Jeff: Erin, please close us out.
Erin: Well, congrats to the three of you. I’m the only Helios 4 not in the F3 but hey, there had to be one. But I'm so glad that the three of you made it. Granted you guys lost one on the way but Helios did it! We managed to beat those Ass-terians! Helios started off great but soon we were getting decimated. There was hardly any bad blood in our temple councils and we’ve been the Love Tribe ever since the beginning. I still remember that time where the four of us sat around the Helios fire wondering what the merge would bring for us. We’ve stayed strong through it all and proven that Helios was indeed the better tribe. No matter what happens tonight, Helios 4ever! Also, let's do this!
My mind is not made up so your answers to my questions will weigh heavily in my vote. You guys have outwitted, outplayed and outlasted. Let’s see if you will out-answer
Helen, you challenge beast, if you had to, tell me why Brian shouldn’t win this game? You’ve made convincing arguments against Penny but turn on Brian now.
Helen: Hi Erin! Sorry that you can't be sitting here with us
Brian shouldn't win the game because he didn't have the connections with players to make the plans work, and he wasn't as active in coming up with the plans that were implemented. He even admitted earlier in tribal council that he knew my strategic knowhow and approach was something that he wouldn't be able to parallel or outperform.
Brian relied on my communications with Rob when he mutinied, as he said that I was instrumental in getting plan to work with Rob and Asteria to win the F11 IC and identify their target at F10. Brian relied on my communications with Ted when we rejoined him at the merge, as we needed him as a vote on our side, and he was. Brian relied on my communications with Asteria both when working with them and when working against them. Although we agreed on this plans, Brian didn't have the personal relationships to turn those plans into a reality. And even when I continued to talk to the other members of Asteria, he admitted that he had ceased communications with them almost entirely.
For someone who worked with me so closely to plan out each piece of the game, he wouldn't have been capable to make each of those things happen without me. And because he was dependent on me to execute those strategies and get to the end since he appeared not capable of being able to do it alone, he shouldn't win this game.
Erin: Brian, the jury seems to think of you to be, more or less, feckless. You’re giving better Helen answers than Helen is actually. I WANT YOU TO CONVINCE THE JURY WHY YOUR GAMEPLAY WAS SUPERIOR TO THE TWO OTHER PEOPLE SITTING NEXT TO YOU. Tell my why Helen and Penny suck. Bring out the guns!
Brian: I'll answer in capital letteres to emphasize my points.
I THINK THE ERROR THAT PENNY IS MAKING RIGHT NOW IS THAT SHE IS CLAIMING THAT SHE WAS ESSENTIALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENTIRE POST-MERGE SUCCESS OF HELIOS. THE HONEST TRUTH? SHE WASN'T. OBVIOUSLY. IT WASN'T EVEN CLOSE. YES, SHE MADE BIG MOVES. SOME OF THEM DID WORK. SOME OF THEM DIDN'T. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HELEN AND PENNY WAS THAT HELEN'S STRATEGIES WERE MORE THOUGHT OUT AND CONSISTENT (EVEN THOUGH SOME WERE FLAWED, LIKE PENNY'S), AND PENNY'S WERE SEMI-IMPULSIVE AND LAST-MINUTE, BUT SHE IS JUSTIFYING THEM HERE AS HAVING BEEN WELL-THOUGHT, GENIUS MOVES.
Penny: They were well thought out. They were only last minute because I had to spend hours arguing with you two and it became tiresome.
Helen: Expecting Joanna and Christy to vote against their closest ally Rob (not once, but TWICE) when you're telling them that we're going to split our votes, thus giving them the opportunity to vote with Rob and eliminate one of us (or tie, or idol, or whatever) is NOT well thought out. It is naive. All three of us told you it. And you stubbornly did it anyways, and it cost Erin her game.
Penny: Christy playing the Idol is not my fault when I pushed for Rob's elimination from the start and you flat out vetoed it because he might play an Immunity Idol.
You didnt have the foresight to know that it would get played later on down the track when they had fewer people to punt on playing it on.
It was your stupidity and gutlessness that allowed the Idol to survive past the first round of the merge.
Helen: I don't know if you realize it, but Rob forwarded me all of the messages that you were sending him. Telling him "If I were you, I would play your idol tonight <33333333 oh, oops, you're my rival, probably shouldn't have told you that, I guess I just don't want the rivalry to end haha" is NOT how to get him to play an idol. It gets him to think that you're a fool.
