The Ego Alliance, or Why Hunter Should Not Have Been Voted Out

I wanted to remind everyone that this article is written as a complement to David's "Why X Lost" column here (in this case, of course, Why Hunter Lost). The truth is, everyone eventually gets voted off except the winner, so there is not a real reason why someone should NOT be voted out. It is the KEY element to the game. I know why the person got voted out and if I didn't, David covers it wonderfully.

These weekly articles are simply a way to explore what redeeming qualities the booted person has to bring to the table and why someone else would have been a better choice for being booted. With that in mind, this is probably the easiest article in this series I could write. Hunter was God's gift to Maraamu and without him this tribe will go to hell. Unless we are surprised with a twist of some kind next week, Maraamu will go into the merge with less than a handful of members and will be easily trounced.

Why should Hunter have not been booted? Let me count the ways. One image crops up from this week's Survivor, all the bamboo and rope have been dropped off and Jeff Probst has just given his instruction to make a raft for the reward challenge. What happens? All of Maraamu kind of stare at the stuff as if it will magically make itself. Hunter knew at that moment that none of them were going to do anything to jump in and lead the way. None of them wanted to be “bossy.” However, if he would have just sat there too, the raft would not have gotten built. By contrast, at Rotu, Gabriel was “bossy” – giving instructions, patting himself on the back and the tribe was happy to have someone who seemed to know what they were doing take over. The raft got built and they won one of the most useful rewards yet.

On another CBS reality series, The Amazing Race 2, one of the busses some of the team players were on had a flat tire. The driver was not exactly breaking the sound barrier trying to get that tire changed so the American who knew what needed to be done jumped in and within minutes they were back on the road. It happens in life all the time. Something needs to be done, someone has to do it. It's called taking initiative and it is something most employers consider a great quality in an employee. Sixteen-year-old kids working at McDonalds know that when it gets really busy, you better get on the fryer even if you were only supposed to clean out the walk-in freezer.

Apparently though, Mark Burnett found a couple of guys with egos so amazingly large, that they don't care if they go hungry or have to have an IV stuck in them because they were too lazy to get water. They do NOT care about winning the challenges or winning the million dollars. All they care about is that no one even hints at telling them what to do.

They want to do everything on their terms. On Samburu, a similar problem occurred between the young and the old tribe members, but that one was almost understandable. Lindsey, Kim, and Brandon felt threatened and so they stood together against a very bossy Frank et al. Their laziness was a reaction to Frank's bossiness. This time, Hunter was not even that bossy. Sean, Rob, and Vecepia had no threat in Hunter, except to their egos.

Hunter should have stayed because he was a strong man. He was a solid player who knew how to play the game. He was smart, he was respectful – despite what Sean thinks. He played along with their terribly boring morning show. He did whatever job needed to be done, whether it was feeding people, getting the fire going, making the boat, or diving for rocks. And he knew when to kick back and relax too. Hunter was the best player on Maraamu. He was not old or fat or a jerk. He had nothing personal against the lazy people except they were lazy. He did not make disparaging remarks to the camera or out loud about general personalities. Everything Hunter did and said was in line with the game and the work that needed to be done. Hunter is probably the one person in all of the Survivor episodes who did not deserve the boot.

Who should have been taking that walk? Well, I will leave Sarah alone this week; obviously she deserves to go but Sean really took the cake this time. His attitude sucked, he did not work at paddling all that hard like he should have, he did not bother to help get food – why didn't he make a weapon and go hunting instead of singing to himself in that big bathtub of a harbor? And Sean deserved the boot for his funky-ass thinking that Hunter was a threat to him. Hunter would never be a threat to Sean. Even if the merge came and they were even in number to Rotu, Hunter would remain on Sean's side as long as it took. Sean brought his Bible as his luxury item, yet this man is the biggest hypocrite on the island. And no, Sean, I am not saying that because you’re black. I’m saying it because you’re a hypocrite.

Maraamu are playing the game like it is post-merge and, with the exception of Gina, I am looking forward to seeing them all cannibalize each other in tribal council. Unfortunately I think Mr. Burnett has other plans for them and next week will be another twist in the way the game is played.

Does voting Hunter off make the game more interesting? Or just make the Ego Alliance look as pathetically insecure as they are?

Peggy Keller is Mother and Behavior Therapist to her two autistic sons and teenage daughter.

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