Building the sandcastle did him little good when the birds sat on it. Why, then, couldn't he get rid of them? Collecting firewood is of little importance when the challenge was to make fire, which is significantly more difficult. Further, Harold wasn't even battling Justin during the tar pit challenge: He was battling the beavers. The beavers knocked the column into Justin which caused them both to fall. Unlike Beth, who had a part in knocking off Heather, nothing can justify "mad skillz" on Harold's parts during that challenge.

Remember that Lindsay still knocked Harold out in the boxing challenge: she was docked for biting. That's not a show of skill for Harold; it's a mistake of Lindsay's. They are not the same thing.

So, what do we have? A few minor contributions to team challenges, which are overshadowed by Duncan; a second place in a superhero challenge, and saving his teammates from a submarine. Those are pretty nice, I'm freely able to admit that. However, how does that make him a strong competitor?

You need firewood to make fire. That's the whole idea. In case the flintstones backfire, they have the wood to make fire, that's why it's called firewood. As for the second part of the prehistoric challenge, Harold was battling Justin. He had to fight him using a tiny bone, where Justin on the other hand had a bone twice the size of his. This gave Harold no choice but to doge all of Justin's attacks, which is a form of fighting. He had to do all this and keep the beavers from knocking him into the tarpit. He did quite well, right up to the part where his entire column was devoured and he had to hold onto Justin's bottom fur for safety, which unfortunately failed. He did quite well in that challenge. Courtney on the other hand, had the opportunity to give Duncan a jab. And this was enough considering the size of her bone that the Grips won due to Lindsay making fire. Not only that, she had to battle Duncan on the same column. Yes, the other column was devoured by beavers, but having to battle someone on the same column was pretty simple for her. 1) Because she had a larger bone 2) She was up against Duncan 3) Not a lot of room. This challenge could have been anyone's fair game had Courtney not gained the advantage for the win by grabbing Duncan's wrist. This is the only thing I give her full credit for in this challenge.

You're forgetting that the point of the challenge was to fight in slow motion, not to knock out your opponent. Let me rephrase that: The point of the game was to knock out the opposing player, but to knock them out using slow motion. Harold did this, Lindsay didn't. She may have knocked him out, but was docked because she didn't play according to the rules of the challenge, which was to fight in slow motion. In this instance, knocking out his/her opponent was irrelevant considering that all Chris wanted to see was the players to fight in slow motion. Had Lindsay fought in slow motion, she would have won. Either way, Harold won that fair and square.

And alagaesian pointed out all of Harold's contributions to the game. It would be unfair to compare episodes Courtney wasn't in. Then again, Harold built the handglider which was seated for two. And with that, Heather hoped aboard. On the other hand, being let back in the middle of the season and being given extra perks also isn't unfair, so it evens things out a bit. The fact that Courtney is able to fight so well is due to her being pampered. Sometimes being pampered and well fed helps athletes stay in top shape and that's what Courtney's lawyers are making sure of.

Whether Courtney was in the episodes Harold contributed or not. That doesn't really matter. It does a little, but even having Courtney back at the start of the season wouldn't have made much difference since all of the challenges required crafts and skill. Those types of challeneges are in Harold's element. Things wouldn't have looked up for Courtney until the halfway through the season.

I've already answered the points made about Harold's "skills"

Your point about the wood is pretty useless: The wood was merely kindling, it's not used to make the fire. Further, it's hardly a point to Harold considering every single camper got wood.

As for the second part, Harold was not dodging Justin's attacks: Once the beavers showed up, Harold was too far away to be hit by Justin. That's not dodging. Then the column was destroyed. It's not a point to Harold's favor considering how easily he could have jumped to Justin's column.

Slow motion was only one part of the challenge: Harold merely got points for doing it well. After all, Lindsay did slow motion as well. She was docked for biting. The challenge was Harold's victory fairly, but he did not win. Lindsay lost.

You're also going back to that assuming thing. You're assuming that Courtney's victories come from the bonuses she has won, and you are offering no proof.

You also need to prove that Courtney is not capable of challenges of skill. Navigating a laser grid takes very precise movement. Further, Harold's victories were already explained as not being that spectacular.

