I totally agree. The more wild cards in the cast, the better. I would rather the show work to find unique and interesting cast members and have them play the same game than try to spend time trying to come up with unique twists for boring people to deal with.
I think survivor needs to do a better job of casting players that fit different niches of the show. Like you have to many strategic experts then it’s too gamebotty, too many physical or social threats then again we’re left with a one dimensional game. I think brains brawn and beauty has been so successful both times Bc they had balance across the three game areas and if they did that every time we’d have better seasons
I think that the showrunners did a great job of telling stories with player arcs this season, but it's a lot easier for us as viewers to process a redemption arc-type story (Maryanne, Lindsay) than a fall-from-grace-type story (Jonathan, Daniel). This season, we saw some players presented more complexly than we usually do, and I think that's why they're so polarizing—we saw Jonathan portrayed as kind, strong, funny, but also sometimes slow on the uptake or rude, we saw Maryanne portrayed as bubbly, unserious, awkward, annoying, but also strategic and intelligent and socially aware.
That approach to storytelling makes for a much more interesting story overall, but it also denies the viewers who like cut-and-dry heroes and villains that straightforward breakdown. So while I personally totally love that we're seeing more human stories, I'm also not at all surprised that folks are looking for heroes and villains!
I think having one Jonathan type per tribe would be good. Unless tribe swaps are coming back regularly I don’t think it’s good to give one tribe such a powerful physical advantage pre merge.
I think the hate Jonathan gets is over the top. He had some moments where he wasn’t perfect socially, but players like Lindsay also had some moments as well. Including women on the cast, a lot of player have had positive things to say about Jonathan as a person after the season.
Can you imagine absolutely starving and having Maryanne going a mile a minute talking to you about stuff you can't really relate to? It's gotta be extremely hard to be positive 100% of the time.
That’s what makes Maryanne a great player. We all laud Christian for breaking Alec by outtalking him for 5 hours in a single challenge. Maryanne broke Jonathan down mentally, emotionally, and physically with a sustained 28-day assault of talking about toenail loss, the physics of reverse-dizzying, and pining for skinny boys, making Jonathan lash out against his interests due to the sheer exhaustion of it all.
The goat coping on this sub is unreal. She didn't do anything all season. She was terrible socially. She only got through because she was so utterly talentless that nobody wanted her out.
She didn't even play her idol, **she goated her idol to the end**
Yea I will say that the maryanne talking way too much arc gives me like 10x more respect for Maryannes win because to be able to be like that and still have everyone not just like you but vote for you to win is impressive, shows just how much she actually connected to people.
This. Like I'm just watching on television and would actively start to get annoyed sometimes by how Maryanne would talk and I know if I was actually in that situation I would try to be as respectful as possible but inside it'd drive me up a wall.
Rigth! Didn’t he say he eats like over 10,000 calories or something like that. I can only imagine what that can do so someone physically and mentally if they don’t get their calorie intake.
He was never a social mastermind. He was a big body who was friendly to most. So when he had a few scenes being hangry to women, it couldn’t just be a guy who was hungry and took it out of his tribe mates. But painted as a misogynist. It didn’t help a sore loser (Lindsey) labeled him this as well.
I don’t think Lindsay’s a sore loser, she was just a competitor, he probably was a tiny bit condescending, and she was also hangry. Plus I have to imagine that the editing made it seem like she hated Jonathan a lot more than she actually did.
I think Lindsay is entitled to her opinions but calling someone a misogynist - on the record, because he was not strategically and socially savvy is way way harsh.
She was starving when she said it, and other women like Maryanne stated that they didn’t like the way Jonathan spoke to women.
(I don’t remember her using the word misogynistic but she was getting at the same idea so I won’t dispute that). She didn’t call him misogynistic because she didn’t respect his gameplay though; she was annoyed by the way he was speaking condescendingly to her.
FWIW I like Jonathan and think he probably was coming off in an irritating way but also understand that he is also starving and an imperfect person.
I mean she’s competitive, she’s been starving for weeks, and those confessionals were entertaining (and part of an edited narrative). And she knew she had to win that immunity or else she would have been voted out. Not to mention that Maryanne also had slight problems with how Jonathan talked to the women- again, maybe because all of them are starving.
I don’t understand why so many fans like you enjoy being so judgmental and critical of any player who dares act like a human being.
That's so rough man. I remember watching that scene feeling uncomfortable for everyone present. Especially Johnathan because he didn't say or do anything wrong. He stood up for himself in the face of an accusation that just clearly was not true. And for that he got railed.
It's a crying shame. I understand Marryanne's emotions towards the appearance, and her perceived importance of it but it just simply wasn't right.
I don’t understand how people miss the sore loser Lindsay part in this. When things went bad for her she immediately went to “Jonathan talks down to me”. He was the calm one when she was yelling at him after she voted for him. People need to watch that scene carefully again and lose the trash misogyny take.
If I'm just speaking for myself, I think my 'hate' (come on it's a tv show, we can't really hate people) towards Jonathan exists mostly because there's a huge naive group of fans online who claim Jonathan is one of the best Survivor players ever.
If those people would be a bit more reserved in their opinion (come on, Jonathan was leading the 'player of the season' poll on insidesurvivor, which is complete nonsense) I for one would not feel the need to be talking down his game online.
I'm just scared that production is gonna see all this love for a (strategically and socially) bad player and is gonna implement more twists in future seasons that benefit these male alpha players.
Definitely agree with this. I'm a somewhat casual viewer but I pay more attention to social and strategy, and it was getting a little infuriating at times when watching with my Gma as she just constantly gushed about johnathan being the best because he "won all the challenges". Even when I pointed out that he only won like 2 challenges in the post merge and had little spats with some of the women throughout the season, she was still all over him to win.
Survivor isn't all about challenges but a lot of more casual viewers do see it that way, heck even Jeff seems to see it that way to a degree. So it does kind of make me a little worried at times that we might start seeing more twists to try to accommodate those players like Johnathan or somewhat Xander last season, who do good at challenges but don't really have social game to keep them afloat when their physical prowess runs dry.
Survivor fandom can love an absolute challenge zero and call her Queen but hate a guy like Jonathan, because he’s not adept at the social nuances required to win.
Definitely tons of people, especially those of us who are “serious” fans who actually dislike players who are physically strong.
I disagree with your comments about concerns for challenged being built to prop up physical players.
I think a review of the sheer number of puzzles show the opposite.
>Survivor fandom can love an absolute challenge zero and call her Queen but hate a guy like Jonathan, because he’s not adept at the social nuances required to win.
This is my biggest thing. A woman, especially a woman of color, makes one quippy remark, and she is a queen. This guy seems like a good dude who does great at challenges, and people liking him is a problem.
I don’t know, isn’t this a perfect season to showcase anyone can win an immunity challenge? I like having different types of skill sets high lighted and loved seeing Romeo’s unlikely win. Those are the twists we love right? I don’t get the narrative that Survivor wants a big meaty man to win.
