Understand The Classic Runner-Up Edit

On Episode 2, yes 2, I predicted Chrissy Hofbeck would land second place in Survivor: Heroes v Healers v Hustlers.  Pretty consistently through the season I maintained that prediction, and it came true.  So what exactly did I see?

Survivor editors aren't dumb, and they're getting better.  They want us to have a suspenseful finish, so they build two people up, the winner and the runner up, both getting huge edits.  But not the same type of edit.  They, as well as the winner, are often the only two players with "storylines" but the runners up edit is decidedly weaker.  They get the most airtime of any two players, with the runner up often getting slightly more.  They get tons of confessionals, but the runner up hardly gets any true winner's quotes.  Essentially, it's everything you'd expect of a winner's edit, except the nitty gritty details.  The edit also shows the runner up's flaws more than the winner's flaws.  We saw a considerable amount more about Chrissy's bad social play than Ben's bad social play, even though he had it too (he was the one that couldn't hold the seven together). 

This is the same format for a runner up edit used in many seasons.  I spotted Chrissy's runner-up edit due to the edit parrallels of previous runners up (mainly in the last 10 seasons).  Classic examples include Monica Culpepper, Carolyn Rivera, Aubry Bracco, Hannah Shapiro, and Brad Culpepper.  To a lesser extent, Jaclyn Shultz and Spencer Bledsoe, as well as second runners-up Missy Payne, Tai Trang and Ken McNickle, as well as this season's Ryan Ulrich.  Ben's edit, was indeed, much more similar to other winners like Mike Holloway, Jeremy Collins, and Adam Klein.  However, notice I named more runners up edits that Chrissy was similar to than winner edits that Ben was similar to.  Reason being, the runner up is easier to predict than the winner because there are multiple types of winners edits (Natalie Anderson and Michele Fitzgerald had classic winners edits, but a very different type than the Ben contingent, and Tony Vlachos and Sarah Lacina had obvious winners edits but again, a different type).  Add to this, to throw you off editors often add in "decoy winners edits" each season of the other types of winners edits (Devon getting a Michele/Natalie type edit this season would be a prime example).  This is not true with runners up, and there is really just one type of consistent runners up edit, and one person receiving a runners up-esque edit each season.  So, if you look close enough, you can usually spot that ONE person by the first 2, 3, or at the latest 4 episodes, and impress the pants off of casual fans by correctly predicting the runner up that early.  Now watch Survivor realize this and mix things up on us next season, but for now I'll be sticking to this and looking for a Chrissy character very early on in Survivor: Ghost Island.