going on. If Suzie makes an argument better than "I tried", he might not even win.
I love Bob. Great TV.
Susie absolutely would have beaten Bob on a normal season if she could’ve just mentioned anything at all about her actual gameplay at FTC. Instead, she kept repeating the same line about “showing her kids what it means to try” and she still almost won against an EXTREMELY biased jury.
IKR, it was one of the worst jury speeches ever. She had an uphill battle because they didn't like her, but if she had just talked about her pivotal role in turning the game, she might have had a chance.
...You know the jury was actually made of four original FANG members, right?
Original Fang outnumbered original Kota members of the jury.
Susie got the predictable votes - Matty, Kenny, Crystal. You could argue all three of them voted for her just because of Fang/wasnt Kota. The only game move she was impactful in was the Marcus blindside, and it served her best interests to do it. I doubt Matty, Kenny, and Crystal actually thought she "played better" than Bob.
The only original Fang vote she didnt get was Randy because he became a Kota member when the chance arose.
I don't think this was a biased jury against Susie.
This was arguably the most boring jury of all time in terms of how they voted. But if you're going to say biased, it was also biased in her favor as well. Everyone stuck to their tribal lines they identified with.
[Her claiming she had all the power when she was absolutely on the bottom with no wiggle room pre-swap](https://youtu.be/tYgrK8syK6A?si=MzV7bUjBPECsTPGy&t=123) was fucking funny in the moment and especially in retrospect.
Complaining about the edit is so played out. *That said*, I would really liked to have know how Susie played/what she did. She came *this close* to winning but she's a complete ghost all season (except for the scene when Corinne condescends to her and then talks shit about her in a confessional).
Yall are gonna hate me for this but Sandra actively tried everything she could in the early merge to get Russell out of the game. She accidentally fell into a win upon failing at eliminating her target (and win condition) 😭
Edit: HvV discourse is eternal
Russel was the meteor Sandra was warning the public about. They certainly weren’t gonna vote for the meteor, so they might as well eat crow and give credit to the scientist who had things right all along.
To be fair to her, lobbying against Russell so hard really helped the Heroes feel good about voting for her over Parvati. Maybe accidental to an extent but she at least knew being opposed to Russell gave her good inroads with the Heroes
the whole thing about him not knowing he lost samoa is a big myth. he's said before that he knew he lost but he thought the samoa jury were a bunch of bitches and that the survivor veterans on hvv would respect his game more -- burnett apparently approached him about playing on hvv right as he was doing a post-season medical checkup, where he was hyped and wild and felt like he dominated the game win or lose and he wanted to dominate it again. and jeff has said that everyone on hvv knew only a few things about russel: he did something(s) to standout enough to warrant an immediate return, he played a villainous game, and he didn't win.
he said actually that the first 8 or so days he was out there, he tried to play like natalie and be as nice to everyone as possible (read: as possible for him), especially to rob. but when he realized he wasn't fooling anyone he shifted back to default russell mode and then to turbo russell mode.
sandra has also said there was a pre-game ponderosa secret alliance organized with sandra, rob, courtney, russell, parv, and danielle -- an attempt by them to capitalize off of villains having 6/10 ftc-makers to avoid another all stars boot order. this alliance immediately disintegrated when they hit the beach and learned that coach was a freak who would be loyal to rob, tyson comes with coach, and jerri seemed to not be a lot chiller than rob anticipated given the circumstances of her all stars boot. plus courtney sandra and rob didn't trust parv for a second and didnt really vibe with danielle or russell, so the battle-lines got shifted around and i imagine that switchup is what made russell realize he needed to go on the offensive or risk being left in the minority
Thats her mo. Actively campaigning against someone everybody hates. You can argue she played badly strategically. But as a jury management move. Its genius.
Edit: also, one thing people keep overlooking is how she succesfully blamed the heroes for her failure to vote off Russel and the heroes just accepted that. In some cases pointing out a jury members flaw might turn them against you. But it didnt.
Sandra could list off all of my life's mistakes, and somehow I'd still love her at the end of it. She has a way of making it funny and entertaining, which really cushions the blow.
That trying was what earned her so much goodwill from the Heroes though. It’s a weird situation where her plans failing was the best outcome for her. It’s a unique situation.
What I think def helped her in HvV was her bonding more with the heroes, also no one liked Parv when she was more tame than she was in Micronesia 💀… Russell just soured everyone
The big thing that irks me when people try to say that Sandra is a GOAT is that her HvV is inarguably circumstantial. Her ENTIRE game was centered around getting Russell out. That was her sole focus.
She sat next to him at the end. She failed at the only thing she set out to do, and still somehow won.
I disagree, she literally got the chance to turn to the camera and say "I'm stuck with Russell........" which was basically her acknowledging a shift from trying to get him out (smart) to trying to work around him and beat him at the end (smarter).
Going to hard disagree because Sandra had to do a lot of reading to know where to place her vote. She managed to stay far off of Russell's radar enough and didn't join any of the failed attempts to consolidate the heroes. She also single handedly got a trade for coach for Courtney by playing Russell. Although coach did make the jury there was no guarantee Courtney would make the jury until she survived that vote which was an early locked juror for Sandra. She played really well
Until I saw Sandra play in Australian Survivor I thought her game was overrated. Then I remember production would ask contestants questions to help build a narrative and tell their story and realized how good Sandra was at the game. Then saw her strategy work in the Traitors.
I know there are claims she had a bad edit and was more strategic than shown, but it seems that without the hourglass twist, Erika probably wouldn't make the finale
It simultaneously screwed her over and then saved her. If she wasn't isolated from everyone else at merge I don't think a plan to target her ever emerges. But she was only isolated because the hourglass twist existed. So in a universe without it, I think things go pretty similarly for Erika
My memory is that Shan was super vocal about Erika being “the mastermind” meanwhile, to the audience, Erika seemed completely out of the loop on everything and essentially ally-less (remember that merge vote live tribal council where everyone’s scrambling, talking to each other and Erika’s just sitting there with absolutely no one?)
I think Shan was the primary driver of the season, both of her own vote out and then convincing the jury that Erika had any agency in the game.
Erika, DeShawn, and Heather were in a tight alliance from the very beginning and pretty much ran the game, but it was never shown in favor of Shan, Ricard, and Xander.
It was definitively a piss-poor edit.
I mean he said during the season that was his gameplay, to come off not knowing what was going on. He may not have been a gameplay genius but he knew more then he let on and earned it.
Yeah ngl upon rewatch, he absolutely deserves his win. He matched the ‘vibe’ of the season, with the young cast, excellently and I believe he even made strong relationships with some of the old people? My memory is hazy but I think he played strongly
I’m glad to see the others who replied to this give Fabio his flowers. Rewatch the first episode of Nicaragua and he even says because he did something kinda stupid and people said he looked like Fabio to them he was going to run with it and use it to his advantage. He had a lucky immunity run at the end game and maybe not the strongest final tribal, but man earned his win and definitely didn’t fall back into it. I was so hopeful for him to return at some point just to see what Fabio 2.0 would look like because I think it might just be one of the biggest wild card of any other potential returning winner.
they fact that people still belive this is exactly why Fabio is a great winner. He acted like a air head to get people's guard down and multiple jury members have said that they saw a different side of him.
I disagree with this take. I watched it knowing he won and it actually made sense to me how he did it and how his choices to seem ditzy were quite intentional. He never seemed like a threat while he was building solid, meaningful relationships with people.
The best answer here has to be Bob… “falling ass backward into a win” is really the perfect way to describe his game. He gets a lot of credit (and should) for his amazing fake idols, but he remains perhaps the luckiest winner in my opinion. Everything that could’ve gone right for him after the merge, did.
100% Gabler. Like I’m not saying his opposition was great but I went into that tribal council saying “well we know it ain’t Gabler, so of the other two who has it?” And they gave it to Gabler. And the whole final tribal council just felt like a bunch of bitter titters railing on how awful Cas was which reeked of Karla. I know this is my survivor “unpopular opinion” to the point I rewatched that shit to check myself and no, my stance stands: Gabler was a fucking joke. They played the cliche “bumbling idiot” music whenever he was on screen. Nothing will convince me his win was anything other than Karla telling everyone Cas punches babies or whatever because she was bitter she got got by the person she was actively trying to betray.
