History YMMV / MariosSurvivorArchives

* CreatorsFavorite:
** Chris Daugherty from the original funny 115. Completely justified in that Mario's main intention was to let people realize how funny ''Vanuatu'' was.
** Mario has admitted that Tina Wesson is his favorite ''Survivor'' of all time, with Rob C and Rob Mariano close behind (though he has become disillusioned with Mariano).

* AcceptableTargets: Russel Hantz.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: From Okinawa, Mike Ruff is polarizing at best despite winning 5-2 over the best strategist in the game. It's not hard to see why, as Mike has some extremely low moments, and isn't a particularly good strategist despite [[UpToEleven being one of the cockiest people]] in [[SmugSnake Kamiya]]. Of particular note is a scene where he utterly ''snaps'' at Matt (An 18 year old while Mike is in his 40s), and drives him into sleeping in the woods after going into a rage. Why? [[DisproportionateRetribution Michelle threw some throwing stars into his Gnome (That he didn't even like) and he assumed Matt was to blame.]] He then proceeds to monologue about how Matt is toast for daring to damage the Gnome (that he thinks his tribe loves).

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: While this is generally averted due to Mario fleshing out most all the characters fairly well in his stories, there are two notable instances of this, that very much vary based on how much you like reading about gameplay. Justified in that these are based off of survivor roleplaying games, which are harder to control.
** ''Tonga'' is more difficult to like than most stories, as the characters are not fleshed out much, and the ones that are are booted early on (Tenzil is one of the most memorable characters and he goes out 6th). Combine that with an astonishingly bleak ending and an unrootable winner and you have quite the enigma as far as Mario's stories go.
** ''Okinawa'' is pretty hard to get into from episode 9 onwards, as [[spoiler:the rootable characters don't have a chance in hell to avoid being Pagonged, and all the people in power are not very easy to sympathize with, to say the least (the one exception essentially being the jury goat). This is compounded by the winner being a rather hard to like floater, whos win doesn't really please strategists or fans of character development]]. This isn't quite as bad as ''Tonga'' though, as the characters are at the very least fleshed out and memorable.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: From Okinawa, Mike Ruff is polarizing at best despite winning 5-2 over the best strategist in the game. It's not hard to see why, as Mike has some extremely low moments, and isn't a particularly good strategist despite [[UpToEleven being one of the cockiest people]] in [[SmugSnake Kamiya]]. Of particular note is a scene where he utterly ''snaps'' at Matt (An 18 year old while Mike is in his 40s), and drives him into sleeping in the woods after going into a rage. Why? [[DisproportionateRetribution Michelle threw some throwing stars into his Gnome (That he didn't even like) and he assumed Matt was to blame.]] He then proceeds to monologue about how Matt is toast for daring to damage the Gnome (that he thinks his tribe loves).
----> '''Mike''' (Directly after the above incident): [[LackOfEmpathy "Right now Matt is just playing into the little guy's hands. He's turned Mario into the victim, not the culprit. And that's even better. So from this point on... the gnome strategy will take on a whole new dimension Mario has suddenly become our martyr."]]

* WhatAnIdiot: [[WhatAnIdiot/MariosSurvivorArchives Has its own page]].

* AcceptableTargets: Russel Hantz, full stop. Sometimes Mario'll be writing a 3-part essay (with visuals) on why he didn't "deserve" to win [[Characters/SurvivorHeroesVsVillains Heroes vs Villains]] as much as many claim, and sometimes he'll be calling him [[http://funny115.com/turdfight.htm Turd Ferguson]] when recapping a confrontation with him.

* HarsherInHindsight[=/=]HilariousInHindsight: Depending on how one feels about it, but knowing now that Mario Lanza '''hates''' ''All-Stars'' and loves the season after it (''Vanuatu''), his comments on All-Stars before the season began are... interesting to reread.

* HarsherInHindsight:

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Mario Lanza himself is this both in ''Tonga'' and ''The Survivor Historians''. Those who don't like him tend to label him a somewhat sanctimonious know-it-all (at least until later seasons of ''Historians''). This is worse in ''Tonga'', where [[spoiler:he spends the game being a jerk to everyone. Even worse is the finale where he's unable to comprehend the possibility that Isabella outplayed him because "she reminds him of Amber" and attempts to manipulate the jury into voting against her. His move where he wants to be the deciding vote against her (as he just KNOWS he'll be the star of the story) is painful to watch even to the cast.]] Others though like his confidence and devotion to good storytelling, and don't really mind being informed on older seasons.

