As we all know, Survivor strategy can be twisted and conniving. In order to get to the end, players might have to do some dirty deeds to people they trust and work with. Some players can do that with no real issues. Think of Tony Vlachos or Sarah Lacina flipping around willy-nilly. They might catch some flak for their strategy but no one is going to take it personally because they have demonstrated in the past that it’s in their nature to move around. If you get caught by Tony after thinking you were allied with him, it’s more on you than on him. You should have known better.

With someone like Cochran? It’s completely different, especially in South Pacific. Throughout the season, Cochran sends out weak and timid vibes to the Upolu tribe. Part of that is being stuck with guys like Ozzy, Jim, and Keith Tollefson. All the type of guys who like to play sports and consider themselves fairly athletic and stereotypically manly. Cochran is many things but athletic and stereotypically manly are not part of his personality. Fitting in with the Savaiis thus proved extremely difficult for Cochran.

He made this face a lot on Savaii.

Because the tribe sees him as somebody they are carrying, they see him as weak. To the rest of Savaii, Cochran is a number out of necessity and at the very bottom of their totem pole. When Cochran decides to flip over to Upolu, Savaii is being undone by the same guy they saw as useless and flaccid just minutes ago. Nobody likes being beat but it’s even worse when it’s at the hands of somebody you don’t think should ever be able to beat you. In Cochran’s case with Savaii, that’s exactly what happens and that’s why there is much vitriol towards him.

This isn’t the only time that something like this happens to Survivor contestants. In Kaoh Rong, Tai found himself in a similar Cochran-like situation with the jury. He decided not to save his ally, Scot Pollard, with his half of the super idol. Tai felt that the way Scot and Kyle Jason were playing the game wasn’t the way he wanted to play. By not saving Scot from being voted off, Tai was making a strategic decision that was never accepted by Scot or Jason. Tai was too friendly and likable to suddenly turn on his allies without in turn harming his standing within the game.

In fact, in a very similar way, the older women “mom” archetypes of the group are often undone by their inability to backstab someone without losing popularity in the jury. Think of players like Monica Culpepper and Cochran’s buddy Dawn. Nobody expects their mom to stab them in the back. By becoming the tribe’s matriarch, these players are putting themselves in a situation where any kind of betrayal will be met with a huge uproar.

Sure, Cochran played a masterful game in Survivor: Caramoan but who was with him every step of the way? Dawn played a very good strategic game but because she was seen as the mom of the group, everybody who was at the receiving end of her vote felt extra slighted. It doesn’t help that Dawn spent the majority of the season on the edge of mental stability but Dawn had a hand in almost every big vote-off and Cochran received all of the credit.

That’s why players need to be careful when falling into a role. Dawn’s motherly side was probably very helpful to her when trying to survive the first few votes in South Pacific. She was able to bond with Ozzy who felt the need to keep her safe and that propelled her into the merge. By Caramoan, Dawn didn’t need to be that mother character. She came in with some solid alliances already established and was ready to play a more cutthroat game. The only problem is that despite wanting to change how she played, she wasn’t able to change how people perceived her.

On the other hand, Cochran was successful in re-writing his narrative. Back in South Pacific, he was the weak dodgeball target nobody could stand. Now he was at the head of a large alliance, with Phillip Sheppard as his figurehead, and he was calling all the shots. Even though that wasn’t entirely true, Dawn and Andrea Boelkhe in particular were definitely being consulted, Cochran was able to sell it to the jury as gospel. Once the perception on Cochran changed, so too did his potential to actually win the game.

In the end, you can play as flashy and cutthroat as you like. The only thing that matters is if people are going to be okay enough with you beating them to give you the win. In Kaoh Rong, Scot and Jason were never going to be okay with Aubry Bracco outplaying them. These are things that will happen in Survivor and while it can be tough to swallow for some people, it’s something players will always have to account for. The person you choose to be out there on the island is the person the jury will choose to evaluate with their own set of criteria. You just have to figure out how to appeal to as many of those checkmarks as possible.