Survivor 14

[scaeagles]

OK - I don't buy for a second that Dreamz was playing Yau. He was agonizing over it too much and he said in on camera interviews during the show that he was going to honor his word.

Breaking your word on Survivor is pretty much part of the deal. At some point, if you are in an alliance of 5, someone in that alliance must be voted out. The difference with Dreamz is that he received payment to make his promise.

He ranks below Johnny Fairplay in my book.

[Gemini Cricket]

Dreamz... what a d!ck.

[mousepod]

The Dreamz thing sucked - even more so because I (and most of America, I'll bet) wanted Yau-Man to win.

What strikes me is that Dreamz and his behavior reminds me of a lot of people in the programs where I work. I think what's rough is that the people who get on the pulpit and shout "I've turned my life around" while still behaving like criminals - and they don't get it. It's just sad.

I'm fairly certain that Dreamz believes his own BS. Doesn't make him less of a jerk - just that more pathetic.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Here's what really sucked, IMO. Dreamz wasn't going to win, no matter who he was up against. He had already made too many enemies. And yet, had he kept his word, he would have retained his integrity and people would have been cheering him, rather than booing him, at the end.

I can't help but wonder what the rewards there might have been in the real world for showing some real integrity.

Earl, on the other hand, is so very lucky that Dreamz made that decision. And I must say that the final Q and A was about the most obnoxious display I've ever seen on the show. Lots of pissed off people this time around.

[Strangler Lewis]

I didn't follow the season much, but, yes, that was an obnoxious jury. Stop talking? Immature Christian? Eeny, meeny, miny mo? One must wonder if three white people would have been treated with such derision.

I liked Yau from what I saw of him, but I don't see what everyone's so upset about. Usually, we don't like to see people acting secure at tribal council because of some deal they made. Yau must have had an incredible reservoir of good will built up for his deal not to be seen for what it was: an attempt to buy success in the game. Buy with a capital $$$. Frankly, I'm surprised Survivor allowed the deal given that agreements to split winnings are prohibited. Yes, people have horsetraded votes during the final immunity challenges, given up family visits, etc., but giving somebody a $30-40,000 prize is a whole different animal.

I don't know about keeping his integrity, but if he had honored the deal, Dreamz could have told the jury, "I'm not afraid of this man, this man who bought his way in." Or something like that.

[Stan4dSteph]

Dreamz was in incoherent mess. Bleah. Rather lame ending.

Survivor: China should be interesting. Not necessarily a tropical paradise. Hopefully it will be better than their other experiment away from the island genre: Africa. I can't think they could possibly get a less interesting group of people than were on Fiji.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

I didn't follow the season much, but, yes, that was an obnoxious jury. Stop talking? Immature Christian? Eeny, meeny, miny mo? One must wonder if three white people would have been treated with such derision.

Eh, I really believe race had little to do with it. Pathetic delusions of grandeur, huge bunches of sour grapes, and bipolar disorder (hi Lisi!) were the order of the day. Completely painful to watch.

I liked Yau from what I saw of him, but I don't see what everyone's so upset about. Usually, we don't like to see people acting secure at tribal council because of some deal they made. Yau must have had an incredible reservoir of good will built up for his deal not to be seen for what it was: an attempt to buy success in the game. Buy with a capital $$$.

Oh, no one saw it as anything but that. But that was what everyone respected about Yau, he played the game out in the open. He made no bones about the fact that he was playing the game to win. He did it respectfully and politely, but he was playing and playing hard. Despite the childish tantrum displays, I'd say that this season more than any other the players were willing to look at it as just a game and not get ridiculously pissed off that someone played it well and had to deceive and out maneuver them. The idiots who were pissed were probably only pissed because they thought they were smarter than Dreamz. Which, I can say quite honestly, they weren't. You've gotta be pretty dumb if Dreamz and Rocky make you look like immature idiots.

As for Dreamz, I said pretty much exactly what Yau said about two minutes before he said it. Dreamz isn't a complete idiot, he clearly is able to assess a situation and know what's going on around him. He just lacks the critical thinking ability to process that information and use it to his advantage. He can't think that 2nd or 3rd step ahead.

So when he said that he really never expected to have to make the decision to give it to Yau or not, I believe him. I'm pretty sure his thought process was, "I get a car? Oh hell yes, deal!" Shortly thereafter it was, "Oh wait, that was kinda bad...I need to get rid of Yau now, and here's how I do it." And it wasn't until that didn't work that he even thought about the moral dilemna of whether to break the deal or not. So while I don't believe that he was truly playing Yau the whole time, I am perfectly willing to believe that he neither planned on keeping nor breaking his word when he initially made the deal as that kind of forethought just doesn't enter into it for him.

[Strangler Lewis]

Well, of course, he was playing the game, but I think he crossed a not terribly fine line. He targeted the least well off person with a huge monetary bribe. That everybody on the jury seemed to think that the poor black guy should have been content to sell his birthright for a new truck and effectively withdraw from the game to me speaks volumes.

I didn't tune in until after the Warriors game ended. Did Dreamz have the chance to throw the challenge to Earl or Cassandra so that Yau could have been voted off without controversy?

[mousepod]

Nope - the last two standing in the endurance challenge were Dreamz and Yau.

I hear what you're saying - and if Dreamz hadn't been playing the sympathy card since day one, I'd agree with you. The fact that Dreamz constantly talked about how he was "basically homeless" invited game play around that "fact".

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by mousepod

I hear what you're saying - and if Dreamz hadn't been playing the sympathy card since day one, I'd agree with you. The fact that Dreamz constantly talked about how he was "basically homeless" invited game play around that "fact".

Totally. And he played it right up to the end. There was a point before the final tribal, I'm forgetting exactly when, that he said he wasn't playing the sympathy card, that he told his life story simply because that's who he was and how he got to know people. But then right off the bat with his opening statement he said, "You all know my story, so you know I deserve the money." That was lame.