Subject: Re: Various points gleaned from reviewing the TP extant TP episodes
From: boyajian@ruby.dec.com (Cisco's Buddy)
Date: 1990-05-06, 16:56
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <2341@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>, adamk@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Adam Kao) writes...

} Now consider writing "Kitty got a new collar" on a diary page which
} appears on camera. Someone gave the opinion that this was a red herring,
} designed to confuse us and hence unrelated to the plot. In other words,
} it was a throw away line which we would have been better off not seeing.

} That would be no fun.

You're right, it would be no fun.

However, you also grossly misinterpreted what I said. I never said -- nor
do I believe -- that it was a "throw away line which we would have been
better off not seeing". I also do not believe that this is the definition
of "red herring".

A red herring is an element introduced into the story to deliberately
make us travel down a garden path toward an erroneous solution. It's a
perfectly legitimate construction in the mystery story. It's not a cheat
because the creator is *not* telling us it's a relevant element, but
only presenting it in a way so that some of his audience will *think*
it's relevant. It's a literary form of what stage magicians do -- they
distract the audience's collective eye from what he's doing by leading
their attention elsewhere.

For me, the fun is not so much interpreting the clues, but *figuring out
what are real clues and what are not*. Red herrings are the way to go
about having this sort of fun.

-- "I've got compassion running outta my nose, pal. I'm the sultan of sentiment." --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, "The Mill", Maynard, MA) UUCP: ...!decwrl!ruby.enet.dec.com!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%ruby.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM