Walking out of the game with her head held high, Sharni Vinson had been stabbed in the back, having forgotten the very words her grandfather had taught her, ‘Don’t trust anyone’.
On Monday night, the Heroes once again returned to Tribal Council, a rare occurrence so far in the season. Having competed in an endurance challenge that saw pairs of each tribe hold a wooden box in the air between their feet, Sharni and Paige were the last remaining heroes.
Fighting against Shonee and Liz for over an hour, Sharni and Paige fought valiantly to avoid Tribal Council, but back at camp things took a turn. With Paige clearly upset that they had lost, she began to wonder if Sharni had thrown the challenge. Knowing that he was at risk of being voted out, Ben used this to his advantage, stoking the fire between Sharni and Paige.
Having only been to Tribal twice so far — with one vote being to send a member to the other tribe, not voting to eliminate them — the Heroes have had a massive stretch of time in the game to work together and get to know each other mostly undisturbed.
Speaking to 10 Play after her elimination, Sharni said she believed that worked both in their favour and also to their detriment. “Who do you vote out when you're on a tribe of people that genuinely are getting along,” she explained.
“As Hayley pointed out in the first or second Tribal Council, we never had to make rash decisions because we got to have the time to know each other quite well,” she continued. “It wasn’t like you got thrown into the deep end on day one and were taking a stab in the dark. You got to know people and where loyalties lie and find your real alliance before having to make those big decisions.”
During Tribal Council, Jonathan LaPaglia began to ask Sharni and Paige about the challenge, which was the first time Sharni even realised that Paige blamed her for dropping the box, let alone the accusations that she purposefully threw the challenge.
“People are willing to lie in order to get further in their own game even if that means making up an outrageous claim in order to make themselves feel better,” she said adding, “I don’t think that’s a very heroic act for someone mean to be on a tribe of Heroes.”
In an earlier Immunity Challenge, the Heroes purposefully threw a challenge in order to go to Tribal and vote out Rogue, so it wasn’t completely out of the question, but Sharni hit back at the idea, pointing out how this time around there’d be no reason for the Heroes to want to go to Tribal.
“First of all, you’d want to be sure that you’re going to gain from that opportunity and there was nothing for me to gain in throwing a challenge at that point,” she explained. “And if you’re going to throw a challenge - as we did when we were over the water on the logs - everybody was out of that challenge in under seven minutes.
“That’s how you throw a challenge, you don’t sit there with a box between your legs, go through physical agony and pain for an hour and 15 minutes and be the very, very last ones standing in your tribe in order to then go ahead and throw it and not gain anything out of it.”
Sharni described Paige as “very emotional and upset” just moments before the box dropped. “I was constantly, through that challenge, encouraging and commending Paige specifically on how well she was doing and how proud we should be of ourselves… to turn around and then want to throw your fellow team member under a bus like that, it’s not how I operate.
“Paige had spoken previously about wanting to play the game with loyalty and honesty, the same characteristics I pride myself on in life and how I wanted to play the game as well… what happened was very conniving and devious and deceitful and not for a valid reason,” Sharni continued.
“I had only done my best in that challenge... to be punished for that, in such an outrageous way, I just thought wasn’t cool.
“I understand that it’s a game but, for someone who says they’re going to play with honesty, loyalty and integrity, that’s not exactly what happened.”
As soon as she saw her name drawn from the urn, Sharni knew it was the end of her game, “I just didn’t think it was a valid ending for the respect I had given everybody… I was just finding my feet and I had so much more to give,” she added.
Despite her game coming to an end, Sharni was adamant that she wouldn’t change a thing about how she played.
“The people I was aligned with are my kind of people and the people that ended up turning against me - you can’t control somebody else’s actions, all you can do is control the way you react to those actions,” she said.
“I do feel like I was aligned with the right people and I maintained everything that I wanted to do in there which was play a very honest, loyal game and hold my head high and enjoy every moment and make some great friends and have a great experience. There’s nothing I would change.”
Walking into camp, Sharni had brought a jumper with her grandfather’s favourite saying on the back, ‘Don’t trust anyone’.
“It’s the way I was raised… he taught all his children and grandchildren it as a motto in life and it couldn’t have been more appropriate in the end,” she said, laughing. “After my torch had been snuffed it was wrapped around my waist and my final departing words, especially in a game like Survivor, are don’t trust anyone.”
Australian Survivor: Heroes V Villains airs Sunday - Tuesday at 7.30 on Network 10 and 10 Play on demand
