Survivor: South Pacific

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

There is a scoreboard. It's called "Jury Votes". They more you get the higher your score. The person with the highest score wins. The rest of it, the challenges, the alliances, the manuevering, the backstabbing, ect are only valuable in that they help you score (or at the very least stick around to the end so you are in a position to win).

Not the same thing as a scoreboard. You're basically equating games in which the winner is determined by ajudication (boxing, ice skating, gymnastics) to games that are determined solely by strength of play on the field. Two very different methods of determining a winner. IMO, of course.

[Tears of Lys]

The Tigers are like the Ozzy of the MLB. B)

Hey, that hurt.

(Takes marbles and goes home.)

[Ken Stone]

Not the same thing as a scoreboard. You're basically equating games in which the winner is determined by ajudacation (boxing, ice skating, gymnastics) to games that are determined solely by strength of play on the field. Two very different methods of determining a winner. IMO, of course.

Survivor isn't determined by impartial, 3rd party judges. I think you would have a point if we were talking American Idol, or Big Brother, which uses judging from outside the game to determine the winner.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Survivor isn't determined by impartial, 3rd party judges. I think you would have a point if we were talking American Idol, or Big Brother, which uses judging from outside the game to determine the winner.

I don't see how that really enters into the argument. You still have a winner determined by a vote as opposed to a winner determined strictly by performance.

[Ken Stone]

I don't see how that really enters into the argument. You still have a winner determined by a vote as opposed to a winner determined strictly by performance.

What would gymnastics look like if your competitor got to judge your performance? It wouldn't work. That is sorta the key element that makes Survivor different. You can't just brush it aside and say it doesn't matter when clearly it is all that matters.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

What would gymnastics look like if your competitor got to judge your performance? It wouldn't work. That is sorta the key element that makes Survivor different. You can't just brush it aside and say it doesn't matter when clearly it is all that matters.

And that makes it comparable to baseball how?

That is a key element that makes Survivor different. I'm not ignoring that, I'm questioning the validity of your comparison.

[Sivin]

To me, and this is my opinion of course, winning provides it's own validation. If you take the same logic that people are applying to Sandra, and use it in almost any other game, it becomes pretty apparent how bankrupt it is. For instance:

Yeah the Cardinals won the world series, but they are the worst team ever. They didn't hit the most home runs, they didn't have the best pitching. All they did was whine and win games. They are terrible and useless.

I could go on but I don't think it's necessary.

Here's my best analogy of how Sandra won:

3 wrestlers are having a match, and the first one to pin any opponent wins. Wrestler A kicks wrestler C in the face, and C falls down and is crying. Wrestler A and B proceed to fight each other to the point of exhaustion, and wrestler B finally collapses to the ground unable to move. Wrestler A wants to beat up on wrestler C a bit more, so A picks C up and does a fancy wrestling move designed to completely destroy C. C is completely destroyed by the act, but A has become injured in a strange accident and is now in extreme agony. All wrestlers appear to be out of the fight, but wrestler C happened to fall on top of wrestler B, who is still unable to move. Due to the rules, wrestler C has technically 'pinned' wrestler B by having fallen on top of the opponent.

Wrestler C has won, but is C the best of the group?

I thought that that is a nice little analogy, though it could be a confused mess.

Just for the record, I'm not a wrestling nut or anything (though I did have a little stint where I liked watching that WWE nonsense (just because I though it was fun, not real)) I just thought that it was the best analogy available.

[pat5150]

Sandra never "won" Survivor. Twice, her opponents "lost," hence giving her the prize.

Sandra never did anything, never really strategized, mostly sat out challenges, and remained passive from start to finish. She was awarded the money twice because she ended up being the least hated castaway of the lot that ended up in the finals.

Her game, or lack thereof, goes against everything Survivor stands for.

Natalie helped blindside Erik, but did nothing else. So in my opinion, they are probably the two least deserving winners in the history of the show...

Patrick

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Here's my best analogy of how Sandra won:

3 wrestlers are having a match, and the first one to pin any opponent wins. Wrestler A kicks wrestler C in the face, and C falls down and is crying. Wrestler A and B proceed to fight each other to the point of exhaustion, and wrestler B finally collapses to the ground unable to move. Wrestler A wants to beat up on wrestler C a bit more, so A picks C up and does a fancy wrestling move designed to completely destroy C. C is completely destroyed by the act, but A has become injured in a strange accident and is now in extreme agony. All wrestlers appear to be out of the fight, but wrestler C happened to fall on top of wrestler B, who is still unable to move. Due to the rules, wrestler C has technically 'pinned' wrestler B by having fallen on top of the opponent.

