My very favourite Miss Marple quote “policemen asking questions are being policemen, but little old ladies asking questions are just being little old ladies.“
I am being humble when I am telling you that I am the most powerful strongest coolest smartest most famous greatest funniest Y*uTub3r of all time! That's the reason I have multiple girlfriends and I show them off all the time! Bye bye ev
I don't really remember the exact quote, but it's close to "Your problem is you believe people. I haven't done that for a long time." It just hit me as true and surprising at the same time. A long time ago.
"People with a grudge against the world are always dangerous. They seem to think life owes them something. I've known many an invalid who has suffered worse and been cut off from life much more . . . and they've managed to lead happy contented lives. It's what's in yourself that makes you happy or unhappy." - From 'A Murder is Announced'
I want to spread the phrase "who-has-done-this", because, in the words of former Captain Raymond Holt of the NYPD's 99th Precinct, "'whodunnit' is a grammatical abomination".
That and there are a lot of factors in real life like laws, the accused’s civil rights, the limits of technology, and the way things actually work IRL that conveniently get skipped over by a lot of writers
Fun Fact: We actually do know Columbo's first name. Though we never hear anyone actually say his name, one of the TV movies has Columbo get pulled over by a police officer, who asks for his license, and from the brief glimpse of his driver's license we can see that his name is Frank Columbo. Honestly, he looks like a Frank.
Lmao does MD stand for Medical Detective because that's literally what House is(Isn't the medically accurate abbreviations for MD 'doctor of medicine"?)
This discussion got me thinking about whether "House" counts as a mystery show. I think it fails on the basis of, the audience can't possibly figure out that (for example) the woman's kidney is not properly tethered to her other innards and that's why she keeps passing out. At most you can pick up on some clues and recognize them as such, without knowing what to do with them. So I guess the deal with "House" is, we love to see the mechanics of solving the "crime" without caring too much about solving it ourselves. Something else that "House" brings to the table is, House is always under serious time constraints, because if he doesn't figure things out quickly, the patient dies. So it's about preventing a death rather than solving one. So, "House" definitely uses a lot of the same mechanisms as detectives, but is also fundamentally a thing apart. Also, I have to say, I really get sick of the other doctors saying stuff like "House is only in it for the mystery" or "the worst thing in the world would be to turn into House". To be sure he's a bitter jerk, but he's also a bitter jerk who is motivated to solve cases exactly because it saves lives, and I see that as a lot more laudable than his coworkers give him credit for. There's an early episode where House is contrasting himself against Foreman's old mentor, who is a "follow standard practices and so what if the patient dies" doctor that House can't stand. House says of him: "He thinks you do your job, and what will be will be. I think that what I do and what you do matters. He sleeps better at night. He shouldn't."
@@kingbeauregard Good point, HOUSE MD is a medical drama, not a mystery show. That said, I'd still consider the character of Gregory House to be a "detective"-style character, even if what he does isn't solving murder mysteries but medical mysteries.
Some of my favourite Sherlock Holmes moments is when Holmes is wrong for the right reasons. Where his deductions make sense with the clues he has, but he's still wrong. I really like it when the detective is wrong and makes perfect sense why they are wrong.
Absolutely true. Having a smart character get the wrong answer because their information is faulty is such a realistic thing, and it can lead to some great drama. Especially when we as the audience can see and understand exactly why that was the best conclusion they could have come to at the time.
Not sure if you read Ellery Queen too; even that series went through a transformation after a certain point. When the title character went through a case where he was constantly manipulated by the culprit's fake planted clues, and in later books learned to keep the summations to himself until he was 100% sure.
You'd love The Great Ace Attorney's take on the character, then. Very nearly all of "Herlock Sholmes"'s deductions are convoluted and downright absurd (like suggesting the reason an apartment is in disarray is because a lion stormed through it), but are just barely sensible enough that you can see how he got there.
I want a first person detective story where the detective figures it out, tells everyone how it happened and is totally confident. But he's just...wrong. every time. The big reveal is just the villain going, "No you, idiot! *I'M* the murderer!"
Wel that’s kind of like what Jake peralta from Brooklyn 99 did when he purposely said the wrong thing to get the murder to say he was wrong and confess to the crime
I feel like the Arsene Lupin stories should have gotten a mention here, because they are ALL ABOUT trope subversion. Many of them are actually structured like mysteries, just as a "howdunnit" rather than a "whodunnit" since Lupin is always the who. But they still play the game with the reader to guess how it happened before the final reveal of Lupin's method. That he's (often) the one telling his own story, and an unreliable narrator, introduces even more fun twists on the formula.
Sometime we forget the Lupin trope that also could count as Detective trope as we try to figure how the Lupin do their stealing like Kaitou Kid and Kaitou Joker
“If the writer sets up a mystery without actually knowing the secret beforehand the story won’t hold together as well.” Shows a snippet of Palpatine. Never change, red. XD
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery, just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery, just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
Then I shall do the other! Herlock Sholmes, the detective at the heart of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, is not simply a Holmes-like detective, but is supposed to be him. However, despite his careful eye for witness reactions and forensic evidence, he makes mistakes, and follows those mistakes through like his life depends on them, letting the player character nudge his deductions back on track. This culminates in the final case where the player character is finally in-tune with Sholmes to a degree where he doesn't even make wild guesses, he just points out the clue in the reaction and you find the answer from there, finally dancing the dance Sholmes has for so long been soloing.
“If someone writes a mystery without knowing the answer the story won’t hold together as well (cut to Palpatine” I LAUGHED OUT LOUD AT 1:33AM AND WOKE MY ROOMMATE
@@spinningninja2 thats a risky choice considering how much visual humor Red&Blue use, like the speech bubbles being all "Am I a bad person"~Johnny Snake Shoulders to his human brain eating shoulder snakes.
Columbo was always my favorite. I've taken his usual "Oh, by the way..." deliveries for personal usage, and sure enough, they catch people totally off guard.
In the TV shows, DCI Vera Stanhope always has a moment where she shows up like a bad penny, when the prime suspect or worst character least wants to see them, and she's always waiting at their destination, and she smiles and gives a little wave.
This trope talk makes me appreciate Knives Out even more. It starts out as a typical who-done-it with the director leaving clues for the audience and then subverting it by telling us who did it and making the focus of the story “now can they get away with it?” The final plot twist bringing it right back to the who-done-it is just *chefs kiss*
Sherlock: "I deduced that based on the shoe size and the wet ground and the fact that this bird shit is slightly interrupted that it the gun had to be held at roughly five feet from the ground, which narrows the candidates down to three people. Now, based on the current wind speed..." Marv: "When I want to know something I just find someone who knows more than I do and ask. Sometimes I ask pretty hard."
Phoenix Wright: “Now I don’t know who did it, but I know for sure that the defendant couldn’t have and I’m gonna pull whatever I need to outta my ass about every detail until the moment we find out who!”
Other problem with that Sherlock scenario: an apparent crime scene with no immediately visible murder weapon.... the police magically don't decide to expand their search to include the surrounding area?
I remember the episode that legitimately claimed "Oh the guy didn't notice the 6-inch blade being jammed into his liver because... uuhhhhh... his belt was really tight? And then the same belt acted as a tourniquet and that's why he bled out in a safe location, cuz that's when he took off the belt and started bleeding. Yeah that makes sense."
@justafurrywithinternet317 The crazier thing is that happened in real life! In 1898, Empress Elisabeth of Austria was stabbed with a thin blade but didn't notice because her corset was so tight. She thought a man just bumped into her and proceeded to walk about 100 yards before collapsing.
I don't like the BBC Sherlock like every other person with a bit of taste does too, buuuut I do have to give it that the Police being dumb is also a major thing in the original...
There’s also the Kid Detective, who are generally smarter than any experienced adults and able to solve the mystery even though they shouldn’t be in such a dangerous area.
Partly, the kid detective exists as wish fulfillment fantasy on the part of child audiences, who like the idea of a kid who outsmarts adults. But there can be truth in this trope. Adults tend to be set in their ways, and have highly developed - one could say "calcified" - ways of thinking and looking at the world. They also have a habit of trusting people they've known for years, and thus being unwilling to believe those people who actually be nefarious. All this is to say that while adults know a lot more than kids in general due to life experience, this life experience and the general effects of getting old means they develop blind spots. Some possible explanations may be literally possible for an adult to consider, let alone believe is true. Moreover, adults tend to be busy with "adult stuff", like jobs or engaging with social niceties/decorum. And they're larger and more noticeable, so they end up not being able to go to places or observe unseen that a kid can. The child detective often discovers clues an adult would miss because they're big and draw attention by their presence, while children are smaller and beneath the notice of villainous characters (who, to their detriment, discount the ability of children as much as other adult characters, at least until they need to create danger in the narrative by realizing the kid is on to them).
@@Bluecho4 On a related note, a lot of scientists, especially engineers, will bring in lay people with no experience in the sciences to help them solve problems because sometimes it's useful to have fresh eyes with no particular biases for that subject look at it.
I think kid detectives are a subtrope of Amateur Detectives, since anyone who isn't a Professional Detective or Private Detective (these make up the three kinds of Detective for me) will seem to know and do things in solving the mystery that they probably wouldn't/shouldn't in real life.
@@SuperSongbird21 I totally agree with this, and I also think they fit into a similar subtype as most Agatha Christie heroes, which I like to think of as the “unlikely” or “unassuming” detective. Red touched on this with Ms. Marple and Columbo, but many detective characters are people that society overlooks, underestimates, and talks over a lot, such as little old ladies (Marple) or immigrants (Poirot). I loved kid detectives when I was a child, because every kid knows the bittersweet mixture of thrill and disappointment when you learn something new, but no one takes you seriously. I think the best written kid detectives are the ones who use their “invisibility” to their advantage!
It is insanely funny to me that The Great Ace Attorney's "Herlock Sholmes" is essentially the embodiment of this entire video and the concept of a Holmes-alike, and all that in a single fell swoop of his own narrative/gameplay gimmick. His method is both forensic and psychological, he directly narrates his thinking and solving of the case bombastically while also prompting the individuals under scrutiny to react to it to reveal more and he presents the findings to a crowd of startled onlookers who are often involved with the entire ordeal and then some. AND THEN, his findings not only are very useful and defy the rules of the era the narrative takes place in, but they're also SCUFFED AS HELL, because Herlock doesn't necessarily chase the truth, he chases the most theatrical and shocking truth he can muster with his deductive and investigative abilities, leaving holes for the viewer (player) to fill up by following his train of thought and correcting the course of his thinking to something more realistic. And while he's not always happy to have his deductions torn down, he rejoices at a chance to work with someone like the main character on fixing his logic to eventually arrive at a satisfying conclusion. It's a Sherlock that emphasizes how the theatrics of a character like himself would be detrimental to an actual investigative process and it gives the Watson (in this case the player/reader) a reason to engage with the deductions and findings to not break down his logic but help it arrive at a true conclusion. It shows that Watson, both as an archetype and as a character, is inseparable from the Sherlock in the way that he's a partner, one half of the whole, that can actually improve the story by having a tangible influence or a say in the matter, beyond just being the POV character. ...play The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. I promise you'll like it if you like mystery novels. P.S. Brave of you to use Sholmes on the thumbnail and not mention him in the video, OSP crew. [insert "character will remember that" meme here]
It's implied at the end of the second game that the "off the hook" deductions Sholmes makes on his Logic and Reasoning spectacular are on purpose, to teach Runo the power of observation and get to the truth on his own. He actually stops fucking around in that last investigation scene with "Watson" (not gonna say their actual name) because they are on a time limit. Plus, his character and the characters connect to him (his "Watsons") are integral to the story and part of the mystery themselves. It also adds to his personality by making him a father figure to Iris, which also drives his reason to work in order to feed and house a little girl.
so happy when i saw tgaa in the thumbnail but no mention or people talking about it in the comments :(( the aa games are my favourite types of detective games and i love herlock
I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE THIS COMMENT THANK YOU Please play The Great Ace Attorney chronicles you won't regret it, and I agree that Sherlock's unhinged deductions are mostly for Ryuu to work out the mystery himself, as he gets it wrong on purpose. Love the guy
I admit, when I first saw his name I thought 'but Sherlock is Public Domain, why are they doing this rename' but playing the game made me realise why that he is more of a parody
@@TheBT no, in the original Japanese version of the game, he's Sherlock Holmes. For the English localization, he had to be given a "different" name to get past copyright law. This is because there are still a few original Holmes stories not in the public domain, and the Conan Doyle Estate is notorious for cracking down on any stories and reimaginings showing Holmes as emotional or having personal growth like only those later mysteries do. (They need to get their royalties SOMEHOW, right?). I believe the most recent time the Doyle Estate went after someone was the recent Netflix Enola Holmes film that came out last year since Henry Cavill's Holmes shows affection for his titularly named little sister Enola.
Despite having a detective in the game, Ace Attorney always has the detective role be filled by somebody who has no clue what’s going on, so the detective perspective works well enough
Yeah, while listening to this video, I started to think that honestly the Ace Attorney games are more like detective games than courtroom games. Phoenix Wright does more detective work than the actual detectives lmao
And as it happens, Phoenix and his fellow lawyers of the Wright Anything Agency are VERY good at knowing nothing, lest we forget Phoenix successfully getting a not guilty verdict while recovering from head injury induced amnesia, or mounting the first successful defence in recent history for a totally different country’s legal system lol
Mildly disappointed that the "cozy" detective character trope didn't get a more prominent examination. Little old ladies, sure, but there are other forms of cozy detectives-for example, a lot of Children's/Teen mystery stories feature detective characters that fall into the cozy trope.
@@ananyasaxena82 could be. It's this group of teens (and their dog) who investigate and stumble upon all kinds of crimes. Where I live it was called the five.
@@ananyasaxena82 I had to go look that one up, and will probably look into it a little more later. When you also mentioned Trixie Belden, I thought the show might be an updated version of The Three Investigators, which I believe were written about the same time frame. It was an interesting set of books, three boys who actively looked for mysteries to solve, and even had their own secret "hideout"... a small mobile home (or Airstream type trailer) buried in a junkyard.
Yeah, only the protagonist that can get to know with the introverted/shy one in the group. Because why? Because the protagonist is special, they're more sensible. I sick toward that trope.
Yeah, Columbo is basically a hard-counter to Kira. Nobody knows his full name and he's specialized in catching killers with big egos by having them underestimate him.
