YMMV / Survivor Mystery Isles

• Alternative Character Interpretation: One can make that case about Nathan. Is he really annoying people on purpose out of strategy to get them to underestimate him, or is he just using that as an excuse to be a Troll?
  • Also with Sam. Is she just a girl who is doing whatever it takes to win the game, no matter how ruthless or unorthodox it may be, or is she a Tragic Monster who has let past hardships in her life define how she acts in a leadership position, becoming a full on sociopath as a result of them?
• Awesome Ego: The Biff. Full-stop.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Eliza is either one of the best characters in the story due to being one of the more fleshed out and complex characters in the story, being genuinely kind-hearted, and being an underdog who is likable but with the flaws of being too emotional and being terrible at the strategic portion of the game, or a whiny idiot who constantly puts herself into awful situations instead of playing the game hard and then complains about it, as well as being way too positively edited.
  • Nathan is either an absolutely hilarious and welcome addition to the cast thanks to his unique personality and sense of humor, or an annoying brat who has lasted way longer than he should have. However, in spite of him being a Base-Breaking Character, he has a large enough fanbase of the people who like him that he manages to win the fan favorite award in the end.
  • Lily is either a really engaging, sympathetic, and unique take on the Shrinking Violet archetype, or incredibly whiny and stupid with how she never socializes enough with people and then complains that she's on the outs.
  • Yash is either a really great older person archetype on Survivor who is still willing to play the game hard, or a self-righteous hypocrite who gets mad when she thinks other people are scheming against her, yet does so herself.
  • Biff is either even better than in his original season by his original author with his addition of hidden depths and is really funny, or is an obnoxious douchebag who lasted way longer than he should have.
  • Gaz is either a really fun and complex anti-hero who is constantly put in really tough situations in the game and is really relatable, has a really fun personality, and has an adorable showmance with Eliza, or an annoying, hypocritical asshole with a forced positive edit who acts unjustly morally superior to other people.
  • Noonan is either a complex anti-hero with an interesting backstory and motivations or a huge, irritating hypocrite. However, the audience softens up on her after she actually gets called out on her hypocrisy in the Final Tribal Council.
• Creator Backlash: The author openly admits when Gaz is eliminated that he could've done a much better job with portraying their character, and they came across as way more unlikable than he intended them to ever be.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Most of the characters in the story are pretty divisive in one way or another, but some of them manage to be universally loved.
  • C.A.S. is arguably the most popular character in the entire story and has received unanimous praise for his Adorkable and Kind-Hearted personality, subverting the "evil robot" trope, his really unique and interesting Hidden Depths with why he's playing the game, his odd friendships with Eliza, Sasha, and Lily and Todd after the swap, and his unique insights on the game and the people around him.
  • Ace started off as a Base-Breaking Character, but winded up being very popular by the end of his stay for his Tragic Villain tendencies and how he's a very realistic take on ordinary, good people outside the game just being too consumed by the game that they don't realize what they've become.
  • Bryce has also received tons of praise for being a really engaging Byronic Hero with a fun personality, his endearing Intergenerational Friendship with Kadie, and his backstory and motivations. Many people were extremely upset to see him go as early as he did and wished he could've lasted longer.
  • Todd is extremely popular as well for his interesting take on the I Just Want to Have Friends archetype while still trying to play the game hard, his fun Minecraft antics, and his willingness to shake things up constantly.
  • And lastly, Kadie has become very popular among the audience for her adorable personality, sweet relationships with several members of the cast, and having a constant sense of natural positivity and fun throughout her time in the game. And best of all for the audience, she actually wins in the end.
• Elimination Houdini: Eliza. As of the beginning of episode 11, Eliza has survived seven tribal councils, including one where she was outnumbered by original tribal lines 6-1 and another where she was outnumbered by original tribal lines 5-1! Unfortunately for her though, it was too good to last, as at the merge she is majorly blindsided by one of her closest friends in C.A.S. after being seen as too big of a threat.
  • Lily as well. She's constantly on the outs of her tribe due to not being able to make very many friends or be social enough and is constantly slated as a target to go home, yet never actually does due to her tribe continuously winning challenges. And even in episode 7, when she's supposed to go home, she miraculously survives due to nothing of her own doing.
  • Biff takes this trope up to eleven. While he's only attended tribal once so far, Biff has been widely disliked and constantly targeted by his tribe due to his incredibly abrasive and arrogant personality, over-eating, getting into fights in challenges all the time, and lack of social skills. He's so disliked that Therese attempts to throw the challenge in episode 3 and fails, then the entire tribe considers throwing the challenge in episode 6 just to get him out but doesn't, and finally, the entire tribe tries to throw the challenge in episode 8 just so they won't have to live with Biff anymore, only to be completely foiled by Lily of all people. Unfortunately for him, his luck finally ends in episode 9.
  • Noonan survives by a single vote in three tribal councils in a row, has her name constantly thrown around during the post-merge, and is tied with Sasha for the most total votes cast against her, with 12. In spite of all this and getting her name written down five times during the jury phase onward, she manages to make it all the way to the Final Tribal Council.
