The Think Tank: You Brought This Luau Upon Yourselves

As usual, several historic events have occurred since the last Think Tank post:

1. Frodo Baggins died.

2. Frodo Baggins didn't actually die. That was just a joke.

3. It appears that last week's riddle may have had two correct answers (statements 2 and 3). Or maybe it only had one (statement 2). There's really no way to tell for sure (actually there is, but it seems hard), so we decided to count both answers as correct. You may applaud or boo as you see fit. Note: Any boo-ers will be promptly turned into ferrets. SHA-ZAM.

4. Per her recent request, Chelsea Dagger has been inundated with edible flower arrangements; they arrive at a rate of 33 per hour and bear congratulatory statements like "Did you eat a rock today? If not, way to go!" and "Still employed? I'm baffled! Have an chrysanthemum made entirely of marzipan!" While we are overwhelmed by your generosity, Sparklers, we must implore you: cease and desist. Apparently, no gift, no matter how heartfelt, is safe around Chelsea Dagger: she keeps accidentally stabbing herself in the eye with sugar-frosted rose petals, and she's already eaten 13 plastic vases by mistake. But her numerous deficiencies are good news for this week's newest Phi Beta Dagger members; it looks like all of you shall be receiving 9 edible arrangements each, and only 89% of them are half-eaten.

NEWEST INDUCTEES:
crayonspink
bluebe1304
AbstinentLamington
lizzo_14
Syedaw
readysetrosemary
the_bomb_diggidy
DontWorryBeHappy
hlucero06
thewes6
beccas03

And here are our returning champions, otherwise known as the CERTIFIABLE GENIUSES:

friendlydragonette
smilebehappy
itswhoiam
Elena28
DreamerLily
Lilyofthevalley2
lia.lovegood
SparklyMongoose
Topazinha
LilyLou
Tristis
alsailor44
purplerox246
Banaynays1295
Synchrogirl
theblackbird
A—Wingfan
rainfire113
deathsaura
willutakemehome
14as
prolife795
Nickname1010101
MHS16
Musical_Sage
zzip=>
Rumbleroar2

Next up, the inexcusably long and inordinately awe-inspiring DAGGER AWARDS:

The "You Said 'Second Breakfast,' And Therefore, We Love You" Dagger Award is presented to friendlydragonette for:

Frodo sits down and begins to dream of cold pumpkin juice inside the castle.  And the delicious mushroom soup he knows the house elves will be serving this evening.  He knows that if he can't find something for second breakfast soon, he'll miss the Indiana Jones special that is going down later tonight.  Also, he'll be drowsy in potions, and that, my friend, is never good.

The "Your Email Is Better Written Than My Honors College Thesis" Dagger Award is presented to thewes6:

Dear Magnanimous and Magnificent Ms. Metallic-Death-Dealer:

I, a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate, have recently spent an ludicrous amount of time, (approx. 10log(sin(7e)+cos(8π)) hours [Seriously. This is an accurate estimation, approximately equal to 54.2302 minutes or 3253.81 seconds, or contrarily 1.03x10^-4 years]) conceiving and inscribing a tale of intrigue and elaboration detailing the escapades and shenanigans of our most favoritest characters of our most favoritest books, detailing in full detail the hoodwinking of hapless hobbits and the quest for the ultimate blackberry pie1, a tale so  splendiferous Lucy Pevensie herself described it as "... the loveliest story I've ever read or shall read in my whole life. Oh, I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years" (Lewis 133). You heard her. And this is a lady who certainly knows what she's talking about.

Unfortunately the aforementioned narrative and its hoodwinking of hobbits included the exploitation of polyjuice potion made using toenails (Yes, toenails. The use of toenails was absolutely crucial to the storyline). As you, in your unimaginable intellect have already deduced, polyjuice potion DOES NOT WORK on half-giants (*GASP*). So, as my entire tale centered on the use of said potion, it had to be scrapped. At this point, with my morale at an all-time low and 128 pages of Wuthering Heights to read by the end of the night, I gave up. Apathy trumped empathy (it seems to do that a lot).

Regardless, I had not the will to continue. Think, "With a last despairing effort Frodo raised himself on his hands and struggled on for maybe twenty yards. Then he pitched down into a shallow pit that opened unexpectedly before them, and there he lay like a dead thing" (Tolkien 231). Seriously. I'm NOT exaggerating at all. And no sarcasm either. I'm never sarcastic.

