#4: Ian Rosenberger
Much as I've complained about the overwhelming amount of Palau endgamers ... Ian is the one I really can't dispute. Ian is at the center of the Palau endgame and him completely falling apart is the emotional core of some of the best episodes the show has ever had. There's not much I can say about Ian here that hasn't already been said a million times. He's one of the show's best tragic characters if you want to see him one way and focus on how Tom and Katie emotionally manipulating him towards having to make impossible choices and made him feel less than human for understandable social missteps in order to advance themselves. And he's one of the show's biggest heroes if you want to see him the other way and focus on how he made what's probably an unique moral choice for Survivor endgamers and stepped away from the game to salvage his integrity and friendships. There's a lot to unpack with Ian one way or another and it's been unpacked over and over again but god damn is that some gorgeous luggage.
You could say that Ian's Survivor journey is the exploration of the limits of self-interest vs. personal values. As much as people have been complaining about others playing without morals since time immemorial whenever others made choices that went against the complainers' interests, it's rare to see someone consciously make a moral decision on Survivor by any other morality than the morality of self-interest and actively sabotage their chances of having a million dollars purely for the benefit of others. And you could argue even Ian's choices were selfish since he was ultimately just trying to salvage is own sense of self but what it is is a different kind of self-interest and the sheer drama of it could easily be considered peak Survivor. Ian absolutely deserves to be here.
Ian is now our only five-time endgamer and even though I’d have Hatch and Fairplay ahead of him in my rankings, he is no doubt worthy of being the one. His story is dependent on the last few episodes, yes, but it doesn’t matter to me since those last few episodes are so fucking amazing that he earns endgame honors easily. Palau FIC is viewed as one of the best moments in show history for a reason.
basically singlehandedly lifts the Palau endgame from "very fascinating and exciting" to "a true work of art." It's devastating and unsparing and [chef kissing fingers]
Yeah I think I've been clear on this. Great character and he isn't far out of my endgame and I agree with almost all of the praises for him as a character. I just have stronger gripes with his little flaws, like the unevenly told story and really not revving up until the endgame of Palau. Kind of bummed he ended up being idoled and made 5/5 endgames now, but he's more than his strong merits for being here.
Ian! Man oh man am I glad that this lovable dingus made it to endgame. We have a fuck ton of Palau up in here but Ian clearly deserves it. Hands down the most tragic character in survivor history and one of its most beloved.
Personal Endgame Ranking: 3
Personal Overall Ranking: 5
Ian is bar none one of the show’s all-time greats. He manages to stand out so well on a fantastic season like Palau and his arc is just indescribable. The epic battle against Tom in the finale is thrilling to watch and the end is so heartbreaking. I love Ian so much as a character and I’m glad he’s made his 5th appearance here.
Ian Rosenberger (3rd place, Palau)
Throughout five rankdowns, 72 endgamers, and a shit ton of different rankers with different opinions, only one person has actually made endgame every time - and from the topic of this writeup, you can probably correctly guess that person as Ian!
Ian making endgame 5 times isn’t some fluke - I think in pretty much every rankdown there’s been at least one person who wants to see Ian not make the endgame, you had people like Dumpster_Baby in the first rankdown who I heard really hated him?? All the way from people like JM in this rankdown who wanted to see him fall just short - but Ian prevails, mainly because for every head hunter looking to dethrone him before endgame, there’s one person who LOVES him enough to make sure that premature cut doesn’t happen - count me as that person in this rankdown, I guess.
I approach Ian with the same logic I approach Russell Swan - lots of people will dock points off him because the real “meat” of his story is only done over the last 4 episodes - and only really turns into this “amazing best story ever!” kind of thing during the last 3 - however, what I will also say is hardly any Survivor characters hit peaks in their last 3 episodes like Ian does in his. Hell, I want to say none hit peaks like Ian does in his last 3, but I won’t because I may be forgetting some people! What’s my point?? Er, Ian deserves Endgame for having some amazing final episodes.
Of course, Ian’s story wouldn’t be nearly as impactful without the buildup. I believe that the editors of Palau needed to accomplish four things before Ian’s story to make him work… set up his brother/father-son hybrid relationship with Tom, his friendship with Kate, his position as a “middle man” on Koror, and, possibly more importantly, to make us like him.
So, naturally you can guess what part 1 about this writeup will be about - the buildup. The show does a really good of building up Ian’s story but still keeping him as a background character: so people watching for the first time would think that he is just a mere sidekick, and people watching spoiled on Ian being a great character are forced to be attentive and look for the little details.
