Penny. Penny. Penny. Penny. Penny.
Penny. Penny. Penny. Penny. Penny.
Good evening Jury!
First of all I just want to say how excited I am to have made it to the end. When I came into the game I really had my doubts about how far I could go. To those who aren't aware, im not on the American time zone, and so this game really put a huge dent in my personal life, but I persevered as best I can.
Tonight I am hoping that I can showcase to the Jury that I played the best game. I cant wait for question time personally, because I know we are going to get some really thought provoking questions. I want to show you guys that I really was the only one here in control of my own destiny the entire time.
When I came into the game I told myself I would do whatever I had to do to get to the end. I feel that I played a strong social game first and foremost. I made friendships and connections with as many people as I could. Tactically I think that of the three sitting up here, my game was the best. Initially at the Helios camp I was the one who brought Helen, Brian and myself together. I set up a side alliance with Erin and brought Brian into that. The common misconception seemed to be that Helen and Brian were the leaders of Helios. Not only did I allow this misconception but I encouraged it. Brian and Helen were both my personal shields, who would take the hits while I escaped the limelight. This suited me just fine.
My game was full of risks and gambles and most of which the Jury may not be aware of. If you all go back to the very first Immunity Challenge you'll see that I kicked off the Helios vs Asteria rivalry right from the get go. This was a tactical decision on my behalf to create a division between the two tribes so that come merge time, I would be able to keep my soldiers in line and prevent them from flipping. As the tribal stage continued and Asteria continued to win, I changed the flow of the relations between both tribes. I started to socialise with Asteria, under the excuse that Rob was the only one I did not like. Helios followed my lead and eventually Asteria started communing with us as well.
When Rob originally mutinied to Helios, I came up with the idea to hide the real social dynamics of Helios and invented the entire split tribe persona. This ended up becoming the theme of the entire game, as Asteria were lead to believe that the Helios 4 were divided when in fact they were united for the most part. Once the merge came both Helen and Brian believed that Rob would save us using the connections they had made with him when he mutinied. I knew the entire time that Rob's intentions were fake, and that he only wanted to gather information about us. I was told by Helen and Brian to not do anything to shake up the Asteria tribe and that the almighty Rob would deliver us from salvation.
I didnt listen to either of them and went about convincing the person on the bottom of the Asteria alliance to flip across to me. Using the fake Helios tribal dynamics as well as the promise of a Final 3 alliance, I managed to make Daniel come across to us. This was the most important move of the game, as it allowed Helios a leg up even though our numbers were inferior. This move not only ensured my own personal survival, it ensured the survival of both Helen and Brian.
The argument I will make tonight is that both Helen and Brian's survival was directly dependent on me. I made the tactical calls for Helios throughout the game, and the entire time it was believed Helen was when realistically, both of them relied on my vote the entire time.
However some of my strategic moves didnt end up paying off. Astonishingly, Helen and Brian stupidly voted out Daniel (the one person from Asteria that had actually flipped) and in the process, pretty much wrote off not only my game but their own. I was furious at this decision, from a tactical point of view it was the dumbest thing I'd seen all game. Instead of staying strong with Helios + Daniel, Helen and Brian decided it would be 'smarter' to put our lives in Ted's hands, who had been playing both sides.
Admittedly I had nothing to do with the Ted vote. That day I was unable to be online and it was hard for me to do anything but listen to what the plan was. As I have already mentioned, I am on a different time zone, so during this time I was actually at work during the day.
The Ted vote went to plan and Ted was eliminated. Once here my next vote was going to be Rob. I pushed hard for Rob to be eliminated but unfortunately, these two experts wanted to vote out Joanna (even though she was clearly the weakest of the remaining Asterias). I continued to argue to vote Rob, I was positive he didnt have an Immunity Idol since he hadnt played it before now and was a much bigger threat than Joanna was. Eventually, they all decided on Christy, and she pulled an Immunity Idol and blindsided who I considered my closest and smartest ally, Erin. This was devastating for me, since Erin had been the one person I felt comfortable bouncing ideas across.
The Rob blindside was my idea once again, but its worth noting that it almost didnt happen. I spent all weekend talking with Rob and ensuring him that I would vote Helen. What he doesn't know is that I did actually consider it, but ultimately I knew she would win Immunity and I instead focused on telling him how good a goat Brian would be (which is true) and so, he changed his vote to Christy. Once again, the two experts here thought the smart decision would be to vote for Joanna, and keep Rob and Christy together as the two most powerful Asteria's. I pushed hard for Rob like I had never pushed before, and wouldnt you know it... they came to their senses and voted the way I told them to vote, and we all know, Rob wont home that night.
Now I haven't played a perfect game by any stretch. I have played the best I possibly could the entire time here. I have overcome repeated adversity and fought back with the numbers against me three times (once when the merge started, again when Daniel was voted out, and again when Erin was voted out leaving the numbers tied). I didnt hide behind Immunity, I was vulnerable at every Tribal Council and I am still here. But everybody here knows that Helen would have been voted out a long time ago had we had the opportunity to evict her. I painted the target on her as the threat right from the go. Helen took the hits that I would have had I not passed on the story about the split Helios camps. As for Brian, I never wanted to vote him out, because I dont think there is any way a Jury of people that love Survivor would ever vote for him to win when all he did was get in the way. He is the world's ultimate goat. I dont think he made a single move in the game that benefited anybody other than Asteria. Brian followed orders and was a yes man the entire game.
Yes I admit that I wasnt great in the Immunity Challenges. I admit that I wasnt overly proficient in guessing a number that other people had been assigned, I went out to target Rob on purpose in the hexagon challenge and I also didnt even waste my time on the Final Challenge counting as high as I could. Ill also admit that I spent most of the counting time working on my speech as well as writing up a detailed Fallen Comrades that I really enjoyed writing. However I also had a fair amount of fun telling Helen that I would beat her in the challenge, and watch as she felt the need to get 50-60 pages ahead of me. Every few hours I would message her and tell her that I would be staying up all night and that I would win because I had the advantage of being on a different time zone. Helen was so nervous about her place in this game that she needed a buffer of 6000 odd posts in order to win Immunity. I made her stay up all night waiting until I came online and smashed her record. In reality, I went to bed probably at about midnight my time. I didnt need Immunity, and I wasnt about to waste my time getting it. The fact was that whoever won Immunity was taking me to the Final 3 because I played a superior Strategic and Social game to both Helen and Brian. Ultimately I came out and tried as best as I could in the challenges, but as I have already said I didnt need Immunity and I think this is a really important point to highlight, as I have already stipulated a couple of times, I have been vulnerable at every Tribal Council so far and I have survived all of them. Helen NEEDED Immunity, her name was brought up to be eliminated at how many Tribal Councils? Probably about 4. If you want to award Helen the win purely on her challenge performances then you are certainly entitled to. But ask yourself this question: Why did she need Immunity so badly in the first place? Its because Helen was my shield in this game and I have already proven why.
Apologies in advance for this epic long post. I hope you have taken the time to read it as it points out key moves in the game that I alone made. Once again I will stipulate that I carried these two the entire way here, that I never was 'Immune' from the vote and that I played as honestly as I could while still playing a strong tactical game.
I am looking forward to the question period and I have thoroughly enjoyed the game.