Survivor's Top 10 Most Shocking Winner Reveals

Survivor tells amazing stories and has some amazing winners. But sometimes, it tells an amazing story that makes you go, wait, what? THEY WON?! But how! This is a countdown of Survivor's most shocking winner reveals.

Introduction - 00:00
#10 - 01:15
#9 - 04:36
#8 - 08:24
#7 - 12:31
#6 - 15:28
#5 - 19:11
#4 - 23:06
#3 - 26:42
#2 - 29:33
Honorable Mention - 32:55
#1 - 33:35

[OnceUponAnIsland]

This video was made before season 41, so where would you put Erika on this list?

[borrowedurchin]

I mean I would argue that Boston Rob did win. He got the girl and his family did end up with the money too. Either way they both kinda won that season.

[evunee]

Sophie is a classic example of how important final tribal can be. She was masterful and fully deserved her win after her constantly dunking on Coach while one upping his game in the process.

[berouja]

A lot of the "shock" really stems from the show prioritizing certain personalities on a season instead of weaving a tight narrative. So many winners on this list are women who played a great game, albeit not flashy. And the show pays them dust by purposely downplaying their character arcs and shoving to our faces the big personalities of the season. Which is fair because it is a TV show meant to entertain, but to not show a winner's path to victory will always end up shocking the audience. There should be a balance between entertainment (flashy moves) and a well-edited winner's narrative.

[rebeccastark]

Yul was not dull, put some respect on his name, yul wining wasn't a surprise because he deserved it, yul is structured, he's calculated, he takes time before making decisions, notice how he talks slowly like he's really thinking about what he has to say!

[AkronJosh]

Jury management 101: politely and not pridefuly boast about what you've done. Also be prideful all you want in the confessionals BUT not to the jurors faces.

[nathanvarghese]

We need a Survivor: Brains vs Fan Favorites vs Becky

[dadman]

I’m a die hard Ozzy fan as I can relate to the issues with his biological father as I had with mine, but honestly Yul played a great game and if their could have been a season with 2 winners this would have been the best one for it

[paintbrush]

It's never fair to blame a winner for their win. They just did everything in their specific season they had to in order to win.
I do think juries can be unnecessarily bitter, and it's just false to say they aren't, but it's the players' jobs to play into whatever expectation the jury has of them. For example, I think the KR jury was stupidly bitter against Aubry for playing the game (aside from Debbie, who I can see why she'd be upset at Aubry), but Michele knew her target audience better than Aubry did, and that's all Michele needed to win and DESERVE to win on top of it.

[nb]

Sandra's second win was OMG. I didn't expect her to win. Yeah i wanted her to win. I just thought Russell, Parv, or Boston Rob were going to take the win. Keep in mind this was during the live airings of HvsV. I never fathomed someone could win Survivor twice let alone a player like Sandra!

[allief]

Sophie’s final tribal performance was masterful. I hate when people act like she didn’t deserve to win

[Lori-xtlf]

Survivor always likes to credit itself for breaking stereotypes, but often just reinforces them.

[markjackson]

Natalie W, Ambaah, and Michele were all shocking because the edit didn’t really do them justice especially Natalie and Ambaah

[sadiedurham]

i really hate when people crap on winners, saying they don't deserve it. a lot of the winners on this list had a lot of people saying they didn't deserve it, but they won. that's the game. they did everything they needed to do to win, and the other person didn't. it's a complicated game and a lot of people don't realize that

[chickenchicken]

Sophie had one of the best final tribal council performances I have ever seen

[omrisabag]

even Debbie doesn't know why Debbie voted for Michelle... funny thing is we got a re-enforcement to how unpredictable she is on her 2nd chance as well, when she flat out exploded on Brad, only to later not only vote for him but be his advocate (alongside Ozzie). one of the strangest survivors to ever play the game. :)

[tokyotourist]

i feel that people forget that parvati didn’t do all that well at FTC in Micronesia. it’s mostly because she was sitting next to Amanda, someone that can’t perform at FTC, that she wins.

[ljoseph]

First off - this is a fascinating list!

I think a solid argument could be made for Jenna Morasca as one of the most shocking winner reveals. Up until that point, the winners were either given a Machiavellian strategist edit (i.e., Richard & Brian) or the social butterfly “sidekick” to an obvious powerhouse of the season (i.e., Tina to Colby, Ethan to Lex, Vecepia to Sean/Rob).

Jenna was the first winner I remember who didn’t have either a highly strategic edit or the edit of a “social butterfly” sidekick. She was edited as one of the season’s immature “mean girls” who the audience was meant to root against. The show intentionally included her wanting to quit the game, and they were even starting to show Matthew as being a potential strategic threat by the final six/five (similar to the edit Lisa Donahue received in Big Brother 3).

To be clear, I do think Jenna is a worthy winner in her own right (as all Survivor winners are), but she was never framed by the show to be a worthy candidate of the victory until the final episode of the season.

[NickWuebker]

In South Pacific, had Coach just owned up to some of his moves, he easily could've won the season.

[freddytang]

The difference between season 7 and 38 is that in pearl islands, no jury member besides Burton could relate to Lil’s journey as a returner. In edge of extinction almost everyone can relate to Chris. It’s hard for them to downplay edge of extinction when the jury have experienced it themselves