Season 4 of the B612 Quiz League ended in late December 2022. I fell behind on the quiz review posts during the last few weeks, missing not one, not two, but three whole game weeks, namely GW6 through 8. I've been meaning to get back to them and clear the backlog (thanks, everyone who asked!), but every time I try to do another post I get stuck at the same place: I feel like I need to explain why the gap occurred at all. It was not a personal matter. It was very much something to do with the league and the quiz community itself, so it feels like something that should be shared, and yet I'm just not super comfortable talking about it yet. For now, we're going to brush past it and pretend there was no gap at all, just so we can get through these long pending quiz reviews.
Season 5 starts soon!
Season 5 is set to start on 14th February 2023. Have you signed up already? Please do so now!
More importantly, we’d really appreciate you bringing some of your friends in! As more and more seasons of these Mimir leagues are completed, we’re learning more about our role in the larger quiz community. We’d like to think B612 remains a friendly starting point for new quizzers who are trying it out for the first time, and for returning folks who are getting back into quizzing after many years of dormancy. We’re non-competitive, and we have a very active community of friendlies. If you know someone you think might be interested in getting into Mimir quizzing, could you tell them about us? We could use the extra signups!
Onwards to the Game Week 6 review.
Quiz Review
This is going to be an unusual review. We're going to be talking about a question set that was last attempted over a month ago, so you'd be forgiven for barely remembering most of it. I'll do my best to share context, which is only fair given that GW6 was perhaps my favourite set of Season 4, just in terms of content and range, going from Brezhnev's Kisses to the specifics of that legendary anthem, Favicol.
We'll go through the quads one by one, but you can jump ahead to the summary if you like. You can find the question sets here. Use this file to read the questions side-by-side with this review.
We asked 4 questions related to the mythology of Rohan, from Lord of the Rings. Asking questions about a specific topic within a larger franchise USUALLY results in hard questions, but the Lord of the Rings might be an exception.
Rohan crossed 75% in answer rate, which was great.
Beowulf and Bayeux Tapestry (incidentally both B612 repeats) proved basically interchangeable. These answers may have been hard back when this league began, and probably still seem obscure if you’re new to the league, but thanks to repeat answers they now work as effective L2s.
Hardanger Fiddle looked all set to go unanswered but did eventually get picked up (I'd fairly certain this was done by a googler, but since he never confessed to it, even after confrontation, I guess we'll never know).
2. Brezhnev's Triple Threat
There were a lot of topics this week that proved memorable for me, but maybe not quite so much as the dramatically named "Brezhnev's Triple Threat". It should come as no surprise that this quad was brought to you by Rajat Gururaj, the same person who gave us Akbar's Eating Habits.
The quad intro was placed at L2, but might have been better suited for an L3. Have a look at the question:
While the double version was an ordinary custom in Slavic nations, the triple was far less common. Soviet Leader Brezhnev began using this practice in 1970. The first unsuspecting victim was the Czechoslovakian leader Gustav Husak, who was probably not in a position to say no given the dominance of the USSR in the Soviet Bloc. Czech citizens named it "Brezhnev's triple threat". What was Brezhnev's triple threat, tracked by Kremlinologists to better understand the relationships between various Communist leaders?
Answer: A KISS on both cheeks, followed by one on the mouth.
Since this is the first appearing question, it's just hard to get a sense of the irreverent tone of the quad from just this. Kudos to those who got it anyway, especially to those who guessed!
Castro sticking a cigar in his mouth to avoid a kiss was a happy L1, probably made a little too easy by the few words of the question.
World leaders who fell victim to the Brezhnev kiss include Yasser Arafat, Indira Gandhi and Joseph Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, whose lip reportedly started bleeding from the force of the kiss with the old man. Fidel Castro, no fan of the greeting, devised a crafty ploy to avoid being kissed. What did he do, utilizing a famous export from his country?
The L3 question originally asked for whom Brezhnev was kissing in the graffiti art, but I changed it late to ask for the title of the work instead, which proved far too obscure. The German speakers in the league were advantaged though since the title was in the image!
3. McWords
An unexpectedly popular quad in this week's set was McWords, with the majority of people who sent feedback mentioning it as their favourite. Kudos to Ananya Upadhya.
My guess is this is because the questions were mostly what people tend to call "workable" (although these days I'm very sceptical about what that really means). My favourite among them was this one:
What McWord is the name of a Latin American literary movement that breaks with the tradition of magical realism and uses language borrowed from mass media? It portrays urban life, in contrast to the fictional village from which it gets its name.
4. Shopping Holidays
Two of these questions turned out to be extremely easy ones, but my favourite was the L3.
Singles' Day celebrated in China is the largest physical retail and online shopping day in the world. One origin story is that in 1993, four single male students of Nanjing University decided that this date would be a day of celebration in honor of being single. In 2009 Alibaba's CEO Daniel Zhang began to use the date to run a 24-hour shopping festival. On what date of the year is Singles' Day celebrated?
5. The Human Microbiome
Another absolutely fascinating topic for a quad, the kind that I've really come to love. 4 questions about types of microbes that live in or on the human body.
The quad played mostly non-ascending, except for that L4 that drew quite a lot of flak for not accepting 'smelly feet' instead of 'sweaty'. While sweat is definitely the correct answer, you can see how this would annoy a quizzer who missed it.
6. Production House Logos
7. Bad Boy Pistons
Here's what happens whenever you do an NBA quad in a popular league:
The handful of basketball fans who play in the league will text you separately, thanking you profusely for giving their beloved game some much-needed representation in Indian quizzes.
