Temple Guard Locations

[PurpleParrot4Life]

The last of the S1, L5 episodes is "Paintbrush of Leonardo da Vinci."

Encountered Guards: Swamp, Observatory
Number of Unencountered Guards: 1
Room not Entered: Treasure Room, Shrine, Pirate's Cove, Dungeon

Notes: Past beliefs included that the final guard would be in the Treasure Room or Shrine. Some people believed that the door would have opened from the Shrine to the Tomb of Ancient Kings, making a guard in the Pirate's Cove or Dungeon pointless.

My Thoughts: The Swamp was a dead-end that held a temple guard, which means that the last guard did not necessarily have to be avoidable.

-- I do not think that there would have been a guard in the Dungeon, since a player could quickly plow through the wall and grab the Paintbrush, thus making that last temple guard "mysteriously vanish."

-- The guard could have easily been in any of the other rooms, in my opinion. There was usually one guard in an entrance room or central shaft, one (or a second) in the central shaft, and one farther into the temple. However, since there wasn't a guard in either entrance room, the pattern does not hold.

[The Red Jaguars]

The "Leonardo Da Vinci" run is hard to determine where the last temple guard is due to the very reason you mentioned: the team did not make it far into the temple to tell where the other one could possibly be. One thing to note is that the Room of the Three Gargoyles DID unlock the door to the Observatory. However, Chris did not try all three tongues. I say the last guard in this run will be in the Shrine due to the fact that both "The Trojan Horseshoe" and "King Tut's Cobra Staff" were also Tomb of the Ancient King runs with guards in the Shrine. I don't think they would've used the Dungeon or Pirate's Cove either.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

The "Leonardo Da Vinci" run is hard to determine where the last temple guard is due to the very reason you mentioned: the team did not make it far into the temple to tell where the other one could possibly be. One thing to note is that the Room of the Three Gargoyles DID unlock the door to the Observatory. However, Chris did not try all three tongues. I say the last guard in this run will be in the Shrine due to the fact that both "The Trojan Horseshoe" and "King Tut's Cobra Staff" were also Tomb of the Ancient King runs with guards in the Shrine. I don't think they would've used the Dungeon or Pirate's Cove either.

Very good points. Even though both of the other runs you mentioned featured guards in the Heart Room and Shrine, it would make sense for the producers to place the guards in a similar arrangement for the other Tomb of Ancient Kings runs. And considering the fact that it was common for forced guards to be spaced an average of two rooms apart, that would place the last guard in the Shrine.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

Even though I've completed all of my notes from the S1, L5, please feel free to comment on previous episodes if something was overlooked or if you want to contribute something new about an episode.

Now, I'm going to go back to the episodes that were skipped over, starting with "Galileo's Cannonball."

Encountered Guards: Throne Room, Shrine of the Silver Monkey
Number of Unencountered Guards: 1
Rooms not Entered: Room of the Three Gargoyles, Observatory, Tomb of Ancient Kings, Swamp

Notes: Past beliefs include that the last guard was located in either the Room of the Three Gargoyles or the Observatory. Additionally, it was brought up that the half pendant for this 1.5 pendant run was probably not in the treasure chest in the back of the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, even though some people insist that when Jammin' Jon went to the back of that room. The Shrine guard was most likely the final guard, so it would have been highly unlikely for the producers to expect the team to find the half pendant in the room with the temple guard before that guard captured the second runner.

My Thoughts: I agree that the half pendant was elsewhere in the temple, since the Shrine held the final temple guard en route to the artifact.

-- Neither the Swamp nor the Tomb of Ancient Kings were accessible during this run, so the other guard would not have been in either of these rooms. The Throne Room only led up to the Heart Room, the Golden Idols did not open down into the Swamp, and the Shrine did not lead down into the Tomb of Ancient Kings. This only leaves the Room of the Three Gargoyles and the Observatory as viable options.

-- The two guards that appeared during this run were the gold-masked and green-masked guards. The black-masked guard with the leopard-print shawl was the only guard remaining. Since the already-encountered gold-masked guard was always the one stationed in the Observatory, and the black-masked guard was always the one stationed in the upper entrance room, I believe the last guard was in the Room of the Three Gargoyles. This placement also makes sense, since there was no headdress peeking out from behind the Observatory wall during Olmec's temple rundown. In addition, it was very common for one guard to be in an entrance room, one in the central shaft, and one in the inner temple.

