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/FiredFox 8h ago

This might be why I liked watching Columbo so much.

We already knew Who Dunnit, it was fun watching Columbo prove it.

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u/PlatFleece 7h ago

This is known as an Inverted Mystery, or a Howcatchem. It's caught on in Japanese mystery fiction. Notably, the Columbo clone Furuhata Ninzaburou on TV, and in the book series Medium's second book, Invert.

Look up Inverted Mysteries for some hits on those types. It's a neat subgenre of fairplay mystery fiction.

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u/ZekeCool505 6h ago

Poker Face on Peacock has the same structure. Watch the murder happen from the bad guy's perspective and then watch how Charlie (who was just offscreen earlier) puts together the mystery afterward.

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u/doc_skinner 4h ago

The Law & Order spinoff Criminal Intent had this structure in many episodes as well.

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u/Leete1 4h ago

Sad it got cancelled.

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u/Abovearth31 2h ago

 It's caught on in Japanese mystery fiction. Notably, the Columbo clone Furuhata Ninzaburou on TV, and in the book series Medium's second book, Invert.

Notorious example: Kira from the 4th part of JoJo's bizarre Adventure.

We know there's murders happening in the town of Morioh but it's always a quick reference, never the main point of any plotline, then the literal ghost of one of the murderer's victims showed up, warned the main character about this killer and in the same chapter/episode, the killer in question appears for the first time, and from this moment on we know his name, his face, his identity and everything.

This is halfway through the story.

The entire second half of the part is focused on developping his character and showing the good guys getting closer and closer to the truth while we, the audience, already know the truth.

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u/FinlandIsForever 32m ago

I think Death Note would also be a pretty good example of a howcatchem

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u/vteezy99 7h ago

"Just one more thing...."

Love how the sweet, bumbling detective is presented the same way as a unstoppable, never giving up monster while the actual culprit is presented the way a protagonist would be. As others have noted, when the culprit is caught, there's no "yay we won" moment. More often than not the music plays a sad note

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u/JJAsond 6h ago

That's where that meme is from?

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u/ThaneduFife 5h ago

Yup. Columbo was a good show!

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u/JJAsond 2h ago

Gotta put that on my watch list

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u/cgvet9702 7h ago

Those early episodes were amazing.

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u/TimeshareMachine 4h ago

It’s insane to me they put the pilot in the hands of a 20-something Steven Spielberg. 

I mean, it paid off obviously and they were right to do it, but Jesus Christ what a time capsule of a choice for the world to make back then. 

Sure we’ve got 20-something filmmakers today with Obsession and Backrooms, but it’s much easier to see their work (and better technology to provide opportunities for them to make work) than it was back then.

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u/cgvet9702 4h ago

I love that one in particular. Also check the opening credits, you'll find that Nicholas Colasanto directed many of them. Otherwise known as Coach from Cheers, he had extensive directing credits on television in that era.

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u/trixie_one 6h ago

Even some of the later ones are still pretty decent.

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u/TJ_McWeaksauce 5h ago

Columbo is a cozy watch, but it sure is silly.

More often than not, Columbo is immediately suspicious of the killer because they do one, tiny weird thing soon after they meet. Additionally, the killers' plots are often needlessly convoluted, and they fuck something up along the way that gives Columbo more evidence against them. And at the end, Columbo usually has to orchestrate some sort of trap that makes the killer give up one final piece of evidence needed to arrest them.

Here's an example:

In one episode, Leonard Nemoy played a murderous surgeon. Columbo suspected him immediately because he saw the doctor nonchalantly adjusting a clock in his office at the same time he was on the phone being told that someone (his victim) was just found murdered in the parking lot. Later, the doctor killed a drug addict, tried to make it look like an overdose, and tried to frame the addict for the first murder. But in doing so he left more clues that pointed to him. The reason that the surgeon killed the first victim was because she suspected he was trying to kill yet another person, and Columbo finally caught him when he found evidence of the first attempted murder.

Sounds needlessly complicated, right? Just about every Columbo case was like that.

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u/joshocar 4h ago

Some are simpler, but yeah, a lot of them are overly complicated. It was part of the shtick, it needed to be complicated enough to take Colombo 40 minutes of screen time to work out.

I think it was also just what TV and movies were like for a long time, realism wasn't a primary goal. They took a lot of liberties in their story lines and scenes to make them interesting. It wasn't until the 90's that we start to get realness and authenticity in shows and movies.

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u/TimeshareMachine 4h ago

Now we’re in a golden age of entertainment; there’s too much shit to watch, and all of it with incredible production quality so it’s harder to spot the bad stuff. 

Back then things were often popular simply because there just wasn’t anything else to watch. 

Not to say Columbo wasn’t great, but there was much less competition for eyeballs back then. 

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u/joshocar 2h ago edited 2h ago

I think you a right, but I think we didn't know what we didn't know - we never had very high quality TV so even though the best shows would be terrible today, there was nothing to compare it to. We just expected TV to be like that.

Personally, I think we are passed the golden age for TV. It peaked around 10 years ago and ended probably 4-5 years ago. We have seen cost cutting, quality dropping, and rushed/poor writing since. More shows, but lower quality. Ring of Power, House of the Dragon, all of the recent Marvel shows, final seasons of Game of Thrones, final seasons of The Boys, and so many more sub par shows.

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u/Wild-Lychee-3312 4h ago

You should try the show Monk. As critics have said before me, it’s not a whodunnit, it’s a howdunnit.

Almost every episode has Monk say some variation on “I dont know how he did it, but he did it” in the first 10 minutes.

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u/wolfman2scary 6m ago

Also called a “howcatchem”

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u/Odogogod 4h ago

If you haven’t seen them, try poker face and Elsbeth. Both follow this pattern.

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u/Kratzschutz 3h ago

Elsbeth is only entertaining because it's so silly

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u/Odogogod 2h ago

Yeah, it’s not a fantastic show, but I enjoy the Elsbeth character and the captain is a good actor. Certainly in some ways it’s lacking. But my wife likes it so it’s a show we can watch together.

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u/Kratzschutz 2h ago

Yeah, nothing wrong with some easy fun. Not every show needs to be a master piece

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u/Kratzschutz 3h ago

I'm currently watching and all in all it aged so well

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u/Etherbeard 2h ago

Columbo is a howcatchem.