History ShockingElimination / Survivor

* Karla looked to be te frontrunner to win due to her athletic prowess and being a strategic mastermind. Then when she lost a challenge she needed to win and with everybody realizing the threat she was, she you voted out just two days shy of te Final Tribal Council.

* In a repeat of last season's elimination of Shan, Omar was seen as a shoo-in to take the win. He had a huge edit, pulled off several big moves, and with the elimination of Hai, as well as his ally Lindsay having a major advantage, seemed poised to win the competition. Then Maryanne pulled out her extra vote and, with the help of Romeo, knocked Omar out of the competition.

* In a repeat of last season's elimination of Shan, Omar was seen as a shoo-in to take the win. He had a huge edit, pulled off several big moves, and with the elimination of Kai, as well as his ally Lindsay having a major advantage, seemed poised to win the competition. Then Maryanne pulled out her extra vote and, with the help of Romeo, knocked Omar out of the competition.

* Shan was a frontrunner to win from the get-go, both to edgicers and casual viewers. She had a front and center edit, was a driving and dominant force in the game, had several strong alliances she was in the center of, and the edits of her fellow competitors were deemed to be extremely lacking. With Evvie gone, a lot of viewers assumed Shan had the game on lock.... only for her to be blindsided the very next episode when the tribe itself realized she was a frontrunner to win and came together to take her out.

* The infamous "Gervase X". Presumably finding things too predictable, CBS decided to [[BlatantLies "accidentally"]] [[{{Troll}} release footage of a final four that did not include several members of the alliance]], leading to people believing the alliance would be overthrown. They then tampered with their website, allowing anyone capable of searching through the coding to find that unlike everyone else, [[RedHerring Gervase's photo had no capability to be easily X'd out]] (Every person eliminated had an X coded onto their face upon elimination). As a result, fans were ''shocked'' when Gervase was indeed eliminated (and a red X put onto his face on the website)

* Naseer was in a comfortable position, being a well-trusted and loyal number in the majority alliance, being the tribe's provider, possessing an immunity idol and being good at challenges. Unfortunately for him, the tribe was split in half to have two separate tribals, and Naseer was left with Shan and Ricard, who immediately seized on the opportunity to blindside him while he was comfortable, even though he believed Heather was the one getting voted out.

* Brandon Hantz, similar to Erik Reichenbach, suddenly decides to surrender his immunity necklace to Albert and is voted off.

* '''John Carroll''', leader of the majority Rotu 4 alliance truly takes the prize for this however. For the first three seasons, the show followed a somewhat predictable pattern of the majority alliance on the largest tribe Pagonging the smaller tribe with their own tribe, then getting rid of the people not in the majority alliance. Once Rob was gone, everything pointed to the same thing happening here, to the point where Paschal (not a part of the majority alliance or the smaller tribe) literally told John to his face that he would vote with him, seemingly being complacent with 5th or 6th. Then the infamous "Coconut Chop" chop challenge let everyone realize who the majority alliance was (thanks to some ''absurd'' cockiness on the Rotu 4's part. All of a sudden, the 5 people not in the Rotu 4 alliance (including Paschal) decided to band together and take them out, and voted John off. This marks the first official power shift in the game.

* In season one, once one tribe gained majority they would simply eliminate everyone outside the majority, which made it a shock to season two audiences when Jerri was picked off at the final 8.

* In the fourth episode, after finding out that she is the lowest in the totem pole, Tina decided to ally with the only outsider, Keith and Colby, who was close to her. Despite Colby declining to vote off Jerri, the leader of the alliance, Tina and co just switch to booting Mitchell in the next tribal council. Jerri lost all her power due to this.

* Lisa was cut over Rory despite Rory being the only man on a tribe run by [[StrawFeminist Amy]]. In fact, it was Amy herself that caused Lisa's elimination.

* JD can be viewed as this as Genie (who was OutOfFocus within the first three episodes) even receiving a ton of airtime in Episode 4; making it like Episode Four is going to be her DeathInTheLimelight episode. But instead, Shan decides to target JD instead as she wanted to keep his extra vote advantage he gave to her despite keeping JD around a week before when something similar happened that week.

* David Voce getting the boot in Episode 2 is surprising as while Tiffany threw out his name, she did it out of sheer paranoia with Liana and Evvie (a.k.a. Tiffany's two biggest allies) being against voting David out.
* Brad Reese wound up getting a lot of content in the three episodes he was in, including finding advantages such as the Beware idol that Xander found in Episode 1. Plus, JD seemed to keep digging his own grave by being caught with his extra vote despite insisting he never got one and generally being seen by his tribe as untrustworthy. So it comes as a shock when Ricard and Shan decide that the apologetic JD could make for a more loyal follower, leaving Brad to be voted out in his stead.

