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Even if you are right about Ken, panurge, it still isn't Edgic!

Edgic is character driven, not theme driven. There are many themes involved in a series of Survivor, many of which disappear for extended stretches when they don't fit, and they point to various players along the way. I understand you like to pinpoint these themes in advance, and like in China, occasionally they'll pay off for you. Other times, like this season when you indicated it pointed toward Corinne, who should not have been on anyone's Edgic list of winners since before the merge, you were wrong. Todd won per Edgic because he was surrounded by lots of distractions to keep him from standing out too much (including a reasonable cooldown around the merge to offset some high visibility early on), was never neglected for long stretches, was negative but not in a way that would make the audience hate him, and received manipulated doubt down the stretch. Plus, the other candidates weren't really all that good. The Art of War theme may have fit him, but that wasn't why any Edgic analyst would have gone with him.

Ken clearly fits the Edgic profile, and I argued so before Marcus left (even if I did still have Marcus in front of him at that time). I think Crystal fits it also, though not as well, especially since she has cooled down since the merge (which some people seem to think is bad for her chances?). Matty doesn't fit all that well, in my opinion, but he's not eliminated. Sugar doesn't really fit well (though she makes me nervous), and Bob and Susie are definitely out. You may say I'm hedging my bets. No, I'm applying Edgic, and this is what it tells me. My pick is Ken - if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but at least it is Edgic.

Someone raised the complaint about CL's approach. The thing is that CL does do Edgic, just without all the math and ratings. He's been here since near the beginning before the ratings began to dominate (and became the trees to Edgic's forest). The ratings are mere tools to apply the concepts that lie behind them as set forth in the guidelines. KQ used the ratings as shorthand in tracking his observations and looking for trends. So CL doesn't use ratings, but what he does do is apply the concepts behind them - that truly is Edgic in its purest form. I know I argue a lot about ratings, but that's because I see them getting away from the concepts that underlie them. If OTT doesn't mean what it used to, it isn't really Edgic anymore. Same with CP. And I dislike the INV rule partly because it is more or less a gimmick rather than reflecting any real concept.