Just in time for the end of the year – and as always, coming after the actual King William’s College Quiz, which also as always is much harder than this little trifle – comes our annual holiday tradition of pandering to nerds.
If you’re new to this, you might want to look at last year’s quiz or the 2013 or 2012 quizzes in order to get an idea (from the commenters’ working to solve them) of how these quizzes work.
And without further ado:
QUESTION ONE
a. What was spared from destruction because it was useful to the enemy?
b. What was reshingled with breakfast food?
c. What failed to convert into a pie business?
d. What produced wonders of cooking that made grown men weep?
e. What was mortgaged without the knowledge of its owners?
f. Where were cattle without point or aim?
g. What was renamed once after violence and once after peace?
h. Where was a child spared because he might prove useful in future?
i. What was priced with the blood of Jesus Christ?
QUESTION TWO
a. Who owned a chain of successful restaurants?
b. Whose total was sixty-five?
c. Who was a seasoned yacht operator?
d. Who equipped his vehicle with illegal weapons to win a race?
e. Who was a selfless servant?
f. Who revealed murders committed by a public servant?
g. Who gave away his lucky stone?
h. Whose friendship could not be bought with a drink?
i. Who was enslaved for her mother’s debts?
QUESTION THREE
a. Who was kept in a padlocked cell?
b. Who freshened their breath with a popular mint?
c. Who was electrocuted ahead of schedule?
d. Who wore a nonexistent kilt?
e. Who was offended by another person’s lack of opera knowledge?
f. Who once went ice fishing in Wisconsin?
g. Who did not outlive the most wanted man in America?
h. Who made three impossible trips?
i. Who purchased privately owned technology stock?
QUESTION FOUR
a. Who taught a robot the language of the streets?
b. Who was saved from an angry buffalo?
c. Who died under the stars?
d. Who was captured by men with swelled heads?
e. Who survived a desert thanks to an oasis?
f. Who could not defeat a bear single-handedly?
g. Who once sold a movie for a dollar?
h. Who permanently lost some of her body mass?
i. Who was more popular and successful than her parents?
QUESTION FIVE
a. Who destroyed the Vatican?
b. Who met the Wandering Jew at the end of time?
c. Who smiled, and ate the chicken?
d. Who was like a bug upon a windshield?
e. Who never did anything remotely interesting or original?
f. Who was blinded by himself?
g. Who became a force of death in two different ways at two different times?
h. Whose friend was a jinn in disguise?
i. Whose marriage was unhappy?
QUESTION SIX
a. When a queen was poor, what did she buy herself to eat?
b. What was best with a drop of venom?
c. What did a blind girl have in the morning?
d. What was made in a helm and not as good as deer?
e. What had to be made particularly to satisfy a commander?
f. What helped cause a princess to weaken her resolve?
g. What made a man so happy he was almost dancing?
h. What was an accompaniment to living flame?
i. What was a pirate’s cure for a sore throat?
QUESTION SEVEN
a. Whose duty was it to kill a mad god?
b. Who was sentenced to execution via primate?
c. Who did not deserve to die in a Turkish dungeon?
d. Who tortured a child to find his wife’s paramour?
e. Who began a revolution to usurp the gods from power?
f. Who unknowingly carried power within his eye?
g. Who decided that an asteroid crash was too merciful?
h. Who bought his home in an estate sale?
i. Who went on a sea cruise just before an election?
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60 users responded in this post
QUESTION ONE
a. What was spared from destruction because it was useful to the enemy?
this dick
b. What was reshingled with breakfast food?
this dick
c. What failed to convert into a pie business?
this dick
d. What produced wonders of cooking that made grown men weep?
this dick
e. What was mortgaged without the knowledge of its owners?
this dick
f. Where were cattle without point or aim?
this dick
g. What was renamed once after violence and once after peace?
this dick
h. Where was a child spared because he might prove useful in future?
not this dick
i. What was priced with the blood of Jesus Christ?
the shroud of turin
QUESTION TWO
a. Who owned a chain of successful restaurants?
