Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

I mean, unless the theme hardens enough that Goliaths vote for each other. Unless the implication is that they'll just vote against "Goliath" and for the underdog. But I have no idea if they really see it that way in game and not everyone roots for the underdog.

I mean, they're a mess and Mike "joked" that they all hate each other so I don't think its a lock or anything. But I see no reason why one of them couldn't theoretically win Goliath votes and maybe pull a David or two depending on how they fall apart.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

STING 64
Oct 20, 2006

man tho what if its alec

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

Alec's probably my least likely option of the bunch since I think he burned too many of the Davids and then pulled that "I too try and trust people" thing in Tribal that made them all double take. Toss in what an obvious threat he is and he's gotta be in high danger right now and the worst person to ally with at the moment.

But like, I don't think its beyond the realm of possibility that Alec as we understand his game to be could pull out a win from the jaws of defeat. But the extra stuff we know would seem to suggest he's probably not gonna be sitting at Final Tribal.

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004
A Goliath could theoretically still win the game, sure, but they would have to play a -lot- of catch-up after the clinic put on by the Davids these past two weeks. The gap in terms of quality gameplay is pretty vast at the moment, and the Goliaths seem like the type to respect superior gamesmanship. There's also the fact that the Goliaths are probably going to continue devouring themselves in the near-term, and they're going to have to do that in a way that keeps them in good standing jury-wise, which is obviously a tough task.

Alec has definitely made his bed and he'll have to lay in it. Everybody knows what kind of person Angelina is, even if she has managed not to burn any bridges the past couple episodes. Kara is a bit of an unknown quantity at the moment, but she burned Dan pretty hard at the end there and I don't think he'll let the jury forget that.

I think the only way a Goliath wins is if Allison or Mike use their relationships with Gabby and Nick, respectively, to first take out one of the other Goliaths (probably one of the wishy-washy ones like Alec or Kara), and then marshal enough opposition against the threatening Davids (they're all going to have to take out Christian at some point).

I mean its possible, but my guess is there's enough David unity/anti-Goliath sentiment to last for at least two more TC's, and by that point the Goliaths that currently stand a chance will look more like goats than winners.

Vernacular fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Nov 23, 2018

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

I think if we're working under the idea that Gabby and Carl don't have clear paths to victory right now than they become theoretical paths to victory for a Goliath. If you can get Christian and probably Nick out I'm not entirely sure Davie has some locked up win at this moment. We've come around big on him and the idol move is huge but he was still kind of there before that. And its not like the Goliaths don't have their resumes or cases. Angelina aside they all seem pretty well liked. Even Alec and Allison burning people hasn't seemed to gone ugly and Allison still had Gabby reaching out to her.

I mean, yeah, for a Goliath to win they'd have to do some stuff to make it happen. But that's true for everyone because there's still 8 people who have to be eliminated. That's all I'm saying. There's been 9 people eliminated (counting the 2 no Tribal ones) and there's 8 left. We're really only half way through so it feels premature to start narrowing the possible winner pool down to a couple of people. Especially since if the pool is that small then just getting those couple of people out opens the game up wide.

So like for the sake of a hypothetical scenario how about this? What if the Davids hold serve long enough to crush the Goliaths (for the sake of argument lets go with Angelina and Alec eliminated) and then someone makes the obvious move on Christian? And what if that someone is Nick who ends up Zeke'ing himself and becoming the next target? Then a pool of Davie, Carl, Gabby, Kara, Mike, and Allison seems really wide open with maybe Davie having a slight edge for the idol play.

That's just a hypothetical scenario but I think it kind of shows how fragile a "only X and Y seem like winners" scenario is at this stage of the game.

STING 64
Oct 20, 2006

i mean at this point in the game during kaoh rong unless you were doing deep edgic/going off of boot lists theres no way you would have pinned michelle as a potential winner, it seems really silly to rule out any goliaths at this point, especially someone like Alison. we're also assuming that the davids stay tight. how do we know someone like gabby say gets paranoid and wants to take a shot at christian? we've seen tribes that start doing a pagong just randomly split in half midway through postmerge before, no reason why it couldnt happen again.

STING 64 fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Nov 24, 2018

IcePhoenix
Sep 18, 2005

Take me to your Shida

Major Major Major posted:

Subscribe to this Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsVwMWYJ7xM


Puts up all the behind the scenes and Ponderosa videos a day or two after the episode.

