Survivor 40 - Winners at War

[Weitz]

Any thoughts on the reasoning to not send Denise and Sarah to fire? Why was it beneficial for Natalie and Michelle to vote Denise?

[Cheese]

An outstanding season! transplant and csnarpy take the CP faux 2 million dollar prize!
Tony is the best, bar none, a deserving winner!

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Any thoughts on the reasoning to not send Denise and Sarah to fire? Why was it beneficial for Natalie and Michelle to vote Denise?

I think the idea was that they didn't want Sarah to win a fire challenge and then have that on her "resume". Flawed thinking IMO because the downside of that is vastly outweighed by the possibility of dragging Denise to the final, Denise would be much easier to beat than Sarah. If they had gotten rid of Sarah then they could have theoretically put Ben up against Tony in the firemaking challenge and had Ben and Denise in the final. Either Natalie or Michele could have beat those 2 IMO.

[Jiri Hrdina]

I think she should have tried to sit next to Tony and Sarah. I believe her best chance of winning would be to split those votes and come up the middle. Michelle wasn't going to draw any votes away from Tony or Sarah. She needed both of them there to draw votes from each other. Complete miss-read on her part.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I think she should have tried to sit next to Tony and Sarah. I believe her best chance of winning would be to split those votes and come up the middle. Michelle wasn't going to draw any votes away from Tony or Sarah. She needed both of them there to draw votes from each other. Complete miss-read on her part.

Would Sarah really take any votes from Tony? I don't think so. I think the Jury just saw her as Tony's team mate who didn't decide anything. Especially because she was on the wrong side of some votes that Tony was on the right side of and the idol that Nat played when she came back.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Would Sarah really take any votes from Tony? I don't think so. I think the Jury just saw her as Tony's team mate who didn't decide anything. Especially because she was on the wrong side of some votes that Tony was on the right side of and the idol that Nat played when she came back.

I don't know if it would have changed the outcome, but I would say for sure that Michelle wasn't going to take votes from Tony. So having Sarah there at least had a chance.
Sarah might have won the whole thing. I think she was the most articulate in talking about her own game. Tony connected with the jury but he was all over the place.

[d_phaneuf]

It's easy to say after the fact but nattie should have made fire vs tony

She knew everyone was saying tony was dominating and deserved the win, that wasnt a bluff

Her only way to win was Tony not being there, but even vs sarah and michelle shes not the favorite, if she takes out tony though I think her resume goes up massively, taking out the biggest threat and taking the risk to do it

[d_phaneuf]

I really would love if that's the last we saw of extinction though

Or at the very least, the buyback needs to come way earlier, final 8 at the latest

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Would Sarah really take any votes from Tony? I don't think so. I think the Jury just saw her as Tony's team mate who didn't decide anything.

While I think Tony still would have won, Ben would have voted for Sarah for sure. She could have also used that to sway the jury that she was the one calling the shots and Tony was the puppet meatshield. They don't have all the information we have (and even we have an edited version) and it was clear she was blindsided by Tony more often than he was blindsided by her but she does have that last 'win' against him.

I think there's a possibility that her early jury speech could have been convincing especially if she kept that momentum going. Both as actually convincing in that she was an equal (or more) partner to Tony and convincing that people didn't want to be on the other side of a controversial issue. I'm actually not sure if they would have seen the Dan-sexual harassment from last season and the fallout, but I think some of the younger Twitter-friendly users would have had to struggle with the perception of them voting for Tony over Sarah and coming off as sexist. And some of them might honestly be able to be convinced that was the case. Sarah isn't wrong that it often does happen that way and Survivor women know that..

I mean, even Ben's actions towards Jeremy had him delete his Twitter account because of the vitriol hated he received for being "racist." Very few of those jury members want to risk going home and getting labeled as "sexist".

Of course it's ironic that her speech came the same night it was shown how outclassed she was by Tony, and that's no disrespect to Sarah who did play the second best game in my opinion.

But man would that have been especially crazy if Tony won twice because someone intentionally took him to the finale.

[savardandjokinen]

Originally Posted by d_phaneuf

I really would love if that's the last we saw of extinction though

Or at the very least, the buyback needs to come way earlier, final 8 at the latest

Jeff says it's the last time, for a while at least.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by d_phaneuf

It's easy to say after the fact but nattie should have made fire vs tony

She knew everyone was saying tony was dominating and deserved the win, that wasnt a bluff

Her only way to win was Tony not being there, but even vs sarah and michelle shes not the favorite, if she takes out tony though I think her resume goes up massively, taking out the biggest threat and taking the risk to do it

Assuming second place gets 200K (double the normal amount like the winner), I don't think it's easy to say even after the fact.

If she was going to lose to Sarah instead of Tony anyways, taking that 200K is a fine consolation prize and certainly better than walking away with 'nothing' if she lost the challenge.

[Weitz]

Poor Michelle looked so sad when they were reading the votes.

[d_phaneuf]

Has there been anything said about next season?

Jeff saying at the end they expect to be back in the fall, and people as young as 16 should apply, wonder if they are doing parents and children? Filmed in the states somewhere?

[savardandjokinen]

Originally Posted by d_phaneuf

Has there been anything said about next season?

