Naran

**Naran** (naranjita#6007) is the Runner-Up of Season 8.

Starting the game on the bottom of the Taki Tribe, Naran would be a personality that either completely clicked or completely clashed with other players in the game. Often confessionaling the same manifestations and affirmations over and over, Naran took the game refreshingly unserious while still attempting to play. On the OG Taki Tribe despite being an initial target, Naran was able to save himself via his social game with Elise and Katt, as well as throwing Sean’s plan to stay under the bus. He was then able to secure the Taki Hidden Immunity Idol, fully shifting his bottom position into one of power. While seeming to be attempting a very safe and solid social win (enough to be in the contenders for an episode on edgic!) Naran's messy, fun, and villainous character would jump out at the Tribe Swap. After the first vote, Naran would publicly call out Chase and Lola on the bottom as needing to win immunity for them, as he wasn’t going to try and they’d go home if they didn’t. This would rub his fellow OG Taki members the wrong way, who plotted to get him out over Cherry and bring in Chad. Having formed a tight duo with Cherry, Naran was informed of this and instantly vowed to his confessional that he was going to idol one of the two out as revenge. In a very shocking, controversial, and memorable move, Naran proceeded to play an idol on the inactive and 2-striked Lola to eliminate frontrunner Tanner from the game. This would follow Naran into the merge, as his fellow OG Takis initially did not like him at all. As word spread of what he had done, the perception of the move was heavily that of a negative, marking him to most before the round was even over as a goat. For much of the merge game, he would go on to be seen as sort of a “minion” to Cherry’s game, while providing good TV not being afraid to publicly call someone out for targeting him. Despite the perception that he was not at all trying and essentially a “joke character,” Naran was putting strategic effort into the game and seemed to be pulling an Abi in a way, wanting others to think this on purpose to an extent. Additionally, while usually voting how Cherry or his alliance deemed necessary, he often disagreed with their plans privately/publicly, such as when The Frats decided their blindside target should be Nyx despite Nyx ratting the opposition's plan to them. In the late stages of the game, he noticeably improved his social game with Elise and Katt, planning to attempt an end game with them if the stars and manifestations aligned. Unfortunately they did not, which left Naran as Cherry’s “minion” for the entire rest of the game when he continued to have forms of immunity. (Naran really did intend to cut Cherry at the Final 4, feeling as though that would be his only shot at pleading his case to the Jury.) At the Final Tribal Council, Naran would initially have some Jurors either favoring him or wishing to hear out his game strongly despite most (if not all) of these same people acting like he was a huge goat the entire game. However, he would lose some of this initial traction when his opening and Q&A were overly verbose as well as a bit sassy. Despite intending this to be lighthearted, some Jurors did not respect these perceived slights at them and Naran would go on to fully lose their votes. Still, some in the Jury still wanted to vote for him solely due to thinking he would be an "interesting" winner for playing the game so messily as well as having a decent social game with these specific Jurors. In the end, his humor and personality couldn’t beat that of Cherry’s dominant gameplay and more positive resume, becoming the Runner-Up in a 6-1-0 vote. He is remembered for his main strategy in the game being to manifest his winning, an outcome that ultimately did not come true.