The extra confessionals that we get from this really makes me wish the show had more time. Dan's confessional from after the immunity challenge was perfect foreshadowing and near-perfect game reading.

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004
Can't we pretty much file the Michelle win under "outliers" at this point?

I'm not going to sit here and say that other scenarios are impossible, but they are starting to look more improbable, especially if we're already writing people off like Gabby, Carl (who, judging by his gloating at TC, is more likely to go full "Zeke" than Davey and Nick), Alec and Angelina (which btw is not something we should even be doing if it really is too soon to be making judgments about who is in the best shape to win). I suspect Kara isn't in the finals either due to NDA stuff but maybe not.

That leaves (in my estimation) a couple immediate targets who will probably always be too large of threats to make it through (Christian, Mike), wildcards who have been playing both sides without very much success (Allison, Kara) and two people who have been playing great games while also getting ~*ThE eDiT*~ and being weirdly able to stay under the radar (Davey, Nick).

I just think if we're playing the odds, the latter 2 are optimally situated to get the win. Maybe Christian as well because he has the idol, but he's gonna be catching heat throughout the rest of the season.

edit: Another thing nobody has mentioned yet also is that there's more incentive for strong players to stick together nowadays due to the new end-of-game firemaking bullshit. Like it makes more sense than it used to for Dom & Wendell-esque pairs or trios to stick together because they have a lower chance of being the half of the power couple to get the short end of the stick at the last regular TC.

Vernacular fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Nov 24, 2018

ApplesandOranges
Jun 22, 2012

Thankee kindly.
If Michele is an outlier win, then so are Mike Holloway and Ben. Except that Michele is a valid way to win but is very circumstantial depending on the jury.

But really, there's a reason 'likable jury threats' are almost always taken out around Final Five. Sure 'gameplay' is become a more common win condition, but the final three lately usually has the losers being comparatively worse (like Troyzan or Laurel) or the winner was just that much head and shoulders above the rest. Koah Rong and Ghost Island had the rare case of two very closely matched competitors.

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004
I don’t think a wide gap between winners and runner(s)-up is anything that new.

And the thing that makes Michelle an outlier to me is that she got the win after being more or less a non-factor for most of the season in terms of edit and overall screen time.

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

I think people read too much into the edit, and in general I think some viewers treat the show too much like a scripted piece. Sure, editing can do a lot to create narratives and producers can push plays to say stuff. But like, it's entirely possible that the winner of the game is someone who (a) wasn't that entertaining of a TV personality and (b) didn't do a lot early in the game. We talk about "under the radar" players but I think viewers take for granted that they'll have some captivating strategy or entertaining personality. Or I guess more its that some viewers assume the show will be setting up the winner from Episode 1. I just don't think its as formulaic as that, and it can't be because they can only control things so much. If your winner is boring or under the radar or a dick early on there's not a lot you can do to edit around that. If the dominate personalities and biggest players all flame out early you can't downplay their impact on the game early on so much without just ruining the story. In the end there's only so much the show has to show from Day 10 regardless of how the game plays out on Day 30.



On an unrelated subject I'm reading that Nick interview and he says that it wasn't just Alec who tipped him off about the Christian blindside but Mike, Alison, and Angelina all did as well. He says that Mike felt really betrayed and the two of them basically "broke up" the Rockstars the next day. I think that's all pretty interesting information. It makes a lot more sense that Mike and Alison had the same instinct Alec had to cover themselves a little, and makes Alec's game look a lot less special (and a little funny that the show gave him the credit given the NDA stuff). It also begs the question if they tipped Gabby off too, but Nick doesn't mention her. And Angelina, who knows? Its possible she's playing a better social game than we think but we saw her tip off Elizabeth the week earlier and of course there's JacketGate. So it might just be more of Angelina's unique approach.

Also Nick gave a rundown of his full roster of named alliances that I was totally positive was gonna blow up his game.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/live-feed/survivor-david-goliath-nick-wilson-dan-rengering-john-hennigan-blindsides-1163630

quote:

• Christian and I were the Mason-Dixon Line, or Mason-Dixon.

• Elizabeth and I were The Thoroughbreds.

• Carl and I were The Rattlers, short for Texas Rattlesnakes, the deadliest snake in Texas.

• Mike and I were The Rock Stars.

• Alec and I were Surf 'n' Turf.

• John and I were a tag-team wrestling duo called The Torch Snuffers.

