AnomyBC wrote:Disagree. I would draw a distinction between stupidity and a cheesy figure of speech. It's only stupid if you take it at face value, which I don't.
81. Sean Kenniff says that getting to see his father is "better than the million dollars".
80. Billy Garcia announces his perceived love connection with Candice at tribal council.Partially agree. He was stupid to have drawn that inference from what Candice said, but he was already screwed at that point anyway, so the only downside was the embarrassment he would suffer once it aired months later.
79. Michael Skupin falls into the fire.Disagree. I would draw a distinction between stupidity and carelessness.
78. Candice Woodcock "mutinies" and voluntarily switches to the Raro tribe.Disagree. It was a calculated risk on her part that's easy to second guess in hindsight. I won't go over the pros and cons of doing it, but she explained her thinking in interviews after the show, and unless she was spinning things after the fact, I thought it made sense.
77. The Lopevi Guys vote out Brady over John K. or Rory.Disagree. Brady may have proved irresistable to the women, and was probably smarter and more charming than John K. Also, you need to be more specific than to say "The Lopevi Guys" were stupid. Somebody had to go, and it wouldn't make sense to say that whoever would have been voted out in Brady's place was stupid.
76. The Yasur girls vote out Lisa over Rory.I'll agree just because Lisa was voted out on such a petty, unfair pretext. It made Ami look paranoid, and may have started the eventual schism amongst the women, since Scout didn't vote with them.
75. The Lopevi Guys vote out John K. over Julie.Disagree, since voting out Julie would probably have resulted in losing Twila, so they still probably wouldn't have had a majority once they merged. John K. had to know he was at the bottom of the male pecking order, so he would have no reason to stick with them when all they could manage as a united group was a tie anyway. John was pretty stupid himself for targeting Chad, so I can't blame Chris and Sarge for thinking he'd sell them out to the women as well.
74. Jessica "Flica" Smith loses her tribe's chickens.Carelessness, not stupidity.
73. Ted Rogers loses his tribe's boat and fishing net.
Carelessness, not stupidity.
72. Brian Heidik, who worked as a used car salesman, loses the car reward challenge because he couldn't spell "Road Trip".
Disagree. That was a fortuitous moment of dyslexia that spared him from the car curse.
71. Austin Carty announces at tribal council that he was faking being weak at the last immunity challenge.
Agree.
70. Yul Kwon announces that part of the reason why he brought Jonathan his hat was to appease him for voting him out.
Disagree, since I don't believe this ever happened. He continued to deny that there were ulterior motives in bringing Jonathan his
hat in post-game interviews. If you're referring to his answer to Candice's jury question, he apparently wasn't talking about the hat incident,
and he got Candice's vote, so it was the right answer.
69. Neleh Dennis says in her jury speech that she didn't start playing the game until day 24.Disagree, since I would I draw a distinction between stupidity and a calculated but unsuccessful tactic. Making Vecepia seem like the more aggressive player, and thus more of a scapegoat to the people who were bitter about losing, would likely have worked with a more emotional jury. Players shouldn't just assume each juror is an impartial observer who will award the million dollars on merit alone. They tend to be biased, emotional, and often looking to punish the people they've blamed for their own failure.
68. Amber Brkich announces "I can almost smell the money!" in front of the jurors.Disagree. What was she supposed to do, tell them she didn't care about the money and starved for 39 days just for the fun of it? Everybody is there for the money, so why not be honest about it?
67. Danni Boatwright decides to vote out Blake over Amy or Brian.
Disagree. That move won her Gary's loyalty, which paid off later on when he vouched for her and enabled her to infiltrate the opposing alliance. In hindsight, she had much less to gain from keeping Blake.
66. New Raro votes out JP over Stephannie at their first tribal council.Disagree. For one thing, it's simplistic to say that "New Raro" was stupid for doing it. There are few moves that are stupid for an entire tribe. It's a calculated risk with varying probabilities for every single person, and will always be a dumber move for some than others. It was a smart move for Stephannie, obviously, and you can't say Nate was stupid since he didn't vote for J. P. You could argue it was smart for the women, because it gave them the numbers to control the tribe even if they got rid of Stephannie. You could also argue it was smart for the other guys because getting rid of a strong guy like J. P. made their strength more valuable.
65. Rob Mariano's alliance votes out Hunter over Gina.
Agree.