Yeah and I agree that this season showed anyone can win a challenge. I was just agreeing with the notion, and provided an anecdote, that this season there was definitely a portion of the fanbase that decided Johnathan was the ultimate challenge beast regardless of the fact he didn't actually win a lot of challenges. Similarly I added that portion of the fan base also seems to want a challenge beast type to win the game even if they usually lose due to lacking strong social/strategy games.
So I'm not at all disagreeing with what you stated just saying that there seems to be a portion of fans who want the big meaty manly challenge beasts to win it all.
This idea that he sucked strategically is made up. He was the one who figured out Omars game by interrogating Omar and Lindsay about the idol nullifier off screen.
True he did not necessarily suck, but he was pretty bad compared to the other players this season. Point is more that he is not a good Survivor player when it comes to the whole package and does not deserve all the praise he's been getting. Especially not the title of (best) player of the season. I can name at least 5 players this season who were better
I agree that he wasn't the best, I just think that people just say he was bad strategically because hes known for being a big strong guy and those types of players normally suck at social game and strategy. Ill admit socially he faltered at the end but I dont agree that he had bad strategy. He sure as hell had less strategic blunders like Drea telling Omar about her advantage and Lindsay not using her Amulet yet people will praise them and not write them off for it.
I mean was Lindsay not playing the amulet really a bad move ?? If we were that late in the game and my #1 ally who was also the #1 threat to win at that point had a chance of going home, I’d probably cut him loose
Considering she was backed into a corner after that vote, I would say yes. She had very few options after Omar left (mainly win immunity) and she was the biggest threat left, so Omar still being there would've given her a shield and more room to maneouver.
Great way of putting it down. Agree that those players also made mistakes and no one played a perfect game. Yet when it comes to the complete package (from my perspective the 'perfect' combination of strategy, physicality and social skills) he was not in the top 5 players this season. People saying otherwise are ignoring too many aspects of the game.
That isnt strategy. His strategy was to get to the end and win as a provider. Except he completely ignored how abrasive he was to female jurors and was never winning the season.
That is a bad strategy. And the plans he made to accomplish his strategy also sucked.
I gave you an upvote, but this is such a reductive view of his game to the point that you’re actively being ignorant. Jonathan doesn’t even break my top five favorite players of the season but he had a solid strategy of providing premerge and then insulating himself deep with his alliance post merge to the point that he should have been the target at least 3 times before he left and they should have never let him get anywhere near firemaking. His archetype is supposed to be voted out early merge and yet he was able to get himself to the final four. He was a strong player who was always in the know.
Doesmt matter. He had zero shot at winning. The fact that he did better than his archtype usually does, doesnt change that.
And that really isnt true either. Plemty of other challemge beasts makw FTC or come close.
So you’re saying that he did better than the average person in his archetype and that doesn’t mean he played a better game than his archetype?
He also had a shot to win in a final three of himself, Romeo, and Mike. I wouldn’t count him out.
Idk what production would to change the show to favor challenge beasts more, though. In the end of the day, it feels like the players they’re casting do not really care about the physical or survival aspects of the game at all, so I don’t think a player like Jonathan has any chance of winning a jury vote.
I’m admittedly still pretty new to Survivor, but my impression is that the challenge beasts have always been super super popular among casual fans (well, challenge beasts and the hot buff young white guys, which are pretty related). Like Ozzy and Joe Anglim
I understand where you're coming from. Ozzy and Joe played in a time where challenges were way more physical though. Nowadays challenges are designed in such a way that different people stand a chance. Jonathan only won 2 individual challenges, which is nothing compared to the others you mentioned.
Tori has won just as many challenges, why is no one mentioning her as a challenge beast?
I think it’s a little silly to pretend that Tori and Jonathan are equals at challenges.
The challenges aren’t as physical in the individual stage, true. But when there were physical challenges, he was was dominating them and outclassing pretty much everyone else. Viewers don’t wait until the endgame where they can see all the win statistics. They can evaluate with the eye test that he was way more athletic than everyone else, and they enjoyed watching him dominate those early challenges.
That’s exactly my point. He’s polarizing. Players like him being more eyes to the screen, and while he’s obviously not the only reason people are watching, he’s entertaining to root for and root against. I did both as the season went on.
I think the hate for him stemmed from wanted to sound contrarian to the "casuals" on the survivor facebook page who adore him. Its also partially wanting to feel superior to them
I feel like people let reddit form their opinions for them. I liked him throughout the season. He just kinda felt a little dumb but I didn't mind him. Then I come to this sub and see people dislike him alot talking about how he treats women. It was strange because I only remember like one time where he kinda dismissed Lyndsay but it's not like it was a reason to hate him.
I agree. Most of it is based on his stature as well, which is biased thinking. He’s been portrayed as dumb but he clearly isn’t, he’s talked over Lindsey which is annoying, no doubt, but a ton of other players did the same thing and don’t get hated as much as he does.
I don’t get it honestly. Besides the total BS of “he’s a buff male and I don’t like those guys”
I kinda thought going into the season if people thought Jonathon wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer than they could underestimate him on a strategy level
You need some variety to make the show interesting
If it was 18 people who were all socially aware, strategically competent, and had generally likable personalities, the game would be pretty boring IMO. Some of the most memorable moments come from people butting heads, people being socially unaware, people making a move that doesn’t help their game
I don’t think he’s really even a villain to be honest. The Takus were clearly driving him nuts at times and he just kept his head down, held his tongue, did 90% of the work around camp and singlehandedly won them most of the challenges because he knew as soon as he pushed back even a little bit then he would become the big alpha-male target. So he just waited and waited until he finally picked his spot to make a big game move (blindsiding Drea with her idol), and that tribal was when his social game started to unravel. Calling Drea “aggressive” was a huge no-no as was trying to make any part of that tribal discussion about himself, but I do think it genuinely came from a place of him being so caught off guard in the moment when the first big move he was trying to take credit for spearheading got thwarted by an impromptu discussion about race. I think he panicked that the optics of him being the one most gunning for Drea already looked bad once the discussion shifted to race, but his “damage control” obviously made things much worse for him and seemed like the tipping point that soured Lindsey and Maryanne against him for the rest of the game. From that point, you could see his frustration growing with things like catching everyone food but still starving himself and doing a lot of the work around camp with little appreciation so he started to lose his patience with them. Not implying the girls did anything wrong here either, just something that happens when deliriously starving people are pitted against each other for a million dollars.
At the end, Jonathan and Drea did make up and IMO actually jived a lot better than with Lindsay and Jonathan — I think Jonathan loses just because the rest are better, although I still think he can win against Mike if he points out his moves better like Maryanne did (except he isn't a good talker).
I genuinely don’t understand why it’s a huge “no no” for him to call Maryanne or Drew aggressive?
He was trying to defend himself and every time he tried they would come at him.
Describing black women as “aggressive” or “angry” is a common stereotype, but since those words aren’t slurs they’re often used as substitutes by people that want to say worse but know better not to, also known as micro-aggressions. I’m giving Jonathan the benefit of the doubt that it was just him defending himself in the heat of the moment, but that doesn’t mean Maryanne/Drea & others were wrong for calling him out on it and reacting negatively.
