Mary Beth Haralovich Michael Trosset Department of Media Arts Department of Mathematics University of Arizona College of William and Mary 520 621-7800 757 221-2040
[email protected] [email protected] “Expect the Unexpected”: Narrative Pleasure and Uncertainty Due to Chance in Survivor In the wrap episode of Survivor’s fifth season (Survivor 5: Thailand), host Jeff Probst expressed wonder at the unpredictability of Survivor. Five people each managed to get through the game to be the sole survivor and win the million dollars, yet each winner was different from the others, in personality, in background, and in game strategy. Probst takes evident pleasure in the fact that even he cannot predict the outcomes of Survivor, as close to the action as he is. Probst advised viewers interested in improving their Survivor skills to become acquainted with mathematician John Nash’s theory of games. Probst’s evocation on national television of Nash’s game theory invites both fans and critics to apply mathematics to playing and analyzing Survivor.1 While a game-theoretic analysis of Survivor is the subject for another essay, this essay explores our understanding of narrative pleasure of Survivor through mathematical modes of inquiry. Such exploration assumes that there is something about Survivor that lends itself to mathematical analysis. That is the element of genuine, unscripted chance. It is the presence of chance and its almost irresistible invitation to try to predict outcomes that distinguishes the Survivor reality game hybrid. In The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes explored how narrative whets our desire to know what happens next.2 In Survivor’s reality game, the pleasure of “what happens next” is not based on the cleverness of scriptwriters or the narrowly evident skills of the players.