Temple Guard Locations

[Purple Parrots Fan]

With the impossible layouts the Manuscript day had, I doubt they would've recorded a solo victory. But weren't the Ledges pitch black in that run? Which pretty much indicates a guard is in there. There was certainly a guard in there in the Dried Apple Half run, filmed after Manuscript.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

I agree, I am not entirely convinced that the last guard in Mary Shelley was in the Room of the Ancient Warriors. I think that the headdress was just out of alignment. The last guard in that run had to be in either the Ledges, Secret Password, or Quicksand Bog. I wouldn't be surprised if Kate and Larry were forced into the Room of the Secret Password either. Especially considering how tough all of the paths were that day. I am going to say that the last guard was in one of those two rooms. The Chamber guard was avoidable in that run, and I don't think that the producers would allow a solo run on that day. So I am going to guess Larry would've bene forced into the Secret Password and meet a guard there.

If you rewatch the run, you'll see that when Kate first enters the Ancient Warriors, the middle headdress is aligned appropriately. It is not until she tries to get inside that is swings. The only time a headdress is "unlocked" to swivel is when there is a guard placed there. Can you think of any other instance where a headdress was unaligned or rotated/swiveled without there being a guard behind it? The only other time I can recall a headdress  "prematurely swiveling" was in the Mummified Hand of the Egyptian King run. When Josh first got into the middle armor, it rotated slightly and the temple guard grabbed him before it even had a chance to realign. My belief is that the temple guard grabbed him early in order to avoid the same event that occurred in the Mysterious Manuscript of Mary Shelley, with the guard coming out late in the Shrine.

With the impossible layouts the Manuscript day had, I doubt they would've recorded a solo victory. But weren't the Ledges pitch black in that run? Which pretty much indicates a guard is in there. There was certainly a guard in there in the Dried Apple Half run, filmed after Manuscript.

Yes, the Ledges were unlit in the Mysterious Manuscript run, indicating that there was most likely a temple guard stationed there. See page 15 of this thread to see my thoughts about that.

[The Red Jaguars]

I agree, I am not entirely convinced that the last guard in Mary Shelley was in the Room of the Ancient Warriors. I think that the headdress was just out of alignment. The last guard in that run had to be in either the Ledges, Secret Password, or Quicksand Bog. I wouldn't be surprised if Kate and Larry were forced into the Room of the Secret Password either. Especially considering how tough all of the paths were that day. I am going to say that the last guard was in one of those two rooms. The Chamber guard was avoidable in that run, and I don't think that the producers would allow a solo run on that day. So I am going to guess Larry would've bene forced into the Secret Password and meet a guard there.

If you rewatch the run, you'll see that when Kate first enters the Ancient Warriors, the middle headdress is aligned appropriately. It is not until she tries to get inside that is swings. The only time a headdress is "unlocked" to swivel is when there is a guard placed there. Can you think of any other instance where a headdress was unaligned or rotated/swiveled without there being a guard behind it? The only other time I can recall a headdress  "prematurely swiveling" was in the Mummified Hand of the Egyptian King run. When Josh first got into the middle armor, it rotated slightly and the temple guard grabbed him before it even had a chance to realign. My belief is that the temple guard grabbed him early in order to avoid the same event that occurred in the Mysterious Manuscript of Mary Shelley, with the guard coming out late in the Shrine.

Wasn't the same headdress out of alignment on the last production day of the show? I remember someone posted pics of the Sforza and Catherine the Great episode where you can see the middle headdress out of alignment before the temple run. I am not arguing about the theory that the temple guard was delayed, but I always felt that the headdress was not "locked" into place in the Mysterious Manuscript run. Its a possibility that there should've been a guard there, but I am just not convinced. I mean at the end of the Ivan the Terrible run, you can see one of the headdresses completely turned around.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

I agree, I am not entirely convinced that the last guard in Mary Shelley was in the Room of the Ancient Warriors. I think that the headdress was just out of alignment. The last guard in that run had to be in either the Ledges, Secret Password, or Quicksand Bog. I wouldn't be surprised if Kate and Larry were forced into the Room of the Secret Password either. Especially considering how tough all of the paths were that day. I am going to say that the last guard was in one of those two rooms. The Chamber guard was avoidable in that run, and I don't think that the producers would allow a solo run on that day. So I am going to guess Larry would've bene forced into the Secret Password and meet a guard there.

If you rewatch the run, you'll see that when Kate first enters the Ancient Warriors, the middle headdress is aligned appropriately. It is not until she tries to get inside that is swings. The only time a headdress is "unlocked" to swivel is when there is a guard placed there. Can you think of any other instance where a headdress was unaligned or rotated/swiveled without there being a guard behind it? The only other time I can recall a headdress  "prematurely swiveling" was in the Mummified Hand of the Egyptian King run. When Josh first got into the middle armor, it rotated slightly and the temple guard grabbed him before it even had a chance to realign. My belief is that the temple guard grabbed him early in order to avoid the same event that occurred in the Mysterious Manuscript of Mary Shelley, with the guard coming out late in the Shrine.

