[Jeff Probst]

This is Cassandra's Final Tribal Council Thread.

All other Jurors should remain in their own threads.

Cassandra, you have until Sunday at 12c/1e pm to post your statements/questions to the Final 3. Remember not to take up too much of their time as they have 10 other jurors to get to. Please no listing or questions requiring novels for answers. You should post all of your statements/questions in your opening post in this thread.

[Cassandra]

Congrats to all of you for making it to the end. It's no easy feat, etc. etc.

I don't approach this with any bitterness, but I do harbor a lot of skepticism. If you interpret any of my questions as goading or hostile, they probably are, but it's only to weed the truth out of you. And I hope you don't underestimate how able a jury full of winners is to recognize and compile a real narrative.


Yve
In a season with past winners, prior connections and the speculation thereof often dominated strategic talks. Yet you had only played one season before this one. Did you come in with any pre-established connections with other players and, if so, how did they influence your game?

In addition, you said in your opening statement that you believed yourself to have played a very candid game. How candid were you when you told me you wanted to go to the end with the people you liked playing with the most because you didn’t think you had a shot at winning?


Russ
In your opening statement, you credit yourself with splitting Kim’s and my votes in the Loveita boot. In my experience, Kim and I had both disregarded you by that round and expected you to vote with Joaquin. We were banking on a 4-2-2 with Love and Yve by telling them that Joaquin and Cat were throwing their names out. While this round did supposedly go “your” way in the end, this to me seems to have been a consistent problem in your game--inability to work with others because you had betrayed their trust multiple times in the past. Russ, you once told me that the mark of a good player isn’t necessarily voting the “correct” way each time, but setting yourself up to survive each future round. From a social perspective, how did you do that throughout the game?

You also say in your opening statement that the decision to vote Cat out instead of me was a move that most showcased your strategic prowess in this game. Yet your logic for doing so doesn’t explain why voting me out over Cat wouldn’t also have improved your chances of getting to the end. In addition, Kim changed her vote live because Jeff announced at tribal that it was the last round to play idols. If she hadn’t, I would’ve left 3-2-1. Did you do anything to ensure a third vote would be placed on Cat?


Stephanie
In your opening statement, you say that you had an alliance of yourself, Catalie, Kim, and Tammy. Yet at F11 it was Kim who suggested your name as the “contingency” plan after Melinda spilled the beans to Catalie. You also mention the loose alliance between you, me, Cat, and Joaquin, but in the very same round Penner campaigned against Joaquin, and later on, as you mention, I went on to vote for you two more times. Were these alliances legitimate defenses, or merely platitudes? In addition, how much of their creation would you attribute to your own doing vs. Catalie’s doing, and how much of the protection you received would you attribute to your relationships vs. the perception of you as a non-threat?

[Yve]

Yve
In a season with past winners, prior connections and the speculation thereof often dominated strategic talks. Yet you had only played one season before this one. Did you come in with any pre-established connections with other players and, if so, how did they influence your game?

Stranded in Patagonia was the last online survivor game played, and I didn't really maintain many connections since then. When the game started, I focused on who was on my tribe. While I read all of the recaps of your seasons (those of you who have them) on the website, I did not recognize any of the names on Fenrir outside of Tammy's. It was familiar, but I don't think we ever played together before.

Once we swapped tribes, I looked up Russ and Joaq's names. Still unfamiliar.

When the merge hit, Catalie and Melinda came to me before I had a chance to look them up. We had all played together before. In fact, we all played together in the same game in 2009, where I met them both. Cat created the avatars of the games I hosted back in the day. My immediate reaction was negative, I was sure they'd both want to vote me out. And like any smart player would, I made plans to work with them right away. After all, they were the only people in the game who knew what I was capable of, and they were threats.

