In the most recent round of exit interviews, Survivor’s latest boot, Cole Medders, reminded me of an important factor on any season. The ability to navigate the game from the top. It’s something that is hard to teach, even harder to learn, and some people simply don’t have the makeup to do well in the majority.

Going through the normal rounds of exit press, Cole gave an interview with Xfinity’s Gordon Holmes. In these interviews, Gordon loves to do word association with the latest boot in relation to his season’s cast. This is what Cole had to say about the people he spent time in Fiji with.

Holmes: Alright, word association time. Let’s start with Mike.

Medders: Mike’s lovable. He’s probably one of the funniest guys I’ve met.

Holmes: Ben?

Medders: Manipulative…which is what you need on “Survivor.”

Holmes: Chrissy?

Medders: Over-confident.

Holmes: Roark?

Medders: Quirky.

Holmes: JP?

Medders: A bro.

Holmes: Lauren?

Medders: She’s tough. She’s got a big attitude…in a good way.

Holmes: Desi?

Medders: Besides being intelligent and beautiful, she’s very personable. You can talk to her forever.

Holmes: Ashley?

Medders: I don’t think I had more than one conversation with Ashley the whole time.

Holmes: Devon?

Medders: He’s got this awesome spirit about him. He’s a light, honestly. He draws people towards him.

Holmes: Joe?

Medders: (Laughs) Joe’s loud.

Holmes: Ryan?

Medders: Witty and comical.

Holmes: Let’s finish with Jessica.

Medders: Genuine and sincere.

Even if Cole isn’t outright saying it, it’s clear that within the majority alliance, there are people Cole liked a lot more than others. Ben and Chrissy get struck with the more negative words whereas people like Devon, Ryan, and even Lauren, are seen much more positively. That tells you a lot about how they function within the dominant alliance that is slowly picking off all of the healers.

It’s been said numerous times, we see so very little of what goes on in the game. A big reason for that is that a lot of what goes on is simply boring. People laying around on a beach. They’re all low energy from the lack of food, water, and proper sleep. Showing that on television would just be repeating the footage from Survivor: the Australian Outback’s last three days.

The thing is, even though those moments may be boring to us, they are certainly important for the players left in the game. With limited options on the island, the players left in the game spend their time hanging out and talking. Sometimes about the game, which is what we see on television, but even more often about their lives.

It may not be clearly stated each season but those bonding moments can make or break a player’s game. Even though the strategy may force people into different alliances, socialization should not stop within your own circle of trust. You may be competing against some of the players but you should still make an effort to befriend them.

How Cole is describing Chrissy, Ben, and Ashley tells me that they are not making too big of an effort to connect outside of their alliance. That’s a massive misstep. Just because you’ve mathematically eliminated someone in your head, pretending like they’re already gone is going to come across badly to these players in the minority. In the end, they are still a jury vote and while we may like to pretend like the most “strategic” player always wins, it’s absolutely the case that the jury needs to feel good about who they will be voting for.

At the other end of the spectrum, Cole’s opinions on Ryan, Lauren, and especially Devon make me think that these players were doing their fair share of cross-alliance mingling. Devon’s been getting a lot of praise this week and he’s going to get more from me. I think that in this cast, his personality is most naturally suited to play Survivor.

Yes, that Devon.

Some of the all-time greatest winners had skills that just couldn’t be talked. I’m thinking specifically of Earl Cole, J.T., and Kim Spradlin. They had something within them that made people feel at ease. That sense of comfort allowed for those winners to extract information from their tribemates without many problems. We saw people practically laying down for J.T. to get to the end of Survivor: Tocantins. It wasn’t anything that J.T. was intentionally doing, it was simply how people felt around them.

Now I’m not putting Devon at these legends’ level just yet but I do think that he shares some of those qualities. Just look at how Cole described him, “He’s got this awesome spirit about him. He’s a light, honestly. He draws people towards him”. That’s not something that Devon can fake, it’s simply something that he inherently has in his personality and it makes people like him. It’s happened constantly from Josh Wigler in the pre-game press to Cole in his exit interview. Devon is somebody you can’t help but like.

This isn’t to take away the work that Devon has put in. You can have all that innate charisma but if you do nothing about it, it won’t matter. That Cole speaks so highly of Devon, it means that Devon put in his time with Cole to make sure they connected further than on a superficial level. Making sure you establish those connections is what could win you the game.

In every season of Survivor, there’s going to be a side that ends up on top, and one that draws the short end of the stick. It’s inevitable that some people will have to lose to create a winner. The players that end up on the majority have an easier ride to the end, but ignoring the minority like Ben and Chrissy seem to be doing is recipe for disaster.

Nobody likes to lose but there are ways to mitigate the hurt feelings. One way to do that is to simply talk to the people on the outs. It happens in Survivor and we especially see it on Big Brother. The next person, or the next few people, going out become social pariahs. They are outcast from the rest of the cast and people are afraid to talk to them. It’s a coping mechanism for the fact that the majority is about to end that people’s chance at a lot of money. Villainizing them is a lot easier than mending fences.

A more obscure example of somebody listening to the minority was Yul Kwon in Survivor: Cook Islands. With the Aitu 4 having gained control over the numbers thanks to the God idol, Yul put himself in the driver’s seat to get to the end. Seeing a tough road at final tribal council, with a lot of unhappy Raros blaming Yul for their loss, Yul decided to be proactive.

He knew how much Adam Gentry and Parvati Shallow did not like Jonathan Penner. When Adam told Yul he would give him his vote at final tribal, as long as Penner went before Adam, Yul saw his chance to strike. He voted out Penner ahead of Adam and in the end, Yul won over Ozzy Lusth 5–4. Adam honored his deal with Yul, becoming the swing vote that crowned Yul as his season’s sole survivor.

Good players realize the need for existing relationships with the people who don’t factor into your game plan. Those who don’t get painted as gamebots. People who only see numbers like a game of chess. On paper, it’s a fun analogy. In reality, it’s never correct. Survivor will never be an analogue to chess because it will always involve real people. Players like Devon, who seem to understand that angle, have a much better shot at thriving in the end than people who fail to see the human beings attached to the numbers in their minds.