[Jonathan LaPaglia]

This is Ben's Final Tribal Council Thread.

All other Jurors should remain in their own threads. Final 3, remember... this is not for you to address each other, but to talk to the jury. In-fighting amongst the Final 3 should be reserved for the Live Final Tribal Council on Sunday.

Jury, you have until Saturday at 8c/9e to post your statements/questions to the Final 3. Remember not to take up too much of their time as they have 10 other jurors to get to. Please no listing or questions requiring novels for answers. You should post all of your statements/questions in your opening post in this thread. There is a live Final Council on Sunday where you will get to address everyone live about the statements they have made and ask follow-ups.

[Ben]

Hello, gentlemen. Congratulations on making it to the final 2, which is no easy feat on season of 24 all-stars (yes, not 23 and one newbie. I haven't stopped hearing the end of that shit, by the way.).

David, you screwed me over quite a few times in the game. There were many occasions where I thought, "Dave gave me his word. He's gonna do this" or "He's not gonna do that". And they were lies. LIES, I SAY! I told you about 2 minutes before the final 4 tribal council that if you voted to keep me, you would 100% have my vote to win in the end even if I end up losing the tiebreaker challenge. You delivered and voted for Sharn instead of me and for that, I thank you.

However, I struggle now to find a reason that I should keep my word to you when I've done nothing but keep my word with you all game and you have time and time again broken your word to me. I get that lying is part of the game and as a result, maybe my first lie to you should be right now. I want to keep my word and vote for you, but I find little reason to do so based on our overall game experience together.

Jarrad, around halfway through the merge you seemed to have developed a dislike for me. It seemed to come out of nowhere which was quite upsetting to me because you were one of my favorite people during our short time premerge together. I feel like it started right after we had the number guessing challenge and I got lucky and got you out of the challenge on my first guess. I wasn't trying to get you out of the challenge, I specifically picked you because I didn't want people to think I was close with you. After that, you messaged me, "I guess we don't talk enough since you guessed me first" or something to that effect. In my head, I was like, "Dude, it was a 1 in 12 shot. You think I knew that was your number? It was chance." From then on out you acted so differently to me.

You messaged me less and when I did message you, I usually got short answers and started feeling like you wanted nothing to do with me, which in turn made me stop messaging you that much which probably caused you furthermore to think that I disliked you. I feel like in your head, I started the downfall of our friendship and I don't understand it. You have written my name down 3 times. How many times did I ever write your name down? Zero.



So, my question for Jarrad is:

Why should I not keep my word to David and vote for him to win after he held up his end of the bargain and didn't vote for me at final 4? Other than me claiming you to be a threat and not voting you out, what reason do I have to vote for you to win? And I don't mean the jury, I mean me specifically. What reason does Ben have to vote for you to win this game?

And my question for David is:

Why SHOULD I keep my word to you and vote for you to win after you held up your end of the bargain? What reason do I have to keep my word to you now after so many times you've broken your word to me? Jarrad said he would vote for me if I made it to the end, why not return the favor to him?

Regardless of what I or anybody else have said or will say during this tribal council, you two made it to the final 2. None of us did. That's really fucking impressive. I'm impressed. I'M IMPRESSED BY YOU TWO. That is all. Good luck, guys. Seriously, you earned it. It's been a hell of a game.

[Jarrad]

Hey Ben! It sucks for me to hear that I was one of your favorites from permerge, because I distinctly remember having the thought that you were charming and I really got along with you as well on the first swapped tribe. It makes me feel like you were disappointed in the relationship that we had with each other but to me that seems like it's a bit of a back and forth. I had originally come to you towards the beginning of the merge trying to work together, but nothing ever seemed to come to fruition after that and I don't think you ever were that serious about it. Perhaps I had my hands in a lot of baskets and so I didn't realize what the game could have looked like if we properly did link up, but I did feel like you were much closer to others than you ever would be with me. I do also think that since my relationship with Tegan was much closer than ours, it kept us at more of a distance than we would have been if that weren't to have been the case. I think you're a super witty and funny dude, so I hope you don't think that my targeting you was in any way personal.

