#9: Richard Hatch 1.0

https://preview.redd.it/j0upy4fu0e581.jpg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8643c2eb2d9b2cdaef58be63ec2ce8c507448f5

I have a whole writeup about how Richard Hatch is quietly one of the most important characters in TV history….but that’s not even what people remember most from Borneo, is it? “Rats & Snakes” is the moment of all moments that seemed to really take Survivor to a special level, and though Sue is a borderline endgame even without the speech, it made her an icon.

/u/EchtGeenSpanjool:

#1 – Sue

Sue Hawk is the winner of Survivor Rankdown VI. And damn does it feel good to say that!

A while ago in my writeup for Ian I already talked about what makes a Survivor character so great for me, and that is the clash of morality and gameplay. Palau does that to Ian in a fascinating way, and he took the cake for me this endgame. However, Sue also very much fits this description, and we see this just as well. And since this is Borneo, there’s a rawness to it. When Ian betrayed and was betrayed, there was plenty of precedent from the first 9 seasons.

Here, though, it’s all new. There’s no clear guide for anyone to help decide when to be loyal and when to go back on your friendships. All these people, but most notably the Tagi 4, have to figure that out all by themselves. Rudy seems sort-of distant from this process and Richard seems to not really give two shits about morality, which is also why I have less feeling for them as compared to Kelly and Sue. Kelly struggling with having to be in an alliance to be good at the game, is a very heartbreaking and slightly anxiety-inducing storyline, and she’s fantastic for it (and should surely be the #2 for Borneo behind Sue – fight me).

And then, there’s Sue, who does it best out of all of them. Sue’s story in Borneo is a slow burn, but when we get to the end, oh boy. What Borneo also does well is that all castaways are not only strangers from each other but also from the game, and they truly mix people who come from different walks of life. Enter truck driver Sue, who ends up aligned with corporate somethingsomething Richard, NAVY Seal Rudy and rowing instructor Kelly. It’s quite a group of people, not necessarily the kind of people she’d hang out with back in the States. Honestly, Sue isn’t the kind of person that would be all lovey-dovey “let’s be friends” while trying to survive a deserted island.

But still, she opens up, and finds these people, and even finds a friend in Kelly. And sure, Sue is with the Tagi 4, but the only one she really trusts is Kelly. At one point she says they are like sisters. It’s sweet, it’s endearing, and it’s two great women bonding together, showing that behind the game is way more. Sue’s backstory gets unraveled piece by piece, and we get informed of the death of her best friend about 20 years ago, and that she’s been so, so different ever since. It’s heartbreaking, and gives a whole different side to the cold-ish Sue that we see out on the island. Clearly, there’s still a softer, more open side to Sue, stowed away very deep inside. And for Kelly, it seems to be showing itself for the first time in ages.

Except Survivor wouldn’t be Survivor if darker times weren’t on the horizon, this time in the form of a merge, where Kelly gets second thoughts about the alliance in, again, a very captivating storyline. Piece by piece we see the relationship between Kelly and Sue break down, all the way to the point where the trust is gone… but only the friendship they had formed weeks ago remains. And then the finale. Without going into it all too much, Kelly once and for all shows Sue that ultimately, the game matters more. And that’s heartbreaking. All the effort, all the friendship, all the appreciation goes down the drain and Sue is hurt. It’s one of the most poignant betrayals in Survivor, and to think nowadays this would’ve been solved by a fire-making challenge!

In the end, Sue leaves, with feelings I doubt we can ever imagine for ourselves. It’s as if she gave up her everything to hike up Mount Everest, and Kelly slit her throat and threw her down the mountain within meters of the summit. It’s a tragedy like you couldn’t even write, and Sue’s tenure on the show is over. Or… is it? Because of course, with the first season also comes the first Final Tribal Council. And oh boy.

Let me take you back to my musing about the morality of Survivor. That in itself is a staple of the game, and any similar game. No matter how little personality they have, as long as you aren’t putting straight up robots out on the island, everyone involves their morality, or lack thereof, into the decisions they make. You have to decide, every single time, what is this person really worth to me? More than a million dollars? Now, of course, the choice would be very different depending on how the winner is eventually chosen. If you do it like the Dutch, and use a challenge to determine the winner, then choices might be easier to make. Sure, you might have a moral speed-bump to get over, but once it’s done that’s that.

But in the USA, that’s not the case.

All those choices, all those moral equations, all the values you held or didn’t hold others to – it sticks around, and it might come back to bite you. And the fact you don’t only have to battle your morality, but also manoeuver around this – that is fascinating to me. If you succeed and make the end, you face the wrath of who you wronged. And Sue is there to show that.

Honestly, I could just post the entirety of Snakes and Rats here. It’s one of the most famous clips the show has ever produced, and deservedly so. Borneo at times is a dark season. Think Gretchen leaving at the merge, think the Pagong tribe catching onto the alliance when it’s too late, think Colleen getting her torch snuffed. Think Sue getting absolutely backstabbed by her one friend. All that darkness is unleashed at final tribal council when Sue faces Richard and Kelly. It’s raw, it’s real, it comes from so deep and from such a history, and is so fascinating that you might almost forget to breathe – sure, that’s a hyperbole, but I think Sue’s speech showcases how Survivor is at its greatest when it’s riddled with the twists and turns of morality.

Sue is not my number 1 in this endgame – she is my 3rd, but that’s practically a tie with 2nd – but she is everything. No nonsense fun and a tough nut to crack, but also vulnerable deep down, and when she dares to show it, it kicks her in the nards, causing a tragic downfall and the culmination of all the anger and hurt in her jury speech. Fascinating.

Congrats, Sue, on this first rankdown win. It’s been amazing to tell your story!

EchtGeenSpanjool: 3

Mikeramp72: 8

Nelsoncdoh: N/A (must be at least #5)

Edihau: 2

WaluigiThyme: 9

Jclarks074: 5

JAniston8393: 3

Average Placement: anywhere from 4.6 (if nelson’s #2) to 5.0 (if nelson’s #5). Could not mathematically be anywhere else but #1.

13 Comments

2021/12/13
23:01 UTC

Endgame #2

RUNNER UP: Jonny Fairplay 1.0

/u/EchtGeenSpanjool:

(2/21) Oh, man. While this endgame mostly consists of characters that lean on the heroic side, I can’t help but appreciate by far the biggest villain Survivor saw in it’s early days. While I could talk about Jon for hours, that’s not up to me. It’s nearly impossible to capture Jon and his role in the season and in Survivor as a whole in a short blurb, but nearly every step Jon Dalton set on the beaches of the Pearl Islands translated into a scene that made Pearl Islands into the beloved treasure that it is. Add in the most interesting downfall possible and you’ve got yourself a one-way ticket to the endgame. Deservedly so.

/u/mikeramp72:

Fairplay’s back in endgame! I feel like saying that should be enough, but at the same time take everything I said about Sandra 1.0 and crank it up to the nth degree. Not only is he one of the best characters in the show’s history with many iconic moments, voting confessionals, and not to mention that the dead grandma lie being, well, you guys all know about the dead grandma lie. And of course Fairplay’s storybook arc is absolutely one worth watching fourteen hours in one sitting of, you couldn’t make up a better ending to this season if you tried, but I think the thing that fascinates me the most about JFP is the separation between Jon Dalton the person and Jonny Fairplay the alter ego, the line between the man and the show he put on is blurred to an impossible degree, and it absolutely makes Fairplay the king of villains.