this dick
b. Whose total was sixty-five?
this dick
c. Who was a seasoned yacht operator?
this dick
d. Who equipped his vehicle with illegal weapons to win a race?
this dick
e. Who was a selfless servant?
this dick
f. Who revealed murders committed by a public servant?
this dick
g. Who gave away his lucky stone?
this dick
h. Whose friendship could not be bought with a drink?
this dick
i. Who was enslaved for her mother’s debts?
this dick
QUESTION THREE
a. Who was kept in a padlocked cell?
this dick
b. Who freshened their breath with a popular mint?
this dick
c. Who was electrocuted ahead of schedule?
this dick
d. Who wore a nonexistent kilt?
this dick
e. Who was offended by another person’s lack of opera knowledge?
this dick
f. Who once went ice fishing in Wisconsin?
this dick
g. Who did not outlive the most wanted man in America?
this dick
h. Who made three impossible trips?
this dick
i. Who purchased privately owned technology stock?
this dick
QUESTION FOUR
a. Who taught a robot the language of the streets?
Yo-Landi and Ninja
b. Who was saved from an angry buffalo?
this dick
c. Who died under the stars?
this dick
d. Who was captured by men with swelled heads?
this dick
e. Who survived a desert thanks to an oasis?
this dick
f. Who could not defeat a bear single-handedly?
Leonardo DiCaprio
g. Who once sold a movie for a dollar?
this dick
h. Who permanently lost some of her body mass?
this dick
i. Who was more popular and successful than her parents?
this dick
QUESTION FIVE
a. Who destroyed the Vatican?
this dick
b. Who met the Wandering Jew at the end of time?
this dick
c. Who smiled, and ate the chicken?
this dick
d. Who was like a bug upon a windshield?
this dick
e. Who never did anything remotely interesting or original?
this dick
f. Who was blinded by himself?
Oedipus
g. Who became a force of death in two different ways at two different times?
this dick
h. Whose friend was an jinn in disguise?
this dick
i. Whose marriage was unhappy?
this dick
QUESTION SIX
a. When a queen was poor, what did she buy herself to eat?
this dick
b. What was best with a drop of venom?
this dick
c. What did a blind girl have in the morning?
this dick
d. What was made in a helm and not as good as deer?
this dick
e. What had to be made particularly to satisfy a commander?
this dick
f. What helped cause a princess to weaken her resolve?
this dick
g. What made a man so happy he was almost dancing?
this dick
h. What was an accompaniment to living flame?
this dick
i. What was a pirate’s cure for a sore throat?
this dick
QUESTION SEVEN
a. Whose duty was it to kill a mad god?
this dick
b. Who was sentenced to execution via primate?
this dick
c. Who did not deserve to die in a Turkish dungeon?
this dick
d. Who tortured a child to find his wife’s paramour?
this dick
e. Who began a revolution to usurp the gods from power?
this dick
f. Who unknowingly carried power within his eye?
this dick
g. Who decided that an asteroid crash was too merciful?
this dick
h. Who bought his home in an estate sale?
this dick
i. Who went on a sea cruise just before an election?
Gary Hart
I’ll take one from each section, Alex:
1e. AMERICA
2g. Usidore the Blue Wizard
3d. Scot Free
4f. Anita Bryant
5f. Reggie Mantle, looking into the mirror
6a. Corgi Helper with Cheese
7f. Probably a transformer. Wasn’t that in the theme song?
4d might be Christopher Pike.
Okay, I know I’m going to regret this, but let’s burn a few brain cells.
QUESTION THREE
f. Who once went ice fishing in Wisconsin?
Guess: Shadow, the protagonist of American Gods.
QUESTION FOUR
e. Who survived a desert thanks to an oasis?
Guess: Cable Hogue “found water where it wasn’t”.
QUESTION SEVEN
Several of these could refer to aspects of the Eternal Champion — e strikes me as Corum, f as Dorian Hawkmoon, a and/or d could be Elric.
QUESTION FOUR
h. Who permanently lost some of her body mass?
