How Many Players Would Do What Erik Did?

On the face of it, Erik's decision in Survivor: Micronesia to give up immunity to Natalie is something only an idiot would do- after all, not only did he give up immunity, but he gave up immunity while he was in the final five with a four-person alliance!  And he gave it to the fourth person in said alliance to boot.

Thinking about things from Erik's perspective, though, I've wondered whether a decent amount of Survivor players would have fallen for similar tactics as those used on Erik by the Black Widow Brigade in the leadup to his fateful decision.

I'll try to go over the beliefs and actions of Erik in his boot episode, and try to see how many players would have fallen into the same traps.

The episode starts out with Erik talking to Natalie; they promise to send each other to exile if one of them wins the reward, so one of them can get the idol.  Which leads to the first belief:

Erik believes that Natalie is on his side against the remaining Favorites. I think Erik was pretty well within his rights to believe this.  After all, the Fans had just previously worked together to vote Amanda out.  It's also in Natalie's best interests to work with Erik, given how tight Parvati, Amanda and Cirie (henceforth known as "PAC") are.  It's true that Natalie contributed to the Ozzy blindside without Erik in the loop, but neither was Amanda in the loop- and it was obviously within Amanda's rights to believe that Cirie and Parvati were with her.  In fact, we don't get a confessional in this early part of the episode to confirm that Natalie *isn't* on Erik's side at this point (obviously, her disposition towards Erik will be cemented later on).  Erik will make many mistakes in this episode, but I don't think this proceeding with Natalie is one of them.



PAC have an idea that an arrangement between Erik and Natalie like the above could be in play, so they devise a plan to break it up.  Amanda then talks with Erik, which leads to the second item:

Erik feels bad about voting Amanda out after she helped him get to the merge. Although Erik was previously planning to send Natalie to exile, he is convinced to send Parvati to exile and take Amanda to the reward after Amanda talks to her.  One of the factors (another will be mentioned shortly) that is most effective in getting him to do what she says is the guilt that Erik has after voting Amanda out, when she had helped him stay to the merge over Ami. (She isn't shown using that angle in the edit, but given that Cirie told her to and that she said "totally redeemed yourself" after he chose to take her to the reward, I assume that angle was taken.  Points are definitely taken away from Erik if the other means of attempted persuasion that were shown is what swayed him, though.)

Obviously, the game of Survivor has one winner, and unlike in real life, there's nothing morally wrong with failing to help someone in the game after they helped you in the game.  The fact that Amanda helped save Erik from leaving before the merge doesn't then morally obligate Erik to then harm his game by keeping Amanda around.  To someone who has a clear concept of the distinction between personal matters and the game, and who has internalized this distinction fully, that is clear.  

However, as is well-known in the Survivor community, said distinction is often hard to remember and internalize.  Just as those who are stabbed in the back often feel bad about it afterwards in a variety of ways (as is most clear at final tribal councils), the ones doing the back-stabbing rarely find it easy either.  Even Parvati, whom many consider one of the all-time greats, and whose emotions were rarely seen getting the best of her, mentioned in an After Show that she herself was affected by Ozzy's jury speech after she helped blindside him*.  

Erik is no exception to this- he has grown to be friends with Amanda, and thus had a spark of guilt in him for voting her out, which was constantly fueled by Amanda.  Especially when it was developed by Amanda, Erik then has a desire to want to make it up to Amanda- not just on a game level, but on a personal level as well (as evidenced by his attempt to apologize to her at the upcoming tribal council, "game aside").

Overall, I think that more Survivor players would fall for this kind of tactic than wouldn't.

*Speaking of Parvati and emotional attachments, one of those few times where her emotions got the best of her was in that previous tribal council, where she was close enough to Amanda that she wouldn't vote for her, even though it may have been in her best interests to do so.  When Amanda merely expressed sadness to Cirie that she was going to go (at least, that's all we saw in the edit), Cirie was moved by it enough that she said in a confessional that she was right on the brink of drawing rocks (where PAC would have a 2/3 chance of losing, and where she'd have a 1/3 chance of going home) to try to save her, even after she acknowledged in a confessional aired before said proceeding that it was strategically not so bad for Amanda to go.  If Amanda was able to move Parvati and Amanda to that extent with minimal emotional manipulation, can we really blame Erik for being moved by much more?



