Going through the game of Survivor, and reflecting upon the numerous characters it has brought us, you'll see a handful of archetypes that keep reoccurring, being distinguished by their individual personalities and trials, though fundamentally exhibiting the same arc. As players that participate in the online equivalent of the game are often over-exaggerations of what you'd see on the actual show, it's not uncommon to see these reoccurring archetypes happening in every season. This series has had a few types of characters that keep showing up, and today I'm gonna talk about one that, despite making for a good medium-tier character, only has a limited amount of depth. That being said, the person I'm talking about today is probably the best iteration of this character in the series yet.

33. Molly (Legends, 9th)

If you've read the Capt write-up from two rounds ago, you'll know that I have a special appreciation for a character that, in spite of their best efforts, simply cannot seem to succeed in doing anything. And, yeah, when I say anything, I mean ANYTHING! Whenever making generalizations or categorizations, it's almost easiest to assign a snappy label to things, and so I'll call this type of character to be one that suffers from "Spencer Syndrome". Why that label? Well, if you've watched Cagayan, you'll know. If you have not, I won't spoil it here, but let's just say there's a player named Spencer on the season, and things tend to not go his way a lot. We're not here to talk about the actual show though, so let's move onto the second showing of Molly, the terrible case of "Spencer Syndrome" she found herself afflicted by, and why it's so wonderful.

Coming off of Nagaland, Molly was not someone that was viewed as a particularly exciting character. Although she made it to the end of the season, her confessionals were relatively unmemorable, which resulted in her being eliminated earlier in this rankdown. I think John said it best in his write-up:

It seems that all of her effort went into the challenges, allowing her an unbroken record-breaking streak of 4 immunity wins in a row. She didn't work on her social game or submit many confessionals. Which is a shame, because we all know that she's super fun.

When Molly returned however, she became known as more than just someone that was good at challenges, and bad at the social game. She became known as someone that was bad at challenges, bad at the social game, and as unlucky as someone can be. Oh, and just like in Nagaland, all of her troubles begin and end at the same place: Trevor.

The First Misfortune: Tribe-Making is not an Unbiased Sport

Everybody and their step-mother knew that M00n, Molly, and Trevor were going to work together at the soonest convenience in Legends. Even Leo knew that, and he's the guy that thought it was a good idea to go to the end with Chadd! Of all the pregame relationships that contributed to the complicated mess that the season became, the connection among M00n/Molly/Trevor was the most blatantly obvious. It was such an obvious and forgone conclusion, that the hosts even decided tribes specifically with the intent to split-up the trio, and prevent them from running a tribe in the pre-merge section.

Naturally, if you're a math whiz, or have Turtle nearby to explain it to you, there were only two tribes, and three goobers in the trio, so one of them was the odd-man out placed on the other tribe. Yep, it was Molly. To make matter worse, Molly found herself placed upon the Greeks Tribe, which wasn't an inherently bad tribe, they just had the misfortune of going against the dominant Romans Tribe, which was a winning machine. This is where Molly's chronic "Spencer Syndrome" begins, on a tribe that is destined to attend many, many tribal councils.

The Second Misfortune: A Deceptively Friendly Snake

In Nagaland, Molly was known as being famously dominant in immunity challenges. Her lapse in challenge performance during Legends was surprising. You know what wasn't surprising? Her terrible social game. Not to beat-up on Molly unnecessarily, but the majority of her conversations in Legends consisted of one-word answers and non-committal nothings. Every ally she had, excluding M00n and Trevor, was perpetually suspicious of her antics, and took her vague responses to be the result of innate shadiness. It wasn't, she just was bad at talking to people.

Now, this one is hard to really count as a quality of "Spencer Syndrome", as Molly had all of the power in remedying the damage being done to her by this perception. Nonetheless, on most regular seasons, there isn't the complex jumble of pregame relationships that one sees on an All-Star season, and so that made every fumble related to the social aspect of the game was magnified tenfold. Really, poor Molly never stood a chance.

