"The Raven" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Yes

As Roderick awakened and moved from his spot on the basement floor, Verna informed him that there were about 84,000 people in the U.S. last year-- nearly a million since 1985-- who died of Ligodone. No one would ever know how many were actually killed or addicted at Roderick Usher's hands. Verna apologized for not letting him die but she wasn't quite finished with him and the others, and that Madeline tried to loophole her was a fascinating turn. There was still more to do. As Verna stood before the brick wall, it started to rumble.

As Verna and the rumbling disappeared, Roderick rose to his feet hearing the faint jingling of a bell. A figure in a jester costume emerged from the shadows, lunging at him, before disappearing.

At Frederick's, Arthur Pym found Lenore to let her know that the police ripped up her statement. She could give a new one with his guidance. She refused this, however, knowing that Frederick mutilated her mother. She didn't care if he was the swing vote on the board. With everything that'd gone on, she didn't care about the family or the company. Arthur Pym would not get the chance to see Morella again either.

Pym would talk to Roderick the next day and her grandfather would be proud of her. There'd be more to discuss though, especially with Madeline arriving. She and Pym revealed that the board was leaning on her to take over Fortunato. Unfortunately for all of them, Verna wouldn't let Roderick die.

Dupin tells Roderick that the DA's office believed the case to be closed when Madeline put Roderick's head on that plate. With his children and company gone, the dragon was slain. Dupin, however, wanted justice, whatever that might look like. Roderick tells him that he's likely to see it.

Answer: Annabel

Roderick's phone continues to buzz-- texts from Lenore-- but he won't pick it up because he's used to, as he says, outsourcing intimacy like Tamerlane. When Freddy and Tammy were young, Annabel usually had custody, but when they were old enough he simply bombed them with money and choked the love right out of their lives. He saw himself in them, and whatever was left of Annabel inside them was killed by the money. Annabel, he says, couldn't live without them. But Lenore always had her grandmother within her.

Roderick tells Dupin that he saw Annabel at the funeral earlier in the day. Seated in a front pew, he turned back and saw her seated in the back of the church. When the services ended, she spoke to him, telling him that he starved their children of love and emotion and offered them riches, but failed to support the kids. He was always presumed to be a rich man, but she saw the poverty of him when it was all said and done. As she turned away, he saw the bullet hole in the back of her head.

When Roderick got home the night of his arrest, Annabel asked him what he was thinking, betraying Dupin and her opinion of her husband. That night, she decided to leave, taking the kids with her.

As Roderick left the church, he prepared to enter his vehicle and saw the jester seated in the back seat. He ended up collapsing in the street, his nose bleeding as he hit the ground. And above him he saw the raven watching him. He knew then that it was time.

Dupin echoes the sentiment. Roderick promised he'd tell how his children died, and he did. But he also said he'd confess. So he does.

Answer: A sherry

Arriving at the Fortunato staff party at the end of 1979, Roderick Usher was welcomed by his boss, clad in a jester's outfit, as the saviour of the company. Over drinks at the bar, Griswold declared Roderick his right-hand man; he'd already told the board that they created the idea together. Going forward, Roderick would be everywhere he went. To celebrate, Madeline poured him a glass from a bottle of 1925 Amontillado. They would give their cheers, but neither Madeline nor Roderick would take a sip. And while Roderick excused himself to use the restroom, Madeline took Griswold to the basement.

As Madeline sat Griswold down on some basement scaffolding, she told him to come and get her if he could. That's when the sedatives hit.

Griswold would awaken to find Roderick and Madeline sealing him away behind the basement wall, brick by brick. He angrily told them what he would do when he got out, but that wasn't to be. In light of everything that'd happened, and with the Feds being on his case for not only falsifying data and forgery, but graverobbing, it would only be a matter of time before Fortunato's cancer came to the surface. They didn't want him to resign or tell the truth. All they needed to do was put him away for good. Before they closed him off, Madeline placed the jester hat back on his head. One final brick, laid amongst the rest, read 'you are so small'. He would be dead by morning on account of the cyanide.

Answer: The guarantee they'd get away with everything

Aiming to avoid scrutiny and suspicion, Roderick and Madeline ended up at Verna's bar, and there they would spend most of their night talking. Verna asked them what their dealbreakers were, considering that Griswold was a dealbreaker for Madeline, and the conversation soon turned to the ultimate ask: what if they could achieve all the success they ever imagined? All the money, all the power; a lifetime of luxury and comfort. Madeline called all those fairy tales.

What it all really came down to was power and leverage, and Verna laughed at this thought, calling the pair of them 'killers'. After all, she said, they were there building an alibi; she knew they killed Rufus Griswold that night. She said she could guarantee they got away with it. The murder, Roderick's rise to CEO, their birthright at Fortunato, and she'd even reward them with no legal consequences for their entire life. They could do what they want with the company. She just wanted to see what they'd do.

