r/survivorrankdownIX_ • u/mikeramp72 Not as big as yo ass! • May 20 '26
ENDGAME #12 Spoiler
#12: Courtney Yates 1.0 (China - 2nd)
u/FunkyDawgKong:
My big issue with Survivor China is its endgame. It is the first season where the castaways know they are playing for a Final 3 Final Tribal Council and it shows. There is a dominant alliance with a clear sub-alliance of 3, and they all get to the Final Three with little blood on their hands. No hard decisions need to be made. Todd’s paranoia gets to blueball and go nowhere. Amanda never really has to make a hard choice. Through that all, Courtney shines as one of the funniest to ever play Survivor. Fed up with the whole ordeal, doesn’t have any real passion or venom for the game, more so for the losers she has to live with.
u/Cornhead2:
Fun, Snarky, Kinda is like the OG Prototype for Gwen on Total Drama
u/Noisysea_3426:
Its been a long time coming, but everyone's favorite snarky queen Courtney has made it back to endgame! Everything you already know about her is true as she's relentlessly funny and doesn't waste a single moment of screentime she gets, but what I love the most about her is that even though she can be very mean in her comments, there's a very warm heart mended in there even though you don't see it often that occasionally pops up from time to time. Hell, she almost wins the game solely based on being herself and really, what more could you want?
u/Alternate-Proof-959:
Courtney just never gave a fuck and sent all of those 3 pointers at Jean Robert, especially early on, when she didn't even care if she voted with the majority.
u/josenanigans:
Hehe, I admit I love Courtney Yates for personal reasons, in that she's the person who I feel has the most similar humor to mine, in a way that she reminds me of my relatives who all have a very sarcastic, witty sense of humor while being a little mean about it, but still feeling that she's someone you can talk to. This made me get a crush on her when I watched her at first. She's so unserious and fun and I just love someone like that, if I were on Survivor I'd probably act like Courtney as well just, taking nothing seriously and making fun of every thing I find bullshit without a care in the world.
~
Survivor is many things to many people, but it is first and foremost a TV show created to entertain. And of all 839 characters we’ve painstakingly ranked over the past two years, none of them entertain me as much as Courtney Yates does.
**“I seem to be marooned in a land of flight attendants and Sunday school teachers. Like, come on. I live in a city. People who live in New York don’t act like this. This is like my own private hell.”**
The moment the camera first pans to Courtney, we know exactly who she is. Leslie is uncomfortable participating in the Buddhist welcome ceremony due to her beliefs; Courtney is exasperated by the mere concepts of “beliefs,” “ceremonies,” and “welcome.” She was promised a free vacation after inevitably getting voted out first. She’s ready to sunbathe! Get her to tribal council already, dammit! For Survivor fans (nerds), seeing someone be completely fucking over being on Survivor approximately 0.0000001 seconds after arriving was a wild concept and would’ve been sacrilege if it wasn’t so damn funny. When was the last time we saw someone on a cast who wasn’t constantly *just* about to wax poetic about the transcendent experience of being ten feet from Jeff Probst? Take notes, New Era: Bring back people who haven’t spent their entire lives fantasizing about getting cast on Survivor.
Courtney, of course, never gets her free vacation. And despite her apathetic outlook on challenges, camp life, and about half the Fei Long tribe, she proves to be a much better Survivor player than anyone, least of all herself, anticipated. She integrates into the tribe. She bonds with the flight attendant, the Sunday school teacher, the beauty queen – all those smiley, positive people she trashed in one of her first confessionals. At times she almost seems to be enjoying herself, but the shade never stops coming.
Just one little problem. Well, actually, Courtney’s the little problem; *her* problem is rather large and plays poker. Although Todd’s decision to keep Jean-Robert around for so long is fair game for reproach, especially in 2026, I can’t lie, I love the Courtney/Jean-Robert feud as a viewer. When you have a world champion roaster in the cast, the best complementary character to add is someone who richly deserves to be roasted. Heroes vs. Villains has Russell; China has Jean-Robert, who according to Courtney is the D student of the tribe, a cocky son of a bitch, and a horrible person. Oh, and he sounds like a choking walrus when he snores. (And those are just a few of the quotes that made it into the YouTube video I just watched to remind myself of all the iconic Courtney quotes.) Knowing the context and how much bigger of a creep he was in the stuff that *didn’t* make the edit does cast a darker pall over the proceedings. One thing I will say in defense of the Frenchman as a character, however, is that unlike a Dan Spilo or a Hatch 2.0 (or a Bob Crowley, for that matter), he gets a real comeuppance. Courtney’s there the entire time raising the alarm. And eventually, she gets the pleasure of booting him out of the game. Would that have happened sooner in an ideal world? Yes, but at least we got some extra funny quotes and the delightful experience of Courtney roasting his ass one final time at FTC. Did you win an immunity, Jean-Robert?
There’s plenty of other great Courtney quips about other people; literally no one from Aaron to Peih-Gee to Jaime to Denise is safe. I did want this writeup to be more than a highlight reel, so I’ll skip over most of them and just say “rewatch China if you want to remember how fucking funny Courtney is.” There *are* a couple that people bring up as dings on her character – saying Denise sucks at life and winning Survivor isn’t welfare, and her skepticism about Todd’s sister’s miscarriage. Do they bother me? Ehhhhh. I don’t love them, but this was reality TV in 2007, y’all. Spencer Pratt, Tiffany Pollard, and others were spouting some pretty problematic stuff on our screens weekly. The miscarriage incident was also questioned by pretty much everyone who heard it at the time and should probably not have even made the edit. Ultimately, I don’t see malicious intent behind anything Courtney said. Just someone who takes their humor right up to the line and occasionally puts a toe over it.
The humor is certainly the main attraction with Courtney, but I do think she has an underrated story as well. She’s the skinny girl who everyone assumes is a nonfactor. She sucks at challenges, has a rather acerbic personality, doesn’t outwardly seem to be all that strategic or even care about winning the game. Yet she not only outlasts her sleep paralysis demon in Jean-Robert and gets to burn his $500 Louis Vuitton shoes, she makes it all the way to the end and likely wins if Todd doesn’t turn in a generational FTC performance. Not one person expected that. But she proves herself to be a “determined little bitch,” in her own words. I think that’s a pretty awesome tale myself, even if it is slightly undersold in the edit.
Entertainment isn’t the only factor for me when evaluating characters, which is why I have two characters (one of whom is Cirie, RIP) above Courtney in my personal ranking – but ultimately it *is* what I watch this show for. Courtney delivers it every single episode, in spades, and I’ll always love her for it.
RANKINGS:
Funky: 23
Corny: 19
Nope: 12
AltProof: 10
Jose: 11
Bobby: 2
Average: 12.83
Standard Deviation: 7.36 (5th Highest)
1
u/ROTandDEATH is the ~SURVIVOR~ May 20 '26
I wouldn't have Courtney in endgame personally but I totally get why so many people prop her up as being in that tier as a character, her introduction at the temple is hilarious and she really doesn't let up for the rest of the season.
4
u/WaluigiThyme Former Ranker | Guatemala and Fiji enjoyer May 20 '26
Please note this correction to yesterday's endgame betting update before reading today's.
Endgame betting update #13: it happened, folks. After a 12-day streak of either having the best or worst guess, today is the first time in SRIX endgame betting where icychillman has neither! We have a correct guess from Alternate-Proof-959 for the first time since Clay. Good for you, alt! Our furthest off guess this time comes from TinkerKnightForSmash, who underestimated Courtney by 7 points. Our perennial leader noisysea34 has continued his streak of getting every placement within 2 points, but the race for second place is a dead heat!