Day 32 - Final Tribal Council

[Jeff Probst]

Alright thanks Lex,

GoddessGina, close us out please.

[Gina]

Firstly, congratulations guys on making the final 3! I'm proud of all of you, and all of you deserve to be sitting there. But hey, I understand that you had to take me out. I know I was the most intelligent, charming and beautiful one left in the game so no hard feelings .

Hope you’ve had as great as a time at this tribal council as I have.

Jury management has been a key part of this game. Being able to put a knife in someone’s back and still have them turn around and put your name on the parchment is an incredibly important skill for a winner to have- maybe the most important. Diplomacy is important, but so is accurately reading your opponents’ perception of you.

My question is a little different, and is designed to see who is the most aware of their jury management skills.

What I’d like to see from each of you is: I'd like you to rank the 9 members of the jury in order of most likely to least likely to vote for you, and give a brief statement on your justification. You don’t have to address each and every ranking, but talk to me in broad strokes. Who do you think you have in the bag? Who do you think would never vote for you in a million years? Why do you feel you've failed to capture certain individuals' votes?

Oh and, Please, for the love of god and all that is holy, be concise and brief as you can. Please. I’m begging!

[Linda]

Alright thanks Lex,

GoddessGina, close us out please.

ah, this must be why the hosts think our Final 3 "reflects bad on us". Gina was so close :P

[Jeff Probst]

Alright thanks Lex,

GoddessGina, close us out please.

ah, this must be why the hosts think our Final 3 "reflects bad on us". Gina was so close :P

Ichiro must be one of your sources.

[Gina]

Alright thanks Lex,

GoddessGina, close us out please.

ah, this must be why the hosts think our Final 3 "reflects bad on us". Gina was so close :P

Ichiro must be one of your sources.

Don't act like you weren't rooting for me, Probst!

[Linda]

That is a FANTASTIC question Gina.

I think it's easier to rank from the bottom up if that is ok with you?

9. Kim P - she hates me, called me a psycho, and I didn't answer her question
8. Gina - I believe you saw me as a goat and don't respect my game, though I think this is the level where I at least have an above 0% chance of getting a vote, though VERY very unlikely
7. Lex - As I suspected, he's pretty spitten with Gabriel, and while I think he COULD be convinced, his bromance will be hard to topple
6. Kim J - came in saying I had the least shot at her vote, I betrayed her and didn't fight for her.
5. Clarence - the complete wild card. No idea where his is going, so I'm putting him right in the middle, and I do think I answered his question best(even if it was not to his satisfaction)
4. Patricia - believe this vote leans other ways, but I do think she had respect for me as a whole, and we got along very well.
3. Sean - alliance, though I don't see it anywhere near a done deal. Think he understands my game even though I feared he didn't
2. Vecepia - see Sean
1. Sarah - well she outright said I was most likely to get her vote, and I definitely respected her most as "Cleopatra" :P

Honestly, these answers may be very very off and I will be the first to accept this. I am not arrogant enough to say I have anyone's votes in the bags, though I am pretty sure I do not have Kim P's or you vote Gina, with the not being super high either

I think a large part of this is that people don't think I was playing the game I was playing, but being drug along, because I was an emotional mess. And it i a fact that I was a mess, but I do hope I've proven that beneath that mess, I still made the decisions that were best for me, playing as was best for me, even when I had my moments.

[Gabriel]

What I’d like to see from each of you is: I'd like you to rank the 9 members of the jury in order of most likely to least likely to vote for you, and give a brief statement on your justification. You don’t have to address each and every ranking, but talk to me in broad strokes. Who do you think you have in the bag? Who do you think would never vote for you in a million years? Why do you feel you've failed to capture certain individuals' votes?

Least likely.
1. Sarah Jones and Kim Johnson.

Sarah has obviously been someone that has a distaste for me. Even in her question, she said she had nothing for me. She doesn't seem to respect the game I played while I was playing it or now that I've told everyone what I was doing when I was doing it. Kim is a bit sad because she seemed to respect my answer, but she still said she was going with her prevote, which wasn't for me. I assume it was for Lindsey, which I can understand.

