{"id":88610,"date":"2014-04-12T00:32:25","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T05:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=88610"},"modified":"2014-04-12T01:57:15","modified_gmt":"2014-04-12T06:57:15","slug":"congratulations-to-our-2014-middle-earth-march-madness-champion-thranduil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/04\/12\/88610-congratulations-to-our-2014-middle-earth-march-madness-champion-thranduil\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations to our 2014 Middle-earth March Madness champion: Thranduil!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"intro\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/memadness2014-champion-fb.jpg\" class=\"no-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/memadness2014-champion-fb-300x111.jpg\" alt=\"memadness2014-champion-fb\" width=\"300\" height=\"111\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-88611 no-lazyload\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/memadness2014-champion-fb-300x111.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/memadness2014-champion-fb-600x222.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/memadness2014-champion-fb.jpg 851w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>  The results are in! After three weeks of intense competition we can finally crown a winner! In the end, Thranduil &#8212; the Sindarin king of the Woodland Realm &#8212; has taken the crown in our 2014 Middle-earth March Madness contest! <\/p>\n<p>We received more than 20,000 votes in the final, and Thranduil (<i>Thrandy<\/i> to his nearest and dearest?) soundly defeated his worthy opponent Legolas (aka Leggy) with 64.18% of those votes! I guess it <i>is<\/i> good to be king!<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019d like to thank you all for participating in this year\u2019s event and hope you had a fun time discussing the finer points of your favourite Middle-earth characters and objects, regardless of whether you viewed the contests as a physical battle, a game of wits, or a popularity contest (all valid ways to vote!). It&#8217;s also a neat way <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/04\/06\/88384-four-reasons-thranduil-is-smarter-than-your-average-elf\/\" target=\"_blank\">to explore<\/a> what makes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/04\/05\/88344-aragorns-kingly-proof\/\" target=\"_blank\">these characters<\/a> such <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/04\/04\/88299-speaking-of-legolas\/\" target=\"_blank\">interesting<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/04\/03\/88286-in-defense-of-thorin-oakenshield\/\" target=\"_blank\">vital<\/a> parts of Tolkien&#8217;s Middle-earth.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re already looking forward to next year\u2019s competition &#8212; and introducing a few of the changes that readers have suggested in comments\/facebook posts. For a review of each round, click on the following links: Round 1, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/03\/21\/87760-round-2-of-middle-earth-march-madness-is-upon-us\/\">Round 2<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/03\/25\/87908-vote-now-in-round-three-of-middle-earth-march-madness-2014-edition\/\" target=\"_blank\">Round 3<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/03\/28\/88042-weve-reached-the-elite-eight-vote-now-in-middle-earth-march-madness-round-4\/\" target=\"_blank>Elite Eight<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/04\/02\/88252-vote-in-the-middle-earth-march-madness-final-four-some-like-it-hot\/\" target=\"_blank\">Final Four<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2014\/04\/06\/88395-father-vs-son-the-middle-earth-march-madness-final-is-set-thranduil-vs-legolas\/\" target=\"_blank\">Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-champion.jpg\" alt=\"2014-champion\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88612 no-lazyload\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-champion.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-champion-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-champion-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-champion-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-champion-200x200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-champion-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-middleearthmadness-bracket-final.jpg\" alt=\"2014-middleearthmadness-bracket-final\" width=\"1500\" height=\"999\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88649 no-lazyload\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-middleearthmadness-bracket-final.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-middleearthmadness-bracket-final-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-middleearthmadness-bracket-final-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-middleearthmadness-bracket-final-600x399.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>EDIT: Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions for next year below &#8212; we&#8217;re open to your ideas (and as mentioned we already have a few of our own!). Fan bashing, however, will not be tolerated by the mods.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The results are in! After three weeks of intense competition we can finally crown a winner! In the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":88612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,197,36,7,4,35,5,29,31,30,38,98,148,1636,1911,1912,149,37],"tags":[2462,2477,1406],"class_list":["post-88610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-fans","category-fotr-book","category-hobbit-book","category-hobbit-movie","category-lotr-books","category-lotr-movies","category-fotr-movie","category-rotk-movie","category-ttt-movie","category-rotk-book","category-silmarillion","category-hobbit","category-the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey","category-the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug","category-the-hobbit-there-and-back-again","category-lotr","category-ttt-book","tag-march-madness","tag-mr-sparkle","tag-thranduil"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-champion.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-n3c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88610"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88658,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88610\/revisions\/88658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}