Website / Marios Survivor Archives

"I'll punch you in the face, then you give me a great big hug afterwards. Sound good?"
The statement above may sound absurd, but in truth it is the essence of the game of Survivor.

-Mario Lanza

Mario's Survivor Archives is a collection of Survivor-related columns, blogs, stories, and other things written by Mario Lanza about Series/Survivor, including:

• The Funny 115: Arguably the best known of Mario's works, the Funny 115 is a compilation of funny moments from Survivor.
• All-Star Survivor: Hawaii: A rewrite of Mario's first major Survivor story, featuring a hypothetical cast of All-Stars from the first four seasons. (The Original version has been mostly eradicated from the internet.)
• All-Star Survivor: Alaska: Another all-stars story, this time featuring more Greg Buis.
• All-Star Survivor: Greece: The third of the all-stars trio, with the theme of "second chances" featuring characters that didn't make it very far in their previous season due to circumstances beyond their control.
• Survivor Tonga: A story written about an Online Survivor game, in which Mario participated
• Survivor Okinawa: A story written about an Online Survivor game that Mario hosted (A sequel to Tonga)

Additionally, several of Mario's old columns are Archived here.

Many spoilers for Survivor and this site will be unmarked due to the nature of Survivor in general, let alone this series. Proceed at your own warning.

Mario's Survivor Archives contain examples of:

• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
  • The rewrite of Hawaii has some issues with this.
    • Alicia wins in the original, but Vee wins in the remake. Jerri's reveal that Alicia took her place inspires a different reaction considering Alicia was the original winner.
    • Greg Buis notes in Alaska that the purple rock was used in All-Stars Hawaii, but it isn't in the rewrite.
• Decoy Protagonist: Richard Hatch, Kelley Goldsmith, and Danielle Wheelis may have began their respective stories as narrators, but they were all voted out swiftly after arriving.
  • Actually lampshaded by Mario in the commentary, where he mentions that the story wouldn't really begin until Richard was voted out, as he was just that big a character.
• Foreshadowing: A LOT of it. So much so, that only multi-episode examples will be included here.
  • Hawaii: Vecepia prays for everyone in the Ahi tribe to be healthy and stay in the same condition they arrived in. They do, but the Keko tribe doesn't. Teresa is practically medically evacuated, Ethan injures his knee, Alicia earns a house, and Gretchen messes up her arms enough to lose the last challenge badly.
    • Additionally, She prays for an Ahi to win. She herself does.
  • In the Coconut-Chop Challenge in Hawaii, the Keko tribe members are eliminated in the order of Kathy, Alicia, and Gretchen, who ends up coming in third place just as she thinks she has a chance to win (in both the challenge and the game).
  • Rob spends Hawaii in fear of the final 8, where Tina and Frank'll have the chance to flip and force a tie. It ends up being the spot he goes out in, as a tie is forced, despite his sending Frank out already.
• Hope Spot: A favorite trope of Mario.
• Prophecy Twist:
  • In Hawaii, Rob realizes he can't let Frank and Tina go to the final 8, lest they force a tie against his shaky alliance. As such, he boots Frank instead of Kathy. He's absolutely right in that this prevents a tie... he's voted out almost unanimously at the final 8.
  • In Okinawa we learn from the narrator, that [A dinner] is the last time Matt, Beth, and Amy will meet up in the game, indicating one of them will be eliminated. Meanwhile Chris is currently spreading rumors that Amy cannot be trusted in what would normally be the last episode before the merge, indicating she's doomed. Amy manages to miracle her way through the next vote however, and one episode later in a delayed merge, Beth is the one gone.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick:
  • Colleen Haskell rather fascinatingly deconstructs this, being a sidekick to someone who wants her to be purely useful to him, being annoyed when she does anything herself. She qualifies nonetheless.
  • Vecepia is so good at playing this that she manages to defeat everyone she's a sidekick to... twice!
  • Tina's got a leg up on her male alliance members, even if they're more prominent.
  • Richard Hatch to Kathy, though that doesn't last too long.
  • Tammy to Silas in Alaska
  • At a certain point, every guy on Amarok wants to be this to Brian Heidik and eventually get him out themselves, but he's far above them all, and they all collapse like tissue paper when he's booted.
  • Gabriel Cade to Hunter
  • Isabella Smith to anyone she's aligned with whatsoever.
• Running Gag: Really, too many on the Funny 115 to count.
• The Dog Bites Back: Greg has no problems using Paschal's weaknesses and psychology to his advantage, but feels guilty about actually voting him out. Paschal has no such qualms when he finds out about this.
• The Hero Gets Voted Out: Spoiler alert! Overlapping quite a bit with Hero of Another Story, examples include Ethan, Lex (in his alliance's eyes at least), Mike (Although uh, given he was eventually revealed to be running a pedophilic scheme in real life, he might not qualify these days...), Frank, Kathy, Colleen, and Gretchen from Hawaii, Elizabeth and Gina from Alaska (But only in-universe), and Gabriel Cade from Greece. Pretty much nobody qualifies from the gamebot cast of Tonga aside from maybe Tenzil and Anna. Finally, Okinawa has Amy Twieg's dramatic departure.
  • Actually that was pretty long... to highlight, exceptions to this rule include Kathy (2002 Hawaii), Paschal and Helen (Alaska), Stephanie (Greece), and Isabella Smith (both times). You may notice that all but one of these ended up losing anyways...
• Wham Episode:
  • In the updated Hawaii, almost every post-merge episode qualifies. In particular though...
    • Take two. The Ahi tribe is decimated when John flips to the minority alliance to better his position, sending Lex home.
    • Checkmate. Gretchen inadvertently gets Colleen voted out trying to hand the win to her. Alicia backstabs Gretchen, leaving her on the bottom, and manages to wring a final 2 deal out of John Carroll.
    • Immediately after the above episode, is The Last Supper. Alicia of all people saves Gretchen by giving her immunity, cracking the final 3 alliance of John, Vecepia, and Tina with some well chosen words.
  • Alaska
    • Beware the Dark Side. Greg Buis reveals his strategic side and gets Elizabeth voted out, all without anyone suspecting a thing.
  • Okinawa
    • Revenge of the Outcasts. The entire game is flipped on its head when Henry and Mike are chosen to divide the tribes up. Despite Henry receiving a bevy of information from Mike, he is still voted out by his new tribe, and Amy gets herself into an alliance with Chris and Joni.
    • While the cat's away. Michelle tells Chris she's worried about a (false) plan from her tribe to take her out, leading to Chris throwing the Challenge and trying to get Amy out. Lance realizes the ruse at the last second and Chris is voted out instead.
    • Good day Sunshine. The Sato tribe seems doomed when Joni flips on them, but Isabella decides to throw away her tribe's advantage and side with the Satos. Despite Matt outing her as a traitor in front of everyone, she spares him, getting Ryan out. In-Universe as well, literally nobody sees this coming.
    • The Fallen Angel. Isabella wants to side with Matt, but he decides to make her the first Kamiya on the chopping block, resulting in his ouster, and Kamiya's reassured dominance, when Isabella wins immunity and Hogan flips to Joni's side.
    • Intensity. Michelle completely thwarts one of Isabella's plans for the first time all game, getting herself voted out in the process.