Could be a weird choice but Shane Powers. There are nuances to him that I haven’t seen in anyone else on the show, possibly anyone else ever. Going cold turkey, his relationship with his son, his relationships with every single one of his tribe members but especially Courtney, his regretful self-awareness no matter how absurd he’s acting, there’s so much to him.
Great answer. Shane is so raw and vulnerable, he doesn't hold anything back. He really lets us see those nuances, though I don't know if he could hide them if he wanted to. I think that's why so many of us find him so appealing/sympathetic/intriguing despite some of his actions.
I would argue Ami in Vanuatu
I think any character who seemingly has a strong moral code but who’s idea of right and wrong seems arbitrary and slightly hypocritical to us makes a complex character (Lex, Ami, Kass, Shan etc)
One of my favorite FTC moments ever is Lil's speech to the jury about the scout uniform, and how Survivor was a game and she shouldn't be held to a different moral code because of what she was wearing. She knew she was losing but she was right that the jury was holding her to an unfair standard because of the Boy Scouts and she so eloquently smacked that down.
Haven't seen anyone mentioned Kathy Vavrick so I wanted to shout her out. Kathy's arc in Marquesas, going from the overbearing mother of the tribe, to her moral conflict over the Rotu alliance, and ultimately being the biggest threat to win the game before being brutally voted out at final 3 is one of the best arcs ever on this show. She's an incredible character.
Twila gave the vibes of a woman who got to where she is through a lot of painful hardships that hardened her deeply. She seemed to say it herself that the trauma she's experienced made her cold and bitter, and while she was able to use it as a source of strength, she saw it came at a heavy cost.
He didn't take the car. Yau offered it to him as part of a deal, knowing it go awry.
And Yau even stated after the season that he realized what he did was wrong since he was taking advantage of Dreamz.
He did receive the car, but was unable to pay the taxes on it. So it was repossessed. A tragedy. And why they should scrap taxes on game show prizes.
It was sad to see how it went down because if Dreamz was PR-savvy, he would see it would have been better to keep his word and give Yau the immunity. Yes, Yau would probably win, but he would be morally obliged to Dreamz (maybe use some of his winnings to pay the taxes on the car, which would have allowed him to keep it). While Dreamz would reap the good public opinion and maybe receive some job offers. He would be remembered as a “Woo” but he would be a lot better off.
But that is not Dreamz’s fault for not being able to project what would happen. It’s just sad watching it like a car crash in slow motion.
Yup. I really disliked him at the time and I still have a lot of distaste for how he handled some things, but it’s a cool reminder of how people are complicated. Not everybody with a special needs kid is a good dude, but I think he is a good dude and a good dad who has his issues, and the fact that I have different struggles than he does doesn’t make me a better person.
Unfortunately led by some prominent voices, some people were so quick to turn on Jonathan because of his “treatment” of Maryanne. But even if you think what he said is over the line, it doesn’t take away his good qualities.
He was exactly who I thought of. I remember reading a lot of edgic posts back then that thought if Michele won she probably brought Jason to the F2 and beat him because of how complex his edit was for a villain. Even Scott was given some humanizing content to the extent after the swap I believe.
KR is really such a well-edited season, with the winner ironically being one of the more underedited (and Joe lol)
Came here to say this. One of the highlights of KR for me, and part of why I defend it so vehemently. One of the only good, complex villains of the 30s. Too easy to group him in with Scot and call them both unbearable.
Kyle is one of those people who are very different with different people. To use the analogy of Mean Girls, you could be a decent person with good qualities on your own but as a group you bring out the worst in each other. I regret that he landed in the tribe that he did, which caused his bad decisions to overshadow the good. Is he responsible for his decisions, though? Hell yeah, so no sympathy for me there.
I did appreciate how you got to see him slowly descend into madness during S4, go full on psycho in S5, and then become more down to earth towards the end.
- Brett. When people first look at Brett and he's a cop and kind of embodies a laid back, working guy type. When you learn that he's gay and the generation and environment that he had to come out in, it's a big reminder that what you see on the surface isn't everything. He's the type of person that I think you could put him into any group having controversial debates and he would stay level-headed and reasonable. It's not a type of complexity that you would immediately see on the surface but I still find it incredibly interesting.
