Now that all the preliminaries are done, it is time to reveal the brackets and to get the prediction contest started. Remember the prediction contest is about who you think will win and NOT who you want to win. This year we are using a website called Challonge to run the prediction contest. You may have to sign up to use it (not quite sure), but it is completely free. To participate in the prediction contest, go here:
http://challonge.com/CharacterCup
PREDICTION Contest Rules:
1. Only one prediction per person. If you would like to also create one on how you wish the contest would turn out, please do that on the embedded brackets and NOT on Challonge.
2. When titling your prediction, please use your Disqus name (or SpoilerTV name) so I know whose brackets are whose.
3. Your predictions can be saved and edited up until predictions close, but to do so you must copy and paste the very, very long link in order to find your prediction again. It will only show up once so if you even think you might be changing your predictions, I highly suggest saving the link somewhere. I will not be able to find the link for you.
4. All predictions must be finalized by noon CST on Sunday to be eligible. Once the contest starts, no other predictions will be accepted.
5. Unlike last year, Challonge has a weighted scale so correct guesses in the first round are worth 1 point, the second round 2 points, and so on until the 5th and final round.
6. After every round, I will post our winners so far. The grand prize winner wins…bragging rights. Hey, I'm a teacher. I can't afford cool prizes. Unless you love Supernatural and then I have some leftover prizes you can win.
PICTURES:
Thanks to everyone who submitted pictures so far. We now have enough for several characters. Please do NOT post pictures of the following because I already have enough for them so I won't be adding them to the folder: Sydney Bristow (Alias), Oliver Queen (Arrow), Job (Banshee), Vincent Keller (BatB), Kate Beckett (Castle), Sherlock Holmes (Elementary), Jessica Huang (Fresh Off the Boat), Olivia Dunham (Fringe), Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal), Sharon Raydor (Major Crimes), Jethro Gibbs (NCIS), Helena (Orphan Black), Emma Swan (OUaT), Jamie Fraser (Outlander), Root Groves (PoI), Ross Poldark (Poldark), Catherine de Medici (Reign), Jane Rizzoli (Rizzoli & Isles), Ichabod Crane (Sleepy Hollow), Skye Johnson (SHIELD), and Veronica Mars.
I'm happily accepting pictures for anyone else as long as they meet the following guidelines:
Picture Guidelines:
1. Must be clothed and PG please!
2. Clearly shows the character's face
3. Is just the character and not a group thing
4. Must be the character and not the actor (no premiere party or tabloid photos)
5. No gifs - jpeg or png only please
RANKINGS:
In order that everyone understands how characters were ranked, the process is detailed below. There were 915 nominations with 610 characters nominated representing 242 shows. The top two ranked characters were only 2 nominations apart with 165 and 163 nominations respectively. Every character on this list, no matter where they were ranked had some phenomenal fan love to get them here. If your nominee goes up against a top rated character in the first round, I urge you to make the most of it. Tell people why you love the character and encourage them to try the show. That way they have an even better chance to be ranked higher next year. To see the final ranked list or if you have any questions about how a character was ranked, please check the explanation below.
Ranking Process:
1. Characters were nominated - See here
2. After all nominations were tallied and sorted by show, I put them in order based on how many nominations they received. If the characters had the same number of nominations, I used the number of show nominations. If they had the same character and show nominations, they went in a ranking poll. See here for more details on ranking polls.
3. I used the criteria found on this page to see which shows needed nominating polls. Nominating polls determined which character would represent the show. The character that won is in the contest.
4. Since there were 3 positions open with 8 characters qualifying, we held a run-off poll to determine which last 3 characters would be in the contest. You can see that here. It's the second poll.
5. After all the polls were finished, the characters that did not win were taken out of the original nomination list. This moved everyone up in rank as decided in the policy poll as seen here. It is the first poll. That became the final ranking list, which you can see here.
6. Brackets were filled out by rank using the NCAA 64 team single elimination brackets. Because Challonge orders the brackets slightly different, I changed the bracket order slightly to match Challonge. All competitors are still facing the exact same characters as they would normally face in all rounds. The only difference is the order the polls will be in on the form. If you would like to compare them yourself, here is the seeded bracket.
7. The official brackets we will be using is embedded below. You can click on the embedded bracket to make it larger and easier to see or use the link for the full-screen size. The embedded bracket should be able to be downloaded so you can play along too if you want. You might want to make one copy that matches your predictions in Challonge and one of what you wish would happen. It's often fun to compare the two. Only the one in Challonge will count for the prediction contest though.
So I think that's all the nuts and bolts of how the brackets were created. If you are unhappy about where your character is placed on the list, trust me. I've got some I'm not so happy about too. It was simply a numbers thing. Without any further ado, here are the 2015 Character Cup brackets. Enjoy!
Ranking List Found Here - This has the name of the TV show each character is in as well.