Litterally went to go find my magnifying glass and couldn't find it. It's my special style of detective work you see... Step 1: You let your enemy underestimate you by being very unobservant, Step 2: You accedentally bring in the wrong man, Step 3: Wait wh-
He was also commissioned to write “the sign of four” a Sherlock Holmes book at the same dinner that Oscar Wilde was commissioned to write “The Picture of Dorian Grey” and he convinced Harry Houdini to got to a seance with him. He was a weirdly well connected man.
@@AK-tr6lo So weirdly connected that when he sent some anonymous letters to some friends as a joke that said 'you've been found out', some of those friends actually left the country and were never heard from again.
This makes me appreciate Ace Attorney even more honestly?? Especially Edgeworth. We see a lot more of his process in his spin off games, and while he's not TECHNICALLY a detective, he goes out of his way to do the job that the police tend to mess up. Definitely a gentleman detective to Nick's clutzy but brilliant detective.
Detective Conan has a first person internal narration style, and so to hide the culprits until the big reveal literally EVERY detective character (of which there are heaps) thinks stuff like "I see...the culprit is THAT person" or "Now I understand...THAT's how they did it". It honestly becomes funny after a while
What's even funnier is that, because manga is a visual medium, the scenes depicting the culprit before their identity is revealed always use the same black, vaguely humanoid silhouette in their place. I haven't read nor watched Gintama, but I've heard that they once parodied Detective Conan with a murder mystery story where the culprit turned out to be literally just a black silhouette of a person.
One interesting take on the issue of reader knowledge vs detective knowledge is actually Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Perhaps because it is an interactive medium, the protagonist almost never knows anything that the audience does not know. Moreover, the protagonist essentially never conceals any thoughts from the audience. As a result, the audience gets to see all the protagonist's deductions in real time, the step-by-step process of stacking clues and contradictions on top of each other while weeding out impossibilities until the truth remains. This works because Ace Attorney cases hinge on a constant stream of new information and revelations that fundamentally alter large assumptions made earlier. Also, because of its defense attorney framework, guessing whodunnit is not nearly as important as how and why they did it, and then proving it. The protagonist also has to spend a lot of time arguing against and dismantling incorrect theories put forth by other characters. Still, I think the basic format could be applied to non-video-game mysteries. Actually, I guess the noir P.I. kind of follows this model - rather than assembling a puzzle, they are following a thread, with new information revealed all the time. Ace Attorney combines it with more Golden Age types of crimes, though.
One of the weaknesses of the _Ace Attorney_ games is that it's not uncommon for the detective to be far slower than the player, and the game stops being about proving what happened but finding the superfluous (to the player) event flag that brings the dopey detective up to speed.
One thing I really like about the 3ds games is that they have a "denouement" moment where you go into the character's head and put together the last clue. its sort of 50/50ish though because half the time you either figured this out an hour ago or you have literally no idea what the game is saying
This is amplified in Ace Attorney by the general craziness of the actual truth. It explores the idea that in reality weird things happen for nonsensical reasons, like yeah, this guy wasn‘t hit by a flying magician but the acrobat upstairs dropped a bust of that magician onto him and the magicians cloak got caught on the bust because he was wearing it. It‘s twists that would feel unsatisfying and empty if just presented to you, but when you are actively searching for and getting clues, trying to piece it together and exploring scenarios until it‘s the most batshit solution possible. You are deductively analysing a wacky world and logically arrive at insane conclusions. In terms of how this works in non-game media, I genuinely find that the Ace Attorney anime pulls it off quite well
Kinda random but when you think about it, Velma from Scooby-Doo was really just a defective (she put most of the clues together) who worked with a team because she couldn't do it all herself. Scooby and Shaggy were bait, Fred made traps and various plans, and Daphne had a knack for getting the team out of difficult situations. I know it's a very lose interpretation, but I like the idea that a team of people make up all the traits a great detective needs, and I wonder if there are any other stories like that out there.
Psych maybe. Shawn has the skills to glean the information, but often needs Gus to tell him what it all means before he can solve the mystery as Gus has nearly encyclopedic knowledge on many different things. Lassiter is often the narrative foil, but is also the one that can get the two out of trouble. There is also a good narrative reason for the theatrics of both the clue gathering and the reveal, if Shawn isn't super dramatic and theatrical about it he is out of the job. So while the criminals are putting on a performative act to hide the fact that they are criminals, Shawn is also putting on a show for the police in order to convince them that he is actually psychic (even though he isn't). It's a clever bit of dramatic irony, and it's good writing as the series gives you all the clues you need over the course of the episode.
Don't give the CW ideas or else we'll get a poorly written drama called: "Dinkley". Either way, Psych does kind of work like a detective show since Shawn and Gus are private investigators.
One thing a lot of earlier parodies (before we started getting billions of Sherlock adaptations again) forgot was that Watson isn't dumb, just relatable.
"The detective is fundamental to the mystery, and the mystery is fundamental to the detective," sounds like something a workaholic Holmes type would say to their Watson
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are going camping. They pitch their tent under the stars and go to sleep. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up: "Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce." Watson: "I see millions of stars and even if a few of those have planets, it's quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life." Holmes: "Watson, you idiot, somebody's stolen our tent!" -Worlds funniest joke according to google
One thing I love about that book is that it's nominally got a third person omniscient narrator, and the narrator never lies outright but often phrases something in an intentionally misleading way or omits very important information. It makes the book even better on a reread.
Agatha Christie is honestly still the GOAT of mystery. You can read her mysteries today and still get blindsided. The ABC Killer, Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None all had me puzzling until my puzzler was sore. The solutions are utterly brilliant.
And Then There Were None was translated as "The case of the three lil nigg**" in my country. You have no idea how confused I was. I'm not even shitting you. My cover had both titles and I was like "what the fuck is this???" The reveal hit me like a train tho. I was legit scared for my LIFE when I realized how effective that one person could be at killing people and making them think of themselves as the killers. Title still doesnt make any logic sense to me. "O caso dos três negrinhos" if you want to look it up. Negrinhos, as you might be capable of putting together, consists of -inhos as the plural diminutive plus the root negro which is black.
@@IHateNumbersOnNames The original title was the three little *******'s, with the word used in the nursery rhyme that make up one of the clues. as times changed and that word became less acceptable it was changed (by request of christie herself I believe) first to Indians then Soldier Boys, with the title changed to And Then There Were None
@@IHateNumbersOnNames It was original tittle, based on old nursery rhyme. Later it was understandably changed because of implications (to Ten Little Indians, which was later changed again, understandably, to And Then There Was None).
I enjoy Agatha Christie but my problem is that the solution often relies on information not seen by the readers. Sure they are still entertaining but I've always maintained that with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories the clues were there for you and Holmes to see. The man may have believed in fairies but he made a good mystery.
Ace attorney games are interesting, because as much as it is a mystery game, placing you in the role of detective massively turns the structure on its head. You need to be the one putting everything together and keeping an idea of what you think happened.
It's a similar situation to the Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games. My sister pointed out when she was playing Crimes & Punishments that it can be really jarring to hear the characters going "I'm sure /you'll/ have it sorted out in a jiffy," hear Sherlock Holmes, the player character, reply "Yes, I've got most of it solved," and be sitting there having absolutely no idea what is going on, especially in Crimes & Punishments and Devil's Daughter where the developers built a logic web system so you can come to the wrong conclusion and arrest the wrong person for the crime, unlike previous games, which were more linear point and click style.
I also think it's funny how the first game starts by showing you the killer in each case, but then can't even make it to the end of that game before making each intro reveal actually misleading or twisted in some way, and then the devs just kept doing that for pretty much every case from that point onwards.
Bonus points for Sher...Oops, I mean "Herlock Shlomes" actually being a character in The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. (FYI: This version of Sherlock Holmes is seen in the left side of the thumbnail for this very video.)
As a practicing GM, I've designed "who-done-it's"... BECAUSE in a room full of fellow GM's you can't go buy a module and expect everyone to leave their copy alone... Man... Running together a decent mystery is a BITCH on a TTRPG... Don't get me wrong, it's definitely do-able... AND if you can keep things different and entertaining without stretching the "plot-twist" crap too far, you can even keep your Players entertained with chasing down clues and interviewing the witness/suspect pool... BUT you first have to kind of teach EVERYBODY at the Table how to "speak" the language of your private niche in the genre... It almost always has to start simple, because pitching them into the "deep end" gets frustrating and confusing quickly... If the simple version with a short, limited list of suspects and a fairly obvious crime with few "red herrings" can engage them and be fun... THEN you can build up.... BUT never "back to back"... First, it's a fair amount of work to get your sh*t together for a simple crime-solver... keeping the relationships and lies straight on a short list is difficult enough... Get political or open end a crime in a city, and you (The GM) can find yourself in over your head in a heartbeat or so... BUT... keeping a consistent logic and only breaking one or two "rules" occasionally, you can build the logical puzzles as you go. It can even be a great time putting these things together... It just gets complicated, so you can't rush it... and for the love of THE GODS in your Game Setting, don't ever let the Players see your "Storyboard" when you're building! ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 I'm actually doing an investigative arc in my own game, tracking someone down, not exactly a locked room murder, but I'm cheating a bit. I have no idea who or where the person they're looking for is, I'm simply filling in clues wherever they look and putting together the pieces later.
came back to this video after watching some Columbo and I love how small the discrepancies he notices are, like that a killer didn't call out to his wife when he arrived home because he knows she's dead or that a piece of paper is folded a certain way.
Or when someone was poisoned and the guy he was having dinner with the same night showed up for the investigation and Columbo immediately picked up on how weird it was that he didn't go ot the hospital to have his stomach pumped.
Trope suggestion: the “what have I created” trope. (Or the “Made Monster” if you want to be fancy) Basically where a mentor/protagonist teaches a student in something (usually fighting), but the mentors lessons and/or teaching methods are villainous or destructive in nature. The student either reluctantly or blindly accepts these teachings and becomes either a problem to the mentor or a full blown villain because of it. The mentor usually doesn’t realize this until the student destroys something important to the mentor, like injuring their son or friend, upon which the mentor has an “oh shit” moment when they see that they’ve turned their student into a monster and now must stop them from causing more damage by basically undoing their own teachings. Should also mention that this applies to Robots/AI (mostly) made with good intentions, but the instructions that the creator gives it (either directly or indirectly) causes it to be evil. (Ex: the protector AI comes to the conclusion that the best way to “protect earth” is to exterminate all humans) Just something to look into.
One I'd like to see is the hero complex either in a detail diatribe or as a trope talk, we've seen a lot of different ways a hero complex can affect a person and how/if it breaks them
It would be interesting to see the reverse: A mentor's student is actually doing just fine and managing their power responsibly, but the mentor is so paranoid about their students losing control or becoming evil, perhaps because of a past experience, that they assume the worst about their student when something happens.
As Red said, a Mystery needs to be solved and Detectives solve mysteries, and what is a Detective without a mystery to solve. In literature you can not separate the Detective role from the Mystery plot, and if you include a mystery and don't have an actual detective atleast one character will try to solve it filling the detective role. I'm surprised she didn't mention Batman "The World's Greatest Detective", or when authors have characters smarter than the author (something very painful when you realize the "genius" is spouting nonsense).
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a brilliant subversion of a detective story. The audience has no clue what's going on, the detective has no clue what's going on, not even the culprit knows what's going on, and yet, through sheer cosmic chance, they arrive at the correct solution anyway.
Thank fucking God someone else actually watched/read that. I have said for ages that people should look into this series and nobody ever listened. Brilliant series, completely underappreciated.
Columbo is like watching a really good chess match. the opening moves are set, they define the game, the players are always just a bit too close, parry, riposte, but then, as always, that move from 6 turns ago is turned into a check, and after that, the ending scramble to coverup and then mate.
Feel like we glossed over the quirky detective. A detective has a quirk that is key to how they see the world differently that leads to how they find the clues other don't. Monk is the one I always consider because he has so many tics and obsessions he fixates on something everyone would consider minor like how a shirt button is sewn on.
Does Jonathan Creek count? He's noted for his lateral thinking skills, which he uses in his day job as a creative consultant to a magician. When he gets dragged off to solve a mystery, he puts together the clues in ways no one else thinks of.
Most Ace Attorney protagonists fit this! Phoenix has an item that tells him when people are hiding something, Apollo has heightened senses to tell if someone is lying though tells, and Athena has sensitive hearing which allows her to hear the emotions in people's voices when they speak and analyze them.
One of my favorite things where someone uncovers something in Artemis Fowl. In the first book, someone who he had hired tried to spy on him by pretending to be a waiter, but Artemis was just like, 'stop pretending, you have to much expensive stuff to be a waiter', then preceeded to freak the guy out by telling him exactly what he wanted to know without having to be told what the spy wanted to know.
Artemis Fowl is an interesting series to me, because I remember reading it when I was very little, but the only thing I can actually feel like I remember from the series story is the name, something about pixies or something, and a scene involving plasma. Even though it was one of the first “hard” books I read as a kid, or maybe because of it, I simply don’t remember almost anything from it
Detective Conan is a huge fan of the "Of course! It's that person!" narration style, which gets especially hilarious when Conan and Hattori start talking to each other with actual dialogue and still refuse to name the culprit or even use a gendered pronoun
you're correct, but to be fair, Japanese is kind of that way linguistically. A lot of sentences tend to have to topic implied based off of previous things said and what the speaker already knows. Prime example is "ano hito" aka "that person." If the speaker already knows then they won't mention the name again. It would be like using First and Last names every time you talk about someone instead of saying he/she/they
@@shuri Yes, their language is very contextual, you can have an entire conversation without actually telling what are you talking about because both speakers would assumed the other knows what is the matter they are talking.
Almost every Case in DetCo: Conan: Hmmm I know how they did it, but who did it? Secondary characters: *talk about something that has nothing to with the case, like folding laundry or some shit* Conan: Folding laundry...? But of course! Then that means the killer is... that person!!! Over 1000 episodes and you can really tell lol
One way Sherlock Holmes gives you an insight to the way his process is that he will frequently point out certain clues, either by just bringing them up or by telling detectives from the police to focus on them. Probably the best ever example of this is from silver blaze when he comments on the peculiar behaviour of the dog in the night and even agrees that the dog didn’t do anything, pointing out that that was the curious behaviour. If you stop and think it lets you work out part of the solution (if the guard dog didn’t make a fuss and wasn’t drugged then the theft was an inside job) and let you follow Sherlocks thought pattern.
