Brandon answers Shawna's questions!

Shawna, I’m glad you see that I did try and keep all my options open and that I was trying very hard to make it to the end despite any situation… it just turned out that the situation that won out was this Final 3.

I didn’t turn on my tribe sooner because I had no real problem with them in the tribal stage of the game or at the beginning of the merge. I was very much pro-Jaburu at our first merged Tribal Council, especially since you guys were targeting Ami, who I was close to. And then the next TC, I think a lot of Jaburu was concentrating on the numbers advantage so that we had that cushion. Once that TC was over, I probably was most ready to plant the seed and try to start wheelin’ and dealin’. I didn’t want to do this alone either; I asked Shambo what she thought about voting out a Jaburu soon and she didn’t think it was a good idea. I would have just done it myself without telling anybody, but I think it would have done me more harm than good. I would have been the only one to turn on my tribe, and since I hadn’t talked to a lot of Tambaqui anyway, I would be worried that I would just be voted out in the next TC since Jaburu would obviously be targeting me and maybe the Tambaqui members would take that opportunity to vote me out.

I knew the numbers were there to get JP out many times in the merge, but I didn’t feel fully comfortable doing it until the Final 7, and lo and behold, he wins immunity saving himself. It didn’t end up working out because of this, and because of the fact that there wasn’t enough communication and unity with the Tambaqui tribe. I wish the cast in general would have been more active so that I could really work with the options, but it all came down to a) I didn’t trust just PMing someone and expecting them to do what I suggested and me looking like a fool after that, and b) I would hear people had their mind set already when I would come online and try to start throwing names out, and their minds being set was contrary to what I had in mind.

I think in spite of me not turning on my tribe sooner, I still deem it deserving of the win. It shows that I was thinking and that I was genuine when I would speak to the Tambaqui members. What they did with that generosity was up to them (them targeting Shambo at F7 was a dealbreaker for me, to be honest). I tried my best to run numbers through my head all the time and unfortunately for the problems I specified above, it just was not working out. The intention was there for sure, but that intention, even from the Tambaqui side, wasn’t shared.