64. Sean Kenniff builds an elaborate fishing pole he dubs Superpole 2000, but fails to catch a single fish with it.
Disagree. He's a doctor, not a fisherman.
63. Mookie Lee tells Dreamz that he, Alex, and Edgardo found the Hidden Immunity Idol, but originally didn't tell him about it.
Agree.
62. Sally Schumann manages to lose her tribe's fishing spear apparently within hours of them winning it.
Carelessness, not stupidity.
61. B.B. Anderson washes his shirt in Pagong's drinking water.Definitely inconsiderate, I don't know about stupid. I'm sure he did stupider things.
60. Erik Huffman almost gets his closest ally Peih-Gee eliminated by failing to go along with a plan to vote for Todd at the tribal council where James is voted off.Disagree. He had a reason for doing it, since voting for Todd might have made Peih-Gee a bigger target in the next round. What was stupid was Peih-Gee's blind faith that James would have enough sense to use one of the idols, instead of doing something to force his hand.
59. Lisi Linares, Stacy Kimball, and Boo Bernis decide vote off Liliana instead Cassandra, which is pretty stupid in itself, and then fail to see the problem in alienating Dreamz and Cassandra, whose votes they'll now need if they want to have a post-merge majority.Disagree on the first part. Liliana had begun a showmance with Rocky if I recall, so making sure they didn't reunite made sense. And since Ravu was in no condition to compete anyway, the Motos didn't really have to worry about booting their weakest people. Agree on the second part.
58. The original Aitus throw the Episode 2 immunity challenge so they can vote off one of their own members.
Disagree. They were prescient to anticipate a tribal shakeup and probably figured there was no way a tribe as weak as Hiki could beat the
four of them in any challenge even if there wasn't one. If there was any stupidity on their part, it was in excluding Billy and making it obvious he was
at the bottom of the food chain, which was his incentive for backstabbing them in the first place.
57. Sean Kenniff fails to or declines to join the Tagi alliance.
Agree.
56. Gabriel Cade fails to or declines to join the Rotu 4 and announces that he's "not here to play the game".
Difficult to say. If Gabe really had a different set of priorities from everyone else and was willing to accept the consequences of his
decision, I don't know if I'd call it stupid so much as just bewildering. Whether something is stupid or not is partly a matter of context and that
person's point of view. If Gabe thought refusing to play the game would help him, it would definitely be stupid. Since he knew his actions would probably
get him booted, he at least understood what he was doing, even if I don't.
55. Shane Powers announces that he wants to leave the Casaya alliance.
Agree.
54. Terry Deitz attempts to get members of the majority alliance to join his minority alliance by offering them safety for the next 2 tribal councils.
Disagree. He may have been wasting his breath, but that didn't make him any more of a target than he already was. Doing nothing
wouldn't have been smarter. You should at least try, even if it's hopeless.
53. The Raros insist on voting for Yul after the merge, even though they know he may have the hidden immunity idol.
Agree.
52. Amanda Kimmel somehow manages to give a less convincing jury speech than Courtney Yates.
Disagree. It wasn't stupid, she just misread the jury, which rewarded self-promotion over faux contrition.
51. Danni Boatwright argues a pretty convincing case for Steph in her jury speech, and speaks little of her own deservingness.
Disagree. Convincing to you, maybe, but not to the people that mattered. The Guatemala jury was more focused on demonizing Steph than
rewarding the better player. Making herself look like an innocent bystander could only have helped.
50. Amber Brkich argues a pretty convincing case for Rob in her jury speech, speaks little of her own deservingness, and names "luck" as the biggest factor that got her to the Final 2.
Disgree. She said that in a deliberate attempt to appease the jury, since she had heard some of them say how they wanted to hear the final 2 be humble for once and admit how important luck was in getting there.
49. Andria "Dreamz" Herd makes a deal with Yau-Man that requires him to either give up immunity at Final 4 or look like an asshole in front of the jury.
Disagree. Dreamz had no way of knowing whether he'd win that immunity challenge or not, and even if he didn't see the deal for the trap that it
was at first, he figured that out while on his reward and decided to resolve the situation by getting rid of Yau-Man before the final 4. The immunity idol and
a timely immunity win were what enabled Yau-Man to thwart that plan. Yau-Man would have looked like the dumb one had Dreamz pulled it off. Besides, the truck
made a nifty consolation prize. All Yau-Man got was fourth place.
48. Jonathan Penner doesn't make Yul Kwon give him his idol in exchange for flipping sides and voting with Aitu at merge.
