MasterDarkNinja wrote:

chaperone wrote:

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I do though, just to stir up a little venom, still stand by the complex tribe theory (as I've interpreted it). The complex tribe always contains the winner (others reject my interpretation of CT, and therefore say it's been proven wrong by Vanuatu, which was the most balanced CT season in my analysis). Foa Foa always had the complex relationships, thanks mostly to Russell having alliances all over the place. Galu? We saw hints of a pecking order with Monica being targeted early, but nothing else. Even in all my wrong analysis of the winner, I always expected the winner to come out of Foa Foa, even in the craziness of them losing so heavily.

I think you're right that there's definitely something to the winner's tribe getting edited consistently in a way that can point to the winner, but I disagree that it's complexity. We've seen before, in seasons like Guatemala, and NuYaxha vs NuNakum, that the complex tribe tends to be the tribe that dominates the end game. There's other traits however that are far more consistent in winning and losing tribes. I actually think that the Losing tribe's get the more consistent edit, or at least the edit that's easier to spot and easier to explain.

I posted this once before, and it mostly got ignored, so I'll post it again, my suggested guideline for a correct/incorrect tribe rule for finding the winner.

The Incorrect Tribe Rule

The incorrect tribe rule points to which tribes are unlikely to contain the winner, so that we can find the correct tribes where the winner is more likely to be.

1) Incorrect tribes tend to be the more N tribe, and often have the entire tribe painted in a N light, often through Jeff Probst commentary in the recaps, or a P character on the N tribe saying bad things that apply to the rest of their tribe (such as Shambo saying her tribe is so laidback they're lazy because they prioritize Yoga over working around camp).

2) Incorrect tribes tend to be shown as incompetent and stupid, either as individuals, or the tribe as a whole. Jeff may emphasize in the recap that the tribe keeps making the wrong decisions (such as how Fang voting out Jacquie after she did well in the IC was shown as the wrong decision).

3) Incorrect tribes tend to be shown as the lazy/lazier tribe. They tend to have someone on their tribe calling their whole tribe lazy, with imagery reinforcing it (such as Peih Gee saying her tribe was a bunch of lazy people who just wanted to party instead of work).

4) Incorrect tribes may be extremely neglected in the early episodes, even if they make up a majority of the people in the merge (see Moto in Fiji, and Gelu in Samoa) The tribe with the winner however may get a lot less airtime, but it'll be less of an extreme imbalance.

Just because someone is separated from all the N aspects of their tribe (as one or two people on that tribe frequently are) that doesn't make them any more likely to win then the rest of their tribe. Terry Deitz may have been separated from the incompetence of his La Mina tribe, and shown as the only one able to get stuff done at their camp, but Terry Deitz still didn't win the game.

Just keep in mind that not all losing tribes will meet all of these guidelines. At times it may even be impossible to tell which tribe is the incorrect tribe. None of these rules are going to be 100% accurate on their own all the time, it's only when you see 3 or 4 of them together on the same tribe that they become very bad news for everyone on that tribe. Also the winner's tribe can seem to meet some guidelines for the incorrect tribe at times, for example Casaya was the N tribe in S12, but at the same time their opponents were the totally incompetent La Minas who were shown to fail at even the most simple tasks without their leader Terry around.