• Jerkass Woobie: Sasha. This poor woman has been arrested for a crime she didn't even commit and has been in and out of prison and on the run for the last four years, has had her entire life taken away from her as a result of all of it, and it's grown her into a very bitter person as a result.
  • Sam qualifies as well once you learn of her backstory where she was treated relentlessly badly at work by her boss for two years and had to keep her job just to pay off her rent.
  • Noonan absolutely takes the cake for this trope. She's one of the few survivors of a series of nuclear explosions, losing all of her family and friends in the process of the explosions. Her face is completely deformed as a result of the explosions as well, she lives in a world with now very few living people in it that looks completely devastated and lifeless, and her only real friend is a robotic dog that she built. Ouch.
• The Scrappy: Some characters just do not resonate well with the audience at all.
  • Steph is almost universally disliked by the fanbase for completely lacking the depth of most of the other characters in the story, being an extremely Flat Character mean girl, and for her blackmail of Bryce. The author has stated she was meant to be a Deconstruction of the overly evil villain archetype, so it's likely this was an Intended Audience Reaction.
• Shocking Elimination: So far, this season in just the pre-merge has Raymond, Slapshot, Clyde, and Tilly-May. And although their eliminations were relatively predictable, people also were shocked by Sasha and Bryce leaving as early as they did, as they both seemed setup to be long-term characters.
  • And then there's the one that REALLY takes the cake - Eliza. She was set up with so many strongly-developed connections going into the merge and with so many plots and storylines, and was seemingly even safe going into the tribal council she eventually left, only for C.A.S. to flip his vote to make a big move and for him and Therese to pull off a massive blindside that managed to complete shock all eight other members of the merged tribe. Not only that, but there were many people who had predicted she would go on to win as a result of all of these storylines and her great edit, and instead she was booted immediately at the merge, completely blowing the game wide open.
  • Other honorable mentions post-merge include C.A.S., Therese, Lily, and Nathan.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Nathan, who is hated in-universe but has a sizable fanbase. So much so that he wins the fan favorite award.
• Wham Episode: Several. But two are especially noteworthy:
  • Episode 7. The "Loners Alliance" that was running the Tubig tribe for the entire pre-merge crumbles at the very first tribal council that they go to, with the Lupa underdogs teaming up with the scheming Tubig outsider Therese, and then convincing Todd to flip on the Loners Alliance, getting out Clyde in a shocking 4-3-1 blindside that completely shifted the power on the tribe, and leaving Noonan on the outs where she was previously running the tribe flawlessly alongside Clyde and Todd.
  • Episode 11 takes the cake. The Hero of the season, Eliza, has successfully made the merge against all odds in spite of being a constant target, and even seems to have several friends on her side despite being down in numbers. Her alliance with Kadie and Gaz is singled out as being obvious, but even then she continues to not be a target and the main target is set as Gaz for being a physical threat. But then, Therese, despite bonding really well with Eliza earlier, shocks everyone when she manages to convince one of Eliza's friends, C.A.S., to flip his vote and ruin the split vote plan, taking out Gaz instead of Eliza when NOBODY in the entire tribe of ten wanted that to happen aside from the two of them, taking out the protagonist of the pre-merge in a stunning 4-3-3 blindside. Even more of a wham moment if you take into account that Eliza had her main enemy, Sam, voted out the previous round, and had strong relationships with all of Kadie, Gaz, C.A.S., Yash, Lily, and even Therese.
• The Woobie: There's a lot of them in this story.
  • Eliza qualifies thanks to her backstory of losing her parents at a young age, and because of her incredibly gentle personality yet constantly finding herself in awful situations in the game where she loses her friends or is antagonized by people.
  • Kadie became this after the swap once she lost her best friend Bryce and was treated really cruelly by Sam just because she was on the outs, in spite of being a really Nice Girl.
  • Bryce qualifies as this for his backstory of losing his best friend to a ghost accident, living in fear and isolation most of his life as a result, and for Steph blackmailing him over said above backstory.
  • Lily lost her parents at a very young age, which caused her to become really closed off to the world and stress-eat, becoming overweight as a result and becoming much more socially awkward.
  • C.A.S.'s creator, Bill, qualifies. Bill is a brilliant scientist who is a superfan of Survivor, but is physically handicapped and is completely unable to use his legs, so he cannot come to the island and live out his dream, instead hoping that he can live it through his robot C.A.S.
  • Slapshot is this for the fact that he thinks nobody ever takes him seriously unless he wears his mask due to his age and size, and has to play a character just to be able to have any sort of success in life. And then there's the fact that he got purple rocked out of the game... He wasn't even voted out; he was eliminated by a random draw.
  • Todd is a Woobie for his backstory on how he can never sit down and find true relationships or friendships due to the constant state of motion his world is in and how crazy his life has been, and wishes to be able to find some true friendships out on the island.
  • Gaz got into a huge fight with his parents due to his parents not approving of his dreams of becoming a rock star, moved to America to try and become one, and so far has had no success with chasing his dream, as well as no contact with his parents anymore as a result.
  • Tilly-May also qualifies once she gets brutally backstabbed by her alliance in the episode 8 tribal council as a desperate attempt by Sam to save herself out of paranoia.