The Crown of Queen Nzinga temple run question

[PurpleParrot4Life]

But the same rope positioning was seen in the "Missing Weather Maps of Charles Lindbergh" run, and Kim could not access the elevator from the upper floor in that run...

[Red Jaguars Fan]

Then again, since Kim wasn't bright at all during the run......

[PurpleParrot4Life]

When Kim tried to go into the elevator, Kirk even said something to the effect of, "You can't go down that way. You're gonna have to go back."

[The Viper]

But it makes no sense for the Room of the Secret Password to open if Kirk was just gonna tell them to not go in the room.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

I know it doesn't make sense, but that is how the run played out. And there were other times when contestants backtracked into that room without access to the elevator. In some runs such as "Belly Button of Buddha" and "Milk Bucket of Freydis," it did not affect the outcomes because time was not not an issue. And there were other runs like "Cracked Crown of the Spanish King," where the contestant backtracked into the corner room and did not achieve victory. So even though in those runs the teams were not meant to go back down, entering the detour ate up time from the clock. This seems to have been the case in "Missing Weather Maps."

[PurpleParrot319]

PP4L, I can confirm Viper's point with the elevator. I took pictures from both rundowns for the following two temple runs.

This pic is from The Crown of Queen Nzinga. Notice no triangle-shaped rope pattern.



This next pic is from The Leopard-Skin Cloak of Annie Oakley. In this run, Chandra rode the elevator UP from the Mine Shaft to the Room of the Secret Password. This time, there IS a triangle-shaped pattern with the ropes (plus a knot at the top), indicating the elevator was down in the Mine Shaft for this run but not for Queen Nzinga's run.



With this discovery, I don't think it was possible to ride the elevator up in the Queen Nzinga run. I'm sticking with my gut feeling that the wall was NOT breakable in this run, unless the producers wanted the Red Jaguars to take the diagonal path from the Mine Shaft to the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, but even I don't think they would do that. That being said, I think the team was meant to enter the Shrine from the Dark Forest with the Mine Shaft wall being unbreakable. The team would then grab the Crown after assembling the Silver Monkey. That's my take.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

PP319: I understand the elevator situation and agree with you about the elevator placements for the runs you mentioned. Regardless of whether the wall was breakable during the Nzinga run, the team would have been forced into the Shrine and across to the Lightning Ball Room since the elevator was not accessible in the Mineshaft.

I am only unsure about why, then, Kim could not take the elevator during the "Weather Maps" run since the triangularly-knotted end of the ropes was in the Room of the Secret Password, and she was trying to head down from there.



Photo courtesy video posted on youtube.com by ChargerTheWolf.

[PurpleParrot319]

Yeah, the elevator is up in that run as well. I think I know why Kim didn't ride it. Kirk said she couldn't go down that way and she was stupid enough (surprise!) to listen to him. She COULD have taken the elevator since it was up the whole time, but she listened to Kirk instead. He was a little too late telling her that though since she had already passed up the Dark Forest.

It doesn't matter anyway. Kim was a lost cause and is the main reason why I absolutely despise this run.

[The Red Jaguars]

The producers probably kept the elevator up in the "Charles Lindbergh" run just in case the player was stupid enough to actually go into that room and actually use it when an alternate route was open. The elevator was pretty much useless in that run, but Kim was almost stupid enough to actually ride it. It was like in the "Golden Pepperoni" run where the elevator was up for Aqila and she jumped in it despite the fact it didn't due her any good.

But back to the "Queen Nzinga" run. It would've been interesting how the elevator situation would've worked for Renee. If the Mine Shaft wall was actually breakable for her, then why not just place the Temple Spirit in the tree blocking the wall? They did this in a lot of other runs where they wanted to force a temple guard encounter.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

Very good point, TRJ, about the "Golden Pepperoni" run.

As far as the layout goes for "Queen Nzinga," I think that they placed the guard in the stage left tree so that (if the wall was breakable), there would be at least one avoidable guard. Every run, save two, had at least one guard that was avoidable. There were several times that the temple spirit was housed in the camera-right tree, yet the wall was breakable. In those runs, that temple spirit was the avoidable guard (or one of two avoidable guards, in some cases).

[GreenMonkeys#1]

What would happen if the wall was broken down but the Golden Door to the Shrine was LOCKED? Then that would be an evil layout that would mean Forest-Shaft-Shrine-Lightning en route to the Crown.

[The Viper]

This run has been on my mind lately and I think I have come to a reasonable conclusion about the temple guard placement and the wall being breakable. I believe that the wall would have been breakable AND the passage to the shrine would have opened. The outcome of this run was likely based on two factors that occur around the same point in the run. The first is whether the Renee grabs the half-pendant or not. The second is if she searches for the Dark Forest key or breaks through the wall.

• As we know, Renee did not find the half-pendant and opted to search for the key, and as a result the run ended in a triple capture. This is the only scenario where this occurs.
• If the half pendant was grabbed and she looked for the key, she would safely encounter the guard, find the key, take the passage up to the Shrine and then go left into the Lightning Ball room to get the crown.
• Regardless of she found the half-pendant, if she had busted through the wall, I think she would have had to take he diagonal passage into the Shrine. The screenshots posted by PP319 and I show that the elevator was not in the Mine Shaft during the run, so Renee would not have been able to take it up to get the crown. It could be argued that the wall would not have broken down because of this, but I don't believe that's true. I can't recall many half-pendant runs from season 2 that forced all 3 guards. The forest guard in Nzinga was notably place in the right tree, which means that Renee likely could have completely avoided even the chance of the temple guard trying to grab by just breaking through the wall.

The only thing I could go either way about is if the Shrine/Forest passage would open or not. I think it would open to reward the player for finding the half-pendant by letting them avoid the Mine Shaft and the confusion that would likely ensue when they see that there's no elevator. However, I could also see it being locked to force the 'no elevator in the Mine Shaft' scenario because it was never done before and would have made for a good TV.

All that being said, what the hell was up with the Medusa's Lair door opening?

[TempleFan322]

Taking a guess, if you watch "The Imperial Purple Robe" run, the guard was in the right hand tree, the same one in this run. As the wall didn't break in that run, I think it wouldn't break in this run.