Board Thread:Survivor 22: San Marcos/@comment-24207263-20170208162752/@comment-9755360-20170208172719

"Nathaniel, I'm going to be honest, while reading your speech, I saw a lot of you still being unaware of a lot of things going on in the game around you, and I think that awareness is a very important aspect of this game, and your speech makes me think that you weren't very aware of everything going on around you in this game at certain points."

Can't really say anything to this part.

"The first thing I noticed, and probably the least important, is that you said your name probably came up on Catarina and your social bonds kept you safe which I definitely don't agree with, you should know Brian was the target because of all the previous connections he had on other tribes, and Hannah was targeted because she threw herself under the bus for Brian, social bonds had nothing to do with you staying, not a very important point, but a point nonetheless."

Again, I moved past the Brian and Hannah votes quickly in my speech, urging you to ask questions if you wanted to know more of my thoughts on them. I kinda see this as such a question, so I'll explain further. I'm well aware that Brian went home much because of his connections to other tribes - we even discussed that in our alliance chat! What I meant with my social bonds keeping me safe, is that I too actually had quite a few bonds with other tribes, yet nobody cared about that at all. Regarding Hannah, I think I very well could've acted like her during the Brian vote, but I knew Brian would be going anyway, so I took a step back, and didn't do what Hannah did. Furthermore, I could've tried to save her during her vote-off like she tried to save Brian, but I didn't, because I knew it'd only be bad for me and do nothing to save her anyway. Also, who were Brian and Hannah mad at? You and Sim. Why? You, because you told her you were voting her. I honestly wouldn't have risked rocks for Hannah even if you had been in on it, but the fact that you denied it first made my choice of not saving her so much more understandable from her PoV. Did that change anything in the game? No. But it's still a point worth making. Why was Brian mad at Sim? He'd asked me and Sim to vote with him and Hannah. When he discussed that with me, I told him what Sim had recently told me - that he was voting Brian. That made Brian target Sim instead of Rhi, and although I would've been safe anyway, I think both the fact that I managed to be on good terms with all Catarinas, something nobody else managed to do, and the fact that I threw Sim's name out to Brian without him ever finding out, shows the good bonds I built with people.

"Next thing I noticed is you talking about the chat called "The Truth" which I've now been informed of while in ponderosa, and I've also been told most things in that chat weren't actually the truth, which from your speech makes me believe that you still believe those lies, then once I came to you and confessed I'd been targeted you tried to make it look like you hadn't known and it was 100% transparent, if you're going to lie and act clueless, don't make it obvious, in my opinion not being able to lie is a sign of a weak game in survivor, then lastly when you confronted me with the questions I told you the complete truth, and I still don't think you believe me on that either. Lastly, you think my boot was a blindside, which is extremely false, I had literally the entire day to prepare for my boot knowing that I was probably going early on in the day, at the end of the day close to the deadline my phone was on 3% and Jenna was thinking of possibly tying the vote on you but Sim didn't trust her and told us that we should trust you more, at that point I didn't trust you at all and I only went along with what Sim said because my phone was dead and I wanted a 5% chance rather than a 0% if I would've gotten a self vote, so my vote-off was not a blindside."

Okay, this is a long one. Firstly, I'm not surprised that the things in "The Truth" were mostly false. I'd say I believed what they said to 30% - I knew Chris and Claudia were sneaky players that I couldn't trust, and the only reason I did think it would make sense was the fact that you, more than anyone else, insisted on us trusting them during the Brandon vote, which would've made a lot of sense. Let me quote from my speech though:

"I also figured that Austin/Nick/Sim would probably try to vote out me and Shea at the F5, and I did not want that to happen. Luckily, CC said they wanted Austin gone due to his threatening nature, and the fact that he had close relationships with most people in the game. Personally, I was especially afraid of his relationship with Claudia, and he had also performed really great at almost all challenges, AND he had found an Idol, and all that, combined with the fact that me/Shea/Nick/Sim would still be more people than Jenna/Chris/Claudia if Austin went, made me go along with it."

Let me further develop this, because even though it obviously came out wrong, these were the reasons I went through with voting for you. I wouldn't have done it if it only was because of what Chris and Claudia told me. I'll make it in points so it's easier to follow.

