Board Thread:703’s Showdown 1/@comment-2211541-20180729055541

First off, my apologies that this is so delayed. I tried to make a video speech, but significant technical difficulties ensued, and as a result I'm writing this, rather hastily.

Congratulations to both of you for reaching the end! I'm very proud of the two of you, no matter how this vote pans out.

Due to the lateness of my speech, I probably won't be asking many questions, just making a couple of observations. I have a significant difficulty in casting my vote, largely due to having a problem with Benj's game and Brandon's speech, so let's go through that.

Benj, you were pretty upfront about the glaring flaw in your game, so I don't see much of a need to go over it, but it regardless does concern me that you seem to have only really started playing approximately around my boot, where my own unadulterated arrogance spared you. From all reports in Ponderosa, you really turned your game around, but that's four rounds of impressive play following fourteen rounds of considerably less impressive play.

Brandon, I largely agree with Sam here - I personally believe your speech had a tendency to glorify yourself at the expense of others (most notably myself) throughout certain eliminations, particularly Nathaniel's. Here, there is minimal mention of you being perhaps...reticent towards believing me telling the truth about Jenna attempting to target me, and the narrative is re-presented as being another resume-builder for Brandon, when in reality it was not. I feel that stems from a misconception about the purpose of Final Tribal - it is not primarily for you to sell your games to us, but for us to hold you accountable for what you did, and what you didn't do. And in that regard, there is minimal reason to try and upsell your game, because we will hold you accountable for that, too.

However, any questions I would have about your games in the matters outlined above have been answered well enough elsewhere, so I will conclude with the only questions I have left

Benj: Keeping in mind what I wrote about accountability a few lines ago, how intentional was your UTR game?

Brandon: My conception of immunity wins is that they all involve a certain degree of luck - receiving a certain challenge that one can win in is lucky, and certain challenges have luck inbuilt into them - many challenges do not reflect which contestant put in the most effort. Although challenge wins are undoubtedly meritorious, I personally conceive a physical game as being significantly reliant on luck. What are your thoughts on this conception I have?

Both: Please summarise your game in a single word. I don't want an explanation or any ancillary notes, just one word.

Thank you to both of you for your time, sorry that this was a poorly edit mess of rambling ideas, but I wrote the whole thing in basically ten minutes, so I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. This probably comes across as a lot blunter than I intend to be, so do know that I love both of you a whole lot.

Best,

Toby. 