/u/nelsoncdoh:

/u/edihau:

Depending on how you classify "villain," I wouldn't be prepared to call Fairplay *the* best villain of all time. But there's a reason why he's remembered. Pearl Islands has one of the top-heaviest casts in 40 seasons Basically everyone who's good is awesome, and Fairplay's role in the drama is iconic. The dead grandma lie cemented him in the *Survivor* history books forever, but don't forget about his fights with Sandra, Rupert, Savage, and Lill, nor his debauchery with Burton. I think I'm lower on him than most of the others, but I'm still very glad to see him in endgame.

Endgame rank: 12

Personal rank: 18

/u/jclarks074:

The loved ones visit has become such a treacly overblown important part of modern Survivor seasons that Fairplay’s idea to subvert the entire concept is even more shocking to see today than it must have been in 2003. If “Rats & Snakes” is the singular Survivor moment that any casual TV watcher can grasp, “Dead Grandma” is the masterpiece moment for Survivor fans, who understand a bit more about the specifics of the situation and exactly why what Fairplay and “Fairplay’s Buddy” are doing is so hilarious or enraging, depending on what side of the fence you sit.

It was the capstone for a player who came to Survivor intending to make himself a character and to make the show his personal vehicle, and what makes Jon Dalton fascinating even compared to similar self-propelled characters like Sugar or Coach is that Jon almost succeeded. In most scenarios, he wins Pearl Islands, except in our wonderful reality, he got his comeuppance in the funniest possible way.

/u/WaluigiThyme:

“I go by the moniker of Jonny Fairplay. I do not play fair.”

-Jonny Fairplay

“Screw Jon, cause he’s an ass. Everything that comes out of his mouth is just ridiculous.”

-Sandra Diaz-Twine

What better pair of confessionals could I possibly use to introduce Jonny Fairplay?

There has never been, and will never be, anyone like Jonny Fairplay before or since in Survivor history. He is so utterly committed to playing up his wrestling heel persona and disrespecting everyone as much as possible while also controlling the outcome of events with an iron grip from the beginning right until it slips out of his grasp at the very end. Now when some people play up a persona, it can come across as inauthentic — see Phillip Sheppard, for example. But some of my absolute favorite characters are those who can convincingly play up a character. And Jonny Fairplay, my favorite of all time, feels real. Why? Well, it’s probably because he plays up the character in real life, too. Whatever Phillip is trying to do on Survivor feels like something he just made up for Survivor. Jonny Fairplay, on the other hand, brought a persona that already existed into the show.

What makes Jonny Fairplay such an effective villain and such a hilarious personality is his sheer audacity, and unmitigated gall. There is nothing he wouldn’t stoop to. The most obvious example of this is his dead grandmother lie. I won’t recap this too much since everyone knows how the story goes, but it is executed *perfectly*. It’s really the moment when Jonny Fairplay goes from one of the funniest villains to the single most heinous villain we had seen up to that point and would see until Russell Hantz. Other hilariously audacious Fairplay moments include him asking Darrah if she wants to kiss him before the disgusting milkshake challenge, asking to be the one who loots the Morgan tribe’s camp so he can rub it in their faces that they threw the challenge, saying that the women “couldn’t beat him at anything except a getting pregnant contest” when he literally already lost the last three immunites in a row to Darrah, and many more. The season thrives on his audacity.

Jonny Fairplay also has some wonderful (mostly antagonistic, of course) relationships with the rest of the cast. It is always said that the best characters are the ones who can bring out the best in others. Fairplay does just that, particularly with the season’s biggest heroes. Let’s start with the ill-fated leader of the Morgan tribe, Andrew Savage. We know from watching both of his seasons that Savage is basically an arrogant blowhard with a very self-centric view of morality, but he is also someone who wants to genuinely give 150-200% to see his tribe succeed. Jonny Fairplay is someone who wants to demoralize his opponents and twist the knife at every opportunity he can.

As one would expect, these two get along like peanut butter and jelly.

I mentioned above that one of Fairplay’s more audacious moments was after the Drake tribe threw a challenge to vote out Burton for suggesting they throw challenges, when he volunteers to be the one to loot Morgan’s camp so he can taunt them about the fact that the one challenge they won wasn’t even on their own merit. This irritates Savage so much that not only does he give a muttering rant about Fairplay being a little pissant after he leaves, but he manages to singlehandedly win the next challenge for the tribe out of pure spite. Yes, that’s right, Jonny Fairplay managed to annoy someone into becoming the strongest person on the entire season. And it’s far from the last thing that wouldn’t have gone wrong for him if he didn’t choose to be a villain. But we’ll get to that later.

The next relationship I want to highlight is Fairplay’s opposition to Rupert. Rupert came on the show wanting to be the big grand hero and (thanks to some editing) very much comes across that way, so it makes perfect sense that he and the guy who came on the show wanting to be the big grand *villain* would hate each other’s guts. Rupert finds Jon’s villain persona to be a load of cringe and Fairplay finds Rupert to be a moron. Fairplay and Trish attempt to blindside Rupert, sending Rupert into an absolute meltdown when he realizes his name was written down more than once. After putting aside their differences to work together against the Morgana after the merge, Fairplay puts his takeover of the game into full swing by blindsiding Rupert in one of the greatest episodes the show has ever seen.

I also want to briefly touch on Fairplay’s relationships with some of the less major Drakes. Fairplay, Shawn, and Burton were originally a villain trio on Drake that crashed and burned when Burton insisted they throw a challenge only for the tribe to throw the challenge and vote him out for suggesting it. Fairplay then made Trish his biggest ally, only for their attempted Rupert blindside to fall flat and lead to Trish getting booted. Once Burton and Trish were gone, Fairplay planned to have Shawn as his #2 who he would run the game with, abandoning this plan once the Outcasts won and it became clear that the more reliable Burton would come back into the game. I think a good explanation as to whether the Fairplay/Shawn alliance would have been as successful as the Fairplay/Burton alliance was is their voting confessionals for each other at Shawn’s boot tribal:

Shawn: (*votes for Jonny Fairplay*) Jon, you and I know the truth. Basically, you’ve been backstabbing everyone, including myself.

Jonny Fairplay: (*votes for Shawn*) F**k you!

