And Natalie has 3 on EOE. With those should could buy 3 competition advantages or one full power immunity idol. It's not clear to me if those competition advantages are good for the challenge to get back in the game, or if they are only good once back in. I would guess the former.

Amber really letting Rob down with her EoE performance

Ethan going to EoE seems amazing for Parv's game. Probably a better result for her than Adam going home

Going to say something very controversial here, but can someone explain to me why Parvati is considered GOAT territory, and she's revered as such a huge threat?

I've been racking my brain just now going over her journey of the 3 seasons she's played, and I can't really come up with that many concrete examples.

Her first season? She was thoroughly unimpressive in her ability to influence those around her. In her confessionals, she would talk to the camera about using flirting and her feminine wiles to control all the men, but we never really.saw that in action (I mean, she's flirty in general but I didn't see any times that season where she used it to her advantage in the context of the game).

Her fvf season she won? Ok, the move of getting Eric to get rid of his immunity is an epic all time moment, but does she deserve any more credit for executing that than Cirie or Natalie? That was a group effort. And most on here agree that had it not been for the bs twist of it being a final 2, Cirie would have won.

Her performance in HvV? The overall consensus is that Russell actively did FAR more to keep himself and her in the game, and she was frankly a coattail rider most of the way.

I'm not saying that she isn't a good, or even great player. She totally might be. I'm just saying that I think that we actually haven't seen too many reasons to think she is. And maybe most of the reason we think she's GOATish is because of the unending convos that we've seen during her seasons from OTHER players discussing her and how she's such a dangerous player.

It could also be that she is clearly an intelligent person, and because we've had such a constant stream over the years of hot female players who are clearly just meant to be eye candy because they're pretty moronic and goats, that when a hot chick comes along who is also clearly smart, that we give her more credit because of it. Idunno...

2p2 am I being totally crazy? Am I being a complete idiot and I'm forgetting obvious moments of her great play?

Someone please set my ignorant ass straight.

I would've guessed she's played more than three times before.

I put Parv with Rob and Sandra in the very upper level, and a quality they all share, albeit in different approaches, is that they are very good at handling other players and being aware of their own situation. A good part to succeeding in this game is identifying and using the dummies in the game for one's own goals. Rob had Phil and Lex, Sandra had Rupert (multiple times) and a variety of others, and Parv used people like Russel (who she knew could not win) and JT who mailed her a love letter and idol, along with the guy that she helped talk into giving away immunity.

They do this in a way that puts others at ease, even as they are using them, and that can be with charm (more Rob/Parv approach) or yelling I told you so (like Sandra did at the final tribal the second time she won). Compare how they work with and use people to someone like Adam, who creates friction when he tries to do that. Others, like Ben, have no ability to even try it at all.

Does it always work? No, but it is a skill set that seems to elevate certain players to a level that few achieve, and that is why you will see all the other contestants talk with great respect when they talk about these players, and that is a metric that is important, far more so than what randos say on the internet, including myself.

My reflections:

Parvati is HOT. Like sexy mischevious eyes and a killer body even after having a kid less than a year ago.

Adam talking to Rob about getting her out was a good example of new school versus old school. And then for Adam to think that somebody like Rob wasn't going to immediately stay loyal to his alliance was just dumb. Although Rob now has a problem in that he thought he had control and it was obvious he doesn't anymore. Remains to see if he can pivot.

Tony playing the same game that won the game the first time and I can see it succeeding again. Under the radar, strategizing with key people but keeping it all under wraps and letting other people think they are running things.

The silence with everyone sizing each other up after TIC was hilarious. Nobody wants to blink first.

Natalie impressed me on EOE with destroying the other necklaces right away. That way even if she was found out she could claim it was something else and point out the obvious numbers lying around.

Parv is overall a good player but yes maybe overrated. She is the GOAT at that totem pole challenge though.

Remember when the majority here thought Russell was the GOAT ? LMAO. I was one of the few that had BRob>Russell

You're completely misremembering. JT gave that love letter and idol to Russell, not Parv. Also, we've never seen any indication at all that Parv teamed up with Russell because she knew he couldn't win. That's a hindsight narrative that we the audience put on it because we saw what happened in Samoa.