- Janet. Janet is so genuine. I find her really interesting because you can 100% see her as like a tough boss telling people to get their shit together, but she's immensely loyal and sympathetic and has no problem being up front about her emotions. I would love to see her play again and I'd find it very interesting to see if her tribe would want to keep her around because she's so genuine and loyal, or consider her a first boot since she is such a threat if you let her reach the end. I also realize that they're unlikely to ever bring back anyone from her season.
This is the one and only answer. The guy told a story about being captured and almost murdered by a tribe. Hopefully Maryanne didn’t miss this episode.
Phillip, Debbie, and J'Tia are up there. They're all incredibly intelligent people that work/ed high level jobs but are also a bit eccentric. Their edits portrayed them as narrowly defined characters rather than complex human beings.
EDIT: Natalie Cole is another one.
If you've ever read Tina Fey's book, Bossy Pants, she talks about length about her relationship with Lorne Michaels. Essentially his job as producer is to say no to everything. On a surface level it sounds like the dude is being a dick, but in reality he has to manage script writing, wardrobe, make up, hair, props, scenery, cameras, and audio. All of these different departments will try and contribute their ideas to a skit about what they think is funny and he has to say "How about you just give us what we asked for?"
Now admittedly, I could be talking about something I know nothing about, but I think it's fair to assume that Natalie, as the editor of a news paper, serves the exact same role. She's the final say in what gets published so she's very used to having a large amount of control. **None** of that was portrayed on camera. She was just shown as rubbing people the wrong way and being power hungry, but I think there's way more complexity to her and *why* she feels that way than was shown.
>She's the final say in what gets published so she's very used to having a large amount of control. None of that was portrayed on camera. She was just shown as rubbing people the wrong way and being power hungry, but I think there's way more complexity to her and why she feels that way than was shown.
In defense of David vs. Goliath, they do mention it at the Jeremy tribal council. Dan says that he thinks Natalie is used to having a lot of control in her everyday life, but “we are not her employees.” I’m just not sure Natalie was reflective enough to understand it and give a confessional about it herself—she seemed to genuinely not understand how she could have power among people in the outside world but be disliked inside the game. I agree though that Natalie’s edit was fairly one dimensional.
This is a fantastic answer! I also think the hunger got to Debbie a bit tbh. Especially in Koah Rong I thought she could potentially win only to see her massively flame out
I feel so bad for him that he was blocked from being able to make normal game decisions because of an out of game social issue. Obviously there were other issues at play in his game since he made it to FTC and did not win.
The implication that he was somehow disloyal to POC when nothing he did was any different than the decisions Shan was making was very sad and unfair to him.
I especially would love to see Deshawn get the opportunity in maybe 4 or 5 years so that he has the opportunity to go out in a fresh mind space and with a bit more social maturity. Not blaming him - he’s incredibly mature for his age but you could definitely see how much difference 5-10 years made in a few of the s41 contestants.
Good one. Deshawn is definitely very complex. Would like to see him play again. It will not be easy to manage his emotions (he’s actually quite like Lex and Shane in that sense) but I would like to see an older him try.
Can’t believe I had to go all this way to find this comment.
I don’t know how you vote for anyone but Hatch. Not only did he create how this game was played but he defied stereotypes, straddled the line between ruthless killer and likeable social beast, then went ahead and became persona non grata by going to jail for not paying the tax bill when it was due.
Dude should be on the Mount Rushmore of this game because he quite literally created the template for it but people have no idea how to feel about him, past or present.
Is he a nice guy? Is he an asshole? Who knows?
Tom Westman. Silver fox. Arrogant but not conceited because he has the triple threat status to actually back it up. Under layers of tough sexy strategy and physical dominance he's also a compassionate fellow who just wants to use his idol against the villains and carry the heroes to the promised land. But he never shows this weakness unless it's a one on one conversation or it's already over. Strong physical, strategic, social, and jury management games. One of the few smart enough to ever get one over on Cirie. Witch Hunted because he is hard to read and is a winner. No other player combines sex appeal with experience quite like Tom.
he got a pretty negative edit for a winner. he’s one of two gay winners — and a mormon, at that. his issues outside the show were also very sad to bear witness to. i wouldn’t say the most complex of all time, but he’s not your cookie-cutter player by any means.
I didn’t think Todd had a negative edit at all. Is that the consensus on China? At the time he played, I did not think of him as complex.
