Board Thread:Virtual Tribal Council/@comment-1294345-20160415023130/@comment-26435126-20160416182618

For the super idol issue, I'm simply speaking from Aubry's and Cydney's point of views, since it appeared to be that their concern was that Scot and Jason would play idols. I don't think the concern of a super idol was mentioned in the episode, however, and I don't really think they took it into account. They wouldn't want to vote out Julia if they thought about countering the super idols, so I was trying to visualize the best plan for them. I think it's slight hindsight as well if we are to assume they should know about the super idol because of a superficial accidental testimony by Tai.

I do agree with your logic for the plan. But you have to think about how this all loops back together. You say that Julia might be untrustworthy, but Aubry and Cydney needed to trust her to make the plan work. If you think about it, that's essentially what Debbie was doing; trusting Julia to make the split vote plan work. In either scenario, it could backfire and Julia could betray them and Cydney could go home regardless. The difference is that since Julia is getting rid of a woman, Cydney and Aubry won't be able to gauge where her head is at, since Julia voting for Debbie could really mean a multitude of things since she's following Aubry's and Cydney's plans but also keeping the Scot/Jason/Tai alliance around longer.

You also have to keep at least the near future in mind when playing Survivor. Think about what happens. Now Aubry and Cydney have most likely upset Joe, who could easily flip to the Jason/Scot/Tai alliance since A) he might realize he's on the bottom B) It's an all-guys alliance. They still don't know where Julia's head is at, as I mentioned before. Since none of the guys were voted out, they couldn't flush them (I know it's being results-oriented, but still, I mentioned in my previous post that their Tribal Council spectacle was an obvious fluke), and now they have to rely on Tai flipping, at least according to the preview, and you mentioned that Tai is seen as too close to them. They should've taken the chance and pin their votes on Scot, but the Debbie vote off doesn't get them anywhere and only digs them a larger hole. In addition, now they're stalling the flushing of the idols. The most sensible scenario that I see is that Julia goes with the guys' alliance, so it's 4-4, and Joe turns on the girls for voting out Debbie, making it 5-3. Then the girls would be sumarily eliminated. In addition, if the (Tai or Julia)/Jason/Scot alliance all makes it pass this next vote with the super idol, then the girls are screwed because the alliance of three could play the super idol at F7, and they'd be more than willing to draw rocks at F6, which I imagine the girls won't do, so they'll cruise to the end. As foolish as it may be, these people still think it's a F3 season, so they're amassing in these bigger alliances. This first point is an interesting dichotomy I had not considered, but that's good insight. I do agree that roping in Julia was risky and voting out Debbie in the long run could have drastic consequences for Aubry and Cydney; my main point is that I see it to be the best bad option in a situation filled with bad options. Had Julia been vulnerable, i believe getting rid of Julia would've been a fantastic play, but as that option was closed off, I think they had to make do.

As for Joe, I honestly think that is extremely unlikely he will go to the Jason/Scot side. I have two main supporting reasons for this:

1) When Scot had his fire-dowsing moment, arguably the most aggravated person by this action was Joe, as the main person tending the to fire around camp. I believe that Joe's strong work ethic and moral ideals are too diametrically opposed to Jason and Scot at this point for him to align with them.

2) This situation has already happened to an extent with Aubry and Joe, when Aubry switched her vote to eliminate Peter. Although Joe was betrayed by Aubry at this vote, Joe still had no issue sticking to Aubry and the brains alliance after the merge. i don't believe he is all that bitter of a person and has enough life experience to let it be. I could be wrong here as this is the second offense from Aubry in this regard, but I think it is far more likely to see Joe falling back into lockstep with the women's alliance.