Emotion Can Takes ‘Survivor’ Contestants a Long Way

The Big Picture

• Emotions play a crucial role in
  Survivor
  gameplay, as shown by Bhanu’s struggle to control his anxiety and trust issues.
• Maryanne Oketch’s emotional gameplay in season 42 proved that using emotions strategically can lead to a win.
• While emotions can be challenging in
  Survivor
  , they can also be leveraged to outmaneuver competitors and secure the grand prize.

Survivor is a nail-biting, high-intensity reality competition that brings out the absolute best (and often worst) in its competitors. Created by Charlie Parsons on CBS, this historical series has introduced audiences to hundreds of great players who approach the complex gameplay in their own unique ways. While there are similarities among many, each person’s strategy is their own, as they’re forced to work with whatever natural talents they bring onto the beach and the personalities of those around them to maneuver throughout the competition. With the franchise’s newest installment beginning to heat up, a question has arisen: what role does emotion play in Survivor? Is it only ever a mistake to show others what you’re truly feeling in this game of deceit, or is there a way to utilize your feelings to get yourself one day closer to the grand prize?

Well, while this season is presenting a version of emotional gameplay that could only ever earn someone a support role in the actual winner’s story, audiences only have to look back a few seasons to learn: not only can emotions help someone survive the competition, it can help them win it.

‘Survivor’ 46 Shows How Emotions Can Tank a Game

While there are always strong emotions in every season of Survivor, audiences rarely see any as vocal as this season’s Bhanu Gopal. A member of the Yanu tribe, this team quickly lost its fighting spirit when the first three episodes saw them lose every challenge presented. From the beginning, he made it clear that he was an expressive and enthusiastic player, a positive energy that powered his tribemates in the earliest portions of the game – before they learned that when Bhanu feels, he feels hard. This meant their constant losing led to Bhanu becoming an anxiety-ridden conspiracy theorist, constantly worried others were plotting against him and openly telling Jess Chong that she was at the bottom of their hierarchy while begging the others not to turn on him. After creating one of the messiest tribals the series has ever seen, even after seeing Jess go home, Bhanu continued to spiral; his mood deteriorated more and more until he eventually broke down on a journey with people from other tribes where he not only expressed his fear of being voted out but potentially (whether he wanted to or not) ruined the rest of his tribe’s games post-merge by painting everyone else as manipulative liars who can’t be trusted.

His other tribemates urged Bhanu that, while emotions aren’t destructive on their own, he needs to control them and stop spilling secrets – advice that the headstrong man didn’t like. While he labeled them as cold-hearted strategists to the other tribes, other Yanu members Kenzie Petty and Tiffany Nicole Ervin only ever reiterated that nobody will want to trust him if they know he can’t resist spilling his innermost thoughts whenever things get complicated.

It’s unfortunate to see Bhanu suffer such a tumultuous experience on Survivor, but his ordeal and response to it speaks to just how stressful this game – which is built on lying and strategizing – can be. While not out of the game yet, a talk with tribemate Q Burdette makes it clear: if Bhanu makes it far in the game, it’s because someone knows he won’t betray them and is using him as a pawn. He’s committed to his emotions, even if it’s at the expense of $1,000,000 – though this doesn’t mean that someone emotional can’t win. No, because as many fans know, it was only four seasons ago that someone similar to Bhanu used their emotions to demolish every competitor in her path and clinch the ultimate prize.

Maryanne Oketch Is An Emotional Icon

While everyone supposedly has an equal chance of winning Survivor, season 42 winner Maryanne Oketch knew that the odds were against her from the minute she landed on the island. One of her cast’s youngest members, she was a self-titled weirdo on a season filled with various athletes and hardcore schemers who saw her age and high energy as an obstacle in the game she couldn’t overcome. Pair this with her identity as a Black woman – the last Black woman to ever win at that time being Season 4’s Vecepia Robinson, two decades before – and Maryanne understood that she would have to play harder than most if she wanted to beat the other competitors. She had a rocky start, as her endless amount of bubbly energy and refusal to stay quiet in the face of disrespect meant many people viewed her as an annoying person whose high emotions would never let them maneuver successfully – and she knew that. She recognized the perceptions people had of her and played into them, crying at specific times, speaking on how insecure she felt in the game, and keeping her actual plans secret, waiting until the latter half of the game to implement multiple jaw-dropping strategies that eventually won her the ‘Sole Survivor’ title in a historic landslide.

Maryanne’s use of emotion was impactful in various ways, as her win illustrated a new style of winning gameplay for Survivor. Yes, people had used emotions before, but her method of utilizing people’s thoughts of her being useless and their egos against them demonstrated a masterful ability to thrive in this brutal competition. She did it all without compromising her emotions or her stances, with a perfect showcase being her heartfelt calling out of the show’s racist trends across its many seasons and how she vowed not to perpetuate them during her time on it. Just like Bhanu, Maryanne had intense bouts of emotion, often spiraling when she realized she was at the bottom of her tribe and needed many moments to gather herself. But unlike him, she used those hardships to drive her, wanting to stay in the game even more because of them. She exhibited a high level of emotional and strategic intelligence that allowed her to use every aspect of herself to her advantage in the game, and Bhanu would do good to remember her iconic run on season 42 to realize that he still has a chance to win his own.

Emotion Can Win You Survivor – If Used Correctly

Like any season, Survivor’s 46th installment is pushing its competitors to physical and mental places they’d never explored for the chance to win. It’s saddening to see Bhanu struggle so hard on the island, and his experience with this game is extremely valid – it can be easy to forget what an excruciating experience it can be. But the man should not let other players’ reactions and his experience of struggling to channel his emotions feel that he’s been discounted from potentially winning. He (and the viewers) only have to remember Maryanne Oketch and her iconic run to remember that emotions can not only be used to last longer on Survivor, but they can secure the win! There’s still a whole season left to play, so here’s hoping that Bhanu and any other emotional member learn this quickly enough to keep themselves alive another day.

Survivor is Available to Stream on Paramount Plus in the U.S.

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