History Headscratchers / LANoire

* For me, the romantic subplot make no sense for several reasons: 1) I don't understand why Cole suddenly wanted to start an affair with Elsa. He might be a StalkerWithACrush, but he is still a do-gooder and honor chaser. He should have known that it would've ruin his life. Was he possessed by [[GrandTheftAutoIVTheBalladOfGayTony Luis Lopez]]? 2) How the hell did Elsa fall in love with Cole that quickly? She doesn't seem to notice him before they get into bed. If it was one night stand, why did she accept him into her life so quickly?

--> While I do give points for Phelps attempting to see the war from the Japanese point of view, does anyone think it's stupid that he's apparently sympathetic towards them to his own men? As far as they're concerned, he's saying, 'I like the men who are killing you and torturing your friends.' Surely even he knows that the others might question his loyalty.

*** I believe the OPs point was there was no way of knowing that prior to actually making the plunge. It's a bit illogical to expect people to make the jump from "receipt in vehicle" to "you were ''there''!" A bit more direction/hints into Cole's inner thoughts would have been a great help. Still, great game tho.
** Your complaint is certainly valid, but for a bit of gameplay advice - remember that you can back out of a Lie accusation by hitting B/Circle. So if you aren't sure whether to choose lie or doubt, hit Lie first and see if Cole pulls something out of his butt. If he does, back up and choose doubt and you're usually okay.
** The one about the traffic case made sense to me. Morgan says he knows nothing about the car, but if that's true how did the receipt with his name on it end up in the car. The receipt is a piece of evidence connecting him to the car which contradicts his story of knowing nothing about it.
*** Also, the receipt is dated the day before (though, since the game doesn't explicitly tell you the date, it can be hard to figure this out). If Frank knew nothing about the car, and by nothing we mean nothing ''unusual'', then why did he buy a pig and ''obviously'' transport it in the trunk of the car the day before? There's hay everywhere in the trunk and the receipt is a dead giveaway. Cole might not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Frank was there when the "accident" happened, but the fact that Frank is completely stonewalling him about it tells him more than if Frank had said he and Adrian bought a pig and transported it in the car.
** First, you can always back out. Second, it's pretty easy when you get the hang of it. 90% of the time, you just doubt what they're saying. If you think you have evidence relating to what they said, press lie. Then, either Cole or the interviewee will be like "This is what I need to prove" and the evidence will be "This is what this evidence proves." It's not THAT moon logic about 85% of the time.

** (this was written after the below posts but is getting put here because the rest of the discussion becomes an off-topic argument pretty quickly) The romance subplot was indeed appropriate to any fan actually paying attention. Cole is far from picture of morality despite what he wants others to believe, and the narration actually goes to great lengths to show this. Cole wants to be a good person, he really does. But his time in the war shows a much more flawed individual whose questionable leadership resulted in deep tragedy. His good cop facade is his attempt to [[TheAtoner atone for his sins]], mainly the hospital cave firebombing he was directly responsible for. Cole's relationship with Elsa is thus not only fulfillment of a Noir film archetype, but also strikingly in-tune with his character. As a [[ShellShockedVeteran scarred war-hero]], Cole probably found himself distanced from his much more idealistic young wife. Combine his war trauma with the high-stress detective work, and an affair doesn't seem unlikely anymore (he even tells Marie "you can't imagine what I've been going through" as she throws him out). Just like the hospital bombing, Cole never meant for the affair to go public because he tries his best to sweep his mistakes under the rug and hide them through good behaviour. He would've kept up his role as LAPD poster boy forever if it weren't for Roy airing his dirty laundry behind his back. Elsa, in contrast with Marie, is a headstrong individual who has also been ravaged by the terrors of war, not to mention Cole finds her physically captivating. The affair lasted until the end of the game because it was more than an affair - Cole couldn't deny to his wife that he was in love with Elsa, and the relationship was enough for Elsa to steer off of narcotics. That's more than a flashy one-night stand gone public. Considering the game is a detective story, not Cole's personal life, there was no reason to spend more time developing their romance than they already did. Also, the exact start of the affair is debatable. It appears to have been started during Manifest Destiny, but it very well could have begun a lot earlier. After all, its not like Cole could've just hopped in the car with her to go to her apartment, and the look Elsa gives him as she opens the door implies she was expecting him. In conclusion - are Cole and Elsa victims of StrangledByTheRedString? Only if you really weren't paying attention.

*** When Roy first takes Cole to the clubs backstage to meet Elsa, he is visibly disturbed by the physical abuse she sustains, and in between homicide cases, we see Cole going to the club specifically to watch her sing, apparently enough times to be on good terms with the owner. I took this to mean he was smitten with her, and might even have been having the affair long before we found out about it. After all, the only time you see Cole's wife before that part of the story was in the opening cutscene, and we only learn that he has kids in a easily missable car conversation. There were plenty of story developments that took place off screen, and that's not even accounting for the possibility of DLC filling in the holes later. It seems the people who are complaining about this simply weren't paying attention: L.A. Noire is the type of game where you replay it a couple times and go "ohhh, how did I miss that!" from what I've experienced so far anyway.