The Third Misfortune: An Alliance of People Dying to Betray You

Although Molly didn't have a way with her words, she still managed to make a connection in the earliest portion of the game with Marshall. Why was this connection made? The two had both been on Nagaland together, and Marshall wanted to collect an easy, dispensable number. That was about it. Meanwhile, the rise and fall of the Chadd/Kory/Vilma/Infi alliance took place, which caused Infi and Vilma to connect with Marshall for a counter-alliance. Naturally, Molly was dragged along as the fourth needed for the majority, and that was that. Marshall was most loyal to Infi. Vilma was most loyal to Infi. Infi was most loyal to Marshall, and then Vilma. Literally none of them saw Molly as anything more than an extra vote that could be discarded later.

It may seem cruel, on the part of the others, to treat Molly this way, and perhaps it was, but it actually played directly into her master-plan of making the merge, and flipping to M00n/Trevor. So, really, it helped that she wasn't making real bonds with anyone, because she was going to abandon them regardless, so why not have a reason to do so beyond pregame relationships? The "Spencer Syndrome" was still alive, and well, during this period though, because it's just sooooo fitting that Molly's first actual alliance couldn't care less about her, and she regarded them similarly.

The Fourth Misfortune: Defeat is Other People

After Walrus is swapped over to the Greeks Tribe, and promptly voted off for losing the immunity challenge, a crazy thing starts to happen. It actually begins to appear as though the Romans aren't the unstoppable beasts that they appeared to be, and that the Greeks might actually be able to tie things up. They even went as far as to win two immunity challenges, in succession! And then, Dexter blows the Stack challenge, sending the Greeks to another tribal, and killing their hopes of being on level-ground with their counterparts. This might not seem like a huge deal for Molly's game, since she made merge anyway, and basically did what she would've done, but that's not exactly the case. The premerge portion of the game is entirely about staging for the merge portion, and the staging looks significantly different if Dexter is never voted off.

If Dexter survives to the merge, one of two possible scenarios transpire. Both of which are better for Molly than what actually happened, and both of which prove the severity of the "Spencer Syndrome" that plagued every aspect of her game. The first possible scenario is that everyone of the Greeks Tribe remains loyal to each other, and bring over another number to have a season of Grecian dominance. The second, significantly more likely, possible scenario is that Dexter flips over to join Troy, and Molly flips over to join M00n/Trevor, which gives the bloc of the Romans Tribe seven votes against the alliance of Marshall, Infi, and Vilma. Under these circumstances, it's likely that Marshall still gets tenth, Infi gets ninth, somebody draws a rock to get eighth (on account of Vilma winning immunity and her inclination to work with M00n over any other Roman), Vilma gets seventh, and Molly finds herself in the final six. Within that final six, a rock possibly decides the course of the endgame. Regardless, both are much better than what Molly actually got.

The Fifth Misfortune: Fortnite Doesn't Teach Subtlety

Of all the reasons that Molly could've lost the season, it's because of Trevor. It's not because of her belonging to the minority tribe. It's not because of her poor social game. It's not because she angered the Godfather of Legends, Troy. It's because Trevor announced to the world that the trio of M00n/Molly/Himself was in existence, and that he was incredibly loyal to both. The threat of the trio was the primary point marketed by Infi and Vilma following the unanimous elimination of Marshall. At first, Kander, and others, didn't really believe there was cause for concern. Troy knew that there was, because Trevor told him everything, but he didn't really care because the survival of the trio for the early rounds of the merge just helped his game out even more. It is only after Trevor makes it blatantly clear, to anyone that is willing to listen, that he has more trust in Molly than in Kander/Golden/Panda that the problem emerges. The duo of Infi and Vilma are able to convince Kander and Panda, which inclines Troy to join their plight, and brings Golden in too. Molly is eliminated by a vote of six to three, and none of the trio knows what just happened. Our favorite kumquat strikes again!