Jeff saying at the end they expect to be back in the fall, and people as young as 16 should apply, wonder if they are doing parents and children? Filmed in the states somewhere?

Season 41 is newbies, and it hasn't been filmed so I think they're telling 16 year olds they can apply because there's a chance they'll be 18 by the time they film due to the virus

[csnarpy]

Jeremy’s glaring stink eye on Tony at final tribal was hilarious. He desperately tried to place a negativity on Tony’s play and when Tony made a logical answer, that deflated him and his stare just became “I’m a sore loser” look.

The best thing about Tony’s game this year was that he really didn’t burn anyone outright. To me that makes him the GOAT. Not even Rob can attest to having that ability and basically hearing Rob say that in the tribal was the final nail for Nat & Michelle.

This really was a great season and my entire family were completely in it, which was a first, especially for my wife.

So now I’m going to take my fake $2,000,000 and go get a haircut for the discount price of $35!



(Oh and that was by far the best fire challenge ever.)

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by d_phaneuf

I really would love if that's the last we saw of extinction though

Or at the very least, the buyback needs to come way earlier, final 8 at the latest

I have to wonder if they did it because they knew from the start that they wanted to keep everyone around as a jury and instead of just having them around and housing them, "might as well get some camera time out of them."

Originally Posted by Weitz

Poor Michelle looked so sad when they were reading the votes.

Yeah, you could almost hear when her heart broke. She already struggles with Impostor Syndrome, so I hope that this doesn't make it worse.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

I have to wonder if they did it because they knew from the start that they wanted to keep everyone around as a jury and instead of just having them around and housing them, "might as well get some camera time out of them."

From my understanding, a lot of the winners pushed for it as part of the reason they agreed to come back. A lot of them didn't want to leave their familes, come out, be voted out first and then go home after waiting in a hotel for a couple weeks. Sounds a bit like divas to me, especially when fighting for a million, but there was some clear winners they wanted on. I think that's also why the had Amber back because Rob made it a condition of him coming back. At least those were the rumours.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by d_phaneuf

I really would love if that's the last we saw of extinction though

Or at the very least, the buyback needs to come way earlier, final 8 at the latest

Ya it's kind of ridiculous that you can be on extinction for 30 days earning fire tokens, get multiple advantages in the return comp, then get back in the game at final 6 with an idol. There should really have been a limit on how many tokens they could collect, either enough for advantages or an idol, not both.

It was also ridiculous that the players voted out near the end go to extinction with no tokens and no way to earn any, they shouldn't be at a major disadvantage to people who had been there for weeks. They should have let the voted out players keep their tokens instead of having to gift them then made it way harder to earn more. At the same time people still in the game should have had more opportunity to earn and something worthwhile to spend them on.

[CaptainCrunch]

At the end of the day, EOE became way to powerful in the game. Nat was able to manipulate the game from afar and actually build up a resume. On top of that she got an ungodly amount of tokens because of it. Well played I guess on her part, but in the end she came back into the game because she bought her way back in (and almost blew it), had access to intelligence that the other players didn't have, and had built her resume based on buying and selling advantages.



I mean she came back into the game with a hidden immunity idol, so she didn't really have to do much and then got fortunate to find a second one. but then didn't see the strategic implications of it. Sarah when she had a chance to make a move on her own, really didn't, instead we got a weird speech on gender bias, as much as she talked about woman who make big moves being seen as a bitch or whatever, she really didn't make a big move except hanging onto Tony's coat tails.



I mean I might be old and crabby, but if I never see another speech on survivor at tribal about how I found myself or how I'm at peace with myself, or how I became a better person I'd be happy. I get how important the social aspect of the game is, but the whole jury thing where you get these incredible egos crying about how they got screwed and its revenge time can wreck the game.



Becoming enlightened because you played a honorable game isn't a win. There has to be an element where you absolutely double cross someone and screw them over and sit there looking at your accusor and saying "Live with it, I positioned you to fall and you fell, I'm here your there, this is outwit outplay out last, not out firebuild, out build shelters and fit and out hug my opponents"


Tony is a great player, but the game shifted with EOE and voting blocks. The one thing that Rob did exceptionally well in his win was that he absolutely screwed people over and double crossed people and owned it and sold it to the jury and they voted for him because of it.


I mean I still remember the first season, when Richard ruthlessly destroyed his biggest rivals, got Rudy on his side early in a almost impossible alliance and then Sue stood up with her whiny I wouldn't piss on you if you were dying of thirst speech and thinking good tv ya, but Sue was too stupid to get the game, and she created the concept of the bitter juror playing for the camera.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

From my understanding, a lot of the winners pushed for it as part of the reason they agreed to come back. A lot of them didn't want to leave their familes, come out, be voted out first and then go home after waiting in a hotel for a couple weeks. Sounds a bit like divas to me, especially when fighting for a million, but there was some clear winners they wanted on. I think that's also why the had Amber back because Rob made it a condition of him coming back. At least those were the rumours.

I'd heard that with the money they were paid, even if you were voted out first and never did anything else, you'd pick up $35,000. I'd go sit around a tropical island for a month and a half for $35,000