Friday, April 4, 2014 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[heelsrule1988]

Dr. J, the mockingjay pin has arrived "safe and sound"

Hopefully the pin will carry your world (and all your hurt).

[Dr. J]

I'm reading this at our state home school convention meeting. I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

So...Roger reminds me of Beetee, and Ken is...?

Ken and Brad are the Careers. Brutus and Gloss, or Brutus and Enobaria. If Dan is Katniss, Roger can be Peeta since they are from the same "district" - Brooklyn. I'd cast Pam as Johanna Mason, and Tom Cubbage as Finnick for aging so darn well. Although let's be honest, Pam is really the Katniss of this group.

Is Alex Plutarch Heavensbee?

In my mind, Alex is Caesar Flickerman. Harry Friedman is Pres. Snow, which means that John Lauderdale is Plutarch. I have no doubt that Maggie is Effie Trinket, and Robert James is Cinna (I almost asked him to pin the pin on me). Have fun filling in the rest of the characters. I guess I'm Rue now

[John Boy]

Maria. Uhhhhhhh, if you could stop with the "uhhhhhhh" before every sentence, that'd be great.

Upon the unveiling of FJ, I was utterly on the wrong track. I was thinking of the billboard from The Great Gatsby and racking my brain for a five-word arc phrase.

Re Maria: ditto. I remember being very impressed with her initial performance. Tonight, not so much.

Re FJ: I was also on a track different from both the correct response and from yours. Thinking of a novel with a prominent picture, I racked my brain to find a five-word phrase to go with "A Picture of Dorian Gray." Needless to say, didn't find one.

[John Boy]

Here is how the writers made the clue about it: "It was one of those pictures... so contrived that the eyes follow you...beneath it" was this 5-word quote.

That's not what was on my screen, because what you wrote almost makes sense. This is what I saw:

"IT WAS ONE OF THOSE PICTURES...SO CONTRIVED THAT THE EYES FOLLOW YOU...BENEATH" THE PICTURE WAS THIS 5-WORD QUOTE

Really, really shoddy, indeed.

Worse than I recalled.

What an awful, awful clue.

Respectfully disagree. They asked us to think about a 20th C. novel with a passage about a photo and accompanying quote. I didn't make the connection, but the Orwell quote is sooooo famous that it would be unmissable if you COULD make the connection. Hard, I think, but not awful.

[alegra911]

In my mind, Alex is Caesar Flickerman. Harry Friedman is Pres. Snow, which means that John Lauderdale is Plutarch. I have no doubt that Maggie is Effie Trinket, and Robert James is Cinna (I almost asked him to pin the pin on me). Have fun filling in the rest of the characters. I guess I'm Rue now

Awww, Rue is not so bad! At least you're not "unnamed morphling lady" or something. Maggie and Robert as Effie and Cinna is genius.

[Rex Kramer]

I'm reading this at our state home school convention meeting. I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

So...Roger reminds me of Beetee, and Ken is...?

Ken and Brad are the Careers. Brutus and Gloss, or Brutus and Enobaria. If Dan is Katniss, Roger can be Peeta since they are from the same "district" - Brooklyn. I'd cast Pam as Johanna Mason, and Tom Cubbage as Finnick for aging so darn well. Although let's be honest, Pam is really the Katniss of this group.

Is Alex Plutarch Heavensbee?

Are you kidding? Alex is Coriolanus Snow!

Rex

[code65536]

I'm reading this at our state home school convention meeting. I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

So...Roger reminds me of Beetee, and Ken is...?

Ken and Brad are the Careers. Brutus and Gloss, or Brutus and Enobaria. If Dan is Katniss, Roger can be Peeta since they are from the same "district" - Brooklyn. I'd cast Pam as Johanna Mason, and Tom Cubbage as Finnick for aging so darn well. Although let's be honest, Pam is really the Katniss of this group.

I'd peg Roger as a career, though (remember his Jeopardy training program?). And who would Larissa be? Understated but deadly... hmm...

