Survivor: All-Stars – Why Ethan Lost

And so we said goodbye to our last Survivor winner in Episode 8. Alas, poor Ethan, we knew him well. Then again, so did the people who sent him packing.

Of course, this means it’s time to use What All-Star Survivors Definitely Should Have Learned to evaluate what happened, who is to blame, and why Ethan lost.

The first rule, as everybody should be able to chant along with me by now, is to scheme and plot. And right off the bat we can say, “Ethan, we have a problem.” Throughout much of the game, Ethan was not really plotting and scheming. Instead, he was kind of hanging around in the back, going along with anything that would save his neck for one more week. While this could be considered somewhat scheming, it really didn’t amount to much in a strategic sense.

Early on, when he was in Saboga, he was immediately on the outs. The only thing that saved him from being voted out in the second episode was that the tribe felt Rudy was unable to really contribute. The next time he went to Tribal Council, he was with Mogo Mogo and had been the designated victim. Instead, it was Colby who saved him, not really through any doing of Ethan himself. Then Colby saved him again in another way by becoming a bigger target.

In the latter case especially, it showed how far out of the loop Ethan was. Even his old Boran pal, Lex, didn’t trust him enough to let him know that Colby would be going. Sure, Ethan did try to scheme a little by suggesting to Colby that they vote out Jerri, but it’s not like that was exactly a hard sell! And, of course, it didn’t work anyway.

Ethan did finally start to scheme a few hours before Tribal Council, after Lex had told him he was going. This was a definite “game” mistake on Lex’s part (in direct violation of the second rule, which even used Lex as an example of what not to do!), but I can understand that they have an “outside” friendship and Lex wanted to honor that. Still, Lex was lucky the tables didn’t get turned on him. But getting back to Ethan, it was too little, too late. The Survivor Insider footage of Kathy voting told it all when she noted that although he talked about loyalty, he never actually talked strategy to her until two hours before Tribal Council. Instead, he just sat with Colby in Colby’s Castle (see Why Colby Lost for more about that behavior) and passed the word down to the peons. Since he hadn’t plotted with her before, she wasn’t about to trust him now – especially when she had gotten tight with Lex.

It is pretty obvious, therefore, that he didn’t scheme and plot too much. So we’ll move on.

The third rule says that players should pretend to be nice. Ethan is one person who never had to pretend (well, maybe a bit with Jerri, but that’s understandable) – he is genuinely a guy who everybody likes. Unfortunately, upon arriving at Mogo Mogo, he associated himself with Colby (understandable since Colby saved his neck), who was not exactly somebody who was liked by all (again, see “Why Colby Lost”). So being likeable himself didn’t really help him.

Fourth is not to let emotions control you. From what we can see, he did okay here. There may have been a little bit of friction at Saboga between him and ex-girlfriend Jenna L., but that didn’t end up having any real effect. He tried to get emotions to control Lex and Kathy, but that didn’t have any effect either.

The fifth rule is where we once again find ourselves focusing – “Don’t Be Too Much of a Threat.” It’s been a mantra for All-Stars, it seems. And what’s worse is that it’s not something those who fell prey to it can do anything about. Ethan was a previous winner. That put a huge target on his back, just like the ones for Tina and Rich. There was nothing at all that he could have done about that part.