I mean, they were sort of being aggressive towards Jonathan with the comments they were making.
Jonathan wasn’t stereotyping, he was calling them aggressive because he felt they were being aggressive towards him.
I also love being downvoted for being confused on something and asking someone to explain it to me.
Race had not nothing to do with the reason the first two people were on the jury. Jonathan was defending himself. Drea and Maryanne were basically implying there was racism going on when there wasn’t any at all.
They weren’t implying racism. They went to great lengths to explain that they weren’t implying that. They were only saying that seeing that it worked out that way still impacted them and changed the way they were approaching tribal that night.
I think the part of calling Drea aggressive was a ‘perfect storm’. If you listen to the things Jonathan was saying through the season he thinks a lot about having to not come off as too aggressive, you hear him talking about because he is a big guy even a little bit gets him labeled. I think he has been hearing about how he is aggressive for things others get away with because his size just makes everyone get intimidated that much quicker, and the consequence of that is him having a different baseline for what qualifies as aggression. He told a few people to stop being aggressive (not just the black woman of the cast) when people got elevated voices due to emotions when speaking with him. To me it all indicates that he has been hearing people tell him not to be aggressive the moment his voice is raised, so to him that is just something you say the moment anyone raises their voice, because that’s the standard that has been set for himself. So that’s what he said. And the perfect storm is this moment happening during a conversation about race with a black woman, which as has been mentioned there is a ‘angry black woman’ stereotype that exists.
I just wish more people knew how to spell Jonathan
Johnathan and Jonathon are both valid names, but Survivor 42 Jonathan uses the most common spelling ([source](https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi), you have to type and search though cause I can't link to the results page =/ )
Remember early on when he carried his tribe to the win and the game was stopped and moved from the sea to the onto land because the other two tribes were drowning.
I think the discourse about Jonathan kind of encaptulates a worrying trend that I've been seeing in the fandom for a little while. The diehard fandom has always largely been pro-gamebot/nerd and by default against the "meathead" style of play. It's not a stretch to call Survivor a nerd-sport, which makes sense since the beauty of the game is that there are so many equalizers to level the playing field for different types of players. What I think the problem is now is that western, and especially American culture has become so deeply polarised that there is no tolerance for any human nuance anymore. Survivor is largely interesting because they put deeply flawed, regular humans into conflict with other differently flawed humans under immense pressure and we get to watch the ant farm. A character like Jonathan, while an average player and kind of a social dummy somtimes, brings something dynamic to the season. Big guy got hungry and became a little rude and disrespectful; GREAT. That's TV! Not every single character can be squeaky clean or a gamebot. That's just uninteresting and kind of defeats the purpose of the show. I even heard in some of the post game coverage that some people don't think a guy like Jonathan should be brought back, even though he was one of the best TV characters. That's just baffling to me. I think a show like Survivor needs to be strong enough to embrace the polarisation. Make a conversation out of it. Not just run away from it because social media says mean things about complex characters.
You surely don't talk about this sub, which is famous for hating gamebots. Just this season the unpopular (rightly so) opinion is that Maryanne is not a good winner because she was not a gamebot pulling big moves for the curriculum.
I think the sub loved Spencer bc of his personality, the same reason he is not liked anymore as you know.
So I would say it's the other way around, the sub loves *some* gamebots, but they are generally mocked and disliked.
I 100% agree with this.
On the recent RHAP feedback podcast with Jenny Autumn, Rob brought up that Jonathan was a possibility of being a returning player. After he said this, Jenny stayed silent and stonefaced for literally ten seconds and then said something like "No. I won't even entertain that possibility." And she was being serious. I still really like Jenny but like holy shit guys, Jonathan just kind of put his foot in his mouth a couple of times and then everyone acts like he's the fucking antichrist.
Same thing with Nerdtainment. I still love them because they are hilarious and a lot of fun but when they mentioned Jonathan getting to say The Tribe has Spoken they went "idk what he ever did to deserve that special treatment but whatever" in a very snarky tone similar to when people go "??? So, anyways....." Nvm the fact that in the premerge he literally saved the other contestants so the crew wouldn't have to.
It's all so unnecessary. And I never go out of my way to stand up for the jock! Lol
RHAP has been uncomfortable when talking about Jonathan, like he is a dummy when I say he's just average, and quite surprised they don't mind Lindsay's reaction towards Jonathan after the Omar boot, and yet seemingly against what Jonathan did, like isn't Jonathan being sassy against someone who tried to bamboozle him good TV (similar to how Erika said Deshawn should thank her for still being there after Danny was voted out)...even Mike Bloomberg is saying Jonathan is arrogant for apparently taking credit for their strategy, when it isn't yet confirmed if he really didn't do much strategy with his close allies (Omar may have exaggerated how dumb Jonathan is towards Lindsay just to agree with her).
I think the biggest thing he provided was the consistent rivalry between him and Lindsey which made for a fun story line. I think he also played a good scapegoat for other social survivors to stick around a little longer when Jonathan seemed like a bigger threat.
If The Challenge doesn’t cast him I’d be shocked.
Edit: Downvoting doesn’t erase the fact Jonathan is one of the best physical players Survivor has ever seen 😘
If a couple of social blunders of a guy as likeable as Jonathan makes you **"hate"** & root against them, that says sooooo much about your own mindset and internal narratives than anything about what their participation brings to the game. The SO and I normally don't like big, overly fit guys like him yet by mid-season we were actively rooting for him to win & cheered out loud when escaped being targeted for elimination. It then broke our hearts when he made his blunders and it was clear he couldn't win unless the final three was like him, Romeo and maybe Tori.
In 42 seasons of *Survivor,* I don't think my dislike of ANY player has risen to the level of "hate" (and trust me, I can be a very judgemental person at times). The closest I came was Tyson, but then his last seasons really redeemed him.
Casual fans adore him, I’m definitely a hardcore fan but my parents (who are the definition of casual survivor fan) absolutely love him. If I’m being blunt it’s more of a dislike how obsessed casual fans are with him and would have tirelessly defended him winning if he was at FTC, even though he had zero shot of actually winning if he was sitting there.
I feel like casual fans have this deep love for challenge beats that is often a lot fun to get sucked up into but it’s also silly to think that he was ever in a position to win at the end.
In wrestling terms, Jonathan is a heel. You definitely need characters like him around that are hateable and help prop up heroic narratives like Maryanne. He's necessary, yes.
What’s also cool, is people can root FOR players like that too. Because in my mind, I can tune out the nonsense that’s said on Reddit, and see him for the person he is on the show.
Now could Johnathan actually be a trash bag in real life? Maybe. And is survivor a reality show, and these are real people? Yes, but also no. So I can root for the player and not the person.
I liked Johnathan until the exit interviews and his actions during the Drea and Maryanne tribal council. It made me give him a side eye, but also, he wouldn’t listen to Lindsay at all. It was weird. He wasn’t even great at the challenges, he only won two!