Its funny because he says his inspiration for doing that was being a Big Brother fan and how they always have names. And I think it was me being a Big Brother fan that made me think it was going to backfire hard and blow up in his face, because it usually does there. But I think the big difference is probably that BB has so much downtime and literal time. We're like, what? 3 weeks into the Survivor game? By this point of Big Brother they're not even past the second eviction most of the time. Its just so much more time to sit around and talk and get to know each other and more chances for stuff like that to get exposed. In Survivor with people not even living with each other, being stuck in the same shelter together, dealing with the island hell, and having so little time between challenges and councils it just probably was never as big a liability as I thought it would be based on BB.

STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Nov 24, 2018

ApplesandOranges
Jun 22, 2012

Thankee kindly.
Let's not forget that Woo was one decision away from being the winner of Cagayan, and I don't really think there's any way to make him a compelling character.

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004
What are you talking about? Woo was totally a net positive that season. He basically gave the win to Tony out of honor. That's pretty compelling.

STAC Goat posted:

If your winner is boring or under the radar or a dick early on there's not a lot you can do to edit around that.

Well, they can make them borderline invisible, as they did with Michelle. It doesn't happen often with winners, since most of them I'd argue in fact do tend to have good strategy and/or an interesting personality (Michelle, Natalie White...who else doesn't fall into that category?), but when it does, it really demonstrates the show's reliance on positive, logical narratives to make winners seem palatable on at least some level, be it strategy or personality.

Anyway, the edit obviously isn't everything (nor is it my main "evidence" for why I think Davey and Nick are so well situated), but I'm not sure how you can downplay its role at this point in the show's history. The producers/editors have made a career out of guiding our approval toward certain players, making people look like idiots due to hubris, hiding elements of people's personalities, editing Purple Kelly's out of the show entirely, etc.

ApplesandOranges
Jun 22, 2012

Thankee kindly.
Woo was mostly a background character to Tony in Cagayan. Fine enough edit for a runner up, but making him a 'this is a winner, this is how he won' edit would have been harder to sell. And really, the Woo decision is usually regarded as a million dollar mistake than anything.

Michele wasn't in your face on the screen, but she had a good amount of screentime considering she didn't even go to tribal til the merge. Cydney and Aubry took more of a presence post merge, that much is true, but considering the game she played and the nature of that season's jury I can see why a social win is harder to edit.

Zesty
Jan 17, 2012

The Great Twist
They really had to shoehorn Michelle confessionals in every chance they possibly could.

Aubry Confessional: Strategy talk.
Tai Confessional: Strategy talk.
Michelle Confessional: Those were really good cheeseburgers.

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004

ApplesandOranges posted:

Woo was mostly a background character to Tony in Cagayan. Fine enough edit for a runner up, but making him a 'this is a winner, this is how he won' edit would have been harder to sell. And really, the Woo decision is usually regarded as a million dollar mistake than anything.

Michele wasn't in your face on the screen, but she had a good amount of screentime considering she didn't even go to tribal til the merge. Cydney and Aubry took more of a presence post merge, that much is true, but considering the game she played and the nature of that season's jury I can see why a social win is harder to edit.

I truly hope this is both the first and last pro-Michelle/anti-Woo post in this forum

Plz also note the irony of criticizing Woo's game while also speaking positively of Michelle's

Vernacular fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Nov 24, 2018

ApplesandOranges
Jun 22, 2012

Thankee kindly.
Woo wins if he sits next to Kass, because she was so reviled by the jury. Otherwise I don't see how he wins even if he sits next to Spencer, Cagayan's jury rewarded strategic play. Koah Rong's jury voted differently.

Michele's edit showed that, even if she wasn't a strategic driving force, she was at least aware of most of the social dynamics in camp, enough to take out one of Aubry's biggest campaigners on the jury (Neal). She was also an active target for being a jury threat until she won final immunity. Nobody considered Woo a threat since he was always considered to be riding Tony's coattails, and the only way he would have won was if he was sitting next to an unlikable player.

But sure, if you can make a compelling argument that Woo played a good game, and that he would have been interesting enough that they could make a good edit if he'd won, I'm all ears. Otherwise, he made a terrible final choice, and Michele made good ones, even if she didn't get the most interesting edit.

