Survivor: Pearl Islands – Why Lillian Lost

Well, unfortunately the result of this third episode was not exactly a surprise. As we’ve by now all seen (or read about in the recap), Morgan tribe – the losingest tribe in Survivor history – decided to boot out everybody’s favorite scoutmaster, Lill. Andrew said it was part of a strategy. We aren’t sure what that strategy might be, but even without that knowledge, let’s take a look at why Lillian lost.

As always, we will accomplish this by using my article, What Pearl Island Survivors Should Have Learned as a blueprint.

The first rule, of course, is to scheme and plot. There does seem to be a bit of scheming going on at Morgan, as Andrew, Tijuana, Ryan, and Osten have formed an alliance. However, Lillian has been notably absent from the plotting, even going so far as to mention in her final words that the game is full of lying and deceit, and she’s not good at either.

That said, she did try to do a bit of scheming of her own. She tried to convince Andrew that Darrah was the least useful player and also took a shot at Osten as well. She knew she was in danger and tried to get out of it. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. She had invested her friendship in Ryan S. and, like him, had apparently not really gotten in good with the others. While they made plans, she was hung out to dry.

So, moving on to the second rule, we certainly don’t have to worry about whether she schemed and plotted too much or stabbed anybody in the back too early! We’ll skip ahead to #3, which was also pretty irrelevant here. She was nice and didn’t seem to have any politics or controversial beliefs to worry about.

Moving on to #4, we see that she didn’t have much to worry about there, either. We didn’t see any real anger from her, unless we count the way she went out fishing because nobody else would do it. But we won’t count that, though we’ll get to it soon enough. And while she was the only person left in the tribe who had not voted against Ryan S. the previous Council – which was due to her friendship with him – I really don’t think that played a role in her being voted off this week.

The fifth rule, against being too much of a threat, is interesting. Normally, you would worry about this later in the game. However, allow me to speculate a bit more than I usually do in these columns: I have to wonder if part of Andrew’s strategy is to get rid of some “threats” now, early in the game. He already knows that the tribe is done for, so why not get rid of one of the most likeable people in the game? I mean, if by some chance she made it to the end with him (unlikely, I’ll admit, but you never know), who would vote against the nice woman in the Scout uniform?! So maybe she was just too threatening to him because she was too likeable.

Alternatively, she could have threatened his leadership. She was the one who pushed the fishing, who said they weren’t that bad off, who did many of the jobs around camp. Perhaps he was afraid his position was in danger.

Then again, maybe not. It’s really hard to say right now.

Lill definitely did okay as far as trying to provide food (though not succeeding) and working hard – definitely more so than Darrah, the other non-alliance member remaining. But that brings us to the newly-added seventh rule: Be flexible! Lillian… wasn’t. The rest of the tribe was, for whatever reason, not concerned about the same things she was, like water and food. She kept pushing it and it ended up pushing her out of the inner circle. Was she right to try to go fishing? Absolutely. Was she right that the others were being lazy? Probably. So that means she was right to go out by herself to fish, right? Wrong.

As I said in referencing tribes like we saw in the Marquesas and the Amazon, “Players have to look at the situation around them and judge the proper way to proceed. For example, when you are in an alliance of lazies, working hard may not be the best way to go.” Lill had different priorities than the rest of her tribe. While her priorities may have been correct, she was just one person up against five. In a game where your stay is determined by votes, being right isn’t always the best answer. She wanted to show that she was valuable, but in her attempt to do so, she instead showed that she wasn’t as much a part of the tribe as the others.

So, were the other five correct to vote her off? Well, I’m not really sure. Since we still don’t know what Andrew’s vaunted strategy might be, it’s rather hard to say. Certainly, she was not one of the strongest for challenges, and Lord knows they need all the help they can get in that area. But on the other hand, all the work at camp should have more than made up for it. Let’s face it, Drake isn’t winning just because they are strong at challenges – they get strong by eating, drinking, and doing the right things while at camp. Lill could certainly be more of a help in that regard than Darrah, from what we saw.

Plus, I have to question whether it really was true that Darrah was stronger in competitions. I mean, all Darrah had to do was hang there. Was it tough? Probably. But how many competitions will involve just hanging around? Is Darrah really stronger in other physical challenges? And we already know that Andrew said she doesn’t seem all that smart, so when the inevitable non-physical challenges occur, who would be better there? Probably Lill.

So I would have to say that this time, no, Morgan did not make the right choice in their vote.

In a tribe of eight, four people have been controlling most of the voting. Lill never got in particularly good with those four – even going so far as to suggest to the leader of the four that one of them (Osten) should be voted out without apparently realizing that they were a team. She attempted to show herself to be more valuable than Darrah, but in doing so went off on her own, brought back nothing, and lost their remaining fishing hook. She may have had the right ideas, but her implementation of them left something to be desired as far as the rest of the tribe was concerned. You might be able to lead a troop of scouts, but if your fellow Survivor players get the feeling that you are not a team player, they can send you packing. Lill was likeable and a hard worker, but she had different ideas on what was or was not important than the others, and that came back to haunt her. That is why Lillian lost.

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

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