MY ONE GRIPE WITH AC'S MASTERPIECE, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

CaptainHastings

I am hesitant to criticize any element of And Then There Were None because it is probably my favorite book of all time, however, in the interest of opening up a discourse with fellow fans, here goes:

SPOILER




Of course, we learn from the epilogue that Judge Wargrave did it.  He systematically killed (or arranged the death) of nine people who could not be punished for, what in his mind were, capital crimes.  It is all very clever, especially how he inserts his own 'murder' into the middle of the action with the unwitting (or half-witted) assistance of the doctor.  We then learn that when the 10th victim or 'Indian,' is dead, he rigs a shotgun in such a way as to make his suicide appear to be a murder.  My one gripe is that as clever as his plan was and as good of a read as the book was, he really had no hope of 'getting away with it.'  Yes, we know that he sentenced an innocent man to death and with his bizarre sense of justice he considered himself no more worthy than the rest to escape execution.  However, in eliminating any expectation that he, himself, would survive, there was really no need for the deaths of those nine people to be so clever and suspenseful.  Even if he was able to get a ferry back to the mainland, he still would have had to have explained how he survived and all other guests perished.  There was no hope in accomplishing that.  I first read this novel at age 11, and that aspect stuck out in my head then.  Twenty-six years later it remains a gripe of mine.  Don't get me wrong - it is probably the finest example of suspense ever put to paper, and the original film from 1945 is one of the most chilling films I have ever seen - even with the Hollywood ending.  I just wonder why the mystery couldn't have been revealed to the reader in such a way as the judge got his vengeance got away with it, to boot. 

Tommy_A_Jones

If I had a gripe it is one of the 10 die at their own hands not that of the Murderer and Experts will tell you there is always one reason why someone commits suicide

CaptainHastings

What do you mean "there is always one reason why someone commits suicide?"  Are you saying that irrespective of the situation in which the judge placed her, there was something separate inside of Vera that would have caused her to hang herself?  Perhaps her own guilt over the drowning death of the child within her charge?  I forgot, does Vera kill Lombard thinking that he must be the murderer since only he and she were thought to be alive?  I think since the judge planned each death down to the basic human nature of the final 2 victims, he would be legally accountable for the murder of both Vera and Lombard.

Tommy_A_Jones

What I meant was that thre is more than one reason which makes someone commit suicide so If The Judge meant to make it look like Vera Committed suicide he went the wrong way about it

CaptainHastings

So in your original post you meant to say, "experts will tell you there is not always one reason why someone commits suicide."

BlueMoon

@CaptainHastings there kind of was, I mean, why would he go back when the murders would tarnish his reputation and the reason he killed them is because he felt they needed the justice they had barely escape and yes, he could get away with it, before the epilouge thingy did you think it was him?

Tommy_A_Jones

Yes CaptanHastings I did but when I was writing yesterday's post I realised that this case was different

GKCfan

***SPOILERS***

Please excuse me, but there are a few points in your post that are not accurate.  First of all, the Judge did NOT sentence an innocent man to death.  At the end of the book, it's made very clear that E. Seton was completely guilty.  The Judge was terminally ill, and was going to die a long, slow, death anyway.  He wanted to commit the murder on a grand scale he always wanted to commit and then die before he suffered a painful extended death.  His goal was to commit the perfect murder that would stump the police AND put the nine island victims in an extended state of mental strain.  He was also interested to see if he could psychologically position someone else into killing someone and then commit suicide.  It's implied that if Vera hadn't killed herself, he would have killed her.  He only wrote the confession because he realized that he didn't want his "cleverness" to go unappreciated, so he put it in a bottle in the sea for a one in one hundred chance of being found.

Tommy_A_Jones

I thought you were partially right, Seton was guilty of Crimes just not the one where he came before the Judge (That is what I thought anyway. 

MissQuin

I  adore The Then There Were none and I can't see any reasons why SPOILERS!!!  Justice Wargrave wouldn't behave in the way he did. There's something  perverse about the way he died. It's as if he was  a victim. Yet he never was. It was always him in charge of the fate of  the lives of others.  I think that Vera would have been most likely to have been blamed for all of the deaths, because she was the one who appears to have been the last to die. 

The only thing that's every make me ponder, is the way that Justice Wargrave died. I'm not a ballistics expert so I don't know if you would tie the gun around the door etc etc. It makes me wonder how did Agatha Christie know that you could do that? It's intriguing, perhaps it was in a newspaper report she read? I would certianly never want to test that theory out!

GKCfan

***SPOILERS***

The truth about the Edward Seton case is revealed in the next-to-last chapter (the scene before the confession).  The police detectives make it clear that evidence proving Seton's guilt has been found, and it was for the crime he was tried for by Wargrave.  The allegations that the judge's summing-up was vindictive were unfair to Wargrave.  Seton's defense was a bunch of smoke and mirrors to make him seem like a nice guy, and Wargrave pointed out that the evidence was overwhelming.  After the trial, more evidence conclusively proved Seton's guilt.  We don't know of any other crimes that Seton committed.

The detectives knew the first six "victims" by the diaries and notes left by a few of the characters, though they never guessed that the Judge wasn't dead.  They figured it couldn't have been Armstrong because somebody dragged his drowned body past the high-tide mark.  They knew it couldn't have been Lombard because the gun was too far away.  And it couldn't have been Vera because the chair she kicked over had been moved off to the side (by the judge).  Furthermore, they couldn't see how Blore could have killed himself with a clock, and they knew Blore personally and knew he wouldn't be interested in this kind of abstract justice.

Wargrave's final plan was to use his elastic eyeglass cord as a kind of slingshot.  When he was killed by the bullet, he expected his hand to drop the gun, sending it flying out the open door.  As it turned out, the plan was only partly successful.  The gun was sent flying, but it landed near the door.

PhuketBlue

My only problem with the book is the obvious flaw in logic.  

When the judge stages his own death (with the help of the doctor), the murderer would have known that he didn't kill the judge and therefore staging his death would serve no purpose.  Surely that should have made it obvious to the doctor that the judge had to be the murderer.

Tommy_A_Jones

But didn't the Doctor assist the Judge because the Judge had convinced him hat people including the Judge and Doctor must pay the ultimate sacrifice for Killing Innocent People?

tudes

SPOILER:

The murderer would have known that he/she would't heve killed the judge. But I think, in this case, the murderer would have tried to murder the judge and they could have caught the culprit. At least, in the doctor's mind. We should not forget that all these people weren't in their best mental and physical condition (they were not sleeping nor eating well, they were in great mental strain- trapped in a island facing an known murderer). They were feeling powerless and in great danger. They were not thinking straight, so any suggestion to catch this guy would have been welcome.

GKCfan

*** SPOILERS ***

PhuketBlue, the whole point of the Judge and Doctor faking a murder was to trap the supposed real killer.  The Judge knew he needed an ally.  The Doctor wrongly believed a respected judge couldn't possibly be a killer.  The Doctor was convinced that U. N, Owen was Lombard, and the Judge pretended to agree.  The Judge proposed a trap.  They'd fake the Judge's death, and later, when the confused killer started to investigate.  They'd trap the killer.  The meeting on the cliff late at night was to compare notes on the other three.

tudes

You're right, @GKCfan.

Tommy_A_Jones

I can see I have the reason The Judge gave the Doctor is wrong, I shall look forward to reading it again.