As far as I know, they were both the stray votes in the tribal where Val was sent to the jury. Cat said she didn't want to vote for me, and Melinda felt the same way. Those two votes meant my survival in the merge round. Right after that, both players had to confront their tribes with why they did it, and they used different strategies. Our time working together as a threesome was over, and their days of protecting me were done. Melinda and I had a fun couple of rounds afterward, keeping our friendship a secret. But outside of the first merge vote, I genuinely do not believe any past relationships actually helped my game in any way. If anything, they made things incredibly difficult.

In addition, you said in your opening statement that you believed yourself to have played a very candid game. How candid were you when you told me you wanted to go to the end with the people you liked playing with the most because you didn’t think you had a shot at winning?

First off, thank you for calling me out for a decidedly un-candid conversation we had. I think at the time, I was talking about how I had gone to the end of Patagonia with Jake and Ken from Stranded in Greece. I mentioned how we had all gotten to the end as friends, and didn't really care who would win. A non-combative final three is always ideal for everyone.

The part I left out was that I was the threat to win from the final six onward. If Dan hadn't straight-up not voted at the final 6, I would've gone home then. Jake and Ken didn't have a choice but to take me to the end, but we were all friendly. I was never in any danger of losing Patagonia to my friends.

If I was going to go to the end with my oldest allies, it would have been with you and Kim. I knew you were savvy enough to realize that I saw you as a threat to win in the end, so if I openly said that I thought of myself as a kingmaker, that you would see me as a potential vote in your favor, as opposed to a vote against you.

Until I saw an opportunity to vote you out as the threat you were, I couldn't even mention your name as threatening lest it get back to you. Almost everything I said seemed to be passed around with every player. I was forced to play survivor at a level that not only included what was happening in the game, and the conversations going on, I had to assume everything I was saying was being repeated to someone else. For several rounds, every conversation I had with everyone reflected that. That doesn't mean the conversations weren't genuine- they mostly were. But if I was going to make a promise, it had to line up with the promises I was making to everyone else.

Essentially, I told you I didn't think I'd win, because I knew I was talking to a potential winner who knew it themselves. It was the only way I could protect myself against you, while also keeping myself in your loop. I also had to consider if you went on an immunity run, or gained power in a way I wouldn't be able to anticipate. This strategy may have been the only thing that saved me in the Loveita vote, so I believe it was the correct one to use.

[Russell]

Hey Cass, I don't think your questions are anywhere near goading or hostile. They're respectfully suspicious and pretty valid.

I'll preface by saying I'm not intending to be hostile either with my response. I think I need to defend myself with some pretty assured language. I have the utmost respect for you as a player, but I'd like for you to open your mind to re-evaluating who I am as a person because your perception of me doesn't actually align with who I am.

In your opening statement, you credit yourself with splitting Kim’s and my votes in the Loveita boot. In my experience, Kim and I had both disregarded you by that round and expected you to vote with Joaquin. We were banking on a 4-2-2 with Love and Yve by telling them that Joaquin and Cat were throwing their names out.

I think you should read my response to Loveita's question because I think it covers this a good bit but it bears repeating. This is a game where everyone had options, secret intentions, and multiple paths. I think it's disingenuous to discredit someone for anything they were proactive with in this game as ineffective just because they weren't pulling puppet-master level strings. If that's the kind of finalist you're looking for, I don't think you're going to find it here, not because Yve, Steph, and I are undeserving, but because that wasn't the reality of this game. I wouldn't discredit your move to get Val out because some people random-voted and I wouldn't discredit Loveita's move to get out Joaq just because he played an idol. And, honestly, those were the two most impressive moves of the game to me by individuals. We didn't play a game where people had control. This game was about matching up with the people at the right time to had similar intentions as you, even as they had other options.

And, I want to reiterate that me getting out Loveita was about saving Yve first and voting out Loveita second. From my perspective, if Yve left, I had no shot to win the game. I had no desire to try and discover what you and Kim were secretly plotting, because anyone in this game who made any attempt to micromanage was swiftly eliminated. That's a very archaic way of looking at the game.

