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Close Calls:

Rating:
Ben: OTT
While his edit could be perceived as a MOR holding edit, I just saw his entire presence edited to present a distinctly flat, villainous character. From his early confessional which gave us a view into his illegal activities (note to self: haha), to his Mick-narrated scene about setting up camp, to saying he "can't stand that bitch" in regards to Marisa and on to his no-holds barred TC fight with our P bootee, I just don't see anything that balances out the one-sided, cartoon aspect of his character.
The other big clincher to make him OTT for me was the fact that his camp scene was pretty much governed by Mick and his reaction to it. I see OTT characters more so as defined by others, while MOR characters are generally characters with their own visibility and presence. Ben had an edit that depended on others to create it, and I have trouble looking past that to assign him a MOR.

John: OTT
Okay, the breakdown of John's presence would be his failure in the swimming and his buffoon-style shelter building. Like Ben, most of John's edit came from others. He did get to speak about himself a bit, but it was quickly contradicted by Shannon (and recall Erik's reaction to John's "dismal" RC performance). What most gets me about John's edit is that it was so heavily manipulated. He got so many sound bytes about the shelter that were pieced together in juxtaposition against Shannon's comments, painstakingly crafted to make John look like an utter idiot. He also served to give the "let's go to the water" [paraphrase] line, making it look as though he quit working on the shelter to swim, an activity that Shannon had trouble with.
Again, I just have trouble seeing MOR, but am very open to arguments.

Visibility:
John: 3
If we eliminated that fluke 1 visibility vote, would it even be a close call? I mean, 1, seriously??? John was easily one of the most visible players on Gula and had presence in all of the tribe's scenes (the RC and their camp). I think he's got to be a 3.

Tone:
Ashley: N
Ah, here we go. I think most of us are decided that Ashley was cut-and-dry N at TC - from what I've read here, that seems to be the general consensus. I won't address that, then.
The two things I've seen argued that are P for Ashley is her post-IC comment about no one being the cause of the loss, and then her confessional about Russell's Katrina story. I can see the post-IC comment either way: it's either a very slight P, or else it's a setup for the fact that she's about to be called out as the weakest. She's either being encouraging or trying to cover her ass. At best, very slight P. At worst, very slight N.
However, her confessional in regards to Russell is nowhere near P, in my opinion. It's being used to validate Russell's opinion that she is indeed a dumb blonde who is easily manipulated. Yes, it's cute that she likes animals, but put against Marisa (voted P), who says she wants to be sympathetic but doesn't like how Russell is playing it, we see that Ashleyis naive and fulfilling all the negative things that Russell said about her earlier, while Marisa is negating those stereotypes and coming into her own.
And of course the dumb blonde montage was hardly flattering to Ashley either. I just think that of the three dumb girls, we saw Marisa transcend that status, Natalie be ignored, and Ashley completely fulfill the status, especially with Jeff's commentary on her "whatever" at TC. I love her as a character and as a potential winner, but I think that her edit was carefully constructed not only to make us think of her as the perpetual dumb blonde, but also to want her to leave. That's about as N as I'd like to see.

wallduck wrote:

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Can someone please explain the Jaison support here?

I think it's motivated in part as follows:

1. When there are 20 characters, a large number are necessarily INV in episode 1. Others are OTT for the usual entertainment purposes.
2. That leaves relatively few (3 or 4) contenders who closely match the guidelines.
3. Nobody at this point wants to eliminate characters prematurely.
4. In which case, it's natural to look for reasons why characters like Jaison, Monica, Liz, and Erik are possibilities.

Thanks for addressing my question. I'm not arguing for Jaison's elimination just yet, but in comparison to our other 20 person seasons, Jaison had nowhere near the development and presence that those winners had, so I'm finding the slightly strong support for him very odd.