The example of a bad mystery from BBC Sherlock (guy killed by boomerang) is an example of what I call a Yes/No Riddle. It's where the riddler describes a situation ("Romeo and Juliet are lying dead on the floor. Liquid and broken glass surround them. What happened?") and the audience can ask as many questions as they want to try to figure it out, with the caveat that the questions have to be yes or no (So the audience could ask, "is the liquid wine?" but not "What is the liquid?"). Once you have enough information from the riddler you can figure it out. But BBC didn't let us ask any questions, just presented the riddle scenario. Which is problem #11 I have with the BBC show.
I'm so glad you decided to put -Sherlock Holmes- Herlock Sholmes from Ace Attorney series in the thumbnail. They did a really good job of making him enjoyable, smart AND silly and overall a really great character in the games!
I only finished Case 2 of the first game so far, but I like how they made him good at deducing...But also ADHD as hell, and thus fixates on the wrong things sometimes. It's a pretty neat way to have him be useful for solving cases, but not able to instantly solve cases for you.
@@fnjesusfreak Yeah, the author of the Arsène Lupin stories created him because he wanted to include Sherlock Holmes in his stories but (I think)his stories and character were not in public domain yet. In Japan, they still used the name Sherlock in the games as copyright laws are different there but since they would have gotten sued in the west if they used Sherlock Holmes name, because for whatever reason the personality of Sherlock isn't shown until later books, which are still not in public domain. This alongside the fact that the games shows racism (mind you the games don't encourage racism, they are showing how people were racists back then against the Japanese people) made it so that the games never made it to the west until quite recently. The first game in The Great Ace Attorney Duology was released in 2016 in Japan and second game was released in 2018. The reason they choose Herlock sholmes is probably because he is in the public domain but the original Sherlock Holmes with a personality isn't.
One of the reasons I like Sherlock (the books) so much is because of how befuddled poor Watson is most of the time - it lets the audience experience some satisfaction when Watson clearly points out how large of a leap Sherlock makes when he solves a case (or when Watson gets frustrated at Sherlock for not explaining something/learning someone's life history just by the color of their shoes). Through Watson, the audience is able to feel like the author acknowledges how bonkers Sherlock's deductive skills are (and thus they feel mollified). Sir Conan Doyle (the author of the Sherlock Series) also repeatedly tells us how dedicated Sherlock is to his work and the pursuit of justice, which justifies his crazy powers of observation. Sherlock has no life outside of mysteries *on purpose*. He is literally so bored when he's not solving a case that he resorts to drugs, and it's a semi-subplot in the books that Watson is always trying to stop Sherlock from doing drugs by attempting to bring him to mysteries or something similar. By not giving Sherlock a life, Conan Doyle can explore the friendship and Watson and Sherlock have which is always written very well. There are very few bromances as strong as Watson and Sherlock, and the two rub off on and foil each other in interesting ways (Watson is sentimental, Sherlock is calculating, Watson has a family, Sherlock doesn't see his brother as much more than an acquaintance [that's just what I felt when reading the Canon books]). Eventually, by the end of the book, Sherlock is clearly characterized as more emotional (albeit in a very small way) and Watson becomes much more deductive and logical, which implies the strength of their bond. that's why a good mystery with Sherlock Holmes in it can be really hard to write. Sherlock is pretty darn hard to write well, and Watson's voice is difficult to capture like how he was in the original book series. Their friendship is probably the simplest to write, but it's always in the background to the mystery, which is the most important part of any Sherlock Holmes novel. The mystery has to be fantastic (to pique Sherlock's interest), has to be unique (to get the audience invested), and also has to give the audience enough clues to solve it or at least enjoy it (which is VERY difficult, even the original books sometimes leave like no clues). That's why many Sherlock books/media now just focus on the man, Sherlock himself, and his friendship/sometimes love interest, Watson. Mysteries are hard to write for sure, but a good mystery characterizes the detective and a better one lets us sympathize or even lets us see a glimpse of the detective's life outside of mysteries, whether they have a real one or not.
@@tricolormcclellan2942 Now see, I thought the exact same thing. With all the commenting it must have just slipped my mind. But then I noticed something, something very strange. You see, way back when Colombo was created, way back when the character was brand new, himbo wasn't a term. Y'see, I know, because I checked. Did you know that the first known usage of the word Himbo was in 1988? I thought that was interesting. Very, very interesting. So, that must mean, even if Colombo had been a Himbo, no one would have CALLED him a Himbo. You know what I think @Tricolor McClellan, I think you knew that. I think you thought no one would notice, but you see, the one thing you forgot about @Tricolor McClellan, the one slip you made, is assuming I know who Dick Gumshoe is. Can you explain that @Tricolor McClellan? For the life of me, I cannot think of a single solitary way to explain that. My wife says I should play more AA, and maybe she's right. I don't know @Tricolor McClellan, but that sure was a clever false equivalence. A very clever false equivalence. Can I ask you something? Where did you get the idea? I never in a million years would have thought of something like that.
J. Michael Straczynski has a quote about when he wrote for "Murder, She Wrote" - When you give the last clue, 80% of the audience needs to figure it out then, 10% already guessed it, and 10% won't understand it even after the credits roll.
I feel like the “who” shouldn’t always be the climax of the story, it’s more interesting for that to be revealed closer to the end of the rising action with the “why” being more climactic
Columbo, Death Note, and Ace Attorney come to mind - the first two we see the culprit the whole time and Columbo/L/Near finding things out about the culprit of the week/Light are the real drama, while in most Ace Attorney cases we either see who the culprit was before Phoenix does or we find out sometime after the first day of the trial lol
I adore Father Brown as a detective because when he solves the mystery, he often pleads with the murderer or thief to confess and repent. His denouement style is so very different and satisfying. And then there's Monk. Need I say more?
YES. My mom loves Father Brown because he's more focused on their immortal soul and morality than just catching them. And I ADORE Monk because I also have anxiety and it's...so freaking accurate.
Two of my favorite detective twists came from Agatha Christie: The time EVERY suspect was actually guilty and the time the first person narrator was the murderer.
Because the mysteries didn't have that much impact on the popularity of Sherlock and he was also head-running Doctor Who at the height of its international popularity at the time. --- I mean, Steven Moffat's not a bad writer, he's just not a good mystery writer. Frankly, I'd say one of the two major problems with Sherlock was that he and Gatiss thought they didn't have to care about the mystery aspect of this detective story, wanting to write a drama with the characters instead, and didn't think through the repercussions of that genre shift. It's other major problem being that nobody gave that series the time it needed to actually work, it was the side project of a lot of increasingly busy people and probably shouldn't have been greenlit while Moff was still heading Doctor Who. --- Sorry for going off, I have a lot of feelings about this subject.
@@BacchaeOphanim the problem was that Moffat threw away the simple formula of "supply clues, throw in red herring, solve mystery neatly" that made the series so accessible for a "the mysteries don't matter he's a mega genius, look his so cool he makes the lesbian villain straight and the gay villain crazy". The idea of Sherlock was creating and solving unrelated mysteries and Moffat flipped it into an overly complicated character drama. -- don't worry I love your comment
One detective show I like a lot is the Castle series, purely because it's so different from what I'd known until I found out about it. The detective is just a little too rigid and straight-forward - she's focused on the case, and capable of asking the right questions, but she's not always capable of putting the pieces together. The writer with a vivid imagination, on the other hand, starts throwing out unlikely hypotheses even with zero evidence, but eventually hits on something that makes sense purely because he's not afraid of putting his ideas out there even though they may sound ridiculous.
I enjoy the psych series because the main character is forced to make his logical deductions sound like psychic premonitions and use the fact that people think he is an idiot and a quack to glean information that they wouldn't have given to the police. It is also great that he isn't alone, his assistant gus often is the source of information, Shawn can glean information and make crazy spot on deductions but it's all useless without someone who can tell him what that info means.
What makes Columbo stand out so much is the simple fact that 9 times out of 10, Columbo already knew who the killer was from the minute he walked into the room. I think that's the reason the story shows you everything from the beginning; we and the detective are on equal terms of information, and all he needs to do is figure out how to prove they did it.
Columbo has one psychic ability: he can identify a murderer the instant he sees one. He was confused in the episode when the murderer had forgotten they'd done it.
I have a similar issue with reading mysteries that she does, and honestly that's part of why Ace Attorney is a series I belove so much. It completely reverses a lot of the definitions and issues here. I'm not good at puzzles and I don't like it when the detective is smarter than me. AA is a video game; YOU are the detective, and so the philosophy the writers have to take with their mysteries is fundamentally different. There is no one secret last piece of info the "detective" has that you don't when you ARE the detective. Instead, that last piece of info is either given to you last, or it was right in front of you the whole time but you're only given context at the end. Side characters can also point things out or the pc might interpret evidence you presented differently than you thought they would, but ultimately, you don't get shown up and feel like an idiot at the end. If you get lost, if you can't piece things together, the story simply doesn't progress. Another thing in this video that makes me think of Ace Attorney: what you say at the end about how detectives and mysteries are inextricable to one-another. There's a key distinction between A detective and THE detective. In AA you're always playing as a lawyer but there's no question that you're still the detective. Real detective characters like Gumshoe, Bobby, Herlock (hey he's in your thumbnail, nice!), etc are A detective, but they aren't THE detective. A Detective™ character is defined by the mystery (and their role within it and the narrative), not by their job title.
Mysteries are an exercise in something I always say about writing: "Tell your audience everything they need to know, but tell them _only_ what they need to know."
Honestly one of the reasons I fell in love with the show “Castle” as a child was because Castle was viewing all of the mysteries from a writer’s perspective. Human beings write fake crimes all the time and it’s the same point of logic as someone actually planning out and committing a crime. It was a nice subversion of tropes and also really got me into the concept of meta-storytelling done right! The show is pretty one note throughout most of the seasons with the inevitable “power-creep” in terms of stakes, but at least check out the first 2 seasons just for Nathan Fillion being awesome!
Castle deserves special mention for how many of the definitions Red puts forward it violates. The "detective" castle is very much a character, heck the whole show. And the way he puts things together is explained, usually hilariously wrong. And and the show loves troupes, and is always inverting and messing with them.
@@danielsellers5800 Totally agree! This show really helped me learn at a young age in stories to be self-aware of tropes! It was actually “educational” in a weird sense for becoming a storyteller myself! I’m sure you feel the same!
You may enjoy a 70s show called The Ellery Queen Mysteries then! In it, Ellery Queen solves the mysteries even though he's a novelist because his dad is chief of police and calls on him to help out. I thought it was a really fun show and was sad that Red didn't bring it up since it also has the character showing aspects of their personal life outside of solving mysteries, just like Castle does. (For the record, I love Castle as well. Nathan Fillion is GOLD)
Columbo is such an interesting show because it appeared during a time where Whodunnit fiction was super popular, but Columbo dared to put the formula on it's head
I always felt bad for detectives who kept solving murders when that wasn't their job. In Murder She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher is constantly travelling around visiting friends or promoting her books but no matter where she goes she runs into a murder that she has to solve. I started to wonder if her character ever thought she was cursed, because she wasn't looking for crimes to figure out!
I saw a theory at one point that she's some sort of psychopomp, unknowingly connected to death, so killers are drawn to her area and vice versa. Or that she's a serial killer and all the people she helps catch are just frame jobs
In the manga detective Conan side characters repeatedly ask the two main “detectives” if they are cursed or secretly the grim reaper due to how many murders they manage to inexplicably come across while just living their lives or while investigating cases that should be simple lost item cases or some other mundane matters
This is the reason why at some point i will write a fantasy detective story where the macrostory will be about the fact that the detectives suspect the protagonist is persecuted by a grim reaper figure of sorts.
Ironically, Sherlock himself is a sherlock-alike, because the archetype was not created by Arthur Conan Doyle, but Edgar Allan Poe. Poe did it first, but Doyle did it right.
I love Persona 4 as one of those examples of detectives with their own lives going on. Some days you’re trying to solve the gruesome murders and the presence behind the Fog, others you’re just hanging out with friends and getting involved with what they’re going through in life.
The best dénouement ever was that time Sherlock Holmes found a stolen precious gem for some rich dude and when the dude came back for his gem, Holmes pranked him by putting it in his pocket.
I love one particularly interesting subversion of first person detective stories is the Jim Butcher authored Dresden Files. Dresden doesn't put all the pieces together until either just before or as the eleventh hour begins. So we can put the reveal together before that but it also allows us the same shock when Dresden gets blindsided by a twist. We can then look back and go, "Oh! That's what I missed that makes it make sense."
You should do a follow up where you talk about the show "Psych." It's interesting how the show engages with the various elements you explored here and how they subvert things like detective's life outside work and personality.
@@visibleconfusion782 I've been rewatching it 10 years later. Still holds up, 10/10 comedy, bro-ship, and pineapples. (It's all on Amazon) [Except the movies and the musical]
I’m writing a mystery story where each of the main characters are killed off throughout the story, the suspect pool gets shorter and shorter until the final reveal at the end of what actually happened but it’s not the obvious answer, it’s like my favourite Agatha Christie story (and then there were none) with a fun twist
As someone who is also doing that, mainly inspired by the great Pokemon fanfic Unova Mansion which itself was inspired by And Then There Were None, it sure is a fun kind of story. Dwindling casts are great.
As a Private Detective with more than 30 years in the business I have to say spot on you nailed it and with style and fun. Please keep up the great work.
On the point of unguessable solutions, there was one very interesting instance in a Dresden Files book. Without spoiling much, one of the critical plot elements is revealed when one of Harry's friends asks about a regular element of the book series so far, and both Harry and the audience realise that particular element *hasn't been mentioned in this book at all and should be conspicuous by its absence.* It was *damn* clever.
It’s an unguessable solution if you’re just starting the series with this book for some reason. But if you’re familiar with it - as most would likely be if they’re reading book 10 - then you probably had the same reaction I did at that point; slapping your own forehead and asking yourself why you didn’t notice that earlier.
Your description of me (type 1) was rather accurate, and I found no weak points. Lovely video covering my favorite archetype (and activity). A genre that used to be just a 100 years or less ago was on top of the world, but doesn't quite get the same love these days (due to the reasons you pointed out!). I am happy seeing it get the coverage it deserves again, in a quality fashion. Though I must confess I am sad I saw no Detective Conan (anime) mentions/examples :(. The entirety of the series and show is actually a series of linked (an unlinked aka filler) cases that are individually solvable with clues listed at the end of the episode. I think it's great for beginner mystery fans to get into, and the dialogue is quality. Conan fits the second stereotype, but interestingly when doing his reveals has to do them through another characters voice (because he's a kid and has a voice changer lol). Also following his deductions, he will begin to psychologically break down the criminal AFTER they admit guilt. A rather brutal example of #2.