2. Kim Powers and Clarence Black.

They both seemed very adamant in my responses and didn't really have good things to say about me when they were asking questions. I think I might be able to change Kim's mind and maybe open her eyes and let her know what I was doing and why I didn't make such an effort to connect with everyone, and Clarence seems to think I was asleep for the whole game even though I was a big reason in why he left.

3. Patricia Jackson.

She seemed really open about who she was wanting to vote for and I'm not completely sure if she respects what I did or if she respects Lindsey's game more.

4. Vecepia Towery, Sean Rector, and Gina Crews.

Once again, Sean and Vecepia are paired up. They seemed to be people that really did respect my gameplay and that's something that I take as a possibility to have their vote. Gina, you seem to be open as well, and even though you were closest to Lindsey, I think that you might at least take my game into consideration and possibly vote for me.

5. Lex Van den Berghe.

I'm not exactly sure if he's wanting to vote for me now anymore or what. Lindsey's answers were well thought about but I put a lot of effort into mine as well, and he was very impressed and respected the game I played. I think if there's anyone I can look forward to voting for me, it's Lex.

Thanks, Gina!

[Linda]

was that concise enough?

[Gabriel]

Goes from least likely to most likely, by the way. I forgot to add Most Likely at the bottom of the list.

[Kim J]

5. Lex Van den Berghe.

[Gina]

was that concise enough?

Yes, thank you! I thought I'd give you guys a shorter answer after the walls o' text you had to write for most of the other questions.

[Lindsey]

Firstly, congratulations guys on making the final 3! I'm proud of all of you, and all of you deserve to be sitting there. But hey, I understand that you had to take me out. I know I was the most intelligent, charming and beautiful one left in the game so no hard feelings .

Hope you’ve had as great as a time at this tribal council as I have.

Jury management has been a key part of this game. Being able to put a knife in someone’s back and still have them turn around and put your name on the parchment is an incredibly important skill for a winner to have- maybe the most important. Diplomacy is important, but so is accurately reading your opponents’ perception of you.

My question is a little different, and is designed to see who is the most aware of their jury management skills.

What I’d like to see from each of you is: I'd like you to rank the 9 members of the jury in order of most likely to least likely to vote for you, and give a brief statement on your justification. You don’t have to address each and every ranking, but talk to me in broad strokes. Who do you think you have in the bag? Who do you think would never vote for you in a million years? Why do you feel you've failed to capture certain individuals' votes?

Oh and, Please, for the love of god and all that is holy, be concise and brief as you can. Please. I’m begging!

Concise and brief? What's that!

FAIRLY CERTAIN
The following people will most likely write my name down.
1. Kim P - I mean... Duh. I think I can rest assured that I at least won't have zero tomorrow night. You all read her jury statement! And she was one of my closest allies and I didn't even vote for her on her way out.
2. Kim J - Someone else who I worked with and pretty much said in their jury statement they were probably going to vote for me.

THE JURY'S OUT... LITERALLY
The following people could go either way.
3. Sarah - She had her problems with me but she has issues with all three finalists. I don't expect her to go my way, but I wouldn't be absolutely shocked if she did.
4. Gina - You are hard for me to read. I do think the way that I voted you out was pretty harsh but I can see you as the forgiving type since it was good gameplay. Overall, I think you're the rational type of juror who votes based on who they think played the best game - and I don't know if you think that's me.

PROBABLY NOT
5. Sean - I mean, he pretty much told me that I wasn't fit for the game of Survivor. Once again he had problems with all 3 finalists but I think his problems with me are too great to overcome in the jury vote.
6. Patricia - I think I answered her questions well and I don't think I specifically did anything wrong to her or handling her jury vote... I just think she would just much rather vote for Gabriel, which is okay.
7. Vecepia - My main fault in my social game was probably that I didn't get to know Vee as much. I don't expect her to go my way.
8. Clarence - I don't know if my answer to his question was my strongest answer, as well as the fact that he doesn't seem to like my game very much to begin with.

