awix's blogBlog

Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien (Past Survivor Blog)

Jul 17, 2010 by awix

Kathy competed first during the fourth season, Survivor: Marquesas. The first 3 seasons of survivor showed very little turning against alliances and players in power seemed to stay in power for the entire season. Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien changed that.

For how innovative Kathy was, she gets very little recognition and is often forgotten as one of the best player in survivor history. This might be because she was not an overly likable character or a player that fans disliked. She was just an very observant player that looked further into the future of the game than most players did before her.

After the merge and Boston Rob had been voted out, John and his alliance of 4 (John, Zoe, The General, Tammy) felt they were in control, and they were. They think they had themselves guaranteed top 4 slots if everything went according to plan because they had also formed an alliance with Neleh and Pappy. But after a challenge proved a pecking order of the alliance, Kathy began her work.

She convinced Neleh and Pappy to backstab John and that alliance because it was obvious they were not included in his plans. After much debate, Neleh and Pappy joined up with Kathy, along with Sean and Vecepia to systematically eliminate all of John's alliance giving them the top 5 slots.

Kathy next found herself in between two very strong alliances: Neleh/Pappy, and Vecepia/Sean so she became the swing vote during the next tribal council and voted out Sean. Vecepia became the next target because her closest ally was voted out, but when she was won immunity, Kathy was the odd person out knowing Neleh and Pappy would never vote against each other. Kathy did not give up and made an agreement with Vecepia to take her to the final 2 if she won immunity if Vecepia agreed to vote out Neleh. Vecepia agreed and caused a tie, and in a slightly disappointing tiebreaker, it was Pappy that pulled the odd stone and was eliminated. Kathy would be eliminated when Vecepia stepped down and gave Neleh immunity to the finals and Neleh chose to take Vecepia.

Overall, Kathy laid a blueprint to how to turn the tables on a strong alliance. This would be duplicated almost exactly during Vanuatu when the outcast girls (Twila, Scout and Twila) joined Chris to create a majority against the girls that had control. This process of joining the "week" majority to overcome the minority. Also making promises in the future like Kathy did to Vecepia had not been done before Marquesas either. Now it has become common. For these two strategies that Kathy was the innovator, she gets very little credit. In my opinion, one of the greatest shapers of the way the game was played from then on.

Strengths: Observant, Planning Ahead
Weaknesses: Winning the final immunity

Comments

i never watched that season, but this blog makes me want to :)

Sent by Mankini,Jul 17, 2010

Kathy is one of my faves.

Sent by survivorfan12,Jul 17, 2010

awix's blogBlog

Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien (Past Survivor Blog)

Comments

Leave a comment