I want to talk about the 4 tribes and their music and editing prior to the merge and how I think it affects their longevity in this game.

Puka and Aitu

They had mostly serious music surrounding them and their confessionals. For Aitu I think there was much foreshadowing of their doom. Episode 1 Billy saying "I'd like to win this challenge but if we lose it won't be that big a deal this early in the game." Ozzy saying "We'll be the strongest tribe as long as we stay happy with each other." Jeff Probst in the challenge "Billy is holding Aitu back." In episode 2 we saw that they did not stay happy with each other and it caused Ozzy to decide on throwing the challenge to get rid of dead weight saying "It will help us in the short run and in the long run"

Apparantly not since after the merge Aitu was split down the middle and Cece was the boot. I have a strong feeling that JP and Cristina are in serious trouble in the next few episodes as the hispnaic tribe with the exception of Ozzy will become extinct. Ozzy's edit is for the long term and he will make the jury. I really think that the amount of snake rattles Ozzy received in his music editing in episode 2 will have him set up as a villian and he will not have a chance to win this season, even though his edit softened in episode 3.

Puka is a mixed bunch within the asian community as pointed out by Jenny in episode 1. Yul and Becky were shown to bond because of their like ethnicity and that continued stronger than ever in episode 3. Cao Boi said in episode 1 that "asians are always being underestimated, they fly under the radar so easy." I think that won't be the case as eventually each one of them will be noticed and picked off. In every season so far the eventual winner of that season has always been seen questioned at the first time they attend a tribal council. Becky and Cao Boi did not get shown to be asked a question, even though Becky was a boot target and Cao Boi was a big part of the voting story. This does not bode well for either of them as I have ruled them out as having any possibility to win this season.

Hiki and Raro

These two tribes were always surrounded with the happy percussive and playful type music, this bodes well and to me it says that the eventual winner of this season will come from either one of these tribes. I also have seen plenty of editing evidence that points to a woman winning rather than a man. How interesting will it be in a season segregated by race that it comes down to a gender war instead?

Episode 1 was a gender battle at Hiki. Sekou had told Nate "If they boot one of us, they are stupid." After Sekou's boot Nate made the episode 2 statement "These women have turned into strong sisters, they have stepped up." (Or something to that effect)

Other episode 1 tidbits:

Sundra “I could care less (about ethnic division)… when it comes to surviving, it’s a human effort”

Parvati “…different ethnic groups. Is that kosher? I don’t know but it’s a cool social experiment I think”

Adam “The tribes were divided by ethnicity but it doesn’t matter to me if its all white or any other type of race; the issue is what kind of people you have, their personalities and if you get along with them”

Jonathan “It is truly going to be a social experiment; fascinating to see how it plays out. I don’t believe that just because these groups have cultural similarities that that will make them more cohesive. This is Survivor and someone is gonna win a million dollars and they are gonna have to cut the throat of the guy next to him at some point”

Now we also know that Parvati's plan is to flirt and manipulate the men. She will "bite off their head and suck their blood." As noted by VS et al, this is a very different edit than the one Misty got as Nate even makes the comment "You are on top of it girl!"

Parvati's edit is also very different from Jerri's edit in S2. Jerri was edited as a black widow spider, a villianess edit. So far if anything Parvati is not getting a villianess edit despite the fact that she wants to manipulate the men, and her music edit is also very positive.

Episode 4 previews indicate some more gender riffs, if only as misdirection. In any case, Parvati is very visible in each episode even if she doesn't have a whole lot to say.

I get a strong feeling that a Hiki or Raro woman will win this season. Parvati is still my number one pick, followed by Sundra, and Rebecca. Sundra had a question asked of her at TC this week that was odd given that she wasn't much of the story at camp. Her reply “You can say vulnerable or valuable and I don’t give credit to either… use my gut… no way to guarantee the results of playing this game”

Candice' edit has had more chance to get fleshed out and yet hasn't, like the omission of her at exile island last week. I don't think she has a shot. Stephannie is an enigma to me, at times I think she could have a shot, and at others I think she will be doomed. Jessica is also an enigma and I haven't decided what her fate will be yet.

James Barber from another site made the following observations which I also agree with:

The editing for this season is bizarre. According to Becky, Cecilia was seen as the leader of the Aitutaki alliance, if not it's strongest member. However, almost anything interesting about her that could have been shown wasn't shown.

I'm not sure if this is yet more of Burnett's obsession with alpha males/"daddy" figures (this season Jonathan and Yul), but in every episode so far, women have been edited into the most subservient of roles -

left behind in E1 while Sekou/Nathan chose who should go to Exile; in E2 the men decided to throw a challenge, with Cecilia's role kept to a minimum and Cristina shown as having futile objections, while on Raro the women were there to observe the measuring contest between Jonathan/Adam. Stephannie was shown only because she was crucial to the outcome of E1. Most of Candice's role has been based on what a man thinks of her (Adam, Billy). The biggest "star" of the women so far has been Parvati, who talks only about flirting with men; after her comes Flica, who has been a perpetual screw-up. Rebecca has been spotlighted several times for starting a fire and doing well in challenges, but she never gets any airtime of her own. The big decisions all come from men.

I don't know if any season has ever had such a consistent, deliberate minimizing of women in the first three episodes. This might be setting viewers up for something - the women working together to get rid of JP, or the women banding together at the merge, the final players of the game being women. I have no idea. But it's so heavy-handed, the way the women have been edited, the only positive explanation I can think of is we're supposed to be shocked when they take over later in the game.

So in the final analysis when we look back at S13 the season that separated the tribes by race, the social lines are still drawn between the genders.