Yeah. That’s one of my favorite voting confessionals ever and a classic Fairplay moment. Brief, audacious, hilarious. Anyway, Burton comes back into the game and he and Fairplay beautifully orchestrate their plan to take over the game using an unlikely #3: fellow Outcast Lill. Despite being the last person on the face of the planet who anyone would expect to work with people like Jonny Fairplay and Burton, Lill realizes she has to play hard to make up for the mistakes that led her to be voted out in the first place, and she wants revenge on the people who did so. So she sides with the Drakes, striking down Morgan’s leader Savage and his right hand Ryno. At that point, the trio basically has it wrapped up: they know they can seize power by flipping to the Morgans and harpooning Fairplay’s white whale, Rupert. Now they’re the only alliance of three against two alliances of two, so if the others just don’t gang up against them, they’re the final 3. And they stay in control for the next two tribals, bouncing back and forth to send Tijuana and Christa to the jury and becoming a majority for the first time. But then, something unexpected happens. After being kicked around by Jon and Burton the whole game, Lill finally decides she’s ready to bite back, and the women band together to blindside Burton. You would think that would be the end of the line for Jonny Fairplay, especially when he gets robbed the chance to win the next immunity due to a bad twist (the jury got to participate in the trivia challenge as a team and obviously won; surprisingly enough, Fairplay was actually the frontrunner to win the challenge without the twist), but he manages to survive on the fact that Darrah is blatantly more of an immunity threat than him and she’s vulnerable for the first time in 3 tribals. So Darrah goes, and all Jonny Fairplay has to do to win Survivor is beat Sandra (who cannot compete in a challenge to save her life) and Lill (who looks to have the athletic ability of a sack of wet potatoes) in the final immunity challenge. Should be easy enough, right?

But then, out of *nowhere*, Lill suddenly pulls out the ability to balance undeterred for hours on end thanks to aerobic classes she took. And suddenly Jonny Fairplay finds himself on the bottom of things for once, begging Lill to take a deal, which she repeatedly refuses. Eventually, Jonny Fairplay falls, and Lill takes final immunity and ends his reign of terror over Pearl Islands. Maybe if he hadn't been such a manipulative prick to Lill, she would have accepted a deal. Maybe if he hadn’t given off the impression that he would irresponsibly spend the million dollars, she would have been compelled to take him to the final two instead of Sandra. But instead, he falls, all because he chose to the the villain. It’s the single greatest villainous downfall in Survivor history — there’s actually something that makes it even better, but before I get into that, there is one more relationship I want to highlight.

You may have noticed that I’ve said very little about Sandra in this writeup so far, considering that she’s one of the main characters of the season and another one who I rank top 5 of all time. Well, that’s because I wanted to save the best for last. As much as Jonny Fairplay was destined to clash with Savage and Rupert, he was all the more destined to have a very hostile relationship with the Queen of Survivor. Persona or not, Jonny Fairplay at the time of Pearl Islands is very much a vulgar, irresponsible, young playboy type. And Sandra, despite having the vocabulary to make a sailor blush, is very much put-together, mature, and already married with kids, all while being four months *younger* than him. Yes, you read that right. Sandra is younger than Jonny Fairplay. It’s hard to tell because she acts about 10 years older than she really is and he acts about 10 years younger than he really is. With all that in addition to the fact that the two both have very explosive personalities, it’s no wonder why they were the biggest rivals on the season.

Fairplay and Sandra have many humorous altercations throughout the season. The Sandra confessional at the top of this writeup (my single favorite confessional in Survivor history, by the way) is in response to the argument at which she boldly proclaimed that she, too, has the ability to increase the volume of her voice, what the fuck. Another one of my favorite confessionals ever (for completely different reasons) is given by Jonny Fairplay as he fumes after another dispute with the Queen:

“Her days are numbered. We have bigger threats to get rid of first, but she's not one of the final four. And I got a mil that says she won't be the final one!”

He could have said this about literally anybody. But not only did he happen to say it about the person who did, in fact, end up being the final one, not only did he say it about the person who was final one on the next season she was on (compare Jonny Fairplay’s return performance), but he said it about *the person he voted for to win the million dollars*! There’s no doubt in my mind that this confessional was ringing through his ears as he wrote Sandra’s name on the parchment. I can think of no better cap to their season-long rivalry. Jerri gets to deny Colby the win. Jason and Scot get to give Michele the votes she needs to win. Coby gets to cast his vote for Katie out of pure spite. Reed gets to vote for Jaclyn just so she outplaces Missy. Eliza gets to vote against Twila. But Jonny Fairplay has to hang his head in defeat and vote for Sandra, because the other option is even worse for him. He has completely and utterly lost, with no consolations to cling on to. And every bit of it was his own doing. That is the most beautifully poetic part of Jonny Fairplay’s downfall. And that immeasurably satisfying downfall, after an entire season of being the most hilarious dickwad the show has ever seen, is why Jonny Fairplay is the best Survivor character.

EchtGeenSpanjool: 2

Mikeramp72: 2

Nelsoncdoh: N/A (must be at least #5)

Edihau: 12

WaluigiThyme: 1

Jclarks074: 16

JAniston8393: 2

Average Placement: anywhere from 5.3 (if nelson’s #2) to 5.7 (if nelson’s #5). Could not mathematically be anywhere else but #2.

5 Comments

2021/12/13
23:00 UTC

Endgame #3

#3: Cirie Fields 1.0

another gif!!!

/u/EchtGeenSpanjool:

(4/21) Cirie is another someone I could talk about for hours. Perhaps one of the biggest figureheads for the show, Cirie’s first outing is never again matched in her subsequent attempts, as much as I love her in Micronesia. While I laud Kathy for her great growth arc, Cirie gives her a lot of competition, going from couch potato in danger of being the first boot, to one of the greatest players on the season (let’s be right – the best) and a community-wide icon. Above all, though, Cirie’s power as a character is really in who she is – her giggle and her humor carry her right to the top five of my ranking.

/u/mikeramp72:

Cirie. Like… Cirie! That’s really all that should be said but Cirie in Panama is absolutely a Kathy 1.0 rival of growth arc. Even if I don’t have her as high as probably the rest of my rankers, Cirie is not only one of the most fun people to watch, and watching her go from a terrified woman who just got up off the couch to play and then ended up being a master strategist and Survivor royalty, just perfect TV all around, and of course it helps that Cirie is fun to see as a person and as someone who interacts with the other lunatics around her.

/u/nelsoncdoh:

Cirie has the best growth arc of anyone in Survivor history. She goes from being afraid of *leaves* and looking like an easy first boot to catching fish and orchestrating a 3-2-1 vote to blindside the game’s biggest goat and position herself better for getting to the end. She also wonderfully fills the role of only sane person on Casaya, and her lovable personality and addictive giggle make every second of it enjoyable.

/u/jclarks074:

Cirie is perfect if she wins. The endgames of these Survivor rankdowns would’ve been so routine if Cirie had won Panama, since her run from being “the lady afraid to get off the couch” to leader of the strangest alliance in Survivor history to strategic pioneer to winner would have been impossible to defeat. In the big picture, Cirie falling short on a F4 tiebreaker becomes so bittersweet in hindsight because it was just the first of her many Survivor letdowns, but we didn’t quite know it at the time.

/u/edihau:

**Cirie Fields 1.0 (Panama, 4th)**

There are tons of reasons to love Cirie, and pretty much everyone recognizes how brilliant of a character she is. Going into this rankdown, she was the single-highest ranked player, on average. She's made it to endgame five times, and the worst we've ever ranked her is 14th. Furthermore, Cirie is one of the most memorable characters in *Survivor* history, and there's something important and significant to say about all four times she's played. Earlier this rankdown, I explored what Cirie 4.0's presence can tell us about Game Changers. So there's not just five good Cirie writeups out there; there are quite a lot.