I doubt Yul would have done that, but I agree Jonathan didn't think the situation through, probably had better options, and was too
eager to give in to schadenfreude and screw over the Raros just because they annoyed him.
47. Terry Dietz doesn't use the hidden immunity idol to pull over Bruce and vote off Aras at merge.
Disagree. Even if that had worked, which I doubt, since flipping Bruce would only have resulted in a tie, and he was in an alliance with Cirie and Danielle, I don't think you can call anyone stupid for not figuring out how to use the idol to its fullest potential, as Yul would one season later.
46. Todd Herzog allows James Clement to keep both immunity idols, instead of insisting in their original agreement that James would give the second idol to Todd if he found it.
Disagree. From what I understand, James promised to give one back, but didn't. Since you weren't allowed to just take it, what
was Todd supposed to do, get on his knees and beg for it? Besides, he solved that problem by blindsiding him later.
45. Kimmi Kappenberg blabs to Ogakor that Jeff has a previous vote against him.Disagree. Obviously, Kimmi shouldn't have done that, but I think it's a little too easy to nitpick after the fact since it became so pivotal later on. If you were having a casual conversation with the other team, you'd be unlikely to think that far ahead or realize the potential consequences of revealing that, assuming Kimmi even knew what the tiebreaker rules were in the first place. And since she was voted off before the merge anyway, it wasn't her problem.
44. The Raros vote off Jenny instead of Jonathan.
(They should have realized that Jenny was less likely to flip after the merge.)
Disagree. Why should they have realized Jenny was less likely to flip? People aren't mindreaders. Assuming Jonathan wouldn't
want to go back to a bunch of people that hated him made more sense at the time than keeping someone from Yul and Becky's original tribe, however much she
promised to stay loyal.
43. Drake votes of Shawn instead of Jon "Jonny Fairplay" Dalton.Disagree. Shawn was close with Burton, and Fairplay had made such an ass out of himself and had gone to such lengths to provoke the Morgans, it made sense to think they'd make less of an effort to get him on their side. In my opinion, Rupert and Sandra's power trip before that tribal council was far more stupid than their decision to boot Shawn. They essentially said 'Since it's 3 against 2, we've decided to humiliate both of you for our own amusement and make you beg us to keep you.' Making the pecking order that obvious and being such assholes about it only gave Fairplay more of an incentive to get back at them.
(Again, they should have realized that JFP was much more likely to flip after the merge.)
42. Jonathan Penner "mutinies" and voluntarily switches to the Raro tribe.Disagree. It was mainly an impulsive reaction to Candice's doing it first. The moment Candice did that, the tribes went from 6-6 to 7-5 in Raro's favor, so it made sense to ditch what was now the underdog tribe anyway. There was no way for Jonathan to anticipate the improbable chain of events which led to Aitu retaking control.
41. The Fans tribe votes off Mikey and Mary instead of Chet and Kathy.
Depends who you're talking about. Obviously, it wasn't stupid for Chet, Kathy, and Tracy.
40. Danielle DiLorenzo votes out Courtney and Shane, the only 2 people she could conceivably beat in a jury vote.
Disagree. There were pros and cons to either plan at that point. Had she gone to the final 3 with Courtney and Terry as they had planned, she figured Terry would win the last immunity and take Courtney instead of her. Booting Courtney may have meant forfeiting her best chance at winning, but she might not have made the final 2 otherwise.
39. Alex Bell tells Rob than he plans on voting for him when they reach the Final 4.Agree.
38. Sue Hawk quits All-Stars because Rich's penis touches her during a challenge.Disagree. That wasn't a game move, and she should at least be tied with every other quitter.
37. After apparently throwing the Episode 3 immunity challenge, Sook Jai votes out Jed, one of their strongest members.
Agree.
36. Travis "Bubba" Sampson signals his old Lopevi tribemates and tells them not to "forget about the merge" in clear view of Ami and his other new tribemates.
Disagree, if his intent was to convince the Fat Three to throw the challenge on his behalf. It was worth a shot, since he was screwed
anyway.
35. The merge tribe on Australian Outback decides to build their shelter in a dry river bed.
Agree, but would give Rodger a pass, since I recall he had reservations about it but was outvoted.
34. Butch Lockley accidently burns down the Amazon merged tribe's campsite.Carelessness, not stupidity. Besides, I'm not even sure they ever proved it was Butch's fault, he was just a convenient scapegoat.
