KSA Hosts Lord of the Rings Marathon, Trivia

Aragorn’s courage could be yours, as could a movie-themed board game

LOTR_Grassroots
A group of students relax in Grassroots and play Lord of the Rings Trivia on January 17, 2017. (Kyrsten Downton)

It was one trivia game to rule them all.

On Tuesday, Jan 17, the Kwantlen Student Association hosted a Lord of the Rings trivia game at the Grassroots Cafe in the Surrey Cedar building. The contest kicked off a three-day-long marathon of the movie franchise the KSA was hosting.

Natasha Lopes, the KSA Vice President Student Life, says that a Lord of the Rings marathon was an event the KSA has long wanted and planned to do at the start of the winter semester.

“You need the strength to carry on in January,” says Lopes. “For me, The Lord of the Rings has always been a comfort. If Aragorn can get up the courage to become king, I can get up the courage to be Natasha.”

The crowd in the Grassroots was small, mostly filled with students either passing the time or grabbing a quick bite on the go. However, a group of students eager to test their knowledge of Tolkien’s world, and maybe win some prizes doing so, stayed throughout the event.

The evening’s prizes included a Lord of the Rings board game, a map of Middle Earth, and various gift cards.

Sadly, the One Ring was not a prize.

The trivia contest consisted of three rounds of questions followed by one more round with “extreme” questions. A winner was found after each round, and that student got to pick which of the prizes they wanted.

Hanna Norman, a creative writing major, won the first round of trivia and took home the board game. Norman doesn’t believe she is the ultimate Lord of the Rings fan at KPU, despite being a fan since she was young. However, she says she hopes she is “up there”.

“I just love fantasy,” says Norman. “I think it is fun to kind of go away from our world into something that is probably so much worse than ours—but in a way, so much better.”

This is the first time the KSA has hosted a trivia game night at KPU. However, Lopes and the KSA want to hold more trivia game events in the future. She believes that the success of the Lord of the Rings trivia contest will the KSA bring similar events to the Grassroots in the future.

“The only way your events will really flourish and become a part of campus culture is if they continue repeating and if you continue doing new things,” says Lopes. “Trivia we are hoping to make another regular thing for students to do on campus.

The KSA also continued their tradition of collecting donations for the Student Society Emergency Aid Fund at their movie marathon events. Lopes said that fundraising for SSEAF is highly important to her.

“Because I put these events on for students, it is only right that we fundraise at the same time for students,” she says.

Lopes has confirmed the next trivia night will be Star Wars-themed, and is scheduled to be held next month. Norman says she will definitely be participating again.

“I think it’s good,” she says. “You get to talk to people you normally wouldn’t get to talk to and show off your skills.”