With that said, I didn't want to put pressure on myself to write her entire *Panama* story with great reverence and detail. Sure, in theory it'd be a great capstone on my own rankdown experience, but in practice I'd probably just be plagiarizing the aforementioned wonderful writeups of rankdowns past. I do still think I can say something worthwhile, however:

---

The rest of my family has an on/off relationship with *Survivor*. If I can get them to sit in front of the TV with me, then they'll engage. But they'd also be perfectly happy to not do that as well. They didn't bother with 40 and 41 at all, and we had to binge-watch to get them through 39 in time for the finale. We've also seen a few old seasons together, and last summer, while I was going through older seasons, I got them to sit through *Panama* with me.

I'd been talking about this rankdown project for some time (and I've shared a few of my writeups with them), so discussion of which characters we liked happened constantly. We didn't share opinions all the time—they couldn't stand Shane and barely tolerated Courtney, for example. But without a doubt, Cirie was a shared favorite. If you take a look at our endgame, there are a lot of characters that more casual viewers would be confused by, if not outright bewildered. Even many /r/survivor users would be surprised by these choices. After all, once you start thinking about how to rank all 731 characters who have ever been on *Survivor*, your criteria start to change.

Of course, the fact that we analyze our rankings doesn't mean ours are more important. This kind of project doesn't attract a representative sample of *Survivor* fans, and the job for the show's producers is to get as many people watching as possible. Sometimes, that means they do ridiculous things that our crowd dislikes. I've seen plenty of discussion, both on the subreddit and in our discord, about modern *Survivor*'s formula breaks and what they mean for the future of the show, especially when they keep mentioning "drop the 4, keep the 1." And it's very easy to see that different audiences are being catered to here, and I genuinely get frustrated at some of the decisions I disagree with. And it's in tense moments like these that I am most grateful for Cirie 1.0.

In my very first writeup of the rankdown, I mentioned that when we see others on the island, we put ourselves in the other person's shoes and ask what we would have done if we were them. From this angle, there is no better character than Cirie. These days, if you don't know how to swim or aren't comfortable with living outdoors, it's immediately a huge liability. In *Panama*, this is how Cirie started, and her tribe was similarly nonplussed. 12 seasons in, you'd think that someone actually going out there to play *Survivor* would be ready for the actual survival part.

But if you're just sitting on your couch and watching? You don't have to know how to survive in the wilderness. You don't have to know how to relate to crazy tribemates. You don't need to be any good at the challenges. All you do from the couch is sit there and *empathize*. "Wouldn't that be fun," we think to ourselves, "to actually go out there and try to survive the elements, like Rupert and Stephenie managed to do?" This is part of the show's hook. And then Cirie does something that few of us have—she actually fulfills this hypothetical.

As it turns out, living in the wilderness is hard! And scary, and uncomfortable. Perhaps it's silly to be scared of leaves, but if we were whisked off the couch into the wilderness, we'd probably have a similar first episode to hers. But in spite of her initial weakness, Cirie is able to find a crack in her four-person tribe and stick around for another vote.

Now, skip ahead to the present day—Cirie is the very best *Survivor* to never win. We all remember the four ways she was sent home. The fourth, as we all know, was particularly ridiculous. And then, perhaps in a moment of inspiration, Probset asks her to say his catchphrase as he snuffs her torch: "the tribe has spoken." From one angle, this is completely ridiculous. As he'd just mentioned, not a single person had written her name down at that tribal. In fact, not a single person had written her name down *all season*.

But I'm not ranking Cirie 4.0 in this writeup. I'm ranking Cirie 1.0 alone. And so we can appreciate the symbolism from this line untainted by the awful moment that created it: **We** ***all*** **think of Cirie as one of us.** For as much as Probst has said, ["SHe GOt uP OFf THe cOUCh!"](https://i.redd.it/3ualoltka5651.jpg), a line like "sHE VOTed oUt hEr mOM!" is so much easier to make fun of. Cirie 1.0 is our audience surrogate, a person that almost everyone who's watched *Survivor* can relate to. And as better writeups have attested, Cirie 1.0 is the sane woman amongst a group of crazies, *and* she also has one of the best growth arcs ever. There have been more popular players in the past, but could you imagine, under any circumstances, Steph or Rupert saying that line? They may be ridiculously popular and huge inspirations in their own right, but they are not **one of us** in the same way.

Cirie is a character whose narrative is something that every kind of *Survivor* fan can relate to, and this ability to unite a divided audience makes for one of the best stories *Survivor* can ever create. Cirie 1.0 is more than something special. Because on top of having this brilliant story, she's one of the best *anything* to have ever played *Survivor*—strategist, confessionalist, role model, and yes, character. I think there's a lot you can tell about a *Survivor* fan based on the characters they dare to rank above Cirie 1.0.

Tomorrow, we find out the two characters whom r/survivorrankdownvi dared to rank above her...

EchtGeenSpanjool: 4

Mikeramp72: 12

Nelsoncdoh: N/A (must be at least #5)

Edihau: 4

WaluigiThyme: 11

Jclarks074: 10

JAniston8393: 1

Average Placement: anywhere from 6.3 (if nelson’s #2) to 6.7 (if nelson’s #5). Could not mathematically be anywhere else but #3.

3 Comments

2021/12/13
00:10 UTC

Endgame #4

#4: Sandra Diaz-Twine 2.0

Ooh! A Gif!

/u/EchtGeenSpanjool:

(12/21) Her Royal Majesty Sandra Diaz-Twine, ruler of Panama and Samoa, princess of Fiji, second of her name. While Sandra was already a great character in her first outing, her appearance in Heroes vs Villains and the one-two punch of both those seasons definitely solidifies her as the queen, both in the game and in the rankdown, enough to earn her two rankdown wins as well – it’s what the universe demands. Sandra is herself, a character that would be entertaining on most seasons, and surrounded by some of the greatest to play Survivor, she truly gets to shine even if not the biggest personality edit-wise.

/u/mikeramp72:

Just look at my Russell 2.0 mercy cut, reverse the roles so that Sandra is the grand conclusive anti-hero of Survivor history, and that alone can explain why Sandra 2.0 is my #4 of all time.

/u/nelsoncdoh:

On April Fools' Day, I pretended to wild-card this version of Sandra, and the plan at the time was to actually cut her at around 50 or so to get even more mileage out of that prank. Since then, however, I've changed my mind on her. I knew that despite her stellar gameplay, awesome quotes, and historical win, that *anyone* would have defeated Russell. Giving Sandra the status of a savior felt overblown to me, and still does. However, looking at her game more closely, you start to see the craftiness that went into her win, and my opinion of her *Game Changers* game is that it's more or less what we should have expected. Sandra is *really* good. I still have a few small issues with her; I would've loved to see a bit more of her relationship with Courtney, for example. But watching her work her magic is always a treat, and I'm glad to finally see both versions of her in endgame.

Endgame rank: 16

Personal rank: 31

While Sandra doesn’t get as much screentime the second time around, she absolutely makes the most of it. It’s amazing watching her win a second time using the exact same strategy, making an absolute clown out of Russell, and cementing her place as greatest Survivor player of all time.

/u/jclarks074:

Unbreakable, unbending, unyielding, immeasureable, immovable, invincible. The ancient samurai used to say, if you wanted to win the war, you had to cut off the head of the dragon. You, my friend, are the dragon, and I am the dragonslayer.