Answer: Both Roderick and Madeline

Neither Madeline nor Roderick believed Verna at first though she had knowledge of them that they couldn't have anticipated. Both of them could feel something in the air at that moment; luck was meeting opportunity. Roderick joked that it would cost their souls, but Verna said it wouldn't. In fact, she would defer their payment; they could let the next generation foot the bill. They'd get the whole world, and when they were just about done-- just before Roderick was bound to die anyway-- his bloodline would die with him.

Madeline asked how long Roderick would live, and Verna noted that the two of them would die together. Both of them came into it together, after all. But Roderick would live longer than any Usher man ever had. The kids would live in luxury, and that could be worth more. They'd live a blessed life and leave the stage together.

Both Roderick and Madeline agreed to the deal there. To seal it, Verna poured them each a glass of her finest-- a Henri IV Dudognon Heritage Cognac, aged 100 years in barrels. You drink it, she said, on the best day of your life, or your last night on Earth. It would be waiting for Roderick at his childhood home on the night he confessed to Dupin.

When Roderick and Madeline left the bar, they turned around to find the building long-vacant. Neither could explain what'd happened. By the time they got home, it didn't even feel real.

Roderick tells Dupin that after meeting Verna that night, he and Madeline quickly forgot about their encounter, believing it to be something that their minds may have made up on such an eventful night. Besides, they were so worried about the police finding Griswold that their minds went elsewhere. They never really talked about it again. The board voted him in shortly after and the two of them set out to work. Production of Ligodone began in earnest and the years passed. It was all just a weird dream. Nothing more.

Answer: No

Dupin asks where Pym found Verna, and it turns out that he encountered her in the same spot-- the very house they're in. Verna stepped through the door and Pym sedated her, dragging her into the living room and wrapping her in a tarp to dispose of her with ease. He taped the tarp shut at both ends before rising to survey his handiwork and phone in the body, but he did so to the sound of applause. Verna, rising from her seat, said it was a pleasure to watch his master class from a front row seat. Unfortunately, he hadn't wrapped up anything.

Instead, Verna would invite him to sit for a drink. Curiously, she said, he didn't remember her. He last encountered him-- though from afar-- when he was a member of the Transglobe Expedition. So many of their crew did deplorable things, but not him at the time. He believed them to be a virus-- people, he meant.

The immunity that Pym was able to partake in was never his; it was a reflection of the Ushers'. So with Roderick's death imminent, Verna asked what he would do next. She explained that Fortunato Pharma would be dissolved in a bankruptcy settlement. The family trust would turn over 4.5 billion. To Pym, she offered one thing: a file that Camille had amassed, barely scratching the surface on Pym's exploits. The file could be found or not, but if it was, it'd probably cost him, at minimum, twenty to life. In return, Pym really didn't have much to offer by way of assets, and unfortunately, he wasn't willing to cede leverage at this point in his life. And so with that, he decided to play his hand with fate.

Verna thanked him for the pleasure of their meeting before she disappeared.

Answer: NEVERMORE

Lenore would stop in to check on Roderick after the funeral, knowing that his collapse outside the church was not typical. Instead of heading to the hospital, he headed home to bed, where she tucked him in. With Morella in the ICU, Lenore refused to go home again; Roderick's place, especially with Juno having walked out, would be fine for her. Roderick told his granddaughter not to be hard on Juno; she'd have an uphill battle getting better. Lenore confided in Roderick that it would likely be a good thing not to have Fortunato anymore, at least for Roderick. That place wasn't good. He agreed with her, even if it was his.

Roderick told Lenore that maybe she could make Fortunato good, but she told him-- honestly-- to let it go. The Ushers did bad things and they could put their money to good use fixing it.

Lenore headed up to the guest room to prepare for bed, and when she did, she found a woman-- Verna-- sitting in the room waiting for her. Verna told her to take a seat on the bed. There was a matter at hand regarding the bloodline and, as such, still work to do. It was this type of work that brought her no joy.

Seeing as Morella was placed into a clinic at Lenore's advising, she would recover very well. It would take three years and more than a hundred skin grafts; it would take physical therapy and reconstructive surgery, but she would endure it. She'd inherit a fortune in the collapse of the company and she would give most of it away to good causes, even starting a non-profit called The Lenore Foundation that would save millions over time. Verna told Lenore, making it very clear, that it was Lenore who did that by defying her father. Lenore saved those people.

It's the last thing that Verna tells her before letting her die, peacefully, with a gentle touch.

Dupin tells Roderick that this isn't possible-- she's been texting Roderick all night. There's an explanation for this, however, and it's in Madeline's sentient AI technology. It's been the digital version of Lenore this whole time. It's just been the beta version the whole night, texting the same word over and over-- NEVERMORE.