Poirot was always my personal favorite detective. The actor who played him in the BBC series, David Suchet, brought such a life to the character. He was fastidious, humorous, and very engaging. His talk of "the little gray cells" when referring to his thought process made him feel almost poetic at times. And though he acts pompous, in the first episode "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook", he actually showed a bit of development right off to give him some humility. To keep spoilers to a minimum, he initially declines to take the case, thinking it beneath such a famous detective as himself. After he shows interest and then is waved off, he's actually given a check for a single guinea (roughly one pound) for 'consulting' and later has it framed. As he says "It is to me, Hastings, a little reminder never to despise the trivial, hein, but the undignified. A disappearing domestic at one end, a cold-blooded murder at the other."
You almost had me, Red. You nearly got away with it all, but the truth always comes out eventually. I finally figured out the missing piece when you made _one_ critical mistake. _One_ small slip-up! At 13:28 on the night of the murder, you used an un-Yoshi'd F-bomb. That directly links you to the scene of the crime despite your so-called "airtight" alibi. *You're going to jail for a long time after such a heinous act.*
My favourite murder mystery sub-genre: Clergy Mysteries. I’m not at all religious, but something about these “straight and narrow” archetypes sleuthing around and getting into trouble with the real authorities is just fun.
@@rodlurks66 He's the first one I'd think of. The monk who lived a varied and fascinating life before taking his vows, who saw the world on the Crusades, who learned herbal lore from several cultures, and then retired to pray and grow herbs and treat the sick and injured. And solve mysteries. ;-)
Im actually really happy you brought up Columbo, hes legitimately my favorite type of detective. I belive the terminology id use for him is "Disarmingly aloof." Asking all sorts of questions most people wouldnt, or just dobt feel comfortable with asking outright, and all with the air of a friendly face and a genuine curiosity is what really sets him apart from most other detectives
I love how danganronpa handles detectives by making the detective the main character. It allows you to get all the clues, but get what you need to completely solve the mystery during the trial. The minigames used in the trials make it feel less like you're watching a mystery being solved and more like you're solving it yourself which is really rewarding even if your favorite character dies immediately afterwards.
It's not just that. Arguably every single character (besides the obvious) are detectives, just of varying skill levels. Every single character is investigating the scene, and the facts, in order to draw their own conclusions about the case.
@@Superflaming85 agreed, and oftentimes the best of those detectives are the antagonists (Byakuya, Nagito, etc.) So you have to drill the information out of their unpickable lock of a skull
Truth be told, I was introduced to Columbo by someone making a mockup of a Columbo character info. page as if he was in Final Fantasy X and investigating Maester Seymour. Was incredibly well done and I wanted to learn more... which I did by watching the series. A truly worthwhile time investment.
What's fun is when you have multiple different detective types interacting with each other. I highly recommend the classic mystery comedy "Murder By Death". The premise is that non-trademark-infringing parodies of Hercule Poirot, Jessica Marple, Nick and Nora Charles, Sam Spade (played by Peter Falk), and Charlie Chan are all invited by an eccentric millionaire (played by Truman Capote) to his mansion, complete with blind butler and deaf-mute cook, for "dinner and a murder."
I love Columbo. Earlier episodes have things like car phones, or answering machines being so rare and unheard of that they're used as the main alibi for the killer, to a point where everyone's using both.
That's one reason I love eldrich horror with a detective lead. You figure things out with the character and even once things are figured out (aka the evil cult is revealed) the story isn't over
I'd love a part 2 of this where you focus more on the mysteries. How they typically work, why the detective character is so essential (and what it's like if they're hypothetically absent) and why the nature of mysteries make the detective and the mystery inseparable.
I second this, but i assume the answer to why mysteries and detectives are inseparable is: Mysteries need to be solved otherwise what is the point? (Probably something dor the audience to think on but still) Mysteries are solved by "The Detective" character role as described by Red. "The Detective" role only exists to solve mysteries, otherwise they are currently something else. (Like Detective Allen being a Father to the Flash, in that moment he isn't being a detective he is filling the role of Mentor [without dieing from it]) Hence a Detective doesn't exist without a Mystery to be solving and a Mystery remains unsolved without a Detective. And if you include a mystery in your story it should be solved by literary tradition.
@@willd1790 Actually fun fact, Herlock Sholmes is an actual copyrighted character from author Maurice LeBlanc in 1908. He is from his Arsene Lupin book series and was created because LeBlanc wanted his main character to go against Sherlock Holmes, but also couldn’t do it because of copyright. And if the name Arsene Lupin sounds familiar that’s because he is canonically the grandfather of Lupin the third.
@5:16 - love that the video example here is Evil Under the Sun, easily my favourite Poirot story in any medium, and basically the codifier of all the multilevel "wheels within wheels" style mysteries that involve complicated murder plots revolving around perfectly timed chicanery and elaborate false alibis and red herrings, and where the location (a beachside hotel on an isolated island cut off from the mainland and with lots of windy pathways, blindspots and cliffs) is as much a character/element of the plot as the victims and killer; Rian Johnson took a lot of inspiration from it for Knives Out.
There's a line in Gone Tomorrow, one of the Jack Reacher novels, which is written in the first person, where Reacher's internal monologue says something to the effect of, "And that's when I knew everything I was ever going to know." I love that so much. It's such an interesting way to present a first-person narrative. /Reacher/ has figured it out, but the /audience/ hasn't yet. Lee Child's ability to instinctively know what to tell the audience, especially when writing in the first person, is why he's a master.
@@inquisitorbenediktanders3142 nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! -yeah I know you were making a Warhammer reference, but eh, Monty Python's flying Circus is a classic-
My favorite thing about Columbo is that Columbo himself is an enigma. We never know how many of those anecdotes actually happened or if he made them up to make the criminals lower their guards.
just wanna point out, Columbo's dog has a name; it's Dog. He said in one ep that it never comes when called anyway, so he just calls it Dog. Considering it's a Basset Hound, perfectly understandable.
The episode of Columbo you used in regards to a solved mystery with no victory was the most apt example of that situation. That episode broke my heart and I think the writers putting in the marksmanship exam subplot was the perfect balance to the tragedy. This is a wonderful episode, thank you so much.
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My very favourite Miss Marple quote “policemen asking questions are being policemen, but little old ladies asking questions are just being little old ladies.“
I am being humble when I am telling you that I am the most powerful strongest coolest smartest most famous greatest funniest Y*uTub3r of all time! That's the reason I have multiple girlfriends and I show them off all the time! Bye bye ev
I don't really remember the exact quote, but it's close to "Your problem is you believe people. I haven't done that for a long time." It just hit me as true and surprising at the same time. A long time ago.
"People with a grudge against the world are always dangerous. They seem to think life owes them something. I've known many an invalid who has suffered worse and been cut off from life much more . . . and they've managed to lead happy contented lives. It's what's in yourself that makes you happy or unhappy."
- From 'A Murder is Announced'
Oh my goodness I love that! 🤣😂😅
same concept goes for father brown
My favorite description of Columbo: it's not a "whodunit", but a "howcatchem".
I want to spread the phrase "who-has-done-this", because, in the words of former Captain Raymond Holt of the NYPD's 99th Precinct, "'whodunnit' is a grammatical abomination".
@@louisduarte8763 yeah but "who-has-done-this" really doesn't come close to rolling off the tongue the way "Whodunnit" does
Turns out the answer was “With a net trap.”
@@louisduarte8763 who cares, Grammar is made up
True. Absolutely love Columbo
Red: "Almost always British"
Hercule Poirot: "Actually, Belgian"
I'm not a Frenchie. I'm a Belgie. - from Murder By Death
“Almost always”
Batman:"Actually, American"
She did say "almost"
C Auguste Dupin: "He's very much a Parisien Frenchman."
"Reality is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense."
Looks at year.
2021. Checks out.
Truth is stranger than friction.
Jimmy Durante
"If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
That and there are a lot of factors in real life like laws, the accused’s civil rights, the limits of technology, and the way things actually work IRL that conveniently get skipped over by a lot of writers
@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 And also in real life, the good guys don't always win, sadly.
Sherlock: It was a Boomerang.
hbomberguy: heavy breathing.
underrated
A FUCKING BOOMERANG DID IT?!?
Delicious E G G
I understood that reference
I legitimately watched that video just this morning
Fun Fact: We actually do know Columbo's first name. Though we never hear anyone actually say his name, one of the TV movies has Columbo get pulled over by a police officer, who asks for his license, and from the brief glimpse of his driver's license we can see that his name is Frank Columbo.
Honestly, he looks like a Frank.
Yep, and it was also in the episode _Dead Weight_ where Columbo shows his badge to guest star Eddie Albert.
He has an actual first name? Wow!
Rarely Columbo explain why the person did it.
To be frank, he's Frank
Frank is a virtue name for honest so it fits for both ironic and earnest reasons, nice.
Also fun: a "detective" need not be a detective. House MD is a very classic Holmes-a-like.
Down to the drug addiction and the best/only friend Dr. Wilson
Lmao does MD stand for Medical Detective because that's literally what House is(Isn't the medically accurate abbreviations for MD 'doctor of medicine"?)
This discussion got me thinking about whether "House" counts as a mystery show. I think it fails on the basis of, the audience can't possibly figure out that (for example) the woman's kidney is not properly tethered to her other innards and that's why she keeps passing out. At most you can pick up on some clues and recognize them as such, without knowing what to do with them.
So I guess the deal with "House" is, we love to see the mechanics of solving the "crime" without caring too much about solving it ourselves. Something else that "House" brings to the table is, House is always under serious time constraints, because if he doesn't figure things out quickly, the patient dies. So it's about preventing a death rather than solving one.
So, "House" definitely uses a lot of the same mechanisms as detectives, but is also fundamentally a thing apart.
Also, I have to say, I really get sick of the other doctors saying stuff like "House is only in it for the mystery" or "the worst thing in the world would be to turn into House". To be sure he's a bitter jerk, but he's also a bitter jerk who is motivated to solve cases exactly because it saves lives, and I see that as a lot more laudable than his coworkers give him credit for. There's an early episode where House is contrasting himself against Foreman's old mentor, who is a "follow standard practices and so what if the patient dies" doctor that House can't stand. House says of him: "He thinks you do your job, and what will be will be. I think that what I do and what you do matters. He sleeps better at night. He shouldn't."
@@kingbeauregard Good point, HOUSE MD is a medical drama, not a mystery show. That said, I'd still consider the character of Gregory House to be a "detective"-style character, even if what he does isn't solving murder mysteries but medical mysteries.
Holmes’ deductive style is based on one of Doyle’s medical school professors, so making House a Sherlockalike is a return to the original.
Some of my favourite Sherlock Holmes moments is when Holmes is wrong for the right reasons. Where his deductions make sense with the clues he has, but he's still wrong. I really like it when the detective is wrong and makes perfect sense why they are wrong.
Absolutely true. Having a smart character get the wrong answer because their information is faulty is such a realistic thing, and it can lead to some great drama. Especially when we as the audience can see and understand exactly why that was the best conclusion they could have come to at the time.
Not sure if you read Ellery Queen too; even that series went through a transformation after a certain point. When the title character went through a case where he was constantly manipulated by the culprit's fake planted clues, and in later books learned to keep the summations to himself until he was 100% sure.
I like the ones where the criminal isn’t actually a bad person, just someone who got caught up and are over their heads.
I loved reading "Trent's Last Case" exactly because of that.
You'd love The Great Ace Attorney's take on the character, then. Very nearly all of "Herlock Sholmes"'s deductions are convoluted and downright absurd (like suggesting the reason an apartment is in disarray is because a lion stormed through it), but are just barely sensible enough that you can see how he got there.
I want a first person detective story where the detective figures it out, tells everyone how it happened and is totally confident. But he's just...wrong. every time. The big reveal is just the villain going, "No you, idiot! *I'M* the murderer!"
It would be better if someone in the room says, "You can't be right, because you missed THIS fact! Then she corrects the great detective."
Wel that’s kind of like what Jake peralta from Brooklyn 99 did when he purposely said the wrong thing to get the murder to say he was wrong and confess to the crime
Clouseau? Dirk Gently? I feel like they have those moments but I can't remember a specific scene
Kinda reminds me of “Knifes Out”.
That would be a really fun satire 😂
I feel like the Arsene Lupin stories should have gotten a mention here, because they are ALL ABOUT trope subversion. Many of them are actually structured like mysteries, just as a "howdunnit" rather than a "whodunnit" since Lupin is always the who. But they still play the game with the reader to guess how it happened before the final reveal of Lupin's method. That he's (often) the one telling his own story, and an unreliable narrator, introduces even more fun twists on the formula.
In a way that kind of reminds me of Carmen Sandiago as well.
Sometime we forget the Lupin trope that also could count as Detective trope as we try to figure how the Lupin do their stealing like Kaitou Kid and Kaitou Joker
That sounds really interesting. Thanks for mentioning it.
@@BigKlingy well one was inspired by the other
I don't know. I liked his grandson better.
“If the writer sets up a mystery without actually knowing the secret beforehand the story won’t hold together as well.”
Shows a snippet of Palpatine.
Never change, red. XD
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery, just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
That's why I don't care for the Sherlock TV show. We're not solving the mystery, just watching Sherlock show off how smart he is. I mean it can be entertaining but I'll take Basil Rathbone any day.
As the detective, sometimes you put everything together, and sometimes you forget to tell anyone about the updated autopsy report.
Ugh, I'm still seething about the goddamn autopsy report.
“What do you mean you had an UPDATED autopsy report???”
It's a kangaroo court
@@missrebel634 And you still haven't try get info from talking to one yet
…Miles edgeworth that you?
Is this Red's excuse to talk about Columbo and the new Ace Attorney game?
If so, I am perfectly okay with that.
Well, she talks about one of those things.
Ace Attorney Sherlock is best Sherlock and I am prepared to die on this hill (maybe I’d be swayed if I find somewhere to watch Moriarity the Patriot)
AA never gets mentioned, unfortunately. But I'm 70% sure it's what brought Detectives to her attention.