[The Red Jaguars]

I agree with the last guard being in the Room of the Three Gargoyles and here is why:

I believe that there should almost always be one path in the temple where all three temple guards will be encountered. There shouldn't be two deviating paths where the team only has a chance to really encounter 2/3 guards. It wouldn't make sense for the guard to be in the Observatory because it would be a useless detour for the team. The Room of Three Gargoyles makes more sense because that involves a path where all three guards have a chance of actually being encountered. And I also don't think Jammin John found the half-pendant in the Shrine either because that had to be the last temple guard that could be encountered. That was some age old theory made by TMH who thought he saw John take a half-pendant out of the Treasure box. Why John went to that Treasure box in the first place is unclear, but it was the first temple run ever, so it is to be expected for the teams to be a little more confused.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

I believe that there should almost always be one path in the temple where all three temple guards will be encountered. There shouldn't be two deviating paths where the team only has a chance to really encounter 2/3 guards. It wouldn't make sense for the guard to be in the Observatory because it would be a useless detour for the team. The Room of Three Gargoyles makes more sense because that involves a path where all three guards have a chance of actually being encountered.

You should also consider that there were a number of episodes, though, where the third guard was in a "useless detour" room. Some of the first runs of this type to come to mind include "Upside-Down Compass of Henry Hudson," "Thornwood Gavel of Judge Roy Bean," "Treasure Map of Jean Lafitte," and quite possibly "Priceless Portrait of the Polynesian Girl."

In Henry Hudson, Sherra went from the Chamber of the Sacred Markers to the King's Storeroom. When Derek followed her path, he bypassed the King's Storeroom completely, instead directly heading into the Room of the Ancient Warriors. It would only make sense that the King's Storeroom would have led the team down to the Room of the Ancient Warriors, rather than being a dead-end.

In Thornwood Gavel, Mike took the lower route through the Headless Kings and Chamber. Kelli decided to go up to the King's Storeroom instead of following her partner's path, and ended up encountering a guard there. Her path eventually met up with Mike's in the Room of the Ancient Warriors. But even so, that final guard was completely avoidable and was on a path which diverged from her partner's and then merged back with it later on.

A similar convergent path occurred in "Treasure Map of Jean Lafitte," although the temple guard placement for this run was a bit more ambiguous. Aaron (reluctantly) took the lower route, encountering guards in both the Throne Room and Heart Room. When Teri-Kay entered the temple, she went into the Observatory, which converged with Aaron's path in the Heart Room. Regardless of where the last guard was, the Throne Room guard could have been avoidable if both members of this team took the Observatory/Heart Room path. This run would have featured a path where there was a divergent/ convergent path, where taking one of the routes would have only forced the team to encounter two of the three guards.

Depending on how the doors were configured in the Priceless Portrait run, it is very possible that the team could have bypassed the Observatory guard or the Mandarin Hand guard. It was very common throughout Seasons 1 and 2 for the "triangular loop to nowhere" to all be unlocked, sometimes sending teams around in circles. If this configuration was present in Priceless Portrait, then Kristen could have gone into the Mandarin Hand and directly into the King's Storeroom, avoiding the Observatory and the guard there.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

I was thinking about how temple guard locations and half pendant placements are strongly related, and hopefully we can use this thread to hone in on some of the "missing" half pendant locations, based on our assessments of where the temple guards were.

The location of the half pendant in the "Galileo's Cannonball" has not yet been identified. It is possible that the half pendant was in the Room of the Golden Idols, since that would have been the room directly prior to the final guard. There was a strong tendency in Season 1 for the half pendant to be placed that way.

To go off of this idea, I believe that the half pendant could have been on the actuator from the Golden Idols to the Shrine. There is never a clear shot of that actuator, either during the temple overview or the run itself. The half pendant was placed in that location a number of times during the first season, and even once during Season 2. It wouldn't surprise me if the half pendant was on that actuator, especially since the half pendant is not clearly visible anywhere else. It would also be easy to explain why Jammin' Jon passed by the half pendant if it had been there, as the half pendant was passed up in every run where it was placed on that actuator.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

To finish S1, L1, I'm going to move on to "Wild Bill Hickok and the Dead Man's Hand."

Encountered Guards: Cave of Sighs, Heart Room, Swamp
Number of Unencountered Guards: 0

All of the guards were encountered, so there should not any mysteries about where they were located.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

It's time to move on to S1, L2. I'm going to begin with "John Henry's Lost Hammer."