The main advantage I think Parv, BRob, and Sandra have is experience plus the ability to learn from it to get better. Most people don't get the experience and many of those who get experience are incapable of learning from it effectively.

In their first seasons they were all pretty mediocre. Yeah, Sandra won, but it was a luckbox win and to top it off she was taken to the final 3 instead of someone who would have been an obvious and easy win for her F2 opponent.

However, since their first appearances, they've actually applied what they've learned and turned into much better players.

So perhaps their real advantage was being appealing enough to get the call back for the second try. Parv and BRob were definitely great characters despite the fact that they didn't go super deep the first time.

Sandra luckboxed here too, because if she hadn't won, I doubt she ever gets called back. But to Sandra's credit, she did take her experience and got a lot better in subsequent appearances, which is something that not everyone is able to do well.

^This stuff. And she's quite decent at challenges as well. Which you don't have to be to be a good Survivor player, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

Imagine Parv playing a game with a bunch of people who've never played before, and they don't know anything about her coming into the game. Then imagine like 95% of the rest of the Survivor pool playing under the same scenario. (And I'm not talking about these freaks on this season, I'm talking about the full spectrum of players.) I think she's going to do consistently better than most Survivor players. People tend to like her and that's half the battle.

I'm not disagreeing with you guys that Parv seems like she IS good at the game. I'm not saying she's bad. But what I'm asking for, which no one has still mentioned, are actual examples from the past of her good gameplay. Because I can't think of any.

How about when she was told she was a target in HvV, and had two idols in her pocket, and played them both for other people? And saved her alliance by doing so?

In Fans vs Faves Parv:
- locked in Cirie's swing vote when it was 4 vs 4 + Cirie
- created the Black Widow Parade by picking up Alexis and Natalie after the tribe swap
- convinced Jason to drop from the challenge for food which lead to Ozzy being blindsided

I think these days with all the crazy advantages/idols etc. we tend to forget that back in the day creating and maintaining alliances was the crux of good gameplay, rather than playing an idol at the exact right time or stealing a vote correctly etc.

But on that note in HvV Amanda told Parv to her face that she should play the idol for herself, which she soul read and saved Jerri

And the jury rewarded SANDRA with the W

always a pleasure seeing hatch put thoughts together.

1) She shares credit with Amanda, Penner, & Yau for that. Penner & Yau helped push Cirie away from their alliance.

2) She only picked them up after Penner was evacuated. Natalie & Alexis originally sided with Eliza & Jonathan and Parv would have been gone on that tribe had Malakal not thrown challenges. (fun fact: Alexis was the one spear-heading the Parv elimination)

3) I'll give you that one, the play vs Amanda in HvVs as well as putting herself in an optimal position with her alliance in the Cook Islands.

Parvati is hot and fun to look at but I have never fallen for the charm that so many other people (including castaways) seem to see.

Someone else in the thread said her personality is phony and I couldn't agree more. Fake, fake, fake, and it blows my mind that people fall for it.

Parv is so good because the average viewer and most opponents in the game do not recognize her greatness. She was involved with one of the greatest moves in Survivor history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDXvqrb_ml0

Examples of Parv's good gameplay:

Her first time she was basically a socially well connected member of the Raro tribe, then on the swap tribe she was consistently in the majority also. She was never in trouble until late in the merge and arguably has a shot to win if Yul doesn't have the God mode idol

She formed the Black Widow alliance, Led the Ozzy blindside (at the reunion he says the reason he didn't play the idol was because of her), played the "bad cop" in the Erik Reichenbach blindside. Had the most relationships within the BW alliance and also was a part of every blindside they did.

HvV she was the biggest target and had Russell charmed to F. Where he was willing to put his game on the line for her with the Tyson vote and then literally GIVE her the idol J.T gave him. She, being the better when finding an idol kept it to herself. Then she read Amanda to filth and performed the double idol play to get JT out. She was also the centre of that Danielle-Russell-Parv alliance like she was the centre of this old-school alliance.

