History Headscratchers / AndThenThereWereNone

** Agreed. The title used a racist word because the name of the existing nursery rhyme invoked happened to have it as well, not out of racism of its own. Had the rhyme been called "[[MontyPython Ethel the Aadvark Goes Quantity Surveying]]" then that would have been the title of the book as well, it was just a matter of happenstance. Not to mention that "And Then There Were None" is a much more spoilerific title.

*** Well, considering that black rapers tend to overuse this particular word to no end in their songs and nobody seems to be offended by that, what would be wrong in keeping it in the title of classic, well-known crime novel?

** This goes back to the British class system of the time: Rogers (shown to be an intensely conventional, unimaginative man for just this reason) 'knows his place', and it isn't with the company, regardless of the situation. Granted, this is probably dependent more on Christie's readers accepting this stereotype than the validity of the type itself.

** Well, she started out as a very strong character, but then it was revealed later in the novel that she [[{{Yandere}} wasn't all that stable to begin with]] and she felt ''tremendous'' guilt over what she had done. Not to mention she had to watch eight people around her die within four days before being forced to kill one herself (which would drive ANYONE to madness). This, combined with the fact that the weekend was rapidly approaching the anniversary on the day she killed a little boy (and it's implied this was part of the reason the murderer chose that particular weekend: to further drive the point home to Vera), was what [[DrivenToSuicide ultimately drove her to her complete and total breakdown at the end.]]

** Remember, the judge kills his victims in order of increasing moral culpability, so the first few ''had'' to be less flagrantly to blame than the rest. Emily is the ''least'' remorseful of the ones who'd killed people through indirect action (withholding medicine, giving suicidal orders, steering a jury) rather than direct and willful crimes (stealing supplies, planting evidence, leading a poor swimmer to the beach). Anthony Marston, the least remorseful of all, goes first because the Judge has pegged him for a complete sociopath, incapable of having his nerves racked by guilt and fear.

** They don't know for sure that neither of them could be the killer; what they do know for sure, or at least think they know, is that they're the only people left alive on the island. Their natural assumption -- as made clear in the text -- is that Blore's death by falling statuette was 'a trick' rigged up earlier.

* Wargrave's entire plot was based around the characters being stuck on the island, but whether he knew it or not, it required a storm to hit on the night they arrived and lift on the last day. But of course the Judge's plot had to be set in motion so far in advance there was no way to ensure that a storm would hit on the required days.
** Wargrave's man told the villagers not to come to the island because it was an experiment, but the boatman ignored him and came anyway as soon as the storm lifted.

** The fact that she'd turned her back on the servant girl out of self-righteous intolerance could well have been the deciding factor, as it made Miss Brent a HolierThanThou hypocrite: one who callously consigned someone who desperately needed her help to despair, in the name of what's ''supposed'' to be a compassionate faith. Plus, the servant's unborn baby died too, and it certainly shouldn't have paid for its mother's faux pas.

** This situation's called Hostile Suspition Chain. B knows V isn't a killer, but he's not sure if V knows that ''B knows'' that V isn't the killer. Same on the other side.

** ''Ten Little Yidies'', ''Ten Little Jhonnies(19th centriy Chinese immigrant in Britain)'', there's a variation of any race if you want to find one. Seriously.
*** Actually, I was reffering to the first one, it's just that [[InSovietRussiaTropeMocksYou in Soviet Russia]] the name of the novel was completely deprieved of any derogatory undertone and sounds like "Ten little negroes". I saw the name written like this in the Web and assumed it was like this initially.I couldn't imagine that they would feature a derogatory variant of the word in the name of a book for no reason.

*** Actually, I was reffering to the first one, it's just that in Soviet Russia the name of the novel was completely deprieved of any derogatory undertone and sounds like "Ten little negroes". I saw the name written like this in the Web and assumed it was like this initially.I couldn't imagine that they would feature a derogatory variant of the word in the name of a book for no reason.

* In the movies, the real Lombard killed himself after receiving the letter from "Mr. Owen", and Morley impersonates Lombard to get to the bottom of it. But why would the letter prompt Lombard to kill himself? The whole point of the letter was to goad the victims to the island without raising any suspicion of the real reason for the invite.

** The Sparknotes for this book says that Lombard had an old-fashioned view of women and thus didn't think that Vera would or could turn the tables on him like that.

* The inclusion of Emily Brent in the victims. The Rogers deliberately murdered their employer, Vera Claythorn drowned a young boy, the General sent a man to his death, and Emily Brent fired a servant whose behavior had dissatisfied her. No, she wasn't very nice about it, but what she did is still a long way from the murder/manslaughter that the others had done. It is, in fact, hard to consider her primarily responsible for Beatrice Taylor's death (what about the girl's parents? or the guy who got her pregnant then abandoned her?)
** True, but it's clear that Miss Brent also knew her servant had been abandoned by both the baby's father and her parents; instead of responding with compassion and assistance, she turned her out -- with no 'character', or reference, which in combination with the baby meant she'd effectively made the girl unemployable. Thus a strong case can be made that Miss Brent represented the girl's last hope, and that her actions were what tipped her over the edge to suicide.

** Remember, the judge kills his victims in order of increasing moral culpability, so the first few ''had'' to be less flagrantly to blame than the rest. Emily is the ''least'' remorseful of the ones who'd killed people through indirect action (witholding medicine, giving suicidal orders, steering a jury) rather than direct and willful crimes (stealing supplies, planting evidence, leading a poor swimmer to the beach).

** In the novel it was made pretty clear the last 3 deaths were not really part of any plan. Wargrave just knew that, since they had a gun, they would likelly to kill each other at some point and just waited to an opportunity to drop the "bear" in the first who passed by.

** Technically, Lombard isn't really the ''villain''; he's more of an [[AntiHero Anti Hero]] or at the very least a [[HeroicSociopath heroic sociopath.]] But I see what you mean.