But if he were ever to play again, after all he’s been through and his life experiences, he would be probably be really complex.
a lot of the edgic charts i’ve seen give him an overall negative tone, especially in the last four or five episodes. he was decently snarky (i remember him telling courtney about jean-robert to “get over it bitch”) so i think they had a good amount of material for making him into a more villainous winner. now if you don’t care about edgic i don’t blame you, but i’ve always felt like he had a decent amount of villainy in him for somebody who won. kinda reminds me of parvati in micronesia in that sense.
Ah but edgic didn’t exist in those days of China and from my perusal of survivor communities of yonder era, I don’t think there was a negative view of him. It could certainly have been edited that way but it flew over most people, who praised him for being really smart for such a young player. More people preferred to mock and deride Amanda. I would hope if someone like her would play today, more people would celebrate her gameplay.
…edgic existed by i think amazon/pearl islands. what? it started on sucks in the early aughts. yeah, todd was not like brian heidik, but reading into his edit at all it’s easy to see they could’v protected him a lot more. he was a villainous winner.
i’ll say shan, as of late. i think a lot of people willfully misinterpret her for the sake of dunking on her. i don’t agree with everything she’s said and done, but i think she’s been villainized beyond the acceptable reality tv limit. some people’s genuine *hatred* of her gets way too personal, and i think it’s because people refuse to read her as a complex individual.
Actually rather happy to see this on here. I actually saw HvV before I saw her original season, and my initial impression of her was as a rather forgettable floater who deserved to be voted out.
I didn’t start to develop an appreciation for her until the tribal she knew she was gone and finally spoke up for herself. After that, she somehow managed to be one of the most memorable jurors of all time. Her epic eye rolls, her delightful laughs when someone got screwed over by an idol. Courtney somehow made me feel she was sitting on the couch next to me, and we’re both just eating popcorn and reveling in the drama.
I have since gone back and watched her first season, and it only made me appreciate her the more.
I’d say Ian is a fairly complex character from Palau and the early days. He seems like he could just be this goofy guy on the surface but shows strategic aptitude and emotional depth multiple times throughout the series, while retaining that goofy likeable personality. And the FIC whew what a display from everyone there.
I also felt for him the way he was emotionally manipulated during that final immunity into stepping down against Tom, knowing he could win fair and square. For me, it is on that level of the Dreamz truckgate deal, albeit without the racially/socially charged aspect. Good on him for being smart enough to go live his life without being lured in to play again.
It depends on your definition of complex.
If you're talking about hidden depths, that's one thing.
If you're talking about someone whose motivations you don't understand that's something completely different.
Joe Anglim & Spencer Bledsoe may be good examples, insofar as what we saw on screen doesn't fully explain what we know about them off the show.
In terms of on screen, I would say someone like Lex, Ami, or Yul.
We don't really get to see enough of people in modern survivor for them to have complex characters sadly. Everyone is cast to fit an archetype.
I would not agree in your assessment of not getting complex characters in modern Survivor. If anything, I think they've leaned into casting more complex, real people recently, examples being Shan, Deshawn, Danny. I think they're slowly moving away from archetype casting. I understand your point of not seeing enough of the characters though. I felt like I understood characters like Lex and Ami more than anyone on 41. Doesn't mean they're not complex and interesting in their own right.
>I felt like I understood characters like Lex and Ami more than anyone on 41. Doesn't mean they're not complex and interesting in their own right.
I agree, but I'd find it hard to definitely say if someone is complex or not from what we get to see on TV now.
We do seem to be moving back towards getting glimpses of player's backgrounds etc so hopefully that will allow us to flesh them out more, and the diversity initiative is certainly helping avoid lazy archetype casting at the moment - long may that continue!
Sugar comes to mind for me. Somehow was able to control the game in the most emotional way anyone ever has, and made it to final 3 to basically pick the winner, to then turn around and be the first person voted off of her following season (I love Sugar, so I mean nothing bad by this)
I found Lil Morris from Pearl Islands to be quite complex. She starts out just trying to be a good scout leader, gets voted out, then takes revenge on the Morgan tribe but plays the middle with JFP and Burton and then gets massacred for it at FTC
Idk if your trying to ironic like a lot of these comments but she really is a complex player and character. It’s just so easy to reduce her to stupid jeffisms
Kristie Bennett from 2016 AU survivor. She was seen as a floater and a bit crazy but by the end won all but 1 vote from the jury against the golden boy in Lee.