When Erik then goes on the reward with Amanda, he mentions the third item, which has been alluded to before in the episode (and which also may have contributed to the decision to send Amanda to exile):

Erik feels swayed in different directions by the different women in the game, and isn't very decisive about picking what to do.: It's difficult to say how many players would be in a similar state here- it would seem partially attributable to the women's (particularly Amanda's, and Cirie's later on) skills in manipulation, but it does seem like the mark of a bad player.  This may be the factor in Erik's fateful decision that's the most damning.



After the reward, Erik has a conversation with Cirie, which Natalie eavesdrops on.  In it, he says something which will really come back to bite him:

"So maybe me, you and Parv should go to the end, and do that instead." On the face of it, this is something only an idiot would say.  How could you say such contradictory things to all these women, particularly Amanda and Cirie, and expect them not to compare notes?

However, upon further examination, it was actually Cirie who helped plant that seed in his mind, when she asked him: "Do you think if Natalie was sitting next to you she would beat you hands down, or do you think if Amanda was sitting next to you she would beat you hands down?  That's the question."  By getting Erik to think about both Natalie and Amanda as jury threats, the immediate train of thought is for Erik to then to wonder if he should go to the end with Cirie and Parvati.  Should he have done this wondering out loud?  No.  Should he have done the out-loud wondering in a place where it was easy for someone to eavesdrop?  No.  But I'm also not sure how many Survivor players wouldn't ever slip up and wonder these sorts of things out loud, or do so in a questionable location.

This wasn't a matter of Erik saying different things to different women because he thinks he can dupe them all.  In both Amanda's and Cirie's case (that we saw), it was a matter of the women manipulating *him* to tell them different things, in such a way that I’m not convinced a decent amount of players wouldn’t do the same thing.

After this conversation with Cirie, Erik sees the women comparing notes, which leads to the next item:

Erik somewhat-desperately wants to earn trust back.  I’d think this would be a somewhat-normal sentiment after one’s spot has been blown up.  You could say that he didn’t have to care about his political standing because of how good he was in challenges, but relying on challenges entirely isn’t really the smartest thing, I don’t think (especially when Amanda and Parvati are no slouches at challenges, either).

Erik ends up winning immunity for the third straight time, and Natalie approaches him to pitch her hair-brained idea: give her the necklace so that Cirie would agree to vote Amanda out.  This brings up the next bit:

Erik doesn’t have the willpower to never entertain giving immunity up.  When Johnny Mac of Big Brother 17 was asked by Clay and Shelli to not use the Power of Veto to save himself from the chopping block (a rough equivalent to a Survivor player giving up immunity), he gave us a succinct take on the idea in the diary room:

“N… NO!!”

It did seem that Erik had a similar take (“I’m not even gonna consider that”) at first, but it apparently didn’t last long enough, such that he was willing to talk to Cirie about it.

The question to ask at this point is how many players would have the willpower to shut down any thoughts of giving up immunity.  It’s hard to really say, because it’s rarely been suggested to anybody to make such an off-the-wall move.  Now that Erik has firmly placed his negative example into the psyche of future Survivor players, it’s much less likely for a modern player to entertain the idea of giving up immunity, but once again, I’m leaning towards thinking that most players before said example was made wouldn’t completely shut down the idea.

As well as to regain trust, there’s another issue that Natalie brings up that will seemingly play into Erik’s decision-making:

Erik things that the jury is upset at him, and that he needs to change that.  This one’s a bit strange to me.  Perhaps I didn’t pay enough attention, but I don’t see any reason to think the jury was that upset at Erik.  It’s possible that it was somewhat true, though, since the edit shows Eliza expressing agreement when Erik talks about how there was nobody in the jury whom he didn’t back-stab, lie to, etc.

