Way back on Survivor: Borneo, a novel reality television strategy was born. Richard Hatch, Kelly Wigglesworth, Sue Hawk, and Rudy Boesch came together and created the first ever majority alliance and strategy that single-handedly changed reality competition shows in the United States forever.
The idea of an alliance seems so trivial now, but back then, it was a fresh idea, even controversial. In the current era of games, however, it is nearly impossible to get a majority alliance to the end of the game. Season 48 is trying a bit, as have other alliances in the past, but time will tell if they succeed.
Rachel LaMont, winner of Survivor 47, sat down with Jeff Probst and explained why this has become such a challenge in the modern gaming climate. Is it that players do not want to play that type of game? Or is it just too logistically difficult?
Rachel LaMont says majority alliances are necessary in the game
On this week's episode of On Fire, the official Survivor podcast, Rachel sat down with her cohosts and talked a bit about how and why the game has shifted away from the majority alliance strategy that had previously dominated old school Survivor. Jay Wolff asked Rachel, "Do you think it's time to move on holistically from simple majority alliances on Survivor when the numbers start to dwindle?"
Rachel responded with a brilliant, detailed explanation about the elements at play.
"We are a long way from Borneo, and while Survivor strategy has moved on from the entire original Pagong tribe taking out every last member of the Togi tribe before turning on themselves, we only have to look back a couple seasons to Survivor 45 to see the Reba four stick together and become four of the Final Six."
If majorities are necessary, why are they hard to keep together?
So, why does a dominant majority alliance happen far less often now than it did in the past? Rachel has some reasoning and gave us some insight into the mindset of the player in the current era.
"I think it has become rarer to find a group of people willing to stick it out so deep into the game. But in general, Survivor still requires a majority vote, and so majority alliances are still really important. I think the evolution that has occurred has become, 'Can you keep your majority alliance under wraps? Can you convince outsiders that they're truly a part of it?' So that as the layers of the onion peel back, people don't realize they're on the outside of the core until it's too late."
This is an interesting and key point. Majority alliances still matter to some degree, in that players need numbers to move forward in the game. How, then, do you keep those alliances together each vote, or do you even try to keep them together at that point? With a Final Three in play, and only small instances where three is a majority, someone has to be on the bottom.
Jeff Probst touched on this idea in his follow-up comment a bit.
"And you also have to have a core, like in the case of Reba, four people who all believe, not only are the in of the in, but that they can beat the other three."
The in of the in references that big three, the three going to the end, or as he puts it, "the core."
Rachel agreed with Jeff and added a little bit of what goes through the player's mind as the game draws closer to a conclusion.
"Exactly, that's why it's rare. It is rare. You know, we haven't seen a Reba four before that in a bit, you know, I mean, we had the Tika three, but even then it's like you get towards the end, and I mean, the Reba four still took out drew first. You know, they're still saying, well, I don't know, like it's much more difficult because people are much more game savvy, I think."
I think that is the essence here. Players understand they need to navigate to the end against people who play differently from them, so they can earn the votes to win. If they are not seen as the dominant alliance force, then it starts to become, "I don't know," and "Is this really the right choice?". Ultimately, it is very hard for more than three people to all agree that they are somehow the three. Ego can play a role there, but players are more savvy.
In the end, we will see alliances play out, but fans who are looking for a majority domination, will likely be in for a disappointment.