In 2021 and 2022, readers voted for their favorite character in Volume 1 of Pandora's Tale. All named non-metafictional characters were eligible.
The tournament was divided into 13 matches, from 2021 November 24 to 2022 March 9. Noor Shah ultimately won the tournament. A sequel tournament is planned.
Pandora's Tale Volume 2 Character Tournament
The tournament included all named non-metafictional characters. To qualify as a named character, a character had to satisfy all of the following conditions:
For an example of a character that doesn't meet the third condition, the names "Cyprian" and "Yorba Linda" are mentioned in the episode description shown in the background of Chapter 6, Page 17.[c6p17] One of those names might refer to the metafictional human shown two pages later.[c6p19] However, it is not possible to determine from the comic itself whether that character is Cyprian, Yorba, or someone else, so that character isn't included on the named character list.
Only chapters one through seven were available at the time the tournament ran, and hence only characters named and appearing in those chapters were eligible. In particular, Kyndley was not included: even though she appeared in Chapter One, she was not named until Chapter Eight.
The inclusion criteria for this tournament formed the basis for the first table on the list of characters.
In total, there were 20 eligible characters.
Character...............First appearance.First named.Number of Appearances Pandora.................[c1p0]...........[c2p7] Zero Angiers............[c1p15]..........[c1p16] Isabelle Monday.........[c1p15]..........[c1p17] Veronica Fortuna........[c1p15]..........[c2p2] Con Yung................[c1p15]..........[c2p2] Noor Shah...............[c2p10]..........[c2p10] Zufolene................[c3p4]...........[c3p9] Tallulah Zaragoza.......[c3p4]...........[c3p9] Lyra Lujic..............[c3p7]...........[c3p7] Natalya Ustrashkina.....[c3p10]..........[c3p10] Hemmel..................[c3p10]..........[c3p10] Gabriel Glenholm........[c4p18]..........[c4p18] Maple...................[c4p18]..........[c4p19] Petrichor...............[c5p9]...........[c5p4] Eric Michael Fishguard..[c6p5]...........[c6p5] Hamilton Smith-Rawnsley.[c6p9]...........[c6p5] Adrastea................[c6p10]..........[c7p12] Andromeda...............[c6p15]..........[c6p16] Cassiopeia..............[c6p15]..........[c6p16] Leo.....................[c6p15]..........[c6p16]
At the start of each round, the characters were divided into
┌────────────────────────────────────┐ ⌊╲│Total number of remaining characters ⌋
matches, as evenly as possible. Since there were 20 characters in total, the first round consisted of four matches, each with five characters. In each match, each reader could vote for up to
Number of characters in the match
⌈─────────────────────────────────⌉
2and the top
Number of characters in the match
⌈─────────────────────────────────⌉
2advanced to the next round. Prior to the semifinals, matches were determined pseudo-randomly using the round's start date as a seed. Once five or fewer characters remained, matches were decided using the semi-finalists' performance in previous rounds.
A tie only matters if there is a tie for
Number of characters in the match
⌈─────────────────────────────────⌉ 'th
2place. When such a tie occurs, the following rules were used for tiebreakers:
Rule (2) ensures that at least once character is eliminated in every match. It was intended to prevent the possibility of an infinite loop. Rules (1) and (3) were intended to reduce the likelihood that a popular character would be eliminated early just because of random match-ups.
When five or fewer characters remain at the end of a round, the following round constitutes the start of the semifinals. Characters are placed into the semifinals based on their vote-shares in previous rounds. A character's vote-share for a match is defined to be the number of votes they got divided by the total number of votes in the match. Their average vote-share is the arithmetic mean of their vote-shares in matches prior to the semifinal. All matches are weighted equally, not by the number of votes.
All semifinal and final matches are one-vs-one. Hence, the only tie-breaker rule that could come into effect is the rule that when the entire match is tied, the tournament organizer's vote is discarded.
Unlike all matches prior to the semifinals, each semifinal and final match lasts two weeks, except for the "third-place match" if applicable.
How exactly the semifinalists are placed depends on the number of semifinalists. Note that without tiebreakers, there will always be exactly four semifinalists.
The semifinalists with the 4th and 5th highest average vote-shares face off against each other in a "pre-semifinal" match. The loser is awarded 5th place and eliminated from the tournament. The tournament then proceeds as if there were only four semifinalists.
The semifinalists with the highest and 4th average vote-shares face each other in one match, and the characters with the 2nd and 3rd highest average vote-shares face each other in another semifinal match.
The losers of the two semifinals then face each other in a "third-place match." Unlike all other semifinals, the third place match lasts only one week. The loser is awarded 4th place while the winner is awarded 3rd place.
Finally, the winners of the semifinals face each other in a 2-week final match.
The semifinalists with the 2nd and 3rd highest average vote-shares face each other in a semifinal match. The loser is awarded third place and eliminated, while the winner faces the character with the highest average vote-share in the final.
The semifinals are unnecessary, and the only two "semifinalists" immediately face each other in the final match.
The intent of these rules was to meet two simultaneous goals:
The first match consisted of four matches, each with five characters.
Four characters received zero votes. Three of those characters are villains with no redeeming qualities (Gabriel Glenholm, Eric Fishguard, and Hamilton Smith-Rawnsley). Cassiopeia is the only non-villain to receive no votes
Along with the announcement of Match 9, Xan said "We've officially reached the "All main characters apart from Zero" point of the poll."[SemiCanon]
Arguably the highlight of the tournament, Match 11 saw Noor trigger the tiebreaking rules to eliminated both of the main characters, clearing the stage for the semifinal.
With only three characters remaining, characters were placed into the semifinal based on their vote shares in prior rounds. The "vote share" of a character in a given match is defined to be the number of votes the character got divided by the total number of votes in the match. Semifinalists were placed based on the arithmetic mean of the vote shares the received in rounds 1-4.
Character.Average vote share Natalya...3755/9724≈0.38616 Noor......36623/95472≈0.38360 Hemmel....25253/97240≈0.25970
Natalya had the highest vote share, so she was automatically placed in the final.
Doctor Shah easily won the semifinal.
Doctor Shah won the tournament.
After Noor's victory, Xan remarked that fans could look forward to Noor playing a big role in the following chapte.[SemiCanon]
There was some dissatisfaction with the fact that Pandora and Isabelle were eliminated in a technicality of the tie-breaking rules, and lead the tournament organizer to consider revising the tie-breaking rules for future tournaments.
The tournament organizer planned to run a similar tournament after the completion of Volume 2. With that goal in mind, the tournament organizer decided it might be easier to keep track of the list of eligible characters in the form of a wiki. Subsequently, she created Pandora's Tale Wiki and made the list of characters the first article.