"Just because something is faked doesn't mean it's not real." - Logico, Vol.1
Or: There is more to Logico's memory-rewrite in SoM than you realise. Yes, even more than that thing you're thinking of right now.
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Alright, it's happening. I've entered the analysis-writing phase of my Murdle obsession.
Spoilers ahead for Murdle Vol.1 and School of Mystery.
1. Establishing Baseline
One disclaimer before I delve into this: I only joined the fandom about 3 weeks ago, so there really is no feasible way for me to know whether this post isn't just reheating 2024's leftovers.
Thankfully though, responses to my recent poll have reassured me that I do not need to go into detail about the following base assumptions at least:
Logico's memories of the SoM-events were heavily altered, as implied by Case 39
Logico himself altered them, with a certain degree of purpose (albeit an uncertain degree of consciousness) to create a version of events in his mind where he didn't miss his chance to bond with Irratino earlier in life by being "too shy"
This alteration was kicked off or at least heavily exacerbated by Logico's grief over Irratino's "death" in Vol.1
(Though I am sorry to the 1 person who voted in favour of the in-depth explanation - if you're really curious, you can always dm me.)
With these out of the way, I can skip right to the more interesting idea:
2. "Losing Irratino to death had been hard, but losing him to betrayal was worse."
The thing that sparked this particular line of thought was, funnily enough, the post/fanfiction I wrote the other day.
In it, I made quite a marked case for nearly all of SoM being a result of the time in which Logico believes Irratino to be dead in Vol.1 - including SoM chapter 5.
And while it does make a lot of sense in some regards (especially the way both graduate Logico and grief-stricken Logico start trying their hand at esoteric practices), in others, it really doesn't.
Specifically, even as I was writing my post/fanfic, there was one thing that just never sat quite right with me:
The falling out between Logico and Irratino.
Within my post, I essentially argued that Logico might imagine his college senior self abandoning Irratino in the name of reason - as a form of self-punishment in the present, almost.
Though not impossible, it still just didn't make much emotional sense to me. After all, while it would indeed be easy to see with the gift of hindsight that Logico was treating Irratino unkindly in that moment - from (projected) college senior Logico's point of view, it was still Irratino who betrayed him.
Who lied to him. Who broke his heart.
It never quite felt right to me that (in memories which Logico edited specifically to create a happier version of events in which he got to know the person who "made his heart leap with joy" sooner, supposedly during a time in which he was grieving them, too) Logico would include a prolonged episode of feeling betrayed and lied to by that very person.
Why add months of feeling disappointed, ashamed and forlorn into his narrative? Why envision that the person he'd loved and lost was secretly a criminal mastermind who broke his trust and ultimately left him with nothing but heartbreak, betrayal, and confusion?
...Wait.
Fancy that.
A near identical scenario in which Irratino has allegedly been drawing the strings of a criminal operation and lied to Logico about it, and which culminates in a dramatic confrontation and separation between the two.
In short, I've come to believe that while SoM up to and including the dream in which Logico realises the truth of his altered memories do "take place" (or more accurately, are projected backwards) during the time in which he believes Irratino to be dead... the falling out and what happens afterwards in SoM are instead the equally projected manifestation of Logico grappling with - well - the falling out and what happened afterwards in Vol.1.
(As I imagine, acknowledging within the dream that he had indeed fabricated these memories would have been the moment where the illusion broke, which is why the abruptly warped realism afterwards make sense. After all, even within this altered world, Logico likely wouldn't have found it realistic that he should be invited to join a secret society on campus two days before graduation. Similarly, he wouldn't have believed that a trinket from his dream truly could manifest itself physically on his nightstand. These inconsistencies, I think, mark the difference from before to after the fracture.)
Whether the imagined events of SoM chapter 5 are the result, the reflection, or the cause of how Logico deals with the situation throughout Vol.1 chapter 4 though, I couldn't say. I could go either way, really.
However, I do want to point out that there actually is a little more to this theory than just the fact that it's what makes the most "emotional sense".
We've got parallels, people:
3. Clues & Evidence
First up, as I already mentioned, there's the thematic similarities between the two confrontation scenes themselves. The expressed sentiments are very much the same; Logico's incredulity
"It looks like you faked your death and have being building fake ruins and placing them everywhere as some kind of publicity stunt. Is this what you spent the million dollars on?"
"How could you be the leader of a group founded by the murderer of the founder? You've been wearing garnets all around campus! It's horrific!"
the thing that truly hurt him
Logico grew cold. "Did you fake your death on the island?"