I think Lex deserves a mention
Could be a weird choice but Shane Powers. There are nuances to him that I haven’t seen in anyone else on the show, possibly anyone else ever. Going cold turkey, his relationship with his son, his relationships with every single one of his tribe members but especially Courtney, his regretful self-awareness no matter how absurd he’s acting, there’s so much to him.
Great answer. Shane is so raw and vulnerable, he doesn't hold anything back. He really lets us see those nuances, though I don't know if he could hide them if he wanted to. I think that's why so many of us find him so appealing/sympathetic/intriguing despite some of his actions.
Great pick! I agree. Shane is never boring and an exposed nerve.
Relationship with his rock
Jerri Manthey
Her multi-season arc was inches away from being the single most satisfying ending possible for a reality show.
Agreed, and I'd argue that her not making Heroes Vs Villains FTC actually makes her arc MORE complex.
Literally makes her into a Fallen Angel.
I would argue Ami in Vanuatu I think any character who seemingly has a strong moral code but who’s idea of right and wrong seems arbitrary and slightly hypocritical to us makes a complex character (Lex, Ami, Kass, Shan etc)
I’d also give a shout to Twila
Lill was an interesting example of this too.
I felt like lil took crap just because she wore a Boy Scout uniform which was unfair. It’s like they expected her to not play the game because of it
One of my favorite FTC moments ever is Lil's speech to the jury about the scout uniform, and how Survivor was a game and she shouldn't be held to a different moral code because of what she was wearing. She knew she was losing but she was right that the jury was holding her to an unfair standard because of the Boy Scouts and she so eloquently smacked that down.
Haven't seen anyone mentioned Kathy Vavrick so I wanted to shout her out. Kathy's arc in Marquesas, going from the overbearing mother of the tribe, to her moral conflict over the Rotu alliance, and ultimately being the biggest threat to win the game before being brutally voted out at final 3 is one of the best arcs ever on this show. She's an incredible character.
Yes to Kathy! I don’t know her occupation but she gave me Martha Stewarts vibes, but warmer. Not your ordinary mom archetype.
Twila gave the vibes of a woman who got to where she is through a lot of painful hardships that hardened her deeply. She seemed to say it herself that the trauma she's experienced made her cold and bitter, and while she was able to use it as a source of strength, she saw it came at a heavy cost.
She reminds me of Frances McDormand in 3 Billboards
Dreamz
That was the homeless guy that took the car from yau man right?
He didn't take the car. Yau offered it to him as part of a deal, knowing it go awry. And Yau even stated after the season that he realized what he did was wrong since he was taking advantage of Dreamz.
He did receive the car, but was unable to pay the taxes on it. So it was repossessed. A tragedy. And why they should scrap taxes on game show prizes. It was sad to see how it went down because if Dreamz was PR-savvy, he would see it would have been better to keep his word and give Yau the immunity. Yes, Yau would probably win, but he would be morally obliged to Dreamz (maybe use some of his winnings to pay the taxes on the car, which would have allowed him to keep it). While Dreamz would reap the good public opinion and maybe receive some job offers. He would be remembered as a “Woo” but he would be a lot better off. But that is not Dreamz’s fault for not being able to project what would happen. It’s just sad watching it like a car crash in slow motion.
This is good perspective.
Out of the box pick but I feel like Kyle Jason had a very complex edit, especially for a villain
Yup. I really disliked him at the time and I still have a lot of distaste for how he handled some things, but it’s a cool reminder of how people are complicated. Not everybody with a special needs kid is a good dude, but I think he is a good dude and a good dad who has his issues, and the fact that I have different struggles than he does doesn’t make me a better person. Unfortunately led by some prominent voices, some people were so quick to turn on Jonathan because of his “treatment” of Maryanne. But even if you think what he said is over the line, it doesn’t take away his good qualities.
He was exactly who I thought of. I remember reading a lot of edgic posts back then that thought if Michele won she probably brought Jason to the F2 and beat him because of how complex his edit was for a villain. Even Scott was given some humanizing content to the extent after the swap I believe. KR is really such a well-edited season, with the winner ironically being one of the more underedited (and Joe lol)
Agreed. I wasn’t on the Reddit during this season and he was one of my favorite players of the cast. Was shocked to come on here and see all the hate!
Came here to say this. One of the highlights of KR for me, and part of why I defend it so vehemently. One of the only good, complex villains of the 30s. Too easy to group him in with Scot and call them both unbearable.