I'd like to go a step further because I didn't expect you or Kim to vote for Cat either. I was absolutely sure me and Kim were both playing each other and I was banking on the vote tying. Cat had already thrown her vote at times based on what was best for her, so that was a calculated risk as well. There is no way that any move in this game was going to happen by exerting control.

And if you and Kim unilaterally made the wrong decision to vote for Catalie, even if you thought I was lying, Survivor moves are always a result of people making the wrong decision and those wrong decisions benefitting other people. Your decision and my decision were both gambles and I have never tried to take credit for controlling you, but that doesn't mean I don't deserve credit for doing what was right for my game, even if the odds were stacked against me. I secured Yve's survival in this game and that is my primary move and that's what my game was about. Sticking out my neck to 1) ensure my own survival and 2) protecting the only people who I had any semblance of shot at.

While this round did supposedly go “your” way in the end..

It did go my way. It didn't go your way, or Kim's way, or Cat's way, or Joaq's way, or Steph's way. It went my way.

This to me seems to have been a consistent problem in your game--inability to work with others because you had betrayed their trust multiple times in the past.

This is going to get real but I think this is a very unfair perception of me. I was definitely less trustworthy than Stephenie and Yve, but anyone proactive in this game was destined to lose trust in others.

I’d like to walk through some of the people who I deceived. Let’s start with Kim, because at the merge I had every intention of working closely with her and she ratted me out immediately. My intention was like, really working closely with her. I told her Melinda was coming after her and it was true and she tattled in literal seconds. I think it’s really unfair to me to imply that I’m the one who betrayed her trust continually when she broke that trust first.

Moving onto you- me having to break your trust was an unfortunate necessity for me because I did actually mean everything I was saying at first. At some point, whatever you were telling other people had gotten back to Catalie and it was absolutely necessary for me to ensure my own survival that I threw you under the bus. I don’t blame you for this, but I don’t think I really had many options. I made the gamble to try to join forces with you and I was forced to save myself instead of salvaging my relationship with you. Further, I think you’re being a little unfair here with this characterization Cass. I threw out Cristina’s name to you (and only you) and it immediately leaked to Cristina, which is a clear sign that I shouldn’t have trusted you at all, because she found out immediately. Are you arguing that I should’ve fallen on my sword who wasn’t putting my best interest first just for the sake of seeming like a loyal soldier?

In terms of others, I’m all ears to hear who I continually betrayed or lied to because I feel the exact opposite. I tried to make connections with Jeff, Penner, Cristina, whomever and every time I was dismissed. With Cristina, it was very clear to me from the first couple of rounds that she wrote me off. I wrote in my confessional that she was my favorite person in the game for the first few days. She wrote me off because she got in a majority alliance and didn’t feel the need to put the effort in with me. I think it’s also unfair to pretend like I betrayed Cristina’s trust in any way because she had severed the connection.

The common thread I’m seeing here is that people wrote me off and didn’t expect me to actually do much of anything, so when I did, they felt ‘betrayed’ even as they were using me or ignoring me. This is an All-Winners game and if you wrote a winner off, that’s your mistake- not mine.

The only people in this game I betrayed, under any circumstance, were Loveita, Cat, and Joaq and those were only because of necessity.

You also say in your opening statement that the decision to vote Cat out instead of me was a move that most showcased your strategic prowess in this game. Yet your logic for doing so doesn’t explain why voting me out over Cat wouldn’t also have improved your chances of getting to the end. In addition, Kim changed her vote live because Jeff announced at tribal that it was the last round to play idols. If she hadn’t, I would’ve left 3-2-1. Did you do anything to ensure a third vote would be placed on Cat?

Again, my decision to save Stephenie is what showcased my strategic prowess in this game by choosing to make the votes for Cat is what showed my strategic prowess in this game. I had every intention for you leaving that round and voting Cat was a contingency plan in case you played an idol. You continue to underestimate how much of a strategic, social, and competitive threat you are, but you needed to go.