"And what's more, you lied to me about it!"
and Irratino's resignation to the accusation.
Irratino tensed up, and then let his head fall. "It was the only way."
"I..." Irratino seemed to stammer. Finally he said, "You're right, I did."
A very direct, very literal parallel is also found when Irratino feels disappointed with how quickly Logico had jumped to the conclusion that Irratino was guilty, instead of trusting what he knew in his heart:
"I'm not mad," Irratino said. "Just disappointed." "In what?" "I would tell you, Logico. But I know you don't believe anything you don't see yourself."
"I thought you'd learn to look inside yourself, and see the truth your logic could not." "Why didn't you tell me you were innocent?" "I knew that you'd never believe anything you didn't deduce yourself."
And finally, my personal favourite. While it's not quite as literal, the underlying sentiment and the point in time are a perfect match.
In Vol.1, it is said that, following the revelation and subsequent heartbreak,
[Logico] gave up detective work and began to focus on purely logical problems, like how many sides a triangle could have before it became a square.
...A brief and markedly facetious statement (as rather typical of Vol.1).
However, if you were to take the underlying sentiment seriously, then wouldn't another way to put it be that... instead of going out into the world and applying the means of deductive reasoning to solve all the worlds problems (i.e. "detective work"), Logico decides to stay behind and focus his work purely around the value of logic itself?
Or contrariwise, what was the "doctoral dissertation" really other than a vain effort to retreat into himself and stick to pure reason, as it simply hurt too much to consider anything else?
4. Great! ...Now what?
I believe the most interesting thing one can do with the idea that SoM chapter 5 is a reflection - or result, or cause - of Vol.1 chapter 4, is to start looking for what this connection might say about Logico's state of mind in the latter.
What it adds.
After all, there is still one thing you could argue directly contradicts the theory I just proposed. Namely, the path Logico takes to arrive at the point of reconciliation in either book.
In SoM, the whole point is that Logico is required to let go of his absolute subservience to reason first, in order to fully understand.
"Logico, you need to see to believe. But to truly see, you must first believe."
[...] he knew, as clearly as he had ever known anything, that Irratino must be innocent, that logic could guide you, but it should never control you, for while your feet may be planted on the ground, your eyes must be aimed up at the stars. And suddenly he realized the truth.
By comparison, Irratino, at the end of Vol.1, was ostensibly still right - Logico didn't accept that Irratino was innocent until he had deduced so himself. No starry night sky to guide him along towards the Truth.
...But is that really all there was to it?
If we assume for a moment that my theory is correct, and we can indeed draw from SoM for a deeper understanding of Vol.1, then isn't there another way to look at Logico's actions as he works his way through his feelings and misconceptions in Vol.1?
"I've been looking at the stars above us, Logico. And they tell me that the chess player was near a classic car." Maybe, Logico thought, I shouldn't keep calling, but it was hard to resist.
Logico didn't think these two were comparable, but he remembered that Irratino said no two things were ever comparable. But he still couldn't forgive him for what he'd done.
Throughout the puzzles, hints and solutions of chapter 4, we see a conflicted Logico struggling between what he has reasoned to be true, and the compulsion to keep reaching out for Irratino.
And at the same time - while admittedly a far cry from the heavy-handed challenges to his reliance on logic that he receives in SoM (the blatancy of which, to be fair, is easily explained by it being a manifestation of Logico's ambivalence and not real) -, we do also see Logico starting to lean in to the hunch, and the elusive connection of dots in the back of his brain.
But, looking around the stage, Logico was struck by the thought that just because something was faked doesn't mean it wasn't real. (↑ in itself a highly "illogical" idea btw... oxymoronic, even!)
Logico stared at them. They reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite place it.
So. With all this in mind, what might SoM tell us about Vol.1 Logico's journey to the Truth, in the end?
Well, in essence... I feel like it tells us of a tiny, yet powerful drive that may have been spurring Logico on (but which he would have never admitted to, except in the depths of the kaleidoscopic fragments of himself):
"This time, it wasn't just reason," Logico said. "This time, I wanted to do it."
Somewhere deep down, he had kept looking. And he, too, had simply wanted to do so.
Follow Logico's gut and look for clues that might exonerate Irratino, point the finger at someone else, and reveal the true secrets [...]. It was irrational to believe such evidence existed, and yet, as Logico looks up at the stars, a part of him still believes.
Because a part of him still believed.
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Other Murdle analyses I've written:
Their relationship status - part 1 | part 2
Their hilariously discrepant perceptions of each other in college
Irratino's question in Vol.3