The vast majority of players will simply tune out for those questions and forget about them a few seconds after the quiz is over.
Finally, a small minority of non-basketball fans will actively take offence at you daring to cover NBA and rant about how impossibly obscure the questions were (even though one answer hinted at the Will Smith-Martin Lawrence series 'Bad Boys', and another was Michael Jordan FFS).
It's impossible to make everyone happy. The difficulty gradient for the quad was perfect.
You can expect more basketball coverage in Season 5.
🎯 Ron Ronquillo and Aabhas Amol will be glad to hear that, they picked up a musket each by answering all 4 questions in this quad!
8. Lucha de Apuestas
Widely called out as one of our best quads ever (take a bow Nidheesh Samant), probably because it took a sports topic that is almost guaranteed to have zero fans in the league and framed 4 perfectly workable questions about it. The questions are so good I'm sharing all of them here.
Lucha Libre is a 20th century professional wrestling variant that originated in Mexico. In addition to colourful costumes and high-flying maneuvers, the luchadores pull in the crowds by main events called Lucha de Apuestas. Participating wrestlers make a bet on the outcome of the match, not in the form of money but with other, more personal attributes. The [BLANK] VS [BLANK] is considered the most prestigious match. What does a wrestler lose in such a match, a highly significant symbol of a luchadore's prestige? Answer: Their mask
Another variant of a Lucha de Apuestas is the Mask VS [BLANK]. This match is fought between a masked wrestler and a previously unmasked wrestler. While it gives the latter a chance to bring some stakes to the match, it is not a very common match as the masked wrestler has way more to lose. What can the unmasked wrestler lose in such a match, resulting in lost prestige but not in a permanent way, since the loser can always participate again after a period of time? Answer: Their hair
The 'Bet for the [BLANK]' is one of the rarest variants of the Lucha de Apuestas, unsurprising given the high stakes involved. A match like this can arise when a wrestler leaves a wrestling company, abandoning a personal attribute, but later makes a comeback and demands to reclaim it. What does the loser give up to the winner in this very personal wrestling match? Answer: Their name!
The 'Mask vs [BLANK]' variant of Lucha de Apuestas is considered more high-stakes than the *máscara contra máscara* variant. What does this variant require the losing unmasked wrestler to do? This is considered a huge gamble, only taken up by characters who are desperately trying to cling on to the game. Answer: They must retire
9. Vintage Indian Drinks
If you've made a lot of quizzes before you likely know this already, but in case you don't let me give you a golden tip: Questions based on nostalgia cheer everyone up. If they get it, they love it. If they don't, they still like it. You can't go wrong.
10. Those Penguins
🎯 Amol scored his first musket of the season by answering all 4 questions in the Penguin quad!
11. Types of Primes
Conceptually this quad is not too different from Lucha de Apuestas. Like it, this one tries to take a topic whose details will likely to unknown to us and frames questions on those aspects of it that can be guessed just using framing hints. The result would've been almost as good, but I ruined the L4 by dropping a hint and causing it to go unanswered.
Here it is in its original form:
What 8-letter term is used to describe a prime number that is the arithmetic mean of the preceding and the succeeding prime numbers? The term implies that it does not given extra importance to either of its two neighbours. For example, 53 is this kind of prime because it is the arithmetic mean of 47 and 59.
Answer: Balanced primes
12. Music Architecture
This one was a refreshingly straight-faced arts quad, courtesy of Vikas Plakkot.
Moses and Aaron was a misplaced L4, especially since the 'musical sounding name' hint made Renzo Piano much more accessible than it would've been otherwise.
13. Fevicol Se
Say what you want, but this topic remains the single most memorable quad we did this season. If you’re unfamiliar with this terrible, terrible song, do not worry. Here’s a lyric video complete with translations.
The difficulty gradient was all over the place for a non-asc quad, but I couldn’t care less. Never been more proud of trash content in the league.
The Game Week 6 set also had this Easter Egg of a question right at the bottom, complete with a disclaimer.
Please don't use this as a tiebreaker or a spare or indeed anything other than a friendly end to the quiz. Sporting equipment, a movie theatre, a venue for a wedding, and a worker's outfit. Connect to a 2012 song that you've seen enough of in this quiz.
Answer: Bat ball, cinema hall, marriage hall, overall. All rhymes for “fevicol”. Really.
14. Named Symphonies by Beethoven
Fevicol to Beethoven was probably one of our better transitions, something we retained in the quiz proper as well.
🎯 John van Maris was probably glad to see Beethoven pop up after Favicol, cos he scored on all 4 of those questions!
15. Strugnell’s Haiku
Another favourite (yes there were quite a few this week), not because of the questions themselves but because of the source. Wendy Cope is an English poet who created an intentionally dull character named Jason Strugnell, who writes banal haiku. Nidheesh Samant pulled 4 questions out of the resultant poetry and a quad was born.
A lot of our readers also took a break from the quiz after the last of the 4 questions, in order to listen to a performance of the completed work. If that didn’t happen in your quiz, no worries, you can listen now.
I’ve always felt we don’t make a big enough deal about the massive amount of content that gets covered in a single Mimir question set. We’re effectively educating ourselves on new trivia together. There’s a lot we can do with the opportunity.
Next time you’re making a friendly, drop in some recommendations of your own. Show us a movie trailer or make us listen to a song you like. You’ve made a whole quiz, you’re allowed to tell us what you like.
Summary
Quiz “reviews” like this are what you can expect if you’ve signed up for Season 5 of the B612 quiz league. We’re a non-competitive league, which gives us more time and energy to care about the content we’re covering rather than the performance of the players.
