Survivor: Micronesia – Why Amanda Lost

Amanda spent more time on Survivor than any contestant before her – and probably more than any contestant will ever spend. And I spent longer than ever to get this article together! Really, one had nothing to do with the other, but that doesn’t matter, because we’re here now (and thanks to all of you who have e-mailed to tell me you were awaiting the article). Anyway, Amanda did a lot of things right to spend so much time on Survivor. But she did some things consistently wrong to leave her out of the winner’s circle once again. Why did Amanda lose?

As we did throughout the season, we will answer this question by going through What Micronesia Survivors Should Have Learned. However, we will also see that there is a big overlap between Amanda’s second season and her first. In fact, I expect to be quoting liberally from the “Why Amanda Lost” article from a few months ago.

As I noted in her first season, “Amanda seemed to understand that the first rule of Survivor was scheming and plotting.” I also noted, “She hooked up with Todd very early in the game and stuck with him the entire time.” Replace “Todd” with “Parvati” and the statement is just as true. Though this time, she also stuck with Ozzy – or would have if that particular rug hadn’t been pulled out from under her.

One thing she did differently this time around was that she wanted to avoid doing as much backstabbing as she had in China. We saw several times that she had the opportunity to switch things up, but instead decided to stick with her long-term allies. Indeed, this is why Parvati and Cirie chose not to tell her about the plot to oust Ozzy – they knew she would tell him, and they were right.

In my interview with her, I specifically asked Amanda about a time when she had an opportunity to turn on Parvati and Cirie. She told me, “I wanted to stay loyal. By that point, I was like, if I’m going to play this game [of being loyal], I’m going to play this game. I wanted to stay loyal.” Loyalty was part of Amanda’s game plan this time around. But the problem is that the people to whom she chose to be loyal were the ones who had the best chance of beating her in the end. If she had schemed and plotted some more, she could have gotten rid of some of her bigger threats while at the same time showing that she really had been playing the game.

This is also something of a repeat from her first time around. Last season, I wrote:

Unfortunately, while Amanda may have understood the game, she sometimes failed to play it correctly. All we have to do is look at her final voting decision to see that. As I just noted, she knew Todd was her biggest threat, and yet she didn’t vote him out!

The second rule tells players not to scheme and plot too much. Amanda did fine here – indeed, we just said she didn’t scheme and plot enough when it counted. But I have to quote last season’s “Why Amanda Lost” again:

Unfortunately, she did a little too well at keeping her scheming secret while also not doing it well enough. A player should keep their secrets during the game, but the jury is often the time to spill the beans. Amanda did the opposite. Everybody knew she was with Todd during the game, but at least some of them didn’t know she was more than a tagalong – that she was a partner in the planning.

This meant that when it came time for the final vote, Amanda was at a disadvantage. She could have played the strategy card like Todd did, but she had kept it too much of a secret early and failed to get that point across to the jury.

For example, in my interview with Cirie, she said she and Parvati “ basically did most of the dirty work through most of the game. Amanda tried to be friendly with everyone, and anything she had to with voting them out she kept secret.” She added, “Amanda didn’t do very much. She played a great game with the idol, but outside of that, she really didn’t do anything.”

So if even Cirie didn’t think Amanda was doing much, we are left with two possibilities: She kept her scheming far too secret, or she wasn’t doing enough of it (or, I suppose, both).

Ironically, at the same time she kept some scheming secret, she also made some too public. For example, her bond with Ozzy meant even her own allies couldn’t tell her of their plan to blindside him. She overcame this, but if she had kept her feelings about Ozzy more of a secret, perhaps she could have prevented his ouster and changed up the game in both of their favor.