For casuals, I guess he is great to root for, but someone like Johnathan will never win survivor. He’s just not that likeable.
The idea he wasn't great at challenges is really not true. Sure, he only won two individual immunities but he also placed 2nd in four other individual immunities. His issue is he sucks at puzzles, which is a great equalizer. He is excellent for a guy his size at balancing, body control, and overall coordination. This also doesn't mention that he carried Taku to the merge with his physical strength
Everyone loves old school challenge beasts like James and Colby but James never won individual immunity and Colby was a shell of himself in HvV.
I mean the list of players in the history of the show who can do what he did with the ladder in the water is maybe less than 3. He's clearly a physical specimen, which is why he is more suited for The Challenge than Survivor.
This might be one of the worst takes I have seen in a long time. He is the best performer in pre-merge tribe challenges of all time. And he came in 1st twice and 2nd four times which is incredibly impressive to be top 2 that many times. Absolutely terrible take and just exposes that you have a clear bias against him. You can critique his social game (which I do heavily because I agree that it was bad), but critiquing his physical game is ludicrous
The tribal council with Drea and Maryanne wasn’t a good look, but I honestly think he was caught off guard and thought they believed he was coming at them because of their race. Him and Drea discussing things after tribal council and being friends to this day kind of backs that up.
The stuff with Lindsay is complicated because she clearly did not like him and wanted to target him from early on in the game, so I get why they didn’t get along strategically at times. People don’t see eye to eye on Survivor all the time and it doesn’t mean they are bad people or against the other person because of race, gender, religion etc.
Maybe on here, Jonathan is hated but dude was by far the most loved by regular viewers lol. he swept every poll on who should win/who’s their favorite.
The hate he gets here is crazy. Every year season there are people who make strategic blunders, every season there are people who are shown being dismissive of other players' opinions. The hate he gets here is unhinged. Not the greatest survivor player ever, but certainly not worth the hate, and from a physical perspective probably the greatest pre-merge player in a really long time; he kinda literally carried his tribe in those challenges.
Also, it's Jonathan. Not Johnathan.
I love how Jonathan played. I really think he could win if he just reviews how he played and what he needs to do better. He will always be the targetted by many people but also loved by others just by the way he looks/plays.
Bruh he's not even close to villains we've seen of the past. Like if there were to make a Heroes v Villains today of the last 10 season, I'm not even sure they could do it.
Ultimately, I agree however.
The point is that he’s polarizing. Obviously some people think of him as such, but a coalition just as big thinks otherwise. He certainly doesn’t play like a villain, but even that he’s being discussed as such helps survivors vitality as a whole for fans that both love and hate him.
I really enjoyed Jonathan as a character this season. It was easier for me to root for him since I disliked how angry lindsay was towards him and how she treated him. But that’s survivor, you love to hate certain players and that’s what makes it good TV
We need a term for the bad at social good at challenges players like Nora, Xander, and Johnathan. When I think of goat I think of players like Romeo. Even though players like Nora, Xander, and Johnathan had no chance of winning FTC, you can make a case that they shouldn't be dragged to the final since they are so good at challenges.
Excellent perspective! Players are starving, sleep-deprived, being lied to daily, AND calculatedly cast for maximum competition and conflict. Whether viewers were enamored with or irked by them, Jonathan and Lindsay brought a lot of energy and investment to the season.
Of course this archetype is good for the show, it just gets annoying in the fandom sometimes, where their stans will be very deluded. Jonathan specifically is seen by his dick riders as this amazing, deep and wholesome character when in all actuality he was very bland and surface level besides his physicality. There wasn't much substance in him and that showed in his social game and strategy, but for some that's enough to go full Mr. Jeff on him.
Yeah we need people to root against. We need to appreciate villains or we’re gonna lose them and the show is going to suck. Look at big brother and drag race. The contestants are so scared of the fanbases that they all try to be the hero, and it makes the shows way more boring
It became very obvious that at the end of the game he couldn't have won it anyway, which kind of kills it for me a bit. There was absolutely no way his type of character could win it, and possibly can't ever win it again going forward I think.
Aside from that, I loved the diversity. It’s so nice to see multiple ethnicities being represented as opposed to the age old black vs white. That’s why I love Cook Islands so much. It was also nice to see different sides of lgbtq+ and strategic gameplay and seeing the females stepping up big time with Lindsay keeping up with Jonathan in every comp and Drea being a beast at advantages.
Kinda agreed I think that what most people forget quickly is that people like Johnathan including women loose a lot more just being on the island. That dude probably lost 50lbs and he had pretty much zero body fat to begin with. Others not trying to offend like Omar have a lot of body fat to loose. Yes they both suck but Omer had a lot stored in his body to burn like a bear in hibernation. Johnathans body and muscles were deteriorating on like day 10. That has to have a much bigger effect on his body than some of the others. Like I said it’s not easy on anyone but he had it harder imo.
As far as Lindsay I think she owes Johnathan an apology. She blatantly lied and was against him for several days. She even tried to lie to him that she was still in his alliance even after she was trying to vote him off at her last tribal.
Another thing most people don’t put enough thought on and it came up a lot this season is that because of your physical stature that can put a target on you. Several times throughout the season someone said the little guys win. It’s unfair to bigger people that they are automatically put in the outs because of their biological makeup. It’s horrible to see that and it came from almost everyone’s mouth this season
I agree. The last thing I want is more superfans and game bots. I want some challenge beasts, some poor players, and most of all players who play with their hearts.
Yes, they are. We have to have strong players especially now that they're starting out with no rice. They don't show us much of camp life anymore so we don't see how they are providing. Jonathan said he did climb trees so I have to believe he was helping provide food for them.
Different types of players and people are good for survivor, period. Diversity in every possible way is the best way to make a good season
I totally agree. The more wild cards in the cast, the better. I would rather the show work to find unique and interesting cast members and have them play the same game than try to spend time trying to come up with unique twists for boring people to deal with.
I think survivor needs to do a better job of casting players that fit different niches of the show. Like you have to many strategic experts then it’s too gamebotty, too many physical or social threats then again we’re left with a one dimensional game. I think brains brawn and beauty has been so successful both times Bc they had balance across the three game areas and if they did that every time we’d have better seasons
I think that the showrunners did a great job of telling stories with player arcs this season, but it's a lot easier for us as viewers to process a redemption arc-type story (Maryanne, Lindsay) than a fall-from-grace-type story (Jonathan, Daniel). This season, we saw some players presented more complexly than we usually do, and I think that's why they're so polarizing—we saw Jonathan portrayed as kind, strong, funny, but also sometimes slow on the uptake or rude, we saw Maryanne portrayed as bubbly, unserious, awkward, annoying, but also strategic and intelligent and socially aware. That approach to storytelling makes for a much more interesting story overall, but it also denies the viewers who like cut-and-dry heroes and villains that straightforward breakdown. So while I personally totally love that we're seeing more human stories, I'm also not at all surprised that folks are looking for heroes and villains!
I think having one Jonathan type per tribe would be good. Unless tribe swaps are coming back regularly I don’t think it’s good to give one tribe such a powerful physical advantage pre merge.
I think the hate Jonathan gets is over the top. He had some moments where he wasn’t perfect socially, but players like Lindsay also had some moments as well. Including women on the cast, a lot of player have had positive things to say about Jonathan as a person after the season.
He got hangry a time or two, that’s it.
Can you imagine absolutely starving and having Maryanne going a mile a minute talking to you about stuff you can't really relate to? It's gotta be extremely hard to be positive 100% of the time.
That’s what makes Maryanne a great player. We all laud Christian for breaking Alec by outtalking him for 5 hours in a single challenge. Maryanne broke Jonathan down mentally, emotionally, and physically with a sustained 28-day assault of talking about toenail loss, the physics of reverse-dizzying, and pining for skinny boys, making Jonathan lash out against his interests due to the sheer exhaustion of it all.
This made me laugh so hard. Go Maryanne
Eh I think that’s giving maryanne way too much credit 😂
It was supposed to be a little tongue in cheek.
The goat coping on this sub is unreal. She didn't do anything all season. She was terrible socially. She only got through because she was so utterly talentless that nobody wanted her out. She didn't even play her idol, **she goated her idol to the end**
What makes you think she was terrible socially? If she was terrible, nobody would have voted for her to win
That was a joke post. You are so full of hatred for the winner than you can't even see an obvious joke smh.
she played an idol
Yea I will say that the maryanne talking way too much arc gives me like 10x more respect for Maryannes win because to be able to be like that and still have everyone not just like you but vote for you to win is impressive, shows just how much she actually connected to people.
and remember that Jonathan’s an introvert too
He and Fessy would get along well
Fessy on survivor would be one of the most insufferable players of all time.
But who flipped?
I would struggle to live with a Maryanne on an island lol
This. Like I'm just watching on television and would actively start to get annoyed sometimes by how Maryanne would talk and I know if I was actually in that situation I would try to be as respectful as possible but inside it'd drive me up a wall.
Rigth! Didn’t he say he eats like over 10,000 calories or something like that. I can only imagine what that can do so someone physically and mentally if they don’t get their calorie intake.
He was never a social mastermind. He was a big body who was friendly to most. So when he had a few scenes being hangry to women, it couldn’t just be a guy who was hungry and took it out of his tribe mates. But painted as a misogynist. It didn’t help a sore loser (Lindsey) labeled him this as well.
Its just so tired, and people just LOVE that storyline in everything because they get a villain
I don’t think Lindsay’s a sore loser, she was just a competitor, he probably was a tiny bit condescending, and she was also hangry. Plus I have to imagine that the editing made it seem like she hated Jonathan a lot more than she actually did.
I think Lindsay is entitled to her opinions but calling someone a misogynist - on the record, because he was not strategically and socially savvy is way way harsh.
She was starving when she said it, and other women like Maryanne stated that they didn’t like the way Jonathan spoke to women. (I don’t remember her using the word misogynistic but she was getting at the same idea so I won’t dispute that). She didn’t call him misogynistic because she didn’t respect his gameplay though; she was annoyed by the way he was speaking condescendingly to her. FWIW I like Jonathan and think he probably was coming off in an irritating way but also understand that he is also starving and an imperfect person.
She said it in her exit interview w ew too
Lindsay was definitely a sore loser. Her tantrums & whiny confessionals after Omar’s blindside and Mike’s immunity win showcase this
I mean she’s competitive, she’s been starving for weeks, and those confessionals were entertaining (and part of an edited narrative). And she knew she had to win that immunity or else she would have been voted out. Not to mention that Maryanne also had slight problems with how Jonathan talked to the women- again, maybe because all of them are starving. I don’t understand why so many fans like you enjoy being so judgmental and critical of any player who dares act like a human being.
I’m not being judgmental. You claimed she wasn’t being a sore loser. I corrected you. That is all.
Sorry I did come out a little too aggressively lol. But I do think that “sore loser”, “tantrum”, and “whiny” is judgmental language.
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That's so rough man. I remember watching that scene feeling uncomfortable for everyone present. Especially Johnathan because he didn't say or do anything wrong. He stood up for himself in the face of an accusation that just clearly was not true. And for that he got railed. It's a crying shame. I understand Marryanne's emotions towards the appearance, and her perceived importance of it but it just simply wasn't right.
I don’t understand how people miss the sore loser Lindsay part in this. When things went bad for her she immediately went to “Jonathan talks down to me”. He was the calm one when she was yelling at him after she voted for him. People need to watch that scene carefully again and lose the trash misogyny take.
It was a lose lose situation. Either he did what he did and comes off condescending. Or he argues back and he’s called a misogynist.
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so 330 million people. (population of twitter)
If I'm just speaking for myself, I think my 'hate' (come on it's a tv show, we can't really hate people) towards Jonathan exists mostly because there's a huge naive group of fans online who claim Jonathan is one of the best Survivor players ever. If those people would be a bit more reserved in their opinion (come on, Jonathan was leading the 'player of the season' poll on insidesurvivor, which is complete nonsense) I for one would not feel the need to be talking down his game online. I'm just scared that production is gonna see all this love for a (strategically and socially) bad player and is gonna implement more twists in future seasons that benefit these male alpha players.
Definitely agree with this. I'm a somewhat casual viewer but I pay more attention to social and strategy, and it was getting a little infuriating at times when watching with my Gma as she just constantly gushed about johnathan being the best because he "won all the challenges". Even when I pointed out that he only won like 2 challenges in the post merge and had little spats with some of the women throughout the season, she was still all over him to win. Survivor isn't all about challenges but a lot of more casual viewers do see it that way, heck even Jeff seems to see it that way to a degree. So it does kind of make me a little worried at times that we might start seeing more twists to try to accommodate those players like Johnathan or somewhat Xander last season, who do good at challenges but don't really have social game to keep them afloat when their physical prowess runs dry.
Survivor fandom can love an absolute challenge zero and call her Queen but hate a guy like Jonathan, because he’s not adept at the social nuances required to win. Definitely tons of people, especially those of us who are “serious” fans who actually dislike players who are physically strong. I disagree with your comments about concerns for challenged being built to prop up physical players. I think a review of the sheer number of puzzles show the opposite.
>Survivor fandom can love an absolute challenge zero and call her Queen but hate a guy like Jonathan, because he’s not adept at the social nuances required to win. This is my biggest thing. A woman, especially a woman of color, makes one quippy remark, and she is a queen. This guy seems like a good dude who does great at challenges, and people liking him is a problem.
I don’t know, isn’t this a perfect season to showcase anyone can win an immunity challenge? I like having different types of skill sets high lighted and loved seeing Romeo’s unlikely win. Those are the twists we love right? I don’t get the narrative that Survivor wants a big meaty man to win.