Heroes vs. Villains is the story of all of Survivor history coming together to reject Russell like a bad organ transplant, and it is fascinating to me that Sandra is the tip of the spear. In a way she can’t help be in this role since she’s the winner and the one that so directly humiliates Russell, but also…how perfect is it that Sandra gets to be the person that kicks the dirt on Russell’s Survivor grave?

Survivor’s problematic relationship with, and portrayal of, its female players has been a constant theme throughout this rankdown for me, and that certainly extends to Sandra. Survivor-slash-Jeff Probst has never been at all comfortable with the idea of Sandra Diaz-Twine being probably the best player in Survivor history, as we’ve seen both in how the show has altered its rules to limit “social players” as much as possible, and even in how Sandra’s victories were portrayed.

Sandra may have triumphed in Pearl Islands, but Rupert, Jonny Fairplay, Lill, and even Andrew Savage got bigger shares of the narrative than the season’s actual winner. While not as invisible as Sophie was in South Pacific, for instance, Sandra was enough of a relative afterthought in broader Survivor history that it was a bit of a surprise that was even asked back for a return appearance.

Sandra is an undeniably amazing TV presence, to the point that even the show had to acknowledge she would be a wonderful addition to the HvV cast. But even this carried a misinterpretation of Sandra’s character. As much as the Hero/Villain assignments were hastily thrown together, Sandra being a “villain” stood out as odd from the jump. The implication was clear - being a takes-no-shit, trash-talking woman makes you a villain in Survivor’s eyes.

The undermining continued even through the reunion show, where Sandra already has another million dollars salted away. Jeff Probst spends so much mental energy trying to “yeah, but…” Sandra’s victory, trying to infer and imply that Parvati (who Sandra had just thrashed), 1-For-5 Marino, or Mr. The Game Is Broken were not just better players, but not deserving of the Best Survivor Ever crown. Sandra’s victory broke Jeff’s brain to the point that he had to concoct an entire follow-up season just to hand Rob a win in a vain attempt to enforce Jeff’s opinion. Even 20 seasons later, Sandra is undermined again when Survivor (by design) has another two-time winner, and the show falls all over itself to designate Tony as the official best player of all time.

Sandra, however, never needed a mythology built around herself. She built her own - The Queen Stays Queen.

This meta layer of Survivor’s last 20 (now 21) seasons adds even more meaning to a HvV journey that was already amazing in the moment. HvV is in some ways a bad season to show to a new viewer since knowing the histories of the returning players is more rewarding, but the season also has a very universal truth. The funny, under-the-radar everywoman beats the two most hated players in the game. The story is as simple as that.

Sandra being overlooked becomes her biggest weapon in the game. Nobody seems to realize just how big a threat she is until it’s too late, since “not her” (whomever this was) always seemed like a more pressing concern to the other players than Mrs. As Long As It’s Not Me. Maybe it was some lingering memory of All-Stars that helped Sandra along, since the anti-winner sentiment was so strong that by HvV, the logic became that former winners couldn’t win a jury vote. This theory may have worked…in a final three that wasn’t comprised of two former winners and someone who couldn’t win Survivor if he played a million times.

All along the way, Sandra is as funny and charismatic as ever. You could have a 731-entry rankdown of Sandra quotes alone, gauged by both hilarity and incisiveness. Sandra has her finger on the pulse of the game like no other, to the point that her alleged “mistake” doesn’t matter. A criticism directed at Sandra’s HvV game is that her goal of eliminating Russell never actually succeeds, so she isn’t any kind of mastermind. My answer is that even if Russell had been voted out, it wouldn’t have mattered, since Sandra would’ve found a way to win anyway. In some alternate version of the season where Tyson isn’t dumb and Russell is voted out early, you would just have Sandra beating Boston Rob in a jury vote as Rob wonders how this happened again. In an alternate version where the heroes listen to Sandra at the merge, I have little doubt Sandra is able to overthrow J.T. during the remaining rounds - Game Changers is evidence enough of that.

With 21 seasons of hindsight, Heroes vs. Villains becomes the story of Sandra defeating what Survivor became. Russell Hantz is the avatar of a modern game that relies only on blindsides and scavenger hunts for idols, and Sandra beats him to a pulp.

EchtGeenSpanjool: 12

Mikeramp72: 4

Nelsoncdoh: N/A (must be at least #5)

Edihau: 16

WaluigiThyme: 6

Jclarks074: 1

JAniston8393: 6

Average Placement: anywhere from 6.7 (if nelson’s #2) to 7.1 (if nelson’s #5). Could not mathematically be anywhere else but #4.

2 Comments

2021/12/13
00:00 UTC

Endgame #5

#5: Benjamin “Coach” Wade 1.0

/u/EchtGeenSpanjool:

(18/21) A hot take appears! Coach is an undeniable icon in the rankdown circles, I don’t need to elaborate. Between his stories, mannerisms, interactions with Tyson, Debbie and Sierra, the entire dragonslayer arc, and the fact he made his assistant coach visit him while out in Brazil, the guy is a comedic legend, famously ending up as the #1 spot on the second coming of the funny 115. I am not as high on Coach as many others are, as I feel a consistent story somewhat lacks, but I very much see what makes him so enjoyable.

/u/nelsoncdoh:

The man, the myth, the Dragonslayer. "JT, did you hear me shout, 'Dragonslayer'?" Coach has the kind of narcissistic personality that you can't help but love. There are plenty of characters who are full of themselves, but no one is like him. I mentioned my love for Coach 3.0 earlier in this project, and I could talk all day about why I think the developments from his first two appearances to his third actually work, but the original Coach reigns supreme nonetheless. I would love to see him win this whole thing.

Endgame rank: 3

Personal rank: 3

An explorer. A conductor. A trumpeter. A kayaker. An adventurer. A soccer coach. A 40-year-old man LARPing as a dragon-slaying warrior. A legend. And most of all, the man responsible for turning Tocantins from a boring rehash of Cook Islands into a very memorable and entertaining season.

/u/jclarks074:

https://preview.redd.it/qwrzy8yazt481.jpg?width=257&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc18b0f1930e168ca6eaf9898143364f028885af

Benjamin Wade would love to have you believe that “Coach” was in fact a wholly fictional persona meant for the show, but don’t buy it. The real man was there, this was just Ben Wade with the volume turned to 11. The real, petty, arrogant man who was made tolerable by the fact that nobody on Tocantins took him seriously for an instant. The court jester who thought he was a warrior knight, Coach is a cartoonish punching bag who kept coming back for more, and never stopped being hilarious.

/u/mikeramp72: I’m going to… hold off on Coach’s writeup for now. Life’s been real busy lately and I just have not had the time to truly finish the vision I had for this writeup and I promise it’ll actually be fulfilled soon but for now, I just can’t leave my favorite character of all time with something half assed… something truly special and unique is coming for Coach.

[Placeholder]

EchtGeenSpanjool: 18

Mikeramp72: 1

Nelsoncdoh: 8

Edihau: 3

WaluigiThyme: 2

Jclarks074: 14

JAniston8393: 5

Average Placement: 7.3

4 Comments

2021/12/12
06:17 UTC

Endgame #6

#6: Sandra Diaz-Twine 1.0

/u/EchtGeenSpanjool:

(6/21) Her Royal Majesty Sandra Diaz-Twine, ruler of Panama and Samoa, princess of Fiji, first of her name. To me, it’s surprising it’s Sandra’s HvV iteration that has a higher average placement and has even won the rankdown twice: while both are endgame-worthy, I much prefer Sandra’s first outing. The Sandra we get is so much truer and more developed than she’d ever be in another outing. Her rivalry with Russell wishes it could live up to her feud with Jon in the Pearl Islands, and as much as we love Courtney Yates, her relationship to Sandra is not what Christa was to her in her first outing. Sandra in her first outing is a character you root for easily, which makes the climax of this season so, so much more enjoyable.

