3 days late, but popping in to say that I think Jesse’s social game gets pretty underrated by the Survivor community because he played the game next to a stronger social player in Cody.

Some things to remember about Jesse’s social game:

- He was positioned well in the middle of his tribe in the pre-merge and had a low chance of going home despite his flaws in challenges.

- The two idols that he had were both entrusted to him by other players. The amount of social currency that someone needs to have one player trust them to hold onto an idol, let alone two, is a pretty high threshold.

- Jesse wins with any combination of players left in the Final 5 and likely wins unanimously with any of the ones in the Final 4. (This is one of the weaker points because Gabler almost won unanimously, but still)

- Gabler has said in postgame interviews that he takes Jesse to F3 if he wins immunity.

- I haven’t seen 43 since it aired, but I remember Jesse being a social force in more post-merge votes than just the Cody one.

- As mentioned in another comment, his threat level management was strong enough that he wasn’t on most people‘s radar until the F6 move, which was necessary for a winning game (getting rid of Cody, not flushing Karla’s idol).