I adore her. But I’m not on the jury. The jury won’t find out who engineered last night’s vote from James, who knew nothing, and will now only have guesses, about who did what that evening.
But it’s likely that someone will get voted off next week who had knowledge, and they’ll tell everyone on the jury.
About what? Amanda using Todd’s plan? About how Amanda almost brought ruin on herself, and her plan, when she unwisely spilled to Peegee? Since Peegee is most likely next (unless Amanda shanks Todd, which seemed to be what the previews implied) maybe she tells. Who knows?
A little off-topic, but would anybody here be willing to spill the beans on the secret way to watch the Survivor videos at the CBS website? I get the typical “you must install Flash Player 9” error at the top of the video display window, but, as usual, that’s bullshit, as I have Flash Player 9 installed. I’d be grateful for the secret.
Oh, James, James, James…just a bit too confident. Two HIIs, down the drain – in hindsight, at this point in the game he should’ve played an HII at any council where he’s not holding immunity.
But PG totally blew it. If she had just gone to James after her chat with Amanda, and said “I’m not sure what’s happening (they won’t tell me) but something’s up”. James plays the HII, Todd goes home, and James, PG & Eric make it 3 vs 3. But now it’s 4 vs 2, and PG has just delayed her booting by a week, 2 at the most.
Mmm. Not sure that PG screwed up. No matter what, one of her biggest enemies was going home., reducing their numerical advantage. This way, she managed to not further antagonize anyone, giving her the opportunity to take advantage of a splintering majority.
I am not sure what James does if PG comes to him. She called him out for not trying hard enough at the Drum Challenge after purposly throwing a challenge to try to boot him and his buddy Aaron out. She had a lot to overcome in even trying to get James to listen.
Now that would have maybe gotten into at least the low ranks of Greatest Survivor Moves Evar (I don’t think Amanda’s stuff this week rates more than a mention), if it had worked out that way. As mentioned, James and Peegee weren’t on good terms, so I’m not sure it could.
Precisely. If Peigh-Gee went over to James, then yes, Todd goes home when James plays the Idol. Now they’re hypothetically at 3-3, but Peigh-Gee is aligned with at least one person who absolutely hates her and will dispose of her at the first opportunity. She has a hard row to hoe in any case, but her chances of sneaking into the final 3 are much better aligned with Amanda (even loosely aligned) than they would have been with James. Now, she can continue to play the Sandra Diaz-Twine card, making herself the useful extra vote as Todd and Amanda jockey for pole position.
Well, first of all, I’m not sure spilling to Peigh-Gee was unwise as you say. Given how things played out, telling Peigh-Gee about it turns out to be a really smart move, because it creates an admitedly tenuous bond between them. Peigh-Gee now feels like Amanda was including her - like maybe they’re even friends, or allies. Remember that when Peigh-Gee is sitting on the jury choosing between Amanda and folks who made every effort to alienate her.
But more generally, I think where your analysis is problematic is in the understanding that the jury will take away some monolithic idea of what happened. The thing about Survivor is that the final vote by the jury is almost never about who is truly most “deserving” of a win. Each individual jury member has a story in his or her head, and that story is autobiographical. For each juror, the story of a season of survivor stars that juror, even if he or she doesn’t win, and each person will vote for the winner who best fits the self-aggrandizing story that juror has concocted.
So what you have to do is be the person whose victory best completes the greatest number of juror stories, if that makes sense. This can happen in many ways.
One juror might have lost himself in the “X may win, but at least I still have my integrity.” That juror will vote for the most manipulative person available, because if a relatively straightforward player wins, it won’t validate the juror’s little story in which he or she was just too moral to win.
Another juror might have created a story in which his or her own loyalty is the dominant theme; in such a case, that juror will always vote for the person to whom her or she was most closely aligned during the game.
Recognizing the essentially narcisstic nature of the final vote is the key to understanding how the game plays out, I think. Consider Amanda’s situation. She first has to get rid of James, because he’s a danger - there are too many people who are satisfied with a final story of “I played my best, but got beaten out by a titantically strong male.”
