Day 26: Favorite Tribe or Alliance
Survivor 39-Day Challenge
Luckily, my favorite tribe is also my favorite alliance of all time. The dysfunctional purple tribe of Casaya in Panama (2006) is entertaining, for starters.
Originally, since Panama’s starting tribes were divided by age and sex, Casaya was the tribe of older women. But that’s not exactly the configuration I am in love with. One of the few gold mines formed by the tribe switch twist was the new Casaya tribe. This Casaya tribe and alliance I love consists of Aras, Danielle, Cirie, Shane, Courtney, and Bruce.
Once Cirie escaped the inevitable execution from the early days of Casaya (sacrificing her fellow older women Tina from the original Casaya and Melinda on the switched-up Casaya) and after Bobby got eliminated, it became an interesting dynamic over there. While testosterone reigned supreme at La Mina led by Terry, drama and chaos were stringent to the Casaya tribe.
The composition of the Casaya craziness was interesting, too. It’s almost as if it was randomly selected by BrantSteele’s Survivor simulation. Casaya tribe photographed perfectly the phrase “people from different walks of life” as stated usually at the start of the season.
The glue that hold Casaya for as long as it could was Bruce. The art teacher was the calming force within the tribe and everyone was gravitated toward him amid the chaos that surrounded. The moral of camp went down because of his medical evacuation. It was painful both for the viewers and the tribe (sans Terry, maybe).
Then there’s Courtney, the free spirit who was often misunderstood. Because everyone was competitive, her different approach and demeanor most of the times was the center of ire, especially from Shane. Even Courtney’s apartment was attacked, it was as ridiculous as it sounded. Despite being despised around camp and at some point was called the most annoying, she managed to last until the Final 6. The orchestration of her blindside is one of the most influential moves in Survivor history, thanks to the genius that is Cirie.
It’s not at all debatable to say that Shane, along with Cirie, was the star of Panama. Shane’s one of the most frantic, the most neurotic, and the most entertaining castaways this game has ever seen. So, it was a surprise when he was dropped off the cast for Cambodia. He’s an amazing Survivor character. And when he huddled his Casaya alliance when the tribe was about to merge with La Mina, I thought, this dude might be painted as just a character, but he’s playing alright.
I talked about Cirie in length on a previous post, but we were first introduced to this couch potato turned Survivor legend in Panama. Cirie being part of the greatest tribe-slash-alliance ever is no accident. Her storyline was the definition of the word development. From that older woman who’s scared of leaves to the strategist that came up with the revolutionary 3–2–1 move at the Final 6, she just proved on just her first try why she’s one of the best.
Danielle was the competitive one, who would not back down against anyone in challenges or confrontation. Her strong personality was amazing to watch as she tried to navigate and balance her crazy alliance, especially her relationship with Shane, another strong personality with whom she always clashed. She made deals with everyone on Panama, an underrated villainous move from her, which she unfortunately had to cut as the game progressed and for her to move further and ultimately take a seat as a finalist.
She was up against Aras in the finals. Next to Bruce, Aras was the leader of the Casaya tribe, especially on post-merge. Such leadership was implicitly the reason of the tension between them. Despite him being the youngest, he was able to gather all of these crazies into one voting group and made sure they were always on the same page. He also survived the God Idol™ from Terry who targeted him on most tribal councils post-merge.
With Danielle’s demeanor and body language at the Final Tribal Council and with Aras’s more personable narrative and coming out on top with his rivalry against Terry, he won the season by three votes. He’s definitely one of my favorite castaways ever.
If it wasn’t for Terry’s immunity run at the merge and Bruce’s unfortunate medical situation, Casaya tribe would’ve definitely pagong-ed La Mina and they’re the Final 6. However, they managed to dominate the merge still; it was entertaining to say the least. It was a different kind of domination, and for a dysfunctional tribe-slash-alliance like Casaya, it’s a huge feat.
Runner-up (Alliance): Jalapao 3 (JT, Stephen, Taj) + Erinn, Survivor: Tocantins
Runner-up (Tribe): Switched-up Dakal (Tony, Denise, Jeremy, Kim, & Sandra), Survivor: Winners at War
Post-script: Just for the name, I love the Tadhana tribe from Blood vs. Water (2013). Tadhana is the Filipino word for destiny, and it is one of the most beautiful words in the Philippine language. Coincidentally, Aras, as a returnee, was also a part of the switched-up Tadhana tribe on Season 27.
