James

**James** (Flora#6101) placed 5th in Season 9 & 8th in Survivor Season 10.

Starting the game quietly on the Drega Tribe, James did not appear to be one to watch. Ambiguously on the bottom of the tribe, James would spend much of the pre-merge portion of the game UTR and seemingly as a nonfactor, in part due to stating he was in multiple ORGs at once. Having a middling social game, James was never particularly THE target for this portion of the game, but not quite out of the range of fire. At the merge, James was set up to continue coasting, initially picking up his activity level just a little bit per request of the host's plea to everyone to play hard. However, he became seen as a floater and a rat due to not committing to either side forming in the game, and thus was expendable to both sides in the initial vote. This caused him to be completely left out of the second Tribal Council, with no one in the game genuinely trusting him. Seeing as he voted alone and was on an island, James admirably did the opposite of so many players in the past and doubled down on winning the game. Being left out actually lit a fire under him, and with new vigor he stated this ORG out of his 5 now had his main focus. The following round, James delivered on his promise to play hard by organizing a show stopping blindside on Paris while also getting Ripple to waste one of her Idols. This would be the confidence boost James needed for the end game, and from this point onward the other players would view him as a large threat to their endgames. At the Survivor Auction, James would secure Safety Without Power, which he would go on to use the following round in an attempt to keep playing both sides and not show his hand. However, this backfired when the one person he wanted to stay (Tye) was voted out over him, as James leaving had given up the numerical advantage his previous voting bloc had as well as further pushing Dar to flip to the other side. The following round, James, Ripple, and Kyle would seemingly align out of self interest to eliminate one of the newly formed “Goat Trio '' of Zheema, Denim, and Dar. However, much flip flopping would occur and this plan was very nearly ruined due to Kyle spilling to Zheema. Luckily, Dar would vote incorrectly when Zheema failed to tell his alliance Kyle’s info for some reason, thus ensuring that even with multiple people flopping, James still got his way in the end. The following vote would come down to James vs Kyle when Ripple won immunity. As stated in Kyle’s entry, this round was insanely confusing as people were the most flip floppy without reasoning stated Aurora Survivor has ever seen. With Kyle, Zheema, and James all almost going home, James would ultimately make one last push for Kyle (his preferred target from the beginning of the round) which would seemingly pay off, as Kyle went home. However, this move may have proved to be short sighted when all eyes were on James following Ripple making it well known she had an idol. Luckily for James, however, Ripple was not in favor of letting perceived goats waltz to the end, and concocted a plan with James to make the other side think she was going to play the idol on James. This succeeded, with the end vote supposed to be 2-2-1 with Dar going home and Ripple idling herself…. Except for one major flop: James fell asleep for most of the evening and did not cast a vote, self-voting himself out of the game in a 2-2-1 against himself. Beyond voting himself out of the game, James is remembered for his growth arc from that of a perceived coasting goat to a strategic power player, showing what putting your entire effort into a single ORG can do for your game.

Placed on the Beauty Tribe for his ability to infiltrate and create a majority alliance in his previous season, James would be the most well positioned Totoka member for most of the game. After quickly finding an idol, James was guaranteed to go to the late game due to putting in early work on Totoka and at the merge to be able to truly coast UTR, something that all of the rest of the Totoka ironically failed at. Unfortunately, his coasting would turn into genuine inactivity. Despite having formed strong enough social bonds to do damage if he returned, James would quit the game at the Final 8, giving his idol to his closest ally Anthony on his way out.