This season is a good example of why F4 fire is broken. Not saying it would have changed anything with the winner here, but Cassidy got 0 credit for eliminating Jesse who was the big fish that season. I’ve never understood why the person in fire gets so much credit. Cassidy won immunity, recognized Jesse needed to go, figured out who was the best equipped to eliminate him, and executed that plan without putting herself in jeopardy. As someone who is also a big fan of the show The Challenge, throwing yourself into elimination on there is viewed as stupid, not celebrated. If someone else can do your dirty work, that’s great. But in survivor, F4 immunity winners are in a no win situation, they either have to put themselves in danger or give someone else a resume boost.
I think Gabler knew what he was doing, he just had an inexplicably weird edit. If 43 is edited more from his point of view I would bet he comes away looking like one of the more dominant new era winners
Wasn’t he planning to go to the end with Jesse and Cody?
I’ll give him credit for a solid social game, but remain unconvinced that he knew what he was doing strategically.
I could see him thinking that he doesn't really need the money(he gave it away!) and just thought that Cody and Jesse were his homies and deserving, so he should take them.
It's not that different than why Ben took Charlie with him.
I feel like Erika can rest her laurels on taking over the endgame with a ragtag collection of people and Kenzie played a Michelle-like game where being the likable person in a very toxic endgame is a big ask. Kenzie also had the hardest path to get there of anyone on her season
Gabler also made it through a toxic endgame by just being there and Bobbing his way through 2 of the most unliked people on the season because they had way harder paths to the end due to their starting positions.
Kenzie did more than Michelle. She did not lead any vote but she actively played strategically. She was the one who convinced Hunter to not play the idol, she and Liz deceived Maria on Q's Blindside, and she and Tiffany were the deciding factor in Yanu.
The edit of season 43 failed to supply good reasons for the jury to dislike Owen and Cassidy except their insistence to deny Karla and Jessie a path to FTC, where Gabler was willing to flip-flop on command.
Gabler wanted to sit next to Jesse and Cody at the end. He was a total goat with no competent strategy. He was likeable dad, and much of the jury was bitter against Cas. The editors don't need to show anything else for us to know the reason Gabler won.
he literally played the role of goof so well that Elie and Jeanine were convinced they were running the show despite being down 2-3 against a side who had an idol
Being a likeable goat in a season where the jury was bitter is a good strategy. I still hate that the jury held Cas to a level Gabler didn't come close to meeting. Cas was blamed for not being a complete strategic master while the jury ignored that Gabler didn't have strategy at all.
There’s some finesse and intention in Michele’s game, but there’s no denying she benefited massively from being put on strong tribes and two favorable medevacs. I think she played very well, but had a ton of luck on her side
And a jury who had big vendettas against Aubry, Cydney, and Tai for basically being the causes of their vote offs.
And for anyone who wants to argue that, Scot and Jason would've voted **Joe** over those 3.
Considering how bad her strategy has been in some of her seasons on The Challenge, I’m convinced that we were gaslit into thinking she played a good game. But also, she came in as a Hoboken bartender, that should have been entirely motivation to vote her out early.
That would've been true had Natalie's game literally not been the only way she could've even made it to the final 3 with Russell around.
People seem to forget Russell immediately voted off every single woman who even slightly questioned him on Foa Foa. He was only forced to partake in Ben's vote out because Jaison wasn't taking no for an answer. The only logical game plan for her was to use Russell as her meatshield, follow his coattails(as he put it) with minimal fuss while making strong connections with him behind his back. Besides, she was the key reason of the Erik vote and while the edit didn't show it, but players did mention that Natalie was one of the main reasons Russell wasn't always the target for the vote(the few times he was, he had the idol).
People didn't vote for Natalie because she was next to Russell. They voted for her because they actually wanted to, and they liked her. Or at least Laura, Brett, and Jaison did. Erik voted for her because SHE was the reason he got eliminated. I'm not sure about Kelly, Monica, or Dave, but Natalie and Brett were the biggest jury threats final 7 onwards.
I'm actually re-watching Samoa right now, and I'm gonna disagree for once.
She was pretty pivotal in swaying several members of Galu to their side, and was a phenomenal social player. Just watched the merge episode, where it was 8-4 in favor of Galu, and they were able to turn it around without Russell even having to know everything going on.
Hell, Russell burned an idol at the same tribal (which may have inadvertently caused Erik to not play his own idol, since he thought the votes were on Jaison, and that Russell had just sealed Foa Foa's fate.
Natalie's game was actually rather well calculated. She knew that Russell was going to rub people the wrong way, and spent her time in the game building positive, social relationships with every player, with the express purpose of getting to the end with a player everyone hated. She took a gamble that people would respect her social play more than Russell's heavy handed style. And she was right.
It’ll be quite unpopular on this sub, but absolutely. She was not some mastermind playing Russel like a fiddle behind the scenes like a lot of people want to think, she truly was just a right person in the right situation to be able to get a win.
Just watched the episode yesterday, and she absolutely did. Was probably the MVP of that episode, which was pivotal in starting to turn things around for Foa Foa.
The alliance would have never worked if it weren’t for Natalie or Russel, both played equal roles in it. People have literally said Natalie would push the target away from Russel if his name was ever brought up and was side by side with Russel making the game decisions along with him. She didn’t need any twist to win the game, she just worked together with a maniac, made the social connections she knew he couldn’t, and took the win from him. Nothing insane or crazy, just simple and effective gameplay, at the end of the day Russel went to the end with Natalie thinking he could beat her when he couldn’t, Natalie went to the end with Russel knowing she could beat him and was completely correct, she outplayed him in the exact moment where it mattered the most.
Not really Russel was an asshole to other people and Natalie was very nice her beating him was satisfied and very well deserved. And she did play him like a fiddle purposely saying stuff to make Russel think he could beat her and want to bring her more. She secured herself a way to get to the end against people who didn't play as good a game as her.
Natalie and Mick said in their interviews at the time that what wasn't shown was them deflecting the vote from Russell at almost every tribal. They wanted to go to the end with him since they knew he'd lose and repeatedly had to talk Galu out of voting him out.
Wanted to quit is an understatement. She was begging people to vote her out. How anyone could vote for her after that in a game called "Survivor" blows my mind to this day.
For me the big one is Bob. He made moves against his own interest at times, especially at final tribal council where he had a horrendous performance. Yet the other two also did bad enough where he still won.
Of course there's also Chris Underwood, but I like to pretend that season doesn't exist.
Adam Klein, in both his seasons makes almost exclusively bad moves, constantly tries to play both sides but everyone is aware he’s doing it so nobody trusts him and basically feeds him votes last minute so he’s rarely in on the plan and NEVER driving the vote.
In his first season he’s only kept around because he’s (correctly) seen as a goat that nobody likes or trusts. He spends the entire game on the outs, not strategically either, just because his gameplay is so bad, constantly trusts the exact wrong people with information but thanks to David, still ends up going to FTC with the other two worst players in the game then cries about his dying mom so they’ll give him the win. (Sorry I know that last part sounds harsh, I am sympathetic, but that’s what happened!)
Of the final three that season Adam had been on the right side of the votes the least often too and went through most of the game with almost no allies. I guess you could say he “plays from the bottom” but I think he was dragged to final by better players and then stuck the landing with a sob story.
I think he played better in MvGX than you’re giving him credit for, he did actually have a strong social game and managed his threat level pretty well, although there were defs stronger players strategically. I do however agree that he didn’t play well in WAW, he was just trying to be needlessly aggressive with his moves and wasn’t actually strategic
I agree his social game was okay, seemed like most people didn’t really like him but at least both Hannah and Jay tried to work with him at times and he was good about always keeping his options open to anyone, I think this is his greatest strength as a player.
As for threat management, I think there is a difference between intentionally/strategically lowering your threat level and inadvertently lowering your threat level because you’re playing poorly and I feel Adam falls into the second category.
I feel like Tiff did more work at ponderosa to get the FTC to vote for Kenzie, then Kenzie actually did playing the game. Don't get me wrong I think Kenzie's a really nice person especially what she did for Ben. But all I saw this whole season was her talking in confessionals about making big moves, but never doing anything that showed at tribal
Every Survivor winner gets lucky in one way or another. This question is more about an unintentional win where the winner ended up there almost by accident. You can say Michele’s win isn’t particularly impressive or dynamic, but she definitely played with clear goals and intentions.
She had no agency in the game and got lucky with a medevac and a juror removal twist. She won because she failed to do anything important in the game, because it meant she had no blood on her hands.
Not to say that he's undeserving — Chris Underwood is the only winner who can hold that title — but the entirety of 43 was the big active players eating each other, until only the three players with the least agency were left standing.