Nevertheless, regardless of the fact that my build-up has been shot down like an x-wing on the death star piloted by someone other than Luke Skywalker, I hereby release my answer to the riddle:

Assuming that "tasty" doesn't mean "not poisonous" (something can be delicious and kill you at the same time e.g. antifreeze or Lead (II) acetate), and that when Hagrid (who is definitely Hagrid and NOT someone impersonating him using polyjuice potion) says "I discourage you from picking any berries that are not red" he doesn't mean that he does encourage picking red berries, leaving their poison status ambiguous, none of the three statements are true. They MIGHT be, but are not necessarily.

Of course, if you assume differently than me, then our answers would have the appearance of a diverging series.

Of course, I'm right, so don't bother assuming differently.

1These are RED blackberries. This is of the utmost importance. Also, remember that I do not specify whether the ultimate blackberry pie is poisonous or not.

Works Cited

Lewis, C. S.. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1970. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R.. The Return of the King. New York: Ballantine Books, 1955. Print.

Ciao,

Washington Irving, or perhaps Irving Washington

PS: I planned on using both 'marvelous' and 'meticulous' in your title, Ms. Dagger, but the rhythm got all wonky. Also, I chose not to use "moron-ly" as it isn't flattering OR proper English. How can someone be an adverb? Think about it, the happily Yossarian or the hungrily Yossarian just doesn't work.

PPS: As for PBD status (whatever that stands for... I'm hoping something like Putrescent Baboon Dealers, but I'll take whatever if I make it into the 'club'), mine is first-timer. Ou, peut-être ci vous parlez français, un première minuterie. Ah, language puns. Ils sont très bons.

PPPS: I totally used proper MLA works cited and in-text citations, although not format.

PPPPS: Superscript for the footnote was WAY harder than I thought it was going to be.

PPPPPS: Oops sorry about the doublepost-script. After scrolling through the post again I noticed that PBD is Phi Beta Dagger. I'm kinda disappointed.

The "You Owe Me 19 Trophies, And That's Not Counting the Ones From Yesterday" Dagger Award is presented to smilebehappy: for: We should give you a trophy for not losing an appendage every time you close a door.

The “One Time I Sweated so Much That My Sweat Became A Puddle Which Later Became A Stream Which Then Became A River Called The Nile—Perhaps You've Heard Of It? So Yes, To Answer Your Question, My Sweat IS That Amazingly Epic" Dagger Award is presented to lizzo_14 for: Chelsea, today I left a sweat mark in my shirt that was shaped like Harry Potter's head!  Is your sweat that amazingly epic?  I thought not.

The "A Truer Truth Has Never Been Spoken” Dagger Award is presented to readysetrosemary for:
A hungry Frodo is better than a dead Frodo.

The "Yum, We'd Sure Like To Eat At Your Fictional Restaurant!" Dagger Award is presented to flyergirl13 for: Frodo Baggins is ridiculously stupid. Why would he ever be in the Forbidden Forest to scrounge for food? There are a whole lot more possible meals available at Hogwarts, none of which require solving annoying difficult brain teasers and dealing with a drunk Hagrid. So instead of solving this, I will give you a list of possible food sources. I'll even leave out the Great Hall, just to humor you, because it was already mentioned.

1. Calamari (I'm sure the Giant Squid tastes excellent fried with a side of cheesy fondue)
2. Centaur Steaks (this is not cannibalism because Frodo is not human. He is a hobbit)
3. Thestral Chops (can Frodo see them? Probably)
4. KFW (Like KFC, except with the multitude of owls readily available)
5. Pizza (Does Domino's deliver to Hogwarts?)

By the way, I had 5 items on this list, like the 5 exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration.

The "Actually, My Name Is Supposed to Have A Silent "K," But I Always Forget To Include It" Dagger Award is presented to Lily Lou for: Let me congratulate you on spelling your name correctly. We all know that it's the little things that count.

The "I Take It That My Congratulatory Edible Flower Arrangement  Shall Be Arriving At Any Minute?" Dagger Award is presented to deathsaura for:

Congratulations, Chelsea!
You've spelled Frodo's name correctly!
You didn't electrocute your hair!
Your kidneys are still intact!
You remembered to eat this year!
So far, you haven't drowned!