IcePhoenix
Sep 18, 2005

Take me to your Shida

IIRC Fabio had like zero edit until the last few episodes of the season because he was just surfer bro-ing it up and then when the remaining players realized he was a threat because they played lovely social games he won the last three or four immunities

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004

ApplesandOranges posted:

Woo wins if he sits next to Kass, because she was so reviled by the jury. Otherwise I don't see how he wins even if he sits next to Spencer, Cagayan's jury rewarded strategic play. Koah Rong's jury voted differently.

Michele's edit showed that, even if she wasn't a strategic driving force, she was at least aware of most of the social dynamics in camp, enough to take out one of Aubry's biggest campaigners on the jury (Neal). She was also an active target for being a jury threat until she won final immunity. Nobody considered Woo a threat since he was always considered to be riding Tony's coattails, and the only way he would have won was if he was sitting next to an unlikable player.

But sure, if you can make a compelling argument that Woo played a good game, and that he would have been interesting enough that they could make a good edit if he'd won, I'm all ears. Otherwise, he made a terrible final choice, and Michele made good ones, even if she didn't get the most interesting edit.

Are there other Michelle apologists here? I didn't think she was well-regarded at all.

Not really sure how you looked at my posts and inferred that I was talking up Woo's gameplay. I do think he's a legitimately positive, honest, endearing guy, and brought value to the show for those reasons. And though this exercise you want me to do of conceptualizing his hypothetical winner edit is kind of strange (since that would have changed how the sum total of all Woo footage was assimilated for the show), those qualities, which I see as relatively compelling (perhaps this is one of our main points of disagreement here), I'd guess could have potentially lent themselves to an edit more becoming of a winner than Michelle's.

Also, if Woo had actually won, it would have been by virtue of the same brand of "good final choices" Michelle made, right? Seems like a bit of a double standard you're enforcing here.

Vernacular fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Nov 24, 2018

ApplesandOranges
Jun 22, 2012

Thankee kindly.
A lot of the backlash over Michele's win was definitely because people thought Aubry should have won. Largely in part due to the edit. Whether that was because of obfuscation of the winner, or because the producers were that unsatisfied with Michele's win. Heck, Probst himself seems to lament Michele's win (which is actually why she's become a bit of a quiet fan favourite since Probst looooves his strategic female and alpha male types).

I don't think Woo was a bad person either, but, I think personally, I wouldn't have been satisfied if he'd won, based on what we saw on TV. We just didn't see much that convinced me he was winner material. Michele had more. You could say it's revisionist history because she did win and they had to give her content, of course. Woo's return in Cambodia still failed to convince me he was particularly good at the game aside from being kinda likable, whereas I got the impression that Michele was both likable and was just a bit more proactive.

Now personally, I wouldn't have minded if Aubry had won either (I was actually rooting for a Cydney win going into the finale). The amount of people saying Michele was a bad winner is just amusing. And Woo is a perfectly nice person, but because we didn't see him articulate much strategy at all, I wasn't convinced that he could win, and he didn't have enough social standing for me to be convinced of that either (unlike John from this season, who I actually could have seen pulling off a social win).

If Woo had taken Kass to the finale? Yes, he would have won, and his edit might have changed, but I might have felt more of a 'well, Kass was kind of a goat ever since F4', unlike Michele where she beat a perfectly valid player (Aubry). And unlike other winners who got to the end with goats (like Boston Rob), Woo just kind of... lucked into a very powerful twosome with Tony, whereas other winners like Rob or Kim just gravitated people who wanted to work with them alone.

ApplesandOranges fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Nov 24, 2018

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004
Agree to disagree here I guess because Michelle seems pretty unequivocally to me like the worst winner we've had in recent history, especially in contrast with a string of good or acceptable winners since Natalie White (with the exception of Ben, who at least was kind of a force in his own right).

Agreed though that Woo was abysmal on Second Chances.

Vernacular fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Nov 24, 2018

curiousCat
Sep 23, 2012

Does this look like the face of mercy, kupo?
I remember hearing that Trish said "anyone who respected the game would've voted for Kass to beat Woo", so, uh, take "Woo smashes Kass" with a grain of salt. Maybe.

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

For whatever its worth I don't actually believe in "bad winners." The purpose of the game is to get to the end and get the vote, so if you pulled that off by being the smartest person room or by not being the biggest rear end in a top hat in the room than kudos. There's winners that weren't terribly entertaining to watch but that's not actually part of the game. We get caught up a little too much in who played the best game from our perspective - which often not only includes entertainment value and articulation but a fair amount of near perfect knowledge - when really its just about who played the best game from the Jury's perspective.

