Survivor: Tocantins – Why Sierra Lost

At first, when Sierra was voted off last week, it seemed like a very odd move to make. J.T. and Stephen acknowledged that Coach was a liar who had tried to turn against them. So why not get rid of his sidekick, Debbie, when they had the chance? Why get rid of the person who looked like she would be more loyal to them? Why did Sierra lose?

Since watching the episode, I’ve heard from a number of viewers and have also considered the full situation, and what at first seemed to be very puzzling has come somewhat more into focus. With these new ideas in mind, let’s go through What Tocantins Survivors Should Have Learned and see what we can figure out.

The first rule of Survivor is to scheme and plot. Except that Sierra didn’t want to do that. Earlier in the season, she said (on a Survivor Insider clip) that she is not conniving and when her time is over, it’s over. While her actions (begging, pleading, etc.) when she thought her time was over seem to contradict this attitude, the fact of the matter is that she still acknowledged it when I interviewed her. When I asked her why she came on Survivor if she’s not conniving, she told me, “Because I think I really proved you don’t have to be to make it a long time. Thirty out of 39 days is really long for not being a conniving person.”

She is correct about that, but the point of Survivor is to win, not to make it 30 of the 39 days. At least, that’s the point for most people and the attitude taken by this column. Sierra said she went in with a different attitude: “I went there for the experience, not for the money, and I had to make sure I got that experience.” That’s all well and good, but it also contributed to her loss.

It didn’t just contribute because she wasn’t a schemer and therefore didn’t make convoluted plans to stay in the game – it also was a factor because somebody without a motivation to win can be viewed as a problem. People who want to win will (or at least should) make moves to benefit themselves in the game. Those moves can sometimes be figured out. But somebody who is just there for the experience might change their mind on a whim, based on who they like or dislike rather than on who can get them to the end of the game. Witness Sugar from last season for a good example of what can happen when somebody like that makes it to the end.

Because of this, we’re going to jump ahead to the sixth rule and note that Sierra was viewed as a threat by the ruling alliance of Stephen and J.T. Since they could not accurately predict what she might do, they viewed keeping her as more of a risk – especially when the other possibility was voting out Debbie and showing Coach where they truly stood. He would have blown up and tried to find a way to overthrow them. But by getting rid of Sierra, they avoided that possibility.

Indeed, they did more than that. They went so far as to vote with Coach and Debbie and have Taj vote against Debbie, to make it look like she’s on the outside of the alliance, thus undoubtedly making Coach and Debbie feel more secure. By doing so, they don’t have to worry as much about an overthrow attempt. It’s quite sneaky, really, and I love it!

But getting back to the second rule, it’s clear that Sierra didn’t scheme and plot too much, given that she didn’t do it enough. So we’ll quickly move to the third rule, which tells players to be flexible. However, since Sierra wasn’t really there to win, being flexible was not part of her repertoire. She didn’t need to do that, because, as she said, when it was her time to go, it was her time to go.

A flexible player would have at least heard out Coach and Debbie’s proposition to pull the original tribe back together. They might have discarded the idea quickly, but it would have been worth listening to. A flexible player would have figured out that she would be on the outside of the ruling alliance and sought a way inside. But she did neither of these things – because she was just there for the experience.

Fourth is to not allow emotions to control you. I think we could all plainly see that Sierra failed this rule. She was there for emotional reasons and she played the game emotionally. It was, for example, more important for her to show Coach to be a liar than it was to stay in the game. As she told me, “I stood up for myself and screamed, ‘You’re a liar!’ And all of America knows he’s a liar. It doesn’t matter if they believed me, now as we all watch it, I go home looking like the good person.” And indeed, she looks like the better person. But she doesn’t look like the better player.

The fifth rule tells players they need to pretend to be nice. Sierra was generally nice to most of the others – except she couldn’t hold in her true feelings about Coach and Debbie when she needed to. As noted above, she should have swallowed those feelings and at least listened to and thought about the idea. But her emotions prevented her from doing that.

Since we already addressed the sixth rule, we’ll move to the seventh, which asks if the other players made the right move. As mentioned earlier, since Coach had immunity, I now believe J.T., Stephen, Taj, and Erinn made the move they did in order to lull Coach and Debbie into a false sense of security. I also think it will work and Coach will be blindsided next. From that standpoint, it was the correct move.

However, I still believe it would not have been wrong to vote off Debbie. Sure, Coach would have known where he stood, but without a single ally to his name, there isn’t much he could have done. So it could have gone either way.

But the one way it never could have gone would have been Sierra moving far enough to get the win. When somebody comes into the game with an attitude like she expressed, where she was just there for the experience, that means she didn’t have the killer instinct necessary to make the game-winning moves. She failed to scheme and plot properly and played a far-too-emotional game. That is why Sierra lost.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Survivor: Tocantins articles here on RealityNewsOnline:

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

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