NOT IN A MILLION YEARS
9. Lex - He said he despised my strategy and thought I was one dimensional. I disagree, but Survivor is a game that is all about perception and perception is reality.

[Gina]

Alrighty, thanks for the great answers from all of you! Good luck!

[Jeff Probst]

Alright, thank you jury, some great questions tonight, some real stinkers (SEAN)... but there you have it.

Final 3, you'll have one last opportunity to close us out by SUMMING up what you wanted to say tonight and why you deserve their votes. Take your time to post. I'll ask that no other jurors post after this point, not even smileys.

I'd love to reveal the winner tonight but it will have to wait until tomorrow night's festivities. You can find the schedule in the treemail forum.

Good luck and good night!

[Lex]

5. Lex Van den Berghe.

[Jeff Probst]

Votes will not be due until 7:30c/8:30e. All jurors should take their time in voting for the winner and leave a reason why they voted in their confessionals.

The Reunion will start at 8c/9e, and the vote reveal will be immediately afterwards followed by the Identity reveal and the post-show wrap party afterwards.

[Holly Hoffman]

Alright, thank you jury, some great questions tonight, some real stinkers (SEAN)... but there you have it.

Final 3, you'll have one last opportunity to close us out by SUMMING up what you wanted to say tonight and why you deserve their votes. Take your time to post. I'll ask that no other jurors post after this point, not even smileys.

I'd love to reveal the winner tonight but it will have to wait until tomorrow night's festivities. You can find the schedule in the treemail forum.

Good luck and good night!

[Linda]

Alright, I want to thank 8 of you for your questions and honest opinions, and I hope I've been able to put to rest the notion that I wasn't playing the game at all, even if I do not get your votes. You have all been fantastic to play with, and this has been the experience of my summer

I feel I had to adapt to the game frequently. I assessed my chances of winning would have to come with a certain few people, and therefore I made sure to make it to the end with these people, sticking with those I needed to stick with until I no longer needed them. Even when one of them pissed me off continually, I did not let my emotions get in the way, and even though I've been an emotional basketcase during the game, I also did not vote people off due to my emotions, but due to my game. I also ask no pity for my emotional outbursts, becasue that would be hypocritical of me, and it is certainly fair for you to judge me on that as well.

I, like I said, think I was very adaptable in this game, talking with everyone, letting people think I was with them, even if they thought I was a number as opposed to a strategist, and I made sure that every vote off from Final 8 onward benefited me in some way. My strategic acumen was still there, as can be seen from my Frank vote and alliance switch, to plans that unfortunately never took root but would have resulted in better results for people if they had listened to me(like voting Gina at Final 9).

I evolved in this game, from thinking I could honestly be a social, but strategic bot who wouldn't make stupid decisions or get emotionally affected, to actually allowing myself to be affected, and not just be loyal as the easy path to the end. I also think my story showed me harnessing my emotions to become more strategic(though more UTR) than I was before hand. After all, if my emotions ruled my game, would Lindsey and I be sitting her together(which incidently I think her/my alliance on and offness may become one of the better story arcs from Stranded...hosts is there a chance at that? :D)? No. So I hope that while I did not look impressive coming into this, that you all understand my game a lot better now

Thank you for your consideration, and I love each and every one of the 8 of you I am addressing :)

[Lindsey]

Well, this has been quite a ride, hasn't it?

I'm leaving tonight more confident in my game than when I walked in. Do I think I'll win? Not at all. But I've personally become more proud of myself as I've had this chance to sift through my thoughts more and think about things more.

Reiterating what I already said in my answer to Lex's question... I think I played the most well-rounded game of this final three. I won the most individual immunity challenges. I think it's already been stated enough that I truly believe that I had the best social game as well. And I believe my strategy is being downplayed. Social game IS strategy. Strategy doesn't always have to be making big, ballzy strategic moves and orchestrating every vote. Because look at what happened in this game when you did? If you came across as being "too strategic" or "too much of a threat," you were voted out like Patricia or Sean. And I didn't want that to happen to me, so I downplayed myself.

