The mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth – Galadriel.
Over 2000 votes were cast in our final event, and Galadriel took 66% of the vote – a significant victory.
We hope you enjoyed our unique twist on Middle-earth March Madness this year, and as always, we’d love to hear your comments and suggestions below. Do you have a unique way to run this event? Let us hear about it!
A note on how the bracket combatants were determined. TheOneRing.net created a document containing all combatants, sub divided into divisions. We asked staff to cast sixteen votes per division, with the votes having a weight of 1-4. Each staffer cast four 4 votes, four 3 votes, four 2 votes and four 1 votes in each division. We then totaled all the votes from each division to determine their rank, and ultimately placed those into our bracket for seeding.
Congrats to the Villanova Wildcats as they won the ‘real’ March Madness last night. But while that was possibly the most dramatic ending in college basketball history, it pales in comparison to our final of Middle-earth March Madness 2016!
(Drumroll…)
Galadriel vs. Morgoth
Could there be a more epic battle? Beauty and Brains facing the ultimate Baddie with Brawn.
Voting was close for the winners of the Beauty and Brains divisions. Galadriel pulled out of the victory over last year’s Champ by only 50 votes! Unfortunately for Beorn, the other match-up was not quite as close. Morgoth blew-out Beorn, garnering 60% of the votes.
So it all comes down to this. Will we have our first female character champion? Will an ultimate baddie win for the first time? Only time, and your votes, will tell!
Voting is now open below. Voting will remain open until tomorrow night (April 6) at 10pm ET.
Fans in Europe were able to buy The Story of Kullervo last year; the good news is, today the wait is over at last for fans in the US!
Tolkien himself said of this previously unknown work of fantasy that it was “the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own,” and was “a major matter in the legends of the First Age.” Publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt tell us:
‘Kullervo, son of Kalervo, is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters. “Hapless Kullervo,” as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny.
Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and tried three times to kill him when he was still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and the magical powers of the black dog Musti, who guards him. When Kullervo is sold into slavery he swears revenge on the magician, but he will learn that even at the point of vengeance there is no escape from the cruelest of fates.
Tolkien’s Kullervo was the ancestor of Túrin Turambar, tragic hero of The Silmarillion. Published here for the first time with the author’s drafts, notes, and lecture essays on its source work, the Kalevala, The Story of Kullervo is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien’s invented world.’
The TORn family would like to congratulate Sir Peter Jackson who is among the six new inductees to New Zealand’s Business Hall of Fame. The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film productions contributed to the New Zealand economy for years, not to mention Weta Workshop, Weta Digital, and many other spin-off endeavors that Peter had a personal hand in founding, or contributed to in partnership with others.
The hall of fame was established in 1994 to recognise and celebrate individual business people who have made a big contribution to the economic and social development of New Zealand. According to the stuff.co.nz article, the inauguration ceremony will take place on Thursday, June 9. Congratulations, P.J.!! Read More …
While the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament may have set their final last night, we at TheOneRing.net are getting set for our Final Four match-ups!
The winner of the Beauty division, Galadriel, will take on the two-time champion from the Brains division, Gandalf. In the 2012 edition of Middle-earth March Madness, Gandalf defeated Galadriel in the Elite Eight round…can he do it in 2016? If Gandalf wins this year, he will be our first repeat champion and will lead the total championship count with three.
On the other side we have two first time Final Four combatants. Defeating Eowyn by just 9 votes, Beorn wins the Brawn division and moves on to face the ultimate Baddie – Morgoth! As an interesting side note, this is the first time Morgoth has made any type of run in Middle-earth March Madness. He has soundly defeated all combatants in this year’s event, but he is coming up against the top seed from the Brawn division in the form of Beorn. (Speaking of, which ‘form’ will Beorn take in this match-up? We’ll let you decide.) It’s an ultimate battle of two number 1 seeds…let’s see who wins!
Peter Jackson has agreed to direct the upcoming film, The Jumping Bean Surprise, according to Court Five Producer Mark Ordesky. Conceived by Tyler H. Jacobson, the story is set in the 1870s and involves four teenagers using a time machine to journey back three hours to scare their past selves by dressing up as clowns. When one of them falls in love with his past self, however, a love triangle develops that challenges the boundaries of time and space.
“It’s a science fiction story, a horror story and a love story all in one,” Ordesky said in his announcement. “And we knew we needed somebody who could bring all these elements together. That somebody is Peter Jackson.”
Set for release in January of 2018, Ordesky added that Jackson is so excited, “he’s already setting aside a suit for the Oscars.”
Peter Jackson is the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the latter of which was adapted into a feature film directed by Jackson and produced by Ordesky.
Alright, we’ll come clean: as most of you have guessed, this is just an April Fool’s Day joke! The story idea for this film, written by one of our staffers, is only a proposal that he is currently attempting to gain funding for. If you’d like to donate, visit: www.kickstarter.com/projects/jumpingbeansurprise
The mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth – Galadriel. 
