Survivor 41 spotlight: Meet Deshawn Radden, medical student and empath

Is Deshawn Radden going to be able to use empathy as an asset on Survivor 41? After reading through his bio, it’s absolutely something he views as an advantage for himself in the game. He’s an interesting castaway in that he seems to genuinely care about other people; however, he also seems to be a big gamer who wants to be two steps ahead of everyone else in the game. These aren’t the sort of things that often mesh together.

In today’s edition of our ongoing spotlight series, we’re stoked to get more into Deshawn’s game, including what works and also what could use a little work.

Watch our Survivor 41 preview video! Below, we get into some preseason comments made by Jeff Probst, including about what will make this season stand out. Once you’re done watching that, we suggest that you SUBSCRIBE to Matt & Jess on YouTube. There are other updates coming and we don’t want you to miss them.

What stands out about him – Deshawn is a 26-year old medical student and like a lot of other people in the cast, we get the sense that his resilience is one of his biggest assets. He’s a smart guy who sets goals and often achieves him, and he wants to do his best to emulate the success of Cirie and Wendell within this game. What he seems to discuss the most in his bio is his ability to care for other people and understand where they are coming from. This level of heightened social awareness could be one of his biggest assets in the game, especially since it’s often best to make other people in the game think you’re playing to help them as much as yourself.

What could hold him back? – He mentions in his bio that one of his biggest pet peeves is being told what to do. That’s going to be a problem in a game where a lot of people love to put on the hat of “authority figure.” He’s going to prepare to bite his tongue here and there to have a shot in this game. He also needs to be versatile as a player; we worry that he’s going to put too much stock in trying to be an empath when some of his other players may look at him as ill-intentioned.

Our personal pre-season assessment

Deshawn mentions that he can be devious, so if he can channel some of his skills into being an aggressive/sneaky player, he could go far. Our fear is that he’ll trip himself up with the morality of life versus the morality of this game. It can be a hard thing to separate, but at least he has a great role model here in Cirie. She seems to be the nicest person ever and yet, she knew when to turn off that part of her brain when it came to making big moves.

Related – Be sure to get some other Survivor news, including more spotlights

What do you think about Deshawn Radden as a Survivor 41 player?

Be sure to let us know in the comments! Of course, we also hope you stick around so you don’t miss any other discussions on the show. (Photo: CBS.)