Wrestler C has won, but is C the best of the group?

I thought that that is a nice little analogy, though it could be a confused mess.

Just for the record, I'm not a wrestling nut or anything (though I did have a little stint where I liked watching that WWE nonsense (just because I though it was fun, not real)) I just thought that it was the best analogy available.

That is better, but I'd make a couple of additions. It's a Battle Royale with 16 wrestlers initially. The last 9 wrestlers eliminated vote to determine the winner among the final 3.

[awesome possum]

Sandra never "won" Survivor. Twice, her opponents "lost," hence giving her the prize.

This is precisely it.

While Sandra has her spot in Survivor history as a two-time winner, of the votes that won her those two games only three were meant for her as opposed to not for her opponents: Rupert in Pearl Islands, Courtney, and Rupert again. All the other votes in Pearl Islands were against Lil. All the votes she received in HvV (minus her two friends) were against Parvati and Russell. A telling factor is that the only vote she received from the Villains, the people she'd played with the longest and who had seen her inaction, was from her friend.

Yes, the votes against her opponents still count and she is still the only two-time winner. There's no arguing that. There's plenty of argument in whether she's the worst player to have actually won.

That is better, but I'd make a couple of additions. It's a Battle Royale with 16 wrestlers initially. The last 9 wrestlers eliminated vote to determine the winner among the final 3.

Yep. Battle royal. Two wrestlers team up to take everyone out. In the process the wrestler who is comedic relief gets knocked out and thrown through the ropes so they're not eliminated, but they lay out on the ground for the rest of the match doing nothing. When there are just the two wrestlers left, the last nine who were eliminated come back down to the ring, roll the worthless comedy wrestler back in the ring, then jump the remaining two and throw them out, handing the third the victory in the process.

[Sivin]

That is better, but I'd make a couple of additions. It's a Battle Royale with 16 wrestlers initially. The last 9 wrestlers eliminated vote to determine the winner among the final 3.

<Putting on my best English accent (which is actually damn good)>

Indeed, sir. Though I fear that might not be quite different enough as to qualify as an analogy, and it would have to be expanded to include something such as:

And Sandra cowered in a corner while occasionally poking at a certain passing opponent just enough to annoy him.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Yep. Battle royal. Two wrestlers team up to take everyone out. In the process the wrestler who is comedic relief gets knocked out and thrown through the ropes so they're not eliminated, but they lay out on the ground for the rest of the match doing nothing. When there are just the two wrestlers left, the last nine who were eliminated come back down to the ring, roll the worthless comedy wrestler back in the ring, then jump the remaining two and throw them out, handing the third the victory in the process.

THAT is just about perfect. Kudos.

[Howdyphillip]

Survivor is not a wrestling match, nor is it a baseball game. It is if anything a social experiment. Sandra triumphed twice in this experiment due to the fact that she has a knack for not getting voted out of the game, and doing so in manner that gets other people to vote for her to win. You can make fun of her strategy all you want, but the fact remains that out of 343 people who played she is one of 23 to have won.9I say 23 because even though this seasons winner isn't certain, the game has still been played.) Out of 41 people that have played the game twice or more, she is the only one to win twice.

Her strategy of deflecting attention away from her is a solid example of how to win this thing.

[pat5150]

Phil,

I'm not sure it's a bona fide strategy. She has no game whatsoever, so she's just along for the ride. And in the end, she got the money because people didn't want to give it to the others. No one ever truly voted "for" her.

Yes, she got the million dollars twice, but I don't think it has anything to do with the way she "played" the game.

Patrick

[Demonblade]

I don't believe that there are still so many people who think that Sandra wasn't a good player of Survivor. She managed to not get voted out...ever, and she also managed to get enough votes to, you know, win. Twice. Getting people to vote for you to win, especially when you already won, is an impressive feat. Call it what you want, sour grapes or whatever, she won because enough people voted for her to win. Personally I thought that Parvati should have won in HvV, but at least she managed to get a few votes. Sandra had people in the jury who actually liked her, despite her voting almost all of them out. With being likeable amongst the jury and by flying under the radar, she proved that her strategy works. Oh now you guys can bitch and moan about how she didn't win anything (except the $1million of course ;) ), but she managed to make it to Final Tribal twice without anybody having hard feelings against her. If she managed to only win it all once, you guys might have a point, but she did this twice and won. That isn't luck, that's skill, and she's really good at winning Survivor. I'm a little surprised that there are so many of you who don't recognize her ability to win this game.