[corvo]

Here is how the writers made the clue about it: "It was one of those pictures... so contrived that the eyes follow you...beneath it" was this 5-word quote.

That's not what was on my screen, because what you wrote almost makes sense. This is what I saw:

"IT WAS ONE OF THOSE PICTURES...SO CONTRIVED THAT THE EYES FOLLOW YOU...BENEATH" THE PICTURE WAS THIS 5-WORD QUOTE

Really, really shoddy, indeed.

Worse than I recalled.

What an awful, awful clue.

Respectfully disagree. They asked us to think about a 20th C. novel with a passage about a photo and accompanying quote. I didn't make the connection, but the Orwell quote is sooooo famous that it would be unmissable if you COULD make the connection. Hard, I think, but not awful.

The clue was horribly written. That's what I mean.

[code65536]

Here is how the writers made the clue about it: "It was one of those pictures... so contrived that the eyes follow you...beneath it" was this 5-word quote.

That's not what was on my screen, because what you wrote almost makes sense. This is what I saw:

"IT WAS ONE OF THOSE PICTURES...SO CONTRIVED THAT THE EYES FOLLOW YOU...BENEATH" THE PICTURE WAS THIS 5-WORD QUOTE

Really, really shoddy, indeed.

Worse than I recalled.

What an awful, awful clue.

Respectfully disagree. They asked us to think about a 20th C. novel with a passage about a photo and accompanying quote. I didn't make the connection, but the Orwell quote is sooooo famous that it would be unmissable if you COULD make the connection. Hard, I think, but not awful.

I guess it depends on which part of the clue caught your attention: whether you focused on it being a picture with a quote, or on the watchful eyes. The eyes were what caught my attention, and I immediately thought of 1984. But I couldn't come up with the correct quote. (I was running through all the other quotes from the book, but that one--which in hindsight should've been obvious--just didn't register for some reason.)

[davey]

I read the first ten pages of "1984" a couple of weeks ago. Still didn't get this FJ when I read it off the first post here.

I think I eventually figured why the clue's phrasing is so hard to get. Basically, without quotes or ellipses the clue is two complete statements:

It was one of those pictures so contrived that the eyes follow you.
Beneath the picture was this 5-word quote.

Then it almost seems like the writers did everything they could possibly do so that you will NOT realize one statement ends at "you" and another begins at "beneath." Such as:

-having the thought continue through the first ellipsis but not the second
-not having any of the indications you usually get that a new thought is starting after an ellipsis, like a fourth period right after "you" or a capital "Beneath." (Yes, I know the answers are all caps so that don't have an option to capitalize words--which is all the more reason to avoid confusing phrasings like this.)
-having a quote mark right after "beneath" to make it look that word is part of the same thought as the earlier quoted words. Nope, it's not.
-having the words flow from one complete thought to the next in a plausible but completely wrong way. As in: the eyes follow you beneath the picture . .. Wait, what??

I don't think this added difficulty was at all intentional, and it just came from the bad decision of trying to incorporate the "beneath" into the clue instead of coming up with their own word. It's amazing, though, that at least four or five people at the show must have read this phrasing and said, "Yep, sounds good to me," when it sounds pretty bad to most other people.

I agree with this, except that it's not the phrasing that's confusing. It's only the punctuation that's a problem. Close the quotes after "you" and it makes sense (though it's not necessarily easier...) Just because "beneath" occurs later in the passage doesn't mean it has to be within quotes. I don't think I would have gotten it anyway, but I don't think the awkwardness was my problem...Alex reads the clue with a pause separating the two statements...I had a glimmer towards the end that 1984 was the right book but couldn't come up with the slogan fast enough.

[davey]

There's still something missing in the FJ at the top of the thread - the "s" in "eyes"...

[econgator]

Something else I just remembered: when Alex was starting Dan's interview, it sounded like he referred to him as Dan PawLson. It also looked like Dan gave him a funny look for a second or two after that, but I could have heard wrong.