* David Voce getting the boot in Episode 2 is surprising as while Tiffany threw out his name, she did it out of sheer paranoia with Liana and Evvie (a.k.a. Tiffany's two biggest allies) being against voting David out.

* Sophie was in a very comfortable position in the game with an idol in her pocket, being heavily involved in the strategic discussion, and doing an excellent job sneaking under the radar. Many fans had her pegged as either the winner or a finalist before being voted out in the final 9.

* The idol was then found by Jason the following round... who was immediately blindsided himself, though unlike Ozzy he had the sense to bring the idol to Tribal Council.

* Jeff Varner seemed to have successfully moved from being in a one-man tribal line minority to being a part of the majority at the expense of Ozzy and Zeke due to making solid arguments about their suspicious behavior. At tribal council, he continues to impress the majority with his statements...[[ShockingSwerve and then suddenly outs Zeke as transgender]]. The rest of the tribe confirms with Jeff Probst that Varner must leave while Varner gets no say.

* In the finale, Cirie isn't exactly voted out, she's eliminated by default [[GambitPileup because everyone else had immunity thanks to idols, the legacy advantage, and individual immunity.]] Not only is this surprising because she had no votes cast against her, but because this is the first time this has happened in ''Survivor'' history, and everyone paid her due respect when she left the game gracefully.

* David was also a major character in the season and many predicted him for being the winner of the season. Come to the final four, his biggest ally Ken ended up turning on him despite him wanting to play a game with loyalty and trust. Prior to that vote, many people expected David and Adam to be put into a fire-making challenge with David being the winner of that challenge. When that didn't happen and he got voted out, many people were surprised.

- Please note that despite the jury vote being set up as "voting all but one person out, making them the sole survivor", the runner-ups generally do not count.

- Please note that despite the jury vote being set up as "voting all but one person out making them the sole survivor", the runner-ups generally do not count.

* Then Tony decides he wants LJ out, moving Heaven and Earth to get it to happen, which it eventually does.

* The Samburu tribe was split between the older and the younger members of the tribe in a 4-4 split. The editors painted the youngsters to be spoiled, cocky, and lazy, while the Elders were portrayed as hardworking and loyal. Bear in mind that the Tribe switch had not been introduced yet, and the Samburu tribe was in a key position to steamroll the other team, therefore it looked like whichever side emerged victorious would win. In episode 9, Samburu finally goes to tribal council, and as expected there is a tie between youngster Lindsay, and Elder Carl. To the surprise and horror of the viewers, Carl was the one sent home, which would have likely lead to Silas or Lindsay winning if not for the next entry...

* The infamous "Gervase X". Presumably finding things too predictable, CBS decided to [[BlatantLies "accidentally"]] [[{{Troll}} release footage of a final four that did not include several members of the alliance]], leading to people believing the alliance would be overthrown. They then tampered with their website, allowing anyone capable of searching through the coding to find that unlike everyone else, [[RedHerring Gervase's photo had no capability to be X'd out]] (Every person eliminated had an X coded onto their face upon elimination). As a result, fans were ''shocked'' when Gervase was indeed eliminated (and a red X put onto his face on the website)

* The infamous "Gervase X". Presumably finding things too predictable, CBS decided to [[BlatantLies "accidentally"]] [[{{Troll}} release footage of a final four that did not include several members of the alliance]], leading to people believing the alliance would be overthrown. They then tampered with their website, allowing anyone capable of searching through the coding, to find that unlike everyone else, Gervase's photo had no capability to be X'd out (Every person eliminated had an X coded onto their face upon elimination). As a result, fans were ''shocked'' when Gervase was indeed eliminated (and a red X put onto his face on the website)

- Any hypothetical [[{{Series}}/AustralianSurvivor Australian Survivor]] examples would go on its own subpage, not here.

- Any hypothetical Australian Survivor examples would go on its own subpage, not here.

* Gervase makes a sexist comment about women being the dumbest things next to cows. The women of Pagong are unable to forgive or forget this, and band together to vote out... Joel?! Apparently he chuckled at the remark when it was made, though lord only knows why they decided to vote out their athlete over the useless Gervase, who y'know... actually made the comment?[[Labelnote:Historical note]]: Even at the time, this was advertised as an Island shocker[[/Labelnote]]