** I have already mentioned that all throughout the Homicide desk there are scenes of Cole going to the Blues Club where Roy first took him to introduce him to Elsa, and it is plain to see for everyone with two functioning brain stems that Cole is smitten with her. By using simple retroactive logic, anyone who has been playing the slightest bit of attention can put two and two together when Cole follows Elsa home during the Manifest Destiny case and she welcomes him into her room with open arms.

****** [[http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/race-in-games Boom.]] What you seem to be missing is Cole isn't the guy you seem to think he is. People try to white wash Cole and turn him into this perfect white knight who is out of character when he does things like intentionally incriminate the person who is the least likely to have committed the crime, or [[spoiler: cheat on his wife]], but the fact is that that's just who Cole is. The flashbacks to his time as a marine tell all: he's not trying to change who he is, he's just trying to avoid making the same mistakes that got him a reputation as a hated officer and eventually got him shot in a dingy cave full of burning japanese people. Noir stories are usually BlackAndGrayMorality, and this game is not different. You say the romance makes no sense because of Cole's character and it felt like an ass pull. I say you weren't paying any attention to Cole's character, or at worse this is some attempt at turning him into DracoInLeatherPants out of some misplaced denial about the little glory hound. I'm not saying I don't like Cole or that he's a bad guy, but you gotta look at him the same way you might look at Series/{{House}}, for example. Good at his job, and his job is doing something good, but he's not Mr. Perfect, due in no small part to his tragic character flaw of ''wanting'' people to see him as Mr. Perfect.

** She shows up in a blink and you'll miss it part of the opening. We see Phelps leaving his house in a Patrolman uniform and his wife kisses him goodbye. She's also mentioned ''dozens'' of times before you even reach Vice, and Cole is wearing his wedding ring the entire game. If you missed it, you just plain flipping weren't paying attention.

**** The point of the interrogation scenes is to establish a chain of events, using evidence and statements. Cole makes guesses, sure, but if you pay attention, he never strays very far from where the evidence leads (unless you're completely wrong with which of the three options you take). He makes logical deductions based on what he has and what he knows.

* Frankley I was very surprised to find out Cole was having an affair. Not because he was attracted to Ilsa, that was hinted at several times throughout the game. No, I was surprised because I didn't know he had a wife. I think the first time Cole even mentions he's married is in a conversation with Rusty. Which takes place in the car so depedning on how you drive may have been replaced with cries of "Goddmammit Phelps!"

** I agree, this case in particular seems very, say, contrived. Same in quite a bit of the homicide arc, although it's justified because you ''have'' to find a culprit. The problem you describe is pretty much the same as MassEffect's conversation system: you choose a dialogue while praying the Emperor that either Shepard or Cole won't say completely the opposite of what you wanted to say. I'd call that the "leap of faith" conversation system. I was a little schocked during the last interview of the Patrol desk, when you choose "doubt" and Cole literally burst in an uber-racist speech against the jew shopkeeper. I ''just'' wanted to ''doubt'' him, I didn't want to go nazi on him, even if it somehow result in him spilling his guts.

** I think the morphine they were talking about was the stolen army stuff, which is made to just stick and go. And even then, people were ODing left and right on just what's supposed to be used to fix up wounded guys in the field. Could you imagine the amount of corpse that would amount from mixing ''that'' with even more shit? You're arm would probably just melt off the instant you injected it out of sheer rebellion. Making drugs is an exact science after all, considering this is stuff that will blow up a good couple houses if you mess up while making it.

* [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And why the hell was]] ''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking everybody]]'' [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking wearing their hats at the funeral?]]

** As Phelps himself puts it, it's [[ItsAllAboutMe vanity with a capital V]] - he doesn't think the cops would be smart enough to catch him, and wants to rub this fact in their noses. He even says so in the final confrontation: he immediately calls out Rusty as too stupid to figure the case out, and thus deduces Phelps as the one who pieced it all together. [[WorthyOpponent He even seems to find a kindred spirit of sorts with Phelps]], and even uses a {{Foreshadowing}} line asking if [[TheAtoner Phelps himself is seeking "redemption"]]. This, in a case of FridgeBilliance, makes him the EvilCounterpart of Phelps - brilliant men that [[GloryHound want to show their talent to the world]], while doing their best to cover their dark secrets to their real lives. As for why he shot at them, it's also bragging - about his ability to kill. As he puts it: "[[AxCrazy You know what I'm capable of]], [[SchmuckBait and yet you walk in here...]] [[TooDumbToLive like lambs dressed for the slaughter.]]"

** As Phelps himself puts it, it's [[AllAboutMe vanity with a capital V]] - he doesn't think the cops would be smart enough to catch him, and wants to rub this fact in their noses. He even says so in the final confrontation: he immediately calls out Rusty as too stupid to figure the case out, and thus deduces Phelps as the one who pieced it all together. [[HonorableOpponent He even seems to find a kindred spirit of sorts with Phelps]], and even uses a {{Forshadowing}} line asking if [[TheAtoner Phelps himself is seeking "redemption"]]. This, in a case of FridgeBilliance, makes him the EvilCounterpart of Phelps - brilliant men that [[GloryHound want to show their talent to the world]], while doing their best to cover their dark secrets to their real lives. As for why he shot at them, it's also bragging - about his ability to kill. As he puts it: "[[AxCrazy You know what I'm capable of]], [[WhatAnIdiot and yet you walk in here...]] [[TooDumbToLive like lambs dressed for the slaughter.]]"