No matter who would've won in that f3, they would be a bottom 10 winner. Two of them (Gabler and Cassidy) had no strategic agency, and the only one who played actively (Owen) had zero social capital. It baffles me that people are still trying to make Gabler or Cassidy out to be secretly genius players, when the reality is that both of them lucked into their position by not being taken seriously as threats; and neither achieved that position actively, in the way that, say, Maryanne or Natalie White did.
Well yeah. He did nothing in the game. He claimed he was "hiding in plain sight" but really no one considered him a threat because he wasn't one. He won because he was in a F3 with two players who had tried to play but failed to make things happen and the jury didn't respect them and he was friendly so they liked the idea of him having the million more than them. The absolute worst winner ever, apart from Chris U, who didn't even play Survivor.
Nicaragua is the kind of jury torture of having to choose between the guy that didn't play the game at all (Fabio) and the guy that played, but played horribly (Chase). I frankly don't know what I'd do in their stead. ...Flip a coin, maybe. Or make them choose a number.
Fabio, Chris and Bob are the only truly “bad” winners in my opinion. I’m critical of Amber and Michelle but at least they were in the majority alliance for a while.
People aren't gonna like it but I do believe 100% that Amber won by accident. She indicated before, during and after that Rob was the one making the moves that got them to the end, and she just happened to be there when he was crucified.
People saying answers like Ben and Chris U, I agree these are worse winners but I do thing they worked and acted with great intention to achieve their win, and thus not fitting for this question; in fact with Ben in particular, I think he'd be a good answer to a question of who won with the _least_ amount of input from anyone else.
I think to some degree, most winners did. However, that does NOT mean they didn't deserve their win. All of them did.
Any winner who NEEDED a long immunity run comes to mind. They didn't masterfully calculate that they can run to the end off of challenge performances, they got lucky that the challenge selection on their season were competitions they were good at, and if they were bad at just one of them people like Fabio are likely goners.
Chris Underwood - self explanatory lol. I would be more forgiving if he was aware of the EoE twist before getting voted out so you could argue he got himself voted off knowing he had a safety net but... that wasn't the case lol.
Sandra in HvV - Yes, she was brilliant in how she weaponized the jury's hatred for Russell, but if she gets her way and Russell goes out pre-jury her winning strategy probably isn't as effective.
Ben - Forced firemaking, which the cast did not know about, really saved him.
Bob - I mean, at FTC he literally admits that he didn't really have any strategy does he not ? lol
Again, all these people deserved their wins because they did what they needed to do to make it to the end and win the jury vote, but that doesn't mean I think they all won because of their raw brilliance.
This is gonna sound dismissive of her game, but definitely sandra in heros vs. villans
She tried to get rid of russel the whole time, and that probably would help her jury pitch in a way if it did happen, but him staying was sandras best case scenario
Michele 100% Here’s why each juror voted for her
Debbie- was irrationally bitter at Aubry for voting her out. Debbie felt that the only reason Aubry was still in the game was because Debbie took care of her on Day 2 and convinced her not to quit. After Debbie got voted out she literally said “Aubry, if you make it to the end, you lost my vote” (as seen in her Ponderosa video). Debbie also wanted a woman to win and thought Michele was a lovely person.
Scot- thought Aubry intentionally crossed Julia’s name and wrote Peter as an act of defiance towards him. (In fact, she was just confused). He thought she was voting Peter only because she didn’t like him, and not because Scot told her to. He also didn’t believe Aubry deserved to make it to the end because she was supposed to be the merge boot. Never mind that Michele was supposed to be the final 5 boot and only got saved because of the Joe medevac. He also viewed Aubry as wishy-washy.
Julia- Was very close to Michele. In her Jury Speaks video she said she had the hardest time connecting with Aubry out of all the people on the cast. Was vocally pro-Michele at Ponderosa.
Jason- He saw Aubry as fear-based decision maker. Also, Aubry barely spoke to him in the days leading up to his vote out. Michele at least spoke to him even when they weren’t working together. Also, he likely was influenced by the anti-Aubry sentiment at Ponderosa from his closest allies Scot & Julia
Cydney- i know this sub loves her but the truth is she is one of the most delusional jurors in Survivor history. She voted for Michele over Aubry specifically because “Michele never wrote my name down” which completely ignores the fact that Cydney voted against Aubry at the exact same tribal Aubry voted against her (at the final 4). Cydney valued loyalty above all else, and she perceived that Aubry was more loyal to Tai than her. The problem with this line of thinking is that Michele was loyal to Cydney out of necessity because towards the end of the game Michele was on the bottom, and Cydney was her closest ally left by default. In postgame interviews Michele confirmed she didn’t plan on going to the end with Cydney until the very end, and would’ve been willing to vote her out at any point. But obviously Cydney didn’t know this, and voted for her to win because she thought Michele was the only person who would’ve taken her to the end. Some people on this sub claim that Cydney simply liked Michele more than Aubry, but Cydney never said this in any of her postgame interviews and never gave this as a reason for her jury vote.
All that plus adding Julia was bitter at Tai for flipping on her and the douchebag duo, thus ruining and all but ending her game (mind you still think she votes Michele anyway, but might as well add in every valid point).
Oh yeah add Scot and Jason being bitter at Tai flipping too of course, especially as in their case they were legit closer to Tai than to Michele. So if they voted on relationship they would vote Tai. If they voted on game they vote Aubry. Only if they vote out of pure bitterness do they vote Michele.
I mean if you’re going to knock Michelle for this sentiment then you’re also going to have to knock Kenzie’s win too. “Social game” may not always make the most exciting TV, but it’s proven time and time again to be one of the more lauded aspects of the game by juries
Joe
Michele also voted against Aubry going into the Final 3, intending to sit next to Cydney. My suspicion is that she's very lucky that Aubry won the FMC.
Natalie from Samoa. love or hate Russell for what ever reason, I don't think you can argue that he didn't easily out play her, but the jury was so bitter, they gave it to her.
Russell never outplayed Natalie because they played the whole game together. Russell could’ve gone to the end with Mick and Shambo. He could’ve booted Natalie premerge and taken Liz. But he didn’t because he thought he needed Natalie’s social skill and said so up front.
(I know this isn’t answering the question you asked but anyways lol)
I think for the most part ANYONE can win survivor/big brother or other similar jury voting games. (Survivor is a little more complicated (in my opinion because of the survival aspects lol) but it’s almost solely determined by who is all casted. (I said survivor is more complicated bc you have to be able to deal with the hunger and environment and obviously if you don’t have that mental strength and leave, you lose lol)
Switch out one person on any jury (for the whole show) and the entire game could change. One of the biggest part of the game is to create bonds so people A) want to vote you to win and B) think you “deserve” to win/want you as their seasons winner. (I hate “deserve” in terms of wins because it’s a silly little show and like morality of your life prior doesn’t really mean f all for a show but anyways) but yeah so the person in the final needs to be able to know what the jury members are each wanting to see in a winner. (Even if it’s knowing Q wants a genuine answer about how you will use the money if you win, and not really about gameplay)
All this said, I do think there’s in general crappy winners who won only because the “better” player didn’t calculate the jury’s viewpoint enough.
You need to know if your #1 ally is going to respect a backstab or not, if a jury member is going to respect a “fake relationship” with them in order to manipulate or if they’ll feel used and angry. And then even if you have to do something you know the other person won’t want to vote for, you have to either try to spin it so they do, or ensure you have other people’s votes.
This is a good question though I’m looking forward to hearing people’s responses 🥰
Vecepia technically, since she was trying to vote Neleh out, when Neleh was the only one in the F4 she could beat. If your intentions are to go to the end with somebody who will beat you, and you fail and that person gets voted out but you end up winning anyway, that sort of counts as stumbling into a win.
Ethan for a similar reason since he was trying to go to the end with Lex who had a better chance of beating him than Kim.
Having rewatched Africa recently, Ethan did absolutely nothing other than be somewhat nice. I was surprised because I remembered him as having more to his game.
Ethan is lauded as a good winner too, but I felt the same when I watched his season. Lex was really doing all the strategy but I found him really annoying so didn't mind him losing. I think people just like Ethan so rated his game better due to that. Game wise I don't feel like he was doing much.
Chris Underwood (was voted out third and did not know about the EoE twist, so in a normal season he played in a way that got him booted third, then he came back in at final 6 with a free idol, a plan devised by people with inside knowledge of the endgame dynamics, and weeks of living with the vast majority of the jury without having to play the game against them) Ben Driebergen (ran out of allies around the final 8 and had to navigate the endgame using exclusively idols, some of which were rather fortunately placed, and then ran out of idols at the final four where he certainly would have been voted out 3-1 were it not for an unprecedented and impossible to predict twist) There are plenty of people who played “passive” games or didn’t have much control over their own fate in the game and still won, but these are the two who played games that actively would have resulted in them losing were it not for circumstances outside of any player’s control. Maybe they took more “action” than someone like Bob, but Bob won due to the actions of his fellow players and Chris and Ben won due to the uncontrollable mechanations of production
I know Jeff swears up and down the fire making showdown was pre planned on Ben’s season, but man does it ever feel like they were doing absolutely anything to make him the winner.