Why should I not keep my word to David and vote for him to win after he held up his end of the bargain and didn't vote for me at final 4?

You shouldn't keep your word because, like you said, David repeatedly broke his word to you several times, just in the same way that he did with me. Us, on the other hand, always seemed to be clear to each other what each other was going to be doing, and I don't remember any specific times where I did break my word to you.

Other than me claiming you to be a threat and not voting you out, what reason do I have to vote for you to win? And I don't mean the jury, I mean me specifically. What reason does Ben have to vote for you to win this game?

Ben, you should vote for me to win this game by me recognizing the power that you held and being persistent on it to the point that you eventually left. The round that you had left, I specifically had approached David that round to let him know how big of a threat that Sharn was as well, but that you needed to go first, due mostly in part to the final immunity challenge. I had already established with Sharn at this point how much you were, and I do think that she believed me to be a physical threat, but not as much of a jury threat. In my opinion, you did not hurt anyone's feelings except for Sarah's, and I knew that Sarah would not hold that much animosity towards you in the end if you did end up making it to the finals. I did this in a way where I never backstabbed you, and came after you in a way in which there was no bad blood between us. You should also vote for me to win, because even in your persistence to vote ME out, it never happened, and I never received a single vote. So, in a way, since I bested you, you should reward that.

[David]

Hey Big Ben!

I don't want to sugar coat anything, you are completely right. On numerous occasions this season, I lied to you about what was happening, or what I would be doing. I spoke about the Tessa vote a bit in another response, but this was probably the biggest/first main example. I'll paste below part of the excerpt where I mentioned you:

"I feel like Ben and I had been developing a strong bond, which was majorly set back here (referring to when I wasn't honest with you the round Tessa left). While we were able to come together at multiple points during the rest of the season, I think our working relationship would have been more substantial and deeply rooted. I made the assumption that Ben's loyalty was stronger with you and Tessa than it would have been with me. I didn't spend the proper time to value the one-on-one relationship we had already created at the time."

It was wrong of me to do this, I could have handled the situation a lot more cleanly. I was unnecessarily dishonest with you, something that was a complete error on my part! We didn't work together for the round after this when Kylie left, but I felt like (at least from my perspective) our dynamic improved quite a bit after this.

I fully understand being upset with me breaking my word time and time again; I can't blame you for finding little reason to want to award me with your vote. If I didn't keep my word to you, why should you feel obligated to keep your word to me? I want to try and shed some light on some of the reasons why I believe I deserve YOUR vote. Reasons for BEN, not for the jury.

- I did break my word with you. I also worked with you to pull of some successful plays, and to help keep one another in the game ​(The Michelle vote is a great example). I feel like we were able to build past some of the damage that had been done, in pursuit of a better future.
- I never cast a vote against you this season. We spoke after some of the fallout earlier in the merge about how we knew we likely wouldn't go to FTC together, but that we had mutual interest to continue to stick together in the short term. It just ended up lasting longer than we anticipated!
-At F5, while messy, I solidified a decision to vote Daisy out, which kept us in the game at F4. I know this wasn't ideal for your game over Jarrad, but it put me in the best position to succeed.
- You already mentioned this, but I gave you the opportunity to compete for a spot in the F3.
- Jarrad may have said he would vote for you in the end, but like you said, he voted for you over and over and over again. I hope you know the level of respect I hold for you. If you were sitting here with Jarrad over me, I am very confident that I would have given you my vote to win.

I don't expect or assume your vote by any means, especially with what I have outlined above. I think these factors are important. But there is one factor, one promise that I made to you, that is the most important of the entire Final Tribal Council. One bond that we made that I vowed to never dishonor, no matter what!

I promised you that I would sleep with milk in my beard if I made it to Final Tribal Council, bookending the arc to our unbelievable journey. I finally did it last night. It was stinky. But fuck is my beard ever soft now

[Ben]

Hm. I'm actually pleasantly surprised by both of your answers, guys. I like that shit.

Good luck to you both.