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Mikester wrote:

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ET: Would you change your vote if you had seen the show before you had to vote?

Kelly Sharbaugh: I think before I watched the show, I would have changed my vote, but watching the show now, I am glad I voted the way I did.

I can imagine Kelly voting for Natalie and then seeing the show and deciding she should have voted for Russell, or voting for Russell and deciding that it was okay, but I can't imagine Kelly voting for Russell and then deciding that she should have voted for Natalie, especially since Natalie has been so INV.

Read the quote again. She's saying that she voted one way, changed her mind sometime after the vote and before she watched the show. Then changed her mind again once she watched the show. This can easily be interpreted as, "I voted for Natalie, and then John and Erik got on my case and made me feel like I should have voted for Russell (say, because he was the more strategic player.) But now that I'm actually watching the show, I'm happy with my original instinct, because I have a better appreciation for Natalie's game."

That's why I can't imagine Erik has decided Natalie is the best player only after the show. I would think he must have also thought that at the time.

Erik spent exactly one TC cycle with Natalie, i.e. 3 days starting with the merge. And Natalie spent most of those three days hanging out with the Heathers, and buttering up Dave. Those were her post-merge targets for manipulation. So aside from challenges, Erik spent almost no time witnessing Natalie's game while he was in the game. And Natalie's most noted challenge performances have come after Erik had left the game.

By comparison, watching the show, he's had the luxury of seeing her game during every single phase of the show: her initial alliance with Russell even in the face of Betsy's skepticism, her ability to outperform Liz thanks partly to her adept interaction with Laura when the latter came to Foa Foa, her courting of the Heathers and Dave, her part in Erik's boot. And he's heard Natalie acknowledge that she's playing Russell as much as he thinks he's playing her. So from where I'm standing, Erik had much more evidence on which to base a favorable opinion of Natalie's game while watching the show than he did when his torch was snuffed out.

And he was talking about who he thought "was playing" a great game, not who he thought "had played" a great game. So yeah, Natalie may yet do some spectacular things that Erik witnesses at TC's (and she hasn't done a thing during the TCs Erik has witnessed so far). But there's no doubt in my mind that in referring to Natalie's great game, Erik was talking about what he had seen watching her on the show, INV edit or no.

Actually the only one clinging to anything is you. The Natalie fans have reason to believe Natalie wins (missyae's spoilers and saying Natalie is "waaay good") so we're looking for evidence in the show that would support that. If you watch that scene, no matter how edited it is, Natalie goes to Russell H afterward and he doesn't believe her and she goes to Mick afterward to tell him she's done it. Since Jaison isn't even spoiled to be in the f3, even if people thought that Jaison was the one who put her up to it, why would they not give Natalie credit for making it happen?

But that's what's funny to me. Why are Natalie fans feeling so insecure about her game that they're trying to blow up her single big move into more than it actually is? Why are they so set in making her a strategic force when that's clearly not her game? Why don't they just appreciate her "be nice and let someone else do the dirty work" strategy for what it is? Why won't they acknowledge that kind of social strategy is as valid a way of winning or losing the game as Russell's in-your-face slash and burn strategy? Why can't they recognize what Natalie herself did, which is that her best strategy was to play to her strengths, which in the context she found herself in the game, had more to to do with kindness and sweetness than with strategic wiles? Why do they want Natalie to get the same props as Russell? Isn't it enough that she apparently wins?