Guess: Deputy US Marshall Carrie Stetko from Whiteout.
2d: Messala from Ben Hur.
5b: Possibly sombody from a Canticle for Liebowiz?
5b. For what it’s worth, according to The Google (and a book intriguingly titled “The Esoteric Codex”), an 1896 Brazilian poem has the Wandering Jew converse with Prometheus “at the end of time”.
Is 1c a Sweeney Todd reference?
To be honest, a lot of this is me trying to redeem myself after missing last year’s Sweeney Todd reference.
@Mitchell, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree there – Mrs Lovett already had a pie shop.
That said, there does seem to be some sort of food or culinary theme there. 1b rings very faint bells, but I can’t place it – similarly with 1d…
Gyroshelper’s 4d might be right. And 4a – is that a reference to Die Antwoord in Chappie?
Or possibly a young John Connor.
5a could be Super-Shock from the Powers comic.
The most obvious answer for 5f is probably Oedipus — and if 5b is Prometheus, that suggests a theme.
On the other hand, if you squint, 5f could be Hyperion from the Squadron Supreme (mid 80s limited series), who is blinded by an evil duplicate of himself when they hit each other with heat vision.
Probably a stretch, but Super-Shock and Hyperion would suggest a very different theme.
After a bit of searching, 5b is apparently Majestic, so 5 is Not-Supermans.
I think 7c is Azeem, from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
1c. What failed to convert into a pie business?
Mrs. Tweedy’s chicken farm. [Although, admittedly, there’s no reason to assume she did not have insurance and didn’t just buy more chickens. There’s farm insurance for a reason, after all.] [Chicken Run]
1h. Where was a child spared because he might prove useful in future?
Steps of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France. [Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame]
2a. Who owned a chain of successful restaurants?
Bobby Flay [Iron Chef America]
2d. Who equipped his vehicle with illegal weapons to win a race?
Sebulba [He Always Wins!] [The Phantom Menace]
2e. Who was a selfless servant?
Sam Gamgee [The Lord of the Rings]
3f. Who once went ice fishing in Wisconsin?
Shadow [American Gods]
3g. Who did not outlive the most wanted man in America?
Abraham Lincoln
4b. Who was saved from an angry buffalo?
Hesh [Sealab 2021]
4d. Who was captured by men with swelled heads?
Natalya Simonova [In Goldeneye for the N64 with Big Head Mode enabled]
4h. Who permanently lost some of her body mass?
Penthesilea
5d. Who was like a bug upon a windshield?
Rango
5e. Who never did anything remotely interesting or original?
Adam Sandler
5f. Who was blinded by himself?
Uzu Sanageyama [Kill la Kill]
5i. Whose marriage was unhappy?
Detective Marco Ruiz [The Bridge]
6f. What helped cause a princess to weaken her resolve?
The destruction of Alderaan by Grand Moff Tarkin [Star Wars]
6h. What was an accompaniment to living flame?
A nice chianti
7a Whose duty was it to kill a mad god?
Belgarion [The god being Torak] [The Belgariad]
7c Who did not deserve to die in a Turkish dungeon?
The old dude eating goats’ eyes for his birthday in the pilot episode of I Dream of Jeannie [He seemed like a cool guy] [I Dream of Jeannie]
5d is Apollo from the Authority, if we go with pseudo Supermen.
Oh, and the Phantom Stranger was the Wandering Jew in some stories…
i think question seven’s theme is “thieves” – azeem from “robin hood: prince of thieves” and 7d is “the thief” part of “the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover”
5g. Going with the theme of “not-Superman”, this is probably Sentry. (As The Void and as Death from Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen.)
Tenuous, but is 7b Catman or Congorilla, who were “executed” by Gorilla Grodd in the “Grodd of War” Flashpoint story?
(ETA – Catman would fit with Slappy’s suggestion of the theme being “thieves”…)
And, again perhaps a stretch, but could 1d be Gusteau’s Restaurant (or kitchen), from Ratatouille? That, along with Lord Riven’s undoubtedly correct answers for 1c and 1h, would perhaps make theme 1 something to do with animated films…
Although this would rule out one possible answer I found for 1b, which was King Boggen’s Hall.