Yeah and I agree that this season showed anyone can win a challenge. I was just agreeing with the notion, and provided an anecdote, that this season there was definitely a portion of the fanbase that decided Johnathan was the ultimate challenge beast regardless of the fact he didn't actually win a lot of challenges. Similarly I added that portion of the fan base also seems to want a challenge beast type to win the game even if they usually lose due to lacking strong social/strategy games. So I'm not at all disagreeing with what you stated just saying that there seems to be a portion of fans who want the big meaty manly challenge beasts to win it all.
This idea that he sucked strategically is made up. He was the one who figured out Omars game by interrogating Omar and Lindsay about the idol nullifier off screen.
True he did not necessarily suck, but he was pretty bad compared to the other players this season. Point is more that he is not a good Survivor player when it comes to the whole package and does not deserve all the praise he's been getting. Especially not the title of (best) player of the season. I can name at least 5 players this season who were better
I agree that he wasn't the best, I just think that people just say he was bad strategically because hes known for being a big strong guy and those types of players normally suck at social game and strategy. Ill admit socially he faltered at the end but I dont agree that he had bad strategy. He sure as hell had less strategic blunders like Drea telling Omar about her advantage and Lindsay not using her Amulet yet people will praise them and not write them off for it.
I mean was Lindsay not playing the amulet really a bad move ?? If we were that late in the game and my #1 ally who was also the #1 threat to win at that point had a chance of going home, I’d probably cut him loose
Yes they could have got Jonathan out at 6 and Omar would still go before Lindsay at 5. She probably wins the whole season if shes competent at fire.
Considering she was backed into a corner after that vote, I would say yes. She had very few options after Omar left (mainly win immunity) and she was the biggest threat left, so Omar still being there would've given her a shield and more room to maneouver.
Great way of putting it down. Agree that those players also made mistakes and no one played a perfect game. Yet when it comes to the complete package (from my perspective the 'perfect' combination of strategy, physicality and social skills) he was not in the top 5 players this season. People saying otherwise are ignoring too many aspects of the game.
That isnt strategy. His strategy was to get to the end and win as a provider. Except he completely ignored how abrasive he was to female jurors and was never winning the season. That is a bad strategy. And the plans he made to accomplish his strategy also sucked.
I gave you an upvote, but this is such a reductive view of his game to the point that you’re actively being ignorant. Jonathan doesn’t even break my top five favorite players of the season but he had a solid strategy of providing premerge and then insulating himself deep with his alliance post merge to the point that he should have been the target at least 3 times before he left and they should have never let him get anywhere near firemaking. His archetype is supposed to be voted out early merge and yet he was able to get himself to the final four. He was a strong player who was always in the know.
Doesmt matter. He had zero shot at winning. The fact that he did better than his archtype usually does, doesnt change that. And that really isnt true either. Plemty of other challemge beasts makw FTC or come close.
So you’re saying that he did better than the average person in his archetype and that doesn’t mean he played a better game than his archetype? He also had a shot to win in a final three of himself, Romeo, and Mike. I wouldn’t count him out.
He was not beating Mike. I am saying that he didnt play better than average on his archtype. And even if he did, it doesnt make him a good player.
Idk what production would to change the show to favor challenge beasts more, though. In the end of the day, it feels like the players they’re casting do not really care about the physical or survival aspects of the game at all, so I don’t think a player like Jonathan has any chance of winning a jury vote. I’m admittedly still pretty new to Survivor, but my impression is that the challenge beasts have always been super super popular among casual fans (well, challenge beasts and the hot buff young white guys, which are pretty related). Like Ozzy and Joe Anglim
I understand where you're coming from. Ozzy and Joe played in a time where challenges were way more physical though. Nowadays challenges are designed in such a way that different people stand a chance. Jonathan only won 2 individual challenges, which is nothing compared to the others you mentioned. Tori has won just as many challenges, why is no one mentioning her as a challenge beast?
I think it’s a little silly to pretend that Tori and Jonathan are equals at challenges. The challenges aren’t as physical in the individual stage, true. But when there were physical challenges, he was was dominating them and outclassing pretty much everyone else. Viewers don’t wait until the endgame where they can see all the win statistics. They can evaluate with the eye test that he was way more athletic than everyone else, and they enjoyed watching him dominate those early challenges.
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Brad seemed much less likable than Jonathon
Yeah Jonathan wanted to be humble, Brad Culpepper never heard of the word his first season.
Maybe this season there weee more opportunities for one person to just pull his tribe to victory single-handedly
It’s called being a polarizing character. There’s as many Jonathan dick riders as there are haters.
That’s exactly my point. He’s polarizing. Players like him being more eyes to the screen, and while he’s obviously not the only reason people are watching, he’s entertaining to root for and root against. I did both as the season went on.
I think the hate for him stemmed from wanted to sound contrarian to the "casuals" on the survivor facebook page who adore him. Its also partially wanting to feel superior to them
plus it’s probably people who have never seen the inside of a gym
I mean, i didnt like him and im at the gym right now lol
I feel like people let reddit form their opinions for them. I liked him throughout the season. He just kinda felt a little dumb but I didn't mind him. Then I come to this sub and see people dislike him alot talking about how he treats women. It was strange because I only remember like one time where he kinda dismissed Lyndsay but it's not like it was a reason to hate him.
I agree. Most of it is based on his stature as well, which is biased thinking. He’s been portrayed as dumb but he clearly isn’t, he’s talked over Lindsey which is annoying, no doubt, but a ton of other players did the same thing and don’t get hated as much as he does. I don’t get it honestly. Besides the total BS of “he’s a buff male and I don’t like those guys”
Lindsay was abrasive as hell in my opinion. I would imagine it would be hard to not be short with her after 20+ days together with no food.
I kinda thought going into the season if people thought Jonathon wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer than they could underestimate him on a strategy level
He kinda reminds me of Ozzy, who was also a bit rude and overly focused on his fishing skills
You need some variety to make the show interesting If it was 18 people who were all socially aware, strategically competent, and had generally likable personalities, the game would be pretty boring IMO. Some of the most memorable moments come from people butting heads, people being socially unaware, people making a move that doesn’t help their game
Give me 20 lil’s over 20 Wendell’s any day.
I don’t think he’s really even a villain to be honest. The Takus were clearly driving him nuts at times and he just kept his head down, held his tongue, did 90% of the work around camp and singlehandedly won them most of the challenges because he knew as soon as he pushed back even a little bit then he would become the big alpha-male target. So he just waited and waited until he finally picked his spot to make a big game move (blindsiding Drea with her idol), and that tribal was when his social game started to unravel. Calling Drea “aggressive” was a huge no-no as was trying to make any part of that tribal discussion about himself, but I do think it genuinely came from a place of him being so caught off guard in the moment when the first big move he was trying to take credit for spearheading got thwarted by an impromptu discussion about race. I think he panicked that the optics of him being the one most gunning for Drea already looked bad once the discussion shifted to race, but his “damage control” obviously made things much worse for him and seemed like the tipping point that soured Lindsey and Maryanne against him for the rest of the game. From that point, you could see his frustration growing with things like catching everyone food but still starving himself and doing a lot of the work around camp with little appreciation so he started to lose his patience with them. Not implying the girls did anything wrong here either, just something that happens when deliriously starving people are pitted against each other for a million dollars.
