Final Jeopardy: Poetry (12-15-14)

The Final Jeopardy question (12/15/2014), in the category “Poetry” was:

The narrator mistakes the presence of this creature for the wind & later calls it prophet.

2x champ Ryan Pensyl has won $32,000 so far. He can add some more to that, and qualify for the TOC, if he can beat the first two challengers of the week: Rex Marzke, from Houston, TX; and  Alysha Rooks, originally from New Orleans, LA, who decided to go by her last name.

Round 1: Rooks got the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Websites” under the $1,000 clue, the very last in the round. She was in the lead with $5,200, $1,200 more than Rex in second place. She bet $2,000 and thought it was “Scribd”. That was WRONG.

This literature-based website was named for a title scrivener. show

Rex finished in the lead with $4,000. Rooks was second with $3,200 and Ryan was last with $2,600.

Round 2: Rooks found the first Daily Double in “Parks” under the $1,600 clue. She was now in third place in this tight game, $2,000 behind Rex’s lead. She bet $2,000 again and she was RIGHT.

It took workers months in 1880 to transport this 69-foot shaft from a Staten Island dock to Central Park. show

We didn’t get to the last Daily Double today, even though Rex tried to find it by starting at the bottom of the last category, “Go Fourth by Name”. Alas, it was under either the $800 or $1,200 clue.

Rex finished in the lead with $10,800. Rooks was next with $10,400 and Ryan was in third place with $7,400.

Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT IS “THE RAVEN”?

Poe also refers to the raven as a thing of evil, a fiend and a devil, but the “prophet” part put contemporary critics in mind of Poe’s literary critique of Charles Dickens’ novel, “Barnaby Rudge”. Poe wrote that the Rudge raven “might have been made, more than we now see it, a portion of the conception of the fantastic Barnaby. Its croakings might have been prophetically heard in the course of the drama.” After Poe published “The Raven,” James Lowell Russell mocked the coincidence in “A Fable for Critics”:

“Here comes Poe with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three fifths of him genius, two fifths sheer fudge.”

Barnaby Rudge’s raven was inspired by Dickens’ own pet raven. Grip. You can get a gander at Grip in the Rare Books Room at the Philadelphia Free Library, or online. The Library also has many rare editions of both Dickens’ and Poe’s works, including a first edition of “The Raven”.



Ryan thought it was Coleridge’s albatross. He bet and lost it all.

Rooks got it right and bet $8,012. She finished with $18,412.

Rex came up with “the dragon”. We don’t know what dragon he meant but we do know he lost $13 and ended up in second place with $10,787.

FJ Results: 12-15-14

Alysha Rooks is a writer and will perhaps talk about that tomorrow. Today she talked about getting married accidentally courtesy of Colorado’s lax common-law marriage requirements.

2 years ago:: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “19th Century Inventions”:

Thoreau noted in 1854, it “resounds at every post. it is a harp with one string– the first strain from the American lyre”. show

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17 Responses

  1. Robert Anderson says:

    Alysha rocks! and I loved her clothes.

  2. Delirious5 says:

    I’m a friend of hers. She just always goes by Rooks.

  3. VJ says:

    I would imagine they let you use whatever form of your name, first or last, makes you happy.

    I remember a few years ago, they had a player named Boomie and Alex, at least, didn’t know his real name until he asked him during the chat (It was Laurent).

    • john blahuta says:

      first time i remember that somebody used her last name. usually it’s a first name, variation thereof (Rick instead of Richard etc) or a nickname…well, a first for everything.

      • JayK says:

        There was an Andrew Dobbs a couple years ago who went by Dobbs. A decade ago there was a ToC player called Scott Renzoni who went by “Renzo”.

  4. PapaDulce says:

    ROOKS FTW!!!

  5. john blahuta says:

    and as my usual “p.s.”: they should do something so that all clues are given. just one unrevealed clue can change the entire outcome of the game, especially when a dd is left out. they should give alex a “playclock” like they have in football or basketball, so he knows when to step it up.

  6. john blahuta says:

    rooks was obviously betting on a triple stumper and that rex and ryan would bet enough to leave her as winner. well, ryan bet it all and since rooks got fj right the 13.00 by rex did not matter.

    and there goes my prediction of a triple solve… i think i’ll hock my crystal ball for good! alas, again surprised and disappointed. i would have thought “the raven” would be mandatory reading in english classes. obviously not. it’s not a poem that you easily “forget”, and as vj pointed out in the CotD talk, there were sufficient additional clues compared to the 1990 game.

  7. Cindy Martinez says:

    She won because of the question categories. IE poetry. I’ll take famous feminist for $2000 Alex.
    She won’t last long unless they redo the categories again.

  8. Cindy Martinez says:

    Why were there no military history type Topix or physics. Jeopardy seems to have social and arts goo goo questions when a woman is on.

  9. Cindy Martinez says:

    Fj, RAVEN

  10. jacobska says:

    As was stated CotD I could not imagine a rocket scientist being into poetry. VJ, should have bet you as you will notice that Rex only wagered $13 on Final Jeopardy which shows that he had no certainty whatsoever on poetry. Smart wager on his part however.

    Rooks tickled me leaning to the right to press her hidden buzzer throughout the game but she won. The strategy worked for her.

    We are off to another week with one correct fj response. Hope things improve.

    • jacobska says:

      Btw, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is normally a must read in schools. EAP is considered on the dark side of poetry but I like his works.

      • VJ says:

        One of Poe’s poems, The Bells, is being taught wrong these days in a lot of schools thanks to the internet…

        The line that goes “from the molten golden notes, and all in tune” turns up on a lot of websites (LINK) as “and an in tune”. Even in books!

    • VJ says:

      Well, I was only hoping he would be on this one and get it. I laughed when I saw on the commercial he was going to be on.

      Two of them — I’m sure they know of the poem but don’t really know it, as I mentioned is often the case with long poems.

      • john blahuta says:

        have you considered going to the track, making a lot of money with your predictions?? :):):) you didn’t study psychology by any chance, did you?