Survivor 47 host Jeff Probst clarifies amulet idol rules (exclusive)

The latest episode of Survivor 47 featured a surprising move from a very surprising source, as previously invisible Genevieve Mushalauk flipped the script on her Lavo tribe, getting two people who seemingly hated each other — Rome Clooney and Sol Yi — to work together and oust emerging threat Kishan Patel.

The move was aided when Kishan’s ally Teeny Chirichillo lost her vote on a Journey during which three players — Teeny, Caroline Vidmar, and Andy Rueda — were sent to an island and forced to make a diabolical decision. If one of them would volunteer to lose their vote at the next Tribal Council they attended, all three of them could share in an advantage. But if no one volunteered, then there would be no advantage given and all three players would lose their next Tribal Council vote.

In effect, it was one big game of chicken. Who would blink first and agree to forgo their vote so that the others did not have to, and they could all receive the mystery advantage? In the end, Teeny blinked. This was somewhat surprising, because Teeny had to go to Tribal Council that night and was the only one of the three guaranteed to go to a pre-merge Tribal. So why did she cave?

For me, the more interesting question is: Why did anyone even want the shared advantage to begin with? Did they not remember what happened on Survivor 45?

For those who don’t, Austin Li Coon, J Maya, and Kellie Nalbandian went on a journey and had to decide on either a plate of food or three amulets, which had to be played together and would give them — as a group — one extra vote. If there were only two amulets still in the game, it would become a steal-a-vote. If there was only one person with an amulet left, it became a full idol. There is a reason I immediately dubbed this the “worst advantage ever.” Because all holding it did was incentivize people to get rid of you. As Austin pointed out, "This is not a symbol of an alliance, this is absolutely a symbol of war." And so Austin went to war, getting rid of J Maya and Kellie to give himself a full idol.

Why anyone would want to go into a merge with people who now would be rewarded with more power for voting you out is beyond me, but apparently, that is exactly what Teeny, Caroline, and Andy wanted. And that is what they received, with an amulet idol that had to be played by all three of them on the same person once they were on the same beach. But if there were only two of them left, then only two people had to agree. And if only one of them was left, the idol was all theirs. Again, incentive to get rid of the others.

That’s definitely not something I would want hanging around my neck at the merge. But was there a way to make sure nobody volunteered to lose their vote, thereby activating what essentially could be seen as a disadvantage? The printed-out rules were a bit murky on the subject.

The first part of the rules stated that “If one of you agrees to lose your vote at your next Tribal Council, then all three of you can share an advantage.” That makes it seem as if all it took to activate the advantage was a volunteer. But then came the next line of the rules: "But if you cannot all agree on one player to lose their vote, then all three of you will lose their vote."

While that seems like a line to force a game of chicken to see who would eventually cave and volunteer, it could also, by the letter of the law, be interpreted that the other two people have to agree to the person who wants to volunteer. For example, when Teeny finally volunteered to lose her vote, could Caroline have said, “I don’t agree to that” and shut down the amulet idol right then and there? Because that is what I would have done. So I went to host and showrunner Jeff Probst for answers.

“Dalton, this is further evidence you would have been a good player,” Probst responds. “Your observation is correct. One player could kill this advantage and nobody could stop them.”

First off, that would have made for such good television and I am now retroactively mad at Caroline and Andy for not doing this once Teeny volunteered. But let’s get back to Probst clarifying the rules question. “The spirit behind this amulet advantage was that in order to share it, you must all agree that you want to share it. So if one player did not want this in the game, then they could simply say, ‘I do not agree on who should lose their vote... and I never will.’ That's it. It's dead.”

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Again, Caroline and Andy! So upset at you right now! Of course, as the Hostmaster General also points out, there are potential social downsides to such a play. “The obvious risk with a move like that is that you are impacting two other players who may seek to retaliate, but in the right situation, that could be a very big move.”

While it wasn’t this week, it could be a little bit of info for future Survivor players to file away for when the time — and amulet — comes again.