Board Thread:Virtual Tribal Council/@comment-1294345-20171215132543/@comment-27638357-20171218034807

Thanks for the response :).

http://ew.com/article/2012/09/13/survivor-philippines-jeff-probst-women/

This is just one article (I haven't found any other evidence proving male bias), and it focuses on the issue of mostly male returnees. But let's break it down: for S22, the returnees stemmed from the BR vs Russell conflict, which was a "hyped up" conflict during HvV, and was fueled by what was said at the reunion. S25 was based around the evacuated, and from what I recall there was only one female evacuee at the time (Kourtney Moon from S24). S23 I'll give to you, but that's one season. And this is one out-of-game example from years ago; I don't really see how this has continued to bother you "in recent years".

I'll reword my previous statement. Actually, Survivor is meant to be a strategy game, but I guess production gets in the way by focusing too much on strategy and less on character development. This is my concern particularly in this current season where I don't care for the contestants. All the attention goes to whoever is making "big moves". I think of it as like watching say an action movie peppered with too much on plot and fight scenes at the expense of actually developing the main character.

A lot of this seems to be subjective, so it's difficult for me to address, such as where you say they're "focusing too much on strategy" and "all the attention" goes to certain people. I personally don't think there's been too much strategy in the show, but this argument just boils down to opinion, so no use medlling in it.

The Game Changers finale easily comes to my mind. You see, the whole point of Survivor (or Tribal Council at least) is to vote people out. Advantage-geddon was an example on why too much idols and advantages hurt the show. It has turned into a race on finding them. Cirie got sent home when she wasn't even voted for. Cirie was a well-developed character (you could probably see the her growth just by watching GC alone) compared to everyone (i.e. those who played idols), and with the only rootable, well-edited character getting technical'ed over those with very little story arcs. The editing in recent seasons has gotten to a point where they are just playing up with "blindsides" and "big moves" on a weekly basis. 75% of the time, #blindsides weren't as shocking as the edit is making them out to be.

I thought you said the purpose of Survivor was to show a social experiment? And I don't get your Cirie argument, either. You're saying on one end that screen time is given only to gamebots and then saying Cirie is given a ton of well-rounded character development?

And I assume Advantage-geddon is your prime example when asserting this:

All Probst does nowadays is basically begging for suicide bombers to fuck the game up by forcibly squeeze aggressive moves for shock value.

This is from Probst's interview during the GC finale:

Dalton Ross: Let’s go back to the first Tribal Council of the evening, where five out of six people ended up with immunity, meaning Cirie was voted out even though nobody actually voted for her. When you put all those idols and advantages into play earlier in the season, did you ever anticipate something like this happening?

Jeff Probst: Never. Ever. Never. '''We are always tracking how many advantages are in the game, for obvious reasons. You can’t have so many that the numbers no longer work. And with such crazy game play we never even considered''' that Tai would hold onto two idols and Troyzan would hold onto one idol and that they would both still be in play at the final six when the Legacy Advantage came back into play.

But more than even that craziness, we never dreamed Tai would play both of his. What a time to “make a move!” He was guaranteed final five and could have made so many different choices, but to his credit, Tai wanted to do something big. So he did. Then when Sarah revealed the Legacy Advantage, Troyzan wisely panicked and played his idol — again one episode earlier than I think he had planned. That’s when my head started spinning…. doing the math over and over to make sure it was right. Poor Cirie.

So from this interview, unless you believe Probst is lying, he says that he never anticipated or predicted that something like Advantage-geddon could happen. He even talked about limiting the number of advantages, which runs counter to what you seem to be saying. Remember, Advantage-geddon was essentially the worst case scenario in which basically every advantage in the game was held onto and used in the same tribal. It was extremely unlikely to happen.

If you don't think Advantage-geddon isn't an example of this, you are Helen Keller. Even a gamebot like Stephen Fishbach recognizes the value of building relationships to incorporate it into strategy. In this season, we have someone like Joe who got undone because he rubbed people the wrong way by pushing strategy way too much when he barely talked to anyone outside strategy. Any good Survivor player should know that when relationships are well-established, strategy follows. Like, how can you convince a total stranger if you can't meet halfway? How can you say "I'm not here to make friends" in a game that is won by convincing a jury?

I agree that social play is extremely important for one's gameplay, but I don't agree that the social game is the only foundation for the strategic game. As for Joe, multiple people from S35 have told various media outlets that Joe was a legitimate threat to win and was well-respected by the players around him (you can choose to believe me or not, as I'm too lazy to find the sources, since I heard them through podcasts). As for your "I'm not here to make friends" argument, well, Brian Heidik.

Zeke is someone known to blindside people just for "building a resume" instead of having a logical reason why so and so had to go. Spencer had something similar, he only talked to people for strategy (remember Shirin's vote out in Cambodia?) and nothing else. Neither was invested in their peers' personal stories, hence why their peers cared just as less for them.

I know in this community, Zeke is known for doing what you said. In other communities I've visited, Zeke did not make moves for the reasons you stated. It's a matter of subjectivity, and Zeke has articulated reasons as to why he blindsided people such as Andrea (he thought Andrea was targetting him since she didn't talk to him that much when they reached the merge). As for Spencer, there was basically the whole arc in Cambodia about him making social connections. Whether or not one views it as effective is irrelevant, because what matters is that he tried, and therefore it means that Spencer spent some time talking to make social bonds. According to Stephen [on multiple occasions], Spencer lost in Cambodia because he spent too much time connecting with people, so when he voted against them, they felt more betrayed than they did with Jeremy.

And about Michele. You see, I don't care much about confessional counts (I don't even put up confessional counts on this wiki and I delete them whenever I see them). All I care about is airtime quality. There was little investment on her arc (whether her edit was meant to be subtle or not is up for speculation). Basing from your count though, Michele's airtime boost was necessary because like duh, there's very few people left for her to be ignored. You can't just have Tai and Aubry be the only ones talking.

From several other communities I've visited (RHAP, Dom and Colin, Reddit & Edgic Reddit, Survivor Sucks, Purple Rock) as well as from me personally, Michelle received a lot of investment in her arc. That's how we knew she was going to win. If you don't remember her arc, I hate to say this, but that might be because she (from the perspective of these communities and me, at least) was a boring narrator? A lot of us predicted she would win since she received so much characterization and content despite seemingly not playing a larger role in the ongoing conflicts and for being a rather monotime narrator and UTR player. (Examples include Episode 6 where Michelle gets a ton of content of her acknowledging her flubs at the reward challenge and finding her strength in the game, and the episode where Jason and Scot hide the axe and Michelle is given the narration over this event).

To sum it up, strategy should be character-driven, not driven by production. All I'm saying is, let the survivors play at their own pace and not force them to make "big moves".

Your first sentence makes it sound as if those are the only two options, when to me tere's a lot of middle ground. As for your second sentence, well, I disagree that they're being "forced" to do anything.

Anyways, that's it for now. I probably won't come back on too much (if at all), but I hope I encouraged some difference in opinions! :)