Jeff Probst clarifies Survivor idol transfer rules at Tribal Council

Can you hand another player an idol while the votes are being read on Survivor? We went to the host for the definitive word.

WARNING: This article includes spoilers for the Nov. 2 episode of Survivor 43.

Chaos erupted on Wednesday's episode of Survivor 43 when players started shuffling idols and advantages back and forth to avoid potentially having one of them stolen by James Jones, who had procured a Knowledge is Power advantage, giving him the ability to take an idol or advantage from someone if he could correctly guess who was in possession of one.

In all the trinket shuffling, Dwight Moore ended up in temporary possession of Jeanine Zheng's immunity bracelet, but when Dwight's name began coming up during the reading on the Tribal Council votes, Jeanine started asking for the idol back, repeatedly putting her hand out behind her in the hopes that Dwight would give her the idol in case he was voted out. Even though Dwight told Jeanine "I got you" and "I see you, I see you," he did not turn the idol over before he was eventually voted out by the tribe. But could he have?

We went to host and executive producer Jeff Probst for answers. First off, we wanted to make sure the rule about not being able to hand an idol over after you were voted out was still intact. "That's correct," says Probst. "Once you're voted out, you're out of the game and any advantage or idols in your possession lose all their power. You must turn all unplayed idols or advantages over to us. You are not allowed to even sneak an advantage to a player so they could try to bluff with it."

That's an interesting last point, that even a dead idol is not allowed to be played as a decoy. But now that we have reestablished that idols and advantages cannot be transferred as one is getting up to get their torch snuffed, what about during the reading of the votes, when Jeanine was asking for her idol back? Again, we went to the host for the final word. Could Dwight have handed the idol back before that final vote was read?

"No," says Probst. "Once the reading of the votes begins, that's it. That's why I say, 'If anyone has an idol or an advantage and you want to play it, now would be the time to do so.' That's your window. After that, you are basically handcuffed from doing anything other than hoping it's not you."

So there you have it. Had Dwight passed Jeanine's idol back to her it would have been confiscated by producers and presumably buried out on Ghost Island to mature with awesome new powers. All that said, it was still a nice try by Jeanine.

Source: https://ew.com/tv/survivor-43-jeff-probst-idol-transfer-tribal-council/

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Brian