YMMV / The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

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• Alternate Character Interpretation: It is possible that Mrs Ferrars is not the abused innocent she seems; after all, we only have her word (via her lover in addition) that her husband was an abusive drunk, and she killed him in self-defense. It is also possible that she may have been a Gold Digger Femme Fatale who cashed out on her first husband and, in the person of Roger Ackroyd, was busy setting up her second target. She is described by many characters as a timid and sympathetic woman, but she could just be a good actor as well.
• Hard-to-Adapt Work: This story is notoriously difficult to adapt to other media, as the Twist Ending that is famous amongst mystery buffs relies heavily on several quirks of the First-Person Perspective narration. Poirot did an adaptation (as the series adapted almost every Poirot story), but the mystery was considerably weakened by having to show what was happening, rather than relying on the narrator's interpretation of events.
  • The Japanese TV adaptation, Kuroido Goroshi, managed this by making the first 3/5 of the movie a Whole Episode Flashback. At the start of the film Shiba/Sheppard gives Suguro/Poirot the manuscript that Shiba has been writing. This is a scene taken straight from the novel, but in the book it's not until near the end that Sheppard gives Poirot the manuscript and lets him read. The simple device of starting the movie with this scene allows most of it to take place with Shiba's narration accompanying the action, which preserves the impact of the twist.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: At one point Poirot mentions that this investigation may very well be the last murder he investigates and he doesn't intend for it to end in failure. The character would go on to appear in novels for another half a century.
• It Was His Sled: The killer was Dr Sheppard, the book's Unreliable Narrator! This twist is one of the most famous ones in Christie's career.
• Tear Jerker: Dr Sheppard's genuinely affable personality, and his loving relationship with his sister who will grieve at his death, make his suicide note in the final chapter quite tragic, in an Alas, Poor Villain way.

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