5h. Didn’t one of the JSA have a sidekick that turned out to be a Jinn?
(At first I thought another possibility might be Shazam/Captain Marvel–the original not-Superman–but Tawky Tawny is a pooka rather than a jinn.)
3b – possibly Skeeve from the Myth Adventures books ate a mint off a giant betting pile, and I really hope that’s the right answer and gives those hours spent reading them some minor redeeming value.
Okay, did a roundup of possible answers so we can maybe see where themes might occur. I think the strongest so far is “Superman Knockoffs” in Q5). I omitted what I perceived to be sarcastic answers but if anybody wants to put ’em in, go for it (my sarcastic answer would be 4i: Princess Leia).
Aardy: I think you’re thinking of Johnny Thunder.
Okay, here’s the compiled list:
QUESTION ONE
a. What was spared from destruction because it was useful to the enemy?
b. What was reshingled with breakfast food?
King Boggen’s Hall
c. What failed to convert into a pie business?
Mrs Tweedy’s chicken farm (Chicken Run)
d. What produced wonders of cooking that made grown men weep?
Gusteau’s (Ratatouille)
e. What was mortgaged without the knowledge of its owners?
f. Where were cattle without point or aim?
g. What was renamed once after violence and once after peace?
h. Where was a child spared because he might prove useful in future?
Notre Dame (Disney’s Hunchback)
i. What was priced with the blood of Jesus Christ?
The Shroud of Turin
QUESTION TWO
a. Who owned a chain of successful restaurants?
b. Whose total was sixty-five?
c. Who was a seasoned yacht operator?
d. Who equipped his vehicle with illegal weapons to win a race?
Messala (Ben Hur)
or Sebulba (Phantom Menace)
e. Who was a selfless servant?
Sam Gamgee
f. Who revealed murders committed by a public servant?
g. Who gave away his lucky stone?
Usidore the Blue Wizard
h. Whose friendship could not be bought with a drink?
i. Who was enslaved for her mother’s debts?
QUESTION THREE
a. Who was kept in a padlocked cell?
b. Who freshened their breath with a popular mint?
Skeeve (Mythadventures)
c. Who was electrocuted ahead of schedule?
d. Who wore a nonexistent kilt?
Scot Free (Fourth World)
e. Who was offended by another person’s lack of opera knowledge?
f. Who once went ice fishing in Wisconsin?
Shadow (American Gods)
g. Who did not outlive the most wanted man in America?
h. Who made three impossible trips?
i. Who purchased privately owned technology stock?
QUESTION FOUR
a. Who taught a robot the language of the streets?
Yo-Landi and Ninja (Chappie)
or John Conner
b. Who was saved from an angry buffalo?
Hesh (Sealab 2021)
c. Who died under the stars?
d. Who was captured by men with swelled heads?
Christopher Pike
e. Who survived a desert thanks to an oasis?
Cable Hogue (Ballad of)
f. Who could not defeat a bear single-handedly?
g. Who once sold a movie for a dollar?
h. Who permanently lost some of her body mass?
Carrie Stetko (Whiteout)
i. Who was more popular and successful than her parents?
QUESTION FIVE
a. Who destroyed the Vatican?
Supershock (Powers)
b. Who met the Wandering Jew at the end of time?
someone from A Canticle for Leibowitz
or Prometheus (from myth)
or Majestic
c. Who smiled, and ate the chicken?
d. Who was like a bug upon a windshield?
Rango
or Apollo (The Authority)
e. Who never did anything remotely interesting or original?
f. Who was blinded by himself?
Oedipus
or Hyperion
or Uzu Sanageyama (Kill La Kill)
g. Who became a force of death in two different ways at two different times?
Senty (Marvel)
h. Whose friend was a jinn in disguise?
i. Whose marriage was unhappy?
