The Fox & the Goat: Survivor Gameplay Archetypes

[Eolivet]

I think calling Gavin a Fox is pushing it. He was Victoria's Bunny, and I thought he was a Bunny until the end. He tried to pretend he was a Fox at final tribal, but those long, floppy ears kept coming out. You get no votes if you're controlling everything or if you're not a threat to win. Gavin played Victoria's game the entire time, and rode her coat tails (fox tail). Every single vote -- back to the Eric vote -- was "uh, I gotta go check with Vic." That's not a Fox player, to me.

[Bryce Lynch]

I think they created a new archetype with Chris, the Ghost.

1) He was dead, because he had been voted out 26 days earlier.

2) He was practically invisible because he had been voted out 26 days earlier.

3) He had information that the living did not have.

4) He couldn't be killed because they handed him an idol when he returned.

[Special K]

3 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

I think they created a new archetype with Chris, the Ghost.

1) He was dead, because he had been voted out 26 days earlier.

2) He was practically invisible because he had been voted out 26 days earlier.

3) He had information that the living did not have.

4) He couldn't be killed because they handed him an idol when he returned.

The Undead?

[Nashville]

3 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

I think they created a new archetype with Chris, the Ghost.

1) He was dead, because he had been voted out 26 days earlier.

2) He was practically invisible because he had been voted out 26 days earlier.

3) He had information that the living did not have.

4) He couldn't be killed because they handed him an idol when he returned.

2 minutes ago, Special K said:

The Undead?

The Zombie: lies dormant for a while, then rises again to walk amongst the living - and quite possibly stumble into the winner’s circle.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Nashville
Expansion

[ProfCrash]

ohhh Chris as a White Walker?

[SVNBob]

Most of the analysis we do in this thread is edit-related and comes out near the end of the season.  But with IotI, I'm thinking there's something we might be able to do throughout the season.  I think it possible we can  classify the lessons Rob and Sandra are giving into some of the classic animal categories.

Elizabeth's lesson on Firemaking is a Bear lesson (providing, challenge-winning, etc.)  Kellee's lesson on making allies by listening and paying attention was more a Bunny lesson than anything else.

I don't think there will be any Goat lessons, but I'm absolutely certain there will be Fox lessons later in the season.  For example, if Kellee's lesson had gone on into how to use the information she gets by listening, that would be a Fox lesson.

Is this a feasible line of analysis, or is my bias towards thinking along these lines clouding my thinking?

[Lamb18]

5 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Most of the analysis we do in this thread is edit-related and comes out near the end of the season.  But with IotI, I'm thinking there's something we might be able to do throughout the season.  I think it possible we can  classify the lessons Rob and Sandra are giving into some of the classic animal categories.

Elizabeth's lesson on Firemaking is a Bear lesson (providing, challenge-winning, etc.)  Kellee's lesson on making allies by listening and paying attention was more a Bunny lesson than anything else.

I don't think there will be any Goat lessons, but I'm absolutely certain there will be Fox lessons later in the season.  For example, if Kellee's lesson had gone on into how to use the information she gets by listening, that would be a Fox lesson.

Is this a feasible line of analysis, or is my bias towards thinking along these lines clouding my thinking?

I think it's an interesting way to discuss these archetypes. I'd like to read your analysis and other's thoughts after each episode.

[Eolivet]

8 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Kellee's lesson on making allies by listening and paying attention was more a Bunny lesson than anything else.

I think that had Bear potential, as well. Isn't a Bear a more well-liked, personable second-in-command to the Fox? I feel like "I got to know you as a person" can help build bonds, strengthen trust and be a pretty effective final tribal council argument (as long as you did other things). And the lesson didn't seem to be "just listen to people and have no strategy." But that getting to know people is part of Survivor, where the goal is to be useful/likable/good enough to not be voted out, and to get people to vote for you to win.

But maybe I don't see how people could benefit from Bunny lessons, since pure Bunnies so rarely win the game, unless a more obnoxious player is sitting next to them (an Ox?) and I really do think the goal of these Survivor "make it work" mentorships is to help advance a winner's game (thus, to build players into a Fox or Bear).

[SVNBob]

On 10/8/2019 at 11:44 AM, Eolivet said:

I think that had Bear potential, as well. Isn't a Bear a more well-liked, personable second-in-command to the Fox? I feel like "I got to know you as a person" can help build bonds, strengthen trust and be a pretty effective final tribal council argument (as long as you did other things). And the lesson didn't seem to be "just listen to people and have no strategy." But that getting to know people is part of Survivor, where the goal is to be useful/likable/good enough to not be voted out, and to get people to vote for you to win.

But maybe I don't see how people could benefit from Bunny lessons, since pure Bunnies so rarely win the game, unless a more obnoxious player is sitting next to them (an Ox?) and I really do think the goal of these Survivor "make it work" mentorships is to help advance a winner's game (thus, to build players into a Fox or Bear).

Fair points.  That lesson could go either way.  I guess I thought Bunny since it felt like the lesson was about appearing to be likable to others.   But the lessons being more Fox- and Bear-centric makes a lot of sense.  And given that, it also feels likely that it'll be more Bear-type lessons pre-merge, and more Fox-type lessons once the jury phase starts.

