Introduction
Hi there everyone! It’s been months since I’ve last done one of these, so honestly the first thing coming to my mind right now is the sheer happiness of having to go through this whole process again. For the past thirty-nine days, I’ve had my sights set first and foremost on making the end - so that I could hopefully present to you, the jury, a case strong enough for you to consider when it comes to determining the winner of this game.
I’d like to apologise for what will be a long speech - there are a lot of things I want to say here, and it’s hard for me to sum it all up more concisely than this, as a lot has happened. I’d like to thank all of you - jurors, pre-jurors, Elias/Jake who are sitting with me here, and most certainly the hosts - for making Survivor: Chaos undoubtedly the most fun ORG I’ve ever taken part in. I’ve genuinely gotten to know and play with so many fun people from all sorts of places, and I’ve lived through some of the funniest as well as some of the scariest moments I’ve ever encountered in a game like this. It’s truly been a special journey, end to end - from the ten tribes of two and the double elimination on Day 1 to the endgame portion.
Since I’ve had a bit of a busy day I’m the last one to send in his finalist speech - and usually, with that comes the added stress of trying to process what the other finalists have mentioned in their speeches and how yours matches up to theirs. In this case however, I more or less feel at ease because I’m given an opportunity to address some of the outright insulting comments said by Elias in his speech before we dip right into the core contents of this speech.
Elias’s Speech
I’m a firm believer of the line of thinking that a finalist speech should outline the strengths of one’s game, without going over too much over what the other finalists have or have not done. I personally believe that, if a player’s game is strong enough, a speech outlining its biggest strengths, backed up with in-game examples should be enough to get the jury’s support. However, when stones are being thrown at you sometimes you have to throw them back.
In Elias’s finalist speech, I’ve been talked about in several passages. I’ve been described by Elias as having “bordered on inactive” during the course of this game - something which I find quite insulting, given that during these thirty-nine days I put in a great amount of effort into this game, sometimes sacrificing potential activities with friends because I stayed up at night in order to figure out a vote, or because I wanted to win a challenge, or because I was nervously anticipating tribal results. You, the jury, should know - given that I’ve tried to talk with most of you on an almost daily level while you were still in the game.
On multiple counts, Elias mentioned that I “woke up at F5”, a statement which is definitely false. The simple fact that I didn’t try in challenges as much as he did - yet, despite that, I’ve been immune four times after we initially merged, twice before the F5 stage (one of them was the unmerge challenge, and the other one was a tribal challenge as per the same twist; however, I’m the only player out of the four in my tribe who stood online from the beginning to the end of the challenge) - shouldn’t take away from the fact that I’ve been very much “awake” throughout the entire game! I feel quite sad that I’ve been called inactive by a player who was clamoring for my vote at multiple stages in the game.
Finally, Elias has also said that I’ve stepped out of the game’s drama “because he [referring to me] didn’t DO anything”, which again, is downright insulting. I fought tooth and nail to get here - I’ve tried hard socially, I’ve tried hard in challenges, I’ve tried hard to make the right strategic moves for my game. I even voted out my closest ally, Aras, and didn’t even tell him about it because it was a game move that was beneficial for me, despite there being other possible scenarios which I could have tried to make happen at the time.
Yet what did you do, Elias? Because from where I stand, if I did nothing, you sure as hell did nothing as well. It’s laughable that you’re saying that your game stands right in the “sweet spot” when the only reason you’re here at the end is because Jake used random.org to determine his vote rather than saving the person he had a Final 2 deal with, Emily. Jake’s been very open about luck being an element of his game, though I’ve seen it nowhere in your speech despite it being arguably the most important thing about your survival.
These paragraphs weren’t meant to be here at the time when I started this speech, because I’m not a big fan of criticising fellow finalists’ games. It’s certainly not up to us to determine how well we did, it’s up to you, the jury. I didn’t want to harshly talk about what a competitor of mine has written in his speech but as I’ve said before, when stones are being thrown at you, sometimes you have to throw them back. And so, anything subjective/harsh mentioned about what Elias has or has not done ends here. It’s time for me to write about what I’ve done to get here - about the stance I’ve taken since the start of the game, about my strategy, and about my social and physical game.
