Headscratchers / Bullet Train

Flaw in the Big Bad's plan

• The White Death orchestrated most of what happened on the train as a way to kill all the people he held responsible for his beloved wife's death, including summoning the Wolf to the train to kill the Hornet. However, if Carver had taken the assignment as originally planned, then the Wolf wouldn't have recognized him from the wedding, and hence have no reason for stopping him from getting off the train at the first stop. Even if all the others had killed each other as intended, Carver, who was the main focus of the White Death's wrath, would've been safe and sound and nowhere near Kyoto by the time the train arrived on that city. How did the White Death intend to get to Carver?
  • He didn't intend for Lemon and Tangerine to leave the briefcase unattended so Carver had the potential to immediately find it and leave. Not to mention that it's not guaranteed that Carver would have located it as quickly as Ladybug did.
  • Plus we know he had men watching the stations, that's how he knew Lemon left the train when he and Tangerine first realize the briefcase is missing, presumably, if Carver had exited the train, White Death's men would either have engineered a reason to force him back onto the train (offhand perhaps impersonating police officers looking for him), or ambushed and killed him at the station.
  • Alternatively, since everyone except The Wolf, The Father, The Elder and The Prince (who weren't targets) were hired by White Death, presumably if one had escaped with the case, they'd have gone to whichever rendezvous point was arranged for them, where he'd be waiting to kill them.
  • Actually it may have exactly been the plan that Carver escaped, the others killed each other, then Carver walked into a trap where White Death could kill him personally.
  • Hornet kills the son. Wolf kills Hornet. Before this Hornet either kills Tangerine/Lemon/Carver. Carver kills Tangerine/Lemon in trying to get the case. The survivor with the case(say Carver for example) is ambushed and killed at the handoff in Kyoto. The setup at Kyoto always happens whether no one dies on the train or even one person survives. If Carver is last man standing, he gets instructions to go to Kyoto on that train. By the end, all that's left are the assassins.
  • The White Death is expecting all the assassins on board the train to either be fighting each other over the case or to be hunting the other assassins. While he would presumably like Carver to be the last one standing to be the one to deliver the killing blow, he's probably not that bothered who ends walking off the train at the end as long as the targets he's gunning for all end up dead at some point. Really, the options are: if Carver stays on all the way to Kyoto he gets killed by the White Death personally, in which case great; if he gets off before Kyoto, he still has to meet the White Death (who hired him) to deliver the case at some point, at which point the White Death kills him, so great; or he gets killed by one of the other assassins so is dead anyway, so great.
  • There's also a bit of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane going on; the Elder's speech to Ladybug is all about how it's possible that Ladybug is somehow Blessed with Suck (or Cursed with Awesome) in a way that, for all the shit he goes through, winds up bringing things to a point where basically the White Death and his entire organisation are destroyed. Had he not been there, Carver might indeed have escaped death and the White Death's specific plan might have been undone — but he'd have also likely still been alive to try again. It's also worth remembering that the whole joke at the end is that, despite the White Death's convoluted plan, it gets completely derailed by a quirk of fate he couldn't have anticipated anyway (Carver getting a stomach bug), so it's highly likely that this is part of the point; anything could have gone wrong with it at any point, but for good or bad luck...
  • Something else worth considering; getting off at the first stop was apparently never a fundamental part of the original plan. It only becomes so since Ladybug loses his ticket and the conductor threatens to kick him off at the next stop, requiring him to rush things. Assuming Carver didn't lose his ticket, he would have been able to get the briefcase at his leisure, and since he is described as 'lazy' he very well could have decided to relax and take his time... meaning he would presumably wait until the end of the line, i.e Kyoto.

How did none of the staff notice the bodies or train damage?

• I'm willing to believe that they simply got off the train at some point towards the climax of the film, but the bar car was very clearly broken into, and surely there were enough of them walking around to notice the corpses.
  • The White Death bought every single ticket on the train for the last legs of the trip to Kyoto. It is not too farfetched that the crew were bribed as well to look the other way.
  • There are a couple moments where it seems like the crew should notice, but quite specifically don't. We see a janitor cleaning up the dropped water bottle and not commenting on what should be a large bloodstain nearby, and the stewardess seems perfectly willing to ignore the disheveled passengers in a crew-only area.
• It might be an extreme example of the Japanese culture's tendency to not make a major fuss about things, or just outright ignore what doesn't involve them.
  • Also, just simple Unusually Uninteresting Sight-related Rule of Funny. The fact that these people keep getting into increasingly obvious and large-scale acts of violence and mayhem that no one else around them seems particularly fazed by is, after all, pretty funny.