Penny: I didnt want him to play the Idol. Those messages were unnecessary, if you'd actually had some guts, you would have voted out the person with the Immunity Idol when I actually suggested it so many times.
How many times did Rob play an Immunity Idol? How many opportunities did we have to take him out?
No guts, no glory. I showcased plenty of risky moves this season, you refusing to vote Rob on the offset he might have an Immunity Idol sums up your game completely. You didnt take initiative, you didnt make any moves, you both relied on me carrying you to the end before you would team up and slag me off in front of the Jury to just make sure I didnt win.
You dont care about winning, you only want to stop me from winning, and your answers tonight prove that lol.
Joanna: Penny: And wouldnt you know it, the Jury agrees.
What a stupid message to send to the Jury, purposefully ganging up on me trying to discredit me? The Jury are smarter than that, and they know why Helen and Brian need to do it.
Fact is you cant argue against evidence. Ive presented plenty tonight and neither of them can dispute it. They've made baseless claims like "Oh you were uncompromising" and all that sort of rubbish. Fact is I pulled the pair of them all the way to the end, and now they will do their best to deny it.
Penny: Just remember Jury that Brian and Helen's genius moves included voting out Daniel, even though he was one of our numbers, voting out Ted even though Brian and Helen argue that they trusted him more than me, letting Rob skittle his way through almost the entire game with an Idol sitting in his back pocket and not forcing him to play it once which of course lead to Christy pulling the Idol on us when we could have eliminated it at the... wait for it... very FIRST merge Tribal Council and then, after I spent all weekend convincing Rob to flip on his old tribe, deciding that it would be smarter to try and vote Joanna.
Just remember all of these dumb moves that Helen and Brian were chiefly responsible for which I had to clean up to propel us to the end. I was the one who got us the numbers in the first place, I was the one who actually bothered to target Asteria members and not actually go for our own alliance members lol. I was the one who spent the time getting Rob to flip his vote and I was the one who made the call to vote him out.
If Helen and Brian's claims about them mistrusting me so much are true, then I have faced even more adversity. Remember that they had the power to vote me out whenever they liked, I never once hid behind Immunity. Tactically I had Helen's elimination planned for weeks, and she survived because she was able to win a few challenges towards the end. She is lucky to be here, I worked strategically and socially to get here.
Brian: I FEEL LIKE I'M THE ONLY JUROR NOT MISREPRESENTING MYSELF. I'M NOT AN HONEST, LOYAL PLAYER, EVEN THOUGH I WAS IN THIS GAME TO HELEN AND PENNY (AND MOSTLY YOU BEFORE YOU WERE TAKEN OUT). I PLANNED ON LYING/DECEIVING AND POTENTIALLY BACKSTABBING. I JUST NEVER NEEDED TO DO IT. IT WAS UNNECESSARY, AND WITH HELEN/PENNY ALREADY CREATING CONFLICTING PLANS, IT MADE THE MOST SENSE TO BE QUIET, IN THE BACKGROUND AND LET THEM PLAY OUT RATHER THAN CREATING A THIRD PLAN TO JUST JEOPARDIZE MY FULLY SAFE POSITION. I WOULD HAVE EITHER LET HELEN BE TAKEN OUT OR EVEN TAKEN HER OUT MYSELF IF THE OPPORTUNITY CAME UP, BUT IT DIDN'T MAINLY DUE TO HER IMMUNITY WINS, SO I PLEDGED FULL LOYALTY TO HELEN AND PENNY SO THAT THEY BELIEVED THEY COULD TRUST ME AND WOULD INCLUDE ME IN WHATEVER PLAN THAT THEY WERE MAKING.
HELEN TRUSTED ME MORE THAN SHE SHOULD HAVE. SHE'S ADMITTED IN THIS TRIBAL COUNCIL SHE TOLD ME EVERYTHING AND WAS COMPLETELY HONEST WITH ME, TRUSTING ME. I COULD'VE USED THAT TO BRING HER DOWN THROUGH FORWARDING PM'S AND CONSIDERED IT. SHE COULD HAVE EASILY BEEN BROUGHT DOWN WITH ONE NON-SKILL BASED CHALLENGE. OR SPEED. I WAS FASTER THAN HER AT THE NON-SPEED BASED CHALLENGES, AND YOU WERE PROBABLY AS WELL. SO WITH THOSE TYPES OF CHALLENGES, I COULD HAVE WON, AND SHE WOULD HAVE WENT HOME. PENNY, A LOT OF THE GAME DESPITE HER CLAIMS, ALSO ONLY STAYED BECAUSE SHE WAS VIEWED AS A GOAT AND THE LEAST LIKELY WINNER. THIS IS SIMILAR TO HOW I MADE IT TO THE END, BUT PENNY IS JUSTIFYING THAT SHE MADE IT FAR BASED ON HER GENIUS STRATEGY AND MOVES --- WHEN A LOT OF HER STRATEGY INVOLVED HER PERCEPTION AS A "GOAT" TO GET THIS FAR. I BELIEVE THAT'S WHY ROB TURNED AGAINST CHRISTY AT FINAL 6 --- BECAUSE HE THOUGHT HE COULD GO TO THE FINALS WITH ME AND PENNY AND BEAT BOTH OF US.