** In ''Alaska'', Mark Burnett (and by extension, Mario) takes great pride in having a final immunity challenge that even the smartest player is unable to manipulate. Mario apparently believed in this so much that he used it as the final immunity challenge in Okinawa... [[EpicFail where the smartest player instantly figures out how to manipulate the challenge to her advantage]].\\

'''Alaska''': ''Greg had gone over this in his head and decided that, yes, Helen winning wouldn't be so bad. The only key was to make sure that Paschal -didn't- win. But there was a catch. This challenge was nearly impossible to manipulate. Burnett had outsmarted the nature boy.''\\

** Lance from ''Okinawa'' is liked by Amy and Hogan. Oh, and by the readers for being one of the few people in ''Okinawa'' not to be an emotionless Gamebot, {{Jerkass}}, SmugSnake, or make a foolish mistake that ends up costing them the game. Everyone in the season however, looks down on him for not being a major strategist and disliking Kamaya's ethics. (Which even Mario Lanza stated were ''really'' pushing the envelope)

* AcceptableTargets:
** Russel Hantz, full stop. Sometimes Mario'll be writing a 3-part essay (with visuals) on why he didn't "deserve" to win [[Characters/SurvivorHeroesVsVillains Heroes vs Villains]] as much as many claim, and sometimes he'll be calling him [[http://funny115.com/turdfight.htm Turd Ferguson]] when recapping a confrontation with him.
* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** Mario Lanza himself is this both in ''Tonga'' and ''The Survivor Historians''. Those who don't like him tend to label him a somewhat sanctimonious know-it-all (at least until later seasons of ''Historians''). This is worse in ''Tonga'', where [[spoiler:he spends the game being a jerk to everyone. Even worse is the finale where he's unable to comprehend the possibility that Isabella outplayed him because "she reminds him of Amber" and attempts to manipulate the jury into voting against her. His move where he wants to be the deciding vote against her (as he just KNOWS he'll be the star of the story) is painful to watch even to the cast.]] Others though like his confidence and devotion to good storytelling, and don't really mind being informed on older seasons.
* CreatorsFavorite: Chris Daugherty from the original funny 115. Completely justified in that Mario's main intention was to let people realize how funny ''Vanuatu'' was.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
** From Okinawa, Mike Ruff is polarizing at best despite winning 5-2 over the best strategist in the game. It's not hard to see why, as Mike has some extremely low moments, and isn't a particularly good strategist despite [[UpToEleven being one of the cockiest people]] in [[SmugSnake Kamiya]]. Of particular note is a scene where he utterly ''snaps'' at Matt (An 18 year old while Mike is in his 40s), and drives him into sleeping in the woods after going into a rage. Why? [[DisproportionateRetribution Michelle threw some throwing stars into his Gnome (That he didn't even like) and he assumed Matt was to blame.]] He then proceeds to monologue about how Matt is toast for daring to damage the Gnome (that he thinks his tribe loves).

** Also from ''Okinawa'' we have Mike Ruff, who's supposed to be the good guy underdog winner... but participates in being nastier than several of the villains, and just kinda floats along getting lucky not to be booted. Despite this, he's really well liked by Mario, who even calls him "the right person to win" so... YMMV.

*** On a similar note, Mario notes in a prediction Column for ''Marquesas'' that Rob was booted in the #7 spot like Jeff Varner and Gretchen Cordy were, and that "there's no shame in being compared to those two players". People find Rob's outing of John Carroll to be terrible [[ValuesDissonance nowadays]], and years later, Jeff Varner wound up doing a similar thing.

* CrossesTheLineTwice: ''Several'' of his [=Funny115=] entries have jokes that fill this quota, but some of the standouts are:
** That's right, Randy Baily was the first person on ''Survivor'' to burn his tribe buff. [[NearDeathExperience Well, unless you count Mike Skupin.]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: While this is generally averted due to Mario fleshing out most all the characters fairly well in his stories, there are two notable instances of this, that very much vary based on how much you like reading about gameplay. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that these are based off of survivor roleplaying games, which are harder to control.

