MobileRead Winter Contest: Discussion

[desertblues]

Originally Posted by red_phoenix

I guessed correctly. I was immediately suspicious of Pooh in the episode where he was cooked...I mean we're talking about Pooh here. He escapes attempts to eat him in almost every thread he visits.

Well done to all the Mods for a wonderful contest.

Good luck everyone who guessed/deduced the correct culprit.

Yes, it was a very mysterious story. Very well done!

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by orlok

I surmised that the only body that couldn't be identified was poohbear. And he certainly had plenty of motive.

I went back and re-read the Agatha Christy story. That convinced me it was the Chicken. As you say, his was the only body not really seen after death.


Stitchawl

[Asawi]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Same here, although I fingered Ravenne rather than Alex.

I was suspicious of Ravenne as well. For a moment I though of a conspiracy between her and Pooh. Or maybe her on her own in a rage over mods making such a mess for her to take care of everywhere. That was the bright - as I saw it then - idea I had AFTER submitting my entry. I was a bit upset that I thought of that too late... The more I thought about it, the more sense Ravenne as the killer made.

Well, at least I'm in the drawing now, but I'm very rarely lucky in lotteries. I'm just thrilled I figured it out!

[Iznogood]

But there is one thing I don't quite get. Was it planned well in advance or was it murder-while-you-go? Was the wine dreams gave pdurrant poinsoned from the start (i.e. poisoned even before the story started and dreams found it in the wine cellar), or did pooh poison the punch after episode 2? Or wasn't it poisoned at all? Did pdurrant get drowned after all?

The same with the cookies? Were the sprinkles poisoned before dreams used them, or were the cookies poisoned after pilotbob died? I'm asking because if pooh didn't think of murder before chapter 1, how do we account for the dying ant in the kitchen? The sprinkles couldn't have peen poisoned at all when dreams baked the cookies - the poison must have been put on the cookies afterwards

I think I can account for the doors - after all it isn't too hard to lock/unlock the front door when you're inside the house. And I guess that the library door had the same lock as e.g. poohs own door, which we heard him lock in chapter 2.

[5thWiggle]

AHA! I was right! I guess this darn head cold didn't impair my cognitive functions as much as I thought.

Time to resurrect Dreams, unless she's permantly gone Goth from the trauma, and restart the "Chicken" thread to catch us a murderer.

(Dr Drib can come back as a zombie - I'm sure he'd like that)

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

Clearly, the chicken is the most likely to commit this heinous crime. I say we throw him in the pot and stew him up now before he commits the murder. Eat one chicken, save a real life.

They should have listened to me from the beginning. So many lives senselessly wasted. I say we eat him now.

[WT Sharpe]

I don't believe anyone guessed me as the killer, even after I posted this to suggest how I might have pulled it off even after my apparent decapitation.

It just goes to show that you all think I'm the one person on the Moderation Team who's too nice to be a murderer.

"He was a quiet man."

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Iznogood

Was the wine dreams gave pdurrant poinsoned from tstart (i.e. poisoned even before the story started and dreams found it in the wine cellar), or did pooh poison the punch after episode 2? Or wasn't it poisoned at all? Did pdurrant get drowned after all?

Before going outside pdurrant emptied his glass which had just been refilled. His glass is empty, he wants more and then he empties it again.
At that time, I was sure he was drinking the green beverage. I don't know if that will help you make more sense of that.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Alex had been too quiet and Ravenne was too easy to pick.

I discounted Alex because he'd spent most of the time with Jellby, and discounted Jellby for the same reason. C'est la vie.

[DreamWriter]

Yay! I correctly identified both murderer and motive!

I suspected poohbear_nc right off the bat since there was no proof of the microwaved chicken's identity. And there was no "gift" in Pooh's stocking at the end.

Initially, I thought the murderer could have been Ravenne, so once all the episodes were posted, I read the entire story again. She had an alibi for the last two murders since she was away from the house with Marc_liest and mtravellerh, so that left Pooh as my sole suspect.

It was fun to read the episodes each day, and I thought the story was very well written! Good job!

[BearMountainBooks]

Thanks for the story!

[yhamm]

Thanks again for the wonderful mystery. I am happy to report that I actually guessed right and for the right reasons. I amaze myself

[WT Sharpe]

Even I figured this one out, as did most of those who entered. And although I love whodunits, I'm not much for solving them.

[pdurrant]

Perhaps some competitors dismissed Pooh as being too obvious a suspect. But you're right, over 50% of the entries correctly named poohbear_nc as the villain (Boo! Hiss!), so I think the difficulty was about right.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Since prizes are only for those who work out who has been killing off the Moderatorial Team, I'd advise keeping your reasoning secret until after the closing date.

Since I kind of said I would give some explanation, and let's face it it's pretty funny to read how everyone came up with a name , here it is (just pasted it from the email sent for the contest).

Mostly his death seems a little bit phony: where are the feathers, the head, the feet and all the non edible inside parts (I don't know those words in English, viscera maybe???)? Putting the glasses isn't enough and everyone who's unable to see without glasses has always a second pair for* far away. Plus it reminded me of "And Then There Were None". And i could** get past the fact that the moderators ate one of them. If the murderer is actually poohbear_nc, they ate him without knowing it was another chicken, which isn't redeeming them.

I was confused with Alex and the keys, but I gave up because I couldn't make sense of this. Ravenne seems too good a suspect to be a real one.
I also tried to see if there was any meaning in the words in bold. It doesn't seem that random.

Anyway, I've had great fun trying to figure who did that. Thanks for that.

*it was supposed to be "not far away"
**"I couldn't get past"
Oh my, I definitely can't type properly when being tired
I wanted then to add that the murders happened because poohbear_nc was bullied, but I wasn't sure if "bully" applies to one doing it (my first idea) or to the one to whom it's done. I could have come with "he's a victim" but I couldn't think straight at that time.


And you? What were your submissions?