Having said that, was Vince's lesson a Bear lesson?  It was ostensibly about remaining calm under pressure, which could really apply to anyone.  Sandra's training session would be more Bear, since it was about the physicality of the mission.  And the mission itself?  That was about sneakiness and stealth, which would imply Fox.  This one is harder to classify.

[enoughcats]

12 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Having said that, was Vince's lesson a Bear lesson?  It was ostensibly about remaining calm under pressure, which could really apply to anyone. 

Calm under pressure can only be a possum (opossum to city folks).  Only a possum can play dead while a dog drags it around by its tail.  The occasional hiss is followed by zero actions. They'll eat anything and never look better than scruffy.  

[SVNBob]

On 10/11/2019 at 2:42 PM, enoughcats said:

Calm under pressure can only be a possum (opossum to city folks). 

I'm not sure this is necessarily the case.  Stalking prey is a common animal task, and would be a situation with a lot of pressure.  And most predators do learn to stay calm under those circumstances.

However, thank you for finally coming up with an appropriate animal metaphor for Chris from last season.  (O)Possum would seem to fit those circumstances quite well.

Moving on to Noura's lesson; persuasion.  This one is also multi-faceted, like Vince's.  It's about a social/personal interaction, which leans Bear.  However, some of the sub-methods that BRob mentioned, like This for That, lean more strategic or Fox-like.

Between the last two lessons, I'm now wondering if it is possible to classify them all under this umbrella.

[Nashville]

Is there any kind of commonly accepted condensed list of these so-called archetypes, or do folks simply make them up as they go?  Because at this point I’m waiting with bated breath to see somebody rationalize the Left-Nutted Orangutan archetype.

[SVNBob]

On 10/22/2019 at 9:44 AM, Nashville said:

Is there any kind of commonly accepted condensed list of these so-called archetypes, or do folks simply make them up as they go?  Because at this point I’m waiting with bated breath to see somebody rationalize the Left-Nutted Orangutan archetype.

The only lists I know of are in the originating post of this analysis theory on another forum as linked to in the first post of this thread, and the most recent list we've been using here that I posted on page 2.  We'd added the Ox (and probably the Chamelion) to the original list before this thread started and have since added the Cat and Dead Fish, as those archetypes crystallized in that duration.   And as new archetypes seem to crop up, I'm sure we'll add more.

[SVNBob]

Bringing this subject up again, because someone else brought it up on Reddit.  That poster wanted to expound more about the Goat than anything else, but started off with the original sunsawed post from Sucks that is also linked into the first post here.

Since we do some of this analysis here, I chimed in on the discussions over there.  I started by bringing up the other animals in our menagerie, along with definitions and examples of each, and added to some other discussions by bringing up some of those animals (mainly the Ox and Cat), or by bringing up how people vying for the same role within an alliance/tribe tend to target each other.

I also mentioned we were still kinda working on what to call Chris's win from EoE and got a suggestion.  I brought up the Possum in that mention, and got a different suggestion for what that could be, and how it relates to Karishma.  I want to save that latter discussion for later, because there's something worth keeping an eye on in relation to it.

I didn't mention this forum by name at first, but I have been asked a couple of times what forum I was talking about.  So I'll be dropping a link to the first post here into that discussion.

[SVNBob]

Bringing this back up, because I have a question for my fellow Survivor Zoologists.

Is Tiffany the second Dead Fish ever, or is it too soon to tell?

[Lamb18]

I don't know about dead fish but I know what Chris reminds me of. He reminds me of the bird who lays her eggs in another bird's nest and shoves the original eggs out of the nest. The mother of the original eggs then takes care of the supplanter eggs.

Chris makes me think of a supplanter baby bird because he took the place of someone who would still be in the game if he hadn't come back. I guess Jeff would be the mother bird who laid the eggs in the wrong nest as it was probably his idea.

I think it might be cuckoos that do this.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Lamb18

[ProfCrash]

Who is Chris?

[Nashville]

2 hours ago, ProfCrash said:

Who is Chris?

I’m assuming Chris Underwood, winner of S38 (Edge of Extinction); voted out Day 8, stayed on Extinction Island until he won re-entry on Day 35, won on Day 39 - presumably because by spending the vast majority of the season on EI, he had the closest bonds with the majority of the jury.

[ProfCrash]

2 hours ago, Nashville said:

I’m assuming Chris Underwood, winner of S38 (Edge of Extinction); voted out Day 8, stayed on Extinction Island until he won re-entry on Day 35, won on Day 39 - presumably because by spending the vast majority of the season on EI, he had the closest bonds with the majority of the jury.

Gotcha, I was thinking of this season and couldn’t place a Chris.

[Lamb18]

3 hours ago, Nashville said:

I’m assuming Chris Underwood, winner of S38 (Edge of Extinction); voted out Day 8, stayed on Extinction Island until he won re-entry on Day 35, won on Day 39 - presumably because by spending the vast majority of the season on EI, he had the closest bonds with the majority of the jury.

That's right!