Now look at the rest of the likely voters. Peigh-Gee has always fancied herself a schemer, so voting for someone who executed a succesful coup will validate her own approach as likely to be successful (and of course, Peigh-Gee does know who was responsible for James’ exit). If he can’t be the best, James will want to vote for the person who was most responsible for his ouster, so at least he can claim to have been the second best. I think all of Erik’s stories are little romantic tragedies, and voting for the pretty girl who flirted with him will fit perfectly with that. Courtney’s is the story of the outsider, and she will be inclined to vote for a “nice” person (Amanda fits the bill better than most of the remaining players, except for Erik, which is why Erik must go from Amanda’s perspective).
She’s positioned herself such that many of the likely voters can feel comfortable if she wins - her win will reflect well on each of them, if only in their own minds. Which is why I think she’s the favorite at this point. Time will tell.
You may be right. I was laughing too hard at Jamie, and then the HII Fire-Toss, to even hear Jeff. The HII rules have changed more than once, so it’s confusing as hell what would happen, at least to me.
storyteller0910 , someday universities will teach Survivor strategy. When they do, I hope your essay is a central tenet.
All this talk about Amanda spilling to Peih-Gee… I didn’t really see it that way. What I saw was Peih-Gee coming up with a plan to vote out James. The same plan Amanda was already working on. When Peih-Gee went to Amanda to tell her about it, Amanda was basically scrambling at that point to get Peih-Gee to SHUT UP so she wouldn’t end up spilling the beans herself and messing up Amanda’s plan.
That’s why Amanda was all “It would be in your best interest to be quiet for the rest of the day.”
storyteller0910, nice post. I agree that Amanda may have picked up an ally in Peegee. Too soon to tell.
A nit:
No, she doesn’t. All she knew was that Amanda told her to stay cool and do nothing. She guessed that the other alliance was out to screw James, but she doesn’t know who’s plan it was or if that really was the plan until the TC. Amanda may well take credit for the plan to Peegee later, but we don’t know that Peegee knows about it now.
And Peegee didn’t help with the plan, she voted for Todd – maybe as a backup plan in case James pulled the HII? But then Todd voted for Peegee, so the HII vote would have split, and I guess we’d be back to Todd and Peegee making fire.
Actually, PG and Erik both HAD to vote for someone other than James to keep PG in it, because if James had gotten an inkling and played the HII, and James’s vote for PG (Todd didn’t vote for PG, did he?) was the only non-James vote in the bunch, then PG would have gone.
The facts are these (sorry!): all votes for James get swept from the tally. After that, there is one vote for PG (from James). Now, if both PG and Erik had voted for James, then PG goes, no tie, no appeal. If only PG had voted for Todd, it’s a tie between Todd and PG and they’d make fire. If both PG and Erik vote for Todd, then it’s 2 votes to 1 and Todd goes, no tie, no appeal. The only smart thing to do in that case is to have your ally vote with you for someone OTHER than the targeted person, because you CANNOT guarantee that James won’t figure out that something is up.
Actually, Todd voted for James (as did Erik). Which I really don’t understand… they had enough votes for James to go without Todd’s vote. If he thinks that he is likely to get at least one, and maybe two votes, why wouldn’t he vote for P.G. as insurance? Then, even if James plays the idol, he is in a tie-breaker (worst case). In actuality, if Todd votes for P.G. and James plays the idol then P.G. would have gone home (3 votes James, 2 votes PG, 1 vote Todd). This just re-affirmed (for, what, the 15th time) that for all his scheming Todd is not a very astute player.
Hmmm, survivor website says you’re right. I misread. Sorry!
I missed that…I wasn’t aware that Erik voted for James.
checks Survivor website
Damn…either Erik or PG or both are really, really stupid. PG for not realizing that James playing the HII would be disastrous if she didn’t have two votes against Todd or James for not realizing that and voting in the only way to ensure that he keep his only real ally in the game.
That’s how I felt about James. He was so shy and indearing at first. Then he got the power of the HIIx2, and some deeply buried arrogance came bubbling to the surface.
So if James had played the HII, then there’s be one vote for Todd, one for Peegee, and… they’d make fire?
I was surprised she didn’t tell James. That would have undone the whole alliance.
James got cocky. He should have known from last time that he was vulnerable. Play one idol this time, and then everyone will be afraid to vote for you in the future. At least he was classy on his exit and didn’t blame anyone but himself.