I don't think she's the best (I'd argue Tony, who has no shot to win here had a better singular game than Parv's ever had on her three outings) but it's a bit odd to hear someone say she hasn't done much when she's literally got the record for voting the most people out of Survivor.

I don't believe Russell was ever charmed to F. I believe Russell wanted to go the end with her because she was a former winner and she was willing to vote with him.

If Russell was so charmed by Parv then surely she could've stopped him from orchestrating Danielle's vote out, but she didn't.

So in your standards, no one is a good player?

How was he not charmed? He gave her JT's idol, even in talking about the Tyson blindside Russell explains that it was a shot in the dark he was willing to take because he liked Parv and was exhausted playing back to back. He was grovelling at her feet for the whole pre-merge. Even if it was a strictly strategic decision (IMO Russell thinks with his dick a bit more than his fans suggest) than why would he give Parvati the second idol??

He got pissed off because Parvati had another idol that she didn't reveal to Russell beforehand. Only then did the rift between them begin.

Also, you never hear the "winners" rationale at all from Russell. If it was strictly that then why would he not align himself with Sandra who was in the majority and a winner over tying himself to Parvati who was the consensus target before the game began? She roped him in. Look pre-game, everybody was targeting Parvati.

I think people tend to give Russell more credit than he deserves for HvV, the reason people weren't targeting him at the end was because he was a goat. Also listening to his podcast and outside the game there's no sense at all that he's a strategic mastermind or even has a good mind for the game. I think he's good at manipulation but is too vain and aggressive to be considered even in contention of being a top player. I think the allure for me totally ended when he went on Australian Survivor and got humiliated leaving with an idol.

Whoa whoa I'm not Double Down - I jumped in to criticize Parv's game because I believe she gets too much credit here.

Russell giving JT's idol to Parv -> Not an example of Parv's charm to me. This was a selfish move by Russell trying to help his "side" win a deadlocked 5-5 vote. He thought the vote was against Parv.

An example of Parv's charm (& gameplay) would be James in Micronesia. Dude was pussy whipped to the point where he was aware that Parv was creating the BWB but stayed loyal to her til it was too late. Hell fooling Ozzy, the Jason thing are other examples of gameplay.

The winner thing is something Russell said in a voting confessional after the merge in HvVs. Forget when, it didn't make TV, it was an extra on CBS. This was back when CBS allowed such things.

Russell wasn't groveling at her feet the whole premerge - remember the BRob & Russell alliance? You're right Russell was okay with going home on the Tyson vote but why are you bringing this up?

Russell giving JT's idol to Parv, in my mind is one of the worst moves that didn't directly backfire. If as you say it was purely because he thought she'd be the target than why does he have to give her it way before tribal (cannot recall exactly when) ? Could he not just have played the idol on her. I just think he was pussy whipped and infatuated and had his ego hurt because of the second idol. It makes very little sense for Russell to give Parvati the idol otherwise.

The fact that at that time he was more okay with himself going home, took a blank shot (he also wasn't as aware of the split vote dynamic as the show portrayed and even he was confused at the time at what had happened) and then decided to play the idol for Parv. IMO that's grovelling. He wanted to get in there and Parv (a good player) had him on a leash handing her idols left right and centre before when he saw he could actually make the end he shifted priorities. Mostly due to the realisation that Parvati was playing a more individual game than he was at that point.

Just wanted to say that you guys posted some decent examples and you've changed my mind.

I still don't know if I'd put her in the category of all time greats but she is certainly solid and I definitely don't think she has any black marks on her gameplay record.

Back to this season...

I think in retrospect it was a bad move taking out Ethan. get that they want to send a message to Adam that there are consequences to his babbing, but you could still take out Parv and then just read him the riot act back at camp I just think if the opportunity is there to take out one of Rob or Parv you gotta goi for it.

Unless they thought Parv might have an idol and play it since she knew she was being targeted. But then in that case just take out Rob. Why vote for Ethan to "weaken" Rob when you can just ****ing get rid of him? Makes no sense.

And Ethan would be open to working with them if Rob and Parv are both gone. I don't see him as the type to jump to another group.