Take Me To Your Leader (Meta)

Good job! At first I didn't think the fours and fives like 31A, 34A would come into play, but they did!

Phew! Finally found them all! I was relying on symmetry, but two of them were outliers. Thanks for the mental workout... now to get on with the day. ;)

I was quite taken with this one -- Excellent puzzle; thanks, Ben!

Very nice! I had to backsolve to figure out that SAGOMEL was supposed to anagram to SMEAGOL / ORC, but other than that, it was smooth sailing. Thanks for another great puzzle, Ben!

Very elegant!

Joe Biden was my guess before I started and then was able to find it. I'm not a LOTR fan, so I needed Mr. Google for Smeagol.

Me like!

Goodness ME! I had a couple of false starts and MEandered through the grid. I tired to take all the letters before the MEs, the letter directly before the ME, the lead letter of the letters before the ME...and I figured you were just being MEan. But then the "and an anagram" caught ME eye. Hmm, ARICAME is certainly AMERICA and sure enough ERAMELD is EMERALD....het wait a minute "Take ME to your LEADER", if I do that with all the long MEs I have, well nothing but I think I see something here, let's use all the MEs (I like it when it is all about ME). Sure enough, my suspicions were correct and instead of a Hail Mary I got a Hail to the Chief.

Now, about the crunchy factor - you weren't kidding my friend. I see why and all but man I had to Google about 6 entries to fill. Lucky me I knew what L Plates were...did they play into the solve at all? I was wondering with their position of importance but I could see no tie-in (doesn't mean there wasn't one, just that I did not see it).

That had to be hard to build but nice AHA - thanks for the puzzle.

Fun one. Went down a bit of a rabbit hole with all the "letter followed by word" things and vice versa (WELLG, LPLATES, etc.), but ultimately found all the MEs. Then pondered who the heck EJBIODEN is before I saw the obvious. Thanks for the mental workout, Ben!

Wow.... what an aha moment!

Literally fell asleep in the middle of this one, which is kind of funny if you think about it (not boring… I’m just really tired). We can give you all kinds of latitude with the entries when you’re pulling off something like this! I found it fun to go ME hunting (find myself?). And I learned some new words! (ZARF, TAHR, OBOL).

Ironcially found SMEAGOL while trying to make SMEE a character from the Lord of the Rings.

Once I saw I could make "America" from "Aricame" (and how it fit with your title), I was off to the races... Thanks for another great meta, Ben!

All the single letter entries (T Geisel, O Game, etc) through me for a loop but others WELL-G the letter wasn't the leader. I figured the weirdo contrived entries being so prominent had to be significant and tried to see if there were and hidden things in them and then I repeated the title "Take ME ..." So I tried removing the ME so to get ERALD SAGOL etc. I figure I could add a new "leader" to ERALD to get (H)ERALD and that coincides with BODING. But the rest weren't clear and eluding. ARICA could become A(F)RICA but that F wouldn't be a "leader". Then I rewrote down the words with the me in them (I first wrote them all down without the ME) and I noticed wasn't there something about green in to clues? (or was that another meta they all blend together). Take a second or to to figure where to place the MEs but "to your leader" and they all fall into place. The clue Lord of Rings character being ORC had seemed a bit too generic for the overly precise Ben (as had Nana being a "Peter Pan" character... wait? Nothing about him being a blooming Newfoundland dog???). And they all fit. What an AHA moment!

I'm curious. How many knew ZARF right off the bat and use it in there common vocabulary? Is was so tickled to start of with that but the rest of the corner and much of the grid? Whoosh....

Very clever!! Me, not so much LOL. The nudges didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but somehow just looked at them in a new way. I saw EMERALD and AMERICA and just didn't go further with those. Doh! Very clever construction

Was initially convinced that WELL G, O GAME, L PLATES, and HARD G had to be theme. Eventually saw the MEs, and then did basically everything but the right thing (letters before/after the MEs, first letters of those words, bringing ME--all the way--to the front, etc.). Needed nudges 3&4 to put me on the right track, and then of course it was easy. Clever idea, and the ME entries are pretty nifty. I do think maybe the crunch factor on the grid was a little too far for me though :) (though I can see how the only alternative might have been to junk it, and I get not wanting to do that). Thanks :)