Ben:
James – Personally, you talked to me the most out of the final three. You’re very likable and a very kind person who is also my grandson. Should I automatically be inclined to voting you? Probably. However, that is not the case tonight. You’re going to have to earn my vote despite you being likely are the front-runner. My question is simply to explain three instances on how you used your intelligence to further yourself in the game? I’d also like to hear at least one instant in which you were self-aware as well.
1. The one day merge. This was following the AJ vote off. I managed to get in with the people who didn't vote him off (your tribe), and that built some key trust I was able to expand on come merge phase. Equally I kept discreet about it, meaning that the following round I couldn't be targeted for flipping. Others from my tribe DID find out, and I did have some involvement in explaining how it came about, but I never outrightly said it. And ultimately the person who DID leak to my tribe the vote was Alan first, was close to leaving the next tribal.
2. Who I told information to. May sound simple and basic, but I distributed my information quite lowkey, I was able to use it as forms of trust building, whilst equally sitting me comfortably with both sides. This was reciprocated, and a key example was it leading to one of the strongest duos of this season, consisting of Mike and myself, as we had the ability to ultimately determine who would leave some rounds, as the ultimate 2 in the middle.
3. Another reasonably simple, but significant. Playing the middle. Me being in the middle helped a LOT. It meant I could know always who, if anyone, was targeting me. For example, my only failure of information spreading, I told LQ that Leah was perhaps going to be the vote at Oli's boot. This then got passed to Anthony, who told me, enabling me to cover myself with every other person in the game, by reassuring we were chill. Me being a part of trying to condense the numbers on either side to being even, ensured I was a number people NEEDED each round. With this I could find out either vote, straight up reject a vote if necessary. I wasn't big up flashy pushing any vote, generally, as I didn't want it to get back to the side I wasn't voting with, allowing me still stay strong with almost the entire cast throughout.
I apologise if anything I've said is confusing, and can rephrase tomorrow, quite tired but wanting to supply answers quickly, with decent quality hahah. :)