Beneath Suspicion: Difference between revisions
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* Remarked on by author John Dickson Carr in an essay on the [[Fair Play Whodunnit]]: never remind the reader that a suspect has an airtight alibi, or he'll immediately be suspected. Treat it as such a given that it never occurs to the detective (or the writer!) to suspect Joe because Joe is so ''obviously'' innocent. |
* Remarked on by author John Dickson Carr in an essay on the [[Fair Play Whodunnit]]: never remind the reader that a suspect has an airtight alibi, or he'll immediately be suspected. Treat it as such a given that it never occurs to the detective (or the writer!) to suspect Joe because Joe is so ''obviously'' innocent. |
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* ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'': |
* ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'': |
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** {{spoiler|Professor Quirrell}} in ''[[Harry Potter |
** {{spoiler|Professor Quirrell}} in ''[[Harry Potter/Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone|Harry Potter]]''. {{spoiler|Ginny Weasley}} in ''[[Harry Potter/Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets|Harry Potter]]''. [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] [[Playing with a Trope|or something]] in ''[[Harry Potter/Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince|Half-Blood Prince]]'', when Harry's spying on {{spoiler|Draco Malfoy}} has him convinced that {{spoiler|Malfoy}} is a Death Eater and responsible for lots of the life-threatening mischief at Hogwarts that year. Everyone he talks to finds this [[Epileptic Trees|very far-fetched]], because {{spoiler|Malfoy}}'s just a teenage student and not even a particularly competent one. Of course, {{spoiler|he turns out to be right.}} |
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*** It's also played straight in the same book. Harry never once suspects the correct person of being the Half-Blood Prince and has to be told who it is. {{spoiler|this is despite his habit of suspecting Snape of anything and also the (once common) tradition in British schools of school teachers keeping their favourite text book in the book cupboard and it only ending up in the hands of pupils if they're desperate (precisely because of how moth-eaten and scrawled over these books often were). Apparently Ron and Harry were familiar enough with their own education system to fight over who didn't get the old book [[Idiot Plot|but weren't familiar enough to associate that book with being the teacher's.]] As a result, the one time Snape should have legitimately been one of Harry's (or at least Hermione's) ''first'' suspects was the one time he inexplicably wasn't suspected at all.}} |
*** It's also played straight in the same book. Harry never once suspects the correct person of being the Half-Blood Prince and has to be told who it is. {{spoiler|this is despite his habit of suspecting Snape of anything and also the (once common) tradition in British schools of school teachers keeping their favourite text book in the book cupboard and it only ending up in the hands of pupils if they're desperate (precisely because of how moth-eaten and scrawled over these books often were). Apparently Ron and Harry were familiar enough with their own education system to fight over who didn't get the old book [[Idiot Plot|but weren't familiar enough to associate that book with being the teacher's.]] As a result, the one time Snape should have legitimately been one of Harry's (or at least Hermione's) ''first'' suspects was the one time he inexplicably wasn't suspected at all.}} |
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*** On the other hand, {{spoiler|Slughorn ''had'' taken over for Snape as potions master that year, so they only had Slughorn to relate it to.}} |
*** On the other hand, {{spoiler|Slughorn ''had'' taken over for Snape as potions master that year, so they only had Slughorn to relate it to.}} |
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** Also used in ''[[Harry Potter |
** Also used in ''[[Harry Potter/Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban|Harry Potter]]''. You can't get much more [[Beneath Suspicion]] than {{spoiler|someone's pet rat}}. |
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** Animagi seem to like using this reasoning, especially unregistered ones. In ''[[Harry Potter |
** Animagi seem to like using this reasoning, especially unregistered ones. In ''[[Harry Potter/Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone|Philosopher's Stone]]'', Professor [McGonagall] spends all day spying on the Dursleys in the form of a cat. Later on, various other animagi try using the same reasoning with varying degrees of success such as Sirius trying to get away with using his dog-form {{spoiler|and Rita Skeeter obtaining her stories by turning into a bug.}} |
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* Lots and Lots of [[Agatha Christie]] novels. The most notable example would probably be {{spoiler|''Crooked House''}}, in which the murderer is a psychopathic child which no one in the book, nor the reader for that matter, would have ever suspected. Caused quite a stir in its time, too.<br /><br />It gets to the point that the character(s) that have absolutely rock-solid alibis are often the ones responsible. Examples include ''Lord Edgware Dies'' (she was at a party with friends), ''[[Death on the Nile]]'' (one had been shot in the leg, the other with a nurse looking over her) and ''Murder in Mesopotamia'' (he was on the roof while the victim was downstairs). |
* Lots and Lots of [[Agatha Christie]] novels. The most notable example would probably be {{spoiler|''Crooked House''}}, in which the murderer is a psychopathic child which no one in the book, nor the reader for that matter, would have ever suspected. Caused quite a stir in its time, too.<br /><br />It gets to the point that the character(s) that have absolutely rock-solid alibis are often the ones responsible. Examples include ''Lord Edgware Dies'' (she was at a party with friends), ''[[Death on the Nile]]'' (one had been shot in the leg, the other with a nurse looking over her) and ''Murder in Mesopotamia'' (he was on the roof while the victim was downstairs). |
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* The murderer in [[Tamora Pierce]]'s ''[[Circle of Magic|Shatterglass]]'' ends up being a {{spoiler|''prathmun'', a member of the Untouchable caste, considered so low and degraded that to even acknowledge his presence requires being ritually purified afterward.}} |
* The murderer in [[Tamora Pierce]]'s ''[[Circle of Magic|Shatterglass]]'' ends up being a {{spoiler|''prathmun'', a member of the Untouchable caste, considered so low and degraded that to even acknowledge his presence requires being ritually purified afterward.}} |
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