Wasn't the same headdress out of alignment on the last production day of the show? I remember someone posted pics of the Sforza and Catherine the Great episode where you can see the middle headdress out of alignment before the temple run. I am not arguing about the theory that the temple guard was delayed, but I always felt that the headdress was not "locked" into place in the Mysterious Manuscript run. Its a possibility that there should've been a guard there, but I am just not convinced. I mean at the end of the Ivan the Terrible run, you can see one of the headdresses completely turned around.

Here are images from Sforza and Catherine the Great, one from the revealing of the artifact location and one from the temple run.





While you are correct in that the headdress was turned during the SoK, the headdresses were straightened out for the temple runs. Remember that the taping of the "artifact location reveal" occurred at a different time than the temple runs. And as far as Discarded Seal goes, the first headdress turning around happened during the credits, not during the temple run.

What I am trying to say with all of this is that all of the headdresses were capable of swiveling around, but they only did so during the temple runs when there was a guard behind one of them. So then how could the armors be "programmed" to turn around sometimes but not at others? With set design, the armors could be locked into place (when there was no guard) or unlatched to swivel (when there was a guard that needed to be turned around). The only instance where this was not the case is in Mysterious Manuscript of Mary Shelley. That seems out of place. And I find it highly unlikely that the set and crew unlatched the locking mechanism/forgot to lock the mechanism "by mistake" during that run.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

I've done a few simple calculations regarding the frequency of temple guard placements in each room, and thought I would share them here.

The values presented below are only for guards that were physically encountered en route to the artifact, not ones that were seen upon exiting the temple, nor ones whose locations can be deduced but were not actually encountered. The first percent frequency listed is based on the number of times the room was entered, and the second percent frequency listed was calculated out of all 40 episodes from the season. These values are also based on cumulative frequencies per room space (i.e. it doesn't matter which variation of the room, just whether there was a guard or not). So, for example, in Season 2, the Swamp/Jesters' Court space could only have a guard when it was the Swamp variation, but the presented value is based off of the number of times that space was entered and the total number of guards encountered in that space as a whole for the season, even though all of the guards were encountered when it was the Swamp.

SEASON 1

Room	Gongs	Pit	Observatory	Heart	Treasure	Shrine	Pirate's Cove	Dungeon	Tomb	Swamp	Throne	Cave of Sighs
Guards Encountered	5	0	6	17	11	6	1	1	5	7	14	11
Times Room Entered	22	40	20	28	28	24	14	17	17	18	30	32
Frequency of Encounter (Times Room Entered)	23%	0%	30%	61%	39%	25%	7%	6%	29%	39%	47%	34%
Frequency of Encounter (Over Season)	13%	0%	15%	43%	28%	15%	3%	3%	13%	18%	35%	28%

SEASON 2

Room	Crypt	Pit	Observatory	Medusa	Storeroom	Shrine	Viper's Nest	Mineshaft	Dark Forest	Swamp	Throne	Ledges
Guards Encountered	9	0	5	14	12	5	0	1	10*	7	18	8
Times Room Entered	25	40	18	19	24	28	11	16	24	27	29	26
Frequency of Encounter (Times Room Entered)	36%	0%	28%	74%	50%	18%	0%	6%	42%	26%	62%	31%
Frequency of Encounter (Over Season)	23%	0%	13%	35%	30%	13%	0%	3%	25%	18%	45%	20%

*The guard in the Dark Forest was in the left tree 7 times and the right tree 3 times.

SEASON 3

Room	Crypt	Pit	Storeroom	Chamber	Warriors	Shrine	Password	Quicksand	Dark Forest	Jesters	Tomb	Ledges
Guards Encountered	8	0	8	12	14**	9	5	6	7***	0	17	1
Times Room Entered	38	40	22	21	28	28	14	18	22	18	26	8
Frequency of Encounter (Times Room Entered)	21%	0%	36%	57%	50%	32%	36%	33%	32%	0%	65%	13%
Frequency of Encounter (Over Season)	20%	0%	20%	30%	35%	23%	13%	15%	18%	0%	43%	3%

**The guard in the Ancient Warriors was in the rightmost armor 5 times, middle armor 7 times, and leftmost armor 2 times.
***The guard in the Dark Forest was in the left tree 4 times and the right tree 3 times.

[The Red Jaguars]

Wow, I am shocked how many temple guards Medusa's Lair/Room of the Mandarin Hand space held in Season 2.   I always felt like the Ledges and Dark Forest had the most during this season. The only five episodes that never featured a guard here was Silk Sash, Butch Cassidy, Cosa Rara, Grandy Nanny, and Lucky Medallion. (Just some random trivia )

Also, I am surprised the Ancient Warriors had a lot of guards too. I guess I never really paid attention to how many runs had a guard in them. Which makes sense they use that room a lot due to the unique guard captures. But not surprised to see the Tomb of the Headless Kings have a lot of guards. It felt like almost every run had a guard there. I think it is harder to picture a run that does NOT have a guard there.

It seems Season 1 had the most balance when it comes to temple guard encounters in different rooms. Aside from the overwhelming guards in the Heart Room space. I am glad that Season 3 used the corner rooms more for temple guards. Seriously, those rooms should've featured more guards in the early seasons. They were cool in runs like Henry Morgan.

Awesome stats, BTW. I bet they took a lot of work. But they are very interesting nevertheless.