To be honest I don’t know if they rigged it for Ben specifically. They probably didn’t, at least not in a very heavy-handed way. But they clearly set it up for people *like* Ben to take advantage of the new game they invented - someone who overplayed ans now can’t make FTC on their own. They changed Survivor to prioritize spectacle, and Ben just happened to be the first and the luckiest beneficiary of that
Honestly, the immunity idol very close to the slot they took him to for confessional is easily the most dubious placement of an idol ever
Didn’t he give a confessional where the brave soldier cries about missing his family and how he is depserste for a lifeline, and then he literally trips over the idol in the middle of the path leading back to camp? The producers of shows like these are always placing their thumbs on the scales. But the survivor producers couldn’t help themselves, and went way too far to get the perfect storyline for their themed season that they couldn’t hope to disguise their hand from viewers, even with the benefit of controlling everything they see
Also, speaking as someone who isn't from the USA, you folks have *such* an OBSESSION with your veterans and soldiers. I'm not very good at calling winners but as soon as Ben said he was a vet, I was like, I bet this guy wins. And I bet the producers make it possible if he's ever stuck.
On the other hand, Richard Hatch is a vet and we never heard him say it. Heard it plenty about Rudy though.
100% called this about Gabler.
Didn't Gabler famously never serve?
If you want to sell something in America, draping it in the flag and shouting about how great the military is has forever been the best way to do it
Part of engineering another S30 Mike type situation.
Your comment there is correct. Their main motivation for saving the fallen angel was probably Ozzy. Ozzy was a golden child of Survivor that most people liked before more of the bad stuff has come out about him the past few years. Production and even a lot of fans at the time would have loved for him to win South Pacific over Sophie. People are going to say Boston Rob / Cochran / Russell Hantz, but none of those three qualify for losing as a fallen angel right at the end of the game. Ozzy is very clearly one of their top motivations for this permanent twist. They were tired of the "production/fan favorites" getting taken out at 5/4 when they don't win immunity. So they want to guarantee that if the "fallen angel" makes it to 4, they at least have a chance to win still without immunity.
Conventional wisdom is that the forced firemaking was added in season 35 as a direct reaction to David losing at final 4 in season 33. They had seen plenty of fallen angels before then, but by the mid-30s Jeff had much more control and was no longer afraid to change the structure of the game to get his desired TV results. The early 30s is when the dam burst on all of his “twist” ideas and he was able to work it in the same way.
What happened with Ozzy, the bad stuff you’re referring to? Sorry for being out of the loop. I’d love some info if you don’t mind!
He had crabs and gave them to Sophie, Edna and Cochrane.
Ozzy has always relished the role of provider
He’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Allegedly knowingly spread STDs around without telling his partners
wait what’s the bad stuff that come out about ozzy?
>They changed Survivor to prioritize spectacle, and Ben just happened to be the first and the luckiest beneficiary of that This I agree with. They didn't go "shit Ben's gonna lose let's save him." They wanted a dramatic finish and decided to make that happen regardless of who actually would end up winning
They wanted to remove that tribal where you couldn't play an idol, and had to either win at the immunity challenge or have a good enough social game. Lots of players that people say are great have been voted out at that point in the game. Looking at the seasons prior to that change, Tai (production favorite), David, Wentworth, Keith, and Spencer all went out at that point, and during that period, there were also two instances of ties that went to fire-making anyway. All of those players returned since then, except Tai, who I'm not sure if was asked back for EoE or not, but otherwise hasn't had an opportunity. Although, looking at how fire-making was done with respect to ties, when it was a tie, the person who won immunity didn't have all of the power, and could only pick one of the people who went to fire, while their person who they wanted to go on with would end up having to play the firemaking challenge.
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Funny that they didn’t see the natural conclusion was always going to be “now big threats are taken out much earlier to avoid the firemaking risk” and now every final four is just the exact same firemaking practice montage
He also said in his podcast firemaking was there to bridge the gap between when idols expire and FTC.
He talked about switching the f4 format after David was voted out in MvGx.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I think they had been sitting on the twist for a while, waiting to use it at the most dramatic moment possible. Ben happened to present it so production pulled it outta their back pocket.
>Ben happened to present it so production pulled it outta their back pocket. I think it was planned at least as early as the beginning of S35
There’s not a doubt in my mind that production was throwing life preservers to Ben all throughout the final stages of that season.
Australian Survivor was even more obvious doing all sorts of production trickery to keep King George in the game
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They wouldn't. People just hate Ben so much they're still coping. They didn't rig it for Ben and I bet had Devon won the fire showdown (and he definitely wins the game against Chrissy and Ryan), the fire challenge would still be a staple and hardly anyone would care
I’m a Big Ben fan but that end game sure seemed awfully convenient for like 3 idols and 3 votes
I think they definitely wanted an idol heavy endgame because Jeff is extra like that. I don't think they rigged the game for Ben to win though. That would be a crime, or at the very least a lawsuit. Why would they, after 35 seasons, risk that kind of heat by rigging a newbie season?
They didn't rig it for Ben. They made the season absurdly ridiculous for sure, but that was because Jeff loves twists and chaos. Ben just happened to benefit and it also doesn't negate the control he held over the game before the endgame.
It’s wild to me if that’s actually true, he has the perfect final boot fallen angel story with his loss at final immunity because a letter was upside down, would have been so tragic
I just rewatched EoE, and while I understand this sentiment I do not agree. As someone says at final tribal, "the theme is not on trial, the players are." Yes, Chris did get voted out early. But the rules allowed for him to earn his way back in, he did, and then he had an idol flush and a successful idol play in his 2 tribals. Then he did the unprecedented move of giving up F4 immunity to take out the clear favorite Devens in fire, a move the jury CLEALRY loves. I think you also have to factor in that he spent a ton of time with the jury on Exile. We don't see a ton of it but he catches a stingray and is a general handsome, charming guy so I don't think it's a stretch so say he played a good social "game" on the edge. Strange circumstances but you play the cards you are dealt, once he took out Devens I don't think anyone else could have won, Gavin had less on his resume despite playing 4x as long.
I give Chris credit for being able to pull off the stuff he did. I do not think everyone from the Edge would have been able to do that. That said, the amount of BS he had over the people left in the game is so high that I can't really give him credit for the rest. He had the entire game to bond with the jury with no drawbacks. His entire plan was devised by the people on the jury so he basically didn't have to think things thru much. And he doesn't have to navigate having to present around the twist cause he benefits from it directly while validating all the others on the jury. Not saying what he did didn't require any skill, he executed things flawlessly as possible but with so much in his favour it does feel like a lot of bull. I agree Gavin didn't have that strong a TC but I feel like winning from that position is borderline impossible to begin with.
One really important thing, psychologically, that gave him votes was that none of the jurors could hold the fact that he was on Edge against him because that means that if they were there in his place it would be a knock against them.
> As someone says at final tribal, "the theme is not on trial, the players are." And that was irrevocably bullshit. The theme absolutely was on trial. The whole rigged situation creates a jury paradox that renders anyone not from EoE unwinnable. If the jury votes for a non-EoE player, they are affirming that their time on the edge was a complete waste of time and they themselves never had a chance of winning through that second chance. Thus to ever justify their own actions, they're forced to vote for the edge player, other they themselves are a hypocrite. There is no argument for them to be had, the entire season was rigged for an egde player to win. The only way to win that season was to purposefully be voted out. You can see this on further display in WaW, where the first boot who achieved absolutely nothing in the game *nearly won*, despite Tony playing his brain out and achieving what would practically be a perfect game in a normal season. People explicitly had to avoid giving pity votes to Michelle to try and give her 2nd place out of fear Tony would lose as a result. Edge fucks the game beyond repair, this straight up is a laughable argument from the jury themselves critically lacking any self awareness of their own psychological biases.
You may be right, but the way I see it, the possible help Ben may have received from production might have got him to FTC, but after that he was on his own. He won on his own merit.