Ian definitely has an interesting dynamic early on as being a “second-in-command” to Tom. Basically every time Tom’s out hunting for snakes, engaging in a legendary battle with a shark, or even doing harder stuff like delegating work and giving orders, Ian is standing by his side and giving his support. In that way they definitely have a father-son relationship: Tom is usually the one taking the lead, but Ian is just happy to be with him and helping out, much like Tom is a father fixing his car and Ian’s just there holding the flashlight and handing him the tools. It also does feel like there’s some sort of rivalry between the two, though - almost like you can tell Ian wants to be better than Tom - I mean, he’s clearly a physically dominant player, probably would’ve beasted a lot of the challenges post-merge if not for Tom - but he gets completely overshadowed by how strong and larger than life Tom is. So it does feel like they have a sort of competitive rivalry, nothing serious, more playful than anything, but it’s there… of course this slight bit of competition and their friendship would come to hurt Ian a lot later.
Naturally, being super close with Tom, Ian is second in command on Koror… and i’ll just say that for now.
Another significant relationship Ian has early on is with Katie. Now, it’s important to understand that early on, Koror was basically a summer camp: they had these daily survivor activities they’d do, they’d play a game against the members of Ulong every once and awhile, win every time… so really nothing was happening, well I mean obviously there was a bunch of background scheming and fights, but there was also a lot of relationships and friendships that developed as a result of not going to tribal council. Katie and Ian are like the PERFECT example of this - definitely one of my favorite survivor relationships ever. They just have such a great friendship early on, like it almost feels like your classic summer camp romance/boy-girl flirtmance. They don’t really have a bunch of dedicated scenes on OG Koror, just little snippets of their relationship here and there: for example, Katie putting a sock puppet show on for the tribe while Ian watches. Idk just a really quick but sweet scene, which is basically Ian and Katie’s relationship before final 7; a jumble of sweet, cute scenes.
Of course, above (and more importantly) than anything else, Ian was likable early on. He doesn’t have like, amazing personal content about his life or anything, but you can just tell that this young, really tall, dolphin trainer is just a bundle of joy with a heart of gold, always serving a smile and in a good mood… like i’d argue that Ian is such a naturally likable character that even if he remained a background character throughout all of Palau i’d have him pretty high, obviously nowhere near endgame but definitely like top half just based on likability alone.
Of course, Ian’s relationship with Tom, his friendship with Katie, his place on the hierarchy of Koror, and his likability all mixed together; the perfect storm, making one of the best tragic characters ever…
The final 7 of the Palau is, really, the first hint of “game” Ian has in his survivor journey - up until then it’s been dodging tribal council on Koror, and two fairly easy boot rounds with Coby/Janu. We see hints of his relationship with Tom and Katie changing; it is very much like the fun, innocent summer camp days are over, and Ian is about to engage in the real “game”. His relationship with Tom is being tested because for the first time all post-merge, Tom is not immune and people are playing around with the idea of voting him out - Ian is sort of up in the middle now, being tempted by people like Katie to take Tom out - that’s part of his position as “second in command” on Koror coming in play, now people are coming to him to talk about taking out the top guy. Also, speaking about Katie, Ian’s relationship with her is beginning to change too: they’re going from “fun, innocent, friends” on Koror to strategic manipulators together - or at least, it seems like Katie wants that from Ian. All throughout you can sort of see a slow divide being built between Ian’s two major relationships: People (including Katie) want to take Tom out for being a threat, but Ian is friends with Tom and obviously Tom is preaching loyalty to him. But even though Ian’s game is being tested and you can see the seeds for everything tumbling down, in the end it ends up being an easy 6-1 vote for Stephenie, and he gets what he wants… still, you can tell times are changing.
Final 6 is where the dynamics really start to shift. It all starts when the dark horse, Gregg, emerges from the spotlight as a threat when he takes Katie and Jenn on a reward with him - Ian and Tom naturally assume that he is putting forward some kind of plot to take him out - so they strike back by making a plot to take Gregg out. I already talked about it in my Tom writeup a bit, which I'm assuming is coming out before this - there’s this really awesome scene where Tom, Ian, and Caryn are all talking on the beach and kind of putting the pieces together for what’s going to happen and how they can strike back, it sort of feels like the epic scene you get before the final battle in a movie (Even though of course this isn’t the final battle).
Before doing anything, Tom/Ian have to win immunity - success!
Post challenge sequence is really the first instance we see of “Ian fucks things up through small, simple mistakes”. There’s one scene where Gregg, Ian, and Tom are talking about the vote and Ian slips up by saying, “the vote will be interesting”... kind of adds an awkward tone to the conversation because Gregg thinks that the vote will be 5-1 Caryn. Luckily Tom fixes Ian’s slip-up by saying, “it’s always interesting!” which is a response Gregg seems to be at peace with.
Ian is being torn apart between his relationship with Katie and his relationship with Tom. Last round it seemed like he was more so leaning into his “schemers” relationship with Katie, against Tom - however now it seems like since he was under the threat of going home, he’s leaning into his bond with Tom to stay safe - although let it be known that he is TORN, and wants to keep both these relationships alive as long as possible. But for now, he’s leaning in to his relationship with Tom, and flips Katie last minute to make the vote 4-2 for Gregg instead of a 3-3 tie.
He also delivers one of the best voting confessionals in the process: “Gregg, you’re the dark horse. It’s time for the dark horse to ride out into the sunset.”