My game was about saving myself and saving the people who I needed to sit with. I think choosing a target and voting them out is an archaic way of thinking of strategy. I’ve got no intention to sit here and say I masterminded Lovetia and Catalie’s demises, but the decisions that I did make in those times were essential to saving Yve and Steph, respectively. Those were the things that I did and if you’re looking for something more substantive than that, you’re not going to find it in this Final 3.

Russ, you once told me that the mark of a good player isn’t necessarily voting the “correct” way each time, but setting yourself up to survive each future round. From a social perspective, how did you do that throughout the game?

I do feel as though this is where my game shines, ensuring my own survival. You can’t be the person who outwitted and outplayed if you didn’t outlast, and I had more agency and utility with my own survival in this game than the other two here.

First, I realized that you had been leaking what our conversations about and I successfully backtracked and retained the trust of Catalie and Joaq, two master players who protected me and even fought for me to eliminate people who were specifically coming after me. Every time the game turned against me, Yve, or Steph from that point on is where I stepped in. Not to get someone out specifically, but to make sure we survived. Steph had no intention of this being the Final 3 and she had to be dragged her against her will.

I do believe that I put in the work to distance myself strategically from Tammy and Joaquin. It’s possible that you could make the argument that people didn’t want to vote me because they saw me as a goat, but I think that’s disingenuous. People had been targeting goats every round, before and after, so how would that track? I think people saw the two of them as a closer duo because I made sure people saw me as more of a free agent.

The decisions I made for the next few rounds, including my four immunity wins in a row, ensured not only my own survival but Yve and Steph’s. There were so many situations where you and Kim wanted to split votes on me and I disallowed you that opportunity, and with me out of the picture, it allowed me to throw the hinky votes to foil your plans. Every attempt that you made in the game to gain control was foiled by me. If game respects game, then I think I deserve your vote.

[Stephanie]

Yes, Catalie, Kim, Tammy and I as a four and you, me, Catalie, Joaquin and Penner as a five were alliances I was a part of. Catalie, Joaquin, me and Russell too. Did any of these alliances hold up all the way through? No, absolutely not, but I was actively trying to insert myself into the dynamic, assess my options and then if and when it comes down to it, I'll break away if I see an avenue where I can put myself ahead as at the end of the day, an alliance doesn't win this game, an individual does and I never lost sight of that.

In terms of Kim suggesting me as the contingency plan if two idols were played at F11, well the F10/9 double round I also was throwing around Tammy's name as the contingency if Joaquin played an idol to ensure the Joaquin/Russell/Tammy trio was broken up. So clearly the deal wasn't fully genuine from Kim's end if she considered voting me at eleven and the cross-tribal protection wasn't as legitimate as I was hoping, but I can hardly hold that against her seeing as I was trying a similar thing with Tammy the following round. There was never one single alliance or group which stuck together or dominated this game, the dynamic was fluid and I was of that mindset too.

In a game of this calibre with all-winners, things changed on a dime and I was never stuck in my ways or set on one alliance or group of people, and I was certainly never 100% banking or trusting on anyone to have my back except myself, I'm merely pointing out the options I was creating for myself and I do believe I was more successful at this than my two opponents given they both had legitimate groups of people piling votes on them on two occasions each whereas there was never a legitimate threat of me leaving or a group coming after me as a primary target.

The alliance with you, Cat, Joaquin and Penner which came together at final ten but also didn't last the distance, I admit you voting me as your "contingency" was a major wakeup call for me and I needed to step it up and tie the loose ends with you and Penner and go beyond surface level, and I do believe I put in a whole lot of effort over the weekend to gain both of your trust that I'd be willing to go against the Joaquin/Russell/Tammy trio whether Catalie wanted it or not and I was fine voting separately from her on that if need be.

