#jonathan young

exr memes (part 1)

i also think it would have been less icky if they hadn’t both been so vicious towards aubry in their worship of jonathan. a good contrast to me was emily raising the point about every vote needing to go through joe - while she didn’t end up voting for him, she brought one of joe’s virtues to the jury’s attention because she felt like it deserved consideration, and WITHOUT attempting to make the other players look weaker in contrast. stephenie saying “no disrespect” and then immediately telling aubry her game was non-committal and she never took any action was like the ugliest thing i’ve seen at FTC in a long time, and i’m so glad dee called her out for that bullshit right away.

I've played a few ORGs and have seen juries in the context of no returning players. So my analysis here is kind of based on people playing a game with no actual money attached. But one of these games was played right at the start of the 2020 lockdowns and so for all of us playing was our primary social interaction since we weren't doing a lot else. So we had a similar "socially forced together" feeling for that one like the real show.

Jonathan was making the argument "I was the dominant player who was driving every vote". Aubry was making the argument "I was the underdog that nobody could finish off because I could keep deflecting the vote away from me/separate myself from the other targets".

One of these arguments is just... an easier argument to make. To say that you were the dominant player, you now have to basically argue that you were responsible for literally everything that happened. Any time a jury member or another finalist is able to say "no, that was me", you lose a level of credibility. In the episode we saw this with Joe saying that Aubry was the one that convinced him that going after Ozzy was the right move. Jonathan cannot tell Joe that his feelings are wrong. In the 2020 ORG I saw a dominant player lose because any time any juror could point to one thing she didn't know, everyone was just like "See! You weren't as dominant as you said you were!"

The underdog player... doesn't have that problem. Because their case isn't based on the idea that they knew everything. Their case is based on the idea that they knew how to not be voted out. Which is far easier to prove. They are sitting at the Final Tribal Council. That proves it. In the context of the last episode, Ozzy calls out that Aubry was one of the middle people who apparently were the most dangerous players that needed to be taken out. So... if Jonathan was in total control, why is she there? Aubry's case does not rely on eliminating threats. It relies on surviving. Jonathan's case relies on being in control. So someone being there who he made it clear he did not want to be there just kneecaps his argument before he's said anything.

In another ORG, the winner was a player who got given an idol to play at the merge vote which he needed, then proceeded to be the target the entire last half of the game while constantly being dragged into other people's plans as a number for blindsides. He makes the legitimate argument that he should have been out (since the vast majority of the jury had tried to get him out at LEAST once), and can truthfully say his social game is why we kept coming to him for bigger moves. I can't refute this argument by saying "oh but you didn't know about this secret alliance or advantage" because... the argument isn't that he was dominant. He thought I was going to the finals with him and said that was why he started working with me, so in a "gotcha" moment I told him "If I wasn't blindsided at six I was going to hit you at five, trusting me was a bad call". But... he correctly responded with "I disagree, I just needed to know who was willing to work with me. I didn't need to know why or for how long." The argument is that he knew what to say to be invited into plans. Which was true. We worked together for two votes. And I was now the bigger target than him. He knew what to say to survive three more days. Which is demonstrably true.

Basically playing an underdog game is harder in the sense that you don't have all of the knowledge. But if you can get to the end, you have a far easier sell. Your argument is just around yourself. If you played a dominant game, you are putting yourself into an FTC where you have to either know everything about everyone, or convince the jury that their secret alliance that you didn't know about didn't matter (which... everybody loves their secret alliances. You will never convince them of that).

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