I REALIZED THIS AND UNDERSTAND MY PERCEPTION, TAKING ADVANTAGE OF IT. I'M NOT CLAIMING TO BE SOMEONE WHO I WASN'T. I FELT LIKE I DID PLAY A STRONG, THINKING GAME. IT JUST WASN'T AS VISIBLE, AND THAT WAS INTENTIONAL TO IMPROVE MY CHANCES OF MAKING IT TO THE END.
Erin: Penny, I really don’t know what to ask you. We’ve been each other’s confidantes the whole game and I know your strategy. I know what you’ve done to get where you have. I’ll just go with my generic question: If you had to compare your gameplay to a Survivor contestant, who would it be? I'd actually like to hear all thee of you answer that one please.
I really love you guys and good luck :) Can’t wait to talk to you guys after this game.
HELIOS!
Penny: Hi Erin!
I honestly think I would have to go all the way back to Survivor Borneo and give myself Richard Hatch. Ill put a few reasons down;
Firstly I think I played the best tactical game of anybody here in the Final 3, obviously there's been some awesome strategic players in the past on Survivor, but the reason I didnt go for somebody like a Boston Rob is because I was pretty average in the challenge department, whereas Rob did pretty good. I dont think I am like Russell, because he is as well all know, a complete monkey in the social game department, and I actually think that was one of my strengths, I made an effort to connect with players like Christy and Joanna, and I enjoyed talking to the pair of them.
For me Borneo was a long time ago, but I dont think Hatch was overly efficient at the challenges. So I went with that classification. I tried to be as friendly and funny as I could publically, much like Hatch did, but behind the scenes I was always calculating a new plan and while Hatch I think was the clear strategic player in Borneo, and a step ahead of his competition, I believe I fall in the same classification this time around.
Thanks for such a great question. I wish you could have stayed and sat beside me here tonight.
Brian: Aras - I'd compare myself to Aras. The entire season, Aras slipped by as under the radar. But he was STILL IN THE GAME. HE MADE ALLIANCES. HE STILL WON CHALLENGES. Looking back at winners, I think a lot of people think, what did he do? But in the context of the season, looking at the episodes, he was there the whole time. Involved.
Helen: Going into this game, I wouldn't have expected my strategy to play like this at all, so I'd never have anticipated relating my gameplay to this contestant, but my answer is Tom Westman. And if you're scoffing at that, let me explain why.
Pre-merge, Tom was identified as the leader of the Koror tribe, much in the manner that you even specifically turned to me once and called me our challenge leader. And because of stepping up to keep the tribe competitive and in a good position, he was a potential target at the merge.
Post-merge, in spite of being a threat down the road, he kept himself in a pivotal position in the alliances so that he couldn't be expendable. He had Ian and Katie as a majority over Gregg and Jenn. If the Helios "5" went to the end, we needed Ted there so that he would be on our side instead letting you and Penny take control or tie it up.
Strategically, when he expected Gregg and Jenn had successfully recruited Katie to join them at F5, he alluded to game theory saying that he needed to strike them first before they had the chance to strike him, which is why he reverted on his word and took out Gregg at F6. This same theory applied here for eliminating Daniel (who could've joined with you/Penny) and Ted (who could've joined with Asteria, if he changed his mind).
Physically, that reason is probably evident enough as it is. Tom was targeted post-merge not because he put himself in an inoperable strategic position, but because people identified him as a threat to win a jury vote. Regardless of whether or not I even so much as stand a chance of winning today, people identified me at F7 as deserving and threatening to win, and that's why immunity has come as a comfort to avoid the bullseye of being a potential threat in the final, regardless of whether it actually rings true.
Erin: Thank you all for your honest and apt answers. You guys truly made this game amazing for me and I couldn't have asked for better players in my alliance.
I can't wait to talk to you guys out of the game and good luck to whoever wins
Helios
Jeff: Thank you, Erin!
