Survivor: The Amazon - Why JoAnna Lost

It should come as no surprise to anybody that JoAnna Ward was voted out early. In fact, the only real surprise, as far as I'm concerned, is that it didn't happen at the first Tribal Council. JoAnna did so many things wrong it may be hard to pinpoint what sent her packing. But we'll do our best as we look back at What Amazonian Survivors Should Have Learned.

Scheme and plot, plot and scheme - this is the rule to live by in Survivor. And it seems that somewhere in her mind, JoAnna knew this. Jeanne said last week that she and JoAnna had nominated Deena as the leader because they thought Deena might rub some people the wrong way. So there was a plan there, though it appears that Jeanne initiated it. Other than that, well, JoAnna did not exactly do a great job of plotting or making allies. She may have figured that God was her co-pilot, but God didn't get to vote.

Obviously, she didn't plot and scheme too much. So let's skip ahead.

Ah, here is where we hit a key point - #3: Pretend to Be Nice/Keep Your Politics and Controversial Beliefs to Yourself. Hoo-boy, did she blow that one in so many ways. Let's start with the immunity idol rant. She went on and on and on about the evils of the idol. Even after she was asked to whisper (not even to stop, just to keep it quieter!) while the others tried to sleep, she refused. She blamed the rain in the rainforest on them having the idol. Who knows what other evils she blamed on it.

But, of course, it went beyond that. When Christy was told of the goings on during the night (which, being deaf, of course she couldn't hear herself), she correctly identified JoAnna's stance as "stupid." The only problem was that JoAnna overheard and verbally attacked her, practically threatened her, stuck her hand in her face, etc. (All of this is, of course, discussed in more detail in JoAnna's Reality TV Hall of Shame Moment.)

But even that wasn't enough. She proclaimed thanks to Jesus for pretty much everything. Catch a fish? Thank God. Start a fire? Thank God. Get a match for that soap in a reward challenge? Thank God. Even Rob, who only saw her for a few minutes, grew tired of it!

But wait, there's more! She lectured the younger women on how beauty would fade but character lasts. She chastised them when it came to work. She ordered them around during the reward challenge. (If you haven't already, catch up with all her latest in my recap of the fourth episode.)

So she did not pretend to be nice. She did not keep her politics or controversial beliefs to herself. She forced them on people at every opportunity. She basically did everything she could to make people want her as far away from them as possible!

I could go on and on about that, but let's move on. The fourth rule is to not let your emotions control you. Well, we've already addressed her attack on Christy. Obviously, we had a little bit of an anger management problem there for JoAnna. She could have had Christy as an ally - a fellow outsider to oppose the cute girl gang. But instead she jumped down her throat and made herself even more of an outsider than Christy. She even followed it up by taking a potshot at Christy in their first Tribal Council. Not smart. Not smart at all.

One area where she succeeded quite well was in providing food and definitely not being lazy. She helped keep the camp running, kept the others fairly well-fed, etc. In fact, if anything she did these things too well, and as such became a threat. Not good in combination with being annoying.

So did the others do the right thing in voting her off? Well, sticking to the theory of voting off the weak first, they should have gotten rid of Shawna. However, Deena wanted to look further down the road. If they had dumped Shawna, their alliance might have been vulnerable. But if they sacrifice one strong person who is also a threat, then they can maintain numeric superiority. It seemed a bit early to do this, but it's little different from the Robfather (Survivor: Marquesas) voting off Hunter because he felt it more important to have people who would listen to him rather than somebody strong. I wouldn't say that, in general, Rob's strategy is one to be mirrored, but in this case it could keep the alliance solid. And, let's face it, you're going to have a hard time getting me to say that keeping JoAnna would have been a good idea. I mean, come on! Seriously, she did weaken the tribe by being too confrontational and divisive. We'll just have to see if Shawna picks herself up and others can pull in the fish like JoAnna was.

As I said at the beginning of this article, JoAnna did so many things wrong. She didn't plot. She did annoy people. She preached, she screeched, she forced her beliefs on others. She allowed her anger to get the better of her. Etc. Combine this with her being a potential threat to the others later on and you have a recipe for torch-snuffing. JoAnna was a self-righteous woman who was unable to keep her thoughts to herself. She acted shamefully towards others and did little or nothing to actually save herself. That is why JoAnna lost.

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

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