1. I knew you wouldn't want to take me to the end, and that you'd eventually betray me.

2. Your realationship with people, especially Claudia, was really scary, and you had good bonds with everyone.

3. Your challenge abilities were really good, and I knew you could win more challenges if you stayed.

4. If you were sent home, it'd put me in a very good position for the next vote. Sim and Nick wouldn't risk voting me out and leaving Jenna/Chris/Claudia in the game, especially when doing so would've meant a possible flip by Shea to their side, putting them in a 4-2 disadvantage, whereas if you stayed, it'd be 5-2, and 5-2 is scary, because that means you can blindside someone from your own alliance easily, and I assumed that person for you would be me.

So yeah, that's why I voted you out. What Chris and Claudia told me would only mean you'd've targetted me ealier than expected, but none of that really mattered anyway, because that was a golden opportunity to get you out, so I went with it - and it obviously payed off.

I did believe you on what you told me, but by then I'd already put my money in taking you out, and because of the reasons said above, combined with the fact that you'd admitted to thinking about taking me out, made me go through with it.

I can't disagree on the blindside point though, other than the fact that I with blindside more meant "first person I voted for that I hadn't in any way made any sign that we were on different sides and that I'd be voting for them" rather than "the first person I voted out that was blindsided".

Ad for lying, yeah, that lie to you was really bad XD However, I think I've proved that I lied many other times in the game quite well, and that the time with you was an irregularity, probably sprung from the fact that I felt bad about voting for you, and lying felt even worse.

"Overall Nathaniel, I don't think you were very self aware during this game. Buuut I'm not quite over yet, another huge issue I have with you is you're quite a bitter player, the fact you OPENLY and SHAMELESSLY admit that you are still bitter over a Canada blindside that happened 20 months ago, almost two YEARS? If you are this bitter, why should we as the jury not vote the same way as you've conveyed you feel in other orgs, because I'm sure that you would've been bitter sitting here on the jury if you were to have been voted out. Granted, I'm not bitter at all over my boot, I had an amazing time in this game and I'm happy about everything, but I'm genuinely curious as to why if you're this bitter, why we shouldn't vote bitterly towards you? Also, Shea said multiple times you were more of his goat than he was yours, how do you respond to that ?"

Let's get into this. The Canada thing was meant as a joke, but it appears it came off the wrong way. I came over that as soon as I merged this season, and the only reason I haven't before was that that was my first time truly blindsided, my first time missing merge and Jury (and still one of only four times from the over fourty seasons I've played), and it was on 703, a major ORG. I mean, I've worked with Topaz and Bjorn since (and probably would've with Tyler and Jack too, if I'd played with them again), so yeah, it's more of a running gag I use nowadays - that's not meant to be taken seriously. And had I been voted out... I actually don't think I would've been bitter. I've been a Juror enough to know if I am bitter or not, the only times I have been bitter, I've been the Final Juror - I just need some time to get over my elimination, and Ponderosa does that perfectly for me. Had I been a FInal Juror in this, I'd've probably been annoyed that Nick and Sim would've thrown away their games for Chris to win, but nothing more, since I did expect going home that tribal. I would've voted for Chris, probably with remarks towards Sim and Nick about how stupid they were for not going with me to the end, but that's it, in all honesty. But yeah, be bitter if you wanna, I don't judge. I do think there are better places to be bitter though.

As for the Shea thing, that was him being a bit delusional, if he said that. And I don't think any of us were goats - we worked together, although I think most decisions were made by me. Shea had great perception, and could often tell who was lying and who wasn't, but look at the game. He was left out of the Malik vote (understandable, since we weren't sure if we could trust him), the Elmo vote (which is the move in this game I claim the most to be mine), the Brandon vote (where I used the fact that he only really talked to me as a way to get the votes changed to Brandon), in the Renz vote, he was a big part of it being screwed up, although he did also save it in a way, but... That whole vote was strange. Your vote, Chris and Claudia approached me about it, and him and Jenna were brought along as numbers to make it happen. Jenna vote, we both, quite obviously, wanted to go back to and went back to Sim and Nick, not much to say there. F6 tribal, he wanted to be voted out, but couldn't get people to not vote me out, so I talked to Chris, Claudia, Nick and Sim, and got 3/4 of them to vote him out with me, and Nick not doing it was because he wanted to save himself in case we were voting for him (which he, if he had had game awareness during that vote, would have known wasn't gonna happen, and he also ended up being the sole vote for me).

I hope this explains things a bit better for you. Please, please ask me if you want anything explain even further (like the lie thing, for example), and thank you!