And what I said is that whether or not there are rules does not change the accepted ethics of society by which individuals are judged. Whether or not Harold deserves to be picked on is a morally loaded question that begs us to employ ethics in our answers. It is irrelevent whether or not Courtney and Harold's actions constitute cheating under the game's rules, because what we are really discussing is the ways in which they have broken basic ethical code with their actions and what is acceptable retribution if they have.

I stated that Harold did wrong by voting Courtney off unfairly. I pointed out that he has not repeated the mistake. After reflection he admitted that what he did was heinous. He was in hiding because Courtney wasn't looking for an apology; she was looking for revenge. Trent was quite aware of this when he slipped Harold the baloney and acknowledged to Ezekiel that Harold couldn't come out of hiding.

Two wrongs don't make a right, and Courtney was just as wrong to assault Harold with a lamp post. Since Harold provoked her anger, I'll give her the same forgiveness for her initial reaction that I give Harold for his mistake (and which I give to lots of characters for mistakes or one shot acts of vengence), even though physical assault is a more serious offense than vote tampering in a contest...or putting ants in someone's bed, or hooking the septic tank up to the shower, etc... Courtney never admits that violence was a bad thing in any way. To continue to punish Harold is petty, vindictive, and just as wrong as her initially beating the crap out of him. She doesn't get any more slack.

Even if Courtney never got back in the game, she has no inherent right to make Harold suffer for his mistake forever. You said, "Courtney coming back does not exonerate Harold, since he had nothing to do with it." Petty attacks from Duncan or Courtney do not change what happened or serve to resolve the situation. There is no justification for their actions. They are not judge, jury, and executioner with an unimpeachable right for eternal revenge against anyone who angers them. We do not live under some medieval system of vendetta. Nobody has such a right and continued actions against Harold are harrassment.

I don't feel that Courtney suing to get back on the show was wrong, as she was removed from TDI due to vote tampering and it can be viewed as righting that situation. In fact, I'd say she should have pursued legal avenues from the beginning to receive fair compensation for having been voted off due to tampering. That would have been looking for justice rather than revenge, which is an act of trying to restore the balance rather than degenerate into harming others. However, by trying to gain all of her "perks" she has crossed the line and has become the victimizer of all the people who are trying to play the game without having an equal playing field. There are no mitigating circumstances for her attempts to slant the playing field in her own favor through threats from her lawyers. Wanting to win does not justify poor sportsmanship and unethical behavior. I'm not going to exempt Courtney from behaving decently just because she wants to win or because there is no rule to penalize her behavior.

I've already discussed at length in my previous post the evidence that Duncan isn't picking on Harold over the voting incident but rather because he likes to pick on Harold and has since the beginning of TDI. There is no moral justification for bullying. If you don't like someone or think you're better than them, it still doesn't give you the right to make someone else suffer. It doesn't matter who is better in challenges or who is stronger. Bullying is not behavior that one has any right to engage in.

I didn't cry and moan. I pointed out how much Courtney cries and moans. Calling her lawyers has quite a lot to do with suing. That's what lawyers do for a living; they help you sue people in exchange for money. She repeatedly tries to use them to threaten Chris, such as when Chris gives Lindsay a ten. Courtney whines that it's unfair. Chris says he makes the rules, and Courtney counters in a threatening way, "I think you'll find my lawyers make the rules." When she tries to call them from the confessional trailer it's because she's upset that she feels Chris gave Lindsay special treatment for a less original costume. She says, "Lindsay may have won the first round, but I have the law firm of Fleckman, Fleckman, Cohen, and Strauss behind me. They'll make sure I win the million." The obvious implication of her words in light of her threat to Chris is that she's going to try to change the rules in her own favor by using the lawyers (the lawyers are an obvious threat to sue the show again) and they will try to disqualify Lindsay to get the Super Hero fashion win for Courtney. It is an example of her behaving exactly the way I said she would over another person getting special treatment. In a whiny fit of poor sportsmanship, she even chooses to run up and yell delightely, "Not such a wonder woman now, huh," when Lindsay misses the potatoes. She whines everytime she doesn't get her way. If you've failed to notice it, I have to wonder if you've really been watching the show.

The object of winning or the absence of rules does not negate the existence of ethics. You can't just throw out ethics from the discussion because you have no answer to the issue. We are judged for our actions right and wrong. There might not be a rule in the contest about extortion, but it is clearly wrong behavior. It's punishable by law outside the contest, and contracts based on coercion are rendered void when coercion is proven. Whether Courtney thought the building would blow or not, the other players believed. She used that to manipulate them into an illegal contract that they would never have agreed to willingly. That's not morally sound behavior. Period.