Answer: Bodies

Roderick would find Lenore's body, dead, laying on the guest room bed, while a thunderstorm raged on outside. As the power cut, the sound of a crowing raven pierced in the room behind him. The bird flew by, bringing him to the dining room where he grabbed a fire poker and found himself in the presence of not only the otherworldly raven, but the ghostly body of his dead granddaughter.

Roderick returned to the Fortunato building in the storm and gazed out over the city while the spectres of his bloodline filled the seats around the boardroom table. They fought for a world without pain-- and he did it-- and it wasn't enough. It was never enough.

Verna, finally appearing before him, told him not to kid a kidder. Over the years, she'd worked with a lot of people, but Roderick's body count was in his top five of all time. She told him to look outside-- to look at the bodies falling past his window. Each one was one he killed. One person died at his hand every five minutes in the United States, and more worldwide.

She asked why he came back to the office before going to his real home. Perhaps it was to take one last look from atop his great pyramid. Instead he would see the bodies of his legacy. Their business would almost be done. But first he would call Auguste Dupin and ask him to meet at the house.

That was this very night.

Answer: Egyptian artifacts

As Roderick comes to the point in his story where he arrives at the house, Dupin hears a thud from the basement. He asks, again, if that's Madeline. Roderick believes it is.

Earlier in the evening, Madeline arrived at the house shortly before Dupin, following Roderick's voice into the basement where he was already seated, having a drink. She got his message. They were the last ones left. He told her that Verna was giving them a few minutes to talk, but he didn't really know where to go from there. Offering her a drink, they gave a cheers to everything. They wanted to change the world, and they did.

Looking around the room, Madeline spotted the old Egyptian artifacts that they'd been buying; Roderick had been bringing them to the house for a few days, knowing it would be their tomb. He claimed they'd need them for the transition into the afterlife, but Madeline laughed at this. Gold, after all, was nothing more than metal. Real value, in the modern era, was nothing but ones and zeroes. All just agreed-upon lies.

Madeline went off with what little time she had left, arguing that they did their jobs and they did them well, building a substantial life for the Ushers while they had a chance and while the world asked for conveniences and solutions to problems that they'd perpetuated. They always had a chance to change the trajectories of the world, but no one ever really did. And the consumers created them. And they begged for more.

They should be proud, she said, and if Death herself wanted to claim them, then they should be awaiting that fate without needing to be in a basement.

As Madeline stood from the table, she felt the wooziness almost immediately. Looking back to her glass, she realized that Roderick drugged her. Placing her lifeless body on the table before him, he took the ceremonial dagger from its box, removed his sister's eyes, and replaced them with the sapphires fit for an Egyptian queen. She would live forever, he said.

Dupin is shocked by the story. Continuing to hear the banging in the basement he asks if Roderick actually killed her. Roderick's not so sure anymore. Instead, he thanks him for coming to the house to chat. He's sorry for causing so many problems for him.

Answer: Dupin

As his story comes to an end, Roderick confesses that he knew, in the end, he would climb to the top over a pile of corpses. He and Madeline told everyone it was about soothing the world's pain. It was the biggest lie they told. No one can eliminate pain. There's no such thing as a painkiller. If there was, they would've bottled it and probably sold it.

As the house starts to collapse around them, Madeline emerges from the basement, her eyes replaced with two orbs of sapphire. Roderick utters one more word-- "nevermore"-- and she sets upon him, not unlike their mother did, and strangles him.

Dupin flees the house as it comes down, saving himself from almost certain death while the last of the Ushers are eaten up in the crumbling wreckage. Turning back to face the building's remains in the storm, he sees nothing but the shadow of a woman standing atop it, her eyes glowing like pinpricks in the dark. Squinting to see her clearly in the rain, she appears again as a raven before taking off into the night, leaving Dupin alone in front of the former house of Usher.

In the coming days, the case would be dismantled much like the house. He would file for his retirement with it.

Juno would inherit virtually everything and go on to shutter Fortunato, stripping it for parts, refashioning it into the Phoenix Foundation with every dollar going into rehabilitation programs and addiction and recovery research. She would, inevitably, wean herself completely off the Ligodone.

Arthur Pym was arrested only a few weeks later after her former assistants willingly turned their files over to the police. He surrendered himself and didn't utter a word in his defence. He would see Verna in the crowd at the courthouse. The same day, he would become the only conviction in the Fortunato case. He would die in prison.

Dupin stands before the Usher graves and tells the headstones that the world is dealing with an opioid epidemic that has Roderick and the family's name written all over it. He places his recording of their conversation by the grave. It's useless now. No one wants a confession or an explanation. He can take it with him.

As Dupin leaves, he says goodbye. He gets to go home to his husband, his kids, and their kids. It's because of that that he was richer than the Ushers could ever have been.

He makes to leave as a raven perches atop the family tombstone.

Verna places tokens upon each tombstone, each items of meaning to their respective recipients, before making her departure as well.