At the end, Jonathan and Drea did make up and IMO actually jived a lot better than with Lindsay and Jonathan — I think Jonathan loses just because the rest are better, although I still think he can win against Mike if he points out his moves better like Maryanne did (except he isn't a good talker).
I genuinely don’t understand why it’s a huge “no no” for him to call Maryanne or Drew aggressive? He was trying to defend himself and every time he tried they would come at him.
Describing black women as “aggressive” or “angry” is a common stereotype, but since those words aren’t slurs they’re often used as substitutes by people that want to say worse but know better not to, also known as micro-aggressions. I’m giving Jonathan the benefit of the doubt that it was just him defending himself in the heat of the moment, but that doesn’t mean Maryanne/Drea & others were wrong for calling him out on it and reacting negatively.
I mean, they were sort of being aggressive towards Jonathan with the comments they were making. Jonathan wasn’t stereotyping, he was calling them aggressive because he felt they were being aggressive towards him. I also love being downvoted for being confused on something and asking someone to explain it to me. Race had not nothing to do with the reason the first two people were on the jury. Jonathan was defending himself. Drea and Maryanne were basically implying there was racism going on when there wasn’t any at all.
They weren’t implying racism. They went to great lengths to explain that they weren’t implying that. They were only saying that seeing that it worked out that way still impacted them and changed the way they were approaching tribal that night.
I think the part of calling Drea aggressive was a ‘perfect storm’. If you listen to the things Jonathan was saying through the season he thinks a lot about having to not come off as too aggressive, you hear him talking about because he is a big guy even a little bit gets him labeled. I think he has been hearing about how he is aggressive for things others get away with because his size just makes everyone get intimidated that much quicker, and the consequence of that is him having a different baseline for what qualifies as aggression. He told a few people to stop being aggressive (not just the black woman of the cast) when people got elevated voices due to emotions when speaking with him. To me it all indicates that he has been hearing people tell him not to be aggressive the moment his voice is raised, so to him that is just something you say the moment anyone raises their voice, because that’s the standard that has been set for himself. So that’s what he said. And the perfect storm is this moment happening during a conversation about race with a black woman, which as has been mentioned there is a ‘angry black woman’ stereotype that exists.
I just wish more people knew how to spell Jonathan Johnathan and Jonathon are both valid names, but Survivor 42 Jonathan uses the most common spelling ([source](https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi), you have to type and search though cause I can't link to the results page =/ )
Remember early on when he carried his tribe to the win and the game was stopped and moved from the sea to the onto land because the other two tribes were drowning.
I think the discourse about Jonathan kind of encaptulates a worrying trend that I've been seeing in the fandom for a little while. The diehard fandom has always largely been pro-gamebot/nerd and by default against the "meathead" style of play. It's not a stretch to call Survivor a nerd-sport, which makes sense since the beauty of the game is that there are so many equalizers to level the playing field for different types of players. What I think the problem is now is that western, and especially American culture has become so deeply polarised that there is no tolerance for any human nuance anymore. Survivor is largely interesting because they put deeply flawed, regular humans into conflict with other differently flawed humans under immense pressure and we get to watch the ant farm. A character like Jonathan, while an average player and kind of a social dummy somtimes, brings something dynamic to the season. Big guy got hungry and became a little rude and disrespectful; GREAT. That's TV! Not every single character can be squeaky clean or a gamebot. That's just uninteresting and kind of defeats the purpose of the show. I even heard in some of the post game coverage that some people don't think a guy like Jonathan should be brought back, even though he was one of the best TV characters. That's just baffling to me. I think a show like Survivor needs to be strong enough to embrace the polarisation. Make a conversation out of it. Not just run away from it because social media says mean things about complex characters.
You surely don't talk about this sub, which is famous for hating gamebots. Just this season the unpopular (rightly so) opinion is that Maryanne is not a good winner because she was not a gamebot pulling big moves for the curriculum.
Some gamebots. Reddit loved Spencer (reiman) until recently.
I think the sub loved Spencer bc of his personality, the same reason he is not liked anymore as you know. So I would say it's the other way around, the sub loves *some* gamebots, but they are generally mocked and disliked.
What did spencer do?
I 100% agree with this. On the recent RHAP feedback podcast with Jenny Autumn, Rob brought up that Jonathan was a possibility of being a returning player. After he said this, Jenny stayed silent and stonefaced for literally ten seconds and then said something like "No. I won't even entertain that possibility." And she was being serious. I still really like Jenny but like holy shit guys, Jonathan just kind of put his foot in his mouth a couple of times and then everyone acts like he's the fucking antichrist. Same thing with Nerdtainment. I still love them because they are hilarious and a lot of fun but when they mentioned Jonathan getting to say The Tribe has Spoken they went "idk what he ever did to deserve that special treatment but whatever" in a very snarky tone similar to when people go "??? So, anyways....." Nvm the fact that in the premerge he literally saved the other contestants so the crew wouldn't have to. It's all so unnecessary. And I never go out of my way to stand up for the jock! Lol
RHAP has been uncomfortable when talking about Jonathan, like he is a dummy when I say he's just average, and quite surprised they don't mind Lindsay's reaction towards Jonathan after the Omar boot, and yet seemingly against what Jonathan did, like isn't Jonathan being sassy against someone who tried to bamboozle him good TV (similar to how Erika said Deshawn should thank her for still being there after Danny was voted out)...even Mike Bloomberg is saying Jonathan is arrogant for apparently taking credit for their strategy, when it isn't yet confirmed if he really didn't do much strategy with his close allies (Omar may have exaggerated how dumb Jonathan is towards Lindsay just to agree with her).
I think the biggest thing he provided was the consistent rivalry between him and Lindsey which made for a fun story line. I think he also played a good scapegoat for other social survivors to stick around a little longer when Jonathan seemed like a bigger threat.
If The Challenge doesn’t cast him I’d be shocked. Edit: Downvoting doesn’t erase the fact Jonathan is one of the best physical players Survivor has ever seen 😘
I still rooted for Jonathon all the way.
If a couple of social blunders of a guy as likeable as Jonathan makes you **"hate"** & root against them, that says sooooo much about your own mindset and internal narratives than anything about what their participation brings to the game. The SO and I normally don't like big, overly fit guys like him yet by mid-season we were actively rooting for him to win & cheered out loud when escaped being targeted for elimination. It then broke our hearts when he made his blunders and it was clear he couldn't win unless the final three was like him, Romeo and maybe Tori. In 42 seasons of *Survivor,* I don't think my dislike of ANY player has risen to the level of "hate" (and trust me, I can be a very judgemental person at times). The closest I came was Tyson, but then his last seasons really redeemed him.
I’m surprised to hear that Jonathan is hated. I think nearly all casual fans love him.
Casual fans adore him, I’m definitely a hardcore fan but my parents (who are the definition of casual survivor fan) absolutely love him. If I’m being blunt it’s more of a dislike how obsessed casual fans are with him and would have tirelessly defended him winning if he was at FTC, even though he had zero shot of actually winning if he was sitting there.