I mean… she can get loud too, what the fuck? Two Sandras in endgame everyone, fucking finally! I’ve always said Pearl Islands is the tale of the hero, the villain, and the Sandra, and of course that third aspect knocks her role in the season out of the park. Obviously her arc on the season is important and a crucial part of my favorite season being Pearl Islands, but Sandra 1.0 as a character and her pure entertainment value is absolutely the highlight of her appeal to me. She’s a no filtered loudmouth who always tells it like it is, close to the degree of Sue Hawk, and a fantastic confessionalist, character, all of it, and the fact that she ends up winning the season, well, I honestly don’t think I could formulate a better ending if I tried.

/u/nelsoncdoh:

From her very first confessional, we could tell that Sandra was someone special. If there's one person whom I'd want to see win unspoiled, it would have been Sandra. Seeing the queen at work in her first season makes for a brilliant enough character, but the come-from-behind victory makes her all the more brilliant.

Endgame rank: 6

Personal rank: 7

Not only is Sandra really good at Survivor, she’s also hilarious. She swears like a sailor, does not give a single crap about what anyone thinks of her, and spouts some of the best quotes the show has ever seen. Of course, the fact that she wins makes it all better.

https://preview.redd.it/ptsbw3xayf481.jpg?width=596&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa13da82957390e3423ba55741589f79bc449a67

The Queen who came to see playing Survivor as a business trip began with “Damn, I didn’t think I’d come out here to work.” Sandra is so incredibly quotable and funny even in a season where she is arguably the third-best character (maybe even fourth depending how you feel about Lill), she is such a complete star.

/u/jclarks074:

[Placeholder]

EchtGeenSpanjool: 6

Mikeramp72: 13

Nelsoncdoh: 6

Edihau: 6

WaluigiThyme: 4

Jclarks074: 3

JAniston8393: 15

Average Placement: 7.6

3 Comments

2021/12/11
03:16 UTC

Endgame #7

#7: Sean Rector

/u/EchtGeenSpanjol

(7/21) Sean barely makes the top third of my rankings here, but that’s not to mean he isn’t worthy of the #1 spot he found himself in Survivor Rankdown V. Sean is so very Sean, and he truly has it all. We see him shooting the shit and being the funniest motherfucker on the island by a decent amount of miles, but we also see him in a more serious role within the dynamic of the merge tribe and everything surrounding it. The crowning moment, of course, is the blindside of Johnny pots-n-pans, which is an emotional high for anyone who had been rooting for Sean up until this point – and his role there has only solidified his role among my favourites.

Sean is absolutely among the most important Survivor castaways ever, and in definitively every way, he’s the total package. He’s a great narrator, great player, great character to see interact with everyone else. His character arc rivals Kathy’s on this season. He has many iconic moments throughout the season, ranging from every emotion possible. Not only is Sean one of the funniest people on the show but also is a massive figure in terms of his discussion of race and how racial biases affect him and so many other people on and off the show, and a lot of the things he’d talked about still hold up to this day. The fact that Sean hasn’t played again since is baffling, as any time we see Sean on the show he adds so much insight and makes every single second on screen more valuable. I’m so happy we’re at the point where he’s always going to be a unanimous endgamer.

A weird name to have as a rankdown winner alongside Rich and Sandra, but I can live with it. He is an entertaining presence at every single turn, and even better, he also makes you think. Like the other rankdown winners, he earns his place in endgame partly based on his historical significance, and I have no problem celebrating these kinds of characters. Take it away, nelson!

Endgame rank: 11

Personal rank: 15

I’ve said a few times that Maraamu has one of my favorite overall stories of any tribe on Survivor, and Sean is the quintessential character to it. “Always bet on black” is one of the best voting confessionals ever.

/u/jclarks074:

Anyone else think that Ian looks like John Lennon in this photo? Ah, who knows.

Sean Rector is not the best Survivor character of all time, no matter what SRV will have you believe. That ranking was inflated enough that it almost made me want to target Sean earlier, but him just getting to an endgame is completely valid. It’s pretty sad that for as much as Jeff Probst likes to pat himself on the back and pretend he’s progressive, he wouldn’t cast Sean on the show today in a million years. Or, if Sean was on the show today, he would be reduced to “Sean is lazy” or some other insultingly minimized characterization.

/u/nelsoncdoh:

[Placeholder]

EchtGeenSpanjool: 7

Mikeramp72: 5

Nelsoncdoh: 1

Edihau: 11

WaluigiThyme: 14

Jclarks074: 2

JAniston8393: 20

Average Placement: 8.6

9 Comments

2021/12/09
04:04 UTC

Endgame #8

#8: Ian Rosenberger

I briefly touched upon Ian in the Tom writeup, but god what a tragic character. Ian’s deterioration in the last few episodes of Palau all leading up to the fateful Final Immunity Challenge is one of the most gripping and emotional stretches of TV I’ve ever seen. He’s the only 6 time endgamer for a reason, just saying.

/u/nelsoncdoh:

There was a time when I was even higher on Ian than I am now, though I ultimately buy critics' opinions that he wasn't as central a focus as most of the other endgamers—even if I still don't think his story was told in just four episodes. The thing that remains intriguing and darkly fascinating about the whole saga is the deep look into both his and Tom's character. And then, as you rewatch the season, you also get a closer look at Katie's mindset as well, and it all starts to fit together. My favorite thing about Ian is that his final decision still feels like an ambiguous one, knowing everything that we do. Nonetheless, that's the choice he makes. The only perennial endgamer, and for good reason.

Endgame rank: 7

Personal rank: 9

Poor Ian. It’s heartbreaking to watch his spirit get crushed by his own actions over the course of the season, yet at the same time it’s sweet to see him ultimately choose friendship over money and glory.

/u/jclarks074:

https://preview.redd.it/g9m803yf38081.png?width=340&format=png&auto=webp&s=96d24820e4621c44e78fd1ace0ab8db0d63f0fcf

Tom and Ian, Ian and Tom. Some kind of bromance, twisted father-son parallel, and just a simple Survivor mind-fuck of a situation all rolled into one.

/u/EchtGeenSpanjool:

After careful consideration, Ian has found himself at the top of my ranking for this endgame. I’m delighted to see him finish up high (sure, would’ve preferred higher, but this will do) and as a cherry on top, I now get to waste a few minutes of your time trying to convince you why he deserves the top spot of the rankdown.

Obviously, a character is nothing outside of the context of the season they appeared in. This case is no exception, especially as I see Palau as one of the most special seasons that Survivor has produced. Strategy is plenty fun, but a season really shines once that intertwines with the stories of the people behind the strategy, the people that left home behind, for one reason or the other, to play Survivor on the other side of the globe. Palau manages to do that in the most important places. Sure it doesn’t with everyone – while Palau’s highs are high, it also has quite a few unremarkable characters – but when it does, it does it just so very right.

