User blog comment:UnderAPineapple/Pineapple Talk 2: Chaos in Creation/@comment-31532800-20170804150534

Before I begin, sorry if I misunderstood what you meant.

Do I have to pick either or? I actually prefer both, on the front page's poll I picked "All of thee above." The appeal of Survivor (both the main series and fanon) to me is the emotions I feel watching different people and personality types interacting with each other. It's the balance of these elements and the Variety they bring that make good seasons.

A good example of this, to me, is on the Fanon and is actually Ivory Coast. Morris get's a lot of crap for the game he played and for becoming an unlikable character, but the reason why I didn't like him was that his efforts were all for nothing since he was voted out anyway, which made him my least favorite character despite other players in the same season doing similar or more unlikable things. Polarizing Characters like Bruce, Shanniah and Abraham I should probably dislike more than Morris, but they stuck around long enough that all their antics actually had an impact on the game. Plus they were mixed in with Likable, level headed and more relatable players (Simon, Betty-May and Kryshelle) which gave viewers more variety in who they saw and more emotional attachment to what they were seeing. This is also what good in Cambodia from the Main Series, because in the middle of all the scheming, paranoia and complex plays you had players like Abi, Joe and Keith who were just doing their best to either cause chaos or survive all the insanity and who shook up the game enough to put the others on edge.

When you have it all one way or all the other you get seasons like One World, a mixed bag of nuts that was so overpopulated with Characters that it just became a cluster-fuck, until the only Competent human being was declared the winner. In the end though a bad season is better to me than something that is just okay... Like Game Changers.

Now, I'm not saying Game Changers was bad, but it could have been so much better. The failing of Game Changers was that they brought back 19 big Strategic players and Caleb. Here's the thing though, Caleb could have been the best part of Game Changers. A nice and likable guy who was more focused on the challenges than the strategy to shake up the plans of the bigger players, they should have had more people like him. Instead we got a season that was just okay, because every other player was so confident in their strategy and ability to outwit the others that it felt like the Boot order was decided by taping headshots to a dart board.

TL;DR: I prefer both together but if I had to pick, I choose Character over Strategy.