My strategy was more subtle. I constantly made sure I was in people's good graces. And frankly, I think a lot of you have overlooked that and dismissed that. Given the circumstances, and given how it turned out for most people, most of the time it was really NOT in my best interests to call the shots. Instead, I played the role of confidante. Lindsey, who you could talk to and turn to when other people self-destructed and proved themselves untrustworthy. A lot of you walked in here tonight with the feeling of "well I liked Lindsey and I trusted Lindsey, and maybe she abused and manipulated my trust in her, but what did she do strategically?" not realizing that that was my strategy all along. You wanna vote for someone who made the biggest moves, who called how every vote in this game went? That's fine, but that wasn't me, but my strategy was just as legitimate. After all, who else could have lied to and brutally betrayed Linda and Lex at the final 11 for them only to come back to me and trust me again later? If I hurt your feelings by abusing your trust in me, then I'm sorry for hurting your feelings, but I'm NOT sorry for doing it. Because that was my strategy all along. Make you trust me. Make you not want to vote me out. And then manipulate that trust to fulfill my own agenda of eliminating threats at the end.

Good luck Linda and Gabe. This has been a great FTC. Thanks hosts and thanks jury as well.

[Gabriel]

This has been such a surreal experience. Not anything that I'd think of doing, especially once we started to play this game.

But I am very proud in the way that I played this game, and I hope the jury is too. Okay, I didn't realize that people didn't think I was as social as i thought I was being, but I intentionally didn't become best friends with everyone. I'm an emotional person, and I didn't want that to ruin my game. I've said this time and time again, even in this tribal council. It's important that people appreciate the game I played if I want any shot in winning.

I played smarter than Linda and Lindsey and I think people need to realize that. Never was I ever set to leave, and the only time someone thought I might (Gina), was when they were voted out. I am the only one out of this final 3 to say that they voted in the majority every vote, I only received one vote against in 89 votes I saw read. Nobody ever saw me as a threat to win this game, and that's exactly what I wanted to see happen. I didn't want people to think I was a threat to them so that I could get to where I am, say how I didn't ever have a target, and get votes off of that.

I've had power in every single vote that I've been in, and no one has been smart enough to see that I was someone that had a lot of power in them leaving. Knowing that I was going to be a very emotional player if I tried to be overly social, I made sure that I didn't make too many connections with people. I had people assuming that I was voting with them without being overly close, and then when I didn't vote with them, they'd still end up thinking I trusted them. I used someone as a shield to do my dirty work and then got them out when I knew I could do work by myself.

I was constantly thinking about this game, immensely invested even if it didn't seem that way at times, and have made the best moves to get where I am. I know some of you appreciate a social game over a heavily strategic game, and while being social is strategical, being strategical is even more strategical. I'm wanting to prove that you don't have to have everyone as your friend to get to the end, and I didn't. I proved that playing smart is enough to get you to the end, and I did make good relationships on the way.

I hand picked the final 3 and I got what I wanted. I was smart by making Lindsey happy by voting out Lex instead of Gina at the final 5. I put the most effort in at the final immunity, I won an individual immunity, I kept the target off my back, had a decent social game, voted in the majority every round, constantly could make the decision of who was leaving, and had people trusting me even when all the cards to not trust me were on the table.

I hope you guys see that I knew exactly what was going on at every point in the game and what I needed to do to get myself further. Lindsey got here out of a lot of luck and Linda was someone who wasn't seen as someone that could actually win this game. Lindsey often blew up before tribal council and then would admit that what she did was wrong. Linda played with her heart on her sleeve. If Lindsey and Linda didn't have luck on their side, they could easily be sitting in the final 3. I was someone that put myself in an excellent position to get to the end and still have a chance to win, and I hope that the outcome is great.

It's been fun, guys. Whoever wins, congratulations.