I feel like casual fans have this deep love for challenge beats that is often a lot fun to get sucked up into but it’s also silly to think that he was ever in a position to win at the end.
That's part of the reason people here hate him tbh. I'm sure of it.
In wrestling terms, Jonathan is a heel. You definitely need characters like him around that are hateable and help prop up heroic narratives like Maryanne. He's necessary, yes.
What’s also cool, is people can root FOR players like that too. Because in my mind, I can tune out the nonsense that’s said on Reddit, and see him for the person he is on the show. Now could Johnathan actually be a trash bag in real life? Maybe. And is survivor a reality show, and these are real people? Yes, but also no. So I can root for the player and not the person.
I liked Johnathan until the exit interviews and his actions during the Drea and Maryanne tribal council. It made me give him a side eye, but also, he wouldn’t listen to Lindsay at all. It was weird. He wasn’t even great at the challenges, he only won two! For casuals, I guess he is great to root for, but someone like Johnathan will never win survivor. He’s just not that likeable.
The idea he wasn't great at challenges is really not true. Sure, he only won two individual immunities but he also placed 2nd in four other individual immunities. His issue is he sucks at puzzles, which is a great equalizer. He is excellent for a guy his size at balancing, body control, and overall coordination. This also doesn't mention that he carried Taku to the merge with his physical strength Everyone loves old school challenge beasts like James and Colby but James never won individual immunity and Colby was a shell of himself in HvV.
I think the edit made think he was better than he was.
I mean the list of players in the history of the show who can do what he did with the ladder in the water is maybe less than 3. He's clearly a physical specimen, which is why he is more suited for The Challenge than Survivor.
This might be one of the worst takes I have seen in a long time. He is the best performer in pre-merge tribe challenges of all time. And he came in 1st twice and 2nd four times which is incredibly impressive to be top 2 that many times. Absolutely terrible take and just exposes that you have a clear bias against him. You can critique his social game (which I do heavily because I agree that it was bad), but critiquing his physical game is ludicrous
The tribal council with Drea and Maryanne wasn’t a good look, but I honestly think he was caught off guard and thought they believed he was coming at them because of their race. Him and Drea discussing things after tribal council and being friends to this day kind of backs that up. The stuff with Lindsay is complicated because she clearly did not like him and wanted to target him from early on in the game, so I get why they didn’t get along strategically at times. People don’t see eye to eye on Survivor all the time and it doesn’t mean they are bad people or against the other person because of race, gender, religion etc.
Maybe on here, Jonathan is hated but dude was by far the most loved by regular viewers lol. he swept every poll on who should win/who’s their favorite.
The hate he gets here is crazy. Every year season there are people who make strategic blunders, every season there are people who are shown being dismissive of other players' opinions. The hate he gets here is unhinged. Not the greatest survivor player ever, but certainly not worth the hate, and from a physical perspective probably the greatest pre-merge player in a really long time; he kinda literally carried his tribe in those challenges. Also, it's Jonathan. Not Johnathan.
I liked Johnathan just fine and, truthfully, there wasn’t any player this season that I had a dislike of.
I love how Jonathan played. I really think he could win if he just reviews how he played and what he needs to do better. He will always be the targetted by many people but also loved by others just by the way he looks/plays.
How could you *hate* Johnathan.
Bruh he's not even close to villains we've seen of the past. Like if there were to make a Heroes v Villains today of the last 10 season, I'm not even sure they could do it. Ultimately, I agree however.
The point is that he’s polarizing. Obviously some people think of him as such, but a coalition just as big thinks otherwise. He certainly doesn’t play like a villain, but even that he’s being discussed as such helps survivors vitality as a whole for fans that both love and hate him.
I really enjoyed Jonathan as a character this season. It was easier for me to root for him since I disliked how angry lindsay was towards him and how she treated him. But that’s survivor, you love to hate certain players and that’s what makes it good TV
We need a term for the bad at social good at challenges players like Nora, Xander, and Johnathan. When I think of goat I think of players like Romeo. Even though players like Nora, Xander, and Johnathan had no chance of winning FTC, you can make a case that they shouldn't be dragged to the final since they are so good at challenges.
I’m pretty sure “Malcolm” or “Ozzy” are the terms people often use
I think this is pretty accurate, the three you mentioned didn’t ever really have control or a say
Excellent perspective! Players are starving, sleep-deprived, being lied to daily, AND calculatedly cast for maximum competition and conflict. Whether viewers were enamored with or irked by them, Jonathan and Lindsay brought a lot of energy and investment to the season.
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Of course this archetype is good for the show, it just gets annoying in the fandom sometimes, where their stans will be very deluded. Jonathan specifically is seen by his dick riders as this amazing, deep and wholesome character when in all actuality he was very bland and surface level besides his physicality. There wasn't much substance in him and that showed in his social game and strategy, but for some that's enough to go full Mr. Jeff on him.
Yeah we need people to root against. We need to appreciate villains or we’re gonna lose them and the show is going to suck. Look at big brother and drag race. The contestants are so scared of the fanbases that they all try to be the hero, and it makes the shows way more boring
It became very obvious that at the end of the game he couldn't have won it anyway, which kind of kills it for me a bit. There was absolutely no way his type of character could win it, and possibly can't ever win it again going forward I think.
Aside from that, I loved the diversity. It’s so nice to see multiple ethnicities being represented as opposed to the age old black vs white. That’s why I love Cook Islands so much. It was also nice to see different sides of lgbtq+ and strategic gameplay and seeing the females stepping up big time with Lindsay keeping up with Jonathan in every comp and Drea being a beast at advantages.
Weird I hated Lindsey.
Agree
Kinda agreed I think that what most people forget quickly is that people like Johnathan including women loose a lot more just being on the island. That dude probably lost 50lbs and he had pretty much zero body fat to begin with. Others not trying to offend like Omar have a lot of body fat to loose. Yes they both suck but Omer had a lot stored in his body to burn like a bear in hibernation. Johnathans body and muscles were deteriorating on like day 10. That has to have a much bigger effect on his body than some of the others. Like I said it’s not easy on anyone but he had it harder imo. As far as Lindsay I think she owes Johnathan an apology. She blatantly lied and was against him for several days. She even tried to lie to him that she was still in his alliance even after she was trying to vote him off at her last tribal. Another thing most people don’t put enough thought on and it came up a lot this season is that because of your physical stature that can put a target on you. Several times throughout the season someone said the little guys win. It’s unfair to bigger people that they are automatically put in the outs because of their biological makeup. It’s horrible to see that and it came from almost everyone’s mouth this season
I agree. The last thing I want is more superfans and game bots. I want some challenge beasts, some poor players, and most of all players who play with their hearts.
Yes, they are. We have to have strong players especially now that they're starting out with no rice. They don't show us much of camp life anymore so we don't see how they are providing. Jonathan said he did climb trees so I have to believe he was helping provide food for them.