Why Ethan Won

And so we have a winner! Only 12% of RealityNewsOnline readers predicted a final two of Ethan and Kim, but a whopping 61% picked Ethan as the overall winner (not to mention pretty much every other author on the site other than me). He was just so nice that there was no way I could see anybody wanting to face him in the jury. Little did I know we would see Colby II in the form of Kim J. But being a nice guy, in and of itself, should not be an automatic win on Survivor. So let’s take a look back at What African Survivors Should Have Learned, as I do every week for the losers, and see why Ethan won.

The number one rule has always been scheming and plotting. Yet Ethan was never really shown doing much in this regard. At least not apparently, until you look a little deeper. He was part of the initial Boran alliance. He stuck by that alliance through thick and thin. When others tried to get him to move, he didn’t. Mind you, I criticized Kim J. for doing something similar, but the difference is that she was never a true part of the inner circle, and she knew it. She was basically shooting for fourth place. He was going for first. He had to know that he was a likeable guy, and he had to know that would help him if he made it to the finals. He schemed exactly as much as was necessary, and nothing more, which also answers the question of whether he schemed too much (of course, the fact that he won also kind of answers that question). It did not consume him like it consumed the others. It did not take over his personality.

Along these lines, he certainly didn’t stab anybody in the back before he needed to. It might be considered that he shot down Big Tom in the second-to-last expulsion vote. Obviously Tom didn’t think so, as he voted for Ethan. And also, that was precisely when he needed to vote out Tom. It was not too early, but was the perfect time. If Ethan had faced Tom in the finals, Ethan would probably have won anyway, but it would have been a far closer vote than against Kim or Lex.

Next we see that players should pretend to be nice. Let’s face it, with Ethan there was no pretending. As Lindsey indicated in her RealityNewsOnline interview, they didn’t show the bad side of Ethan because there was no bad side of Ethan! He was loved by fans everywhere. Everybody except for perhaps Kelly loved him on the show (Brandon just got pissy at the end because Ethan was honest in answering his question – stupid, yes, but also honest).

Yet he never let his emotional bonds get in the way of doing what had to be done. He liked Frank, but voted Frank out when it was time. He liked Teresa, but Teresa was gone as well. He liked Big Tom, but when it came down to it, Tom had to go. I could go all the way down the line. Heck, he even did what Kimmi from Survivor 2 could not – he put his vegetarianism aside for the sake of the game. As the side note to this rule indicated, you can’t bond with the food animals, either. He had no apparent problem in that regard (though we never did see what became of the last chicken).

Of course, Ethan was never lazy. He didn’t have an opportunity to really see the Samburu kiddies in their full example of doing nothing, but I’m sure he would have been just as appalled as the other adults. As with Lex, Tom, Kim J., and others, this was simply not an issue.

In voting with the Boran alliance, he generally followed the correct pattern of getting rid of the weak or the strong, depending on the situation. I am somewhat surprised that he was never targeted – after all, he’s a professional athlete. But his solid alliance combined with his solid personality to make sure the finger always pointed somewhere else. Some people might call it flying under the radar, but I call it smart. He knew how to always let other people stand out when standing out wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

Ethan definitely deserves to be where he is – the winner’s seat. He played hard. He knew when keep his alliance solid. He knew when to ignore his personal feelings and cut loose the proper person. And he knew how to be a Survivor contestant who would be well-liked by both the players and the fans. That is why Ethan won. And I wish him all the luck in the world!

Even though Survivor: Africa is over, you can still order Survivor III, the Diary, by Mark Burnett

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