** The romance subplot was indeed appropriate to any fan actually paying attention. Cole is far from picture of morality despite what he wants others to believe, and the narration actually goes to great lengths to show this. Cole wants to be a good person, he really does. But his time in the war shows a much more flawed individual whose questionable leadership resulted in deep tragedy. His good cop facade is his attempt to [[TheAtoner atone for his sins]], mainly the hospital cave firebombing he was directly responsible for. Cole's relationship with Elsa is thus not only fulfillment of a Noir film archetype, but also strikingly in-tune with his character. As a [[ShellShockedVeteran scarred war-hero]], Cole probably found himself distanced from his much more idealistic young wife. Combine his war trauma with the high-stress detective work, and an affair doesn't seem unlikely anymore (he even tells Marie "you can't imagine what I've been going through" as she throws him out). Just like the hospital bombing, Cole never meant for the affair to go public because he tries his best to sweep his mistakes under the rug and hide them through good behaviour. He would've kept up his role as LAPD poster boy forever if it weren't for Roy airing his dirty laundry behind his back. Elsa, in contrast with Marie, is a headstrong individual who has also been ravaged by the terrors of war, not to mention Cole finds her physically captivating. The affair lasted until the end of the game because it was more than an affair - Cole couldn't deny to his wife that he was in love with Elsa, and the relationship was enough for Elsa to steer off of narcotics. That's more than a flashy one-night stand gone public. Considering the game is a detective story, not Cole's personal life, there was no reason to spend more time developing their romance than they already did. Also, the exact start of the affair is debatable. It appears to have been started during Manifest Destiny, but it very well could have begun a lot earlier. After all, its not like Cole could've just hopped in the car with her to go to her apartment, and the look Elsa gives him as she opens the door implies she was expecting him. In conclusion - are Cole and Elsa victims of StrangledByTheRedString? Only if you really weren't paying attention.

** The romance subplot was indeed appropriate to any fan actually paying attention. Cole is far from picture of morality despite what he wants others to believe, and the narration actually goes to great lengths to show this. Cole wants to be a good person, he really does. But his time in the war shows a much more flawed individual whose questionable leadership resulted in deep tragedy. His good cop facade is his attempt to [[theatoner atone for his sins]], mainly the hospital cave firebombing he was directly responsible for. Cole's relationship with Elsa is thus not only fulfillment of a Noir film archetype, but also strikingly in-tune with his character. As a [[Shell-ShockedVeteran scarred war-hero]], Cole probably found himself distanced from his much more idealistic young wife. Combine his war trauma with the high-stress detective work, and an affair doesn't seem unlikely anymore (he even tells Marie "you can't imagine what I've been going through" as she throws him out). Just like the hospital bombing, Cole never meant for the affair to go public because he tries his best to sweep his mistakes under the rug and hide them through good behaviour. He would've kept up his role as LAPD poster boy forever if it weren't for Roy airing his dirty laundry behind his back. Elsa, in contrast with Marie, is a headstrong individual who has also been ravaged by the terrors of war, not to mention Cole finds her physically captivating. The affair lasted until the end of the game because it was more than an affair - Cole couldn't deny to his wife that he was in love with Elsa, and the relationship was enough for Elsa to steer off of narcotics. That's more than a flashy one-night stand gone public. Considering the game is a detective story, not Cole's personal life, there was no reason to spend more time developing their romance than they already did. Also, the exact start of the affair is debatable. It appears to have been started during Manifest Destiny, but it very well could have begun a lot earlier. After all, its not like Cole could've just hopped in the car with her to go to her apartment, and the look Elsa gives him as she opens the door implies she was expecting him. In conclusion - are Cole and Elsa victims of [[StrangledByTheRedString]]? Only if you really weren't paying attention.

* Ignoring the above debate... is there an explanation as to why Cole continues to wear his wedding ring long after the affair's gone public? Was that an oversight of the developers or what?

** Honestly, it is a mystery why they would take a game that was pretty much a homage to those old-style adventure games like PoliceQuest and suddenly give it an action finale when the shooting controls were clunky and made it impossible for the plot we actually cared about to be wrapped up. The reason we don't find out about what happened with the stuff Cole cared about was because they had switched the reigns to Kelso, and yes, he didn't care. The problem with that is we, the player cared, and it left us hanging on everything that had suspense built up for it until that point. It was a big misstep, and honestly felt like they said "it's Noir right? That means it has to have a needlessly sad ending that doesn't wrap up anything that was established just because!" on top of trying to one up the whole [[RedDeadRedemption John Marston]] [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready dies]] thing by having us switch protagonists 2 hours before the plot proper is finished up.