The theme of Survivor 51? Whales. But why?

As you probably know by now, theSurvivor 51cast list has been revealed and I’ve already spent way too many hours analyzing our players, but there’s even more to the season that we need to talk about besides our21 new castaways.

Alongside the official casting announcement, we got a behind-the-scenes sneak peek at the new Tribal Council set by none other thanJeff Probsthimself, who talked us through the theme of the season: whales.

“This is a village where whales are revered,” the long-time host and showrunner begins to explain as we get close ups of the details of theTribal Councilset, "because thousands of years ago, in our telling, they were the saviors. And that is the theme of this whole season.”

So get ready to see whaleseverywhere, according to Jeff; in the imagery of the season, in the sets, in challenges…everywhere.

Now, the interesting thing about what Jeff says is that this is allSurvivor 51’stelling of whales within the culture ofSurvivor. In general, whales tend to symbolize wisdom, longevity, and connection due to the fact that they live long lives in pods. So I understand how that could tie back into outwit, outplay, outlast, but it’s interesting to see Jeff hint at the show creating its own lore, built around saviors—because over the last 50 seasons, that’s exactly what it’s done.

And if you look back at theSurvivor 51teaser trailer (below), you’ll see that the season was officially “brought to life” by an egg cracking and a “51” appearing inside of it. But whales are mammals, which famously don’t lay eggs (not including monotremes—the few mammal species that lay eggs). So where is the egg coming from?

In the teaser, Jeff specifically says, “A new crop of players is about to birth a new kind of game,” which is averyinteresting choice of words. Obviously, he’s hinting at the latest evolution of the game, which they’re calling the open era, but one of the biggest things when reviewing the cast announcement was that I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of these new players felt likenew age versionsof some past iconic players.

So could Jeff literally be hinting that we’re about to take things back to the beginning with casting choices that more closely resemble some of the most legendary players? Based on first impressions alone, I noticed immense similarities between some of our castaways and icons like Cirie Fields, Parvati Shallow,Boston Rob Mariano, J.T. Thomas, Amanda Kimmel, Jeremy Collins, Russell Hantz, John Cochran, Benjamin “Coach” Wade, and Tina Wesson, to name a few. And I’m not just talking about appearance. I’m talking about personal and professional social approaches and possible gameplay styles.

And remembering that the symbol forSurvivor 50was a phoenix—which I initially assumed would be tied into the rebirth opportunity for the returning players, but was never truly addressed—I can’t help but wonder if season 50 was the symbolic death of the series followed by season 51’s symbolic rebirth.

We’ll see if this is the case as we’ve been told many times that this new “open era” of the game could incorporate anything that’s previously gone down inSurvivorhistory as well as new opportunities for gameplay. But based on all the clues we’re getting, it feels like production is telling us that theSurvivorwe once knew is gone, but this new evolution is going to be here for a long time to come, just like the whale—the longest living of which was recorded at 268 years old.

So while it might feel likeSurvivordoesn’t know what they’re doing as they foray into both new and old territory, the theme ofSurvivor 51sings a different (whale) song that tells us they know exactly what’s about to go down in the latest era of our favorite competition reality show.

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