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I don't feel like we've seen Edna enough to determine her status, but I think what Beefcake said about the returning players being thrust into the F role really does shape FF4. If Coach was not a returning player, would Christine (the natural M on the tribe, IMO) have put herself out there against Coach so quickly? I would love to trade Dawn and Christine at the beginning of the series, because I think Coach and Dawn might have worked well together and Ozzy and Christine would have been a nice drag-out fight. With respect to FF4, I think Coach has taken to the F role pretty well, which makes sense--he is a coach in real life. Albert and Brandon are natural S's, Mikayla and Sophie good D's.

On Savaii, I still stick to my unpopular ratings. I just don't see Ozzy either behaving like a Son or relating to the rest of the tribe as a Son typically does. For me, Ozzy is a pure Eccentric. If we had an "Uncle" type, this season's Ozzy would define it for me. Cochran said it best--everyone turned to him because they expected him to be an F (Jeff practically said "here's your leader/father"), but Ozzy's just bad at it. Cochran, on the other hand, was even more an S to me this episode. The whole "I need to learn to catch fish so I can do something useful" bit--isn't that exactly the scene that defines the Son type? He's kinda like the youngest brother, the nerd, from the Foxtrot comic strip. The older siblings may think he's immature, but he's still their younger brother.

Tarheel66, it is definitely possible that there be no M or no F in the Final 4. I can think of a lot of seasons where the M or F goes at F5-F7, like Palau, where M Caryn left at F5. I'm not sure the season where Parvati won had an F after Jonathan went home--but Cirie was certainly one of the strongest M characters in Survivor history. Generally speaking, again, a strong M has meant weaker F and vice-versa. Where we do see both strong M's and strong F's in the Final 4, as in the season where Aras won, F Terry would have been voted out, except he kept winning challenges. Note that Terry and Cirie were on separate tribes that season. It's generally the case that within a single tribe, the battle for M, F, and E happens before the merge. Amazon's battle between Joanne and Denna, for example, or Rupert vs Burton on Pearl Islands. This does portend well in the near future for Coach, at the very least, and probably Jim, if he emerges as a clear F.

That's not to say that duplication of Ms, Fs, or Es can't happen after the merge, even in the endgame. Africa had two M's in the F4, Theresa and Mama Kim. Twists like gender tribes, pick-ems, returning players, outcast tribes, and the like interact with family dynamics. However, because the battle among the "Adults" is generally one of dominance for the core alliance in a tribe, this happens (1) before the merge, as I mentioned above, and (2) at the merge, when two alliances clash. The winning set of Parents has to get rid of opposing Adults to secure their position, like Gretchen in the original or Roger in Amazon or Laura in Russell Hantz's first season or even, yes, Coach in Tocanchins. This generally happens within two or three votes after the merge. Given that older players generally make up a smaller part of the cast and tend to have more physical difficulties in the early challenges, it's not surprising that there simply aren't enough adults left by the end game to have two F's or two M's regularly.

I think FLF said it concisely, but to develop it a little more:

All children want the adults to think highly of them. Sons do this overtly and generally individually, daughters covertly and as part of a group. Sons do this through providing at camp, proving their worth at challenges, continually making bold strategic plays. This is why most "masterminds" are Sons, like Stephen, Rob C, and winner Todd. It's their way of demonstrating their capability to the Parents and to fellow siblings. Daughters prove their worth by being pleasant and making friends--D winners like Jenna and Parvati are masters of the social game. Certainly D's can engineer strategies, but they tend to be much more subtle. For me, Todd from China vs. Parvati from FvF personify the differences between successful S's and successful D's.