I'm not discussing rules and cheating. I'm discussing common decency. As an antagonist Courtney has none, no matter how many times you try to paint her as a poor victim and excuse her rotten behavior with flimsy excuses about it not being against the rules to behave badly (while still condemning Harold for anything you can find or twist). You refuse to actually discuss Courtney's morals as evidenced by her actions, and you try to use the rules as an excuse while penalizing other characters for actions that were never shown as against the rules either.

I never said it was against the rules to hit Duncan in the nuts. I said it was unethical. I said that she's a nasty individual who is not above tricking her boyfriend with a kiss and then hitting him in the nuts just so she can win a challenge. If your girlfriend pretended she was going to kiss you and then hit you in the groin during a competition, I bet you'd think it was pretty unethical. I don't negate her win or her ability to win. She won that contest, but from a moral perspective it was wrong and bad sportsmanship. She could have just let go of his wrist and pushed him. Duncan was already off-balance. The object of the contest was simply to get the other person into the tar. The nutshot was a rotten thing to do. It's called hitting below the belt.

Since you can't change the truth, you simply try to rationalize actions under flimsly excuses and ignore everything you can't think of excuses for. Bad sportmanship is bad sportsmanship, not having a rule against it doesn't make it right. That's the truth.

Harold kept his promise when he said he wouldn't leave his used underwear lying around anymore. He rescued Heather from the beaver dam even though she had just betrayed him. He refused to betray his alliance with LeShawna (until Courtney tricked him into thinking LeShawna had broken it already and planned to vote him off). He forgave Duncan for being horrible to him throughout the war challenge. When Duncan told Harold that he did good, Harold acknowledged that the team did good instead of taking all the credit. He doesn't get his jollies by belittling others. He doesn't contsantly try to change the rules to suit himself or act vindictively.

Saying he has mad skillz isn't unethical. It's not contrary to conscience, morality, or law. He's not harming other campers or treating anyone poorly by saying he has mad skillz, and he doesn't even say it all the time around people. Much of his mad skillz talk is done inside confessional. He's not treating others in a way that he wouldn't wish to be treated himself. Other players have acknowledged the fact that Harold does actually have mad skillz for dancing, lockpicking, figureskating (how he dodged the dodgeballs), sandcastle building, and beatboxing, and num-yo's. Neither Gwen nor Trent ever said he was unethical towards others, and it could easily be viewed as a mistake for them to have overlooked Harold's skills. He outlasted both of them. Even Duncan admitted that Harold has mad skillz at dancing and with the num-yos (under the cover of LeShawna's fart).

Unhygenic isn't the same thing as unethical either. Owen is a fart machine who doesn't believe in showering, but he's still a nice person. Harold picks his nose in his sleep, but he's not going around wiping it on folks as a prank or anything like that. He was initially reluctant to admit that he'd been wrong leaving his used underwear out; but he did admit it, apologized, and kept his promise not to do so any more. So far the boy is shown as a character who generally learns from his mistakes.

Those are the type of actions that make him a protagonist. Saying he tries to behave ethically doesn't mean he never fails or that he's some perfect "paragon of virtue". I've never called him that. It means he tries to be a nice person and is generally a sympathetic character. In the show he's set up as one of the good guys this season.

Courtney and Duncan are behaving as antagonists. They are not sympathetic and they generally behave poorly to others. They make good antagonists, but they are what they are.

You whine and complain about how Harold must perform penance for being unfair to Courtney, yet you excuse Courtney for using her lawyers to secure unfair advantages in the same paragraph. Neither were established as breaking the rules, but both are unethical. You judge Harold according to an impossibly harsh moral code for a single infraction that he hasn't repeated, but throughout your post you excuse continuing immoral action from Courtney by judging her against a background of the games biased and nearly non-existant rules instead of employing the obvious context of right and wrong with the exact same standards as you apply to Harold. You are the one employing a double standard. Unethical behavior is unethical behavior. Stop making excuses.

I don't have time for the big post and will deal with it later, but I will state that this is completely irrelevant. What does Courtney allowing four campers to fall (none of whom are Harold) have to do with who is the superior camper?

