LAST EDITED ON 12-17-14 AT 04:14 PM (EST)

G: I love hearing the influence their sun signs have on the players....LOVE it! So, what can we predict....that if anyone vows out at either of the TC's, between Missy and Baylor, you would expect it to be Baylor? I thought it would be too, if it came down to it because Missy could make the better case. However, now with her bum ankle, I think Baylor may have the better argument? No?

It is a matter of natural fact that being a member of a minority is almost always a disadvantage. No matter how the society in question is being assessed. By age. By gender. By race. By ethnicity. By height. By weight. By income ...

And if the society in question is Survivor and the assessment is by Sun Sign nativity (psychological profile), being a member of the Season's Minority is much more than merely a disadvantage. Historically, it has been almost certainly an insurmountable barrier to winning the Game.

Because:

Six of the now-completed twenty-nine Games have been played by casts evenly divided between Earth and Water | Fire and Air natives. And in those instances, I have yet to find any pattern that indentifies an inherent advantage to either side.

But, in the now-completed twenty-three Games (including San Juan del Sur) with Majority | Minority Sun Sign populations, twenty (or 87%) have been won by a Majority native. So that is the first, and the most fundamental, way that a Survivor's Sun Sign affects him | her in the Game.

And, because it allows us - as a practical matter - to eliminate 44% | 45% of a Season's cast from our list of viable candidates for its winner, I love to see those 56% - 44% or 55% | 45% splits. Note: The most recent of those Seasons were Philippines (Earth and Water Majority) and Blood v Water I (Fire and Air Majority).

San Juan del Sur is, however, about as far from that ideal as it's possible to get. The split this Season was 83% - 17% (Fire and Air Majority) And its three Minority cast members - Reed (Earth | Virgo), Josh (Water | Cancer) and Valesay (Water | Scorpio) have all left the Game.

But, I think that JP helped us enormously with vetting that fifteen-member Majority when he announced that he would never have imagined San Juan del Sur's winner to be that at the beginning of the Season.

So, prompted by his 'Give me a day or two and we'll figure all this out ... see what happens' - and - by JP's observation that watching Keith learn to play the Game was great fun - and - by the fact that I could not imagine that Jeff Probst would ever imagine Keith to be a winner before the Season filmed, I said on October 10th (in, as you know, two threads) that I thought that the older firefighter might well be this Season's Sole Survivor. After all, Mr. Probst's comment presupposed that Keith would be with us for a while. And that he would learn to play the Game. Note: And I figure that we still have that to look forward to in the Finale.

And because Fire Signs are much better at dealing with unorthodox environments (and at creating them) than are Air Signs, two weeks later (between October 22 - 29) I said that I thought that a Fire native would win the Game. And because of the host's emphasis on the theory that the Game would be stolen by someone - from a more-suitable someone - I also said that I thought that the Fire native would be Keith or Jaclyn (Leo) or Natalie (Aries). At that time, thieves all.

Of course, Natalie has now become a member of the imagination establishment. And her curiously-quiet and vigorously- scrubbed edit makes of her one of the two (Missy | Baylor being the other) remaining more-suitable someones from whom the Game may now be stolen.

But, all three of my Fire natives are in the Final Five. So far | So good ...

I have no idea, though, what will happen next. As I said in my opening comments in this Season's Signs of Survivor, this cast is a very different mix than any other. The Series has never before had this many Fire and Air Signs on its beaches. The nearest comparison is Fiji with a 63% - 37% (Fire and Air Majority) split and an Aries (Fire) Sole Survivor.

And the hallmark of these personalities is independence-to-rebellion, spontaneity-to-chaos. So even those among them who bothered to learn the mores of the Game can't be trusted to play by them. And Jeremy (obviously a Capricorn masquerading as an Aries), Josh (the Cancer) and Jeff (the Scorpio) seem to be convinced that none - sans Jeremy - bothered.

But if events dictate that Missy and Baylor must/are able to decide who stays in the Game and who leaves to lobby the Jury, then I think Missy will remain:

Both the Gemini and the Aquarius are comfortable with the spoken word. But the more patient and analytical Aquarius is usually more skilled at protracted persuasion and the theatrical Gemini more adept at inspirational rhetoric. Too, that theatrical Gemini loves a spotlight and is unlikely to give it up readily. It would not surprise me if it turns out that 'This is - Missy's - Time'. Because, even with the promise of a grand exit from an international stage in the offing, I think that Missy would prefer the faint hope of an encore to the faint hope that Baylor could win the Final Four IIC.

And, that the latter would be a faint hope is, I think, confirmed by that introduction to the Finale. Because its treatment of the mother and daughter appears to trumpet that whither one goeth the other will follow. Soon.

Note: But I also said (in October) that I thought that the Fire natives, Jaclyn and Jon, were the only couple capable of arriving at the Final Three - together. And that hasn't gone well.

And with that I'm off to Vote (B | M | J | N | K) and Enter.

And ... to attempt to breathe some life into Signs of Survival. If nothing else, perhaps as a semi-annual retrospective it will become a revered 'tween-season tradition ...

Stop by when you can ...

G