Survivor: Palau – Why James Lost

James seemed to think that he was in a pretty good position, and was rather surprised to be voted off. Viewers of the show probably weren’t quite so surprised, though. Why? Well, let’s take a look and see why James lost.

As always, we will address this question by going through What Palau Survivors Should Have Learned step by step to see where James made his mistakes and what he might have done better.

The first rule, as always, is to scheme and plot. Yes, even when your tribe is as big a group of losers as Ulong, strategy still remains the key element in this game. If you doubt it, just ask the Bobby Jon and Stephenie, who have apparently finally realized that the game involves some backstabbing.

James finally decided that voting off people based solely on their most recent challenge performance might not be the greatest plan. Of course, he realized this when he screwed up two challenges in a row! Too little, too late.

We did hear from Angie in my interview with her that she had something of an alliance with James and Stephenie, so there was a tiny amount of scheming going on. But even that wasn’t very good, considering that they voted her off!

Obviously, then, with James’ lack of scheming, we certainly don’t need to worry about the portion of the second rule regarding scheming and plotting too much! I do, however, want to briefly discuss backstabbing – or in this case, attempted backstabbing – too soon. James had made it obvious that he was going to target Ibrehem last week. Surprise! Ibrehem was safe and knew that James was gunning for him. It didn’t help that James pretty much flat-out told him as much after the previous Tribal Council. So that was one vote that was definitely coming James’ way. When you’re down to a tribe of four, one vote can mean an awful lot. James should have kept his mouth shut.

The third rule also addresses keeping your mouth shut – specifically, pretending to be nice and keeping politics and controversial beliefs to yourself. James was very open about his thoughts when he was talking to the cameras. From what we saw, I think that extended beyond just one-on-one time.

James seemed to pretty much say whatever was on his mind, whether it was dressing down Ibrehem for a poor challenge performance, telling us that his God was essentially going to beat Allah and send Ibrehem home, or being generally bossy. As viewers, many people found this amusing, however I don’t think it would have been so amusing to live with it 24/7. We know that Bobby Jon did not approve of the way James called out Ibrehem, and I suspect that was not the first time he felt that way.

Fourth is to not let emotions control you. James seemed to be driven by the way he was feeling – whether he was telling people what he thought or voting because he was upset. He should have been using his brain to figure out the best alliance set-up rather than just lashing out at whomever had upset him. For one thing, by leading with his emotions it made him vulnerable to the same sort of thinking. He was mad at Ibrehem’s poor challenge performance, but then when James himself performed poorly, how could he brush it off?

The fifth rule says to not be too much of a threat. James was not a particular physical threat. However, Bobby Jon saw him as a threat to his stay in the game because he became convinced that James had voted against him in the previous Tribal Council. Stephenie, of course, encouraged him to believe this, thus showing that at least one person on Ulong knows they have to lie at least occasionally in this game. Because James apparently never made an effort to specifically talk to Bobby Jon about an alliance – he just assumed that Bobby Jon would never vote for him – he did not have an opportunity to correct Bobby Jon’s misconception. So as far as Bobby Jon was concerned, James as a threat and had to go.

Ulong had its fair share of lazy people, but James did not appear to be one of them. So the sixth rule doesn’t apply here.

The seventh, however, is to be flexible. In a tribe that shrank as fast as Ulong did, flexibility is key. James, once again, didn’t seem to really do anything about it. He just strolled along down the game, confident in his ability to pick off those he saw as weaker players. Not good.

So did Ulong do the right thing in getting rid of James? At this point, it’s anybody’s guess! There are no obvious weak links or lazies on the “tribe.” However, James did blow the two most recent challenges. He also had been bossy and may have caused some strife around camp. It was a toss-up between James and Ibrehem, and if I had been there, I probably would have done the same thing the remaining Ulong trio did.

Ulong is in a position that no pre-merge tribe has ever faced – the longest immunity losing streak ever put them into a position of going down to only three people. A tribe of smart players would have had at least one trio alliance – not so for Ulong. One person on the tribe – Stephenie – realized that she had to scheme for her supper. James opened his mouth plenty, but not for the right reasons. There were only three other people in his tribe, but he apparently didn’t bother to talk to more than one of them about the upcoming vote. To compound this problem, he had also blown his part in the two most recent challenges and had been railing against Ibrehem for the same thing just a few days earlier.

James shot off his mouth and shot himself in the foot – though he couldn’t shoot a gun in the reward challenge. Once he put himself in that position, he had no real alliance to fall back on in order to save himself. That is why James lost.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other Survivor: Palau Episode 6 articles:

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

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