* WhatAnIdiot: [[WhatAnIdiot/MariosSurvivorArchives Has its own page]].

** Jeez, every single thing pertaining to Michael Skupin (Who did some very despicable things that came to light in 2016). From Mario being absolutely horrified that the producers would ''dare''

** In the same prediction comments, he predicts that future ''Survivor'' seasons will be marked by how many seasons apart they were from Rob C's existence (since they were incredibly strategic that season). As an example, he gives ''"That was great when Josh won Survivor: Mexico. Remember him? That was four seasons after Rob"''. Many years down the line, a hispanic man named Josh won ''Big Brother 19'', much to the delight of many fans.

** In the original [=Funny115=], [[http://funny115.com/v1/79.htm Rob's slamming of the Rotu tribe]] has a minor but noticeable issue. The insults to Zoe (Saying she's a man) is mentioned, as is the General's (Saying he has a little sausage). Rob's outing of John Carroll's sexuality however is ignored, something that wouldn't be ignored today.
----> '''Mario:''' Rob will probably get a lot of flak for his un-PC comments this week, but I'm not bothered by them. A lot of these contestants know that the juiciest sound bytes will get you more airplay, and Rob is probably no stranger to playing to the cameras just to be remembered. Although if I were him, I would stay away from Zoe and Robert (and his little sausage) at the reunion show... [[note]](Note the lack of needing to be afraid of the outed gay person)[[/note]]

* ValuesResonance:
** On the flip side, Mario's writing about the Vecepia thing is itself this.

** Gretchen in the original in particular has an utterly random vendetta against Mike Skupin and was never really called out for it. Though this is pretty HilariousInHindsight considering Mike later turned out to be a Pedophile in real life.

*** In the remake, she's actually a welcome deconstruction. Her attempts to be heroic are unable to allow her to succeed in Survivor and she's constantly in danger, her attempt to get Colleen to win actually get her voted out, she only makes it to the end because everyone assumes GoodIsDumb is in full effect and leaves her for last, and she finally learns to play strategically by the end enough to make a last attempt for the win. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] at one point when the other players get miffed at Jeff's admiration of her past heroic nature, commenting that she isn't the only one that deserves admiration, even if everyone else is a "villain".

* {{Narm}}: Lex's reaction to being voted out, which even the [[Characters/SurvivorAllStars most extreme version of Lex]] might find to be a little overdramatic.

** He correctly predicts Amber and Jenna as the possible winners (By the final 3, they're the only possibilities)

** Jesus, every single thing pertaining to Michael Skupin (Who did some [[PaedoHunt very despicable]] things that came to light in 2016). From Mario being absolutely horrified that the producers would ''dare'' leave him out of ''All-Stars'', to his [=Funny115=] articles on Skupin's psychopathy, to Skupin's participation in both versions of ''All-Stars Hawaii'', a good deal of Mario's older content can be a little hard to read for this man alone.

** Mario himself has made many a comment on modern ''Survivor'', generally being very negative about it's increasing focus on strategy, and decreasing focus on character and location. As such, many modern fans see him as a grumpy old man who drives his fans into needlessly despising modern Survivor for being different... even though these opinions were not uncommon long before Mario announced his.
** Some are uncomfortable at his strong defenses of numerous controversial figures in ''Survivor'' history like Lex in ''All-Stars'', Lisi from ''Fiji'', and particularly Rodney and Dan from ''Worlds Apart''.
** People very heavily associate him with writing about epic Survivor "Downfalls" in the [=Funny115=], to the point where several people were outraged about the lack of them in 3.0 despite his rationale for it.

** Jesus, every single thing pertaining to Michael Skupin (Who did some [[PaedoHunt very despicable]] things that came to light in 2016). From Mario being absolutely horrified that the producers would ''dare'' leave him out of ''All-Stars'', to his Funny115 articles on Skupin's psychopathy, to his participation in both versions of ''All-Stars Hawaii'', a good deal of Mario's older content can be a little hard to read for this man alone.