Another aspect that Natalie briefly mentions is that he needed to make a “pivotal move” if he wanted to win the jury over.  It’s possible that she meant that in the sense of changing the jury from being upset at him, but it’s also possible she means it in the more modern sense of needing a “big move” in your resume for a jury to vote for you.

To be honest, unless there are reasons we don’t know of (or that I have just forgotten) to think that the jury would be upset at Erik, this may be one of the most damning aspects of his thought process.  Eliza was targeted by the whole tribe, Erik was only tangentially involved in the Jason blindside, and Erik voted with both Ozzy and Alexis (with James having been medically evacuated).  Who, exactly, is upset at Erik in that jury?  A sufficiently-reflective player should probably be able to see that the jury isn’t upset with Erik here.

Now that all of the aspects of Erik’s thought process are in place, though, the women try to piece them together to get him to give up the necklace.  In order for him to do it, there are two people whom he has to think are on his side:

Natalie:  I mentioned before that it was reasonable for him to assume she was on his side after the last tribal, but things got slightly dicy later on.  When she approaches Erik to pitch the idea of giving immunity up, the first thing she mentions in the edited conversation are that herself and Amanda were his biggest threats.  That’s probably a mistake by Natalie to say that (as opposed to just mentioning Amanda as a threat- she -also probably should have said she was their threat together rather than just his), and it perhaps should have given Erik a clue that maybe Natalie isn’t on board with getting rid of Amanda.  Why, afterall, would Natalie be voting with him when she knows full-well that she is his next target?  This is another one of those cues that a good player would probably notice, although perhaps many players wouldn’t catch onto something like that.  One final thing that was mentioned in the Survivor Historians podcast is that when Erik asked for the vote to be changed from Amanda to Parvati, Natalie seemed just fine with it (where normally, you’d expect them to try to talk him out of it, and stick to voting for Amanda).  That’s just another one of those things that maybe a better player would pick up on.

Cirie: As I said before, I still don’t think this is all too irrational on Erik’s part (remember, as well, that a great player like Cirie would naturally be good at getting people to trust her).  She was on board with getting Amanda out last time (and without much resistance that we saw in the edit), so although the dynamics are different now that she would be the swing vote (as opposed to someone who could force a rock draw), it isn’t so unreasonable to think that she would be on board with getting rid of a player who was generally seen as a jury threat.

As discussed before, Erik sees that he isn’t trusted, so the pitch to him is that Cirie needs to see Erik give up the necklace for Cirie to trust him enough to vote Amanda out.  Stepping into Erik’s shoes, it was a bit confusing why Cirie didn’t want Erik to give the necklace to her, but I suppose she could also have been worried to vote Amanda and lose her trust if she doesn’t go home.

One final thing that was mentioned in the Survivor Historians podcast, though, is that when Erik asked for the vote to be changed from Amanda to Parvati, Natalie and Cirie seemed just fine with it (where normally, you’d expect them to try to talk him out of it, and stick to voting for Amanda).  

In the end, I see the decision to give up immunity as more of a risky play with a decent bit of reward involved if it pays off.  There have been similar basic kinds of moves (In Heroes vs. Villains, JT giving the idol to Russell, as well as Tyson switching his vote to Parvati, are two examples) that have not worked out, while others (Russell giving the idol to Parvati) have.  

If I had to estimate how many players would take a similar path to Erik’s in his circumstances, I’d guess somewhere around a third, but I’m not sure.  The aspects that are most “damning” to him as a player would most likely be: the susceptibility to be somewhat-easily swayed that showed up a couple of times in the episode; thinking that the jury was upset with him; failing to pick up on certain signs (acknowledging that she was a threat to him, being fine with switching to Parvati) that maybe Natalie wasn’t really on board with voting with him.

Overall, though, I don’t think that Erik can be called one of the dumbest or worst players in Survivor history for this move.  While he certainly deserves some debit, I think the Black Widow Brigade (particularly Cirie and Amanda) deserve most of it.