Then I shall do the other!
Herlock Sholmes, the detective at the heart of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, is not simply a Holmes-like detective, but is supposed to be him. However, despite his careful eye for witness reactions and forensic evidence, he makes mistakes, and follows those mistakes through like his life depends on them, letting the player character nudge his deductions back on track. This culminates in the final case where the player character is finally in-tune with Sholmes to a degree where he doesn't even make wild guesses, he just points out the clue in the reaction and you find the answer from there, finally dancing the dance Sholmes has for so long been soloing.
@@liamwhite3522 I do like the theory that sholmes never actually gets anything wrong, he’s just training the player character
“If someone writes a mystery without knowing the answer the story won’t hold together as well (cut to Palpatine”
I LAUGHED OUT LOUD AT 1:33AM AND WOKE MY ROOMMATE
Oh, now I regret turning this on for background listening!
Rey would've have been an equally relevant and just as painful reference. Confound mystery boxes with nothing inside them.
Time stamp? I always listen to these while doing something else LOL
Omfg. That guy.
"Somehow...Plapatine's returned."
@@spinningninja2 thats a risky choice considering how much visual humor Red&Blue use, like the speech bubbles being all "Am I a bad person"~Johnny Snake Shoulders to his human brain eating shoulder snakes.
Columbo was always my favorite.
I've taken his usual "Oh, by the way..." deliveries for personal usage, and sure enough, they catch people totally off guard.
"Just one more thing, please..."
"I was wondering, doctor/sir/madam...."
In the TV shows, DCI Vera Stanhope always has a moment where she shows up like a bad penny, when the prime suspect or worst character least wants to see them, and she's always waiting at their destination, and she smiles and gives a little wave.
This trope talk makes me appreciate Knives Out even more. It starts out as a typical who-done-it with the director leaving clues for the audience and then subverting it by telling us who did it and making the focus of the story “now can they get away with it?” The final plot twist bringing it right back to the who-done-it is just *chefs kiss*
I was thinking of Knives Out during the video and was a little sad it never appeared.
@@absoul112 Same! The whole time I was like, “She’s gonna bring up Knives Out, right? Oh no, maybe she isn’t.”
It should be a criminal offence to talk about detectives and mysteries and NOT ONCE bring up Knives Out
Even in the beginning its different
It start with the death, and then introduces us to the suspects while theyre being interigated
YES! Knives Out is fantastic!
Sherlock: "I deduced that based on the shoe size and the wet ground and the fact that this bird shit is slightly interrupted that it the gun had to be held at roughly five feet from the ground, which narrows the candidates down to three people. Now, based on the current wind speed..."
Marv: "When I want to know something I just find someone who knows more than I do and ask. Sometimes I ask pretty hard."
Columbo: "I saw the whole murder from a nearby bush and spent the last hour and a half messing with you lmao"
Phoenix Wright: “Now I don’t know who did it, but I know for sure that the defendant couldn’t have and I’m gonna pull whatever I need to outta my ass about every detail until the moment we find out who!”
Other problem with that Sherlock scenario: an apparent crime scene with no immediately visible murder weapon.... the police magically don't decide to expand their search to include the surrounding area?
I remember the episode that legitimately claimed "Oh the guy didn't notice the 6-inch blade being jammed into his liver because... uuhhhhh... his belt was really tight? And then the same belt acted as a tourniquet and that's why he bled out in a safe location, cuz that's when he took off the belt and started bleeding. Yeah that makes sense."
@justafurrywithinternet317 The crazier thing is that happened in real life! In 1898, Empress Elisabeth of Austria was stabbed with a thin blade but didn't notice because her corset was so tight. She thought a man just bumped into her and proceeded to walk about 100 yards before collapsing.
@@snes90the terror I would feel as that man as she walks around as if nothing happened despite having stabbed her oml
YES. Sherlock is a prime example of reality being sidelined for a subpar plot.
I don't like the BBC Sherlock like every other person with a bit of taste does too, buuuut I do have to give it that the Police being dumb is also a major thing in the original...
There’s also the Kid Detective, who are generally smarter than any experienced adults and able to solve the mystery even though they shouldn’t be in such a dangerous area.
Partly, the kid detective exists as wish fulfillment fantasy on the part of child audiences, who like the idea of a kid who outsmarts adults. But there can be truth in this trope. Adults tend to be set in their ways, and have highly developed - one could say "calcified" - ways of thinking and looking at the world. They also have a habit of trusting people they've known for years, and thus being unwilling to believe those people who actually be nefarious. All this is to say that while adults know a lot more than kids in general due to life experience, this life experience and the general effects of getting old means they develop blind spots. Some possible explanations may be literally possible for an adult to consider, let alone believe is true.
Moreover, adults tend to be busy with "adult stuff", like jobs or engaging with social niceties/decorum. And they're larger and more noticeable, so they end up not being able to go to places or observe unseen that a kid can. The child detective often discovers clues an adult would miss because they're big and draw attention by their presence, while children are smaller and beneath the notice of villainous characters (who, to their detriment, discount the ability of children as much as other adult characters, at least until they need to create danger in the narrative by realizing the kid is on to them).
@@Bluecho4 On a related note, a lot of scientists, especially engineers, will bring in lay people with no experience in the sciences to help them solve problems because sometimes it's useful to have fresh eyes with no particular biases for that subject look at it.
I think kid detectives are a subtrope of Amateur Detectives, since anyone who isn't a Professional Detective or Private Detective (these make up the three kinds of Detective for me) will seem to know and do things in solving the mystery that they probably wouldn't/shouldn't in real life.
L anyone?
@@SuperSongbird21 I totally agree with this, and I also think they fit into a similar subtype as most Agatha Christie heroes, which I like to think of as the “unlikely” or “unassuming” detective. Red touched on this with Ms. Marple and Columbo, but many detective characters are people that society overlooks, underestimates, and talks over a lot, such as little old ladies (Marple) or immigrants (Poirot).
I loved kid detectives when I was a child, because every kid knows the bittersweet mixture of thrill and disappointment when you learn something new, but no one takes you seriously. I think the best written kid detectives are the ones who use their “invisibility” to their advantage!
It is insanely funny to me that The Great Ace Attorney's "Herlock Sholmes" is essentially the embodiment of this entire video and the concept of a Holmes-alike, and all that in a single fell swoop of his own narrative/gameplay gimmick.
His method is both forensic and psychological, he directly narrates his thinking and solving of the case bombastically while also prompting the individuals under scrutiny to react to it to reveal more and he presents the findings to a crowd of startled onlookers who are often involved with the entire ordeal and then some.
AND THEN, his findings not only are very useful and defy the rules of the era the narrative takes place in, but they're also SCUFFED AS HELL, because Herlock doesn't necessarily chase the truth, he chases the most theatrical and shocking truth he can muster with his deductive and investigative abilities, leaving holes for the viewer (player) to fill up by following his train of thought and correcting the course of his thinking to something more realistic. And while he's not always happy to have his deductions torn down, he rejoices at a chance to work with someone like the main character on fixing his logic to eventually arrive at a satisfying conclusion.
It's a Sherlock that emphasizes how the theatrics of a character like himself would be detrimental to an actual investigative process and it gives the Watson (in this case the player/reader) a reason to engage with the deductions and findings to not break down his logic but help it arrive at a true conclusion. It shows that Watson, both as an archetype and as a character, is inseparable from the Sherlock in the way that he's a partner, one half of the whole, that can actually improve the story by having a tangible influence or a say in the matter, beyond just being the POV character.
...play The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. I promise you'll like it if you like mystery novels.
P.S. Brave of you to use Sholmes on the thumbnail and not mention him in the video, OSP crew. [insert "character will remember that" meme here]
It's implied at the end of the second game that the "off the hook" deductions Sholmes makes on his Logic and Reasoning spectacular are on purpose, to teach Runo the power of observation and get to the truth on his own. He actually stops fucking around in that last investigation scene with "Watson" (not gonna say their actual name) because they are on a time limit.
Plus, his character and the characters connect to him (his "Watsons") are integral to the story and part of the mystery themselves. It also adds to his personality by making him a father figure to Iris, which also drives his reason to work in order to feed and house a little girl.
so happy when i saw tgaa in the thumbnail but no mention or people talking about it in the comments :(( the aa games are my favourite types of detective games and i love herlock
I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE THIS COMMENT THANK YOU Please play The Great Ace Attorney chronicles you won't regret it, and I agree that Sherlock's unhinged deductions are mostly for Ryuu to work out the mystery himself, as he gets it wrong on purpose. Love the guy
I admit, when I first saw his name I thought 'but Sherlock is Public Domain, why are they doing this rename' but playing the game made me realise why that he is more of a parody
@@TheBT no, in the original Japanese version of the game, he's Sherlock Holmes. For the English localization, he had to be given a "different" name to get past copyright law. This is because there are still a few original Holmes stories not in the public domain, and the Conan Doyle Estate is notorious for cracking down on any stories and reimaginings showing Holmes as emotional or having personal growth like only those later mysteries do. (They need to get their royalties SOMEHOW, right?). I believe the most recent time the Doyle Estate went after someone was the recent Netflix Enola Holmes film that came out last year since Henry Cavill's Holmes shows affection for his titularly named little sister Enola.
Despite having a detective in the game, Ace Attorney always has the detective role be filled by somebody who has no clue what’s going on, so the detective perspective works well enough
Yeah, while listening to this video, I started to think that honestly the Ace Attorney games are more like detective games than courtroom games. Phoenix Wright does more detective work than the actual detectives lmao
On a related note, for a video with Herlock Sholmes in the thumbnail, I was mildly disappointed in the lack of Ace Attorney references in the video
And as it happens, Phoenix and his fellow lawyers of the Wright Anything Agency are VERY good at knowing nothing, lest we forget Phoenix successfully getting a not guilty verdict while recovering from head injury induced amnesia, or mounting the first successful defence in recent history for a totally different country’s legal system lol
@@anewhero1216 Phoenix Wright: The "Fuck it, we ball" of lawyers.
Mildly disappointed that the "cozy" detective character trope didn't get a more prominent examination. Little old ladies, sure, but there are other forms of cozy detectives-for example, a lot of Children's/Teen mystery stories feature detective characters that fall into the cozy trope.
Or the group of teens/children who figure it out like Scooby do or The Five
The investigators?
@@ananyasaxena82 could be. It's this group of teens (and their dog) who investigate and stumble upon all kinds of crimes. Where I live it was called the five.
@@dandelion_16 I meant the show inbestigators the netflix show. But that definitely is one and also maybe trixie belden.
@@ananyasaxena82 I had to go look that one up, and will probably look into it a little more later. When you also mentioned Trixie Belden, I thought the show might be an updated version of The Three Investigators, which I believe were written about the same time frame. It was an interesting set of books, three boys who actively looked for mysteries to solve, and even had their own secret "hideout"... a small mobile home (or Airstream type trailer) buried in a junkyard.
I’d love to see a Troupe Talk on “characters that are invisible to everyone except the protagonist”
You mean ghosts?
Ryuk be like
Yeah, only the protagonist that can get to know with the introverted/shy one in the group. Because why? Because the protagonist is special, they're more sensible. I sick toward that trope.
@@valhatan3907 I think Gemm means literaly invisible, like magical creatures that only some people can see, familiars, etc...
@@joanagomes1898 owh ... I thought they means metaphorical "invincible"
If Columbo was in Death Note, the series would have ended in just one volume.
Yeah, Columbo is basically a hard-counter to Kira. Nobody knows his full name and he's specialized in catching killers with big egos by having them underestimate him.
"My name isn't liutanent."
Get your Magnifying glasses and best film noir impressions ready everyone!
Queue the Meyhem Lauren voice
@@zanka53 Found my Deer Stalker cap!
"Sometimes I let matches burn down in my fingers just to feel something, anything! . . . Aw."
Litterally went to go find my magnifying glass and couldn't find it. It's my special style of detective work you see... Step 1: You let your enemy underestimate you by being very unobservant, Step 2: You accedentally bring in the wrong man, Step 3: Wait wh-
This dame was nothing but gams
*Fun Fact:* The author of _Sherlock Holmes,_ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, played on the same cricket team as the _Peter Pan_ author, J.M. Barrie.
He was also commissioned to write “the sign of four” a Sherlock Holmes book at the same dinner that Oscar Wilde was commissioned to write “The Picture of Dorian Grey” and he convinced Harry Houdini to got to a seance with him.
He was a weirdly well connected man.
*Another fun fact:* Sherlock Holmes is inspired by tales of Edgar Alan Poe who made the first detective/crime stories.
@@AK-tr6lo So weirdly connected that when he sent some anonymous letters to some friends as a joke that said 'you've been found out', some of those friends actually left the country and were never heard from again.
He was also friends with Houdini was convinced Houdini had actual magic powers despite Houdini's adamant denial
@@AK-tr6lo I didn’t know the Picture of Dorian Grey was a commission! Who commissioned it?
This makes me appreciate Ace Attorney even more honestly?? Especially Edgeworth. We see a lot more of his process in his spin off games, and while he's not TECHNICALLY a detective, he goes out of his way to do the job that the police tend to mess up. Definitely a gentleman detective to Nick's clutzy but brilliant detective.
I hope EVERYBODY here saw and fully-enjoyed 'Sherlock' by 'Hbomberguy'?
Ace Attorney is one of the only detective series where I actually have a shot of figuring stuff out
I swear, why isn't anyone mentioning Herlock Sholmes on the thumbnail?
@@jatt1129yeah...
Miles does the detective work in Investigations, Gumshoe is there for emotional support
I’ve never seen BBC Sherlock but “it was a F U C K I N G B O O M E R A N G” lives in my head rent free
Detective Conan has a first person internal narration style, and so to hide the culprits until the big reveal literally EVERY detective character (of which there are heaps) thinks stuff like "I see...the culprit is THAT person" or "Now I understand...THAT's how they did it". It honestly becomes funny after a while
What's even funnier is that, because manga is a visual medium, the scenes depicting the culprit before their identity is revealed always use the same black, vaguely humanoid silhouette in their place.