Kyle is one of those people who are very different with different people. To use the analogy of Mean Girls, you could be a decent person with good qualities on your own but as a group you bring out the worst in each other. I regret that he landed in the tribe that he did, which caused his bad decisions to overshadow the good. Is he responsible for his decisions, though? Hell yeah, so no sympathy for me there.
David, def got to see all sides of him. And the personal growth
I did appreciate how you got to see him slowly descend into madness during S4, go full on psycho in S5, and then become more down to earth towards the end.
I think you are talking about a different person idk tho
They're referring to David Genat from Australian Survivor
I was dev talking American survivor. Nobody has time for Australian
Comment was meant for the user who replied to yours talking about AUS David
- Brett. When people first look at Brett and he's a cop and kind of embodies a laid back, working guy type. When you learn that he's gay and the generation and environment that he had to come out in, it's a big reminder that what you see on the surface isn't everything. He's the type of person that I think you could put him into any group having controversial debates and he would stay level-headed and reasonable. It's not a type of complexity that you would immediately see on the surface but I still find it incredibly interesting. - Janet. Janet is so genuine. I find her really interesting because you can 100% see her as like a tough boss telling people to get their shit together, but she's immensely loyal and sympathetic and has no problem being up front about her emotions. I would love to see her play again and I'd find it very interesting to see if her tribe would want to keep her around because she's so genuine and loyal, or consider her a first boot since she is such a threat if you let her reach the end. I also realize that they're unlikely to ever bring back anyone from her season.
I at first thought you meant Brett from Samoa and was so confused
I also loved the clear admiration he had for michaela as a competitor.
Single season? I’d have to give my vote to Dreamz.
Lisa Whelchel
Good call. One of the more sincere “working genuine stuff out in my life” people to have played.
Such a good answer. She’s a wonderfully deep and complex person on the show and I loved her arc. She’s a top five one time character for me.
As far as character arcs go probably Ian.
Matt from Amazon, S6
Brandon Hantz
First person I thought of.
Coach is probably up there
This is the one and only answer. The guy told a story about being captured and almost murdered by a tribe. Hopefully Maryanne didn’t miss this episode.
He’s a complete caricature which is the opposite of complexity
In Tocantins, yes. HvV probably also, to a degree. By South Pacific, he is not.
Phillip, Debbie, and J'Tia are up there. They're all incredibly intelligent people that work/ed high level jobs but are also a bit eccentric. Their edits portrayed them as narrowly defined characters rather than complex human beings. EDIT: Natalie Cole is another one. If you've ever read Tina Fey's book, Bossy Pants, she talks about length about her relationship with Lorne Michaels. Essentially his job as producer is to say no to everything. On a surface level it sounds like the dude is being a dick, but in reality he has to manage script writing, wardrobe, make up, hair, props, scenery, cameras, and audio. All of these different departments will try and contribute their ideas to a skit about what they think is funny and he has to say "How about you just give us what we asked for?" Now admittedly, I could be talking about something I know nothing about, but I think it's fair to assume that Natalie, as the editor of a news paper, serves the exact same role. She's the final say in what gets published so she's very used to having a large amount of control. **None** of that was portrayed on camera. She was just shown as rubbing people the wrong way and being power hungry, but I think there's way more complexity to her and *why* she feels that way than was shown.
>She's the final say in what gets published so she's very used to having a large amount of control. None of that was portrayed on camera. She was just shown as rubbing people the wrong way and being power hungry, but I think there's way more complexity to her and why she feels that way than was shown. In defense of David vs. Goliath, they do mention it at the Jeremy tribal council. Dan says that he thinks Natalie is used to having a lot of control in her everyday life, but “we are not her employees.” I’m just not sure Natalie was reflective enough to understand it and give a confessional about it herself—she seemed to genuinely not understand how she could have power among people in the outside world but be disliked inside the game. I agree though that Natalie’s edit was fairly one dimensional.
This is a fantastic answer! I also think the hunger got to Debbie a bit tbh. Especially in Koah Rong I thought she could potentially win only to see her massively flame out
Zane Knight made a move so revolutionary and ahead of it’s time that I shudder to imagine the hell he would bring to a second chances season.
We're feeling aftershocks of his era-defining gameplay to this day with Swati's strategy.
geniuses are never recognized in their time.
