The reason why I wish to talk about the qualities of a winner is because I believe that this is actually what final tribal council is a measure of. This is a game after all, and games have many purposes, but two spring to mind. The first is well, to entertain and have fun, however, this is something hard to measure and argue about (I'm sure it'd be really funny for me to try to convince you that yes, you really did or really didn't have a lot of fun in this game) and while it will likely factor into your decision, I will not really talk about or analyze it in this speech. The second purpose of games is to put our skills to the test and measure them. Games like chess measure foresight and strategic thinking, games like tennis measure athletic ability, games like cards against humanity measure wit and ability to be funny, and games like monopoly measure how strong your friendships really are. And typically in these games, the person who has the strongest affinity for those skills will usually win (though not all the time). But with survivor, this is pretty different, there is no scoreboard, there is no points system. You can't just add up number of immunity wins, idols found and multiply the number of times you voted in the majority and get a winner.
Instead, we have the people we played the game with decide who won, people who have different experiences with each of us and different paths to get where they are. Survivor is about judgement, it is not about the moves you made, or how big they were, rather it is about what you did says about you in the eyes of the jury. After all in any other game, a lucky streak could reward a strategy that usually shouldn't win, but in survivor this is avoided (well at the very end anyway, rng can still fuck you before then). Being sole survivor is not something that is simply done, it is awarded. As such, I think it's clear that we should focus on the type of person and qualities that we think should thrive in a setting like this, because when you cast your jury vote, you are saying that this is the person you think deserves to win this game So don't let people get away with saying "I had control of this game" or "I eliminated this person" think about why that actually matters and what that says about them and their game.
So anyway, what kind of person should win this game? Well, I have a few qualities that I believe fit and reasons to go with them, and all are related to being able to actually survive and get further in any social setting, not just in a forum game. These qualities are:
1. Safety: In order to not just survive, but thrive, you need to be safe and secure, without this you may grow desperate and do actions that will hurt your goodwill with other people. Not to mention if you are not safe, that means you may go home. An ideal winner would likely have never been in a position where they might get voted out of the game. Furthermore I think this relates more to social positioning in the game that something like winning immunity or finding idols, after all in the real world you can't pull out a hidden immunity idol to avoid layoffs, and someone else could have easily found that idol or won that specific challenge. In the long run the latter are not strong enough deterrents to count on.
2. Awareness: Knowledge is power, and it comes in two forms. The first is knowledge of others and what motivates them. With this you should be able to craft arguments and influence these people in order to survive, and know what you can get around with. Failing this you are at least able to predict future outcomes and be prepared for them. The second is self awareness, of both your abilities and the perception of you. If you know the former you are able to think of ways to cover where you are weak, and with the latter you are able to know what has to be done to either keep the perception of you to be positive or change it from being negative.
3. Adaptability: Survivor is a game of constantly changing situations, if one is to survive, you must be able to deal with completely new environments and be able to bring them to your advantage. If you are unable to adapt, you will die the moment the situation does not favor you, baring extreme luck. Secondarily this also relates to the execution of covering your weaknesses. After all if you have a huge blind spot and are not able to adapt to either mitigate it or turn it into a strength, well, you too are likely to fall off, whether in the game or the real world.
4. Respectability: Of the aspects of a winner, this is the most subjective, but the way I see it, in order to win, you should play a game that other people can respect, and that you can be proud of. This does not mean never be deceiving, but rather I feel doing nothing unnecessarily. Underhandedness is one thing (and should be done in moderation), but senseless underhandedness is ridiculous. Also, a strong survivor is understood by both his allies and his enemies, as without understanding, how can you form a strong opinion?
5. Agency: All this means is having control over your actions. Basically it means you didn't just follow the crowd or listen to others, you had control over your own actions. You were not pressured into something you didn't want and anything you did you had reason to. Without this I don't think you can be a SOLE survivor.
6. Friendliness: Survivor is a social game. This gets said again and again, and I think it matters a lot. People want to work with people they like, people that are friendly and approachable, and people also feel worse when they betray someone they like, making it harder for that person to get voted out. Kindness and such can sometimes allow you to be taken advantage of, but the people who are kind are also those who approach new heights when people remember them. Meanwhile the unfriendly will find themselves approached less and end up isolated in the end.
7. Individuality: I have mentioned this before, but this game is about awarding a SOLE survivor. You must not just be able to survive the game, but be able to survive the game with your own ability. While you will need alliances and friendship to make it far, you must be able to do without them and not be too dependent on one person or group of people.
This covers most of the qualities I think are essential to being a good winner of survivor, as with them, survival comes easy, without them, it becomes hard. Some are linked closely (and perhaps I could call some the same thing) and others are quite different. I implore you to look at the game for these qualities in each of our speeches and instead of just thinking about this game, think about what would happen if this game happened 9 or 10 times over, and how each of us would have done, after all, if you don't, then you are essentially deciding the game on what may be lucky breaks, and that feels a bit wrong to me.
