Why Peter Lost

With the beginning of a new Survivor, we again begin saying goodbye to contestants and wondering why they didn’t make it to the end – or even the middle. As with previous seasons, we will use my article (newly updated and reorganized), What Marquesan Survivors Should Have Learned, as a jumping off point.

Rule number one says that you need to scheme and plot. At first one might be tempted to say that Peter did this – after all, he was the first one to try to talk about voting strategy. But by no means should we characterize what he did as proper scheming or plotting. Instead he violated the second rule, which has a new addition: Keep Your Scheming Secret. In other words, you don’t try to discuss the vote with everybody in your tribe. You want to strategize? Fine. Do it privately! Otherwise, you open yourself up as a target, which is exactly what Peter did.

Moving to rule #4, we see “Pretend to Be Nice.” From what we saw, Peter was fairly nice. But he admitted in Tribal Council that he never really fit in. Well, first of all he should have tried harder to fit in (which probably would have meant less of his Yoga mumbo jumbo), but second, he never should have said what he said in Tribal Council! He should have pretended he was getting along fine with everybody. It might not have changed anything by that point, but his statement certainly made it easier for people to vote against him if they’d been waffling earlier.

Continuing down the list, we see that players shouldn’t let their emotions control them. Well, Peter didn’t really have a problem with that, mostly because there really wasn’t time. The sixth rule says to provide food and not be lazy. He was fine on both counts.

Looking back at #3, we need to look at how his tribemates voted. At this point, they should be getting rid of the weakest members so they can continue to be strong in challenges. Booting a strapping guy like Peter instead of Sarah or Patricia was not terribly smart in this regard. Back in the Australian Outback, folks voted out Kel because he was an outsider and grew to regret it because they missed his strength. Will the same thing happen here? It’s too early to say, but it’s a definite possibility. Like it or not, Patricia is indeed weaker than Peter, and Sarah probably is as well.

But Peter made a couple of key mistakes. The main one was trying to discuss the voting, which alienated several of his fellow tribemates. But even before that, he kept talking and talking and talking about his Yoga and this and that, and people just got turned off by it. He needed to shut his mouth, do the hard work, and make his plans in secret. He failed on two of the three, and that is why Peter lost.

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