Survivor: Thailand – Why Tanya Lost

Explaining why Tanya was voted out in the second week of Survivor: Thailand may be one of the easier tasks I have this season. But as always, we will look back to What Thai Survivors Should Have Learned and compare those shoulds and should-nots with what Tanya actually did. Let’s see why Tanya lost.

The first rule is to scheme and plot. From what we can see, there has been little – if any – scheming and plotting going on in either tribe. Yes, Clay, Ted, and Ghandia talked about booting Helen because of her personality, but they never seem to have taken that any farther. But Tanya should have. She could tell she was sick and weak. She should have known from previous series that the sick people are always targets for the vote. Look at Ramona, Jessie, etc. Presuming she wanted to stay around, she should have picked up on the fact that everybody was not totally happy with everybody else and tried to talk to some of the other tribe members about forming a coalition, if only for this one vote. She could have told them that she was feeling better, that it’s possible to recover from illness but not from a personality issue – things like that. But she didn’t, at least not that we saw.

She obviously did not plot too much or backstab or the like, so the second rule falls by the wayside. And she was nice, so the third didn’t play any role, either – though, once again, she could have picked up on Helen’s attitude problems and used them as leverage. She didn’t let her emotions control her, so the fourth is not an issue.

For the fifth, we did not see her being lazy per se, but she was ill and therefore weaker than the others. She couldn’t hide this fact and it provided the incentive others were looking for to vote against her.

But what about those others – did they make the right decision? I’d have to say they did. Helen may be annoying, but she knows what she’s talking about. Plus, she’s a strong swimmer and it looks like a lot of challenges will involve that particular skill. Tanya was a liability at this point, and no matter how nice she was, she was the weakest link. She had to go.

Tanya had the misfortune of becoming ill in the first couple days on the island. Whether it was through dehydration or some other cause, she stood out from the rest. Her tribe managed to ignore it and hope she got better for the first vote, but after a second straight loss, several more days of her illness, and no apparent counter-move on her own part, they had to cut her loose. That is why Tanya lost.

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

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