One of the most critical aspects of Survivor is a little thing called jury management. As everyone knows, jury management entails the strategic and social decisions a player makes to curry favour with other players so that when they are on the jury and present their cases to them, the jury respects and votes for that player to win the game. No matter how "good" a player is, without proper jury management, there's no chance that person wins the game.
As Survivor 48 came to a close, one of its jury members, Kamilla Karthigesu, revealed in her exit interview with Mike Bloom for Parade her thoughts and perception of the jury's feelings towards the season's finalists and what changed once she became part of that same jury.
As we all saw during the last episode of Survivor 48, Kamilla was eliminated from the game after losing the Final Four Fire-Making challenge against Eva Erickson. Therefore, Kamilla couldn't spend as much time with her juror peers and get a full read of their thoughts. When asked what her initial thoughts were upon Final Tribal commencing regarding who the jury might vote for, Kamilla responded, "My read on the jury was that they were pretty salty."
Long-time fans know what damage a "salty jury" can inflict upon a player's game, hence the importance of jury management. Bitter people will always exist, and while a person might feel salty towards their own personal demise in a game regardless of the actions of others, it is more likely that a jury will feel even more inclined to be salty depending on what that finalist said or did towards the jury members before their torches were snuffed.
An example of a particularly salty and bitter jury was the one in Survivor: Gabon. The jury felt such disdain, bitterness, and even hatred toward finalist Jessica "Sugar" Kipper that she got zero votes to win, even though her game had been a whole lot better overall than one of her fellow finalists and the eventual winner of the season. Another player who could never learn how to do jury management properly and lost the game twice was Russell Hantz, as others didn't take his cruel, egotistical, and crude remarks well, and he was then overlooked for more well-rounded players to win.
Going back to Survivor 48, Kamilla stated the jury wasn't particularly set toward any of the finalists, and most were open to voting for any of the finalists if they were able to take ownership of their game. As we all saw throughout the season, members of the "Strong" alliance, mainly Eva and Joe Hunter, were dead set on wanting to play with honesty, loyalty, and integrity but had indeed betrayed a few allies along the way before getting a chance to plead their case to the jury.
Here's what Kamilla stated during the same interview:
"If they owned that [betraying allies David Kinne and Shauhin Davari], maybe they could sway us."
Despite Joe and Eva's pleas, most of the jury was ultimately swayed in Kyle Fraser's way, who ended up winning the season in a 5-2-1 vote, but certainly not without Kamilla's help.
As Kyle pitched his case, Kamilla reinforced Kyle's strategic and social prowess throughout the game, culminating in her bestie Kyle getting crowned as the Sole Survivor. Now, that's what a true friend does.