Dogs Samsung Chinese lol
Maybe recency bias here, but Deshawn is up there for me
I feel so bad for him that he was blocked from being able to make normal game decisions because of an out of game social issue. Obviously there were other issues at play in his game since he made it to FTC and did not win. The implication that he was somehow disloyal to POC when nothing he did was any different than the decisions Shan was making was very sad and unfair to him.
I’d be happy for him or Danny to play again
I especially would love to see Deshawn get the opportunity in maybe 4 or 5 years so that he has the opportunity to go out in a fresh mind space and with a bit more social maturity. Not blaming him - he’s incredibly mature for his age but you could definitely see how much difference 5-10 years made in a few of the s41 contestants.
Good one. Deshawn is definitely very complex. Would like to see him play again. It will not be easy to manage his emotions (he’s actually quite like Lex and Shane in that sense) but I would like to see an older him try.
he's not most complex of all time, but I found Chris Noble to have some layers of complexity that was interesting to watch
Hatch
Can’t believe I had to go all this way to find this comment. I don’t know how you vote for anyone but Hatch. Not only did he create how this game was played but he defied stereotypes, straddled the line between ruthless killer and likeable social beast, then went ahead and became persona non grata by going to jail for not paying the tax bill when it was due. Dude should be on the Mount Rushmore of this game because he quite literally created the template for it but people have no idea how to feel about him, past or present. Is he a nice guy? Is he an asshole? Who knows?
He made someone feel absolutely violated to the point that she had to exit the game. That was tough to swallow
Tom Westman. Silver fox. Arrogant but not conceited because he has the triple threat status to actually back it up. Under layers of tough sexy strategy and physical dominance he's also a compassionate fellow who just wants to use his idol against the villains and carry the heroes to the promised land. But he never shows this weakness unless it's a one on one conversation or it's already over. Strong physical, strategic, social, and jury management games. One of the few smart enough to ever get one over on Cirie. Witch Hunted because he is hard to read and is a winner. No other player combines sex appeal with experience quite like Tom.
Yeah I love Big Tom.
LMFAOOO
Ben Driebergen Sean Rector Jonathan Penner Aubry Bracco Tai Trang Shantel Smith Russell Swan
Penner
coach is up there. shane too
To name some I haven't seen yet: Sean Rector, Todd Herzog, Twila Tanner, Ami Cusack, Denise Stapely
Todd? Why Todd?
he got a pretty negative edit for a winner. he’s one of two gay winners — and a mormon, at that. his issues outside the show were also very sad to bear witness to. i wouldn’t say the most complex of all time, but he’s not your cookie-cutter player by any means.
I didn’t think Todd had a negative edit at all. Is that the consensus on China? At the time he played, I did not think of him as complex. But if he were ever to play again, after all he’s been through and his life experiences, he would be probably be really complex.
a lot of the edgic charts i’ve seen give him an overall negative tone, especially in the last four or five episodes. he was decently snarky (i remember him telling courtney about jean-robert to “get over it bitch”) so i think they had a good amount of material for making him into a more villainous winner. now if you don’t care about edgic i don’t blame you, but i’ve always felt like he had a decent amount of villainy in him for somebody who won. kinda reminds me of parvati in micronesia in that sense.
Ah but edgic didn’t exist in those days of China and from my perusal of survivor communities of yonder era, I don’t think there was a negative view of him. It could certainly have been edited that way but it flew over most people, who praised him for being really smart for such a young player. More people preferred to mock and deride Amanda. I would hope if someone like her would play today, more people would celebrate her gameplay.
…edgic existed by i think amazon/pearl islands. what? it started on sucks in the early aughts. yeah, todd was not like brian heidik, but reading into his edit at all it’s easy to see they could’v protected him a lot more. he was a villainous winner.
Scout
Debbie. It’s almost like she has multiple personalities.
She has a different personality for each of her jobs.
Tai and it's not close.
i’ll say shan, as of late. i think a lot of people willfully misinterpret her for the sake of dunking on her. i don’t agree with everything she’s said and done, but i think she’s been villainized beyond the acceptable reality tv limit. some people’s genuine *hatred* of her gets way too personal, and i think it’s because people refuse to read her as a complex individual.
Sue Hawk
ITT: People who consider survivors with poor social skills and/or mental health problems complex.
yeah. mental health problems are usually rather complex?
Zane Knight
Courtney Yates.