What I obviously didn't let you and Penner know was that in secret that I was also planning on knocking one of you two out in that double round, alongside Joaquin. I wanted a Fenrir gone the first vote as I didn't want to create any possibility for the Fenrir to vote together 5-4 at nine after finally getting a majority and then I knew you'd still need my vote (and Loveita's) to flip and take out Joaquin the next time around, despite me voting out Penner against your wishes. And then with you voting me at six and five, well I think those were just your best moves given who was immune and the dynamic. Any alliance we had was long dead since Joaquin and Penner were out of the game and I think by final six we both realized we'd maximized our working relationship by that point, you needed me out for your chances to get to the end and I didn't begrudge you for it, just like I hope you can respect me putting your name down as it was my best move. Like we agreed, I think considering we didn't even meet until the merge, making it to final five together is pretty damn good.

In terms of how much of a creation were the alliances my own doing vs. Catalie's doing, like I said I'm never going to take away from Catalie's game and claim it as my own but Catalie isn't here, I am. Did Catalie help my game? Absolutely, you'll never hear me claim otherwise, she was a tremendous ally to me, but I was hustling on my own too and serving my own game above all else. It just so happened that for a lot of the game our interests did line up because we spent the entire pre-merge together which is to be expected, but I did make it clear to anyone who had any doubts I was willing to vote separately from her for moves to be made whether she liked it or not and I proved that with the Joaquin votes at nine and seven as they were the right votes for me and my game.

I don't even know who specifically could be credited for the me, Catalie, Kim and Tammy alliances or the you, me, Catalie, Joaquin and Penner ones. The first one, I knew that Catalie/Tammy had a history together spanning many years, both in this series and outside of it, so knew they were going to want to link up in some capacity regardless. And although I know I've played with Tammy before, I knew she'd ultimately be more loyal to Catalie than me (another reason I was fine with the Joaquin vs. Tammy dynamic at final nine, as it was best for me, even if either outcome wasn't best for Catalie), so I'd say Catalie/Tammy were more the glue to that coming together than me, and then to make it an "alliance" than just a trio, Tammy brought in her closest Fenrir ally in Kim.

The you, me, Catalie, Joaquin and Penner grouping, again it's tough to pinpoint who first pitched the idea and I'm not going to trample over anyone to claim credit for it. Obviously you and Penner and me and Cat were two duos so the idea of us teaming up was inevitable to be at least floated at some point, then Joaquin got added too so it was a five. But my understanding was it was an attempt for you and Penner to damage control the vote on me the previous round and make me feel more comfortable with you so I didn't try to retaliate, and similarly I was selling it hard as I wanted to make you both feel more secure with me ahead of the double round so the threat was firmly on the Joaquin/Russell/Tammy trio and you didn't consider voting me again and you didn't anticipate me striking against you and Joaquin in one fell swoop, with idols in the mix and whatnot, and clearly you played yours that night too so I could've potentially been at risk there if you didn't feel comfortable with me.

To answer the defenses/platitude question, I'd say this alliance was a legitimate defense so I could focus your/Penner's attention on the Joaquin/Penner/Tammy trio while I ensuring I got one of you and one of them out no matter what that night and I made it through in one piece. It was definitely never something I thought would hold up in the longrun, but nor did I want it to as I didn't see it as good for my game.

Finally, whether my protection was attributed to my relationships or my non-threat status, well, I do think all three of us sitting here were seen as non-threats who weren't exactly scary to sit up against in the end while some of the bigger threats were taken out in the later game when endgame plans were starting to solidify, that's not exactly a secret and I'm very self-aware about that, and it can be applied to all three of us here that it wasn't a monumental effort to slide into these final three positions the final few rounds especially.

However, I do strongly believe my relationships allowed me to be protected before the mid-merge when the "threats slaughter" started, as my name was thrown into the mix as a target far less than most, especially Russell and Yve so I do believe I succeeded over them in that aspect. Did every alliance I was in pan out? No, and I broke away from them when I wanted to, but I was trying to cover myself from every angle possible to minimize my target and reduce the possibility of votes being piled on me at any time and I believe I was able to effectively do as much.