Stance
One very important thing that I want to talk about is a very simple statement echoed by many people inside this game - that I’ve played the least chaotic/most boring game here. I’ve stayed out of fights, I didn’t try to start drama, I more or less kept to my own and tried being supportive to people through it all without bringing too much “chaos” on myself.
And thus the question stands - in a season called Survivor: Chaos, why would anybody in the jury vote for a person who’s played the least chaotic/most boring game, wouldn’t it be against the point of the game?
Yet to that, I raise a question back. Isn’t using personal bonds you’ve made with people to keep yourself safe one of the basic concepts in the game of Survivor? Getting into fights with people, having major arguments with other players - they’re certainly not boring parts of the wonderful season we’ve all played, but how effective are they? How far can anybody truly go with a target on their back?
Playing a very proactive, aggressive game could have been a strategy I employed here, but I chose not to. At the very start of the game, I set myself out to play the most effective, safe game I could - in the last full game I played (Bang-a-Rang’s Survivor: Idalia), I received a total of twelve votes throughout the course of the game, and I also had people who were quite displeased with me personally within the jury. I wanted to change that - I wanted to try out what being more reserved and subtle would get me.
And I immediately saw a big distinction, especially at the merge. I didn’t panic as much about votes - I felt safer sharing things with people, I felt better talking to people and getting to meet them, I felt as if I was trusted much more with information than before. I was involved in more plans, more alliances, and while that might not be the most chaotic game, is it not effective? I got here, to the Final Tribal Council, without having been seriously targeted once during the course of the whole game. When I felt I was one of the people who could be voted, I tried really hard in immunities to keep that from happening. I might not have caused the most fights, but I certainly did what I had to do to keep myself here, tribal after tribal. Hopefully, that’s the kind of game which you’ll vote for.
Social Game
Social game is, without a shadow of a doubt, possibly the most important aspect of any online Survivor game. You’re grouped together with various other people, of different backgrounds and nationalities, all wanting the same thing - the title of Sole Survivor. Yet to do that, a certain degree of trust has to be formed between different players. This trust is formed by creating and maintaining personal connections with other players - it’s the most fascinating element of this game personally for me, since I love meeting new people and getting to know them.
I think it’s safe to say that, at some point, most of you felt like I was on your side to some extent, no matter how loyal or disloyal I ultimately was to you. The alliances I’ve been in and the information I’ve had throughout the course of the game seem to indicate so. At the very least, there was always somebody else who was seen as more of an immediate danger than me.
The two main arguments as to why social game has definitely been one of my strong points would have to be the information I’ve gathered throughout the course of the game, as well as the fact that I haven’t been the main target of any vote in this game.
Information can be mainly grouped into two specific categories - game-related information, pertaining to votes and such, and non-game-related information, which is more about getting to know the people around you. I’ve gathered a lot of game-related information through these thirty-nine days, either through alliances formed or through the personal trust that I had formed with people. For example, I was part of an active alliance at every single point in the game, some successful, some unsuccessful - from the Day 1 Beavertown (me, Elias, Wendy, Jake, David, and Aras), which was formed to serve as an early game majority alliance, to the Labia Minora (me, David, Aras, Jake - formed to discuss the plan to vote out Alex). Moving on, I was part of a quite short-lived 6-person, then 5-person alliance between myself, Kyle, Eve (it became a 5-person alliance after she was eliminated through an idol), Wendy, Aras, and Alex. Kyle and Aras’s conflict brought an end to that - however simultaneously speaking, Aras, Wendy and I also had Cameltown, an alliance of three intended to help us, the people in the “middle”. Had Kyle survived his tribal, I could have also been in an alliance of three with him and Alex.
After the unmerge, the Moana tribe formed an alliance of four between myself, Aras, Alex, and Elias, which only lived for one vote as three of us voted out Aras following David’s vote out. Finally, I also took part in a Final 3 deal with Emily and Jake (Gabon 2.0).
All of these alliances were quite valuable to me, despite most of them being short-lived - they were safety nets, but they also allowed me to gain information about the general perception of the game and I was always in the loop about who people planned to vote - information which I mostly kept to myself unless I absolutely had to share it with somebody.
However, the true source I had of where people stood in the game and where their heads were at in regards to plans, votes, and in regards to the position of certain people was most certainly one-on-one conversations. By establishing a certain degree of trust with people, I was able to share information back and forth to my own benefit, and hopefully to the benefit of the person I was talking to. It’s largely through one-on-one, personal conversations that I learned where people stood in this game in regards to others.