I haven't read nor watched Gintama, but I've heard that they once parodied Detective Conan with a murder mystery story where the culprit turned out to be literally just a black silhouette of a person.
the amount of times i've heard "souka/naruhodo, ano hito/hannin wa!" because of this. just more Japanese i've learned thanks to Detective Conan haha
to the point where "that person" becomes the main villain of the series
The best part for me always is just all the other people in the room seeing an old man slumped on a chair and fully eating it up
@@oddacity5883 Well he is the Famous Sleeping Detective after all
One interesting take on the issue of reader knowledge vs detective knowledge is actually Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Perhaps because it is an interactive medium, the protagonist almost never knows anything that the audience does not know. Moreover, the protagonist essentially never conceals any thoughts from the audience. As a result, the audience gets to see all the protagonist's deductions in real time, the step-by-step process of stacking clues and contradictions on top of each other while weeding out impossibilities until the truth remains. This works because Ace Attorney cases hinge on a constant stream of new information and revelations that fundamentally alter large assumptions made earlier. Also, because of its defense attorney framework, guessing whodunnit is not nearly as important as how and why they did it, and then proving it. The protagonist also has to spend a lot of time arguing against and dismantling incorrect theories put forth by other characters. Still, I think the basic format could be applied to non-video-game mysteries.
Actually, I guess the noir P.I. kind of follows this model - rather than assembling a puzzle, they are following a thread, with new information revealed all the time. Ace Attorney combines it with more Golden Age types of crimes, though.
One of the weaknesses of the _Ace Attorney_ games is that it's not uncommon for the detective to be far slower than the player, and the game stops being about proving what happened but finding the superfluous (to the player) event flag that brings the dopey detective up to speed.
@@boobah5643 Danganronpa also has this problem. Thankfully, I didn't run into it in disco elysium.
One thing I really like about the 3ds games is that they have a "denouement" moment where you go into the character's head and put together the last clue.
its sort of 50/50ish though because half the time you either figured this out an hour ago or you have literally no idea what the game is saying
@@coolgreenbug7551 It is a very fun way to demonstrate how a normal "great detective" figures things out before revealing them, though.
This is amplified in Ace Attorney by the general craziness of the actual truth. It explores the idea that in reality weird things happen for nonsensical reasons, like yeah, this guy wasn‘t hit by a flying magician but the acrobat upstairs dropped a bust of that magician onto him and the magicians cloak got caught on the bust because he was wearing it. It‘s twists that would feel unsatisfying and empty if just presented to you, but when you are actively searching for and getting clues, trying to piece it together and exploring scenarios until it‘s the most batshit solution possible. You are deductively analysing a wacky world and logically arrive at insane conclusions.
In terms of how this works in non-game media, I genuinely find that the Ace Attorney anime pulls it off quite well
Kinda random but when you think about it, Velma from Scooby-Doo was really just a defective (she put most of the clues together) who worked with a team because she couldn't do it all herself. Scooby and Shaggy were bait, Fred made traps and various plans, and Daphne had a knack for getting the team out of difficult situations. I know it's a very lose interpretation, but I like the idea that a team of people make up all the traits a great detective needs, and I wonder if there are any other stories like that out there.
Psych maybe. Shawn has the skills to glean the information, but often needs Gus to tell him what it all means before he can solve the mystery as Gus has nearly encyclopedic knowledge on many different things. Lassiter is often the narrative foil, but is also the one that can get the two out of trouble.
There is also a good narrative reason for the theatrics of both the clue gathering and the reveal, if Shawn isn't super dramatic and theatrical about it he is out of the job. So while the criminals are putting on a performative act to hide the fact that they are criminals, Shawn is also putting on a show for the police in order to convince them that he is actually psychic (even though he isn't). It's a clever bit of dramatic irony, and it's good writing as the series gives you all the clues you need over the course of the episode.
Did you intend to call Velma a Defective? XD
Defective
This inspires me to write. Thank you!
Don't give the CW ideas or else we'll get a poorly written drama called: "Dinkley". Either way, Psych does kind of work like a detective show since Shawn and Gus are private investigators.
The world needs Watsons to appreciate the Sherlocks.
When everyone's special, noone is
True. Sherlock is usually so extraordinary, and insufferable, that we need an "Every Man" Watson to make the story more palatable.
One thing a lot of earlier parodies (before we started getting billions of Sherlock adaptations again) forgot was that Watson isn't dumb, just relatable.
Yeah, I literally just thinking about that quote before watching the video.
@@BigKlingy dumb is relatable 😐
"The detective is fundamental to the mystery, and the mystery is fundamental to the detective," sounds like something a workaholic Holmes type would say to their Watson
We all know Red is the Holmes and Blue is the Watson on this channel
@@SobiTheRobot red and blue are simultaneously each others sherlocks and each other watsons depending on the subject matter
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are going camping. They pitch their tent under the stars and go to sleep. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up: "Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce."
Watson: "I see millions of stars and even if a few of those have planets, it's quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life."
Holmes: "Watson, you idiot, somebody's stolen our tent!" -Worlds funniest joke according to google
This is made my day
I love this joke because the scenario is basically any gifted student taking a test.
I have a pea brain what 's funny about this?
@@ruupuu8862The joke is that Watson is stupid and can't even notice that a tent is missing.
@@chrisdaily2077 Truly I'm a watson
“i’ve connected the dots.”
“you haven’t connected shit.”
“i’ve connected them.”
shane and ryan in buzzfeed unsolved. :)
i think of "i connected the two dots" at least twice a day
One of the best Shane lines
Up there with its ya boy
They have a rich life outside of the mystery, but you only catch glimpses.
The only good thing buzzfeed ever created was that show.
@@keepermovin5906 i agree.
"The Westing Game" was one of the best mysteries I've ever read. A whole apartment building where everyone is both a detective, and a suspect.
The one who wins the windfall, shall be the one who finds the
@@kiraina25 ASHES!
Kinda like social deduction games
One thing I love about that book is that it's nominally got a third person omniscient narrator, and the narrator never lies outright but often phrases something in an intentionally misleading way or omits very important information. It makes the book even better on a reread.
Sounds like Cluedo lol
Agatha Christie is honestly still the GOAT of mystery. You can read her mysteries today and still get blindsided. The ABC Killer, Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None all had me puzzling until my puzzler was sore. The solutions are utterly brilliant.
Not to mention "Murder of Roger Acroyd".
And Then There Were None was translated as "The case of the three lil nigg**" in my country. You have no idea how confused I was. I'm not even shitting you. My cover had both titles and I was like "what the fuck is this???"
The reveal hit me like a train tho. I was legit scared for my LIFE when I realized how effective that one person could be at killing people and making them think of themselves as the killers.
Title still doesnt make any logic sense to me. "O caso dos três negrinhos" if you want to look it up. Negrinhos, as you might be capable of putting together, consists of -inhos as the plural diminutive plus the root negro which is black.
@@IHateNumbersOnNames The original title was the three little *******'s, with the word used in the nursery rhyme that make up one of the clues. as times changed and that word became less acceptable it was changed (by request of christie herself I believe) first to Indians then Soldier Boys, with the title changed to And Then There Were None
@@IHateNumbersOnNames It was original tittle, based on old nursery rhyme. Later it was understandably changed because of implications (to Ten Little Indians, which was later changed again, understandably, to And Then There Was None).
I enjoy Agatha Christie but my problem is that the solution often relies on information not seen by the readers. Sure they are still entertaining but I've always maintained that with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories the clues were there for you and Holmes to see. The man may have believed in fairies but he made a good mystery.
Ace attorney games are interesting, because as much as it is a mystery game, placing you in the role of detective massively turns the structure on its head. You need to be the one putting everything together and keeping an idea of what you think happened.
It's a similar situation to the Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games. My sister pointed out when she was playing Crimes & Punishments that it can be really jarring to hear the characters going "I'm sure /you'll/ have it sorted out in a jiffy," hear Sherlock Holmes, the player character, reply "Yes, I've got most of it solved," and be sitting there having absolutely no idea what is going on, especially in Crimes & Punishments and Devil's Daughter where the developers built a logic web system so you can come to the wrong conclusion and arrest the wrong person for the crime, unlike previous games, which were more linear point and click style.
I also think it's funny how the first game starts by showing you the killer in each case, but then can't even make it to the end of that game before making each intro reveal actually misleading or twisted in some way, and then the devs just kept doing that for pretty much every case from that point onwards.
Bonus points for Sher...Oops, I mean "Herlock Shlomes" actually being a character in The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. (FYI: This version of Sherlock Holmes is seen in the left side of the thumbnail for this very video.)
As a practicing GM, I've designed "who-done-it's"... BECAUSE in a room full of fellow GM's you can't go buy a module and expect everyone to leave their copy alone...
Man... Running together a decent mystery is a BITCH on a TTRPG... Don't get me wrong, it's definitely do-able... AND if you can keep things different and entertaining without stretching the "plot-twist" crap too far, you can even keep your Players entertained with chasing down clues and interviewing the witness/suspect pool... BUT you first have to kind of teach EVERYBODY at the Table how to "speak" the language of your private niche in the genre... It almost always has to start simple, because pitching them into the "deep end" gets frustrating and confusing quickly...
If the simple version with a short, limited list of suspects and a fairly obvious crime with few "red herrings" can engage them and be fun... THEN you can build up.... BUT never "back to back"... First, it's a fair amount of work to get your sh*t together for a simple crime-solver... keeping the relationships and lies straight on a short list is difficult enough... Get political or open end a crime in a city, and you (The GM) can find yourself in over your head in a heartbeat or so...
BUT... keeping a consistent logic and only breaking one or two "rules" occasionally, you can build the logical puzzles as you go. It can even be a great time putting these things together... It just gets complicated, so you can't rush it... and for the love of THE GODS in your Game Setting, don't ever let the Players see your "Storyboard" when you're building! ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 I'm actually doing an investigative arc in my own game, tracking someone down, not exactly a locked room murder, but I'm cheating a bit. I have no idea who or where the person they're looking for is, I'm simply filling in clues wherever they look and putting together the pieces later.
came back to this video after watching some Columbo and I love how small the discrepancies he notices are, like that a killer didn't call out to his wife when he arrived home because he knows she's dead or that a piece of paper is folded a certain way.
I JUST watched the first episode of Columbo and I GET IT!!!! Columbo is genuinely so good!!
Or when someone was poisoned and the guy he was having dinner with the same night showed up for the investigation and Columbo immediately picked up on how weird it was that he didn't go ot the hospital to have his stomach pumped.
Trope suggestion: the “what have I created” trope. (Or the “Made Monster” if you want to be fancy)
Basically where a mentor/protagonist teaches a student in something (usually fighting), but the mentors lessons and/or teaching methods are villainous or destructive in nature. The student either reluctantly or blindly accepts these teachings and becomes either a problem to the mentor or a full blown villain because of it. The mentor usually doesn’t realize this until the student destroys something important to the mentor, like injuring their son or friend, upon which the mentor has an “oh shit” moment when they see that they’ve turned their student into a monster and now must stop them from causing more damage by basically undoing their own teachings.
Should also mention that this applies to Robots/AI (mostly) made with good intentions, but the instructions that the creator gives it (either directly or indirectly) causes it to be evil. (Ex: the protector AI comes to the conclusion that the best way to “protect earth” is to exterminate all humans)
Just something to look into.
Similarly, when a scientist or wizard created a horrible creature. "Do you God stays in heaven, afraid of what he has created?"
@@marreco6347 i.e. Frankenstein
One I'd like to see is the hero complex either in a detail diatribe or as a trope talk, we've seen a lot of different ways a hero complex can affect a person and how/if it breaks them
Yesss
It would be interesting to see the reverse: A mentor's student is actually doing just fine and managing their power responsibly, but the mentor is so paranoid about their students losing control or becoming evil, perhaps because of a past experience, that they assume the worst about their student when something happens.
I love how this turned halfway into a talk about mystery tropes in general.
As Red said, a Mystery needs to be solved and Detectives solve mysteries, and what is a Detective without a mystery to solve.
In literature you can not separate the Detective role from the Mystery plot, and if you include a mystery and don't have an actual detective atleast one character will try to solve it filling the detective role.
I'm surprised she didn't mention Batman "The World's Greatest Detective", or when authors have characters smarter than the author (something very painful when you realize the "genius" is spouting nonsense).
@@jasonreed7522 Er, Batman was briefly referenced in the section where Red discussed detectives' motives.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a brilliant subversion of a detective story. The audience has no clue what's going on, the detective has no clue what's going on, not even the culprit knows what's going on, and yet, through sheer cosmic chance, they arrive at the correct solution anyway.
And the most terrifying thing about it is *that it actually makes sense in the end*.
(especially the show did a really good job with the first story)
Thank fucking God someone else actually watched/read that. I have said for ages that people should look into this series and nobody ever listened. Brilliant series, completely underappreciated.
The first time I read that book, I completely missed that they managed to achieve any solution at all.
Columbo is like watching a really good chess match. the opening moves are set, they define the game, the players are always just a bit too close, parry, riposte, but then, as always,
that move from 6 turns ago is turned into a check, and after that, the ending scramble to coverup
and then mate.
69 likes confirmed
XD
Even the episode about two chess players?
@@JaelinBezel well, that one was just bizarre.
Damn that is GOOD.
Feel like we glossed over the quirky detective. A detective has a quirk that is key to how they see the world differently that leads to how they find the clues other don't. Monk is the one I always consider because he has so many tics and obsessions he fixates on something everyone would consider minor like how a shirt button is sewn on.
Does Jonathan Creek count? He's noted for his lateral thinking skills, which he uses in his day job as a creative consultant to a magician. When he gets dragged off to solve a mystery, he puts together the clues in ways no one else thinks of.
Shawn from psych is my favorite example
Doesn't Columbo fit that archetype somewhat? Not as well as Monk, but at least a little bit (I've watched very little of either show).
"I sew it parallel, that's my style!"
Most Ace Attorney protagonists fit this! Phoenix has an item that tells him when people are hiding something, Apollo has heightened senses to tell if someone is lying though tells, and Athena has sensitive hearing which allows her to hear the emotions in people's voices when they speak and analyze them.
One of my favorite things where someone uncovers something in Artemis Fowl. In the first book, someone who he had hired tried to spy on him by pretending to be a waiter, but Artemis was just like, 'stop pretending, you have to much expensive stuff to be a waiter', then preceeded to freak the guy out by telling him exactly what he wanted to know without having to be told what the spy wanted to know.
