I think it would have been better for Laurels game if they hadn't thrown challenges to NOT appear as a threat, because they needed a truly dominant challenge run, not just the small one at the end, to compete with AJ's social game.
Thank you kindly for your post. I would like to change your mind.
I'm going to respond in pieces. I won 4 of the last 7 immunities, and 3 of the last 4, I had the best score in GeoGuesser and chose not to submit it so I really won 5 immunities this game. One of those immunities was me beating AJ in a jigsaw battle.
Laurel
-Played one sided and dishonest
-Created a lot of enemies
-Made final 3 despite all of this with an impressive immunity run
There were several points where I tried to work with the other side. The first was with you, Whydon wanted to vote you out but I thought we could work together. Instead, I insisted that we vote out Ragmatho because he wasn't participating in the challenges. A lot of my motivation to win the RPG challenge was because I knew you would get voted out and I thought we could play with each other moving forward.
I also had to play with every side when the alliance was made with everyone vs. me, blue, whydon. I had to find whoever I could to vote with me to save myself.
I tried to play with Inferno at F10, but Blue wanted to work with Cleo instead, and Whydon didn't want to work with either. At F9 we tried to work with Cleo and it nipped us in the butt.
At F7 I worked with Mari, someone who had voted against me many time, I had spoken to her before F7 but this was the day we went and worked with each other.
I did not play dishonest. If anything, I played too honest, and thats why I came off as harsh sometimes. I spoke my feelings and my thoughts. There are several people who I didn't tell a single lie too. The lies I told, to people like AJ about how he beat me in the immunity challenge, were honestly minute. Then there was another white lie I remember, I said we were voting Mari when our target was actually Inferno because I was scared of an idol, that was a game move. I didn't lie to Cleo nor Inferno before the blindside. I didn't even lie to Inferno when we voted him out, I wanted to work with him at F10 but I didn't want Whydon to get suspicious and flip on me. I got blindsided and had to react.
I believe its fair for you to say that what I said about you were dishonest. However, I was repeating what Whydon had told me. Therefore, while my words may have been false, they came from what I thought was completely true. As I discussed, (which gets to what you just posted) I decided to ally with Whydon over you because he had an idol. It was a pure game move. That idol was a huge asset for me when I needed it, oh and one last thing that I hadn't mentioned yet. So AJ admit that me telling him about the idol built trust. Well Whydon told me about the Fans idol too, and I wouldn't have been able to tell AJ if Whydon didn't tell me. Thats what built trust. Whydon did a lot to make me trust him and offered me a lot in return. If I started working with the rest of the fumblers, I would be on the bottom of the alliance, but when working with Whydon I was at the top. Additionally, its not like I heard a lot of people calling Whydon untrustful. Shubaka and Whydon were friends, and Rag was inactive the day I voted him out. OM thought he was silly for voting him out, but I don't remember him ever saying he was untrustworthy.
Enemies created: well, the original fans blindsided me before I did anything to them. The reason for their blindside was because they saw me as a threat becoming too close to Trace. They made enemies out of me, not the other way around. We had a majority 7 that could have gone deep into the game. I did make an enemy out of you for a few days, that was my fault, but we were able to talk about it, and I did hope you made it back from Fumbler Island after we were sort of able to put water under the bridge.
I'm a bit torn, but I feel like I have to give into my bias a little, people with great social games that make it to the end usually win a lot because they made friends instead of enemies on the island.
I haven't watched every survivor season, I've only seen 2 in full. One of them was HvHvH. Ben beat Chrissy in the finals. My story is close to the exact same as Ben.
Ben
- Premerge beast, controlled every single vote, and systematically took out enemies.
- Once labeled as a threat and even a bully, he found 4 idols in a row to make the final 3.
- Ben earned himself into the finale by winning a fire making challenge. I won the last immunity.
- Ben was calling out people left and right at tribal councils, and made enemies on the jury, and those same people still voted for him (Lauren and Joe) Heck he single handedly took out Lauren.
Chrissy
- Way more friends on the jury and better social game.
- Played honestly
- Honestly, more strategical
Ben won.
Why did Ben win? Because his story couldn't be compared to. He was up every single night looking for immunities and kept finding them. He poured everything into the game for his family, he played with his heart. Ben was the underdog, and he didn't give up. Everyone wanted him out and they couldn't find a way.
Everyone wanted me out too, and here I am.
The parallels between me being Ben and AJ being Chrissy are strikingly similar. Ben won the vote, 5-2-1.
Especially not against someone who played a perfect game.
Change my mind. I'm open to discussion, but it's going to be difficult too. AJ played really well, and played all of us.
One thing that I want to point out again, is that this was my first survivor game. AJ had the chance to learn from his mistakes and previous games, and I had to learn from my mistakes in this game. What I was able to do, was leverage those mistakes, and turn them into opportunities. Thats not to say AJ's game didn't still have flaws.
From what Drookez said, AJ tried to eliminate Cleo several times but he never had the chance. AJ could have won any of the challenges later in the game to get me voted out which would have resulted in an easier F3 as OM would have been eliminated in this scenario as well. AJ should have saved his idol for F5 incase OM and Cleo turned on him. AJ had no control in the game after the first tribe swap. If you and Whydon didn't have beef, he gets voted out in Ragmatho's spot. None of the targets early were what AJ wanted, they were what I wanted. He constantly leaned on me for strategy and when he saw Jalmont was voted out of Falcon's he leaned on me even more.
AJ played a great game, thats why he is here, and thats why I'm here too, but he certainly made mistakes. Also the deathly afraid of rocks thing.. that was what I said about him, I don't know how thats a strength for him. It showed his paranoia. If he was truly playing the middle he would have never had to be scared of rocks because "he could have flipped at any moment" in reality, he was not going to flip on me, I was his strategical insight for a long time and he knows that.
In summary, yes we both played great games, I'm going to be bias and say I played mine better because I had to deal with being on the defensive which AJ never had to do. My game had many more dimensions too. Despite being seen as a huge threat early on, I managed to survive until the very end. My allies were picked off, and I fended for myself. Part of the reason AJ's game was so easy was because he had a loyal sheep. Sort of reminds me of Chrissy.... again, with Ryan. Loyal. Sheep.
The jury wanted the underdog story and the jury took Ben. If you want the underdog, the guy who didn't quit, I'm your guy.