12/4/13

Week Six: The Final Riddle!

Alright, you Final Two, it’s time to see which one of you is the true literary embodiment of The Enlightenment! I give you the day to gather your minds as you think over the answer to the riddle I’m about to provide you with. Furthermore, I’m setting up a database for you, where you’re asked to input any and all clues and observations you deem important – we want our Viewers at home to have a chance to solve the riddle too! Come tomorrow, you’ll each be granted a short interview with me where you’ll be given the chance to ask me five questions. These questions can be anything, and I promise to answer as fully and truthfully as I can! After the fifth question, you’ll be prompted to solve the riddle. You have one chance, HouseAuthors. Make me and the Enlightened Realm proud of you!

Here’s your riddle…

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11/26/13

Week Five: Power of Reason Challenge

Let’s keep on with gristly tasks! HouseAuthors, your challenge today is to unearth the Power of Reason… carefully buried under one of the many graves in the plot before you. This challenge requires no special skill, nor any specific tactic. Just pick up a shovel and dig! And don’t worry about coming up empty handed! Five graves hold items for you: one has the Power of Reason, and four others hold objects that may prove useful to you in one way or another! Now, are you all ready? Let’s begin!

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11/24/13

Week Five: Head Thinker Challenge

The church bell is ringing, HouseAuthors! Time for your lively debate… on Death!

Since all of you are competing this week, we’re going to have two rounds to make sure we have a detailed, in-depth discussion on all of your texts! In the first round, you’ll be split into two teams of two where you’ll be tasked with using your partner’s writing to combat the opposing team. Now, there are five of you, so I’m going to grant Mr. Baudelaire a pass for this first round since he deals with Death on a very prominent level. Following that first debate, Mr. Baudelaire will choose one of the members of the winning team to debate in the second round. I will choose a winner from the results of that debate. Best of luck to you all!

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11/14/13

Week Three: Power Of Reason Challenge

HouseAuthors, the much coveted Power of Reason shall be won by the bravest of you all! Your challenge this week reflects one of many scientific-driven armageddon the world may face: nuclear annihilation. As your world’s love of science began to flourish alongside the Enlightenment, so did the capacity for destruction. Limits no longer exist, and nuclear power is considered to be the “energy of the future.” For those of you not familiar with this concept, it boils down to this: radioactive isotopes utilize heat energy to release steam… blah blah the world has power. While it’s viewed as a very powerful energy source, its dangers cannot be ignored. In fact, the likelihood of the world ending due to a nuclear-related explosion is very, very high! Our own Realm used to be in danger of such a fate, but we quickly realized that such energy sources are unnecessary and terrifying.

Your challenge is not to survive a nuclear fallout, so don’t you worry HouseAuthors! (Our producers wouldn’t sign off on such a spectacle.) You will, however, be tasks with dealing with the supposed “sole survivor” of a nuclear blast. The cockroach. The doors to the room you’re all currently in are locked, and in a few minutes, cockroaches will begin to crawl into the room via secret passageways. If you become afraid or sick then you lose the challenge – don’t worry about how I’m going to judge whether you are or not, we implanted you all with a computer chip that can measure anxiety and nausea levels before the game began. The last HouseAuthor standing will win the Power of Reason this week.

Are you all ready to begin? Yes? Then release the cockroaches!!!

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11/12/13

Week Three: Head Thinker Challenge

Welcome to the halfway mark, HouseAuthors! After this debate, you’ll only have three more before we find out which one of you is the true Enlightened Author! As you’re all aware, the Ideal you shall be debating this week is: Modernity/Breaking With Tradition (Scientific Advancements). 

Banned from this Debate due to lack of knowledge in given Ideal: Charles Baudelaire, Franz Kafka, Herman Melville, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, Christina Rossetti, Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Rabindranath Tagore. Oh my! What an interesting turn of events! Only one of you has taken it upon yourselves to discuss the scientific advancements you’ve all treasured and adored. We must still have a debate though, so here’s how it’s going to go down. Lu Xun, in order to successfully win this challenge, you will be asked tw questions pertaining to your views of science in your writings. If you manage to answer both of them, then you shall win! Fail to do so, and face immediate decapitation.

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11/7/13

Week Two: Power of Reason Challenge

Your Ideal this week, HouseAuthors, deals with how you and your societies view the role of women. Some of you see women as your playthings, and some of you fight to prove that us women are just as good as men. A noble, noble crusade. Your challenge this week will “reflect” how you see women. Before you is a “selfie” of me. The “selfie” is an archaic form of self-portrait usually associated with the desire to garner attention to your most beautiful attributes. Silly notions of physical beauty are but a thing of the past here, but we felt the choice to the “selfie”. Behind you are eight dolls. Only one of these dolls is an accurate representation of my “selfie.” Through predetermined numbering, you will all, one by one, choose a doll and place it on the pedestal.

If your choice is correct, then congratulations, you’ve won! If you choose wrong, then I shall take it personally since you clearly aren’t noticing my face well enough to choose the right doll. Are you ready to begin?

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