Dec 21 2009
Surviver Samoa
in case the title didn’t give it away to you already, this is a blog about the recent season of survivor that ended last night. If you don’t wish to be “spoiled” then stop reading now and come back after you watched the finale!
I have always liked the show, and while I usually try to avoid sound like a 200 year old cliche, I really think survivor is a good microcosm of life. The winner is determined by no one thing, and possibly an amalgam of uncharacterizable character traits. For those of you who don’t know, the game works like this:
16-24 people are split into two tribes of 8-12 and put in separate camps in some remote location and harsh environment. They have to survive the terrible conditions, the lack of comforts, and conflicting personalities in order to compete successfully in the challenges. Every few days there is an immunity challenge, the winning team is safe, the losing team has to vote to send someone home. Eventually, at some point when there is between 8 and 12 people left, the two teams merge. After this point, immunity challenges are like individual carnival games where the winner cannot be voted out that night. The big twist is that the 9 people who finish 4th-12th in the game make up a jury who votes for the winner among the final 3. This means that the 3 people usually instrumental in ousting the jury members then need to win their affection at the end in the form of their vote to win the million dollars. One other twist is that throughout the game immunity idols are hidden in various locations (usually around camp) and clues are distributed to various members throughout the game to find these idols. If someone finds an idol, they can use it at any given vote after the votes have been cast but before they are announced. If one is played then every vote against the player is burned and only the other votes count. This can be a powerful weapon.
The skill set to be good at survivor is similar to the skill set needed to be good at life. When you look at the winners across the 19 seasons of the show, there is absolutely no mold you can fit them all in. They aren’t all smart or athletic, nor all attractive, cagey, resolute or hardworking. Often people that fit all of these characteristics are perceived as threats and thus are ousted by their teammates early on. Like life (as explained by Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers), there is a ton of luck involved, combined with a willingness to do whatever it takes to win. After all, people preach hard work and honesty, but if you are honest you cannot make the appropriate alliances necessary to thrive, and if you are too dishonest then the jury may hate you at the end and you’ll have spent 39 days marooned on an island to go home with nothing. In survivor people think they can get by because the are smart, hardworking or attractive. The truth is none of these things is necessary, and none of them is nearly sufficient.
There was a player this season named Russell. There were actually two Russell’s this season but anyone that watched the show knows the one I am talking about. He was a short, bald, somewhat overweight guy. He was charming, clever and extremely manipulative. He was without a doubt the Michael Jordan of the game.
I have watched most of the seasons of survivor and I have never seen anybody play the game better than Russell did. He was the first person in the history of survivor to find a hidden immunity idol without any clues (and he did it 3 times). While his teammates were whining about cold and rain, he thrived and never complained once despite the fact that he was probably the most out of shape. He even enjoyed the harsh conditions because he knew he was mentally tougher than his teammates. He was only at risk once in the game and that was only because his team lost most of the challenges so after the merge he was severely outnumbered by a tight alliance in the opposite tribe. He used one of his idols to shock the competition and continued his dominance all the way down the the final 4.
Once he got to the final 4 he was with two people from his original tribe that had jumped on his coattails. Natalie was a very pretty southern jesus freak and Mick was a likable Doctor that didn’t do much of anything throughout the game except follow the advice of Russell. The Fourth was Brett who was an extremely friendly 21 year old who was originally a part of the opposing tribe (which made up nearly all of the jury), but he had survived by winning the previous 3 immunity challenges. If Brett won the next immunity challenge, it would make no difference how well Russell played the game. Brett’s former tribe mates on the jury loved him and would gladly give him the million dollars instead of the person who plotted to vote them out. Brett was athletic and Natalie and Mick had shown an inability to win challenges. Russell didn’t care. He said before the challenge, “Brett may be younger and more athletic but he is a kid and there is no chance he is beating me for a million dollars”. The last immunity challenge ended up coming down to Brett and Russell, with Russell outlasting him as promised, making Brett a part of the jury rather than being able to plead his case for the money in front of it.
Here is why I think the MJ comparison is apt. Up to this point in the game, Russell had shown an impressive ability to black out every distraction and win. When others were worried about a lack of rice, or rain, or pain, he was thinking about how he could use this to his advantage. He showed an unbelievable competitive streak to the point where there was really not much doubt he would win the last immunity challenge from the younger more athletic Brett. Just like if Michael Jordan were to suit up today and play Kobe one on one with his life on the line, is there any doubt he would at least give him a game?
This brings me to the main point of this blog. Russell failed where MJ succeeded. He lost to Natalie in a jury vote, and went home 2nd place with nothing. The reason for this? Survivor is more like life than it is like basketball. In basketball it’s all about winning and losing. You do what it takes to win and that alone is what garners you respect. To be the best at the game is to win the most at the game. Survivor and life are a bit more unfair. People are prone to randomness and peculiarity. Russell assumed that everyone took the game as seriously as he did. He assumed that because he took two people with him that didn’t do much in terms of “game playing”, he would be a shoe in for the million dollars. He didn’t take into account the human factor.
He brought beautiful, likable Natalie with him and that was his downfall. He could have gotten rid of her at nearly any point in the game, but he assumed that since she did nothing, she would not win a jury vote because she didn’t have the respect of the competitors like he did. His ingenious strategizing was all for naught because of his failure to realize the truth about people. They are random, they are unfair sometimes, and playing their predilections can be more important than anything.
There is way more to learn from Russell than Natalie here. I hope to one day have the same competitive drive and ability to follow through that he displayed. But in the end Natalie won the game here…