Survivor edgic: Lessons to learn from David vs. Goliath

As the Survivor edgic community prepares themselves for Edge of Extinction, let’s look at the lessons learned along the way in David vs. Goliath.

Welcome back, one and all, to our ongoing Survivor edgic discussions! David vs. Goliath was a rollercoaster of a game, as both casually and for the dedicated, it was a dynamic season where more players than before had an argument in the edit for why they could win. That made parsing the edit that much more difficult.

Another underappreciated factor in making things difficult to parse is the medical evacuations and quits. Though just 10% of players were eliminated from the game outside of Tribal Council, it did bring some interesting dynamics to the edit and how players were perceived early on.

Without further adieu, let us provide our Survivor edgic chart for the full David vs. Goliath season and note some of the things to pay attention to when trying to find out next season’s winner:

Winners can have a rough premiere

Though Nick showed strategic prowess in establishing alliance partners and making friends early, it came with a tinge of negativity. Even as he opened up to his fellow tribemates, the video and audio editing made it feel uneasy. Furthermore, Carl and Pat were certain in making Nick the first boot due to his laziness, and even Nick agreed he was only looking busy.

Despite the mixed early edit, the second episode saw the beginning of his redemption arc. He noted in a confessional that he’s not taking anything for granted and that it was his second life in the game en route to winning a million dollars. The context of a redemption arc took precedence over him looking shady in the premiere, especially if that theme doesn’t continue further.

Winners don’t need a huge merge episode

The reason I flipped Nick and Christian after the merge episode was because Nick felt so tertiary to the action. He seemed to be dragged into a six-person alliance, then reflected as such in a confessional where he remarked how good it was for his long-term game. The rest of the episode saw him virtually out of the action as Mike, Christian, Alec and Angelina took focus.

Considering how hard Alec was playing, how badly Angelina was tanking her game and who was forming the basis of the betrayal in the coming episodes, it makes sense that Nick was a minor player at the merge. The important part is that we caught up on his game at the merge, unlike Davie who had literally zero lines to kill his winner chances.

Middle-of-the-Road women need well-rounded content throughout

It’s been a standard in Survivor to vastly under edit its female winners that aren’t exciting, bombastic characters. Sarah had 11 confessionals in the first nine episodes of Game Changers before receiving 34 across the final five episodes. Natalie Anderson had 12 confessionals across her first nine episodes in San Juan del Sur before ending the season with 46. Natalie White had 15 confessionals throughout the entirety of Samoa.

Many had considered Kara’s story of charming the competition to be an ongoing theme that ties the season together. We kept checking in on her game even when the vote had nothing to do with her input. However, what many failed to realize is that she never really gave many winner quotes, nor did we see many moments of her establishing allies in the game.

When looking for potential under-the-radar or mid-tier women winners, you need to consider all the factors of a regular winner’s edit, no matter what. Do they have agency in making alliances? Do they offer multiple winner quotes throughout the season? Do they receive more than zero questions at Tribal Council? Keep everything into account.

Measured “villainy” lasts longer than intense “villainy”

Ever since Tony Vlachos proved that you can be an over-the-top, loveable villain and also be a Survivor winner. Now that variable is a part of edgic, we need to realize what kind of villains are destined for long-term games, as well as what kind of “villain” can be a winner.

While Natalie was viewed of as a lazy, bossy player off the bat, her villainy didn’t pick up until the second episode, still building upon her story as a boss that doesn’t know how to adapt. Meanwhile, Jeremy was crescendoing quickly over his first three episodes, forcing as much of his positive and overwhelmingly negative blowup in the span of his final two rounds.

However, Angelina’s villainy was edited in much more subdued ways. First, she was dismissive of the Davids before laying low. Then, she was talking about positive feminist issues concerning women idol stats preceding her social skills to flip the vote from Natalie to Jeremy. It was after her cockiness caught up to her via Jacketgate that she started to spiral downward.

Giving a player complexity and multitudes with their villainy and positivity is a key for late-game players. The more one-note they are, the shorter and less complex their edit is.