What Amazonian Survivors Should Have Learned

Of course, Ghandia (another Hall of Shame inductee) really blew this one out of the water with her accusations against Ted after she had already discussed them with him and she had accepted his apology.

Also remember that in the Machiavellian world of Survivor, it's not good enough to look good yourself - you must make your competition look bad. Politics and controversial beliefs can come into play when doing this.

4) Don't Let Your Emotions Control You

This section addresses both "positive" emotions, like friendship, and also "negative" ones, such as anger. Let's address the positive first and then move on to the negative.

These people are strangers. You are stuck with them for a bit over a month. But then you never have to see them again (well, other than at media events). You don't need to be friends with them. You just have to get along well enough to make a solid alliance and live with them. You can pretend to be nice all you want; you can even become actual friends if it suits you. But don't let it get past that point - don't let that friendship control the game for you. As Greg said in the very first series, you might just have to break that kitten's neck. Or she might be trying to break yours.

In the first series, Susan thought she had a real friendship with Kelly, but she eventually saw through that. Those emotional bonds caused Susan to lose, and to be viewed as an incredibly evil woman by many due to her final speech before the jury vote. The first series' Sean, the last non-alliance member to be voted off, noted before his departure that these were the "most conniving bunch of people I've ever met." He added, "there's not an honest one in the bunch." Finally, he said that they are "callous, cold, and duplicitous people." He was right. And the most duplicitous of them won. Colby made a friend in Tina. While she did end up giving him some money to pay off his debts, he could have had all of the money anyway if he had simply played the game. Gabriel, in the fourth series, came to start a commune and be friends with everybody - he was the first one booted off of his tribe.

Friends are great, but this is a game show. Now I already hear some people protesting, "But Ethan made friends, and he was a nice guy - and he won!" True, but he didn't allow his friendships to interfere with his play. He was friendly with a number of the contestants, but he voted 'em off, one by one. He made alliances and he stuck to 'em. He did not allow his emotions to control his game play.

Then we have the flip side of emotion - anger. Susan, in the incident discussed a couple paragraphs ago, let her anger get the better of her and it interfered with the proper way to play. Lex did the same thing, and it got in the way even more. Brandon so disliked Frank that he refused to be in an alliance with him, and it cost him a good chance at progression into the final four. Ghandia has already been discussed, but it was her anger that caused her to act the way she did - thus, she was voted off.

So we have two sides of the same coin here. Colby allowed his friendship with Tina to cost him $900,000. Lex allowed his anger to get the better of him and tossed off somebody who could have remained a solid ally for a while - as only one example. Contestants need to achieve the proper balance and remain objective. This is a game. You wouldn't allow emotion to rule in a game of Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, so don't do it when a million dollars are on the line.

As a side note necessitated by Survivor 2, I guess I should add that you shouldn't form emotional bonds with any animals, either - especially if they will be food. This was one of the reasons Kimmi ended up losing, though certainly not the only one.

5) Providing Food Wins Allies / Don't Be Lazy

Rich was the main food provider of the first series with his spear fishing. While this was not the main reason he won, it's one of them. If he were, for example, as lazy as Gervase when it came to providing for others, his alliance might have turned on him. Mike took on a key food provider role for Kucha and would have lasted for a while in part because of that had he not fallen into the fire. Nick was viewed as lazy after the merge because he didn't do much to even try to catch fish - he might have been able to stick around a little longer if he had done something.

It's not just fish, either. Earlier, several contestants in the first series were ragged on for not going to look for any food, like the tapioca roots. They also tried fishing with a pole in the middle of the day, which was a complete waste of time. People will like you if you provide them with food; they won't if you simply eat the fruits of others' labor.

Admittedly, this rule took a bit of a hit early on in Survivor: Marquesas, when the lazy folks started voting out those who were feeding them. This just goes to prove the point that alliances are more important than anything else, including food. Eventually, Rob and Sean were given the boot - in part because of their laziness, but more because they were just in the wrong group. Vecepia, who was on the lazy alliance originally, ended up winning!

In theory, food providers and other hard workers should be held in higher esteem. But overall, it still ranks at the bottom of the list as compared to the more "political" issues discussed earlier.