Tribal Council

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- This is part of the ritual of Tribal Council, because in this game, fire represents life. As long as you have fire, you are still in this game. When your fire's gone, so are you. Tribal Council is an elimination ceremony that usually happens every third night in the game of Survivor, where the contestants are being held accountable for their actions in the game, usually with one person being voted out of the tribe.

Survivor (U.S.)

 * A wooden platform in the jungle.
 * Tall stone rocks beside a waterfall, covered in aboriginal paintings.
 * A Kenyan indigenous village.
 * A traditional Marquesan hut.
 * A Thai temple on a pier.
 * Amazonian ruins.
 * An abandoned colonial fortress.
 * A Panamanian treehouse.
 * A stone ring with skulls and a Vanuatu hut in the background.
 * An abandoned military base.
 * Authentic Mayan pyramids.
 * A makeshift cave filled with candles and Haitian voodoo symbols.
 * A colonial shipwreck.
 * A Fijian stilt house.
 * A Chinese temple.
 * A Micronesian village over water.
 * A Gabonese village.
 * A Brazilian hut.
 * A Samoan fale.
 * Huts inspired by Swiss Family Robinson.
 * An abandoned church.
 * A Mesoamerican hut.
 * A Polynesian hut.
 * A mangrove village.
 * A Maranao hut.
 * An Igorot village.
 * A Chinese trading port.
 * Balinese pagodas.
 * Mesoamerican ruins.
 * A shipwreck village.
 * Cambodian Khmer ruins.
 * A Cambodian fishing village.
 * A Fijian village of bure kalou huts.
 * A lighthouse and authentic shipwrecks from Hurricane Winston.
 * An abandoned trading port inspired by Fiji's shipping trade history.
 * Ghostly tiki totems.
 * Ancient ruins inspired by Maori, Marquesan, Fijian and Aztec culture.
 * An Asian cargo shipwreck.
 * A Polynesian village.
 * A damaged war hideout.

Format
The Tribal Council area is designed to strike fear into the contestants, adding up to the tension of voting. Intricately designed by the Survivor Art Department, the Tribal Council area can range from looking like a makeshift hut, a temple, or an enormous stilt house, based on the theme of the season. It should be noted however that the and  Tribal Council sets were actual archaeological sites.

Tribal Council usually starts at sundown. When a tribe visits Tribal Council for the first time, its members are given torches and are to dip them in the central fire pit. The host then reminds the castaways that the fire on their torch symbolizes their life in the game, and once it is extinguished by him, their time in the game is over. This metaphor is used commonly within the show's theme. The castaways will have a conversation with the host for hours, usually edited in the actual episode to only feature the highlights, regarding camp life, strategy, social interactions, and events he witnessed at the challenges throughout the cycle. The session oftentimes leads to tension-filled discourses among tribe members, and contestants in precarious situations may reveal important information or plead their case to keep themselves in the game. If a castaway fails to give a satisfying answer to the host, the host reserves the right to test that contestant further by peppering him or her with more incriminating questions. Once the host finishes interrogating the contestants, they, one by one, will proceed to a distant voting booth where they will write the name of the castaway they want to vote out and must state the reason why he/she wanted to vote for that player. Occasionally, these confessionals are shown on television, but to increase suspense, not all voting confessionals are aired. These confessionals can be viewed in full through CBS's YouTube account and the show's DVD releases. After voting, the players would insert their ballot inside an urn, which the host later collects. The host tallies the votes and reveals the results to the players. When the votes are read, the order that the votes are pulled has also usually been manipulated by production to extract the most suspense from the players during the tally. All votes are final and cannot be further altered; though in theory, there could have been an exemption in, , , , and due to the powers of a special Hidden Immunity Idol that could be used to negate votes after the deciding vote is revealed. Beginning from, the host would ask the tribe if any one of them possesses a Hidden Immunity Idol and feels the need to use it before he reads the votes.

Once the vote tally has exceeded the plurality needed, the host stops tallying, pronouncing that player eliminated from the game, keeping the remaining votes a secret, though typically, the unread votes are implied to be for the eliminated contestant. The eliminated player presents the host his or her torch and the host extinguishes (known in the series as "snuffing") it and tells that contestant the parting words, "The tribe has spoken," before asking the player to leave the Tribal Council area. Eliminated players walk away from the Tribal Council grounds into a small confessional booth, where they can air out their grievances and reflections, which are shown during the end credits.

In rarer cases, if a starting tribe has been decimated to its last two members and no merge has been announced, these two players will compete in a Tiebreaker where the winner stays, and the loser is eliminated from the game.

Double Tribal Councils
Following the increase of contestants in some seasons beyond 16, Double Tribal Councils have occurred, wherein multiple tribes go to separate Tribal Council sessions to eliminate one of their own. This is to quickly reduce the number of remaining castaways since having an expanded cast breaks the conventional three day cycle. The first Double Tribal Council happened in to give way for the returning Outcasts, which by giving two players a chance to return meant that 16 vote outs had to occur this season rather than the standard 14. In, , , and , the tribes competed in a Reward Challenge for a feast to be eaten at Tribal Council, where the winning tribe gets to listen to the losing tribe's Tribal Council. Regardless of the result of the Reward Challenge, both tribes would vote someone out. In each of those four instances, the winning tribe voted someone out first, and all included an opportunity for individual immunity either for one player on just one or both tribes.

In, a Double Tribal Council was supposed to be slated on Day 15, but it was postponed when Ronia Kimura suffered severe exhaustion during the Reward Challenge, which led to her evacuation. The said challenge was called off with neither tribe winning the reward; instead, they were merely instructed to proceed to a Joint Tribal Council for further notice. But the castaways were relieved when host Sodaikansatsu announced that Ronia's condition was getting well and that the planned double elimination was canceled due in part to her impressive tenure as "chief" of Galu.

Joint Tribal Councils
Some seasons have held Joint Tribal Councils, wherein more than one tribe attends Tribal Council as one group. The first Joint Tribal Council occurred in in lieu of the planned Double Tribal Council after Ronia Kimura was medically evacuated from the game. This occurred again in after Takeo Hamasaki was evacuated, where it was announced that the two tribes had merged. In both cases, no elimination occurred at Tribal Council in lieu of the evacuations.

In and, only the first place tribe in a particular three-tribe Immunity Challenge won immunity, while the two losing tribes were sent to a Joint Tribal Council to vote as one group, with only one player being eliminated that night.

Tie Votes
Please see Tiebreaker.

Jury Phase
See main article: Jury.

Final Tribal Council
For more information, see Final Tribal Council.

Tribal Council-related twists
For more information, see Double Elimination.

In, a special twist caused the Rarotonga tribe to vote another player out immediately after they had already eliminated a tribe member. During their Tribal Council, Rarotonga eliminated two tribe members in two separate voting rounds. This also occurred in, , , and.

Unlike Cook Islands, Redemption Island and South Pacific each had an impromptu Immunity Challenge between the votes, and the Tribal Councils in question were conducted after the two starting tribes had merged. In Ghost Island and Island of the Idols, a single Immunity Challenge was held, with the merged tribe being divided into two groups that would attend two separate Tribal Councils. Individual immunity was offered to each group in an endurance style challenge, and whoever lasted the longest overall would win their group the privilege of attending Tribal Council second, thus knowing who was voted out from the other group.