Tribook Tournament Champions: The first task is. . .?

Question

. . .to write a formal essay on which MAIN character you feel is the weakest (in terms of, the could have left and the plot wouldn't have changed much) out of the bunch. You must have at least 500 words, but past that there's no limit. You will be judged on the following scale:

● Grammar and mechanical structure (5 points max)
● Content and organization (5 points max)
● Time and word count (5 points max)
● Clarity (5 points max)
● Creativity (5 points max)

Possible max points: 25

This task is due by Sunday, which in England is and Australia is Monday, right? Plenty of time for you all. Good luck, and I look foward to reading your essays! :D

Answer 1

@ Erica.

Nah I need it done by the 21st because I'll be out of the country then. I'm pretty sure New Zealand doesn't have the internets... right? Meh exams, I don't even care about them.



@SOS

I love Ginny. I could write an essay just rebutting everything you said there but I won't. I'll say, she was an obsessed little girl in the first two books... because she was eleven years old. From the little snippets you get from 3-5 you see how she's grown and developed into a strong person and leader. She still has her weaknesses and still is effected by what happened to her in CoS, but she's a great person. Ahh I really want to right an essay on how amazing Ginny is now. But i will do my essay instead.





Lord of the Rings has hundreds of characters. One of the things I love about it is Tolkien integrates all these characters throughout the books without a particular explanation to who they are. It’s like there’s this entire world that we’re just not quite a part of. So there are many characters I could choose. But I’ve decided to limit myself to one of the fellowship. I mean I could choose Arwen or Bilbo or someone who is central to the books, but isn’t really there that often, but there are so many of those characters that it’s not really fair. So I believe, that the worst “main” character in Lord of the Rings is Gimli.



If you go through all three books and remove Gimli then, in reality, there’s very little difference at all. He doesn’t have a major impact on, anything really. His distinguishing qualities are that he’s a great warrior, he’s good for comic relief and his relationship with Legolas.



He was picked for the Fellowship for the main reason that he was a dwarf and a good warrior. As a dwarf he completed the Fellowship with someone of every ‘race’. In reality, his very coming into the story was nothing more than for symbolic purposes. He is a good fighter, yes, but the Fellowship was full of good fighters. And through the books his fighting skills are often undermined by the fact that, well, he’s a dwarf. Half the time Legolas, Gandalf or Aragorn had to carry him or throw him or just slow down in order to help Gimli. And when you go through the novels there is very few instances where Gimli was forced into battle; The fight in the chamber of Mazarbul, the attack on Amon Hen, the Battle at Helm’s Deep, the battle of the Pelennor Fields and the Battle of Morannon. That does sound like a few, but in the context of the thousands of pages that is Lord of the Rings, there was much more going on then just the battles. Then you look at his actual contribution in those battles. He helped, yes, he killed a lot of orcs with his axe. But at no point did he pioneer a battle winning strategy, or do anything that would ultimately win or lose the battle. He was a follower. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but means that he is not a character that is instrumental in the results.



His second defining factor is that he’s funny… and that’s about it. When he discovers all his cousins and family have been killed in Moria, yes he’s upset… for about 10 minutes. That’s it. Never again is it mentioned and it appears to have no effect on him. His future is not even explained in the appendix, as is with the majority of the other characters. He’s used for comic relief, that’s it. However, Lord of the Rings is not a humorous book. He does, occasionally, lighten the mood; he makes silly comments that really add nothing to the story. Would Lord of the Rings really of been worse off without the banter between Legolas and Gimli over who killed the most in the Battle of Helms Deep? What was better, the bow or the axe? I enjoyed it, yes, but the course of the novel would not of changed without it.



The other defining part of Gimli’s role in the books is his relationship with Legolas. Gimli starts the Fellowship with the prejudice that you can never trust an elf. This is the one part of Gimli’s personality that shows any kind of development throughout the books. He goes from not being able to stand being around Legolas, to vowing to die by his side in the Battle of Middle Earth. It takes three books and several hundred thousand words for Gimli’s one character arc to take effect. And yes, it is a nice character arc, but it’s not really instrumental in the story.



Gimli's character is so unsubstantial that I'm sure he'd like iCarly, which is an amazing show, and Spencer Shay, who is really hot. His use as a tool for humour would also work if he had a teal umbrella that sung Regina Spektor songs.



Gimli is a fun character, not a complex one. His role is essentially to play the humour card and he has no substantial character development throughout the books. Would Lord of the Rings be better off without him? No. But the books wouldn’t fall apart if he were taken out of them.







7 'X's baby. All actually in there too. swear to god.

722 words. I started culling it to get down to 666 but then couldn't. If there's one thing I hate more than writing essays, it's having to cull them down.



And I don't even know what iCarly is. I mean i think it's a tv show? And Spencer someone? what? I'm thinking billet won't either so tots not fair! We're from a different planet.



EDIT:

@Kelly

I totally missed your special challenge till just then. WTF? lol. teal umbrella's singing regina spektor? haha I just went in and added it. You've also made me go and listen to some regina spektor. I just realised that Laughing With is now the most played song on my itunes. Win.



edit #2.

I never actually proofed this hence the grammar fail. Just reread it and cringed a bit. I think I wrote "he's" instead of "his" like three times. I swear to god I know the difference, it's just my fingers getting carried away. But that's all I caught. I probably used effect/affect wrong. I honestly cannot tell the difference between the two.

Answer 2

Yay! I can give extra credit, right? Because I'm technically co-host? Yeah. I'm just going to assume it's cool.



Okay, so you get two points of extra credit if your essay is exactly 666 words. No, I'm not a Satan worshiper or anything. I just like the number 6.



Okay so yeah cool.



EDIT: More bonus points if you mention that besides Spencer (perhaps) iCarly sucks majorly as a TV show and none of the characters are likable or portrayed by good actors. Even more bonus points if instead of writing about your book you write about how Drake and Josh pwns iCarly and how Crazy Steve is so much cooler than Spencer. Actually this would get to the point where you're not actually writing about your series at all, but still. iCarly sucks.



I feel so powerful. All hail chlover, the awesome-est person in the world!











[Ahh this is so awesome!]







Okay, you guys. The ones I've read so far (Alex's and Kay's) are absolutely amazing! What I love about them is the lighthearted tone -- it's not official essay style, but it's pretty cool :D





Okay. Alex:



Grammar: Eh, I'll give you a 3. I mean, I'm a total grammar geek, but I couldn't help but notice quite a few errors.

Content and organization: 5. I loved how you organized it, with the three main points and such. Very good, very good.

Time and word count: What does 'time' mean? Like, how long it took me to read it? I guess it was good. A pretty easy read, if you don't factor into it the fact that I haven't read the series or anything. I'll give it a 5, I think.

Clarity: It was really clear, if you've read the books, but I... haven't... so yeah. I feel like you could have given more context to give people who haven't read the books (or even people who have) an idea of what what was actually going on. 4.

Creativity: Loved the language. I'm not quite sure how original of a choice it was, of course, but it seemed good. I'll give you a 4 just because it seemed pretty standard not that... out-of-the-box-y.



And no extra credit... meehhh....



Okay, so out of 25, you got a... 21? I think? Actually, that's a B. I don't think yours was B material. I'll give you a 22, because it was good :)



.....





Okay, Kay.





Grammar and mechanical structure: Seemed good, I think. I didn't catch any obvious mechanical errors or anything. 5.

Content and organization: 3. You definitely could have elaborated a bit more. I mean, I loved your ideas and your points, but I was really hoping to go a bit more in depth, as it was really interesting.

Time and word count: A little light, I think. An easy read. Could have been more in depth. 4.

Clarity: It was pretty clear, but I would have liked to see a bit more context. Instead of saying, 'during the battle,' you could say, "during the battle of awesomeness in the last book against voldemort when everyone died.' You know... more specifics? It could have given the non-Harry Potter readers a bit more context. I'll say 4.

Creativity: I actually thought your idea was really good. It would have been easy to write off Neville or Luna or some random person like Pansy or whatever as unimportant, but choosing Ginny... I don't know... I like her, but I wouldn't have thought of her. It was a bit biased, though, I gotta say. I mean, I love the light-hearted tone, and all the capital letters and comparisons to Twilight... but maybe more objective? I actually don't know. I'll give you a 4.





And a point of extra credit! You only get a point because you used 666 words, but a lot of those words were unnecessary because you were talking about iCarly... which, yes, was another challenge, but yeah... I'll give you a 21. Yay!









...





Ahh must go! Okay bye!

Answer 3

It's times like this I wish I had entered myself in for champion. I love this task!! :D



Edit: Okay, because everyone else is doing it, and I always do what everyone else is doing (examples include drugs, and drunk driving, and jumping off a cliff), I'm going to say that anyone who can somehow work in the magical affects of teal umbrellas that sing Regina Spektor songs when opened get extra brownie points from me. Yay for that creative soul.



Edit: Wow, I fail at life. I'm sorry I'm so late!! All right, all right, here's what I say:



SOS representing Harry Potter:

● Grammar and mechanical structure (5 points max)- I give you a 3. There were a few grammatical errors spotted throughout your essay, and a few run on sentences.

● Content and organization (5 points max)- I'll give you a 3. By the end of the essay, you had me hating Ginny. Though to be honest, I never really liked her in the first place. I little annoying, to be honest. However, that has nothing to do with judging. Moving on! I liked the way you organized it and made your points. I knocked off a point, though, because the essay as a whole wasn't very formal. Not that I'm really one to get on your case for being informal, though, because my essays sound like a casual conversation someone would have with their best friend.

● Time and word count (5 points max)- I think you got it done on time, right? And it looks as though you made the word count... 5 points for you.

● Clarity (5 points max)- I think your voice was strong and clear. I liked the humor you had throughout the essay, and you even made me laugh in a few places. 5 points for clarity.

● Creativity (5 points max)- Mmm, 3 again. Mainly because Ginny was the easy and obvious choice. I mean really, everyone really does hate Ginny. She sucks. If you had somehow used Hermione or even Harry Potter himself for the job and argued it really really well so that everyone is thinking "WTF? Why did JK even include this guy in the books?" you would get a 10.



Overall: 19/25

Added points for including a magical umbrella that sings Regina Spekotr songs when opened: 22/25

Good job! :p

Answer 4

SO HERE IT IS! It's awful, but what the hey!

...............









...............







So basically, you’re asking me to choose a useless Harry Potter character? Is that even possible? They all play an important part in the storyline, it’s part of what makes Harry Potter such an amazing book!



I’ve been sat here for 10 minutes. Still nothing. Originally I thought Ron, but then I realised that Harry wouldn’t even be in Gryffindor if it weren’t for him. Then Hermione came to mind... but honestly, I lose count of the number of bad situations that she’s got the three of them out of. Then finally, I think I’ve got the answer - Neville! Perfect! He’s useless at everything and does pretty much nothing in the first six books... but damn it! He killed Nagini. Automatically no longer useless. This pretty much changes everything.



So I think I’m going to go with Ginny. Who even likes Ginny? I swear everyone that I’ve ever met hates her, she’s so annoying and is probably the closest thing to a Mary Sue that you’re going to find in a Harry Potter book.



Sure, she marries Harry in the end, but we all know that Harry and Luna would have made the perfect couple, why would a PROPER LEGEND like Harry marry essentially an obsessed little fangirl like Ginny. It strikes me as a bit of an Edward-Bella match if you get where I’m going!



Oh, I can hear the complaints about my character choice already! “If it weren’t for Ginny, Harry wouldn’t have found the chamber of secrets and the basilisk would still be alive!” and “Ginny was in the DA!” and “But she has children with Harry!”. Do you really think I’d choose Ginny if I couldn’t justify the reason that I’ve chosen her? Not. A. Chance.



If Ginny wasn’t a character in the books, some other helpless girl would have been lured into the Chamber of Secrets by Tom Riddle, and Harry being the noble, selfless character he is, would go and save her. Tada! Nothing important in the storyline even had to be changed!



And sure, she was in the DA... but so were countless others. It was hardly as if it was her idea, and she probably only backed it so that she could stare at GAWJUS HAZZA (which refers back to my previous statement on her fangirl obsession).



Yes, I know she marries Harry, but the fact that she marries Harry and has children with him isn’t a huge strain on the story line. Harry could have easily married and had children with somebody else - I mean, it was Harry that chose most of the children’s names anyway! (Why would Ginny choose the names Albus Severus, James Sirius and Lily? The only one I’m guessing she chose was Lily’s middle name, Luna.)



In her defense, she is probably in almost all of the major Harry Potter fight scenes in the later books, however, do you really believe that the outcome of the battles would have changed at all if she hadn’t been present? Even if she did have SUPER SKILLZ when doing the Bat Bogey Hex, it’s hardly the most threatening of spells, is it?



Oh, and just for your information, she was also useless at charming teal umbrellas so that they sing Regina Spektor songs when opened. Like jeez, what kind of witch CAN’T do that? It’s such basic magic! Hermione could do it in 2 seconds flat!



Also, iCarly sucks apart from Spencer (like, he’s totally the most adorable guy ever!) and Crazy Steve (who is even cooler than Spencer) because all the characters are basically LIKE Ginny, really pointless and not funny or likable at all! Drake and Josh so obviously PWNS iCarly. Like WHUT. Why is iCarly even on muggle TV?!



From this, I can conclude that Ginny was the weakest character in the Harry Potter Books and she was not essential to make the storylines work!



AND AND THIS IS 666 WORDS LONG! xxxx (and has seven x’s in it, including that one.)













.................



Oh, and may I just say that I WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO GET MINE IN.



That should count for something, should it not? ;D

Answer 5

Bahahahahaa. Wait. Liza's HG, right?? She's not allowed to pick Gale. If she does it's automatically -12 from me.



Sowwy Liza :)) I luff youuuu!!



BONUS POINTS if you...USE THE LETTER 'X' 7 times. :D

Answer 6

I'll just write it now.

But I'm going to ask you two favours, because you luuuurve me so much.



1. Delete this link from my Facebook page! I mean, I'd do it myself, but I don't have access to my page, because my friend still has control of it. And I try to detach my personal life as much as I can from this site.



2. Can the second task be IN NOVEMBER? I'm seriously so behind on all my study, and I can't be Superman.



Thanky danky, Rica. I don't mean to sound like a crazed b*tch, if that's what's projected.

Oh I'm in the essay writing mood, because I've been chained to a desk for 2 hours, writing relentlessly.



@ Kedder: You are the death of me. Gale would be so easy to write on! Arggghhh.





EDIT: Yeah, I won't be submitting mine until Wednesday, because I have exams to study for. And even that is pushing it.





The art of characterisation plays a dominant role in how a story is told. This is underpinned through the development of characters within various texts, an exemplar of such being projected through Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games. As the story is composed from a first person perspective, the roles of the characters that sustain the physical and psychological growth of protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, are heavily noted and contribute to the overall expression of the story.



Effie Trinket is presented to the audience as a personified “raven”, being the carrier of bad news. She not only personifies this, but the eccentric milieu of the Capitol, juxtaposing to the humble, impoverished nature of District 12. Effie Trinket’s roll within the Hunger Games is imperative, as she acts as the initial metaphoric barrier that separates the definition of “normality” and “ostracism” that is presented within the series. Collins amplifies the cruel and materialistic nature of the Capitol within all three products of her trilogy however the role of Effie does not sustain this. She is produced to the audience “bright as bubbly as ever,” and does not reflect the hostile nature of the Capitol, which is obviously demonstrated through their creation of the Hunger Games.



Although she does project the eye-brow raising abnormality of the Capitol, the note of this is expressed through other characters, such as Katniss’s stylist team; “Venia, a woman with aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyes,” Flavius, a male with “orange corkscrew locks” and wearing “purple lipstick,” and “Octavia, a plump woman whose entire body has been dyed a pale shade of pea green.” The true eccentricity of the Capitol is highlighted through the description of Tigris, “an extreme example of surgical enhancement gone wrong,” where, “the skin has been pulled back tightly and tattooed with black and gold stripes”, “nose... flattened until it barely exists”, and “whiskers.” Albeit Effie does project the dependency of cosmetic surgery and false Capitol image, with her “pink hair” and tone of “feigned delight”, she truly does not manifest its’ outrageous and eccentric nature, and therefore, her role is somewhat redundant.



Although many readers perceive Gale Hawthorne’s role as redundant, his character aids to the personal growth of Katniss, as he sustains the popular “love triangle” theme presented commonly within teenage/ young adult texts. Without Gale, Katniss’s personal development would not have accumulated to the point where it contributed to her victory in the Hunger Games. As she stuck with Gale during her “morning hunts”, she adapted to working in a pair. Her dependency on other people is expressed through her alliance with a younger tribute, Rue, in the arena and eventually partnering with Peeta. Gale also accentuates the metaphorical barrier between “normality” and “ostracism”, with him making a heavy emphasis on the “ostracised” product of the fictitious society and a product of “normality” to the responder.



Effie Trinket, as a product of the Capitol, does not grasp its beastly image. The “scent of blood and roses” that lingers on President Snow amplifies the note that although beauty, within the eyes of the fictitious society, is one of falsity, the macabre and sinister nature of society is still evident. Effie Trinket fails to encapsulate this image. Although her role in the development of Katniss’s character is expressed through her preparation of the games, it is not particularly significant, especially upon her absence within the final instalment of the trilogy.