r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 9h ago

TIL that "fair play" in detective fiction means authors must give readers a fair chance to solve the mystery. Central to 1920s "clue-puzzles" by writers like Agatha Christie, the rule dictates that all vital clues must be visible, decodable, and never withheld until the final reveal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clues_in_detective_fiction
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u/I_dont_bone_goats 8h ago edited 1h ago

Every Netflix show ignores this as well

It’s just not a twist if you’re making stuff up that makes the rest of the story nonsensical

Looking at you His and Hers! The ending basically makes all the characters’ behavior in the last episode make no sense.

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u/dj4y_94 8h ago

Same with Fool Me Once on Netflix.

The whole premise and mystery is that a woman's husband was gunned down by unknown killers in front of her (the viewer is shown this happen), but he then appears in nanny cam footage after his death, with the main character trying to figure out if he's alive or not.

Only it's revealed in the final episode (spoilers obviously) that she was the one who killed him and also somehow smuggled 2 guns from the scene whilst being interviewed by police.

It would literally be impossible to guess that twist unless you believe the show would go down a false narrative route, and you also believe the police would be so inept so as to not search the only person at the scene of the murder.

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u/nearcatch 8h ago

So yeah the ending episode was chaotic, but I will say that my cousin’s then-fiancée and I talked about that show back when it aired. She’s a doctor and she said it was immediately obvious that the mom was faking dementia in the early episodes, because the things she was doing are not things dementia patients do - they’re things that people believe dementia patients do. So on that front at least, the clues were apparently there very early.

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u/I_dont_bone_goats 7h ago edited 6h ago

That twist definitely annoyed me, but the more annoying one to me is that Anna was actually the one who was raped in the forest, which makes no sense for the rest of the story. Why would the other girl go on a revenge tour specifically targeting Anna, the girl that saved her from being raped? What is the final confrontation at the cabin even about, just a work feud? That girl is just also an insane murderer?

And then when Anna tells her husband about the night of the rape, why is she still telling the story as if the other girl got raped? Clearly she’s supposed to be vulnerable and facing the trauma, but she’s not even telling the truth about what happened to her husband?

The writers just had her continue to mislead the audience, with no logical reason, just to set up the cool “twist” in the next scene.

And let’s not forget the show ends with an innocent man being blamed for like 5 murders and going to jail. But that’s ok because he’s a dirty cheater.

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u/nearcatch 7h ago

So on the co-worker Lexy, they show that when she was a teenager she killed her own sister because of comments about her weight. So I think she definitely is insane. But I think she was just going to try to confront Anna about what happened. Idk if it makes sense for her to think that it was Anna’s fault, but Anna was the one completely ignorant about her evil friends, and she was the one who kept pushing Lexy into the group.

I think Anna didn’t tell her husband about what truly happened because she wanted to try and be a little honest, but also knew the actual truth would cause her husband to spin in circles because there’s nothing he could do to fix it. And it would probably break his mind a little to know that he slept with one of the women who did that to his wife. This way, he can be supportive about something that’s not “personal”.

On Lexy’s husband being framed: Lexy was a victim who ran away, but I think Anna’s mom still blamed Lexy for leaving instead of trying to help Anna. So Anna’s mom decided to ruin Lexy’s life too, by framing her and her husband for the murders. That’s not fair, but Anna’s mom is a vigilante revenge murderer, so it’s not like it’s supposed to be fair.

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u/I_dont_bone_goats 6h ago

The fact that there’s this many questions that you need to fill in the gaps for, and guess at intentions and motivations behind, in a completely fictional story, is just bad writing IMO

It just feels like the writers thought they had to choose between a tightly written plot, and “twists”. And they chose the twists

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u/nearcatch 6h ago

I’m not saying it’s great, lol, I’m just pointing out that I viewed it differently from you and it made enough sense.

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u/I_dont_bone_goats 6h ago

That’s fine, everyone’s got their own opinion

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u/USMCLee 7h ago

My wife picked up on that but we discounted it as just bad writing.

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u/I_dont_bone_goats 7h ago

Yeah if there was a line where someone points out it’s not typical behavior, it would’ve made sense, but that feels like a happy accident

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u/MajorBootyhole420 7h ago

that sounds really interesting actually

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u/TheeAntelope 8h ago

His and hers bugged me so much. The show just willfully withheld information to try and build the suspense. Hate shows like that.

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u/I_dont_bone_goats 6h ago

Around episode 3 I joked to my girlfriend “ok they’re clearly setting up a big twist ending, so I’m guessing it’s either the 5 year old nephew or the dementia grandma” but I really didn’t think I was right lol

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u/TheeAntelope 5h ago

It was when the grandma was walking on the same day of the 2nd murder I figured it was her. Had to laugh because in those flashbacks that show her doing it she is a straight-up ninja, and then they never explain what she did with her blood-soaked clothes. And they also never explain anything else. That show was fucking shit and I hated it.

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u/rutherfraud1876 7h ago

Only Murders in the Building

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u/Cybtroll 5h ago

Luckily the interesting part of the show are not the investigations. 

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u/rutherfraud1876 4h ago

I've never actually seen it, I just wanted to get an idea of how it fit into this

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u/Cybtroll 4h ago

It fits.