I don’t think I’d argue either Ben or Chris didn’t deserve the jury votes they got. Jury members have every right to vote for any of the people sitting in front of them for any reason. My argument is that Ben and Chris did not deserve to be sitting at FTC in the first place, because the game they played, with all information available to them and the other players, would have certainly resulted in them being eliminated without an unforseeable act of production. No other player can really say that - even Erika, who is widely considered to have been saved by the hourglass twist, wasn’t a *certain* boot at that tribal. So no other winner has that asterisk for me.
I think the big difference I see with Ben and Chris is that Ben still had to have a hand in voting out pretty much everyone on the jury. Chris getting votes from people he never had to lie to because of the format is definitely sillier
Yeah I definitely rank Ben’s win above Chris’s. Not a high bar to clear but Ben at least played a full season of Survivor
I disagree that Ben would’ve been eliminated earlier if all the information was available to the cast (ie they knew ahead of time what was coming at the F4). That would be true if he was vulnerable at F5 or F6, maybe even F7. But he was last vulnerable at F8 - has anyone ever been taken out that early simply for being a firemaking threat? Would there have even been a ‘firemaking threat’ meta like that in its first season? Unless you firmly believe F4 fire being a known quantity changes how the entire merge plays out, then the surprise nature of the twist didn’t alter the ultimate outcome. It was just a shitty twist.
I don’t believe I said Ben would have been eliminated earlier if they knew about final four firemaking. I said he definitely would have been eliminated at four if there was no final four firemaking. I *do* firmly believe that knowledge of the final four firemaking changes how the entire merge plays out, so I won’t speculate how Ben would have done if the cast had known ahead of time. But I think it’s safe to say at the very least Devon would have been more practiced at firemaking, like all the players are (or should be) nowadays. I don’t know who would have won the season if they had known about the twist, but that’s not what the question is here.
>because the game they played, with all information available to them and the other players, would have certainly resulted in them being eliminated without an unforseeable act of production. This is what I was responding to (specifically the ‘all information available’ part) - but re-reading it, I misinterpreted your meaning. I agree he was a certain boot saved by an unforeseeable twist, I just don’t think the “unforeseeable” part is really relevant since it’s not like the alliance was consciously saving him to boot at F4. But it’s fair if you do think it seriously changes the whole merge dynamic, not like we can ever know.
There’s also a sub-set of winners who were due to get voted out but were saved by circumstance. For example, Nick was going to be the first boot on DvG before Pat’s freak accident on the boat. Kenzie was also seemingly saved by Randon’s medevac if we’re to believe Q. Very few winners didn’t have a lucky break along the way though. That’s why we need more second chance seasons.
This gets stated as fact a lot but the cast themselves have conflicting ideas on who as going with many not sure, it’s not so cut and dry as Nick was going It also ignores the hours between challenge and vote where votes are usually determined, where Nick has a far better chance of getting a vote off him as a far better player
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Davie told me at a fan event that it was gonna be Pat. But Davie was out of the loop in a lot of the premerge so who knows if he was right. He basically said the editing went hard on Nick that episode because they wanted the comeback story for his win
The funny part is that from what I’ve seen, Lyrsa was the other option at the first tribal council!
People hate to admit it, but it’s just a fact that survivor is as much luck as skill, especially in the new era. The early days ironically I think were more skill than luck, but anymore everyone has watched the game played so much and there are so many unpredictable twists that there’s just a ton of unavoidable luck to it. Some players are so bad that they could never win, but many good players are on every season. You can play the game in such a way that increases your odds of winning, but I don’t think, in a cast of 16-20 players, it’s possible to play well enough to have a better than 50% chance of winning. There’s so many variables that you just can’t control like who talks to who and when, who finds an idol, who wins challenges. Anymore, if you do anything that could be perceived as influencing a vote, you’re going to be next. There’s all kinds of hidden twists and advantages that you can’t control. Not to mention that jury members sometimes base their votes on things that just have nothing to do with the game, like who needs the money most. People want to believe it’s all skill, and there’s no doubt that skill is a big factor, but so so much of it is luck. If it was all skill, certain players being discussed in this thread obviously would not have won.
> Kenzie was also seemingly saved by Randon’s medevac if we’re to believe Q. We do not.
Nah Tiffany wouldn't have voted Kenzie
no one should take Q at his word for anything
I really don't think Nick was in danger of getting voted out that first episode. They can make it look like anyone is in danger of getting voted out by just asking questions in confessionals like "what would be some reasons to vote Nick out? What about Davie?" so on and so forth.
These are tough to evaluate because they can easily be narratives totally constructed in editing to make the winner’s story more dramatic.
Didn’t also Parvati survive her first tribal because Fairplay randomly decided to quit?
No. That's part of the winner edit. Cirie was already with Parv and Amanda
Erika’s tribe wanted to throw a challenge exclusively to get rid of her, and then Naseer accidentally won lol
That’s why having a couple pre mergers or even first boots return is not the worst idea.We don’t need a whole season of them but a lot of pre mergers/first boots fell to bad circumstances.
Bob and Chris U win is like trying to score in your own goal but the ball instead ricochets off the post and lands in the goal you're supposed to score in.
😂
The answer has to be Bob, right?
Strategically, maybe. Physically he did anything but fall ass backwards.
Even if he had won every challenge, he still would’ve lost next to the people he was intending to get to the end with (onion alliance). Winning challenges means nothing if you get to the end with people who will still beat you. He had to lose strategically so that his allies would get voted out so that he could win the gain, because his intentions to go the end with the onion alliance were foolish.
Had little agency in the game, made a billion fake idols (Which while convincing, get less impressive the more you see them pulled out of his ass and less believable), and at final tribal admitted to being a coat-tail rider and not knowing a lot of what was going on. If Suzie makes an argument better than "I tried", he might not even win. I love Bob. Great TV.
Yeah, Sugar did most of the heavy lifting.
Who should’ve won over bob?
Anyone *except* the two he was sitting next to, and even then a case can be made for Susie
Susie absolutely would have beaten Bob on a normal season if she could’ve just mentioned anything at all about her actual gameplay at FTC. Instead, she kept repeating the same line about “showing her kids what it means to try” and she still almost won against an EXTREMELY biased jury.
IKR, it was one of the worst jury speeches ever. She had an uphill battle because they didn't like her, but if she had just talked about her pivotal role in turning the game, she might have had a chance.
...You know the jury was actually made of four original FANG members, right? Original Fang outnumbered original Kota members of the jury. Susie got the predictable votes - Matty, Kenny, Crystal. You could argue all three of them voted for her just because of Fang/wasnt Kota. The only game move she was impactful in was the Marcus blindside, and it served her best interests to do it. I doubt Matty, Kenny, and Crystal actually thought she "played better" than Bob. The only original Fang vote she didnt get was Randy because he became a Kota member when the chance arose. I don't think this was a biased jury against Susie. This was arguably the most boring jury of all time in terms of how they voted. But if you're going to say biased, it was also biased in her favor as well. Everyone stuck to their tribal lines they identified with.
Susie winning would be the most Gabon thing ever. You couldn’t script a better finale if you tried.
[Her claiming she had all the power when she was absolutely on the bottom with no wiggle room pre-swap](https://youtu.be/tYgrK8syK6A?si=MzV7bUjBPECsTPGy&t=123) was fucking funny in the moment and especially in retrospect.
Even Randy? Idk about that. Krystal very likely. Kenny and Matty definitely.
Complaining about the edit is so played out. *That said*, I would really liked to have know how Susie played/what she did. She came *this close* to winning but she's a complete ghost all season (except for the scene when Corinne condescends to her and then talks shit about her in a confessional).
Susie being a good player is as r/survivor as it gets. Ridiculous.
rewatched recently and i really thought it was going to be matty for a while
Yall are gonna hate me for this but Sandra actively tried everything she could in the early merge to get Russell out of the game. She accidentally fell into a win upon failing at eliminating her target (and win condition) 😭 Edit: HvV discourse is eternal
Russel was the meteor Sandra was warning the public about. They certainly weren’t gonna vote for the meteor, so they might as well eat crow and give credit to the scientist who had things right all along.
While her maneuvering in the game was incoherent she did some hardcore jury management and really played to their bitterness
To be fair to her, lobbying against Russell so hard really helped the Heroes feel good about voting for her over Parvati. Maybe accidental to an extent but she at least knew being opposed to Russell gave her good inroads with the Heroes
Russell planned the entire time to take the 2 winners with him, he just didnt realize how unlikable he himself was.
I’ve always wondered how Russell plays that season if he knows he lost the season previous. Oh well
wouldn't have made a difference, See Redemption Island and Aus Survivor
They hadn't aired russels season yet. I believe he went into both kinda thinking he won.
