The mystery genre thread

[magnum12]

This thread is for the general discussion of the mystery genre. I'll start this off with a debate on how Knox's Decalogue is supposed to be correctly interpreted

Knox's 2nd: Which line of thought is correct? Or are they both correct since the same conclusion is met?
-a: Existance is flat out forbidden.
-b: Existance is allowed, but involvement in the crime is not. However, usage as a red herring is allowed.

Knox's 4th: Which of these items counts as a violation?
-a: The usage of bio toxins (animal venom, bacterial exo-toxins), delivered for example by the coated blade of an assasin. Arguably hard for the reader to identify symptoms of exposure without proper academic training, especially when one takes into account things like hemo-toxins (rattle snake and brown recluse venom) and neuro toxins (IIRC sea snake and black widow venom).
-b: Fictional poisons (known to that universe's science, assuming proper foreshadowing)
-c: Pathogens/parasites (of course with proper foreshadowing of their involvement such as for example sudden erratic changes in the infected's behaviour).

[Jaden]

About the 2nd then...
The reason this is forbidden is that introducing supernatural elements will dismotivate the readers from finding a human culprit to a seemingly impossible murder.

However, writers break this rule all the time, and it's not necessarily detrimental to the mystery. For example, in Phoenix Wright, it's established that ghosts and spirit mediums are the real thing, but all that happens between the worlds of living and dead is communication. It just takes a certain amount of tact to introduce these elements in a way that doesn't break the mystery.

About the 4th, there's two ways you can go.

Either you use a real world toxin or pathogen, and necessatate a certain amount of trivia knowledge from the reader to identify it. Anyone can look up stuff from Wikipedia these days, so it's not completely unreasonable to use the things you mentioned. It's fair to give knowledgeable people a bit of an edge, but identifying a murder weapon like this should not be the only clue pointing to the culprit.

Alternatively, you use something fictional. We who know our anime know at least one example where such a thing is a major plot point, and it's a straight up violation of the rule for sure. However, some people who did not care for these rules and just thought outside the box found it interesting. Gotta keep in mind that these are only supposed to be guidelines for writers, not rules for readers. (With the exception of Umineko)

[MrTerrorist]

So is this thread about stories that are part of the mystery genre?

[magnum12]

Yep, pretty much anything related to the genre.

When thinking about Higurashi (I interpret it as a hybrid mystery/psychological horror), its big plot twist had clues as to its true nature as early as the 1st novel

Spoiler for higurashi spoilers:

Keiichi's death being identical to Tomitakes despite no evidence of injection style wounds

and from personal experience (given my field of study, certain red flags popped up) figured it out by the 6th novel. While its not perfect with Knox (my biggest issue with Higurashi is actually a certain piece of paper in the 2nd novel, though it should be noted that the investigation process is much better handeled in the anime and manga versions), it does comply pretty well to the overall concept of "fair play".

The series does use Knox's 2nd pretty well, using the supernatural

Spoiler for higurashi spoiler:

as a "red herring" to distract, only to reveal that Oyashiro is completely real and the poor girl is 100% innocent to boot.

Knox's 2nd can also be used to rule out

Spoiler for watangashi-hen spoilers:

the "demonic possession" and "animated corpses" theories

brought up in the 2nd novel. IIRC, the only character who could be considered "the detective" in any of the novels was

Spoiler for Watanagashi-hen spoilers:

Rena

in the 2nd novel. I don't think Knox says something about having to have a proper detective, but the Van Dyne rules do.

Going back to the "usage of animal venom as a murder weapon" thing; what would be considered adequete amount of clues for this solution to be valid? For example, with the "rattle snaked venom coated assasin's blade" scenario, clues would include the body having obvious stab/slashing wounds with a very gruesome purpleish coloration of the area around the "point of entry" (this is a tell tale sign of a hemotoxin since these toxins attack and degrade tissues), the discovery of a portable insultation unit (think ice chest like, this is key since biological toxins are often destructive enzymes, which will degrade rapidly unless adequetely preserved, often via keeping them chilled). Still thinking of some other clues to leave about.

[SuitUp]

Originally Posted by magnum12

This thread is for the general discussion of the mystery genre. I'll start this off with a debate on how Knox's Decalogue is supposed to be correctly interpreted
Knox's 2nd: Which line of thought is correct? Or are they both correct since the same conclusion is met?
-a: Existance is flat out forbidden.
-b: Existance is allowed, but involvement in the crime is not. However, usage as a red herring is allowed.
Knox's 4th: Which of these items counts as a violation?
-a: The usage of bio toxins (animal venom, bacterial exo-toxins), delivered for example by the coated blade of an assasin. Arguably hard for the reader to identify symptoms of exposure without proper academic training, especially when one takes into account things like hemo-toxins (rattle snake and brown recluse venom) and neuro toxins (IIRC sea snake and black widow venom).
-b: Fictional poisons (known to that universe's science, assuming proper foreshadowing)
-c: Pathogens/parasites (of course with proper foreshadowing of their involvement such as for example sudden erratic changes in the infected's behaviour).

Well, as for 2nd, i was always under the impression that supernatural involment in a fair mistery is alright, as long as you set the rules and logic of any supernatural means you're going to use and don't make it a mcguffin that pulls out new rules or interpretations out of the blue every chapter, since that not only would be a violation of the decalogue, but also of propper writing.

As for 4th, i don't think the use of any real life toxin, however unknow or rare is a violation if you use propper foreshadowing, either in laid clues, or in the form of symbolism.
The ficitional toxins, however, are another completely different matter, since well, they're fictional and don't have to necessarily comply to any rule whatsoever, so at least in my opinion, they're a way to either confuse or oughtright cheat the reader in ways not relevant to the mystery itself, so that makes them a big no for me, of course assuming you're following the decalogue, wich nobody seems to follow anymore, god, i miss christhie.
As for the decalogue mentioning anything about been forced to have a propper detective, it isn't outwright stated, but it's highly implied that the detective must be precisely that, a character clearly designed as the detective, i think even dickson carr talked about it.

[MrTerrorist]