Life in paradise

It’s not crazy to assume most of you know the tragic story of Ulong, losing time after time, going through various phases of anger, sadness and desperation, dwindling down until they only have Steph remaining. It’s a very unique story, one that results in Steph often being a popular character in these circles. The other side of the coin, obviously, is Koror. While less important in this early phase of Palau, it certainly has its own things going on.

Ian is right there from the very start, literally, as he is the one to start the schoolyard pick, which slowly but surely rolls into the formation of both tribes. While Koror seems older, Ian is content with his tribe, saying he wanted a “wise” tribe. Odds don’t look that good, as Ulong seems younger and fitter, but well… we know how that turned out huh. Ian in this while takes on a central role in the tribe, and it only solidifies as time goes on. He provides, is athletic, and everyone gets along with him. The one time they go to tribal council, Willard is the easy boot, and there is little conflict, so nothing really much happens. We just get to see Ian be his joyful, likeable self, and who could resist this little ball of friendliness?

Ulong keeps getting decimated, and all of a sudden Steph is the only one left. She joins Koror and everyone realizes that soon, Koror has to turn on itself. The role divisions in Koror have started to become clear, and while Coby tries his best to scramble, Stephanie runs it right back to the top dogs, and we start to see the meaner side, the business side of Ian for the first time, as he equates voting Coby out to a mafia execution. Janu leaves without much of a ruckus to disturb Ian, leading the game into the final 7, which is where the perfect storm of Palau really starts to unravel.

The beginning of the end

It’s at this point that Tom loses immunity for the first time this merge, and it gets people thinking. Most notably, Katie tries to rally the women together, and it gives us the amazing “Caryn sucks” moment which we shall never forget. It won’t work, and Katie runs to Ian instead. It’s the start of the collapse of the Palauan paradise, because while Ian has an amazing friendship with Katie, he also has an adorable relationship with Tom, as they have been the top of the totem pole, and have a bit of friendly competition, never really becoming a feud, but more like… I dunno, a somewhat brotherly relationship? Still, this relationship is mostly one of friendship and trust, and Ian can’t and won’t go back on it just like that. So Stephanie leaves first, before we take another step towards the end.

While Ian still has a great relationship with Katie, cracks start to appear when the latter eliminates the former from a reward challenge, leading Ian to doubt his faith in Katie. Knowing that she is wary of his buddy Tom, the two men convene and decide that Gregg is too dangerous to leave in the game over Caryn; after all, that could mean either Tom or Ian leaves at the final 5. In this fight for power, Ian pulls a dirty trick by telling Katie he is willing to force rocks mere minutes before tribal council. While it works and Katie votes for Gregg, it’s an act of desperation, something that not only is risky but also goes against the trust he and Katie are supposed to have in each other.

And matters get worse. Ian breaks a promise to Katie and takes Tom on the car reward, and Katie is FUMING. She feels like she lost her best friend in the game and is not having any of it, as she rages on and vows to take one of the men out. The tensions between Katie and Ian get to a climax and it leads to a fight that you see hurts the both of them, surely fueled by the fact this is day 33 or so, and eventually, it shows a key difference: where Tom brings out his The Godfather-like personality while Ian is touched and hurt by the fight and ends up tearfully asking for forgiveness.

Survivor breaks Ian here, and it’s only the start of it.

Catharsis

Tom pretty expectedly wins immunity as the final 4 rolls around, just as Ian was working up the courage to vote him out. And honest and open and friendly as Ian is… he decides to tell Tom as much. And while Ian seems to be proud of his honesty and finally daring to vote for Tom, the latter obviously doesn’t quite appreciate this sentiment, and ends up turning against him. Ian wins fire, and now is left with both of his best friends in the game, both of whom he has hurt, and have hurt him, and who he has lied to. After his earlier fight with Katie, he is now getting roasted by Tom, after a full month and some days out on the island.

It wears him down. He doesn’t want to be mean, he doesn’t want to be a villain, and it’s messing with him. Still he holds on for twelve whole hours in the final immunity challenge. What went on in his head while on those buoys will always partially be mystery, we do know the outcome it brings.

Ian needs to make right with Tom and Katie, and feels like the way to do so is to sacrifice his spot in the game.

And that’s it for Ian. While he started out slow and loveable, we can see the game wearing on him as time goes on, driving him to his actions in the final few days and that oh so (in)famous dive from the buoy in the dark night of day 38. It’s a shocker for sure and a prime example of how Survivor is just so much more than crunching numbers. But why is this my top pick for this endgame?

Let me rewind back to when I started this writeup, where I talked about strategy intertwining with the person behind the strategy. It’s what I enjoy the most in Survivor. Yes, minority idol plays are fascinating – and I mean that, I am a big advocate for modern Survivor not being as bad as the rankdown community loves to say – but ultimately, the inner workings of people that influence the course of the season fascinate me the most. The inner discourse between what your head thinks and what your heart wants, the battle between being moral and being selfish for the sake of gameplay. It’s why I enjoy both Kelly and Sue more than I enjoy Richard Hatch, but Ian’s story does it ever so slightly better than Borneo.

In Palau, we get to see the gradual transformation from life in low-calorie paradise to a place of anguish, regret, hurt and resentment. The game of Survivor breaks Ian like it has never broken anyone up until now, and it’s being sold to us as entertainment. Amazing. The gut punch of this all is even harsher because we know Ian as this loveable, sparkly, friendly, do-no-wrong optimist who doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Every single one of the first 30 or so days of the game comes together to facilitate the slope Ian slides down at the final 6, and while it’s morbid, it’s so very fascinating.

That is the peak of Survivor for me.

EchtGeenSpanjool: 1

Mikeramp72: 6

Nelsoncdoh: 14

Edihau: 7

WaluigiThyme: 10

Jclarks074: 13

JAniston8393: 13

Average Placement: 9.14

6 Comments

2021/12/08
04:27 UTC

Update

So, our endgame guy kinda disappeared on us, so i’m stepping in to finish up endgame. i’m collecting everyone’s writeups and rankings now! there is a confirmed order at this point so hopefully endgame #8 goes live in the coming days

3 Comments

2021/11/29
14:39 UTC

Endgame #9

#9: Richard Hatch 1.0

/u/EchtGeenSpanjool:

(16/21) An essential for any endgame, it’s hardly a surprise the first ever winner himself has found his way up here. While past rankdowns have always spoken full of joy about Richard Hatch, even crowning him the winner twice, I tend to be somewhat lower on him. While Rich is undeniable as a great character and a game pioneer, I personally gravitate more towards the heavy emotional arcs that surround Sue and even Kelly on that very first season. That’s not to say though that Hatch doesn’t deserve the lyrical writeup that probably awaits him: he is rightfully an icon of the series through and through.

/u/mikeramp72:

Richard Hatch. That’s all.

