Discussion Main / CluelessMystery

There seems to be a type that's in between. When you get to The Reveal and you (and the characters) don't believe it, and everything is explained, and you go back and check the facts and, well, whaddaya know they all DO fit. If there si a sequel, expect to miss the clues AGAIN, even though you are expecting it by now.

The Harry Potter books are infamous for this. Sure, everything Quirrel says at the end checks out, but there's simply no way you can be reasonably expected to catch it. I don't really consider any of them a Fair Play Mystery at all. of course, they are not intended to be mysteries. Just Twist Endings

I wanna add how My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S2 E24 "MMMystery on the Friendship Express" Both played it straight (in the case of Fluttershy and the bakers) and averted it (with Rarity). But first I can't decide which Rainbow Dash counts as. The clues we got were her shadow moving through the windows, seemingly quicker than normal (but I may be reading too much into it) and she disappears off the end of the train, hinting that a flyer is responsible (however there are three flying characters on the train so I don't think that's enough to count it as fair play). Anyone have an opinion on how to treat it?

Could someone with more familiarity with the book in question help with this? Looking at it, it sounds like it's not an example, since even if the individual's identity isn't known it sounds like there are clues pointing to the killer's caste, which seems to be the important part. But I don't really know enough about this to write a better description if it does indeed fit this trope. As it stands, there was a fairly egregious bash and a justifying edit; if it is an example, it should be rewritten to say "but the fourth uses the clueless mystery format to tie into its social commentary. Whether or not this is effective is up to the reader."

• Each book of Tamora Pierce's The Circle Opens quartet had a crime central to the plot, requiring the four mages of the original Circle Of Magic books to play detective. The first two books were Reverse Whodunnits, where the reader knew from the start who was responsible. The third was a Fair-Play Whodunnit. The fourth however, used the clueless mystery format, where the culprit was someone who had never been introduced to the reader, who the characters had no previous interaction with and who had no other importance in to the plot. While this had some relevance to the book's social commentary, it lacked the emotional impact of the other three books where the readers were given some insight, and even an emotional tie, to the killers.
  • That's debatable, really. It's personal for the first three, yet "The Ghost" isn't really killing people; he's striking at the city itself. He does kill people Tris and Keth are close to, making it very personal for them. It makes sense that we wouldn't have met him before, given his theme of being "invisible". Heck, Fridge Brilliance would argue that they may have seen him, several times even, but they simply didn't remember him. We see several prathumi throughout the novel, and only a few are even spoken to or characterized.