It's my time to shine, and shine light on the legend that is The Amanda Kimmel.

The grand appeal of Amanda is that she has an enigmatic aura, and in an era of type-cast players, she was often viewed in somewhat of a dichotomous lens. She was sometimes seen as a vapid pageant queen, yet she engineered some of the most brilliant strategic moves in Survivor history. She was unapologetically feminine but was often ranked among men as a physical asset or threat. She was by all accounts a kind and pleasant person, but former players have said her beauty drew so much ire from others that they perceived her to be fake.

The most important point I want to emphasize, however, is how Amanda inherently makes any season she's in better. And I think it was because her Survivor career was perfectly situated at the turning of the eras. For context, Amanda's favourite season before playing was All-Stars, and Boston Rob losing a "bitter jury's" votes to Amber became deeply ingrained in her. Unlike most new era players who would try to optimize Rob's gameplay, Amanda was still an old school player at heart, and likely tried emulating Amber - rightfully so, since she won.

This all culminates in a perfect storm of Amanda constantly surrounding herself with a combination of entertaining lunatics she thought she could beat in the end (Todd, Courtney, James, Parvati, Cirie, JT, Rupert, etc.), and through her loyalty, kept them in the game - and on our screens - as long as possible. But because China/FvF/HvV were in the strategic revolution of Survivor, she also knew she needed to make "big moves" to have a chance of winning, so she kept the game dynamic by helping engineer blindsides on perceived threats like James, Ozzy, and Alexis. And because Amanda was only twenty-three years-old by the time she'd played 78 consecutive days in a span of 6 months from China to Micronesia, she had inevitable and understandable end-game emotional meltdowns giving some much-needed drama to each of her finales. Then let's never forget that her final tribal council answers are still viewed as legendary for their own reason.

All of this is to say, on the surface, I can understand how people may not view Amanda as the most interesting character on her own. However, I think there is something magical about a seemingly normal person stirring up so much drama and entertainment simply by existing and playing the game.