/u/nelsoncdoh:

/u/edihau:

The founding father of *Survivor*: a 39-year old corporate guy who enjoys naked walks on the beach. Imagine a US founding father who behaved like *that*. From the first confessional, we see an enthralling "villain" define the meta for every season following it. If not for the historical precedent, you might argue that Richard wouldn't belong here. But Richard's character *is* the historical precedent. He's a complex, three-dimensional documentary subject whose homosexuality was just *there* (rather than *the focus*), and his relationships with his competitors and the game mean so much more because there was no prior ruleset. He's not my absolute favorite, but I have no problem seeing him in endgame again. There’s no doubt that he belongs here.
Endgame rank: 10
Personal rank: 14

/u/WaluigiThyme:

Contrary to early fans’ perception, there was no one better to be Survivor’s first winner than the cocky, fat, gay nudist who had an amazing read on the social and strategic dynamics of the show from day one. He’s very charismatic, takes the show exactly as seriously as it deserves, and his win sets the stage for Survivor’s future in a very good way.

/u/jclarks074

/u/JAniston8393:

#9: Richard Hatch 1.0 (Borneo, 1st)

Apart from Rachel Green 1st and Alex Levy 2nd, creating an all-time television character rankdown is impossible. There are literally hundreds of thousands of entries to gauge, so not even the Survivor Rankdown IV group could finish it quickly.

But in this hypothetical ranking….Richard Hatch finishes high on the list.

You can’t talk about Survivor without talking about Richard Hatch. To the average person, Rich is still the face of the show after 21 years, much moreso than any other contestant who has played since, more than any other Borneo character, and more than Jeff Probst (as much as it would pain Jeff to admit this). If Survivor itself launched reality shows as a mainstream TV experience, Richard goes from being just the biggest figure in Survivor history to one of the more secretly influential figures in broadcast history.

There’s a reason “outwit” comes first in Survivor’s motto, and Rich was the first one to realize it. The actual living-outdoors survival elements are also obviously crucial, but that’s not the point of Survivor. If you only wanted to challenge yourself by braving nature, you can set up a tent in your backyard and not go indoors for 39 days. If you want to be on Survivor, however, you want to win a million dollars, and the survival elements are just a means to an end.

It’s for this reason that Richard may have been the ideal first winner, which isn’t really a compliment. Richard winning captured the concept of Survivor as an all-around game, rather than who can make the best fires or who can win the most challenges. But it is also unfortunately fitting that this future tax cheat who committed a sexual assault on camera is the face of this flawed, ugly, and often disgusting show. For as much as we’re fans of this show, I would hope everyone has had those moments of self-awareness wondering why you still watch Survivor, or did this show really need to exist. Since that is the other side of the coin - if almost anyone else in Borneo wins, does Survivor catch the world’s imagination to nearly the same extent?

This is the future, however, but let’s go back to the past and the year 2004. To once again recap my history with Survivor, I began watching the show with Vanuatu and Palau, then went back to catch up on the older seasons. I went into watching Borneo for the first time knowing what to expect from some characters, since again, it can’t be understated how much the first couple of seasons permeated pop culture. With Richard, I knew he won, and I knew he was this legendary villain of all villains.

So imagine my surprise when Rich came off as mostly a very engaging, likeable person. Even his own tribemates refer to him as a sweetheart and as a compassionate guy, at least around the time of the merge. He is arrogant, but only by about 15 or 20 percent of the way past “confident.” He is an incredibly engaging speaker in confessionals, and is so up front and so matter-of-fact about his approach to the game that while you might not like Tagi pagonging Pagong, you can’t argue the logic. What separates Richard from a Russell or a Boston Rob is that Richard’s confessionals always have a twinge of doubt, as in his plan “should” work, not Russell or Rob saying that their plans will obviously work.

Richard essentially makes it impossible for him to be voted out, between building the core Tagi alliance early and catching so much fish that he checks off the provider/outdoors survivor box of the Survivor experience. He wins over everyone he needs to win over for a different reason, and by the time the greater resentment has started to turn against him in the game, it’s too late for anyone to do anything about it.

And, he does this despite some obvious elements to his self that stood out more in 2000 than they do now. An openly gay atheist would not have been anyone’s pick to win Survivor in 2000, yet Richard makes no secret about who he is. He also irritates the group with his propensity for walking around naked, which is difficult to see as game strategy in the wake of All-Stars and how Richard clearly has problems with boundaries and common decency. But Richard being naked in Borneo also has the effect of making the rest of the cast take him a little less seriously, even on a subconscious level. As in, how much of a mastermind can the naked guy be?

Rich being naked is performative and silly, but it doesn’t have an impact on anyone’s game - compare this to how Dr. Sean irritates everyone with his half-brained alphabet strategy. Or even how the Sue/Kelly schism ultimately sinks both of their games, and how Kelly .

No move illustrates Richard’s knowledge of the game more than his decision to quit the F3 challenge. It is a perfect move that weaponizes Kelly being a challenge beast, since she is more likely than Rudy to win that challenge, so Kelly is the one who votes out the beloved Rudy. If Rich wins and has to vote Rudy out, he loses Rudy’s vote and loses the game, so he sidesteps that trap entirely.

We only call it “Survivor: Borneo” in hindsight, since in the first season it was just “Survivor.” So Richard Hatch won Survivor both literally and figuratively, since for better or worse, he is still the show’s signature champion, and by any possible measure one of its very best characters. It is easy to see why he has won two rankdowns already and why (speaking of “performative and silly”) he should always be a fixture in any endgame.

EchtGeenSpanjool: 16

Mikeramp72: 3

Nelsoncdoh: 10

Edihau: 10

WaluigiThyme: 12

Jclarks074: 12

JAniston8393: 4

Average Placement: 9.6

1 Comment

2021/11/17
21:22 UTC

Endgame #10

#10: Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien 1.0

https://preview.redd.it/6k2snrmix0081.png?width=310&format=png&auto=webp&s=eef49acbc3ff5b4a39f5a7e8a4e4cd8ee1c37c0d

/u/EchtGeenSpanjool:

(5/21) Just rounding out my top 5 in this endgame is perhaps the best “Main Character” of the first decade of Survivor’s long run. While some of the most loved seasons have multiple people that take the spotlight (think Sandra and Fairplay, and Tom and Ian) I feel that Marquesas is truly Kathy’s world and the others are just living in it (yes, as much as I love Sean and want him to succeed in this endgame, I do stand by this). Kathy and her arc are something I could probably talk about for at least an hour on end, but as I have to keep to a blurb here, I’ll again gush at her being the charismatic, loveable, rootable yet frustrating and unpredictable ruler of Marquesas.

The original growth arc, original motherly Survivor figure, absolutely a legend of the show in her own right, I don’t have anything but great things to say about her arc and story on this season, and I’m so thrilled she’s back in endgame after a notable absence. Kathy is a massive highlight of Marquesas for me and she isn’t even the best character on the season, we’ll get to him, but all in all, Kathy is fantastic and everyone else who has tried to replicate her has failed to recapture the magic (besides Cirie)

/u/nelsoncdoh:

If you're watching old-school *Survivor*, you're doing it because of characters like Kathy. She undergoes quite the transformation out there on the Marquesas islands, and she's such an archetypal example of the "growth arc" character that we had to go meta on her last time. I can't wait to see what jc comes up with.
Endgame rank: 17
Personal rank: 32

The classic growth arc that begins with Kathy on the bottom and ends with her being voted out as the biggest threat to win is timeless. It helps that she’s super entertaining, too. I absolutely love her scene with Rob in the merge episode. Very happy to see her back in endgame.