Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains – Why Stephenie Lost

Stephenie came into Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains having done fairly well in her two previous outings – even if she did lose her entire tribe in one of them (as James repeatedly pointed out). Was her past success her downfall? Or were there other, more standard, reasons for being voted off so soon? Why did Stephenie lose?

While the reasons for a contestant’s loss may be a bit different in this all-star variety of Survivor, as I think we’ll somewhat see here, we can still answer our questions by the usual path of paging through What Survivor Heroes and Villains Should Have Learned. And as we do so, I think we’ll find that while there may be some differences because of the type of season it is, in the end it may come down to garden-variety reasons.

The first rule, whether it’s a regular season or an all-star one, whether you’re a hero or a villain, is still to scheme and plot. Everybody on the Heroes tribe knows this and there was quite a bit of it going on in the second episode. Heck, just about everybody seemed to be involved, which is as it should be!

The scheming broke down into three main groups. James was the obviously anti-Stephenie leader, cajoling his faction into action against her and spreading stories about how horrible she was. J.T. was part of this group as well, though a less-visible member who tried to pretend he was still with Stephenie’s alliance until the end.

On Stephenie’s side were Tom and Colby, who were together mostly because, as Stephenie told me when I interviewed her, “it was a no-brainer.” She and Tom have been friends since their season and Colby was their kind of guy. All of them were “out of the Survivor scene,” as opposed to the others, whom she mostly classified as “people who live in L.A. and know each other.”

In the middle, we had Cirie and Candice, two more outsiders to the Survivor scene who had to decide where they wanted to be for the rest of the game.

With all of this in mind, and given that Stephenie further told me, “She talked about how she was married and not in the Survivor scene, and I said I was the same. We really took a liking to one another, Cirie and I,” why couldn’t she get Cirie on her side?

The answer to that question moves us into the the second rule. The part of this rule that references scheming and plotting too much isn’t applicable – I’m talking about the portion that discusses keeping your scheming secret.

Why does that apply? I think the answer to that can be found in what Cirie said as she voted against Stephenie at Tribal Council (as seen in Survivor Insider). Cirie said, “I wanted to play this game with you, but… Your co-members of your alliance didn’t give me a shot until they felt threatened. That doesn’t make me feel secure. Sorry.”

So, basically, Cirie apparently did not feel comfortable with Tom and Colby – and she knew they were Stephenie’s allies. I can certainly understand Cirie being wary, given that Tom was especially pushing to vote out Cirie at the first Tribal Council! Why would Cirie want to side with somebody who viewed her as such a big threat? She had to know he would dump her when she was no longer of use to him. (And I’m sure that information was passed on to her by those who wanted her to side with them and against Tom.)

So it wasn’t Stephenie herself who caused the problem, but Stephenie’s choice in allies. She had her solid alliance, but because it was a well-known alliance, her allies scared off Cirie, making it impossible for Stephenie to get the votes to save herself.

The third rule tells players they need to be flexible. This one is a bit hard to judge for Stephenie. She told me she didn’t come into the game with much in the way of preconceived notions, but, “I was looking to start anew. … I was willing to sit down and get to know people.” So she wasn’t just looking to align with Tom and try to run the game that way, which is good – even if it didn’t work out for her. (Although, I do have to note that while this might have been her intention, Rupert said while voting her out, “Maybe you should have tried a little harder the first few days to get to know everybody, instead of just a few. You never even came and talked game with me until Tribal Council the first time.” So maybe she didn’t end up doing what she planned after all.)

I think she also did fairly well in terms of the fourth and fifth rules, keeping her emotions and her mouth generally in check. I mean, she wasn’t the one doing all the screaming – that was James. She seemed to hold back and tried to get him to calm down. She kept her own feelings inside until she had been voted out. She knew that she didn’t need to give him and the others more reasons to vote against her.