33. Becky Lee declines Yul's offer of the hidden immunity idol, twice.
Disagree. Generally, an astute player shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but they were in control after the merge, so it was never an issue. In the second instance, Becky took a calculated risk since she thought she'd be in a better position by earning her spot in the final 3 instead of riding the idol's coattails.
32. Yul Kwon offers the hidden immunity idol to Becky, twice.Disagree. He offered it to her the first time because he figured he was screwed anyway and the idol would be more useful to her than to him. In the second instance, he figured he didn't need it since nobody would vote for him anyway as long they thought he still had it. Yul knew what he was doing.
31. Neleh Dennis feels guilty that she didn't bring any food back from reward so she offers her other tribe members a tiny mint from her mouth.Disagree. It's kind of gross and insulting, but I doubt anyone held that against her in the game.
30. Drake throws the Episode 4 immunity challenge and then votes out the person who's perhaps their biggest challenge asset.Disagree. You can't say it was equally stupid for every member of the tribe, and the Drakes initially ended up in control at the merge anyway. Burton's rationale for doing it made sense, but was far too subtle for someone like Rupert to grasp. His idea was that the longer Drake kept winning, the less valuable their strong guys would become, and the greater the likelihood they'd be targeted later on once Drake lost. He figured it was still early enough that they wouldn't risk booting a strong guy yet, so they could use the opportunity to boot a weak person and then the strong would outnumber the weak and be safer later on. It was too sophisticated to work.
29. The Morgans sell their clothes, fail to spend all their money, and let Rupert steal their shoes while shopping at the village.
Agree.
28. Rupert Boneham attempts to build an underground shelter on a beach.
Agree.
27. Boran dumps out their water on the walk to their campsite because the jugs were too heavy.
Agree.
26. Joanna Ward freaks out about the immunity idol being evil.
Disagree. It may have been a distraction and annoyance, but I don't remember it having anything to do with her being booted. I seem
to recall Jenna saying that she liked Joanna, and she was close with Jeanne, so Joanna's social game wasn't completely inept.
25. Kelly Wigglesworth changes her vote from Rich to Sue.
Disagree. I've heard that there was no tiebreaker in the first season, so Kelly and Rudy presumably would have kept on voting until one of them gave up and switched their vote. Rudy never would have caved.
24. Amber Brkich, Elisabeth Filarski, Rodger Bingham, and Nick Brown fail to form a counter alliance to vote off Colby and Tina.Agree.
23. The Rotu 4 reveal the pecking order.I don't know whether to agree or disagree, because this is too vague. I doubt all four of them revealed the pecking order, so you have to separate the guilty from the innocent.
22. The Rotu 4 vote out Gabe over Rob/Sean/Vecepia.Disagree. This may seem obvious in hindsight, but John said afterwards that they didn't believe what Gabe was saying, and thought he had changed his plans and would eventually turn on them. The problem with voting out one of the Maraamus is that the other two would then automatically become enemies. With only 4 original Maraamus left in the game, there was no way for them to control the game even if they all made the merge. They had no choice but to cooperate with the Rotus. Booting Gabe had fewer potential repercussions, because he was on his own.
21. James Clement fails to use either of his two immunity idols.Disagree. His tribemates were smart enough to be able to keep him in the dark whenever they decided to blindside him, so you can't blame him for not correctly predicting when to play them, since it would have been a crapshoot anyway. However, I think he should at least have tried to bluff with them and say he would play one just so people wouldn't vote for him.
20. Jeff Varner gives up in the Episode 7 immunity challenge in Australia, even though he knows that Ogakor knows he has a past vote against him.
Disagree. Keith and Jeff both needed that immunity, and it was inevitable that one of them would eventually give up. That was the type of challenge that you can't lose, assuming you don't fall off somehow, which nobody ever has. You have to give up. So by your logic, one of them would have ended up being stupid no matter what. I wouldn't call Jeff stupid just because he didn't stay up as long as you think he should have. Why stay up for five more hours if he knew he was going to give up anyway?
19. Sundra Oakley is unable to start a fire during the Final 4 fire-building tiebreaker even after being given an entire packet of matches.Disagree. Incompetence =/= stupidity.
18. Stacy Kimball, who's secretly voting against Yau-Man and who knows that she'll be going home if Yau-Man gets suspicious and uses his idol, announces that she thinks there's going to be a split vote.Agree.