QUESTION SIX
a. When a queen was poor, what did she buy herself to eat?
b. What was best with a drop of venom?
c. What did a blind girl have in the morning?
d. What was made in a helm and not as good as deer?
e. What had to be made particularly to satisfy a commander?
f. What helped cause a princess to weaken her resolve?
g. What made a man so happy he was almost dancing?
h. What was an accompaniment to living flame?
i. What was a pirate’s cure for a sore throat?
QUESTION SEVEN
a. Whose duty was it to kill a mad god?
Belgarion
b. Who was sentenced to execution via primate?
Catman or Congorilla
c. Who did not deserve to die in a Turkish dungeon?
Azeem (Prince of Thieves)
d. Who tortured a child to find his wife’s paramour?
The Thief (Thief, Wife, Cook, Lover)
e. Who began a revolution to usurp the gods from power?
Corum (Eternal Champion)
f. Who unknowingly carried power within his eye?
Dorian Hawkmoon (Eternal Champion)
g. Who decided that an asteroid crash was too merciful?
h. Who bought his home in an estate sale?
i. Who went on a sea cruise just before an election?
UPDATE:
by my most recent count, including ones where you guys have several guesses for individual questions and one of the guesses is correct – you’re at eight of 49
i wonder if I made it too hard for you guys this year
5d. The High, not Apollo.
This is just a shot in the dark, but:
5c Who smiled, and ate the chicken?
Samaritan (from Astro City)
“So I smiled, and ate the chicken, and excused myself two times during the dinner” is the Samaritan in the first issue of Astro City.
If 5d isn’t Apollo, 5i probably is.
And if 1 is animated movies, 1f might be Home on the range (where the Buffalo roam).
Unsurpassed Travesty: There we go. I was right about the character, but wrong about where it came from. I was thinking the special “the Eagle and the Mountain”
If 5 is Superman expies, 5e feels like it should be Saitama from One Punch Man, but I can’t find a reference to actually confirm that.
Could 5i be Miracleman/Marvelman? It’s the breakdown of his relationship with Liz that leads to Mike Moran’s “suicide”.
1g could be The Broken Drum/The Mended Drum.
Question 2 – Seven letter names? Samwise, Sebulba, Usidore, etc.?
5h might be Triumph — he ended up being used by a 5th Dimensional Djinn like Johnny/Jakeem Thunder’s thunderbolt.
The theme on 1 kinda feels like restaurants.
If we presume that Question 7 might be about Thieves, then the answer to 7F might actually be Garrett from the original Thief (either in the place of The Eye that he stole, or the fact that his own eye was used to power it). I have no idea if Dorian is considered a thief/rogue or not.
Regardless, if Thieves is the theme, then 7a could actually be the Bard from Bard’s Tale, as the third game – Thief of Fate – centered around him killing the mad God Tarjan.
If Seven is thieves, then 7A could be Shadowspawn. And second Pronoiac. 5D is The High, not Apollo.
On, and 7G could be Tasslehoff Burrfoot
6e – possible reference to Benjamin Sisko?
3g – possible reference to “Blueberry” by Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud or “Y: The Last Man”?
I think 3A is Maximus from “Gladiator,” just because it specifically references a padlocked cell, and in that movie Maximus is locked in a cell with a fairly modern-looking padlock (rather than an ancient Roman lock, which didn’t look like modern padlocks).
i. Whose marriage was unhappy?
This is basically 90% of every marriage in fiction.
What in the world does Tasslehoff have to do with an asteroid under any circumstances?
I’m basically agreeing with Lord Riven: many of these questions are just way too vague.
Two more guesses.
4d could be Tara of Helium from the Barsoom novels – she gets captured by the Keldanes (?) and they’ve got giant heads.
And 6d is something to do with Game of Thrones? In the books I remember at one point Team Bran cooks frog stew in their helmets and Bran thinks “not bad, but deer was better.”
Could 5h be Osiris from JSA? Sobek wasn’t exactly a classical jinn but ‘New God Horseman’ would kinda be giving it away.
Might all of category 6 be Game of Thrones? None of the answers spring to mind, but it has commanders, pirates, queens, princesses, blind girls. . .
