Morning Ramble for March 9th, 2017: #2017MMM, Queens, and Skunks
Morning Ramble for March 9th, 2017 in which I watch the unfolding of events of the 2017 March Mammal Madness where the Adjective Mammals faced off last night to start the round of 64 and the action was fierce; and I read further in Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen where I started to understand why people were keeping secrets from the future Queen. Things are heating up all around.
2017 MMM: Results for the Adjective Mammal battles
The winners of the first set of mammal battles have been announced and I think I did pretty well. Happily, my favorite Adjective Mammal is continuing on to the next round…the Screaming Hairy Armadillo defeated his opponent, the Hairy-nosed Wombat. This incredible upset (of a 4 seed by a 13th seed) was made possible by the natural defenses of the Armadillo that targeted the sensitive hearing of the Wombat.
In other matches, 4 of the battles resulted in the higher seed victorious as expected (Spectacled Bear, White-headed Capuchin, Maned Wolf, and the Clouded Leopard) but there were a number of upsets to go along with the Armadillo. The Pouched Rat beat out the Bat-eared Fox and the Banded Linsang overcame one of my favorites in this round, the Brown-throated Sloth, because the Sloth was too lazy to show up to the match.
Finally, in the 8 vs 9 battle, my pick – the Spotted Skunk out stank the Long-tailed Pangolin by a nose and moved on to the round of 32.
You can catch all the mammals in action and read the play-by-play over at Storify.
2017 MMM: Thoughts on tonights battles
Tonight, the Desert Adapted Mammals face off starting at 8:30pm Eastern with my tournament favorite the Honey Badger starting it’s hunt for the crown with a fight against the Southern Marsupial Mole. This should be a pretty easy match for the Badger unless she becomes too overconfident. I doubt she will, this is the tournament of the year after all.
In this bracket, I only have one upset, and that’s in the 8 vs 9 fight. I really feel the Meerkat will defend the honor of ‘actual’ Mammals by taking down the Gila Monster.
As I mentioned previously, you can follow the battles on Twitter with the hashtag #2017MMM or @2017MMMLetsgo and be sure to check out the official site at Mammals suck…Milk where the results are posted.
Queen of the Tearling
Things are becoming much more clear as I get further into the story. I now know why no one would talk to Kelsea about the treaty her mother made with the Red Queen. Finishing up Book 1, we learn how the previous Queen made peace and kept things civil after the Mortmesne invasion. It was not a treaty of equals. The Tearling had to sacrifice much and were reminded about their inferiority every month during a census. When Kelsea learned of the situation, she would have nothing of it and came out of hiding, announcing herself as Queen and putting an end to the tribute. Marching into the Keep, the new Queen apparent started planning on a coronation and setting aside her uncle, the Regent. I’m sure Book 2 will give us some insight into the person of the Regent and what the consequences of ending the census will be, (Sidenote: the Novel is broken down into multiple books and each book has multiple chapters, I’m still reading the same physical or digital book though), but for now we only have more questions.