I feel that everyone did play at the top of their game. That argument isn't going to work with me. You can argue semantics and opinions all you want,
but I've never had a problem with any of the characters' actions in this story.
The difference (at least to a certain degree) between the new Hawaii and my other stories is that I wasn't going in with a clean slate this time. All the other stories I went in with basically tabula rasa. Everyone started at the same place, they all had a chance to win, etc etc. But not so with this story. I knew since minute one that the pre-jury boots were not going to change. The boot order was always going to go Teresa, Ethan, Sue, Richard, Lex, and Colby. And then Mike would be the first one picked off at the merge. That was a choice I made early on, so I could at least lessen the time aspects of planning this story out. So in that regards, this was already more of a "fiction driven" experiment than a complete character simulation. This story was already pre-written all the way up to day 24. All the details I changed between day 1-day 24 (like John going on the reward trip instead of Lex) were just setting up what I thought would be a more interesting second half of the story.
So anyway if you look at it that way, this wasn't an open-ended project where I roleplay 16 Survivors like the other stories. In the new Hawaii, 7 of the characters had their fate determined before I even started. So it wasn't a 16 character experiment, it was a 9 character experiment. And then if you factor out Alicia (who I really, really didn't want to win again), it was basically an 8 character experiment. There were really only 8 characters who really had any chance to win this story this time around.
So was this story compromised? Of course. This is the only time I've ever said "8 characters will never win" at the beginning. But due to the unique nature of this project, and its backstory, and its controversial finale last time, I had no problem with that. I figured I would do a more soap opera fun to read ending this time around, since I wanted Hawaii to be more popular than it was back in 2002. I mean come on, in six years I've changed a lot as a writer. I'm no longer "some guy who is trying to write a character piece and wants to get some fan recognition for it." Now I'm "a guy who has written two other well-received stories, and wants the one with the big name players (Hawaii) to be remembered as fondly as the other ones." Once I ratcheted up the reader expectations with Alaska and Greece, there was no WAY I was going to go back and redo Hawaii the same way that I did it before. This time, I was going to exert a little control over what happened. This time, I wanted a story that would be epic and that people would be proud of. The original Hawaii (while a good idea) was awfully blah compared to my other stories.
Regarding the "I knew Gretchen would be important" theory. I know I said this before, but the first idea I had for this rewrite was that I would have the exact same story as before, except at the final five I would have Gretchen vote out Alicia instead of the other way around. I thought that would be a fun twist for people who knew the original story, and it would be a minimum of work since I could keep everything else the same. So that was my idea, and that was where my conscious effort to make Gretchen into a good character came out of. The only problem was that when I started the rewrite, I realized large chunks of the original story (which I hadn't even looked at in five years) sucked hard, and would have to be scrapped. So I dumped my "Gretchen just swaps places with Alicia" theory, and I changed it to "Okay, I'll just start changing the boot order once we get to the jury." But even in the original story, she got fifth place. She was going to be important in this rewrite no matter what.
The problem is that you're looking at Hawaii through a 2002 filter, and I'm looking at it through a 2008 filter. I'm no longer interested in writing a strict "what would happen next" roleplaying drama. I tried that once with the first Hawaii. It was boring.
Besides, I cheated storywise with the first Hawaii anyway. I had the Ahis throw away their numerical advantage after the merge. And the only reason I did that was because I knew that a Keko had to win. How was that realism-driven? How was that noble and fair? That was just me trying to forcibly cram in some unexpectedness.
The difference (at least to a certain degree) between the new Hawaii and my other stories is that I wasn't going in with a clean slate this time. All the other stories I went in with basically tabula rasa. Everyone started at the same place, they all had a chance to win, etc etc. But not so with this story. I knew since minute one that the pre-jury boots were not going to change. The boot order was always going to go Teresa, Ethan, Sue, Richard, Lex, and Colby. And then Mike would be the first one picked off at the merge. That was a choice I made early on, so I could at least lessen the time aspects of planning this story out. So in that regards, this was already more of a "fiction driven" experiment than a complete character simulation. This story was already pre-written all the way up to day 24. All the details I changed between day 1-day 24 (like John going on the reward trip instead of Lex) were just setting up what I thought would be a more interesting second half of the story.
So anyway if you look at it that way, this wasn't an open-ended project where I roleplay 16 Survivors like the other stories. In the new Hawaii, 7 of the characters had their fate determined before I even started. So it wasn't a 16 character experiment, it was a 9 character experiment. And then if you factor out Alicia (who I really, really didn't want to win again), it was basically an 8 character experiment. There were really only 8 characters who really had any chance to win this story this time around.
So was this story compromised? Of course. This is the only time I've ever said "8 characters will never win" at the beginning. But due to the unique nature of this project, and its backstory, and its controversial finale last time, I had no problem with that. I figured I would do a more soap opera fun to read ending this time around, since I wanted Hawaii to be more popular than it was back in 2002. I mean come on, in six years I've changed a lot as a writer. I'm no longer "some guy who is trying to write a character piece and wants to get some fan recognition for it." Now I'm "a guy who has written two other well-received stories, and wants the one with the big name players (Hawaii) to be remembered as fondly as the other ones." Once I ratcheted up the reader expectations with Alaska and Greece, there was no WAY I was going to go back and redo Hawaii the same way that I did it before. This time, I was going to exert a little control over what happened. This time, I wanted a story that would be epic and that people would be proud of. The original Hawaii (while a good idea) was awfully blah compared to my other stories.
Regarding the "I knew Gretchen would be important" theory. I know I said this before, but the first idea I had for this rewrite was that I would have the exact same story as before, except at the final five I would have Gretchen vote out Alicia instead of the other way around. I thought that would be a fun twist for people who knew the original story, and it would be a minimum of work since I could keep everything else the same. So that was my idea, and that was where my conscious effort to make Gretchen into a good character came out of. The only problem was that when I started the rewrite, I realized large chunks of the original story (which I hadn't even looked at in five years) sucked hard, and would have to be scrapped. So I dumped my "Gretchen just swaps places with Alicia" theory, and I changed it to "Okay, I'll just start changing the boot order once we get to the jury." But even in the original story, she got fifth place. She was going to be important in this rewrite no matter what.
The problem is that you're looking at Hawaii through a 2002 filter, and I'm looking at it through a 2008 filter. I'm no longer interested in writing a strict "what would happen next" roleplaying drama. I tried that once with the first Hawaii. It was boring.
Besides, I cheated storywise with the first Hawaii anyway. I had the Ahis throw away their numerical advantage after the merge. And the only reason I did that was because I knew that a Keko had to win. How was that realism-driven? How was that noble and fair? That was just me trying to forcibly cram in some unexpectedness.