[Demonblade]

Phil,

I'm not sure it's a bona fide strategy. She has no game whatsoever, so she's just along for the ride. And in the end, she got the money because people didn't want to give it to the others. No one ever truly voted "for" her.

Yes, she got the million dollars twice, but I don't think it has anything to do with the way she "played" the game.

Patrick

Rupert voted for her twice, and Courney voted for her. The 'Heroes' in HvV all voted for her, and from their perspective, the final 3 were all on the wrong side. I guess you guys are just pissed off because she was the least hated out of the final 3, but is that not alone a decent strategy, to make it to the end with two people that nobody else wanted to vote for? Plus, in her final speech, she appealed to the 'heroes' that she, too, did not like Russell or how he played the game. She did an excellent job of pointing out why they shouldn't vote for anybody else but her. To not recognize the value in that talent, particularly when it comes to Survivor, is not paying attention to the game, imo.

[awesome possum]

If Parvati hadn't also been a winner, she'd have taken HvV. That was too much combined with Russell's stank on her.

[Sivin]

But she didn't mastermind or "fly under the radar", at least not in 'HvV'. She spent literally the entire time after the merge trying and failing to get Russell voted out.

Now, if she was just "flying under the radar", then she would have been quite and generally invisible. But she wasn't. She was constantly pleading with the other players to get rid of Russell (all because he voted out Rob, and she couldn't let it go). She wasn't unseen, she was ignored. Russell knew that she was out to get him, but he didn't care because he saw no threat. And Parvarti showed little more interest. They took Sandra to the end because they knew, absolutely, that they had played better games and that they deserved the votes. And they were right, but their lack of social consideration lost the game for them.

It wasn't Sandra's social game that won it for her, it was the lack of an adequate social game from Russell and Parvarti. And yes, they deserved to lose for that lack of the most important facet of Survivor, and that's exactly why Sandra was handed the victory.

So yes, she did a good job of not making herself hated by the Jury, but it was more of a "we don't hate you" than it was "we like you/ we think you deserve it", please don't act like it was some grand plan or strategy on her part. Someone had to win, and it damn sure wasn't going to be Russell or Parvarti.

[Howdyphillip]

Someone had to win

I have enjoyed this discussion with you Sivin, but I am still in disagreement with your assessment on this. Someone does have to win in the game of Survivor, and Sandra put herself in a position twice to do so. The game starts with 18 people who all want to win a million dollars. Sandra kept the target off her back and navigated countless tribal councils both pre and after merge. The social skills that it takes to do this is considerable.

Even though she never was able to have Russell voted out doesn't mean that she wasn't part of painting the picture that she was not a threat and shouldn't be voted out. She even caused rifts between people that placed the vote on them rather than her. Her strategy works. The game is not necessarily mastermind a brilliant scheme to screw everyone around. If that were so, then Russell would hands down be the greatest to play. The game is to make your way through a group of people and having those same people vote for you to win. Twice Sandra did this. Her wins were not random chance.

[Gertrude]

Oh god - sorry. I honestly didn't mean to stir up this hornet's nest. But since I did, I am going to weigh in.

No, her game is not the most strategic or social, but she didn't sit down and go along for the ride. Yeah, she layed low when she needed to, but I recall her working hard at not getting voted out. In Pearl Islands, wasn't it her who dragged Tijauna to eavesdrop on a conversation between Fairplay and Burton to convince her to vote against them? She did plenty on her own behalf in her seasons, in her own way that I don't see her as riding coat-tails. I like Sandra, and think she is a deserving winner but I realize she is not 'technically' the best player out there. (most successful for sure - that's different that 'good') There have been other more satisfying winners, but I absolutely don't feel like Sandra didn't deserve it either time. She was constantly aware of her surroundings and what was going down and tried to change things in her favor. That she didn't always succeed is not a sign of failure to me. She kept fighting when she had to - lost a lot of battles, but won the war. I like that there are several valid strategies in this game and no one particular path is guaranteed to succeed. That would take all the fun out of it.