‘Survivor: Kaoh Rong’ spotlight: Can Aubry Bracco use her quirkiness as an asset?
Aubry Bracco is the sort of “Survivor” castaway we like to see. While casting has always done a good job finding young men who are enormous fans of the show and analytical thinkers, they haven’t always done the best job of that with women. That has been changing over the past few years, and Aubry certainly follows in the footsteps of people like Sophie Clarke and Shirin Oskooi, who both proved to be very entertaining presences with plenty of gameplay during their own seasons of the show.
While we know from reading her bio and watching her video online that we’ll be rooting for Aubry, does that mean that she will actually go far? It’s something that we’ll be investigating more in our second edition of our “Kaoh Rong” spotlight series.
Age – 29
Location – Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Tribe – Chan Loh a.k.a. the Brains.
Occupation – Social media manager. Specifically, Aubry mentions that she helps to maintain a Facebook page for a large company. We respect people with the fortitude to do this, mostly because in our head we picture a bunch of angry people constantly complaining at you all day about things your employer is doing wrong. (This is at least what we think of with Twitter.)
Past “Survivor” comparison – Aubry herself mentions both Sophie and Cochran, and at other points she also name-checks Greg Buis. Anyone who does that gets bonus points! We see a little bit of all of them, but we’d also throw in there Spencer Bledsoe and maybe a little bit Courtney Yates based on she says that she’ll need to have to watch her mouth at times.
Things to know – She is extremely educated having gone to Brown, and given how she references that her name means “leader of the elves,” she’s also a fellow nerd. While she has a quirky personality, don’t take that as a sign that she is someone who just goes with the flow or is out to have fun all the time. She can be tenacious and persuasive when she needs to be, as evidenced by her convincing her school to let her write a children’s book rather than a 50-page thesis.
Advantages – She’s incredibly intelligent, though you could make the argument that almost everyone is on the Brains tribe is. What she also mentions in her video that we really like is that she wants to at times entertain and put some of the other players at ease; sometimes the bigger game-bots often forget that there are human emotions at the center of the game, and that being at least reasonably likable is important. She’s studied the show through watching for more than a decade, and seems self-aware enough to what her advantages and disadvantages are.
Disadvantages – We’re not sure how much experience she has outdoors, and the same goes for her ability in challenges. If the Brains tribe struggles early like they did in “Cagayan,” she could be someone who is targeted … especially if other people make a Sophie comparison, as well. You never want to bee viewed as too similar to someone who previously won the game. Aubry is a big threat; it all just comes down to whether or not the other players realize it.
Prediction – There are some players we’re able to make a quick judgment right away on them. For example, we feel confident that Peter from Aubry’s tribe could go pretty far, but on the flip side we’re not confident at all in Joe, the show’s oldest player in quite a long time. We can go either way on Aubry right now. There are easily scenarios where we see her going all the way and winning, just as there are also ones where she is out before the merge either for being too much of a strategic / social threat or not being as good in the challenges. It may be a little bit of a cop-out, but we’re going to wait until we profile everyone until we render a final verdict here. That’s something we’ll do in our semi-annual full prediction piece.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q36p9E7yX-w