Board Thread:Season Rankings/@comment-24899664-20141222121159/@comment-25629305-20160629010909

6) Survivor: Vanuatu

Yup, Vanuatu is the sixth place g.oddess of this ranking. I absolutely adore Vanuatu and it hurts to cut it but it's for the best :(.

Vanuatu is, at it's heart, a story of how a bunch of bickering, catty women somehow come together in the name of feminism to slay all the men and then just can't take each other anymore and implode on themselves leading to a clusterfucky ending where the only man left in the game at the final 7 ends up winning. It's a MESS, and an amazing mess, at that, and also one of the four seasons that I'd consider almost perfect story-wise. Everyone who makes the merge (and even everyone who makes the swap) plays a part in the story, and the season is all the better for it.

As I said, the women of Yasur were a mess from the very beginning, being split down the middle based on generation, and a bunch of different personality types clashing from the beginning. The swap comes and Feminazi Ami, one of the best villains in Survivor history, corrals the women together to take out Bubba for trying to signal people on the other tribe, before randomly flipping on Lisa out of pure paranoia <3. Then at the merge the women come together to take out the 4 men, and succeed in sticking together for 3 rounds, before falling apart and allowing Chris to come out on top in the struggle. It's amazing to watch.

However, if I had to choose ONE reason why Vanuatu is this low, it'd be the early pre-merge, before the swap. Yasur was consistently providing entertainment, but Lopevi, the tribe of men, was the tribe that had to go to tribal most often, and they were a bland tribe with a boring pecking order and most of those early episodes went by at a snail's pace. It's hard to put Vanuatu this low just because of that, but when getting down to the wire like this, the smallest bad parts about a season can make a BIG difference.

5) Survivor: San Juan Del Sur

Yup, that's right. San Juan Del Sur is a top 5 season. TAKE THAT, HATERS! *cackles*

I never EVER understood the hate for San Juan Del Sur. It seems to have exactly what any fans would want; a fun cast with developed characters, but it also has flashy gameplay and huge "#Blindsides". So why in the world would anyone say SJDS is a bottom ten season? I never understood it and I never will.

Originally, the season seemed like it would be a mess, and not in a good way. The first three episodes centered on the ill-fated Coyopa tribe, one of the worst tribes in Survivor history. The women try to form an alliance with Val at the head of it, but Josh decided he didn't want to do that and flipped with Baylor to take out Nadiya and later Val (who is a ROBBED GODDESS), and it looked like the awful dudebro alliance would succeed. But in episode 3, the season took a turn for the better, as Natalie cussing out John Rocker turned out to be enough for his entire tribe to flip on him, blindsiding him with an idol in his pocket <3. The next episode was the best of the season, "We're a Hot Mess", where Drewche's fear of a women's alliance led to him throwing the challenge, but also lead to a women's alliance forming and taking him out *cackles*. That never gets old.

The swap episodes were admittedly a little weak and boring, but then, the merge comes. It seems like Josh, the CP4 boring gamebot who sucked the life out of original Coyopa, and his nonentity of a boyfriend Reed were going to run the game, but Julie McGee saved the season by quitting, and then Jaclyn threw a tantrum about the boys being pigs, causing her and Jon to flip BACK and take out Josh <3333. After that, Jeremy was blindsided, and suddenly, both of the original "alpha male strategists" of the season were gone. Thankfully, this allowed the rest of the cast to flourish in their own way, as the bets majority alliance ever, Jonclyn, Missylor and Natalie come together to take out all the awful people (Reed, Alec, and Josh)!

SJDS's endgame then blasts off; Jon is blindsided by Natalie and then in the finale, she takes out Baylor, and sends home Keith, leaving us with the best final 3 in the history of the show, Natalie, Jaclyn, and Missy, leaving Natalie to righteously claim the million <3.

I've heard people say that SJDS "wasn't strategic enough". Um, what season were you watching? SJDS was a crazy season where people played tactically and smartly; in fact, I'd say that SJDS's cast is one of the smartest out of Modern Survivor. I think it was the fact that women were playing tactically and for themselves, rather than joining up into an unstoppable all-female alliance, since casuals seem to believe that that's the only way women can effectively play a strategic game. Plus, this season possesses in spades exactly what every casual fan seems to love so much: Josh, Jeremy, Wes, Alec, Jon, and Baylor were ALL blindsided in fun and innovative ways, so why are they complaining about "no one playing the game"? It doesn't make sense to me.

If there's ONE reason why SJDS isn't in the top 4, it's because SJDS spent too much time building up Josh and Jeremy in the pre-merge, only for them to be blindsided one after the other when the merge came. That lead to us not knowing much about the final 9 in general; however, the season did a good job after that allowing us to get to know the remaining 9 so that we'd have a fun-filled rest of the season. However, this weakness is still enough to put SJDS outside of the top 4.