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MITMH2022
Public Access

Solution to Lord of the Flies

Lake Eerie

Answer: BETRAYAL
by Matt Zinno

Each Double Cross clue mentions the title or subtitle of a season of the US TV show Survivor.

ClueAnswerSurvivor season mentioned in clue
AType of weapons tested at Maralinga in the Australian OutbackNUCLEARAustralian Outback
BHe played Lt. Cable in the original Broadway cast of South PacificTABBERTSouth Pacific
CMusician honored on a medallion between Mozart and Victoria in Palau de la Música CatalanaHANDELPalau
DBrazilian state northwest of TocantinsPARATocantins
EPearl claimed Peridot is harmless without these enhancersLIMBPearl (Islands)
FFriends in the movie Aaaah look for a ghost in this Tamil Nadu device ATMGhost (Island)
GBox-shaped Peruvian drum thought to originate from AfricaCAJONAfrica
HWhere PANAMA is D7 C1 D5 C1 D4 C1 (abbr.)EBCDICPanama
IJoe Pesci title character who faces pool hustlers in AlabamaVINNY(Heroes vs. Healers vs.) Hustlers
JThis Nashville restaurant is run by head cook Deb PaquetteETCHCook (Islands)
KPlant native to the Amazon which caused a boom in 1879 (2 wds)RUBBERTREEAmazon
LIn Japanese, this Super Mario 3 enemy is known as GabonSPIKEGabon
MChannel -3 (WB cartoon where David Paymer voiced a snail)UMPTEEDavid (vs. Goliath)
NFuneral chant in CambodiaSMOTCambodia
OCompany that lets you "Live Anywhere" in places like Norway, Indonesia, and ThailandAIRBNBThailand
PEnvironmental activist who survived a 2009 typhoon in the PhilippinesCABEPhilippines
QUS State whose second-largest city was disparaged in advertising from the Fiji brandOHIOFiji
RWithin the Cagayan Valley, Roman Catholics are thisMAJORITYCagayan
SRoom 401 magician visited by prospective American IdolsMINKIN(Island of the) Idols
TSitting US President honored on a Vanuatu coinOBAMAVanuatu
UFootballer who played himself in a Vin Diesel movie that partly filmed in CaramoanNEYMARCaramoan
VInedible outer portion that you peel apart from the fruitRIND(Worlds) Apart
WPrefix for China used in histories of VietnamINDOChina
XChakotay claimed he and their dinosaur ancestors came from one worldVOTHOne World
YSabal tells this Far Cry 4 character that sins must be washed in bloodAJAYBlood (vs. Water)
ZCrichton who played rugby for SamoaLOKISamoa

The words in the grid are groups of names, separated from adjacent groups with shading. Solvers must recognize that they are names of contestants from the TV show Survivor (US edition). A hint to this is that each clue mentions (part of) the title or subtitle of a different season of Survivor.

K E I T H J E N N A M I C H E L E M I K
E B R E N D A C I R I E T O M R U P E
R T S A R A H S T E P H E N P A R V A T
I B R A D J O N K I M M I V I C T O R
I A M O N I C A D A N I E L L E M A T T
B U R T O N C O L B Y A U B R Y B E N
C O B Y B O B B Y J O N A M A N D A

The acrostic from the clued answers spells NTH PLACE VERSUS A COMMON RIVAL.

Each shaded group in the grid is the list of people who came in a particular ordinal place (e.g. 2nd place) against one particular returning contestant, across all of the appearances of that contestant.

(Some of the people in the grid also appeared in multiple seasons, but getting the same ordinal number for an entire group makes the solution unique.)

The groups in the grid are given so that these returning contestants are in alphabetical order (by first name).

Group of Namesordinal placeseasoncontestant in all those seasons
Keith (Famie)3Australian OutbackAmber (Brkich) Mariano
Jenna (Lewis)3All-Stars
Michele (Fitzgerald)3Winners at War
Mike (Chiesl)6Redemption IslandAndrea Boehlke
Brenda (Lowe)6Caramoan
Cirie (Fields)6Game Changers
Tom (Buchanan)4AfricaEthan Zohn
Rupert (Boneham)4All-Stars
Sarah (Lacina)4Winners at War
Stephen (Fishbach)2TocantinsJ.T. Thomas
Parvati (Shallow)2Heroes vs. Villains
Brad (Culpepper)2Game Changers
Jon (Misch)6San Juan del SurKelley Wentworth
Kimmi (Kappenberg)6Cambodia
Victoria (Baamonde)6Edge of Extinction
Monica (Padilla)7SamoaRussell Hantz
Danielle (DiLorenzo)7Heroes vs. Villains
Matt (Elrod)7Redemption Island
Burton (Roberts)5Pearl IslandsSandra Diaz-Twine
Colby (Donaldson)5Heroes vs. Villains
Aubry (Bracco)5Game Changers
Ben (Driebergen)5Winners at War
Coby (Archa)9PalauStephenie LaGrossa
Bobby Jon (Drinkard)9Guatemala
Amanda (Kimmel)9Heroes vs. Villains

For each of these returning contestants, only one of their seasons appears in the original clues; we order by those clues, and index into their names with the ordinal place that was found.

Survivor season mentioned in clueContestantIndexLetter
Australian OutbackAMBER3B
PalauSTEPHENIE9E
TocantinsJT2T
Pearl (Islands)SANDRA5R
AfricaETHAN4A
CambodiaKELLEY6Y
CaramoanANDREA6A
SamoaRUSSELL7L

(It's also easy enough to find the indexing but not the ordering, and look for anagrams.)

The indexed letters spell out BETRAYAL ("It's a double cross").

Author's Note

Where is BOSTON ROB, you ask? I wanted to fit this Survivor icon into the puzzle somewhere, ideally as one of the returning contestants. You would have used the name BOSTON ROB, and indexed and extracted from that, because that is unequivocally how he's known on the show. Unfortunately, this was too confusing to playtesters who weren't familiar enough with the show, and were relying on online lists that don't list people under nicknames, even one as prominent as that.