Greg D: Taslehoff was eavesdropping on the Kingpriest of Istar when he provoked the gods into dropping a “flaming mountain” on the city kicking off the Cataclysm. He was arrogant enough that Tas thought he had it coming.
If 7 is thieves, 7i could be Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen in “The Republic of Thieves”
Not a ton of time right now but at first read:
4f: Brienne of Tarth, she needed the King Slayers help.
On 4f, ‘single-handedly’ points more at Jaime, in that event I’d think.
4a and 4b being Yo-Landi and Hesh suggests rappers/musicians playing other roles as the category, maybe?
6 is definitely Game of Thrones. I can’t look up the specific answers right now, but:
QUESTION SIX
a. When a queen was poor, what did she buy herself to eat?
This is a Dany question (she’s the only queen who’s ever poor). She buys herself food in Vaes Dothrak although she’s not very poor then. Maybe sometime in Qarth?
b. What was best with a drop of venom?
Some Dornish dish. Check the Aero Hotah or Arianne chapters.
c. What did a blind girl have in the morning?
When Arya is blind, the Faceless Men feed her something specific every morning. I think the milk that keeps her blind is at night, though?
d. What was made in a helm and not as good as deer?
Something Bran and the Reeds eat.
e. What had to be made particularly to satisfy a commander?
This is the mulled wine that Jon Snow supervises for Lord Commander Mormont. He has a very specific recipe for it.
f. What helped cause a princess to weaken her resolve?
I think this one is silence, from when Arianne was imprisoned in her tower cell.
g. What made a man so happy he was almost dancing?
The Frey Pies. “So happy he’s almost dancing” is how Lord Manderly is described when he’s serving them.
h. What was an accompaniment to living flame?
I’m not entirely sure on this one. Perhaps thieving? From when Dany sees the conjurer doing tricks with fire including climbing the firey steps as his cutpurse associates work through the distracted crowd.
i. What was a pirate’s cure for a sore throat?
This is when Sallador Saan has Davos after Davos gets rescued in the start of ASoS. He’s got a specific cure he recommends but Davos is in too much of a hurry to go kill Melisandre.
6 seems to be specifically Game of Thrones food and drink, which probably means f needs a different answer and h a different track.
Oh, good catch. 6f might be lemon cakes? I honestly can’t think of why that would be the right answer, except that the princess whose resolve gets weakened the most often is Sansa, and bitch loves lemon cakes.
2f strikes me as Spider Jerusalem.
If 2d is Casanova Frankenstein (I’m rusty on my Deathrace 2000 lore, can anyone check if that happened?) that might suggest a theme for 2: funky, elaborate names?
Can’t verify, but something in the back of my mind wants to say Buckaroo Banzai fits 2a…?
4g is James Cameron, with Terminator.
….but if question 7’s theme is thieves, as slappy suggests, then 7f could be Garret from the rebooted Thief series.
Re: 2a — I don’t remember any particular reference to Buckaroo Banzai owning restaurants, but that made me think of the Howard the Duck movie, which has “Joe Roma’s Cajun Sushi”…
UPDATE:
Twenty-one correct answers so far of 49, three category themes mostly correctly guessed as well (hovering around a fourth)
5 and 6 seem really definitive, therefore we are only correct on one of 7 (Thieves) or 1 (animated movies). Probably 7.
We could be partially correct on the other of those or 2, which could be:
Weird, elaborate names?
Names with cities (Roma and Jerusalem, throws out Casanova Frankenstein)
4 could be Terminator or JC related?
5h could be Chava the golem from the excellent recent novel _The Golem and the Jinni_ by Helene Wecker. Which suggests, with other answers, some kind of quasi-Biblical/Jewish theme for question 5.
The “Superman analogs” theme for 5 seems definitive to me, as does “Thieves” for 7.
Also, among the answers for 2 we have Samwise Gamgee, Shadow, Spider Jerusalem, and Sebulba. The theme of “names beginning with S” suggests itself here.
If the theme for 2 is characters whose name start with S, might 2i be Sophie from “Saga”?