Survivor Caramoan: Dawn is a Huge Butthole

“There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for this treachery.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

When it was all over, I just kind of sat there.  There was no feeling of surprise; no excitement resulting from a blindside well executed. 

I felt dirty, for I had just seen an act of unspeakable callousness.

Survivor is a game that only ends well for 1 person in the end.  The road to victory is sometimes an honorable one but far more often it is paved with deceit and coldness.  Millions of viewers have accepted this reality and, to a large extent, relished it.

Despite this foreknowledge, when this particular vote ended, I was left with one inescapable conclusion:

If there is any justice in this world or the next, Dawn the Cryer is coming back in the next life as a toilet brush.

I can still see her racing around like a crazy woman, pouring her anguish upon a sympathetic Brenda when she lost her bottom teeth in the ocean and promising to all the great powers that she will quit the game if they were lost.

A lesser human being (someone like…well…let’s say, Dawn) would have jumped in the ocean, shoved the teeth under a loose rock and said, “Well Dawn, looks like they’re gone.  Somewhere out there is a puffer fish with some really bitching bottom teeth.  Sucks eh?”

Bam.  Just like that, one of your primary opponents is out of the game and you are that much closer to a million bucks.

But not Brenda.  She donned a mask, dove in the murky water, and somehow fished Judas’ teeth from the bottom of the ocean. 

Were it not for the fact that cynicism(and observational skills) runs deep in my veins, I might have almost believed that Dawn, given her reaction to seeing her beloved teeth again) recognized the value of this act of kindness and acknowledged the debt that was now owed.  Her continued existence in this game is due solely to the humanity of Brenda.

When Brenda won the award challenge to spend time with loved ones, she chose Dawn to accompany her before presented with the Ogre’s choice immediately thereafter.  Yet another act of kindness to a woman who seems to have made it her strategy to breakdown shrieking and shaking like a professional wailer hired to work a sheik’s funeral.

Dawn had the power to make the debt right by supporting her savior for just 1 more week against the wishes of the remaining players, but instead took the slime-ball way out.

It is better to stabbed with the sword of an enemy (Russell Hantz/Richard Hatch) than to be knifed in the back by a friend (Dawn).

Brenda took a bullet for an emotionally and physically damaged Dawn just a few days prior only to see the woman she saved brandishing the gun.

 

To add to the senselessness of it all, this act of unspeakable bastardy by Dawn closed the door on any chance she had to win a million dollars.  Erik or Eddie (Sherri would likely collapse from exhaustion before completing the effort) could walk over to the jury, defecate on their laps, and then return to their seats and still get more votes than Dawn now that she has betrayed her protector in a way that feels vile even in Survivor terms.

Reflecting upon Dawn’s game, it becomes clear that she is a virus; a parasite.

Donning her favored persona of a weepy and vulnerable mess, she finds a host and exploits their humanity by dumping all of her angst, fears, heartaches, and depression upon them and then draws strength from the positive energy they give her out of kindness. 

Having established a bond with the new host(who is now weakened from assuaging the anguish of Dawn’s fragile psyche) she promises loyalty and friendship, giving them a false sense of their position in the game and in life.

Secure in the knowledge that they have helped out a friend in need and can count on her support and integrity, the host makes game changing decisions (Corinne/Malcolm) but the parasite abandons them to their deaths, seeking another person upon which to prey.

The virus that is Dawn is every bit the villain of a Johnny Fairplay, Richard Hatch, or Russell Hantz. 

In fact she is more so.

I’ll take Assholery over ingratitude, hypocracy, and betrayal any day.

If Dawn were unopposed and  I were on a jury that could not leave until we rendered a unanimous vote awarding her a million dollars, I’d pen a letter of apology to my family, slice my wrists, and leap face-first into the bonfire in front of a horrified Jeff Probst.

You are a horrible human being Dawn. 

May the fleas of a thousand Camels infest your armpits.