Why Vecepia Won

I certainly didn’t predict it – very few people did (until just a few hours before broadcast, when several sites posted spoiler info that said Vee won). But Vee pulled it out at the end by winning immunity and jumping alliances when it counted most. Every week we take a look back at my article, What Marquesan Survivors Should Have Learned, to see what contestants did right and, ultimately, wrong. But for the one time in every series, we will take a look back at why the person did not lose – at why Vecepia won.

Let’s begin by getting something out of the way right off the bat. Vee did not win because of God. She did not win because she prayed about winning. She did not win because her God was better than Neleh’s God (or Kathy’s or Paschal’s or anybody else’s). If her God exists, I rather suspect he doesn’t take a direct interest in television game shows. Certainly it’s possible that her own inner faith gave her the ability to carry on, and it apparently also gave her the ability to rationalize away deceitful behavior by just shrugging and saying God would forgive her later. I don’t think that’s a particularly healthy attitude for society to adopt, as it provides an out for pretty much anybody who does anything bad. Yes, I know, I’m comparing her behavior in a game to criminal behavior in the real world, and I’m sure some of you are firing up the e-mail programs right now to let me know how ridiculous that is. But I don’t think I’m off base here. If she wanted to say that it was all just a game and lying is part of it so therefore it’s not really sinning (or something to that effect), that would be one thing. But she didn’t. She acknowledged that what she had done was wrong, and then she went ahead and did it anyway. For Vee, at least, Tammy was right in her indignation and her “holier than thou” speech.

OK, so now that we know one reason that did not cause Vee to win, what did do it for her? Let’s check it out.

Vecepia reminded us why the first rule is appropriately Rule #1. In order to win Survivor, you need to plot and scheme, and let me say, Vee did one HELL of a job at it. She flew under the radar for much of the way, but in doing so, she managed to jump from one alliance to another.

At the original Maraamu, she was not as lazy as Sarah, Rob, and Sean. But nor was she as much a workaholic as Patricia, Hunter, and Gina. As they both noted, she had something of a bond with Sean that she did not have with the other three. With this certainly in her mind, Vee must have seen which way the wind was blowing and sided with the lazy bums rather than with the hard workers. She could stick with Sarah, Rob, and Sean for a while, and not have to worry about getting voted out. But if she had sided with Patricia, Hunter, and Gina, she definitely would have been the odd woman out, and likely would have been voted out if it had gone down to that level (which, for Maraamu overall, it eventually did).

Then, she was switched to Rotu along with Rob and Sean. Immediately she disassociated herself from them. She was smart enough to see that going into a new tribe of hard workers, sticking with the lazy bums was not the best plan in the world. Rob and Sean called it kissing ass. I call it good game play.

After the merge, Rob wanted Vee – one of his original teammates – to stick with him to overthrow the Rotu Four. But she wouldn’t do it. She apparently told the Rotu Four that they would have her vote, allying with them at least for one Tribal Council.

But then she saw which way the wind was blowing just as Sean and Kathy (and eventually Paschal and Neleh) did. So she jumped at the chance to form a counter-alliance while letting others do most of the visible work so she stayed a bit behind the scenes. Smart thinking on both parts, since it would mean putting her own alliance in control, and also avoiding a possible backlash from those she had been allied with just a few days prior. Apparently, it worked, since Neleh faced that very backlash.

She stuck with the counter-alliance until the Rotu Four were gone. Then, whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was stuck tightly to Sean against the Paschal/Neleh team, with Kathy in the middle. She again let somebody else do most of the talking – this time, Sean. It drew attention to him and meant that even if they didn’t get Kathy on their side, Sean would be the one going, not Vee.

Then she did what was necessary and won the next immunity. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if somebody else had won. If Kathy had won, would Vee have taken the same initiative shown by Kathy to form an immediate alliance? If Paschal or Neleh had won, would Vee have asked Kathy to side with her, or would she have offered to join Paschal and Neleh in voting against Kathy? Considering the way she managed to switch sides so effortlessly, I suspect the latter. But it didn’t matter. She knew her answers, and she was smart enough not to share the information she had with the others. It was great game play, and it paid off.

Then she made one final jump. When Kathy fell and lost the final Immunity Challenge, Vee made a pitch that Neleh could not refuse. She would get down and hand immunity to Neleh if Neleh would take her to the final two. Sure, it meant stabbing Kathy in the back and directly violating the promise she’d publicly made just the day before. But it also meant a better chance at winning, which is really what counted. Kathy was dumbfounded, but she really shouldn’t have been.

Of course, this brings us to the next rule and the question of whether she schemed and plotted too much or backstabbed too soon. Considering that she won, it would be hard to say “yes” to either of these. Sure, it could have come back to bite her, but it didn’t. For whatever reason, the Jury felt that Neleh had been more deceptive than Vee. So it’s a bit of a tautology – she didn’t scheme too much because she ended up winning, and she ended up winning because the Jury didn’t think she overschemed as compared to Neleh. But it’s also true.

Vee also succeeded in the next rule – pretending to be nice. No matter who she was with, she was never the outspoken one, never the one who painted a target on herself. One reason she could move from alliance to alliance so effortlessly was that she just didn’t piss people off. OK, sure, she angered some of the viewing audience with her repeated thanking of God for everything, but since she was mostly with other religious people, it obviously didn’t bother them (though if I were one of them, I would have asked the same questions I’ve asked here, such as why she thought God favored her to win challenges over the others – but, well, I wasn’t there, was I?). While Tammy and John were not exactly her biggest fans, it was more because of the hypocrisy they saw in her rather than anything to do with her not being a nice person – and besides, they both ended up voting for her.

Next we have the rule that you shouldn’t let your emotions control you. Vee definitely succeeded here. She jumped from alliance to alliance and didn’t worry about who she was stabbing in the back. I think she would have easily gone along with voting off Sean earlier in the game (post-switch, even post-merge) if the majority of the others had said that’s what they wanted to do. She was not in a more solid situation with him until they got closer to the final five, when it was as much strategy as friendship. And I also think that if Kathy had chosen to side with Vee and Sean at that Tribal Council, Vee would have been able to get rid of Sean if she felt he was a threat. She certainly tossed aside every other alliance no matter how close she felt to the person or people in question. In short, she played the game, and played it well.

Last, we have advice against being lazy and for providing food. While Vee did join the lazy bums of Maraamu, looking back it seems that it was more for strategic reasons than because she was actually lazy. When she switched to Rotu, she complained a bit about the work, but she pitched in – again, because that was the strategically correct thing to do. She helped with the food and the chores, and made sure she was never singled out – though apparently Tammy thought she wasn’t pitching in enough, judging by her comment in the vote when Tammy ended up getting the boot. Unfortunately, we never really got to see what was behind that comment. In the end, this particular issue neither helped nor hurt Vee.

So when we get down to it, what do we have? We have a great Survivor player who knew when to join the crowd and when to jump ship. As Tammy said in her final comment, Vee switched teams so many times, it was a wonder she even knew which side she was on. But Vee always knew which side she was on – the right side. She was on her own side. When you’re playing Survivor, there can be only one winner, and only one person you should really watch out for – yourself. No, it wasn’t God who gave Vecepia the win. It was Vecepia who did it, by her clever maneuvering, plotting, scheming, and a bit of luck. And that is why Vecepia won.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline, and can be reached at david.bloomberg@pobox.com.

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