Favorite Question and Answers from Fourth Quarter 2021

Question

Update

The post is now live. Favorite Questions and Answers from Fourth Quarter 2021

Origin

Please link to your favorite questions and answers which were either asked or answered from October 1st 2021 through December 31th 2021.

Your answers will be compiled into a blog post like previous quarterly posts.

I will be using DavRob60's queries for a baseline, but I really appreciate people voicing the ones they really enjoyed. Maybe you feel like you answered one really well, even if it didn't receive a lot of votes. Let me know about it.

• Questions with most Votes created within 3 month range
• Questions with most View created within 3 month range
• Questions with best answer created within 3 month range

I will be linking all blog posts that happened within this quarter year. Also the most controversial question of the quarter. Also a sum of all the bounties that were awarded.

Additionally if there was a meta post you feel should be spotlighted those are also acceptable.

Answer 1

I liked this question. It was inspired by a Q on Climbing:SE and created some nice cross-site chatter.

• How was this shot of River Tam on the ceiling managed in Serenity?

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I spent quite a lot of time researching this one and I really want to find an answer that goes beyond "it's something weird that Villeneuve shoved in because he thought it was cool". Hopefully the director will be a little more forthcoming in future.

• What was the black spider creature in Villenueve's Dune, Part One?

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And who doesn't love an answer that comes straight from the horse's mouth.

• How to pronounce Fritz Leiber's name?

Answer 2

Topic challenges

The fourth quarter of 2021 saw the continuation of SFF.SE's topic challenge program, with three topic challenges completed during this quarter: Gene Wolfe, Samuel R. Delany, and Elizabeth Moon.

• The October challenge produced five questions from two distinct users (Buzz, Rand al'Thor). Only two of them were answered (Wolfe's enigmatic work is known for giving rise to many questions and few answers), and I chose to reward friggle's answer to Is the Sante Croix officer actually Number Five's brother? as it was based on an in-depth analysis of hints and clues in the text rather than just an easy search for a quote.
• The November challenge produced nine questions (plus one closed and deleted) from four distinct users (Silly but True, Clara Diaz Sanchez, David Siegel, Spencer) and eleven answers. My favourites, based largely on answer quality, were In Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren, what catastrophe befell the city of Bellona? and Do the events in Empire Star happen only once, the same way over and over, or slightly differently in different iterations? Again, these posts saw a lot of in-depth knowledge and analysis of the works in question, rather than simple find-a-quote answers.
• The December challenge produced two questions from two distinct users (Basya, just me). They were both good questions with good answers, but I decided to promote In "The Deed of Paksenarrion", what race is the Kuakgan? with a bounty for just me (a new user whose first participation in the site was for this topic challenge).