Survivor: Do you think the game is more about emotional or physical survival?

Survivor South Pacific is not only a game of physical endurance and striving to play the game until the end, but it’s also a game of surviving your own emotional upheavals and those of the other contestants.  We watched the Upolu Tribe deal with Brandon’s (Hantz) outbursts.  We listened to his weird comments directed to the cameras as he struggled to make sense of his own behavior.  At one point he declared “I struggle everyday, good, evil, good, evil and I really want to be good!”  Coach (Albert Destrade) worried about his outbursts because they cause an “unevenness in the tribe.”  He pointed out that Brandon’s outbursts are different than his uncle, Russell’s (Hantz), but they are outbursts non-the-less.  Sophie Clarke commented about the tension between Brandon and Mikayla Wingle, “In Biblical terms he’d probably call her the whore of Babylon.”  She summed it up further by saying, “Right now he is torn between following his crazy religious beliefs and his devious blood lines.”   

Christine Shields Markoski made clear her resentment that Coach targeted her for what I call an attack comment she directed at him when she first saw him.  It was something about Coach being on the island only temporarily.  I never did understand why she didn’t think she deserved negative treatment from Coach.

When Papa Bear (Mark-Antony Caruso) figured out his tribe was going to eliminate him he scrambled around pretending to find the immunity idol, but sadly he wasn’t very believable.  Elyse Umemoto told other Savaii Tribal members “ When has Papa Bear ever sprinted anywhere?”

John Cochran told cameras that he thinks most people view Redemption Island as a chance to get back into the game but he sees it as just extended failure and more depression.

Do you think Survivor is more a game of emotional survival than physical survival? 

Ellie Fields