Board Thread:Fourty-Two Iconic Moments/@comment-7785749-20150103061609

From twenty-one seasons of our ORG, forty-two of the most iconic moments in its history have been brought together and ranked. Starting at #42, another entry will be posted each day until completion.

"Moments" is a loose term to include any individual moment, overarching storyline, or any other source of notoriety, infamy, or notice.



#42 - Côte Can't Merge (Various Seasons)

#41 - Andrei's Immunity Run (Papua New Guinea, Episodes 8-11)

#40 - Savanes Sucks (Côte d'Ivoire, Episodes 1-7)

#39 - Ashes to Ashes (All-Stars, Episode 6)

#38 - Beyoncé's Divine Intervention (Madagascar, Episodes 12-13)

#37 - A Random Idol Play (Cuba, Episode 7)

#36 - An Anarchic Advent (Anarchy, Episode 2)

#35 - Uspekh (Kamchatka)

#34 - An InZane Tribal Council (Sardinia, Episode 12)

#33 - The Askja Cockroach (Salvation, Episodes 3-9)

#32 - Put a Nail In That Coffin (Peru, Episode 8)



#31 - Uli Quits (Heroes vs. Villains, Episode 9)

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">This entry comes with a different tone than what you might expect from this countdown. This isn't a moment with fun comedic irony, or one where we can poke fun at the misfortunes or poor choices of those involved; this was an infamous, controversial, and serious event. So different tone. But yeah, this was a big moment with a big impact, so let's get to it.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">Every now and then, seasons will have their fair bit of controversy. I remember that during my time in Polynesia, our bit of controversy came very early with the whole SockGate scandal. And returnee seasons, unfortunately, often get the brunt of controversy more than newbie seasons do. Blame it on high expectations, big personalities, conflicting opinions - whatever the reason, that's just how it is.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">And Heroes vs. Villains is far and away no exception. This was a season riddled with scandal both inside and outside of the context of the game, from the huge pool of players asked to return without knowledge of their alternate status, to alleged information leaks coming to players from moderators and fans alike, to a hugely controversial post-merge twist that ended up ousting Jessy from the game (r.i.p. Jessy).

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">None of those moments have made this countdown. SockGate didn't make this countdown either, in case you were wondering. All of these moments were infamous, they were scandalous, they were controversial, and they brought something out in the community. They were big.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">But the reason why serious events such as those were unable to crack the countdown, while Uli's quit was, is audience reaction itself. SockGate, Jessy's boot, the HvV cast reveal - they were more of huge moments for the community as a whole, when everyone got sent into a tizzy because of how they felt. In the grand scheme of things, all of them were definitely important and relevant to the game, and if this was a 115 moment countdown, they'd be on. But they're not, because while they were iconic in the community, they weren't as iconic in the sense of the game.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">Uli's quit was, and it was huge.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">First of all, Uli's quit was the second quit of the season. That's bad enough as it is, but this is a second quit in an all-returnee season. The cast that the hosts had worked so hard to produce ended up producing not one but two people who felt that they needed to leave the game for reasons of their own machinations.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">Secondly, Uli was playing a strong game. Uli is a phenomenal player as it is. The way that he plays, and the style in which he does it, had grown somewhat of a cult following leading up towards Heroes vs. Villains. 6th place finishes in his two previous seasons had many a viewer hoping he would place 6th once more, cementing his place in infamy as the devil's player, the villain of all villains. Uli was even the one who went about organizing Aly's boot. Uli was in a solid position in the game, at least in his tribe. Would he have made it to Final Tribal Council? Who knows, but he definitely has a shot if the Villains could've tied the numbers up. Could he have won? We'll never know. Hindsight bias is 20/20. But Uli was playing strongly and he was in a good position, so his quit serves to tarnish all that he had accomplished over his twenty-two day stay.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">Thirdly, from a narrative perspective, there's irony. First, in the Day 21 - Immunity Results thread, when user DanielABC wonders out loud if there will be another quitter following in Joshie's footsteps, Uli replies that he doubts it and speaks in support of the hosts. And just the episode before, Alejandro was considering quitting the game due to his dissatisfaction with the hosting, but eventually ended up staying. Good for Alejandro! The foreshadowing enhances the overall impact of this moment because not only had Alejandro just decided not to quit, Uli now decides to quit...

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">for the exact same reason, and that reason being the very same hosts he had previously expressed support of. Fourthly, we come to the rationale for Uli's quit, and here we are. The reason why Uli felt like he needed to quit the game was because of his dissatisfaction with the way the hosts were doing their jobs. And this sentiment didn't come out of nowhere - since the very beginning of the game, criticism was coming at the hosts from all sides. Whether it was the aforementioned way they went about asking players to return, whether it was the alleged information leaks, whether it was the accusations of bias and favoritism when it came to challenges, or whether it was just an overall distaste for how well the job was being done, the hosts were under fine. I give my props to Tyler for doing the best he could in this situation, because I know it couldn't have been easy. But this was eventually what drove Uli to quit. There wasn't some outside reason drawing him away. His interest in the game hadn't waned or disappeared. Uli found himself incapable of enjoying the game not due to any actual in-game circumstances, but because of the meta-game. He wasn't having fun because he found it unfair and he left. The legacy of a modern legend ends on a sour note.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">And that is the story of Uli's quit. The end. Right?

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">Nope.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">The other part of why this moment managed to crack the countdown while other moments of a similar controversial vein didn't is because of just how important it ended up being. Uli's quit ensured that the Villains would be down in numbers at the merge, and so Uli is indirectly responsible for the boots of Jerby and Alejandro, to a considerable lesser extent Eddie, and to a slightly lesser extent than that, Miguel.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">The fact that Adam, Eddie, and Miguel were able to outlast two Heroes was incredibly impressive, and the fact that Adam was able to pull off a win despite such a numerical deficit is inspiring.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">tl;dr: Uli is the biggest and perhaps the greatest character the ORG has ever seen. He is one of the few players that the viewers can understand and get a handle of just by watching the season because Uli loves to be known. And then this legendary and good player controversially pulls himself from the game because he is unable to deal with the way the hosts are doing their jobs - in spite of Alejandro deciding against quitting for the same reason, and Uli offering supportive words to said hosts soon before his quit because of said hosts - which ends up creating the Watubela tribe and everything that sprung forth from it, spanning from the falls of Jerby and Alejandro to Adam's phoenix rise. Uli created the legacy of Heroes vs. Villains, made the season what it was, because he couldn't stand what it was, taking hits to his own legacy because of it.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">P.S. - When listing controversial moments that were unable to make it to the countdown, you'll notice that nothing was mentioned from Madagascar. I wonder why...

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">P.P.S. - Because it's impossible to write an entry about a character for our ORG (unlike the real Survivor), it's something that won't happen on this countdown. This is the closest we get to that. Uli is also the only contestant that I would've ever considered writing a character entry for.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">P.P.P.S. - Because of the wait for this entry, take a hint for the next one: It makes the list more for how historical it was than for anything else.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">P.P.P.P.S. - We've got two more Heroes vs. Villains entries on the countdown, and I promise they're a lot less somber than this one.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">P.P.P.P.P.S. - r.i.p. Jessy 2k14 <ac_metadata title="#31 - Uli Quits"> </ac_metadata>