Alright, so you know how I briefly mentioned that Ian made a small, stupid mistake by almost hinting Gregg off to his blindside? Well, yeah, it doesn’t end there, and it only gets worse at the final 5. Ian wins the car award challenge and decides to take… Tom - probably due to the adrenaline of taking his side last vote and winning, which would be a perfectly valid decision… if he hadn’t already promised Katie that he’d take her on a reward at the final 5. Even Tom kind of gives a, “Ian, you dumbass” reaction… but sadly Ian just really sucks at these moment-moment strategic decisions, and they end up hurting him in the long run.
Katie and Ian get into this really real and emotional fight, it’s sad. You can tell that at this point, the weight of Ian’s decisions are starting to take a real toll on him - he had to choose between Tom and Katie and ended up upsetting Katie, while not even getting the approval of his buddy, Tom. There’s also the element of Caryn running around trying to make some sort of move happening, she starts yelling at Tom and Ian as soon as they get back from reward…
Luckily Ian is able to dodge punishment for the mistakes he made the round, and Caryn goes home 4-1… another really good voting confessional here, “Best part of my day. Can not wait for you to go home.”
Ian’s game is pretty damn destroyed by the finale of Palau - he’s entirely lost the whole “nice guy” reputation I mentioned earlier, mainly due to pulling a purely strategic blindside at the final 6, and by being a mess at the final 5. He’s also permanently damaged his relationships with both Katie and Tom, even if there’s still some love there.
Needless to say, it’s about to get much worse for Ian. Ian finds himself plotting to take out Tom with Jenn and Katie, mainly under the basis that he can’t beat him, and as much as he values friendship right now being able to beat Tom seems more important to him? I think this part of the game is a huge question mark for him, like even he isn’t sure about what he needs to do to redeem himself in the eyes of everyone else, so at this point he just thinks the best thing he can do to fix his broken relationships is to win, that’ll justify his actions.
But then Tom wins immunity, and it’s about to get really rough for Ian. Tom finds out that Ian was planning to take him out and, gasp is mad! Who would’ve thought? Just like the Katie-Ian fight in the final 5 episode, this is definitely one of the most emotional, real, and intense fights we’ve ever seen on survivor. There’s like a raw aggression to the way Tom yells at Ian that… it’s almost scary, it doesn’t help that Tom is naturally super intimidating. You can tell that Tom is very angry over the fact that Ian, his bro, someone he shared a great friendship with, would end up betraying him… and Ian just takes it all, like there’s a part of it that feels like he wants to defend himself, but another part where you can tell he’s also just hurt that he’s damaged another one of his close friendships in Tom.
Katie saves him from getting the boot and Jenn goes home, but does it really matter? Ian’s in the final 3 with the two people he’s closest to - Katie and Tom - but he isn’t really close to them anymore: he’s made mistakes entirely of his own accord and poor decision making that has caused them to think he doesn’t value their friendship, and it’s kind of broken him?? It seems like he doesn’t care about winning anymore, instead he wants to be able to make up with his friends.
Needless to say, Ian’s story doesn’t end with him having to choose between his friendship with Katie or Tom - instead he has to fall on his sword. In arguably the greatest final immunity challenge of all time, Tom and Ian face off for nearly 12 hours to win… until Ian finally poses his solution. I like to think due to the nature of the challenge - literally just standing on a buoy - Ian spent most of the 12 hours trying to think of a way out of his situation, trying to think of some way to make things right… until he finally blurts out the words, “okay, I have a solution”... cue tragedy.
Ian decides that in order to salvage his relationship with Katie and Tom, he is going to drop out of the challenge and ask for Tom to vote him out - something that he in no way had to do, as Tom had been talking him up about how he’d vote out Katie for hours - but in his mind, this is him “making things right”. The whole scene is just really beautiful, amazing, etc., one of my favorites ever - the music is perfect and absolutely nails the whole bittersweet feeling of “NOOOOO IAN ;(“ while also being like, “YAY Ian is making up with his friends!” and the final shot of Ian just sort of looking off to the sky while Katie/Tom both leave is amazing - you can really tell that Ian is still debating if he made the right choice.
Simply an all time great tragic story - it’s heartbreaking to watch it unfold mainly because Ian is such a lovable kid, but also beautifully told in a way where I think it can hit a key with a lot of people. Obviously nobody can 100% relate to Ian’s journey as a whole, but the idea of making a bunch of minor fuck ups that spiral out of control, while also getting too invested in friendships? That shit hits close to home - and obviously some of the best tragic stories are the ones that you can relate to the most.
Hope you enjoyed the writeup! Tried my best to do Ian justice - although it is quite the intimidating story and I got a bit burned out at the end.
6/14
vulture_couture: 4
CSteino: 6
scorcherkennedy: 2
xerop681: 6
JM1295: 10
GwenHarper: 5
qngff: 3
Average Placement: 5.142857143
Submitted September 02, 2019 at 09:56PM by WaluigiThyme https://ift.tt/2ZEKrAE
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