The Tripods: The White Mountains Quiz

Answer: A wristwatch

While "The White Mountains" is set in the future compared to when it was published (1967), the world seems largely to have a level of technology closer to the 18th century. (Later hints in the books seem to suggest the setting is the late 21st century.) In Wherton (the English village of several hundred where Will lives), there are only five clocks and Will's father owns the only wristwatch. Will describes the watch as being from the time before the Tripods. The wristwatch is valuable enough that when someone from outside the village comes every three years to perform maintenance/repairs on the watch, Will's father stands there to watch him do it.

One day Will sneaks the watch out of his home to show it off to his cousin and good friend Jack. On his way to do this, Will meets another cousin (though not good friend), Henry, who takes the watch from him. Jack encounters the two boys fighting for control of the watch and is able to take control of the watch before Henry can damage it. Jack chastises Will for being impulsive (a recurring trait for his character).

Jack expresses his interest in the Tripods and what the world was like before they came. Shortly after these events, Jack--who is about a year older than Will and Henry--is taken by a Tripod and is Capped. The Capping (placing of a metal grid on/in his scalp) changes him as he now considers his previous concerns to be foolish. In my opinion, this event greatly increases Will's concerns about the Tripods and serves as an impetus for his future decisions.

Answer: Ozymandias

Will tells the reader that when people are Capped at the age of thirteen, about five percent of the population is driven insane by the experience, though it is unclear if this because their minds are too weak and are overwhelmed by the experience, or too strong and fight against the experience until the mind snaps. Those who go insane are named Vagrants due to their habit of wandering from place to place. Local communities provide a dedicated building to house the Vagrants and a basic food supply. Otherwise they tend to avoid the Vagrants as much as possible.

Ozymandias, a red-haired man in his thirties, comes to Wherton posing as a Vagrant. Once he has gained Will's trust, Ozymandias reveals that the Cap he wears is non-functional (having been taken from a corpse). He tells Will that the Caps compel their wearers to hold a reverential attitude towards the Tripods. He goes on to say that those who would rebel against control of the Tripods have gathered in the White Mountains (almost certainly the Swiss Alps). Ozymandias has been sent on a recruiting mission to find boys in the year or two before they are Capped to join the rebellion.

Though Ozymandias quotes the Shelley poem, it is unclear whether Ozymandias is his birth name or one he has assumed at a later date.

Answer: No

Will is accompanied by his cousin, Henry, though that was not Will's intention. Though Will thought that he might travel with Ozymandias, Ozymandias has continued on his journey to find potential recruits. Henry, who has been living with Will's family since the death of his mother, heard Will sneaking away in the middle of the night. Henry, who intercepts Will outside of the house, threatens to tell on Will if he is not allowed to join him.

Though Will is still not fond of Henry (and the reverse seems to be at least somewhat true), he travels with him towards the English coast. Will is somewhat surprised that, when he is injured, Henry does not abandon him but sees him safely to a location where he can recuperate and brings him food that he has scavenged/stolen.

Two notes are appropriate at this point. First, neither Jack nor Ozymandias makes any further appearance in any of the books again. Will only briefly describes one further encounter with his parents. I personally find this unfortunate. Second, this book, as the others in the 1960s' trilogy, is narrated in the first person by Will, whose biases are often evident. It would have been interesting to hear additional perspectives on the events of the series.

Answer: Jean-Paul

Jean-Paul Deliet, roughly the same age as Will and Henry, frees the two boys from the room and joins them on their journey to the south. He has been raised by an aunt and uncle who have provided for him in a basic way, but do not seem to have much affection for him. (Earlier in the story both Will's father and Henry's father were described as somewhat cold and distant. Though all four individuals were also Capped, this trait was not necessarily caused by the Cap as several other Capped individuals, such as Henry's deceased mother, were or will be described as kind and/or loving.)

Jean-Paul is highly intelligent and curious. Reading about the idea of eyeglasses and possessing weak eyesight, he is able to create a set for himself that may look odd, but is functional. He has pondered other ideas about which he has read, including a steam engine. Jean-Paul is usually referred to by Will and Henry as "Beanpole" due to his tall, thin frame and how his name sounds when said by the French-speaking Jean-Paul.

Just as Jean-Paul is also called Beanpole, John Christopher was a pen name used by Sam Youd (1922-2012), who published works in several genres, but may be best known for his Tripod books.

Answer: A large city now in ruins

Will describes for us a large city with broad, tree-lined areas in Northern France that is almost certainly Paris. Earlier the boys have speculated about how many used to live there, with a suggestion of hundreds of thousands or more. This chapter suggests that the Earth's population is greatly reduced from before the Tripods came. The large cities mentioned in the book are generally described as abandoned and/or in ruins, and even in rural areas the population is rather scattered.

