Your Path to Victory: A GNOMEs Study Guide
We’ve promised the most difficult Harry Potter trivia you can imagine for our upcoming GNOMEs Trivia Tournament on May 30. These Gruellingly Nauseating and Onerous MuggleNet Exercises will push your mind to its limit in an attempt to remember truly obscure factoids. But we’re not so cruel to send you in blind! We’ve whipped up a study guide so you can make like Hermione and brush up on your knowledge before the big day.
While you can always reread the books and take some of our past GNOMEs for practice, we’re going to help you figure out where to focus your efforts with a preview of what’s to come. Here are some of the rounds you can expect to encounter and what kinds of questions you might be asked to answer.
Things will start off comparatively easy, but still decently tricky, for the qualification round.
Blood Status
We’re not prejudiced; pure-bloods and Muggle-borns alike are welcome! But do you remember the background of various characters? Their lineage may not be central to the story or mentioned frequently. You might need to deduce it or even refer to Pottermore for some.
Sample question:
Ted Tonks
Answer:
Muggle-born
Book, Movie, Both, or Neither
We love to harp on the differences between the novels and the films, but these questions won’t be so straightforward. We’ll offer an event, and you’ll need to tell us whether it occurred in the books, movies, both, or neither. We might play around with the wording and offer a scenario that sounds familiar but is actually slightly different from what really happened, so be careful!
Sample question:
Luna shows Harry the Room of Requirement.
Answer:
Neither (it was Dobby in the book and Neville in the film)
Weighing of the Wands
Inspired by the chapter of the same name in which Ollivander examines the wands of the Triwizard champions, this round will describe a wand’s core, wood, length, and flexibility. Your job will be to pick the witch or wizard to whom it belongs. Keep in mind that some of the information comes from Pottermore.
Sample question:
Holly, 11″, supple, single phoenix tail feather
Answer:
Harry Potter
Books and Authors
The wizarding world is full of books, from textbooks to memoirs. We’ll either provide the title of a book, for which you will have to name the author, or we’ll provide the name of an author, and you’ll give us the title of their book.
Gilderoy Lockhart
He loves to talk about himself, so we have plenty of information to use. Revisit Lockhart’s illustrious career, bibliography, and wardrobe, and see if you could pass his pop quiz.
Things will get more difficult as we proceed into the semifinals.
Sorting Minor Characters
Sure, you know where Cormac McLaggen and Marietta Edgecombe belong, but we want to know about the students who were barely mentioned. You might want to reread those Sorting Ceremonies…
Sample question:
Marcus Belby
Answer:
Ravenclaw
Parallels & Pairings
We all know that JKR is a master at hidden reveals and Easter eggs. This round, presented in riddles, tests your knowledge regarding people, places, and objects that show up only twice in the entire series.
Sample question:
This object, kept close to one’s heart, may even have a trace of soul.
Answer:
Locket Horcrux 5/7
Diagon Alley & Hogsmeade
Consulting a map would be your best bet for this round, as well as looking at each and every time we enter either village.
What’s Brewing?
Professor Snape has extremely high standards for his students, and GNOMEs are no different. Name the potion based on some ingredients or features, or name an ingredient or feature of a given potion.
St. Mungo’s
We may only visit St. Mungo’s once during the entire series, but there is still a mountain of information to be learned about this magical healing center.
If you make it to the finals, you’ll be facing the most difficult questions of all.
Numbers
Good luck studying for this one – numbers are spread all throughout the books. We might be looking for years, addresses, or numbers of objects.
Sample question:
How many staircases are in Hogwarts?
Answer:
142
One-Hit Witches and Wizards
They came, they saw, they left. Hopefully, their names rang a bell.
Name That Chapter
You might want to take another look at the table of contents in each book for a refresher.
Fill in the Blank
You will be given a line from the series with a blank. You have to fill it in.
Character Descriptions
They can’t all be as iconic as “toad-faced,” but hopefully, you can name these characters just by their descriptions.
If you manage to get through all these questions and end up on top, you could win one of these amazing prizes! Another special thank you to our event sponsor, the Bradford Exchange, for helping make this event a reality. Head over to their website right now to claim your bonus gift, a $30 value.
Prizes will be awarded to our top seven players, with the grand prize being an official film prop replica of The Monster Book of Monsters – a $295 value!! – donated by our friends at Insight Editions.
More details on how to play and the rest of the prizes can be found here.