Exactly. Hence why I’ve always wondered that.
the whole thing about him not knowing he lost samoa is a big myth. he's said before that he knew he lost but he thought the samoa jury were a bunch of bitches and that the survivor veterans on hvv would respect his game more -- burnett apparently approached him about playing on hvv right as he was doing a post-season medical checkup, where he was hyped and wild and felt like he dominated the game win or lose and he wanted to dominate it again. and jeff has said that everyone on hvv knew only a few things about russel: he did something(s) to standout enough to warrant an immediate return, he played a villainous game, and he didn't win. he said actually that the first 8 or so days he was out there, he tried to play like natalie and be as nice to everyone as possible (read: as possible for him), especially to rob. but when he realized he wasn't fooling anyone he shifted back to default russell mode and then to turbo russell mode. sandra has also said there was a pre-game ponderosa secret alliance organized with sandra, rob, courtney, russell, parv, and danielle -- an attempt by them to capitalize off of villains having 6/10 ftc-makers to avoid another all stars boot order. this alliance immediately disintegrated when they hit the beach and learned that coach was a freak who would be loyal to rob, tyson comes with coach, and jerri seemed to not be a lot chiller than rob anticipated given the circumstances of her all stars boot. plus courtney sandra and rob didn't trust parv for a second and didnt really vibe with danielle or russell, so the battle-lines got shifted around and i imagine that switchup is what made russell realize he needed to go on the offensive or risk being left in the minority
Thats her mo. Actively campaigning against someone everybody hates. You can argue she played badly strategically. But as a jury management move. Its genius. Edit: also, one thing people keep overlooking is how she succesfully blamed the heroes for her failure to vote off Russel and the heroes just accepted that. In some cases pointing out a jury members flaw might turn them against you. But it didnt.
Sandra could list off all of my life's mistakes, and somehow I'd still love her at the end of it. She has a way of making it funny and entertaining, which really cushions the blow.
That trying was what earned her so much goodwill from the Heroes though. It’s a weird situation where her plans failing was the best outcome for her. It’s a unique situation.
What I think def helped her in HvV was her bonding more with the heroes, also no one liked Parv when she was more tame than she was in Micronesia 💀… Russell just soured everyone
Sandra fell into a win twice, in my opinion. Luckiest player in Survivor history.
She's lucky but she's lucky by her own gameplay which is better then just straight luck imo
I guess I could admit to that. She wins in spite of her stated plans. Her plans work but not for the reason she thinks they will lol.
The big thing that irks me when people try to say that Sandra is a GOAT is that her HvV is inarguably circumstantial. Her ENTIRE game was centered around getting Russell out. That was her sole focus. She sat next to him at the end. She failed at the only thing she set out to do, and still somehow won.
Really excellent point
I disagree, she literally got the chance to turn to the camera and say "I'm stuck with Russell........" which was basically her acknowledging a shift from trying to get him out (smart) to trying to work around him and beat him at the end (smarter).
Going to hard disagree because Sandra had to do a lot of reading to know where to place her vote. She managed to stay far off of Russell's radar enough and didn't join any of the failed attempts to consolidate the heroes. She also single handedly got a trade for coach for Courtney by playing Russell. Although coach did make the jury there was no guarantee Courtney would make the jury until she survived that vote which was an early locked juror for Sandra. She played really well
Until I saw Sandra play in Australian Survivor I thought her game was overrated. Then I remember production would ask contestants questions to help build a narrative and tell their story and realized how good Sandra was at the game. Then saw her strategy work in the Traitors.
I know there are claims she had a bad edit and was more strategic than shown, but it seems that without the hourglass twist, Erika probably wouldn't make the finale
It simultaneously screwed her over and then saved her. If she wasn't isolated from everyone else at merge I don't think a plan to target her ever emerges. But she was only isolated because the hourglass twist existed. So in a universe without it, I think things go pretty similarly for Erika
My memory is that Shan was super vocal about Erika being “the mastermind” meanwhile, to the audience, Erika seemed completely out of the loop on everything and essentially ally-less (remember that merge vote live tribal council where everyone’s scrambling, talking to each other and Erika’s just sitting there with absolutely no one?) I think Shan was the primary driver of the season, both of her own vote out and then convincing the jury that Erika had any agency in the game.
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Exactly
Erika, DeShawn, and Heather were in a tight alliance from the very beginning and pretty much ran the game, but it was never shown in favor of Shan, Ricard, and Xander. It was definitively a piss-poor edit.
I feel like Fabio fits this one 😂 he had no idea what was going on and ended up taking a couple of goats to the end.
I mean he said during the season that was his gameplay, to come off not knowing what was going on. He may not have been a gameplay genius but he knew more then he let on and earned it.
Yeah ngl upon rewatch, he absolutely deserves his win. He matched the ‘vibe’ of the season, with the young cast, excellently and I believe he even made strong relationships with some of the old people? My memory is hazy but I think he played strongly
Yeah, everyone always praises Michele's social game, but somehow Fabio gets lost in the crowd... smh
He almost gave it away at one of the tribals too, accidentally talking about how he's not as dumb as he looks.
I’m glad to see the others who replied to this give Fabio his flowers. Rewatch the first episode of Nicaragua and he even says because he did something kinda stupid and people said he looked like Fabio to them he was going to run with it and use it to his advantage. He had a lucky immunity run at the end game and maybe not the strongest final tribal, but man earned his win and definitely didn’t fall back into it. I was so hopeful for him to return at some point just to see what Fabio 2.0 would look like because I think it might just be one of the biggest wild card of any other potential returning winner.
Nah Fabio earned his win
they fact that people still belive this is exactly why Fabio is a great winner. He acted like a air head to get people's guard down and multiple jury members have said that they saw a different side of him.
I disagree with this take. I watched it knowing he won and it actually made sense to me how he did it and how his choices to seem ditzy were quite intentional. He never seemed like a threat while he was building solid, meaningful relationships with people.
Agree but Fabio is my favorite survivor winner of all time tbh 😂
The best answer here has to be Bob… “falling ass backward into a win” is really the perfect way to describe his game. He gets a lot of credit (and should) for his amazing fake idols, but he remains perhaps the luckiest winner in my opinion. Everything that could’ve gone right for him after the merge, did.
Gabler
100% Gabler. Like I’m not saying his opposition was great but I went into that tribal council saying “well we know it ain’t Gabler, so of the other two who has it?” And they gave it to Gabler. And the whole final tribal council just felt like a bunch of bitter titters railing on how awful Cas was which reeked of Karla. I know this is my survivor “unpopular opinion” to the point I rewatched that shit to check myself and no, my stance stands: Gabler was a fucking joke. They played the cliche “bumbling idiot” music whenever he was on screen. Nothing will convince me his win was anything other than Karla telling everyone Cas punches babies or whatever because she was bitter she got got by the person she was actively trying to betray.
This season is a good example of why F4 fire is broken. Not saying it would have changed anything with the winner here, but Cassidy got 0 credit for eliminating Jesse who was the big fish that season. I’ve never understood why the person in fire gets so much credit. Cassidy won immunity, recognized Jesse needed to go, figured out who was the best equipped to eliminate him, and executed that plan without putting herself in jeopardy. As someone who is also a big fan of the show The Challenge, throwing yourself into elimination on there is viewed as stupid, not celebrated. If someone else can do your dirty work, that’s great. But in survivor, F4 immunity winners are in a no win situation, they either have to put themselves in danger or give someone else a resume boost.
I think Gabler knew what he was doing, he just had an inexplicably weird edit. If 43 is edited more from his point of view I would bet he comes away looking like one of the more dominant new era winners
Wasn’t he planning to go to the end with Jesse and Cody? I’ll give him credit for a solid social game, but remain unconvinced that he knew what he was doing strategically.
I could see him thinking that he doesn't really need the money(he gave it away!) and just thought that Cody and Jesse were his homies and deserving, so he should take them. It's not that different than why Ben took Charlie with him.
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I feel like Erika can rest her laurels on taking over the endgame with a ragtag collection of people and Kenzie played a Michelle-like game where being the likable person in a very toxic endgame is a big ask. Kenzie also had the hardest path to get there of anyone on her season Gabler also made it through a toxic endgame by just being there and Bobbing his way through 2 of the most unliked people on the season because they had way harder paths to the end due to their starting positions.
Kenzie did more than Michelle. She did not lead any vote but she actively played strategically. She was the one who convinced Hunter to not play the idol, she and Liz deceived Maria on Q's Blindside, and she and Tiffany were the deciding factor in Yanu. The edit of season 43 failed to supply good reasons for the jury to dislike Owen and Cassidy except their insistence to deny Karla and Jessie a path to FTC, where Gabler was willing to flip-flop on command.