In the city the boys find and gather several supplies available to the pre-Tripod world, including plastic containers and a weapon that sounds like grenades (an egg-shaped object that explodes shortly after a pin is removed). They also find tin cans that held food, although the contents have long since expired. In one store, Will secretly takes a wristwatch similar to the one his father owned. They also see a grave of a teenage girl who died in 1966. Though there are many wonders in the city, the boys find the emptiness of the location somewhat unsettling, and are not sorry to leave.

Before they have arrived in Paris, the boys have secretly traveled using a method Beanpole calls the Shmand-Fair, which is rather like a small train (it runs on tracks) but uses teams of horses rather than an engine (steam, diesel, or electric) to pull the cars. As looney_tunes pointed out to me, the French term for a train is "chemin de fer". Earlier Will has indicated that he does not know much French, and Beanpole is uncertain how to translate the word into English. My guess is that the author is having Beanpole use the French term and Will is spelling it incorrectly in his mind based upon what he hears.

Answer: She has already been Capped.

Since Will is relatively short for his age, he assumes that anyone smaller than him is younger. He is surprised to discover Eloise is a year or two older than him. Ever since he has met her she has worn a turban on her head. One day when they are playing, he accidentally knocks it off and is shocked to find a Cap on her shaved head. Their relationship becomes somewhat more distant after that. Before this discovery, he says that he imagined their group would be four, not three. After that, more shockingly, he considers allowing himself to be Capped so that he could stay with Eloise.

In addition, this chapter shows that an individual can be Capped and still be pleasant or kind. Eloise and her mother and father all show kindness towards Will. Eloise's mother actually suggests that they would like to adopt or at least foster Will.

One of the criticisms that is raised about The Tripods series is the lack of female characters in the books. The four main characters (Will, Henry, Beanpole, and a fourth who will be introduced in the next book) are all male. Even among secondary characters, Eloise and possibly her mother are the only ones who are female. When asked about this, John Christopher said the general understanding at the time he wrote the Tripod books was that girls would read books about male characters but boys would not read books about female characters. Though I can understand his point, the books do seem to have such a misbalance that even a few additional details or scenes with characters that he does mention (such as Will's mom or Henry's mom or Beanpole's aunt) or a girl traveling as part of this group going to the White mountains) could have done quite a bit to help balance things a bit.

Answer: She is going to the city of the Tripods.

At the tournament Eloise is chosen as the Queen of Beauty. Her reward for this--as she tells Will--is to be chosen to travel to live at the City from where the Tripods come forever. When Will expresses his distress at this, she tries to comfort him, but is clearly overjoyed at living with the Tripods. This news does put the offer her parents make for Will to live with them in perspective: it may have been motivated in part by their potential sadness at being separated from their daughter, who will be separated from them forever. Earlier Will had mentioned that Eloise had two older brothers who were living away from home for a few years with other aristocratic families, a fact which saddened her parents.

Any remaining thought Will had of staying with the family dies, and he leaves as soon as he deems it safe to do so. Earlier he describes the disbelief and disappointment that Henry and Beanpole had shown at the idea he might stay with Eloise.

Answer: In the armpit

When Will is captured by the Tripod, he temporarily blacks out while behind held by one of the Tripods in midair, though whether this is stress related or caused by the Tripod is uncertain. In either case, Will does not realize that the marker has been implanted at first, until it is discovered by Beanpole. Henry considers the idea that the tracking device might be similar to a Cap, but Beanpole answers that if Will had been Capped he would have tried harder to hide it.

Having determined that the metal tracking device is only near the surface and not near any main artery, Beanpole decides to cut it off of Will's body. This surgery was performed without any anesthetic and only with a knife that Beanpole has. Since it causes Will great pain, Henry must hold him to limit his movement during the surgery.

Answer: Will

The boys decide to use the grenades that they have taken from Paris to try to destroy the Tripod. Beanpole had previously experimented with one, and determined that they had approximately seven seconds after pulling the pin before the grenade exploded. The boys initially throw the grenades at the exterior of the Tripod, which causes little or no damage. When Will is grabbed by the Tripod and pulled towards its body, he is able to throw the final grenade inside an opening in the body, where the grenade is able to do enough damage to cause the Tripod to stop functioning.

As is described several times in the series, the Tripods are enormous, dwarfing an average person. The Tripod moves across the ground (more quickly than a person) on three legs that rise about fifty feet above the group. Perched above the legs is a hemisphere shaped body that is about fifty feet across. When Will is able to successfully throw the grenade inside the body he is some distance above the ground. The fall from the non-functioning limb causes some further damage to him, though non-fatal.

Answer: The Tripods are playing a game.

Close to their destination, the boys survive by luck as much as anything else. The Tripods appear to be tossing a golden sphere back and forth between them. Will speculates that they might be playing some sort of game, but cannot determine what kind it might be. Having completed this last obstacle, Will, Henry, and Beanpole make it to the rebel location in the White Mountains.

The book ends with Will stating that, although their journey to the White Mountains is done, their involvement in the rebellion is not.