/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>35549151
>The question was whether the mystery was solvable in the first four Episodes. As I have proven, it was indeed possible.
It isn't solvable, because the solution contains big flaws that an alternative solution does not have. If you consider the Shkanon theory, notice the contradiction, and then dismiss it, you will get the wrong solution. Think back to the cheese problem in EP6. Battler's solution was better, but it was not the one in the rulebook. In this sense, the problem was unfair because you can only get to the solution by making an error in your reasoning. A math problem where you need to make a mistake to get it right is a bad math problem.
>Many mystery stories with a definite answer at their end could have also had several other culprits theorised, both by the reader and by the characters, before the answer is declared.
If it's impossible to figure out with confidence who the culprit is before the denoument, the mystery is unfair. The characters's reasoning is not really a factor beause they can rely on false assumptions, or be bad theories. The real problem arises when multiple good, consistent theories are possible. A fair mystery should have as its solution the only good explanation for the events of the novel.
>It would be a rather shoddy mystery, to only allow one answer to be theorised before the culprit is declared.
I completely disagree. Take any good classic mystery for example. Many theories are proposed, and they are dismissed over the cours of the novel. There is only one really good theory that is possible, and it is only presented as the solution at the end.
Or take the Ellery Queen novels in particulat. They often present a fake solution near the end, but if you are perceptive enough you can spot a contradiction and work out that there is a second, better explanation. And the second explanation often turns out to be the true solution.