What Did They See? Trivia Quiz

Answer: The White Rabbit

Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" began with young Alice allowing her curiosity to get the better of her, as she followed the nattily clad White Rabbit down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland. Had she not seen this creature in her garden, she might never have gone on her fantastic adventure. Once there she met many other unusual characters.

Answer: The Cheshire Cat

This was one of the creatures Alice met during her time in Wonderland. She had already discussed the reasons that Cheshire cats grinned with a woman called the Duchess, without really getting a straight answer, and had just allowed a child who rather looked like a pig to run away from her, when she spotted the Cheshire Cat sitting in a tree and watching her.

They had a discussion about many things, including the location of the house of the Mad Hatter, after which the cat slowly faded away to nothing but his smile.

Answer: The Dormouse

Alice arrived to find all three of these characters sitting together at one end of an otherwise empty table, having an eccentric sort of tea party. The Dormouse was asleep most of the time, with the other two using him as a resting place for their elbows and otherwise taking little heed of his presence.

Answer: A family group

In "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", J. K. Rowling's first book in the series, Professor Dumbledore explained to Harry that whoever looked into the Mirror of Erised would see whatever their heart most desired. Harry longed for a loving family, so he saw himself surrounded by his parents and other relatives. Dumbledore also warned Harry about the dangers of becoming transfixed by the mirror and what one saw there, and noted that it would soon be moved to a new location.

Answer: Aragog

In Rowling's second book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", Harry and Ron had just witnessed the arrest of their friend Hagrid, who in parting has told them to "follow the spiders". Despite the arachnophobic Ron's protests, they followed a procession of spiders from Hagrid's hut into the Forbidden Forest, where they came upon Aragog, a giant spider-like creature, who denied ever having been the monster in the Chamber of Secrets.

It seemed that the boys would be devoured by Aragog's children, but a magical flying car (belonging to Ron's father) came to their rescue.

Answer: Thestrals

In "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" we learned about the invisible winged horses that pulled the carriages from the train station to Hogwarts school at the beginning of each term. Thestrals were visible only to someone who had seen death, as Luna had when she saw her mother die. Harry could also see them, after he saw Cedric die at the end of "Goblet of Fire".

Answer: The Luggage

Terry Pratchett's "wizzard" (according to his hat), Rincewind, became the owner of The Luggage at the end of "The Light Fantastic" when Twoflower the tourist gave it to him. The Luggage had been made of sapient pearwood, and followed its owner around, running along on a multitude of little feet.

Besides the obvious duty of carrying its owner's belongings, it was responsible for the wellbeing of its owner, and has been known to swallow up villains bent on doing him harm.

Answer: A book about a cow

"Where's My Cow?" was a book that Sam Vimes (police commander and Duke of Ankh) read to his son during the action of the book "Thud!", and also a (real) picture book that was published alongside "Thud!" by author Terry Pratchett. Meant as a means of teaching children about the sounds different animals made, the story was changed by Vimes as he read, in an attempt to prepare his son for life in Ankh-Morpork. If nothing else, it did teach the boy some colourful language!

Answer: A conman from Omaha

At the end of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", the wizard was revealed to be a conman with a number of given names, with his first two initials being OZ (for Oscar Zoroaster). He had arrived in Oz in a hot air balloon with those letters painted on it, and been hailed as the land's new ruler.

He was happy to take on the role, but was eventually exposed. In a later book, "The Marvelous Land of Oz", the leadership of the land was returned to its rightful leader, Princess Ozma. Baum wrote over a dozen books about the land of Oz.

Answer: A crocodile

Captain James Hook was the bad guy in J.M. Barrie's play "Peter Pan" and novel "Peter and Wendy", and he lived in fear of the crocodile that had swallowed his hand (now relaced by a hook). The croc had also swallowed a clock, which continued to tick and give warning that the hungry creature was in search of Hook for another snack. Perhaps the clock was self-winding?