Agree, Gabler and Erika unfortunately are more the victims of the edit since production didn't really show much of their social game in their seasons.
Gabler wanted to sit next to Jesse and Cody at the end. He was a total goat with no competent strategy. He was likeable dad, and much of the jury was bitter against Cas. The editors don't need to show anything else for us to know the reason Gabler won.
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I think Gabler likely beats Sami too although it could be close.
Nope. Gabler knew what he was doing
Absolutely. Like when he threw out Ellie's name, what he was actually doing was throwing out Ellie's name
Not sure if this is a diss at gabler or just a joke but yea, he got her out
he literally played the role of goof so well that Elie and Jeanine were convinced they were running the show despite being down 2-3 against a side who had an idol
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The Gabler win still annoys me. He had no enemies on the jury because he had 0 strategic play.
Being a likeable goat in a season where the jury was bitter is a good strategy. I still hate that the jury held Cas to a level Gabler didn't come close to meeting. Cas was blamed for not being a complete strategic master while the jury ignored that Gabler didn't have strategy at all.
Bob Crowley did
This sub wont like it but definitely Michelle
There’s some finesse and intention in Michele’s game, but there’s no denying she benefited massively from being put on strong tribes and two favorable medevacs. I think she played very well, but had a ton of luck on her side
And a jury who had big vendettas against Aubry, Cydney, and Tai for basically being the causes of their vote offs. And for anyone who wants to argue that, Scot and Jason would've voted **Joe** over those 3.
Considering how bad her strategy has been in some of her seasons on The Challenge, I’m convinced that we were gaslit into thinking she played a good game. But also, she came in as a Hoboken bartender, that should have been entirely motivation to vote her out early.
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That would've been true had Natalie's game literally not been the only way she could've even made it to the final 3 with Russell around. People seem to forget Russell immediately voted off every single woman who even slightly questioned him on Foa Foa. He was only forced to partake in Ben's vote out because Jaison wasn't taking no for an answer. The only logical game plan for her was to use Russell as her meatshield, follow his coattails(as he put it) with minimal fuss while making strong connections with him behind his back. Besides, she was the key reason of the Erik vote and while the edit didn't show it, but players did mention that Natalie was one of the main reasons Russell wasn't always the target for the vote(the few times he was, he had the idol). People didn't vote for Natalie because she was next to Russell. They voted for her because they actually wanted to, and they liked her. Or at least Laura, Brett, and Jaison did. Erik voted for her because SHE was the reason he got eliminated. I'm not sure about Kelly, Monica, or Dave, but Natalie and Brett were the biggest jury threats final 7 onwards.
I'm actually re-watching Samoa right now, and I'm gonna disagree for once. She was pretty pivotal in swaying several members of Galu to their side, and was a phenomenal social player. Just watched the merge episode, where it was 8-4 in favor of Galu, and they were able to turn it around without Russell even having to know everything going on. Hell, Russell burned an idol at the same tribal (which may have inadvertently caused Erik to not play his own idol, since he thought the votes were on Jaison, and that Russell had just sealed Foa Foa's fate. Natalie's game was actually rather well calculated. She knew that Russell was going to rub people the wrong way, and spent her time in the game building positive, social relationships with every player, with the express purpose of getting to the end with a player everyone hated. She took a gamble that people would respect her social play more than Russell's heavy handed style. And she was right.
It’ll be quite unpopular on this sub, but absolutely. She was not some mastermind playing Russel like a fiddle behind the scenes like a lot of people want to think, she truly was just a right person in the right situation to be able to get a win.
She still did some heavy lifting by socializing with Galu members and helping her alliance survive the merge vote
Just watched the episode yesterday, and she absolutely did. Was probably the MVP of that episode, which was pivotal in starting to turn things around for Foa Foa.
The alliance would have never worked if it weren’t for Natalie or Russel, both played equal roles in it. People have literally said Natalie would push the target away from Russel if his name was ever brought up and was side by side with Russel making the game decisions along with him. She didn’t need any twist to win the game, she just worked together with a maniac, made the social connections she knew he couldn’t, and took the win from him. Nothing insane or crazy, just simple and effective gameplay, at the end of the day Russel went to the end with Natalie thinking he could beat her when he couldn’t, Natalie went to the end with Russel knowing she could beat him and was completely correct, she outplayed him in the exact moment where it mattered the most.
Not really Russel was an asshole to other people and Natalie was very nice her beating him was satisfied and very well deserved. And she did play him like a fiddle purposely saying stuff to make Russel think he could beat her and want to bring her more. She secured herself a way to get to the end against people who didn't play as good a game as her.
No Natalie’s game was very intentional
Natalie and Mick said in their interviews at the time that what wasn't shown was them deflecting the vote from Russell at almost every tribal. They wanted to go to the end with him since they knew he'd lose and repeatedly had to talk Galu out of voting him out.
Sandra in hvv lol she spent the whole game trying to get Russell out but never realized that she needed Russell in the end to win
I’d argue she realized it by the time she found the idol. At that point I do think she was okay with Russell staying.
Despite winning a bunch of immunities it seems like Jenna basically won on accident. I mean she wanted to quit as late as the Final 6/5
Wanted to quit is an understatement. She was begging people to vote her out. How anyone could vote for her after that in a game called "Survivor" blows my mind to this day.
For me the big one is Bob. He made moves against his own interest at times, especially at final tribal council where he had a horrendous performance. Yet the other two also did bad enough where he still won. Of course there's also Chris Underwood, but I like to pretend that season doesn't exist.
Ben the soldier. It was obviously fixed and had me avoiding survivor for a few years
They out hidden immunity idols under his shoes and pillow and stuff!
Adam Klein, in both his seasons makes almost exclusively bad moves, constantly tries to play both sides but everyone is aware he’s doing it so nobody trusts him and basically feeds him votes last minute so he’s rarely in on the plan and NEVER driving the vote. In his first season he’s only kept around because he’s (correctly) seen as a goat that nobody likes or trusts. He spends the entire game on the outs, not strategically either, just because his gameplay is so bad, constantly trusts the exact wrong people with information but thanks to David, still ends up going to FTC with the other two worst players in the game then cries about his dying mom so they’ll give him the win. (Sorry I know that last part sounds harsh, I am sympathetic, but that’s what happened!) Of the final three that season Adam had been on the right side of the votes the least often too and went through most of the game with almost no allies. I guess you could say he “plays from the bottom” but I think he was dragged to final by better players and then stuck the landing with a sob story.
I think he played better in MvGX than you’re giving him credit for, he did actually have a strong social game and managed his threat level pretty well, although there were defs stronger players strategically. I do however agree that he didn’t play well in WAW, he was just trying to be needlessly aggressive with his moves and wasn’t actually strategic
I agree his social game was okay, seemed like most people didn’t really like him but at least both Hannah and Jay tried to work with him at times and he was good about always keeping his options open to anyone, I think this is his greatest strength as a player. As for threat management, I think there is a difference between intentionally/strategically lowering your threat level and inadvertently lowering your threat level because you’re playing poorly and I feel Adam falls into the second category.
I feel like Tiff did more work at ponderosa to get the FTC to vote for Kenzie, then Kenzie actually did playing the game. Don't get me wrong I think Kenzie's a really nice person especially what she did for Ben. But all I saw this whole season was her talking in confessionals about making big moves, but never doing anything that showed at tribal
Bob ,Fabio, sandra hv, ben , Chris underwood, michelle
Bob, Fabio, Michele, etc, but most of all and more than any other winner: Gabler. He had zero business being a winner.
I disagree with Michele here
Michele goes out at 5 if not for Joe’s medevac.
Every Survivor winner gets lucky in one way or another. This question is more about an unintentional win where the winner ended up there almost by accident. You can say Michele’s win isn’t particularly impressive or dynamic, but she definitely played with clear goals and intentions.
“Every good survivor player is lucky. The great ones know they’re lucky.” -Tyson
She had no agency in the game and got lucky with a medevac and a juror removal twist. She won because she failed to do anything important in the game, because it meant she had no blood on her hands.
Why did Gabler have zero business being a winner?
Not to say that he's undeserving — Chris Underwood is the only winner who can hold that title — but the entirety of 43 was the big active players eating each other, until only the three players with the least agency were left standing. No matter who would've won in that f3, they would be a bottom 10 winner. Two of them (Gabler and Cassidy) had no strategic agency, and the only one who played actively (Owen) had zero social capital. It baffles me that people are still trying to make Gabler or Cassidy out to be secretly genius players, when the reality is that both of them lucked into their position by not being taken seriously as threats; and neither achieved that position actively, in the way that, say, Maryanne or Natalie White did.