Encountered Guards: Heart Room, Throne Room
Number of Unencountered Guards: 1
Rooms not Entered: Cave of Sighs, Observatory, Torch Room, Shrine

Notes: Past comments included that the final guard can be seen in the Cave of Sighs during the final credits. I agree that the final guard was there, and I have added a photo of the Cave of Sighs during the credits. The guard's golden necklace is quite apparent, but just to prominently identify the guard, I have outlined him in red. Photo courtesy video posted on youtube.com by ChargerTheWolf.

[The Red Jaguars]

I agree, the Lost Hammer guard had to be in the Cave of Sighs. That picture is enough proof for me to show that he was located there. Also, if you look at the other temple layouts that day, most of the temple guards were near the entrance of the temple. So there weren't many guards placed deep in the temple during that entire production.

And slightly off topic from "Lost Hammer", but I am pretty sure the Jean Lafitte team had at least one path where all three temple guards could be encountered. If the the team started in the Cave of Sighs and continued on the bottom floor, they would've probably encountered all three guards: Harmonic Convergence, Heart Room, and wherever the last guard was.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

And slightly off topic from "Lost Hammer", but I am pretty sure the Jean Lafitte team had at least one path where all three temple guards could be encountered. If the the team started in the Cave of Sighs and continued on the bottom floor, they would've probably encountered all three guards: Harmonic Convergence, Heart Room, and wherever the last guard was.

That absolutely makes sense, and I agree with you for the "Jean Lafitte" episode. I was just clarifying that there were quite a few episodes where your statement about "having all three guards on the path" did not hold true. I wanted to state that it was not always necessary for that statement to be upheld, so that all of the locations for unencountered temple guards in future episodes would be considered. 

[PurpleParrot4Life]

Next on the list is everyone's favorite, "Golden Cricket Cage of Khan." It was going to come up eventually, and here it is. 

Encountered Guards: Throne Room, Heart Room
Number of Unencountered Guards: 1
Rooms not Entered: Room of the Three Gargoyles, Observatory, Room of the Golden Idols, Shrine of the Silver Monkey, Torch Room, Mineshaft, Tomb of Ancient Kings

Notes: In the past, people believed that there were too many unentered rooms to make a reasonable guess as to where the final guard was. One person proposed that the path would have sent the team up to the Observatory and around the horn. The possible rooms were narrowed down to the Room of the Golden Idols or Shrine because the other episodes in this layout featured guards close to the entrance, or the Tomb of Ancient Kings because of it being the last room before the artifact.

My Thoughts: The Throne Room guard could have been avoided, since the team was given access straight from the Wall Climb to the Heart Room. Therefore, the last guard could have been a forced guard.

-- I agree that the team made too little progress to make a good assessment of where the last guard was. However, it would be smart to use what we know about the other episodes from that day (John Henry's Lost Hammer, Elizabeth I's Golden Ship, and John Sutter and the Map to the Lost Goldmine) and extrapolate that information to determine where the last guard probably would have been located. All of the guards in the other three episodes from that production day were stationed toward the outer part of the temple. For that reason, it seems unlikely for the last guard in the "Cricket Cage" run to have been in the Torch Room, Mineshaft, or Tomb of Ancient Kings.

-- During Olmec's temple rundown, there isn't a headdress peeking out from behind the Observatory wall, so I don't think there was a guard stationed there. That leaves the Room of the Three Gargoyles, Room of the Golden Idols, and the Shrine. Honestly, any of these rooms seem like reasonable guesses as to where the last guard was.

[Purple Parrots Fan]

I always thought the third guard in "Cricket Cage" was in the Tomb of the Ancient Kings. For once again, the "one room away" trick.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

I always thought the third guard in "Cricket Cage" was in the Tomb of the Ancient Kings. For once again, the "one room away" trick.

While that is a possibility, I have a little hesitancy about saying the last guard was there because all of the guards from the other episodes that day were stationed near the entrance of the temple.

And in all honesty, in how many Season 1 episodes was the final guard one room away from the artifact? It happened a few times, but I don't think it happened as often as we've been making it out to be.

[The Red Jaguars]

Here are one room away guards from the top of my head:

Great Seal
Magellan
Amelia Earhart
Buddha
Gordian Knot
Sir Edmund Hillary (close enough anyways)
Atahualpa
Mata Hari
Blue Pearl

I am pretty sure there were one room away guards in "Oracle Bowl" and "Joan of Arc" too. So yeah, it did occur quite a few times in S1 and maybe even more than we can consider. It's hard to tell where the last guard in "Golden Cricket Cage" was because John and Tia were too stupid and hardly made any progress. If one could find the half-pendant, that might help out.