Trap Jesus
New Member
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2024
- Messages
- 1
This could be a massive flop, but I at least want to try it out.
TLDR:
For each of the 10 matchups in the poll attached, vote for whichever location/landmark is more interesting to you (based on look/coolness of the location, the unique lore behind each, events that take place at them, etc.), and your opinion can be formed from books, movies, games, any form of LOTR media you consume. In the end, 10 options out of 20 should be selected.
If you're struggling to remember which location is which, I've linked descriptions to each below with its corresponding matchup number.
I can put 10 matchups to be voted on at a time, and if it catches on, I will put up a new set of polls afterwards all the way up to the final. Will give this first one roughly a few days to see if it catches on.
Full bracket can be found here: https://challonge.com/mpvrj04n.svg
The Idea
Basically went through FOTR/TTT/ROTK/The Hobbit synopses on Tolkien Gateway to get 128 locations/landmarks to put into a March Madness-style bracket and excluded larger realms/regions. For example, I took out Gondor, Rohan, Mordor, The Shire, etc., because there are a lot of locations represented here that are within those larger areas. By way of example, there are locations like the Black Gate, Mount Doom, and Barad-dûr that are all on here that are within Mordor, but Mordor as a whole is not represented here.
This is basically every type of location/landmark: cities, fortresses, villages, fields, lakes, rivers, roads, mountains/mountain ranges, landmarks, buildings, etc. These are locations that can have events from the book taking place in them, or locations that are referenced.
Overlap of locations
Didn't want to get too granular with it, so a lot of these locations/landmarks contain other locations/landmarks within it. For example, both Hobbiton and Bag End are in this bracket, and the dwelling of Bag End is of course located within the village of Hobbiton. For the purposes of this bracket and deciding matchups, basically if Hobbiton is matched up against a location with no direct link to it like Shelob's Lair, consider all aspects of Hobbiton (the mill, the inn, etc., including Bag End) in that matchup, but if Hobbiton happens to be matched up against Bag End, only consider aspects of Hobbiton outside of Bag End.
I took some liberties with some locations to combine such as Isengard and Orthanc.
The Bracket (descriptions of locations linked at bottom)
https://challonge.com/mpvrj04n.svg
If you're familiar with March Madness, they usually have brackets of 64 teams; this is simply double that. Teams in March Madness get a 1-16 seed (1 being considered the best teams, 16 being considered the worst), and I've replicated that here (there are 8 #1 seeds, 8 #2 seeds... 8 #16 seeds). The 1-128 number on the side of each is the overall seed number.
Seeding
Didn't want it to be random and have something like Moria vs. Minas Tirith right off the bat, so I sorted 1-128 by the word count of each location entry on Tolkien Gateway. For example, Moria (https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Moria) comes in at 20,995 bytes, which is the highest total of any of the 128 entries, whereas Dagorlad (https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Dagorlad) is the lowest at 775 bytes. Moria gets the 1 seed, Dagorlad gets the 128 seed, and both are matched up in the 1st round because of that (1 vs. 128, 2 vs. 127... 63 vs. 66, 64 vs. 65).
Basically the thinking is the more words per location entry, the more likely it is that there is greater depth/level of interest for the location (more lore, more events taking place in that location, etc.). Not perfect, but it's at least objective.
Descriptions
If you're going through the bracket and are wondering "what the heck is that location?" you can find links to descriptions of all of them below, sorted by matchup # (which is on the far left of the bracket link):
TLDR:
For each of the 10 matchups in the poll attached, vote for whichever location/landmark is more interesting to you (based on look/coolness of the location, the unique lore behind each, events that take place at them, etc.), and your opinion can be formed from books, movies, games, any form of LOTR media you consume. In the end, 10 options out of 20 should be selected.
If you're struggling to remember which location is which, I've linked descriptions to each below with its corresponding matchup number.
I can put 10 matchups to be voted on at a time, and if it catches on, I will put up a new set of polls afterwards all the way up to the final. Will give this first one roughly a few days to see if it catches on.
Full bracket can be found here: https://challonge.com/mpvrj04n.svg
The Idea
Basically went through FOTR/TTT/ROTK/The Hobbit synopses on Tolkien Gateway to get 128 locations/landmarks to put into a March Madness-style bracket and excluded larger realms/regions. For example, I took out Gondor, Rohan, Mordor, The Shire, etc., because there are a lot of locations represented here that are within those larger areas. By way of example, there are locations like the Black Gate, Mount Doom, and Barad-dûr that are all on here that are within Mordor, but Mordor as a whole is not represented here.
This is basically every type of location/landmark: cities, fortresses, villages, fields, lakes, rivers, roads, mountains/mountain ranges, landmarks, buildings, etc. These are locations that can have events from the book taking place in them, or locations that are referenced.
Overlap of locations
Didn't want to get too granular with it, so a lot of these locations/landmarks contain other locations/landmarks within it. For example, both Hobbiton and Bag End are in this bracket, and the dwelling of Bag End is of course located within the village of Hobbiton. For the purposes of this bracket and deciding matchups, basically if Hobbiton is matched up against a location with no direct link to it like Shelob's Lair, consider all aspects of Hobbiton (the mill, the inn, etc., including Bag End) in that matchup, but if Hobbiton happens to be matched up against Bag End, only consider aspects of Hobbiton outside of Bag End.
I took some liberties with some locations to combine such as Isengard and Orthanc.
The Bracket (descriptions of locations linked at bottom)
https://challonge.com/mpvrj04n.svg
If you're familiar with March Madness, they usually have brackets of 64 teams; this is simply double that. Teams in March Madness get a 1-16 seed (1 being considered the best teams, 16 being considered the worst), and I've replicated that here (there are 8 #1 seeds, 8 #2 seeds... 8 #16 seeds). The 1-128 number on the side of each is the overall seed number.
Seeding
Didn't want it to be random and have something like Moria vs. Minas Tirith right off the bat, so I sorted 1-128 by the word count of each location entry on Tolkien Gateway. For example, Moria (https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Moria) comes in at 20,995 bytes, which is the highest total of any of the 128 entries, whereas Dagorlad (https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Dagorlad) is the lowest at 775 bytes. Moria gets the 1 seed, Dagorlad gets the 128 seed, and both are matched up in the 1st round because of that (1 vs. 128, 2 vs. 127... 63 vs. 66, 64 vs. 65).
Basically the thinking is the more words per location entry, the more likely it is that there is greater depth/level of interest for the location (more lore, more events taking place in that location, etc.). Not perfect, but it's at least objective.
Descriptions
If you're going through the bracket and are wondering "what the heck is that location?" you can find links to descriptions of all of them below, sorted by matchup # (which is on the far left of the bracket link):
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