Kyle

**Kyle** (RedsKanto#9649) placed 6th in Season 9.

Kyle started the game strong and as one to watch on the Dausaqalo Tribe. For much of the pre-merge, he would be seen as a contender with fairly good reads on his tribe. His social game was fairly strong, and despite being a bit neurotic at times was well liked by most that interacted with him throughout the game. However, it became clear on Nu-Tovui  that Kyle had a tendency to drastically overthink plans and possibilities, letting his paranoia run rampant. Forming a close alliance on this tribe with Dar and Tye, Kyle would still spiral a bit at both Tribal Councils, confessionaling that he was sure he was going home and basically handing production his obituary to be posted at Tribal. This would only become worse during the merge, in which Kyle would quickly become a big player and target that felt at constant threat of having votes come his way. Despite this, he did still have several good reads, most notably in attempting to get everyone to flush Ripple’s idols or blindside her altogether as others were content letting her dominate the game with her advantages. This would unfortunately turn into tunnel vision in the late game, with Kyle very nearly setting himself up in an immediate position to go home and ruin the minority's plan when he seemingly refused to work with Ripple until she was immune. Despite thinking Denim went home “as planned,” his switching his vote very nearly caused James to be eliminated instead, which would have guaranteed that he went home the next round barring immunity which Ripple ate. With Ripple immune on his boot round, Kyle initially pitched one of the more awe inspiring ideas in Aurora Survivor history: get Ripple (the biggest threat that has had to bluff and mind game every single vote) to flush her idol even though she was immune. While getting an A for effort and not giving up, this of course did not amount to much as “Dar ruined his plan” (somehow?) and thus he finally resigned himself to using his Extra Vote from Tye to align with Ripple against Zheema (due to seeing Zheema as a guaranteed spot in the finale bc no one liked him at the time for being rude to them all). Ripple would also make an impassioned plea to James with Kyle as support that the “goats” didn’t deserve a win due to their behavior and lack of gameplay, thus they could guarantee one of them would make the end to win. However, James secretly wanted Kyle out very badly despite it being arguably in the three’s best interest to eliminate one of the “goat” players, and an incredibly messy round ensued that (annoyingly btw) even production was quite confused about. Dar would vote for James and seemingly tank his game when he snapped that he was “losing anyway” if they kept James, Zheema and Robert voted for Kyle as per James’ plan, and then Ripple and Kyle x2 were originally set to vote for Zheema. However, an annoying amount of flip flopping with very little explanation would take place in the final hour of this vote, leading to a “live Tribal.” Highlights of this include Dar’s blowup, James siding with and then against Kyle several times, Ripple changing her vote 5 times minutes before the vote was read, and Kyle begging Aurora not to play the Extra Vote but then to actually play it and then actually to switch the vote to James after votes were being read. (Which was kind of fun, but given the very few if any reasons provided per flip was just… a lot lol.) Kyle would then find himself ousted in the 4-2-1 vote, being fairly well natured and claiming he was glad to be voted out. He is remembered for his polarizing personality, his endearing nature to want to make moves and good TV, and for his arc from spot on reads early on to a very messy and unflattering endgame.