Solution to Thank You to Our Sponsors
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Answer: POUND STERLING
by Brian Chen, Connor Moss, Evan Chen, Mark, Max Murin, Rahul Sridhar, Anderson Wang, Yannick Yao
Solvers are presented with 15 descriptions of anonymous donations made to the Mystery Hunt. Each description indicates the amount of money donated and also contains clues as to the donor’s identity, which is always a notable fictional character. By identifying a few donors and googling them, we can realize that all 15 donors are fictional characters on the 2013 Forbes Fictional 15 list (the most recent list, as mentioned by the flavortext).
As clued by the flavortext, each donation is an integer percentage of the character’s estimated net worth. The descriptions are ordered by the amount of money donated, from least to greatest. Converting the percentages to letters (1 = A, 2 = B, …) and re-sorting the list by the characters’ net worths yields the cluephrase UK MONEY TWO WORDS. The answer to the puzzle is then POUND STERLING.
| Source Material | Character | Net Worth (billions of dollars) | Donation Amount | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Downton Abbey | Lady Mary Crawley | 1.1 | $44,000,000.00 | 4 | D |
| The Great Gatsby | Jay Gatsby | 1 | $190,000,000.00 | 19 | S |
| Tomb Raider | Lara Croft | 1.3 | $195,000,000.00 | 15 | O |
| Monopoly | Mr. Monopoly | 1.2 | $216,000,000.00 | 18 | R |
| The Simpsons | C. Montgomery Burns | 1.5 | $225,000,000.00 | 15 | O |
| Two and Half Men | Walden Schmidt | 1.3 | $299,000,000.00 | 23 | W |
| Game of Thrones | Tywin Lannister | 1.8 | $414,000,000.00 | 23 | W |
| Batman | Bruce Wayne | 9.2 | $460,000,000.00 | 5 | E |
| 50 Shades of Grey | Christian Grey | 2.5 | $500,000,000.00 | 20 | T |
| Richie Rich comics | Richie Rich | 5.8 | $1,450,000,000.00 | 25 | Y |
| Citizen Kane | Charles Foster Kane | 11.2 | $1,568,000,000.00 | 14 | N |
| Iron Man | Tony Stark | 12.4 | $1,860,000,000.00 | 15 | O |
| The Hobbit | Smaug | 54.1 | $5,951,000,000.00 | 11 | K |
| Twilight | Carlisle Cullen | 46 | $5,980,000,000.00 | 13 | M |
| Disney | Scrooge McDuck | 65.4 | $13,734,000,000.00 | 21 | U |