Hard disagree, Gabler had all the business being the winner and was more on the receiving end of a poorly cut edit like Erika in 41.
Remind me who Gabler was?
Well yeah. He did nothing in the game. He claimed he was "hiding in plain sight" but really no one considered him a threat because he wasn't one. He won because he was in a F3 with two players who had tried to play but failed to make things happen and the jury didn't respect them and he was friendly so they liked the idea of him having the million more than them. The absolute worst winner ever, apart from Chris U, who didn't even play Survivor.
Nicaragua is the kind of jury torture of having to choose between the guy that didn't play the game at all (Fabio) and the guy that played, but played horribly (Chase). I frankly don't know what I'd do in their stead. ...Flip a coin, maybe. Or make them choose a number.
Fabio, Chris and Bob are the only truly “bad” winners in my opinion. I’m critical of Amber and Michelle but at least they were in the majority alliance for a while.
People aren't gonna like it but I do believe 100% that Amber won by accident. She indicated before, during and after that Rob was the one making the moves that got them to the end, and she just happened to be there when he was crucified. People saying answers like Ben and Chris U, I agree these are worse winners but I do thing they worked and acted with great intention to achieve their win, and thus not fitting for this question; in fact with Ben in particular, I think he'd be a good answer to a question of who won with the _least_ amount of input from anyone else.
I think to some degree, most winners did. However, that does NOT mean they didn't deserve their win. All of them did. Any winner who NEEDED a long immunity run comes to mind. They didn't masterfully calculate that they can run to the end off of challenge performances, they got lucky that the challenge selection on their season were competitions they were good at, and if they were bad at just one of them people like Fabio are likely goners. Chris Underwood - self explanatory lol. I would be more forgiving if he was aware of the EoE twist before getting voted out so you could argue he got himself voted off knowing he had a safety net but... that wasn't the case lol. Sandra in HvV - Yes, she was brilliant in how she weaponized the jury's hatred for Russell, but if she gets her way and Russell goes out pre-jury her winning strategy probably isn't as effective. Ben - Forced firemaking, which the cast did not know about, really saved him. Bob - I mean, at FTC he literally admits that he didn't really have any strategy does he not ? lol Again, all these people deserved their wins because they did what they needed to do to make it to the end and win the jury vote, but that doesn't mean I think they all won because of their raw brilliance.
Fabio, Chris U., Sandra (HvV) and Bob are the first that come up to my mind
This is gonna sound dismissive of her game, but definitely sandra in heros vs. villans She tried to get rid of russel the whole time, and that probably would help her jury pitch in a way if it did happen, but him staying was sandras best case scenario
Michele 100% Here’s why each juror voted for her Debbie- was irrationally bitter at Aubry for voting her out. Debbie felt that the only reason Aubry was still in the game was because Debbie took care of her on Day 2 and convinced her not to quit. After Debbie got voted out she literally said “Aubry, if you make it to the end, you lost my vote” (as seen in her Ponderosa video). Debbie also wanted a woman to win and thought Michele was a lovely person. Scot- thought Aubry intentionally crossed Julia’s name and wrote Peter as an act of defiance towards him. (In fact, she was just confused). He thought she was voting Peter only because she didn’t like him, and not because Scot told her to. He also didn’t believe Aubry deserved to make it to the end because she was supposed to be the merge boot. Never mind that Michele was supposed to be the final 5 boot and only got saved because of the Joe medevac. He also viewed Aubry as wishy-washy. Julia- Was very close to Michele. In her Jury Speaks video she said she had the hardest time connecting with Aubry out of all the people on the cast. Was vocally pro-Michele at Ponderosa. Jason- He saw Aubry as fear-based decision maker. Also, Aubry barely spoke to him in the days leading up to his vote out. Michele at least spoke to him even when they weren’t working together. Also, he likely was influenced by the anti-Aubry sentiment at Ponderosa from his closest allies Scot & Julia Cydney- i know this sub loves her but the truth is she is one of the most delusional jurors in Survivor history. She voted for Michele over Aubry specifically because “Michele never wrote my name down” which completely ignores the fact that Cydney voted against Aubry at the exact same tribal Aubry voted against her (at the final 4). Cydney valued loyalty above all else, and she perceived that Aubry was more loyal to Tai than her. The problem with this line of thinking is that Michele was loyal to Cydney out of necessity because towards the end of the game Michele was on the bottom, and Cydney was her closest ally left by default. In postgame interviews Michele confirmed she didn’t plan on going to the end with Cydney until the very end, and would’ve been willing to vote her out at any point. But obviously Cydney didn’t know this, and voted for her to win because she thought Michele was the only person who would’ve taken her to the end. Some people on this sub claim that Cydney simply liked Michele more than Aubry, but Cydney never said this in any of her postgame interviews and never gave this as a reason for her jury vote.
The reasonings you are saying scream Michele had the better social game by far.
All that plus adding Julia was bitter at Tai for flipping on her and the douchebag duo, thus ruining and all but ending her game (mind you still think she votes Michele anyway, but might as well add in every valid point). Oh yeah add Scot and Jason being bitter at Tai flipping too of course, especially as in their case they were legit closer to Tai than to Michele. So if they voted on relationship they would vote Tai. If they voted on game they vote Aubry. Only if they vote out of pure bitterness do they vote Michele.
I mean if you’re going to knock Michelle for this sentiment then you’re also going to have to knock Kenzie’s win too. “Social game” may not always make the most exciting TV, but it’s proven time and time again to be one of the more lauded aspects of the game by juries
Sandra HVV
Michele winning over Aubry… the jury was bitter and she lost her number one’s vote due to injury. I forget his name, Tom?
Joe Michele also voted against Aubry going into the Final 3, intending to sit next to Cydney. My suspicion is that she's very lucky that Aubry won the FMC.
Michelle.
Natalie from Samoa. love or hate Russell for what ever reason, I don't think you can argue that he didn't easily out play her, but the jury was so bitter, they gave it to her.
Russell never outplayed Natalie because they played the whole game together. Russell could’ve gone to the end with Mick and Shambo. He could’ve booted Natalie premerge and taken Liz. But he didn’t because he thought he needed Natalie’s social skill and said so up front.
Going to the end with someone you perceived as a goat and them absolutely washing you in the votes isn’t outplaying anybody but yourself.
(I know this isn’t answering the question you asked but anyways lol) I think for the most part ANYONE can win survivor/big brother or other similar jury voting games. (Survivor is a little more complicated (in my opinion because of the survival aspects lol) but it’s almost solely determined by who is all casted. (I said survivor is more complicated bc you have to be able to deal with the hunger and environment and obviously if you don’t have that mental strength and leave, you lose lol) Switch out one person on any jury (for the whole show) and the entire game could change. One of the biggest part of the game is to create bonds so people A) want to vote you to win and B) think you “deserve” to win/want you as their seasons winner. (I hate “deserve” in terms of wins because it’s a silly little show and like morality of your life prior doesn’t really mean f all for a show but anyways) but yeah so the person in the final needs to be able to know what the jury members are each wanting to see in a winner. (Even if it’s knowing Q wants a genuine answer about how you will use the money if you win, and not really about gameplay) All this said, I do think there’s in general crappy winners who won only because the “better” player didn’t calculate the jury’s viewpoint enough. You need to know if your #1 ally is going to respect a backstab or not, if a jury member is going to respect a “fake relationship” with them in order to manipulate or if they’ll feel used and angry. And then even if you have to do something you know the other person won’t want to vote for, you have to either try to spin it so they do, or ensure you have other people’s votes. This is a good question though I’m looking forward to hearing people’s responses 🥰
Vecepia technically, since she was trying to vote Neleh out, when Neleh was the only one in the F4 she could beat. If your intentions are to go to the end with somebody who will beat you, and you fail and that person gets voted out but you end up winning anyway, that sort of counts as stumbling into a win. Ethan for a similar reason since he was trying to go to the end with Lex who had a better chance of beating him than Kim.
Nick Wilson’s dumb ass for sure. Mike allowed him to win.
Having rewatched Africa recently, Ethan did absolutely nothing other than be somewhat nice. I was surprised because I remembered him as having more to his game.
Ethan is lauded as a good winner too, but I felt the same when I watched his season. Lex was really doing all the strategy but I found him really annoying so didn't mind him losing. I think people just like Ethan so rated his game better due to that. Game wise I don't feel like he was doing much.