17. Jaime Dugan mistakenly believes that a blank piece of wood is an immunity idol and attempts to use it at tribal council.Disagree. That incident seems to have been embellished by the editing, and she had nothing to lose by doing that, since she was voted out anyway.
16. Amanda Kimmel votes off Denise Martin at Final 4, instead of either voting off Todd or forcing a tie.Disagree. We don't know whether Amanda would have beaten Denise, and Courtney said she was the one who argued in favor of taking Todd instead. Plus, losing to Denise would have been a lot more embarrassing. I think Todd has said that he would have voted for Courtney had they voted him out, and that she would have won, which would mean Courtney threw away the million dollars, not Amanda.
15. After reaching the Final 7, Caryn Groedel rejects a spot in an alliance of 4 and instead chooses to become the 6th member of an alliance of 6.Disagree. I'm sure Caryn didn't think she was the 6th member of an alliance of 6, and ended up outlasting Gregg anyway. If Tom only promised her sixth place, he was just as dumb to expect her to accept it.
14. Ami Cusack and Leann Slaby target Eliza instead of just voting out Chris (or Scout).Disagree. What was stupid was Leann telling Scout that they had decided to kick her out of their alliance. Scout and Twila would have had no compelling reason to save Eliza otherwise.
13. Sean Kenniff unleashes his infamous "alphabet strategy".
Disagree. At least he didn't target his own tribe members, like the Pagongs did.
12. The Mogo Morons boot Rich, Colby, and Ethan over Jerri.
Disagree. Whether that was stupid or not depends on who you're talking about. It was smart for the people who would have been voted out in their place, like Shii Ann and Jerri.
11. The Mogo Morons boot Jerri instead of Amber.Disagree. It may have been stupid for Shii Ann, who didn't have a prior relationship with Rob before the game. For Lex and Kathy, it was a calculated risk that blew up in their faces. If they were as close with Rob as they thought, they had good reason to think he'd side with them over a bunch of people who happened to be on the same tribe as him.
10. Stephenie LaGrossa and Rafe Judkins allow Danni to win the immunity advantage at the auction reward, then let her convince them to vote out Judd over Lydia, and then don't include Cindy in the vote.Disagree. Since they ended up bringing her to the final 3 anyway, that didn't make any difference. You could say keeping her around was stupid in hindsight, but letting her win that immunity didn't prevent them from getting rid of her.
9. After Brandon unfathomably votes for Kelly instead of Lex (see below) the other Samburus stamp out any remaining hope of success by booting Brandon instead of Tom.Agree that it was the wrong move for all four of them, but Kim P. was the stupid one. Frank and Teresa would have voted for Tom had she not refused.
8. Boran decides to vote out Kelly Goldsmith, giving Samburu an opportunity to take control of the game.Disagree. I would only say Lex was stupid, because his behavior probably made it inevitable that Kelly would flip, so the others had no choice but to side with Lex and Brandon on that vote.
7. Brandon Quinton votes for Kelly instead of Lex.Disagree. It was part of an ingenious plan that he wasn't able to pull off.
6. The Pagongs realize that Tagi has an alliance and that they plan on booting them one by one, but they STILL vote for one of their own members!!Agree, even though it didn't matter, since all 5 Tagis voted for Greg.
5. Kelly Wigglesworth leaves the Tagi alliance.Agree, although she may have gained jury votes from the Pagongs.
4. Rafe Judkins "releases" Danni from her promise to take him to the Final 2.Disagree. Danni would have voted him out anyway, and he claimed it was a subtle reverse psychology maneuver, not a capitulation.. He somehow thought that saying that would make him look more noble, and would make her more inclined to reward him for it.
3. Stephenie LaGrossa and Rafe Judkins vote out Lydia over Danni.Disagree. It was a calculated risk that didn't work out for them. It was actually pretty devious, since Danni was so near death by that time, they only kept her because they didn't think she stood a chance no matter what the challenge was. Sometimes, people manage to overcome those kinds of odds, and it's easy to say in hindsight that anyone who wouldn't have predicted it was stupid.
2. Colby Donaldson takes Tina to the Final 2 instead of Keith.Agree. I'm sure he knew taking Keith was the safer move, but he probably figured he could beat both of them, even if he was too phony to say it in his confessionals.
1. Ian Rosenberger gives up in the final immunity challenge in return for Tom agreeing to NOT take him to the Final 2.Agree. He should have taken Tom's deal.