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004
Get outta here with that overly postmodern take on Survivor. If we can extol the prowess of a Sandra or a Kim Spradlin, then we can dish on the people on the other end of the spectrum.

But yeah, obviously we're basing our judgment off what's shown. If you want to change "good winner" to "satisfying winner", then sure, fine, but a large part of that satisfaction still comes from the editors/producers being able to demonstrate to us, the viewers of a television show whose perspective is kind of paramount, how the jury came to their conclusions. Its in everybody's best interest for them to do that, thus the importance of "edit", and if they can't, then we might very well have a "bad", or at the very least, unsatisfying winner on our hands.

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

I'm totally fine with the idea of an "unsatisfying winner." I just mean I don't believe in "bad winners" from the perspective of like "Aubry deserved to beat Michelle" type arguments.

I just think the problem with your criticism of the edit is that there's only so much the editors can do to craft a narrative if there is none there. If a winner's win comes down largely to "didn't rock the boat and was well liked" what can they do to make their win more satisfying in the end (and without massively telegraphing it and making it forced, often turning the audience against the character)? Kara has been presented as largely likable, charming, and has largely managed to dodge the dramatic and bloody game actions. If she goes on to win without making any major moves we'll probably feel unsatisfied but it won't really be that different from past winners like that.

Not to mention that a big thing we often see with the edit criticisms/readings is that like, the game sometimes is happening independant to the winner. If someone like Alec or Nick or Angelina are over here making poo poo happen then Survivor has to show that because its part of the story. But its entirely possible its not a story that ends up factoring into the end game at all or gets a satisfying conclusion.

The criticism just feels much more like one delivered to a scripted work of fiction. If Game of Thrones fails to craft a satisfying narrative through a season that's 100% on them because they were in control of every aspect of the story, specifically what their characters do and say. Survivor isn't. Yeah, they can manipulate and craft stuff but their characters are out of their control which means ultimately as much as they'd like to they can't make every winner a compelling character with a satisfying narrative.

STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Nov 24, 2018

STING 64
Oct 20, 2006

the person that deserves to win is the person that the jury chooses to win. the only exception is if weird twist stuff happens like removing jurors or being given the advantage that lets you execute a finalist.

STING 64
Oct 20, 2006

also rupert boneham is considered to be a winner of survivor all stars so winning by being a viewer favorite is good too.

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004

STAC Goat posted:

there's only so much the editors can do to craft a narrative if there is none there.

Right, and I think that might very well be more an indicator of mediocre gameplay and/or a vanilla personality. I don't know where you're gleaning a criticism of the edit from anything I'm saying.

Cases like hers, of winners whose trademark was (charitably speaking) being effectively innocuous (rather than a good strategist or an interesting personality) and are thus challenges for the editors, are exceptions these days, to the point that most victories are at least understandable based on what was presented to us beforehand.

Maybe the main adjectives at work here should be "surprising/unsurprising" winner. Like, Ben wasn't a satisfying winner, but at least his win wasn't a surprise. Michelle's came out of nowhere, and its hard for me to give her the benefit of the doubt here.

Also, between the ways in which personalities are organized across tribes and the endless hours of footage at the editors' disposal, the show strikes me as scripted as an unscripted show can be. Look at how Boston Rob was gifted a win on Redemption Island by being teamed up with a group of lackeys and tell me otherwise. Maybe I'm being cynical, but I feel like you're putting way too much emphasis on the unscripted spirit of the show.

STAC Goat
Mar 12, 2008

Watching you sleep.

Butt first, let's
check the feeds.

Producers can certainly try and orchestrate poo poo and editors can manipulate the footage. But like unless you think they're actively telling people to vote a different way, rigging challenges, or changing votes the story is still ultimately in the hands of the players and their individual choices. There's a lot of framework that is - to some extent or another - "scripted" but like the contestants actual actions are their own. Even if a producer tried to push them in that direction and they allowed it. I'm definitely less cynical about these reality game shows than a lot of their viewers. I know there's manipulation but I don't see evidence of much further (and if I did I probably wouldn't much enjoy watching).

