why MamaKim Johnson deserved to win Survivor Africa

[wiseguy182]

Yes. I understand that Ethan Zohn is often regarded as one of the nicest, most ethical players/winners to have ever competed on Survivor. He was athletic, good-looking and did great things after the show. He made no major blunders. And to a certain extent, I agree with that assessment. He deserves all of the accolades that were heaped on him.

But...despite all of those positive attributes, he was nothing special as a player. He lucked out largely by being on a majority alliance on a majority tribe, an alliance he really didn't even create on his own accord. He benefitted from a particularly dumb, bitter, biased and hostile jury. His jury performance, quite frankly, sucked. And his performance on All-Stars was largely forgettable, outside of his blunder in an immunity challenge and his incessant whining when he found out he was going home.

His opponent in the final 2 was MamaKim Johnson. She was never given any hope of winning next to Ethan, and was supposed to lose in a clean sweep, but 2 jury members changed their votes at the last minute. And yet, while her existence in the finals was mostly being an extra member of Boran, she did 2 remarkable things: 1) She won the last 2 immunity challenges when nobody gave her a chance in Hell, and 2), she won a physical immunity challenge against 2 much younger males. That, in and of itself, led me to know she deserved to win.

Here I make the case for MamaKim deserving to win All-Stars, and I'll break it down vote-by-vote.

Tom ~ Tom was every bit the hillbilly he was widely regarded as, and largely voted for Ethan because he was a member of his alliance. Or a better term might be "good ole boys club". He had verbally dissed Kim while casting his final vote because she had suggested that he keep his voice down during tribal council votes (which was to his benefit). He looked like a biased jerk in doing so.

T-Bird ~ It was clear she voted for Ethan because she liked his personality. And probably his looks. Not so much for gameplay or any rational reason, which is really a horrible way to vote.

Frank ~ Frank had become so obnoxious toward the end that even T-Bird, his longtime alliance partner, voted against him. His descent into madness was complete with conservative craziness. He had congratulated Ethan for making it into the finals, but didn't do the same for Kim. Isn't it more remarkable that an old lady made into the finals that a young ahletic guy? Frank, true to form, voted for Ethan.

Kelly ~ I'm not even going to attempt to touch this one. Yes, she was undeservedly voted off by a crazy, paranoid, vengeful Lex. But her methodology for voting (having them pick a number), based on some movie she was a fan of, and her hatred towards Kim (and Ethan) even though Lex was the one who had all the control voting her off was unjustified.

Lex ~ Surprisingly, Lex appeared to be one of the most sane of the jury members, which is completely out of character for him. He voted for Ethan because, again, they were in an alliance together. Kim arguably was too, but logic is never something Lex was concerned with.

Brandon ~ I'll include Brandon just for the hell of it because he intended to vote for Ethan until Ethan pulled an extremely dumb move and insulted Brandon during his own question. Way to throw a vote away.

[wiseguy182]

Though I do think Mama Kim erred in selecting Ethan to take to the finals instead of Lex. I still think Kim would have lost, but in taking Ethan, she was risking an embarassing 7-0 shutout, where as taking Lex would have guaranteed her two votes (T-bird and Kelly, as there was no way they would have voted for Lex). Granted, the men would have likely all voted for Lex, and Kim P probably would have still voted for Mama Kim as it would have been a vote strictly down gender lines. But at least this way, she loses 3-4, so it comes out really close.