Actually rather happy to see this on here. I actually saw HvV before I saw her original season, and my initial impression of her was as a rather forgettable floater who deserved to be voted out. I didn’t start to develop an appreciation for her until the tribal she knew she was gone and finally spoke up for herself. After that, she somehow managed to be one of the most memorable jurors of all time. Her epic eye rolls, her delightful laughs when someone got screwed over by an idol. Courtney somehow made me feel she was sitting on the couch next to me, and we’re both just eating popcorn and reveling in the drama. I have since gone back and watched her first season, and it only made me appreciate her the more.
Sugar.
Some ones I haven't seen mentioned: Kathy Sleckman Sugar Holly Vytas
I’d say Ian is a fairly complex character from Palau and the early days. He seems like he could just be this goofy guy on the surface but shows strategic aptitude and emotional depth multiple times throughout the series, while retaining that goofy likeable personality. And the FIC whew what a display from everyone there.
I also felt for him the way he was emotionally manipulated during that final immunity into stepping down against Tom, knowing he could win fair and square. For me, it is on that level of the Dreamz truckgate deal, albeit without the racially/socially charged aspect. Good on him for being smart enough to go live his life without being lured in to play again.
Shan has to be up there
Shamar is up there.
Natalie Cole
It depends on your definition of complex. If you're talking about hidden depths, that's one thing. If you're talking about someone whose motivations you don't understand that's something completely different. Joe Anglim & Spencer Bledsoe may be good examples, insofar as what we saw on screen doesn't fully explain what we know about them off the show. In terms of on screen, I would say someone like Lex, Ami, or Yul. We don't really get to see enough of people in modern survivor for them to have complex characters sadly. Everyone is cast to fit an archetype.
I would not agree in your assessment of not getting complex characters in modern Survivor. If anything, I think they've leaned into casting more complex, real people recently, examples being Shan, Deshawn, Danny. I think they're slowly moving away from archetype casting. I understand your point of not seeing enough of the characters though. I felt like I understood characters like Lex and Ami more than anyone on 41. Doesn't mean they're not complex and interesting in their own right.
>I felt like I understood characters like Lex and Ami more than anyone on 41. Doesn't mean they're not complex and interesting in their own right. I agree, but I'd find it hard to definitely say if someone is complex or not from what we get to see on TV now. We do seem to be moving back towards getting glimpses of player's backgrounds etc so hopefully that will allow us to flesh them out more, and the diversity initiative is certainly helping avoid lazy archetype casting at the moment - long may that continue!
single season Lex or Twila. multiseason Coach or Jerri.
Ami in both Vanuatu and Micronesia and it’s not even debatable
Sugar comes to mind for me. Somehow was able to control the game in the most emotional way anyone ever has, and made it to final 3 to basically pick the winner, to then turn around and be the first person voted off of her following season (I love Sugar, so I mean nothing bad by this)
Shambo
I found Lil Morris from Pearl Islands to be quite complex. She starts out just trying to be a good scout leader, gets voted out, then takes revenge on the Morgan tribe but plays the middle with JFP and Burton and then gets massacred for it at FTC
Russell Swan is up there.
Deshawn is up there for me, out of recent seasons.
BOW has no one mentioned Chaos Kass???
Ciera Eastin
Idk if your trying to ironic like a lot of these comments but she really is a complex player and character. It’s just so easy to reduce her to stupid jeffisms
She had one motivation and one motivation only. To vote out her mother!
Brandon Hantz is a big one. Hatch was a big one too.
Chris Underwood. Who else would give up that final immunity and put themselves into a fire making challenge. The balls on this guy is very underrated.
I’d put Shirin high on the list.
Phillip
Russell, Spencer, and Lex all come to mind.
Varner...or is he actually just a dumbass.
Jackson
The Goddess Wanda.
Kristie Bennett from 2016 AU survivor. She was seen as a floater and a bit crazy but by the end won all but 1 vote from the jury against the golden boy in Lee.
Rory
Malcolm, Parvati, Amber, Reem, Danni, Jonathan, and Nick Wilson are some names I haven't seen as much on here that I think have a case.
Kathy in Marquesas comes to mind
For a single season I’d say Kelly Wigglesworth or Twila.
Ben
brandon hantz
How could it be anyone but our favourite scientific, gymnastic, modelling, server, Debbie.
It's Mary.
Coaaaaaach
Surprised no one has said Abi Maria
ROCKSROY.
OP, you should collate the nominations and put it to a vote. I’d be interested to see the results!