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DaWaterRat wrote:

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I haven't posted in ages. I realize this gives me the credibility of a potato, but I'll risk it.

I don't post in Edgic because I don't have the energy to deal with the drama, or to seriously watch the episodes trying to determine ratings, and I read the spoilers forum to get the transcripts of the Insider. So I figure between all of that, I really don't have a place in Edgic. But I do read it, and have for several seasons (Survivor 7, I think). And I'm going to support the idea that maybe Edgic is forgetting that there's more than one logic going on here.

There's the logic of the mathematics. The numbers represented by the various ratings. That's the MOR Diferential. This is the logic most Edgic posters seem to cling to.
There's the logic of the game. The answer to "What would be the right move here?" This tends to play into people's CP ratings, even though CP isn't supposed to be strategy. It's supposed to be insight and character development. Which leads to the third logic. The one that's not supposed to be part of Edgic at all, but the one that did Edgic in this year.

The logic of the story.

The editors are crafting a story. Perhaps ineptly, but they are. (There are writers for Survivor and other Reality Shows, I think their position is actually called Story Editor or something like that, so they can't get Writer's Guild credit, or coverage, but that's something else.) So sometimes people need to look at the logic of the story.

When Betsy was voted off, I asked "Who Kills Humperdink?" And I spent the next two or three episodes trying to figure out who was the hero that defeated the villain. I guessed wrong, because I thought it was Jaison. But I was looking for the story. Even after the spoilers, I thought Jaison might pull it off despite them, but I could also see how Natalie could be the hero. I could never see it for Mick. And I knew that Russell's story was how he lost. I knew that back in episode one. Because any other story wouldn't feel good to the average viewer. I kept hoping that someone would knock him off before the finals, but I could see that him loosing in the finals would be that much more satisfying.

Now, as for all the people who love Russell, and how they think he should have won... Who's the coolest character in a good story? The villain. I love watching a good villain. I love watching them crush their opponents right up until the Hero, battered and bruised but not beaten, takes them out.

That's the story we got this season. And it's a logical one.