Parvati Shallow just won the latest season of Survivor, Australia vs. the World. She has officially joined Sandra Diaz-Twine and Tony Vlachos as the only two-time Survivor winners in history.
In a recent interview with Chattr, Parvati explained why she's one of the best Survivor players ever, perhaps the best ever to play the game. It's all about her legacy.
"My legacy is inarguable, like I am the only person to make it to Final Tribal Council three times," Parvati said. "And won twice. How do you argue with that?"
Honestly, you can't really argue with that. Of course, Parvati's legacy includes one win on Australian Survivor, but she touched on why that's actually more impressive.
"Australian Survivor is so hardcore," Parvati continued. "It's actually what US Survivor used to be in its glory days. Australia Survivor is, as far as I'm concerned, the gold standard of Survivor, and we had an international cast of the biggest players Survivor has ever seen from any country in the history of Survivor."
Parvati's latest win is probably the most impressive in the show's history simply because of her threat level. Parvati is probably the most dangerous player in Survivor history. I don't know how many players she's been responsible for taking out, but she has to have one of the best voting records in the show's history.
Parvati Shallow, Sandra Diaz-Twine, and Tony Vlachos are the only two-time Survivor winners
When it comes to Survivor resumes, there are three players with better resumes than everyone else: Parvati, Sandra, and Tony. Sorry, Boston Rob, but they've each won three times, and they've outdueled each other at different times.
We shared some of their important stats from playing Survivor:
Players | Times Played | Total Wins | Finalist | Earliest Exit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Parvati Shallow | 6 | 2 | 3 | 7th (Winners at War) |
Sandra Diaz-Twine | 5 | 2 | 2 | 6th (Game Changers) |
Tony Vlachos | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2nd (Game Changers) |
Among those three players, Parvati might be missing that second US Survivor win, but she was also a runner-up to Sandra in Heroes vs. Villains. She was only two votes away from winning that season, and if you look at how that season played out, Parvati had no business making it as far as she did. She was clearly the most feared player in the game. The "Heroes" didn't want anything to do with her, and she, with help, picked them off one by one. This is no shade to Sandra, but there's a strong argument that she didn't actually outplay Parvati that season. The jury simply liked her more than Parvati and Russell Hantz.
That's how Survivor works, and the right person almost always wins. In this case, I almost view Parvati's accomplishments during that season a little more positively. She was like LeBron James in the 2007 NBA Playoffs. He carried a sub-par Cavs team to the NBA Finals and ran into Hall of Famers in Tim Duncan and the Spurs. Sandra is the Spurs. She was great, but was she better than Parvati? I don't know.
As mentioned, Parvati has more days in the game, more times played on Survivor, more finalist appearances, and she was never voted out as early as Sandra or Tony. Does that matter? To me, it does.
The only place Parvati doesn't have Sandra and Tony beat is in the head-to-head matchup. Parvati finished runner-up to Sandra in Heroes vs. Villains. She was also voted out very early in Winners at War, along with Sandra. Tony went on to win that season.
When it comes to the greatest Survivor of all time, there's no wrong answer. Objectively, you can argue that Sandra, Tony, and Parvati were the best Survivor ever. It's all a matter of preference, but to me, Parvati has been a better, more feared player throughout her run on the show. Now, she has the wins to back it up.