Previously on Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New
The game was set to be evened up when Nevala defeated Kobara by a super slim margin at our second Immunity Challenge. Then the tribe of returning players, after switching gears from what would have been a seemingly easy vote, took the opportunity to vote out Silas, one of last season’s most dominant players in a thrilling weekend Tribal Council. Then on Sunday, given the chance to win an advantage in the upcoming Immunity Challenge, both tribes failed to follow the challenge’s instructions, and neither emerged victorious.

One week and two votes down, and this season of Survivor Hamilton has already reached peak levels of excitement. Or so it seems right now anyway – as only we on staff know the twists and turns that the rest of the game has in store! First we saw Kobara live up to their billing, their years of SH experience leading them to the first Immunity Challenge win of the season. That loss sent Nevala, the newcomers, the mongooses, to Tribal Council, prior to which they had to decide on who would deserve to be the first player voted out of the game.

They went with the “easy vote”, and booted Ross from the game. I call it an easy vote because it really was easy. And this game is almost never easy. Ross didn’t really take the time to understand the social commitment of Survivor Hamilton, and he also expected to be protected by some assumed alliance members. When the people closest to him were actually the people pushing to vote him out for the good of the tribe, his fate was sealed. Nevala got to spend their energy over the week by gradually building relationships, partnerships, trios and alliances, never really needing to worry about how these early conversations could backfire.

On the other “side of the island”, after Nevala shocked the world by winning last week’s second Immunity Challenge, Kobara had to shift into high gear immediately. While there was definite talk of an “easy vote” – throwing Jonathan under the bus for his late Immunity Challenge response – not everyone was sure that he should be penalized for this infraction. This was a returning tribe of all-stars, many with young children, and is that the precedent that they wanted to set for the rest of the game?

Chief among those trying to save Jonathan was Silas. As a veteran of Survivor Hamilton, and as someone who has played with and against most of Kobara before, Silas knew that there were many potential options for this first vote. Most of the tribe however, was starting this season very cautiously. Most of these players (with the exception of Kyle) had been voted out of Survivor Hamilton in the past, and by taking the learning experiences from those failures, were determined to lay low. So when Silas began talking through these different scenarios with a handful of his tribe-mates, screenshots of his text messages (and memories of his history stirring up trouble) made him the next target. Once Silas was the potential target, he was too big of a fish to release, and Kobara jumped at the chance to send him packing – though he and his allies tried everything they could to save him.

So what we’ve seen so far is just how different the two Tribal Councils were, and what the impacts of being a returning player, or being fresh to the game are. We saw an easy vote at Nevala, and a really tough, game-defining vote on the Kobara side. What we’re beginning to learn is that these two tribes are taking different approaches to start the game, and that the stress levels are completely different. Kobara has been through this before, and knows the exact toll this game can take on the psyche (and on free time) and decided to eliminate someone that would assuredly cause headaches in the future. Nevala, on the other end of the spectrum, has just finished basic training, thinks that this is all fun and games, but hasn’t gone to war yet. Will they keep the good times rolling, or will they be in for a rude awakening after the results of this next Immunity Challenge are revealed?

Let’s find out shall we?

And I wrote all of that before I posted the challenge and chaos ensued.

So here’s the question I posted:

On what calendar date in any non-leap year will the year be 300,000 minutes old?

It’s a question from a brain teaser book I bought on the internet. There’s one correct answer. So what do you do when posed with a question like this? You work it out. Here’s how I solved it before I decided to use it for today’s challenge:

There is only one definitive answer. Just take the time to solve it. Easy. Granted, that’s if you’re solving it like I did. Alone, listening to sweet tunes, in sweatpants, in bed, while you’re supposed to be working. The reality is that two tribes, one of strangers, one of long-time friends and acquaintances, have to solve it over group chat message, frantically, in a time-based live or die situation (though it’s a game, obviously).

Well needless to say you both sucked it. Yesterday’s message was “speed isn’t everything“. Pay attention to what I’ve written, follow the rules set out, and you’ll always do well in these challenges. You don’t even have to know the right answer; only one of you does, if you can be patient. But if you’re rushing to answer before you’re sure, then trying to delete your message (I can see that!) and then trying out a different answer, that’s not the way to win Immunity. Both tribes had more than enough time to either come to the right answer, or agree to disagree, and answer how you want. At least then half of you would be right.

The one thing I keep bolding and underlining is that you’re only allowed to send one answer so that I can track the order of submissions accurately. So just know, I love you all, but because of these multiple infractions we needed a do-over. Alternatively, I could have just decided to have both Kobara and Nevala go to Tribal Council, but that would just mess up my carefully laid-out schedule moving forward (and why should I be punished?!?). So we did a re-do, and everyone was given the chance to submit one more answer. Just one message. Not two. One. No deletesies.

So I posted again; and it was immediately clear that one tribe took the time to re-think their first instincts and got the answer right. And one got it wrong, again.

First we had Bryan buzz in with July 28th, then Marishka with the 27th, Chris 28th, Sasha, April, & John answered with the 27th. Then Elliott and Paul responded with the 28th, and it continued on like that. Nevala was committed to July 27th as their answer, and Kobara had committed to July 28th. Well as you could see from my excellent maths above, the correct answer was July 28th. Exactly one Nevala got the right answer – bravo Jim, even though that answer came way later than anyone else’s Then we had Chelsea answer July 27th, delete the message, then answer 28th. Disqualified unfortunately. A couple other folks on Nevala tried to re-submit the correct answer, but those were not counted either.

So after a challenge like that, there isn’t much to celebrate but the opportunity to reflect and learn from the experience, but we’ve still got to announce that the winning tribe, safe from Tribal Council is…

Congrats Kobara you slithered your way to a victory this week, but I expect more from you as a TEAM on Thursday. I’m pretty sure you’ll be back way stronger next time around. As for the people below in the Nevala Tribe: This is all a new experience and maybe I’m expecting a lot to write so much and have everyone need to read every word, but I hope I’ve been clear enough about what I need to track this accurately, and I know you’ll keep on improving.

Here are the stats for anyone interested.

Feel free to discuss the outcome below in the comments. I think how this played out may not be everyone’s favourite thing, but in the end I believe it was fair to both tribes. And when tough decisions happen that’s what I care about most. This was still super eventful, and I hope that the experience revealed a lot about your tribe. Who has patience? Who’s getting the right answers? Who’s dominating the chat? Who’s being helpful? Who’s not? The answers to those questions should guide you if staying away from Tribal Council is your goal.

If you have other goals, let them be known on Wednesday, Nevala.

Have a great night,

MH