That was my thought when it happened, too, but Dan didn't say anything, so I thought maybe I misheard it.

[Bamaman]

There's still something missing in the FJ at the top of the thread - the "s" in "eyes"...

Fixed. Thanks.

[dhkendall]

I'm reading this at our state home school convention meeting. I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

So...Roger reminds me of Beetee, and Ken is...?

Ken and Brad are the Careers. Brutus and Gloss, or Brutus and Enobaria. If Dan is Katniss, Roger can be Peeta since they are from the same "district" - Brooklyn. I'd cast Pam as Johanna Mason, and Tom Cubbage as Finnick for aging so darn well. Although let's be honest, Pam is really the Katniss of this group.

Is Alex Plutarch Heavensbee?

I'm going purely on memory of what I know of a movie I've never seen but, if I remember right, Plutarch Heavensbee was played by a Canadian, so, yeah!

[naurae29]

I'm reading this at our state home school convention meeting. I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

So...Roger reminds me of Beetee, and Ken is...?

Ken and Brad are the Careers. Brutus and Gloss, or Brutus and Enobaria. If Dan is Katniss, Roger can be Peeta since they are from the same "district" - Brooklyn. I'd cast Pam as Johanna Mason, and Tom Cubbage as Finnick for aging so darn well. Although let's be honest, Pam is really the Katniss of this group.

Is Alex Plutarch Heavensbee?

I'm going purely on memory of what I know of a movie I've never seen but, if I remember right, Plutarch Heavensbee was played by a Canadian, so, yeah!

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays/ed Plutarch, and he was a New Yorker. But if we went with Alex as Plutarch, would that make Art Fleming Seneca Crane? Eek.

[ElendilPickle]

I'm reading this at our state home school convention meeting. I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

So...Roger reminds me of Beetee, and Ken is...?

Ken and Brad are the Careers. Brutus and Gloss, or Brutus and Enobaria. If Dan is Katniss, Roger can be Peeta since they are from the same "district" - Brooklyn. I'd cast Pam as Johanna Mason, and Tom Cubbage as Finnick for aging so darn well. Although let's be honest, Pam is really the Katniss of this group.

Is Alex Plutarch Heavensbee?

In my mind, Alex is Caesar Flickerman. Harry Friedman is Pres. Snow, which means that John Lauderdale is Plutarch. I have no doubt that Maggie is Effie Trinket, and Robert James is Cinna (I almost asked him to pin the pin on me). Have fun filling in the rest of the characters. I guess I'm Rue now

Soooo....who is Haymitch?

[MarkBarrett]

Is David Madden, Primrose since he was selected and his spot taken by another?

[Dr. J]

When I was Katniss, Colby was Haymitch (and Keith was Peeta) -- we were all from the same district (TOC class) and Colby was the former winner. Of the three of us in real life, however, I'm the likeliest to be blonde and drunk. Make of that what you will.

I nominate Erin McLean for our Prim -- she was almost chosen by the people, but Tom Nissley went in her stead. She was forced to watch while others participated in her place.

[ElendilPickle]

I'm reading this at our state home school convention meeting. I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

So...Roger reminds me of Beetee, and Ken is...?

Ken and Brad are the Careers. Brutus and Gloss, or Brutus and Enobaria. If Dan is Katniss, Roger can be Peeta since they are from the same "district" - Brooklyn. I'd cast Pam as Johanna Mason, and Tom Cubbage as Finnick for aging so darn well. Although let's be honest, Pam is really the Katniss of this group.

I'd peg Roger as a career, though (remember his Jeopardy training program?). And who would Larissa be? Understated but deadly... hmm...

That makes sense, but he's more of a Beetee to me - quiet, polite, but he knows enough about technology to take you out with a smile on his face.

[Volante]

Concur with everything said about that Final.

Could they have made it even -more- confusing?