[PeppyGPhiB]

I totally agreed with Eric's (and Jeff's) take: Natalie's strategy was just as valid as Russell's. I've watched Survivor from the beginning, and I've seen so many people win with many different strategies. Some people win by being nice, some win by messing with everyone, and some win because they skate under the radar and impress everyone with how they got away with it. My take on Survivor has always been that whomever wins deserves it, because they ultimately got to that point by generally being well liked and not annoying/jerky (can't get the jury votes), not intimidating (gets you kicked off), playing really strong in the immunity challenges at the end, or playing so ruthlessly that for some reason the jury respects you for it. In this case, though Russell played ruthlessly, he rubbed some people the wrong way. He also masterminded the voting off of Galu, which made up the majority of the jury. Anyway, whatever your strategy - whether that was letting someone else pull the strings or not - if it gets you to the end, you deserve to win. In fact, I think if you can get away with that, it makes you a brilliant player!

Natalie performed strong in the challenges, but since she's a girl she wasn't noticed for that until the end when it was almost all guys. Russell picked her to go to the end because he thought she was a weak, stupid girl and would annoy the other tribemates - but that wasn't the case. She didn't do anything to ruffle anyone's feathers, and by the time they got to the end, Russell needed her for votes and so he couldn't vote her off. Russell's mistake was voting off Shambo when he should have voted out Natalie.

Cliff's Notes version: Natalie deserved to win because whatever she did in the game, it got her to the same place as Russell and won her more votes.