Re: Redemption Island I'll just settle with a combination of "Yeah, they gave him morons to help him out", "To be fair, a lot of Survivors are morons", and "To give him credit, Boston Rob was always good at talking people into doing things that make them look like morons." And I think the other side of Redemption Island is a good example of that because the producers definitely didn't want Russell gone right away. Either he just did a worse job dealing with people than Rob (go figure) or his group of morons just bucked the reins.

To be honest I think I got a little lost in this whole thing from the idea of "the edit guides us towards the winners" and "sometimes the winners don't give them much to work with." So my apologies for my ideas being kind of mess. Chalk it up to trying to maintain a topic through a booze, food, and crazy family holiday. My bad.

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004
Its cool! The whole concept of "the edit" can start to get a little abstract - I get a bit lost in discussions about it myself - but its interesting to talk these things through (especially as a means of putting off work I need to get done...)

ApplesandOranges
Jun 22, 2012

Thankee kindly.
I'll admit, I'm not sure whether your beef is more with social wins, or for winners that aren't the most exciting to watch. Or a combination of both? It's not like Michele is the only person to win off social game, she's just one of the more controversial ones.

UltimoDragonQuest
Oct 5, 2011



FWIW the edgic people latched onto Michele from the start. The specific content of the edit was wildly unsatisfying as a viewer. Some was bad luck (no Tribal for Michele until day 23) and some was the producers moving on to feature players fast tracked for returns. It is weird that even the producers seem to bag on Michele rather than blame a bitter jury.

Multiple friendships are hard to show. Everyone saw Wendell earn Laurel's vote but the perfect jury split between early and late boots was left mostly unexplored.

The Redemption Island conspiracy is boring. Tyson being gifted Blood vs Water as a payout for his botched vote in Heroes vs. Villains is the one to back. :tinfoil:

Vernacular
Nov 29, 2004
The only reason we got so deep into Michelle talk is that somebody initially brought her up as evidence that the edit isn't a reliable barometer for judging who wins at this stage of the game. Like yeah okay, the edit isn't everything, but it's -something-, and I was trying to suggest that she was an outlier in that the editors are usually able to create some air of plausibility surrounding how winners get from A to Z. That was not the case with her, and I think its probably just because she was a weak-rear end winner in a sea of satisfying and/or unsurprising winners. There was substance to the controversy.

So if anything, I guess my "beef" is with Michelle. I don't have an issue with either of those other things you mentioned (though I'm not sure how much of a thing a "more social win" is, beyond the more stark contrasts of like Mike Holloway's victory - don't all winners need to tick enough social boxes to win?) Sophie Clarke played a pretty boring game by entertainment standards, but her win was both unsurprising and satisfying.

ApplesandOranges
Jun 22, 2012

Thankee kindly.
A social win, at least in my eyes, is when someone wins largely through being a more likable and/or charismatic player, usually beating more strategic competition. J.T. beating Stephen is mostly a social win.

Michele is probably an 'unsatisfying' social win, although many people went into the finale with the mindset of 'anybody could win, and I'd be happy'. Part of probably what contributed was that Aubry and Cydney were such strong winner contenders that anybody else winning (even Tai) would have felt a little underwhelming.

Zesty
Jan 17, 2012

The Great Twist
I don’t begrudge Michelle at all. I think the producers/editors dropped the ball.

Lone Goat
Apr 16, 2003

When life gives you lemons, suplex those lemons.




STONE COLD 64 posted:

also rupert boneham is considered to be a winner of survivor all stars so winning by being a viewer favorite is good too.

from the people that brought you Fan Favourite Jane Bright :d2a:

Zesty
Jan 17, 2012

The Great Twist
What was his award for that? 1 million?

Propaganda Machine
Jan 2, 2005

Truthiness!
I know it's ancient history, but I'm not sure why people like Vecepia, Jenna Morasca, and Bob Crowley don't come up in discussion of terrible winners with odd/questionable edits. Bob slept through strategy meetings for crying out loud.

ApplesandOranges
Jun 22, 2012

Thankee kindly.
Most of them are pretty old winners, and the format of the show has changed a lot since then. There is a reason most of them are considered pretty 'eh' winners, though.

I still wonder about the timeline where Susie beats Bob. I think she'd actually get a bit more merit considering her archetype (older female) and that she won a crucial final immunity.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Propaganda Machine
Jan 2, 2005

Truthiness!
I kind of wonder why Randy and Corinne hated her so much. At least Randy. His edit was pretty bad but hearing him on Rob's podcast he seems intelligent and funny and not particularly hateful.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply