Know Your Picture Characters Entry #97
A. 阿不思·鄧不利多 B. 芙蓉·德拉库尔 C. 哈利·波特 D. 赫敏·格兰杰
E. 罗恩·韦斯利 F. 西弗勒斯·斯内普 G. 汤姆·里德尔
Apologies again for not getting this out until Wednesday. I’m certainly not winning any awards for consistency this month.
Theoman had a good idea, but unfortunately it was thrown off by a few discrepancies between the Chinese versions of the books and the English ones, such as the fact that the Chinese Book 1 is pretty much entirely about Fleur Delacour, or that Harry himself doesn’t actually appear until Book 5. Hmm . . . my lovely assistant appears to be telling me that I’m making things up again. On a more serious note, doesn’t Dumbledore appear before Harry anyway? Still, despite his handicaps, Theoman managed to stumble across Hermione at D. In conclusion, the spell checker’s seeming capriciousness can be explained by the fact that “Severus” is the name of a Roman emperor and “Albus” isn’t, and by the fact that “Hermione” is a name invented by J.K. Rowling that had never existed previously.
Shirley, as far as I know, has never read the books, but she knows her stereotypes well, spotting Hermione, the smart one, at D and Ron, the sidekick, at E (raise your hand if you kind of wish Ron had been kicked in the side a little more in the books). I, personally, also feel inclined to give her credit for identifying Severus Snape (F) as the most heroic character in the books, and also for pointing out that Harry Potter (C) is basically just a pretty boy. And if we’re thinking about the movies, calling Dumbledore (A) the mean teacher might not even be that far off, though we agree with A Fan that he got slightly better after he died (we’re assuming here that A Fan was referring to the death of the character, not the actor).
A Fan, shockingly, decided to turn the conversation to movies. He makes a good point about Alan Rickman, though he seems to have him cast as Fleur Delacour (B), which I might call a curious choice. Daniel Radcliffe, on the other hand, would have made a much better Dumbledore than Michael Gambon. Alan Rickman would have, too, for that matter. Or Bruce Willis. Or anyone else from the cast of Die Hard. But I digress. A Fan almost correctly identified E as Ron Weasley, but then he seemed to be saying that Rupert Grint grew up to be a pretty okay actor, so I can only assume he was thinking of someone else and simply got confused. And the duel between Harry and Voldemort was ruined by sunspots.
G is Tom Riddle. Wasn’t he basically just misunderstood?
Remember that part in the first book when someone made a flag that said “POTTER FOR PRESIDENT,” and it didn’t make any sense, because why would kids from England want to be president? Well, after that not-at-all tenuous segue, the puzzle provided for this week by my lovely assistant is about U.S. presidents. I know we did presidents once before, but there are two key differences: 1. these are in Chinese, and therefore actually mean something to someone other than me, and 2. these are not merely the first presidents but are in fact the greatest presidents, each one of them the absolute best at what he did. We have the president who opened up relations with the most Chinas (well, communist Chinas, anyway; Richard Nixon). We have the only president to share a last name with a president who was impeached and not be impeached himself (LBJ). We have the president who survived the most pretzel-induced choking incidents (George W. Bush; isn’t it funny how that joke never gets old?). We have the president who was the best saxophone player (Bill Clinton; little-known-fact: John Adams also played the saxophone, but he was terrible at it, primarily because it wasn’t invented until twenty years after he died). We have the president who holds the record for most high schools named after him in western Bloomington, MN (Thomas Jefferson). And, finally, we have the president who holds the record for greatest percentage increase in length of term from the previous president of the same last name (Benjamin Harrison, whose time in office was approximately 4600% longer than William Henry Harrison’s).
A. 喬治·沃克·布什 B. 比爾·克林顿 C. 理查德·尼克森
D. 林登·约翰逊 E. 本杰明·哈里森 F. 湯瑪斯·傑佛遜
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6 Comments »
April 18th, 2012 at 7:51 pm
A is LBJ. It’s the only one with three names, which makes it obvious.
C & E end with the same character, so they’re probably Harrison and Jefferson. I’ll put them in that order, too, because I think “Harrison” and “Thomas” would have cleaner characters than “Benjamin” and “Jefferson”.
F is Nixon because the first name is three characters instead of two, and “Richard” seems longer than “Bill” or “George”.
This leaves me with the two presidents I remember from my childhood. I’ll put Clinton at B and Bush at D because I like the look of B’s characters better.
April 18th, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Er, just to make that easier to read:
A. Johnson
B. Clinton
C. Harrison
D. Bush
E. Jefferson
F. Nixon
April 19th, 2012 at 8:36 am
Excellent, another movie-themed quiz:
A. Nixon, but not just any Nixon. This is the Nixon from the magnificent nearly-unknown Robert Altman film “Secret Honor,” as played by Philip Baker Hall. If you ever get a chance, just see it. Langella was also greta in “Frost/Nixon,” but see “Secret Honor.”
B. Jefferson, of course, as portryaed by “The White Shadow” himself, Ken Howard, in 1776. (Although of course the greater roles in that show are John Adams, absolutely nailed by William Daniels; Franklin (Howard DaSilva); Rutledge (John Cullum, a long ways away from Holling in “Northern Exposure”); and Dickinson.
C. Who knew that Benjamin Harrison was once portrayed in a TV series called “The American President,” . . . by Alexander HAIG??!!?? Thanks, IMDB; I would not have predicted that.
D. LBJ–Randy Quaid got good reviews for doing him in a miniseries (that I never saw), but of course we all remember Randy’s drunk, crop-duster pilot fearlessly taking on the aliens in “Independence Day.”
E. W. was portrayed by Timothy Bottoms in a TV series called “That’s My Bush!” (Not making any of this up). More importantly, Bottoms played Hart in “The Paper Chase,” the movie that convinced a host of college kids in the 1970’s and ’80’s to go to law school. And yes, A(nother) Fan was one of those kids.
F. Clinton. What does it say about me that he’s still my favorite president of all the ones I can remember (which goes back to LBJ, if you’re scoring at home)? Anyway, John Travolta portrayed a fictionalized version of him in “Primary Colors.”
April 19th, 2012 at 8:37 am
Correction: Frank Langella was not “greta” (at least not that know of), he was “great.”
April 22nd, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Please don’t finish all your checking on this puzzler until Monday if that isn’t too much trouble, because I want to get my answers
in and I have house guests who are leaving Monday morning, so I will have no time to give to this until Monday afternoon at earliest. With one thing and another I have had to miss more than I wanted to lately and really do enjoy it. Thanks.
April 23rd, 2012 at 9:24 pm
A. George W. Sort of confused looking word. W. confused president
B. Harrison. By process of elimination, only name left. Only letter, too.
C. LBJ. Johnson would have been a great president on domestic policy, but Viet Nam destroyed him. C looks very competent in it’s first half, very troubled in the second.
D. Nixon. A better president than we liberals want to admit. We tend underrate him. He did some very good things like his foreign policy, going to China and his environmental policy He was messed up by a little matter of integrity. E. has a tricky sort of look to fit Tricky Dick
E. Jefferson. The hanji, or kanji or whatever it is, is spread out to fit the broad reach of his intellect and his interests.
F. Clinton, Love him or hate him, few would argue that he was the best looking of the lot.
F, is aesthetically pleasing.