The "This Drawing Makes Me ALMOST As Happy As The Time The Vending Machine Freaked Out And Accidentally Gave Me A Package Of Devil Dogs For FREE" Dagger Award is presented to beccas03 for:

Now, if you can't read the ink bleed on the pretty piccy, the first half is my illustrations of the hints and the bottom half is my answer. *Rewriting in process, please hold*
1. Red berries live where they want, fool! NO--pretty self explanitory, so the first statement is false
2. Poisonous could still be tasty. NO--they could. The last words of someone who ate a poisonous berry could've been "There's a party in my tummy!"
3. Red berries would never stoop that low YES!--fo sho P. Diddy. Me and red berries be tight, man. I KNOW them.
p.s. I'm partial to the catchphrase LOSHUNKAAAAAH, but that's just me.

The "You Are Smart Like A Magic Elf Or Something, Dude" Dagger Award is presented to A-Wingfan for explaining the answer to last week's riddle with marvelous brevity and infallible logic:

The first statement tells us that if we are discouraged from picking berries they are poisonous, therefore the last statement tells us that all the non-red berries are poisonous. Since none of the berries on the bushes are poisonous, all of the berries on the bushes must be red. And since the second statement tells us that all the red berries are tasty, all the berries on the bushes must be tasty. Therefore, the conclusion that can be proven true is "2. All of the berries on thorny bushes are tasty." (Of course, the other 2 could easily be true, but it can't be proven from what we have.)

LOSHUNKKAAAAAAA. (Thanks for that one, beccas03—it's growing on us.) And now on to the main event:

BRAIN TEASER: Ain't No Party Like A Dark Lord Party, Cuz A Dark Lord Party Don't Stop

In a parallel universe that we'll gamely call "Even Worse Than The Inside of Stephenie Meyer's Brain," Voldemort and Sauron, who have been BFFs since the 6th grade, are throwing a rager of a shin-dig inside Sauron's creepy dark caverns of death. Everything is going swimmingly: the Orcs are dominating the ping-pong tournament, Aragog and Shelob are gettin' down to some mad Usher remixes on the dance floor,  and and Voldie himself is manning the sno-cone machine, which sort of sucks, because he refuses to make any flavor except for "Poisonous Resentment Over My Downfall." There's a gaggle of party-goers crowded around the dartboard,

which Sauron handmade in his latest decoupage workshop (yes, Snape was there, and no, they didn't sit next to each other), and Dolores Umbridge has forcibly taken over the karaoke line-up and refuses to let anyone on-stage unless they swear by Unbreakable Vow to perform the Backstreet Boys' smash hit, Quit Playin' Games With My Heart.

Basically, everyone is having the time of their lives—until you decide to sneak in through the back cavern and steal some cotton candy. Unfortunately for you, a couple of Death Eaters catch you (you really shouldn't have gone back in for that second helping, you greedy doofus) and present you to Sauron and Voldemort as a gate-crasher and an emblem of all that is good and pure in the world. But instead of Avada Kedavra-ing you outright, Voldie decides to provide a little entertainment for his party guests. He has a proposition for you: if you can solve a riddle correctly, he'll let you go, AND he'll give you concert tickets to Michael Buble. If, however, you fail to guess the right answer, you will face a fate more terrible than death: you will have to write a million-page paper praising the academic, literary, social, and moral merits of the Twilight Series, and your paper must be so convincing that the series is awarded the Pulitzer Prize and Stephenie Meyer is made King of the World. With that in mind, here is the riddle:

I am what poor people have and what rich people need. I am what blind people see and what deaf people hear. i am what brave people fear and what kind people hate. And although hateful people love me, only the biggest fools really know me. What am I?

If you thought that a themed party hosted by evil incarnate was the worst thing that could happen, you thought wrong. And don't start with all that "but this riddle is impossible, Dagger!" nonsense. Sure it's impossible, but so is Justin Bieber's career, and that doesn't seem to have stopped him, DOES IT.

Send your best guesses, life-size Chelsea Dagger pinatas, and any photographs of Umbridge singing the karaoke version of "Don't Stop Believin'" to contribute@sparknotes.com.

*Note: Today's riddle was taken from the book The Daily Spark: Critical Thinking.

Related posts: See the Think Tank archives here!

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