That’s why I knew, for example, how Aras planned to juggle the sides back and forth, and how Elias felt in relation to Aras, and what people thought about David. That’s how I knew that people thought of Wendy as being in a great position down the line, before the unmerge twist happened, and it’s how I knew that Alex had quite a few people who didn’t trust him at all, despite what appearances might have indicated.
As I’ve stated before, I largely kept all of this to myself and always tried to use it so I could get moves to happen in such a direction that I had a realistic shot at making it to the endgame.
Moving on to outside of game information - I’m really glad I’ve gotten to know most of you on a personal level. I greatly enjoy meeting new people but this is one of the most fun casts I’ve seen, there are literally so many unique people with so many fun stories behind them. I feel as if one of the best things about ORGs is how social you have to be with people! I’ve picked up my fair share of tidbits about most of you - for example, I know that Wendy’s hair is cut by her mum, I know that David played mafia in person, and I know that Aras sometimes walks around in shorts and a tank top when it’s only 10 Celsius degrees outside (for people who don’t use Celsius, it’s a pretty cold temperature).
Ultimately, I’ve never been a main target of any vote this whole game and this is the most telling fact about my social game. Barring two votes I received at F7 (one of which was Jake ruining my previously perfect record, and one of which was Alex throwing a vote in case of an idol), I have never received a vote against me during this game. Even with those two votes, I was not one of the F7 targets - when I felt I could potentially be on the chopping block, I did my best to win immunities. To summarise all of this up, I feel social game has definitely been a forte of mine, through the alliances I’ve made, through the trust I’ve built with people, through how I’ve gotten to know people, and finally through the lack of votes I’ve received during the course of this season.
Strategy
Social game might be the most important resource, but strategy is definitely the most important way to use it. Strategy encompasses everything, from how social you are, to how you approach challenges, to how you time moves. At the end of the day, social game is what gets people far ahead in games, but strategy is what wins them.
You cannot go into games without a solid strategy developed and expect yourself to be the winner. At some point or another, moves need to be made, a pathway needs to be crafted in order to ensure a player’s journey to the Final Tribal Council.
Throughout this game, I’ve tried to employ what many would call an “under the radar” game - I’ve tried to use the social connections I’ve made to keep myself laying low, safe, while people who played more proactive games would be targeted before my name would even come up. The early game was dominated by the two-side dynamic - a big part of laying under the radar in these circumstances is establishing some sort of connection with the “other side”, otherwise referred to as playing the middle - for example, despite being in different alliances, I kept talking to Nic, Kyle, and Eve. I thought this would give me more options on the table following the merge - and it did, as Jake was eventually voted at the Final 10 (unfortunately, an idol got in the way of that vote).
Throughout the early merge, I knew that I needed to keep my threat level at a minimum - being somewhat close with both sides, it was paramount to not suffer from a blindside in the later phases of the game. I intentionally threw challenges and made myself seem as detached as possible in order to prevent people from thinking of me as a big jury/game threat. As the two-side dynamic began to die out and people started going after who they perceived as being dangers in their way to the win, my under the radar game started to surface, and I played proactive roles in voting players such as David out, who were seen as strong players, respected by the jury, but also who I had previously tried to keep as meatshields. I even voted out my closest ally, Aras - who was too good of a challenge player to keep in the game. At the Final 5, having no reason to hide challenge skill anymore, I gave it my best and won the two remaining immunities.
Ultimately, strategy is about manipulating perception to your advantage. If you create a perception of yourself which is too strong, you will get punished for it - if you create a perception of yourself which is too weak, you won’t get voted at the end for it. I’ve always tried to find that spot in the middle - it’s an ideal position to be in, and it’s arguably the biggest reason besides my social game as to why I’m here now.
Conclusion
To sum this all up, I believe I owe my spot here at the end mainly due to my social game and due to the strategy I’ve used during this game. My game’s definitely not been perfect, but it’s been enough to get me here and I hope it’s enough to get me the win as well.
This has been an incredibly fun game to be in, no matter the result of this jury vote, and I’m truly glad to have applied for this back when Thomas announced this season. I’ll be looking forward to seeing your replies to this (really long) finalist speech, and I’ll hopefully see all of you in the reunion chat after this game ends!