Artemis Fowl is an interesting series to me, because I remember reading it when I was very little, but the only thing I can actually feel like I remember from the series story is the name, something about pixies or something, and a scene involving plasma. Even though it was one of the first “hard” books I read as a kid, or maybe because of it, I simply don’t remember almost anything from it
Detective Conan is a huge fan of the "Of course! It's that person!" narration style, which gets especially hilarious when Conan and Hattori start talking to each other with actual dialogue and still refuse to name the culprit or even use a gendered pronoun
you're correct, but to be fair, Japanese is kind of that way linguistically. A lot of sentences tend to have to topic implied based off of previous things said and what the speaker already knows. Prime example is "ano hito" aka "that person." If the speaker already knows then they won't mention the name again. It would be like using First and Last names every time you talk about someone instead of saying he/she/they
@@shuri Yes, their language is very contextual, you can have an entire conversation without actually telling what are you talking about because both speakers would assumed the other knows what is the matter they are talking.
I like DC. It’s all fair-play. The Anime doesn’t do that sometimes though
After all, the truth is only one!!!
Almost every Case in DetCo:
Conan: Hmmm I know how they did it, but who did it?
Secondary characters: *talk about something that has nothing to with the case, like folding laundry or some shit*
Conan: Folding laundry...? But of course! Then that means the killer is... that person!!!
Over 1000 episodes and you can really tell lol
One way Sherlock Holmes gives you an insight to the way his process is that he will frequently point out certain clues, either by just bringing them up or by telling detectives from the police to focus on them.
Probably the best ever example of this is from silver blaze when he comments on the peculiar behaviour of the dog in the night and even agrees that the dog didn’t do anything, pointing out that that was the curious behaviour.
If you stop and think it lets you work out part of the solution (if the guard dog didn’t make a fuss and wasn’t drugged then the theft was an inside job) and let you follow Sherlocks thought pattern.
Damn straight
Jonathan creek was always very good at that sort of thing too
That was one of the things that I was glad was ported into The Great Ace Attorney (S)herlock’s characterization in Joint Reasoning.
The example of a bad mystery from BBC Sherlock (guy killed by boomerang) is an example of what I call a Yes/No Riddle. It's where the riddler describes a situation ("Romeo and Juliet are lying dead on the floor. Liquid and broken glass surround them. What happened?") and the audience can ask as many questions as they want to try to figure it out, with the caveat that the questions have to be yes or no (So the audience could ask, "is the liquid wine?" but not "What is the liquid?"). Once you have enough information from the riddler you can figure it out. But BBC didn't let us ask any questions, just presented the riddle scenario. Which is problem #11 I have with the BBC show.
I'm so glad you decided to put -Sherlock Holmes- Herlock Sholmes from Ace Attorney series in the thumbnail. They did a really good job of making him enjoyable, smart AND silly and overall a really great character in the games!
I only finished Case 2 of the first game so far, but I like how they made him good at deducing...But also ADHD as hell, and thus fixates on the wrong things sometimes. It's a pretty neat way to have him be useful for solving cases, but not able to instantly solve cases for you.
Wasn't Herlock Sholmes from the original Arsène Lupin stories?
@@fnjesusfreak Yeah, the author of the Arsène Lupin stories created him because he wanted to include Sherlock Holmes in his stories but (I think)his stories and character were not in public domain yet.
In Japan, they still used the name Sherlock in the games as copyright laws are different there but since they would have gotten sued in the west if they used Sherlock Holmes name, because for whatever reason the personality of Sherlock isn't shown until later books, which are still not in public domain. This alongside the fact that the games shows racism (mind you the games don't encourage racism, they are showing how people were racists back then against the Japanese people) made it so that the games never made it to the west until quite recently. The first game in The Great Ace Attorney Duology was released in 2016 in Japan and second game was released in 2018.
The reason they choose Herlock sholmes is probably because he is in the public domain but the original Sherlock Holmes with a personality isn't.
"Pseudo-professional"
If it pays your rent, it's your profession.
What if you get paid, but it's only a fraction of your income because you have a separate day job?
What if it's your only income but you still can't pay rent :(
@@timothymclean That's a side-hussle
@@kyekimler That's a failure to make it your profession, and you should look into doing something else.
:( well it’s still a job, (and even if it’s just for now I’d recommend getting a second job too fully support yourself if you can my friend)
One of the reasons I like Sherlock (the books) so much is because of how befuddled poor Watson is most of the time - it lets the audience experience some satisfaction when Watson clearly points out how large of a leap Sherlock makes when he solves a case (or when Watson gets frustrated at Sherlock for not explaining something/learning someone's life history just by the color of their shoes). Through Watson, the audience is able to feel like the author acknowledges how bonkers Sherlock's deductive skills are (and thus they feel mollified). Sir Conan Doyle (the author of the Sherlock Series) also repeatedly tells us how dedicated Sherlock is to his work and the pursuit of justice, which justifies his crazy powers of observation. Sherlock has no life outside of mysteries *on purpose*. He is literally so bored when he's not solving a case that he resorts to drugs, and it's a semi-subplot in the books that Watson is always trying to stop Sherlock from doing drugs by attempting to bring him to mysteries or something similar.
By not giving Sherlock a life, Conan Doyle can explore the friendship and Watson and Sherlock have which is always written very well. There are very few bromances as strong as Watson and Sherlock, and the two rub off on and foil each other in interesting ways (Watson is sentimental, Sherlock is calculating, Watson has a family, Sherlock doesn't see his brother as much more than an acquaintance [that's just what I felt when reading the Canon books]). Eventually, by the end of the book, Sherlock is clearly characterized as more emotional (albeit in a very small way) and Watson becomes much more deductive and logical, which implies the strength of their bond.
that's why a good mystery with Sherlock Holmes in it can be really hard to write. Sherlock is pretty darn hard to write well, and Watson's voice is difficult to capture like how he was in the original book series. Their friendship is probably the simplest to write, but it's always in the background to the mystery, which is the most important part of any Sherlock Holmes novel. The mystery has to be fantastic (to pique Sherlock's interest), has to be unique (to get the audience invested), and also has to give the audience enough clues to solve it or at least enjoy it (which is VERY difficult, even the original books sometimes leave like no clues). That's why many Sherlock books/media now just focus on the man, Sherlock himself, and his friendship/sometimes love interest, Watson.
Mysteries are hard to write for sure, but a good mystery characterizes the detective and a better one lets us sympathize or even lets us see a glimpse of the detective's life outside of mysteries, whether they have a real one or not.
So where does Columbo fall on the Himbo scale? Turns out, he was pure of ass the whole time! We've been hornswaggled!
But he was not dumb of heart.
Idk if this is a good argument, I don't think Colombo is a himbo- mainly because Dick Gumshoe is literally just himbo Colombo
@@tricolormcclellan2942 Now see, I thought the exact same thing. With all the commenting it must have just slipped my mind. But then I noticed something, something very strange. You see, way back when Colombo was created, way back when the character was brand new, himbo wasn't a term. Y'see, I know, because I checked. Did you know that the first known usage of the word Himbo was in 1988? I thought that was interesting. Very, very interesting. So, that must mean, even if Colombo had been a Himbo, no one would have CALLED him a Himbo.
You know what I think @Tricolor McClellan, I think you knew that. I think you thought no one would notice, but you see, the one thing you forgot about @Tricolor McClellan, the one slip you made, is assuming I know who Dick Gumshoe is. Can you explain that @Tricolor McClellan? For the life of me, I cannot think of a single solitary way to explain that. My wife says I should play more AA, and maybe she's right. I don't know @Tricolor McClellan, but that sure was a clever false equivalence. A very clever false equivalence. Can I ask you something? Where did you get the idea? I never in a million years would have thought of something like that.
I don't know columbo at all but this is one of those comments that you can tell is great with no context
I think columbo could also fall under the crouching moron hidden badass trope
J. Michael Straczynski has a quote about when he wrote for "Murder, She Wrote" - When you give the last clue, 80% of the audience needs to figure it out then, 10% already guessed it, and 10% won't understand it even after the credits roll.
JMS is a brilliant storyteller who doesn't get anywhere near the recognition he should.
@@John_Weiss even his Spider-Man writing was great
I feel like the “who” shouldn’t always be the climax of the story, it’s more interesting for that to be revealed closer to the end of the rising action with the “why” being more climactic
Columbo, Death Note, and Ace Attorney come to mind - the first two we see the culprit the whole time and Columbo/L/Near finding things out about the culprit of the week/Light are the real drama, while in most Ace Attorney cases we either see who the culprit was before Phoenix does or we find out sometime after the first day of the trial lol
I swear, Red's Trope talk videos are sponsored by Campfire Blaze about as much as Death Battle has been sponsored by Blue Apron
Cus she talks about writing. It's the same with terrible writing advice.
@@yeethittter1285 Makes sense but how does blue apron correlate with death battle? Knuckle sandwiches? The revenge dish?
@@wilfweNightsky Well if you're gonna get given a knuckle sandwich it migh as well be healthy 😒
@@wilfweNightsky it's because Death Battle has been sponsored by Blue Apron for TONS of episodes to the point where it became a meme
@@wilfweNightsky Because blue apron has it's own death battle: The plastic used in packaging VS The earth
I adore Father Brown as a detective because when he solves the mystery, he often pleads with the murderer or thief to confess and repent. His denouement style is so very different and satisfying.
And then there's Monk.
Need I say more?
YES. My mom loves Father Brown because he's more focused on their immortal soul and morality than just catching them. And I ADORE Monk because I also have anxiety and it's...so freaking accurate.
Two of my favorite detective twists came from Agatha Christie: The time EVERY suspect was actually guilty and the time the first person narrator was the murderer.
I know that I've asked plenty of times, but could you make a Trope Talk on crossovers? I'd love to see your take on them!
It would be funny If that Trope Talk is a crossover with some other youtuber
@@leonardorivelorivelo9253 especially Terrible writing advice.
@@leonardorivelorivelo9253 My thoughts exactly! Who would be the best choice, though? Maybe one of the comic book RUclipsrs?
A talk about good crossover vs bad crossover would be nice.
RWBY/DC is an example of the bad.
You mean like crossovers of 'Murder, She Wrote', 'Magnum P.I.', and 'Simon & Simon'? :)
Bad mystery: BBC's Sherlock
Good mystery: How Steven Moffat stayed employed after the boomerang episode
You brought joy to my hardboiled, jaded heart. Thank you
Because the mysteries didn't have that much impact on the popularity of Sherlock and he was also head-running Doctor Who at the height of its international popularity at the time.
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I mean, Steven Moffat's not a bad writer, he's just not a good mystery writer. Frankly, I'd say one of the two major problems with Sherlock was that he and Gatiss thought they didn't have to care about the mystery aspect of this detective story, wanting to write a drama with the characters instead, and didn't think through the repercussions of that genre shift.
It's other major problem being that nobody gave that series the time it needed to actually work, it was the side project of a lot of increasingly busy people and probably shouldn't have been greenlit while Moff was still heading Doctor Who.
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Sorry for going off, I have a lot of feelings about this subject.
I laughed out loud at this comment
@@BacchaeOphanim the problem was that Moffat threw away the simple formula of "supply clues, throw in red herring, solve mystery neatly" that made the series so accessible for a "the mysteries don't matter he's a mega genius, look his so cool he makes the lesbian villain straight and the gay villain crazy". The idea of Sherlock was creating and solving unrelated mysteries and Moffat flipped it into an overly complicated character drama.
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don't worry I love your comment
@@themandownstairs4765
"look his so cool he makes the lesbian villain straight"
What
"We wanted to keep him almost mythological. He comes from nowhere, and goes back to nowhere."
William Link, Co-Creator of Columbo
One detective show I like a lot is the Castle series, purely because it's so different from what I'd known until I found out about it. The detective is just a little too rigid and straight-forward - she's focused on the case, and capable of asking the right questions, but she's not always capable of putting the pieces together. The writer with a vivid imagination, on the other hand, starts throwing out unlikely hypotheses even with zero evidence, but eventually hits on something that makes sense purely because he's not afraid of putting his ideas out there even though they may sound ridiculous.
I used to watch that with my folks. Great show. Focused a lot on characters and character interaction.
Loved that show and the person who plays Castle I still refer to as Castle
@@Zerpderp0 How to tell that a person never watched Firefly. ;)
I enjoy the psych series because the main character is forced to make his logical deductions sound like psychic premonitions and use the fact that people think he is an idiot and a quack to glean information that they wouldn't have given to the police. It is also great that he isn't alone, his assistant gus often is the source of information, Shawn can glean information and make crazy spot on deductions but it's all useless without someone who can tell him what that info means.
@@AndaraBledin pretty much my friends say the same thing each time I call him Castle
What makes Columbo stand out so much is the simple fact that 9 times out of 10, Columbo already knew who the killer was from the minute he walked into the room. I think that's the reason the story shows you everything from the beginning; we and the detective are on equal terms of information, and all he needs to do is figure out how to prove they did it.
Columbo has one psychic ability: he can identify a murderer the instant he sees one. He was confused in the episode when the murderer had forgotten they'd done it.
I have a similar issue with reading mysteries that she does, and honestly that's part of why Ace Attorney is a series I belove so much. It completely reverses a lot of the definitions and issues here. I'm not good at puzzles and I don't like it when the detective is smarter than me. AA is a video game; YOU are the detective, and so the philosophy the writers have to take with their mysteries is fundamentally different. There is no one secret last piece of info the "detective" has that you don't when you ARE the detective. Instead, that last piece of info is either given to you last, or it was right in front of you the whole time but you're only given context at the end. Side characters can also point things out or the pc might interpret evidence you presented differently than you thought they would, but ultimately, you don't get shown up and feel like an idiot at the end. If you get lost, if you can't piece things together, the story simply doesn't progress.
Another thing in this video that makes me think of Ace Attorney: what you say at the end about how detectives and mysteries are inextricable to one-another. There's a key distinction between A detective and THE detective. In AA you're always playing as a lawyer but there's no question that you're still the detective. Real detective characters like Gumshoe, Bobby, Herlock (hey he's in your thumbnail, nice!), etc are A detective, but they aren't THE detective. A Detective™ character is defined by the mystery (and their role within it and the narrative), not by their job title.
Mysteries are an exercise in something I always say about writing: "Tell your audience everything they need to know, but tell them _only_ what they need to know."
Honestly one of the reasons I fell in love with the show “Castle” as a child was because Castle was viewing all of the mysteries from a writer’s perspective. Human beings write fake crimes all the time and it’s the same point of logic as someone actually planning out and committing a crime. It was a nice subversion of tropes and also really got me into the concept of meta-storytelling done right! The show is pretty one note throughout most of the seasons with the inevitable “power-creep” in terms of stakes, but at least check out the first 2 seasons just for Nathan Fillion being awesome!