Wonderful post.

Everyone involved in this debate needs to read it all, don't just skim.

BrainMan820 wrote:

shishkabob999 wrote: Diddy_2000 wrote: Anyways BrainMan for the win. It is obvious that he is winning I think the one thing that BrainMan can't argue is that Harold is willing to help out his team and vote with them even if he hates them, and Courtney did threaten the four guys in TDDDI. Just keep discussing who's better in challenges. I don't have time for the big post and will deal with it later, but I will state that this is completely irrelevant. What does Courtney allowing four campers to fall (none of whom are Harold) have to do with who is the superior camper?

You've wasted a very long post stating absolutely nothing at all. Never once did I argue that Courtney was morally superior to Harold. It was even in the quote you failed toread. My argument was that Harold is not morally superior, and deserves to be picked on by Courtney or anyone else who was harmed by his heinous actions.

Further, Courtney is NEVER shown getting revenge after beating Harold with the lamppost. Ever since she's been back, she's been attempting to win challenges, and has never been against Harold directly, for whatever reason. Why are you condemning her for that?

Courtney did do legal avenues first if you recall (she just lost. She says it in Playa de Losers and TDDDDI)

What is the difference, honestly, between what Courtney gets and what the others get? This was agreed upon during the lawsuit; before Courtney came back. You are the one slighting her: Law is on her side. Law trumps opinion. This is a basic tenet of the legal system.

Lawyers are not made for suing: they are made for consultation on legal action (if you recall, any person has the right to defend themself in trial, lawyers simply know the law.) Professionals, in a word. If you can prove that Courtney was intending to sue, do so. Until then, it's legal consultation only. That's all a lawyer can do at that point. Read up on the subject, you clearly lack knowledge of it.

Please recall that Chris, did, in fact, break his own rules. He stated to the campers during the superhero challenge their costumes would be judged on originality. Lindsay's costume was not original, and Chris uses his own love of a created character to justify victory over Courtney (with 8 points), or Harold/Leshawna (with 7). Breaking the rules is something Courtney doesn't tolerate. That's the same thing as Harold breaking the rules to cheat her off.

A discussion of ethics is utterly irrelevant, and a distraction issue you use to justify demonizing Courtney. Deal with the topic at hand.

How, exactly, is extortion wrong behavior. You are applying YOUR ethics to the situation, not the ethics of the show, which is the only relevant topic. Further, Courtney is not required to adhere to the other campers beliefs merely because they believe them. They believe the building is going to blow: Courtney does not. She's under no obligation to save their lives; she doesn't believe they are in danger. Whether she's right or wrong is immaterial.

You're whining again about the prehistoric challenge, applying your own ethics to the standards rather then the ethics of the show. Further, please recall Courtney and Duncan's position. They are on a platform not much wider than the two of them. One faulty move by Courtney and she loses. She's too close to punch or kick, and Duncan probably heavier than she is. It was the best course of action considering her opponent. It's not immoral by the show's guidelines. Don't arbitrarily assign your ethics to things.

You might want to read up on the transcripts again: Harold clearly wanted to join into an alliance with Courtney. It's a smart move too (although irrelevant to the dicussion at hand.) Do not fault Courtney for Harold's decision. Further, Leshawna actually DID break the alliance with the men: she agreed to vote off her teammate Duncan, not to mention Harold also agreed with the guy's alliance, which did not include Leshawna.

Your arguments are a complete waste of time because you are applying YOUR PERSONAL moral code to something that IS NOT about you. This is a TV show set in a fantasy world with it's own set of ethics. Harold's actions were illegal; Courtney's were not. You might not like them, you might think they are immoral. But they are not so merely because you believe in them. Talk to me about the context of the show, or about things totally unrelated to your mindless opinion, and we can talk. But for now, you've just wasted a moumental amount of your own time.

Saying it's a waste of time when it doesn't address the topic is not a crime. Further, good and bad points about Harold are irrevalant to the debate if they are not about being antagonized by Duncan and/or Courtney. I'l ltake responsibility for the tangents I've delved on, but KarmaGoddess spent more time on it just bashing Courtney. Nothing to do with the topic at all.

I'd be happy to get on topic. But the topic is not "Let's bash Courtney!" or "My ethics are law" She seems to have forgotten that.