My favorite part of the show was when you had the mystery solved, then halfway through they threw a monkey wrench into it
Castle deserves special mention for how many of the definitions Red puts forward it violates. The "detective" castle is very much a character, heck the whole show. And the way he puts things together is explained, usually hilariously wrong. And and the show loves troupes, and is always inverting and messing with them.
@@danielsellers5800 Totally agree! This show really helped me learn at a young age in stories to be self-aware of tropes! It was actually “educational” in a weird sense for becoming a storyteller myself! I’m sure you feel the same!
You may enjoy a 70s show called The Ellery Queen Mysteries then! In it, Ellery Queen solves the mysteries even though he's a novelist because his dad is chief of police and calls on him to help out. I thought it was a really fun show and was sad that Red didn't bring it up since it also has the character showing aspects of their personal life outside of solving mysteries, just like Castle does. (For the record, I love Castle as well. Nathan Fillion is GOLD)
Columbo is such an interesting show because it appeared during a time where Whodunnit fiction was super popular, but Columbo dared to put the formula on it's head
I always felt bad for detectives who kept solving murders when that wasn't their job. In Murder She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher is constantly travelling around visiting friends or promoting her books but no matter where she goes she runs into a murder that she has to solve. I started to wonder if her character ever thought she was cursed, because she wasn't looking for crimes to figure out!
I saw a theory at one point that she's some sort of psychopomp, unknowingly connected to death, so killers are drawn to her area and vice versa. Or that she's a serial killer and all the people she helps catch are just frame jobs
In the manga detective Conan side characters repeatedly ask the two main “detectives” if they are cursed or secretly the grim reaper due to how many murders they manage to inexplicably come across while just living their lives or while investigating cases that should be simple lost item cases or some other mundane matters
This is the reason why at some point i will write a fantasy detective story where the macrostory will be about the fact that the detectives suspect the protagonist is persecuted by a grim reaper figure of sorts.
@@kamronspencer4910 Conan is damned by god at this point. Even when meeting a celebrity it turns into an abduction plot
Honestly though considering the people she usually works with Jessica is way more qualified. Most law enforcement refuse to hear her out!
“sherlock-alikes” is such a good pun im jealous
Ironically, Sherlock himself is a sherlock-alike, because the archetype was not created by Arthur Conan Doyle, but Edgar Allan Poe.
Poe did it first, but Doyle did it right.
@@schwarzerritter5724 i appreciate this trivia v much
Love the fact that you included Miss Marple on here - I feel like she's often overlooked!
I love Persona 4 as one of those examples of detectives with their own lives going on. Some days you’re trying to solve the gruesome murders and the presence behind the Fog, others you’re just hanging out with friends and getting involved with what they’re going through in life.
*Insert cabbage loving detective quote here*
The best dénouement ever was that time Sherlock Holmes found a stolen precious gem for some rich dude and when the dude came back for his gem, Holmes pranked him by putting it in his pocket.
I love one particularly interesting subversion of first person detective stories is the Jim Butcher authored Dresden Files. Dresden doesn't put all the pieces together until either just before or as the eleventh hour begins. So we can put the reveal together before that but it also allows us the same shock when Dresden gets blindsided by a twist. We can then look back and go, "Oh! That's what I missed that makes it make sense."
You should do a follow up where you talk about the show "Psych."
It's interesting how the show engages with the various elements you explored here and how they subvert things like detective's life outside work and personality.
"What's your motivation for being a detective?"
Shawn: There was that time my dad locked me in the trunk
Man I need to watch Psych someday
@@visibleconfusion782 I've been rewatching it 10 years later. Still holds up, 10/10 comedy, bro-ship, and pineapples. (It's all on Amazon) [Except the movies and the musical]
Throughout the whole video, I just kept thinking 'when is she gonna mention Psych?'. I'm just glad it's being acknowledged in the comments at least.
I’m writing a mystery story where each of the main characters are killed off throughout the story, the suspect pool gets shorter and shorter until the final reveal at the end of what actually happened but it’s not the obvious answer, it’s like my favourite Agatha Christie story (and then there were none) with a fun twist
Good luck! That sounds like a cool idea!
but also sounds very tricky to write
It's Dr Crusher isn't it?
Amogus detective
_And Then There Were None_ was like the second Christie book I read and it terrified me as a child, so that idea is very intriguing. Best of luck!
As someone who is also doing that, mainly inspired by the great Pokemon fanfic Unova Mansion which itself was inspired by And Then There Were None, it sure is a fun kind of story. Dwindling casts are great.
As a Private Detective with more than 30 years in the business I have to say spot on you nailed it and with style and fun. Please keep up the great work.
On the point of unguessable solutions, there was one very interesting instance in a Dresden Files book. Without spoiling much, one of the critical plot elements is revealed when one of Harry's friends asks about a regular element of the book series so far, and both Harry and the audience realise that particular element *hasn't been mentioned in this book at all and should be conspicuous by its absence.* It was *damn* clever.
It’s an unguessable solution if you’re just starting the series with this book for some reason. But if you’re familiar with it - as most would likely be if they’re reading book 10 - then you probably had the same reaction I did at that point; slapping your own forehead and asking yourself why you didn’t notice that earlier.
Yeah it's a wonderful reveal, because it's sort of an inversion of what you normally look for, what's missing instead of what shouldn't be there.
I approve of Columbo having a Moment in our collective consciousness.
Your description of me (type 1) was rather accurate, and I found no weak points. Lovely video covering my favorite archetype (and activity). A genre that used to be just a 100 years or less ago was on top of the world, but doesn't quite get the same love these days (due to the reasons you pointed out!). I am happy seeing it get the coverage it deserves again, in a quality fashion. Though I must confess I am sad I saw no Detective Conan (anime) mentions/examples :(. The entirety of the series and show is actually a series of linked (an unlinked aka filler) cases that are individually solvable with clues listed at the end of the episode. I think it's great for beginner mystery fans to get into, and the dialogue is quality. Conan fits the second stereotype, but interestingly when doing his reveals has to do them through another characters voice (because he's a kid and has a voice changer lol). Also following his deductions, he will begin to psychologically break down the criminal AFTER they admit guilt. A rather brutal example of #2.
I think the main people like watching/reading about detectives is that there is inherently something satisfying about someone finishing a hard puzzle.
Poirot was always my personal favorite detective. The actor who played him in the BBC series, David Suchet, brought such a life to the character. He was fastidious, humorous, and very engaging. His talk of "the little gray cells" when referring to his thought process made him feel almost poetic at times. And though he acts pompous, in the first episode "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook", he actually showed a bit of development right off to give him some humility.
To keep spoilers to a minimum, he initially declines to take the case, thinking it beneath such a famous detective as himself. After he shows interest and then is waved off, he's actually given a check for a single guinea (roughly one pound) for 'consulting' and later has it framed. As he says "It is to me, Hastings, a little reminder never to despise the trivial, hein, but the undignified. A disappearing domestic at one end, a cold-blooded murder at the other."
You almost had me, Red. You nearly got away with it all, but the truth always comes out eventually. I finally figured out the missing piece when you made _one_ critical mistake. _One_ small slip-up! At 13:28 on the night of the murder, you used an un-Yoshi'd F-bomb. That directly links you to the scene of the crime despite your so-called "airtight" alibi.
*You're going to jail for a long time after such a heinous act.*
b'yum!
My favourite murder mystery sub-genre: Clergy Mysteries. I’m not at all religious, but something about these “straight and narrow” archetypes sleuthing around and getting into trouble with the real authorities is just fun.
Father Brown was a favorite of mine in this genre.
Same, like it’s waaaay too fun
Brother Cadfael!
@@CritterKeeper01 glad someone mentioned him :)
@@rodlurks66 He's the first one I'd think of. The monk who lived a varied and fascinating life before taking his vows, who saw the world on the Crusades, who learned herbal lore from several cultures, and then retired to pray and grow herbs and treat the sick and injured. And solve mysteries. ;-)
Im actually really happy you brought up Columbo, hes legitimately my favorite type of detective. I belive the terminology id use for him is "Disarmingly aloof." Asking all sorts of questions most people wouldnt, or just dobt feel comfortable with asking outright, and all with the air of a friendly face and a genuine curiosity is what really sets him apart from most other detectives
I love how danganronpa handles detectives by making the detective the main character. It allows you to get all the clues, but get what you need to completely solve the mystery during the trial. The minigames used in the trials make it feel less like you're watching a mystery being solved and more like you're solving it yourself which is really rewarding even if your favorite character dies immediately afterwards.
It's not just that. Arguably every single character (besides the obvious) are detectives, just of varying skill levels. Every single character is investigating the scene, and the facts, in order to draw their own conclusions about the case.
@@Superflaming85 agreed, and oftentimes the best of those detectives are the antagonists (Byakuya, Nagito, etc.) So you have to drill the information out of their unpickable lock of a skull
Out of all the things to have a resurgence, I NEVER thought Columbo would, in meme form no less
Well, there is always just one more thing...
Truth be told, I was introduced to Columbo by someone making a mockup of a Columbo character info. page as if he was in Final Fantasy X and investigating Maester Seymour. Was incredibly well done and I wanted to learn more... which I did by watching the series. A truly worthwhile time investment.
What's fun is when you have multiple different detective types interacting with each other. I highly recommend the classic mystery comedy "Murder By Death". The premise is that non-trademark-infringing parodies of Hercule Poirot, Jessica Marple, Nick and Nora Charles, Sam Spade (played by Peter Falk), and Charlie Chan are all invited by an eccentric millionaire (played by Truman Capote) to his mansion, complete with blind butler and deaf-mute cook, for "dinner and a murder."
One of my favorite mystery movies, so happy to see someone else praise it.
that movie is so good, I think it and Clue are the only films that really have done that as the main focus
69 likes confirmed
XD
I love Columbo. Earlier episodes have things like car phones, or answering machines being so rare and unheard of that they're used as the main alibi for the killer, to a point where everyone's using both.
That's one reason I love eldrich horror with a detective lead. You figure things out with the character and even once things are figured out (aka the evil cult is revealed) the story isn't over
I feel like the album the Bifrost Incident is a good example of this, id recommend checking it out its good fun
I am so happy Red included Columbo in this.
That show holds a special place in my heart and memory.
Willem Dafoe in Boondock Saints is one of the most entertaining detectives I've ever seen
I'd love a part 2 of this where you focus more on the mysteries. How they typically work, why the detective character is so essential (and what it's like if they're hypothetically absent) and why the nature of mysteries make the detective and the mystery inseparable.
I second this, but i assume the answer to why mysteries and detectives are inseparable is:
Mysteries need to be solved otherwise what is the point? (Probably something dor the audience to think on but still)
Mysteries are solved by "The Detective" character role as described by Red.
"The Detective" role only exists to solve mysteries, otherwise they are currently something else. (Like Detective Allen being a Father to the Flash, in that moment he isn't being a detective he is filling the role of Mentor [without dieing from it])
Hence a Detective doesn't exist without a Mystery to be solving and a Mystery remains unsolved without a Detective. And if you include a mystery in your story it should be solved by literary tradition.
I've always liked detectives. Ace attorney games remind me of that too. Haven't seen much of Herlock Sholmes yet bc I haven't finished the game
Herlock Sholmes?
@@Mire-Drive Sherlock in the localized version of The Great Ace Attorney gets renamed as that to avoid copyright snarls with the Conan Doyle estate
@@willd1790 Actually fun fact, Herlock Sholmes is an actual copyrighted character from author Maurice LeBlanc in 1908.
He is from his Arsene Lupin book series and was created because LeBlanc wanted his main character to go against Sherlock Holmes, but also couldn’t do it because of copyright.
And if the name Arsene Lupin sounds familiar that’s because he is canonically the grandfather of Lupin the third.
@5:16 - love that the video example here is Evil Under the Sun, easily my favourite Poirot story in any medium, and basically the codifier of all the multilevel "wheels within wheels" style mysteries that involve complicated murder plots revolving around perfectly timed chicanery and elaborate false alibis and red herrings, and where the location (a beachside hotel on an isolated island cut off from the mainland and with lots of windy pathways, blindspots and cliffs) is as much a character/element of the plot as the victims and killer; Rian Johnson took a lot of inspiration from it for Knives Out.
There's a line in Gone Tomorrow, one of the Jack Reacher novels, which is written in the first person, where Reacher's internal monologue says something to the effect of, "And that's when I knew everything I was ever going to know." I love that so much. It's such an interesting way to present a first-person narrative. /Reacher/ has figured it out, but the /audience/ hasn't yet. Lee Child's ability to instinctively know what to tell the audience, especially when writing in the first person, is why he's a master.
Broke Detective: Uses Magnifying Glass
Woke Detective: Uses Duct Tape and Chopsticks.
Current Years Woke Detective: Uses Phone.
Inquisitors: agents everywhere. I got so many areas infiltrated that I know about every planet in most sectors.
@@inquisitorbenediktanders3142 nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
-yeah I know you were making a Warhammer reference, but eh, Monty Python's flying Circus is a classic-
Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well...
"I...Furudo Erika.........have duct tape...!!"
My favorite thing about Columbo is that Columbo himself is an enigma. We never know how many of those anecdotes actually happened or if he made them up to make the criminals lower their guards.
It's always the detectives are either Sherlock competent or Inspector Gadget competent.
And then there’s Columbo-competent: _unassuming, charmingly shlumpy, but incredibly good at his job._
Where is Dick Gently on this rating system?
Monk is, in a weird way, both.
I like this growing appreciation of columbo I’ve noticed lately
Following this line of logic to its natural conclusion...
Mark Ruffalo.
Get your shit together Hollywood.
@@ronnielaw9318 I never realized how perfect that would be
Maybe Monk will soon follow
just wanna point out, Columbo's dog has a name; it's Dog. He said in one ep that it never comes when called anyway, so he just calls it Dog. Considering it's a Basset Hound, perfectly understandable.
The episode of Columbo you used in regards to a solved mystery with no victory was the most apt example of that situation. That episode broke my heart and I think the writers putting in the marksmanship exam subplot was the perfect balance to the tragedy.
This is a wonderful episode, thank you so much.
Which episode was it?
@@caroliner.7628 Forgotten Lady, first episode of season five.
@@caroliner.7628 "Forgotten Lady", the first episode of season five.