How did the Wolf fit into the big bad's plan?

• It's never explained how and if the Wolf was involved in the death of the White Death's wife. Did the White Death have a vendetta against him? Was he brought on just to kill Hornet? Was he just there by chance?
  • Considering how his motivation is completely unaligned with anyone else and the White Death never mentions him, the latter option is the most likely. From a narrative perspective he was mainly there to keep Ladybug on the train and supply him with a few Chekhovs Guns for later use in the film.
  • He was there to kill Hornet. Someone - presumably the White Death - gave him a photo of Hornet and told him that she would be on the train. He was just a pawn in WD's revenge scheme, not directly connected to his wife's death.
  • White Death wanted to kill the Hornet. He stacked the deck by inserting the Wolf onto the train. If the Wolf kills the Hornet, White Death wins. If the Wolf is killed by someone else, White Death has contingency plans.
  • It's possible that the Wolf was, in some way, getting in the way of his criminal dealings. Alternatively he could potentially have no connection to White Death, White Death just knows the connection between Wolf and Hornet. Either way it's established that White Death is more likely to need a reason not to kill someone than needing a reason to kill them, so he would have no problem setting up the Wolf as potential collateral damage if it ensure's the Hornet dies.

How did the Elder catch up to the train?

• The Elder after learning his son is in trouble, easily catches up and board the train despite it far removed from Tokyo, where we last saw him attending his grandson in the hospital.
  • He is part of the Yakuza, and apparently still has some money and influence, he could have gotten there by air.
  • Alternatively, the train is moving very slow for a bullet train (the trip took all night, when it actually takes around two hours) so it's entirely possible that going by car is actually faster.
  • Or just plot magic.
  • Also, the train makes several stops.

Luscious Locks?

• When she takes off the mascot costume, the Hornet has big fuzzy brown hair. When she is seen later, she has a little blonde wig. Was her previous hair also a wig? In that case, why would she wear it under the mascot costume? If it was natural, how did she fit it under her blonde wig? Did she shave it off? How?
  • Hair can be voluminous, but it easily compresses down flat, especially if wet. Professional Cosplayers commonly demonstrate this with their extensive use of wigs (among other costumery).

What is with the Wolf's grudge against Ladybug?

• When Wolf first enters the train and attacks Ladybug, he directly goes for a stab to the chest with his knife. During the entire fight, Wolf is downright savage and outright states that Ladybug "ruined his life". Except that Ladybug's ONLY INTERACTION with Wolf prior to this was when he infiltrated Wolf's wedding as a waiter and bumped into him, spilling Wolf's wine on his suit. Which begs the question: what in God's name justifies Wolf's borderline hatred for Ladybug, especially when he already knows that the Hornet (who he has a picture of) is the one who poisoned his wedding?
  • Maybe it's a form of Wolf's guilt for being the Sole Survivor of his wedding massacre? If Ladybug hadn't bumped into him and thus made Wolf go clean his suit, he would have likely died with everyone else. In other words, he wants be Together in Death with everyone he knows and loves.
  • The Wolf probably thought that Ladybug and the Hornet were partners and in cahoots during the wedding massacre.
  • Wolf lost the only person on Earth that he loved to a horrible poison that also killed everyone he's worked for/with before. The only other person there that he recognized was also a professional criminal. A vengeful brain isn't thinking too deeply about hearing out the other party's likelihood of innocence. It's an easy jump in logic to make in that state of mind.

The Prince's Motives?

• The Prince's motivation for pushing Kimura's son off a roof and then blackmailing Kimura into her service to kill the White Death is all because she wants to get back at her father, the White Death, for ignoring her. What I'm confused about is where the White Death's wife comes into this? From what little we see, she was more than willing to look after her children (considering she went to pick up her deadbeat son from the police and claimed she would always be there for him), so why does the Prince have such parental issues if she had a mother who would have most likely been willing to look after her? It could be that the Prince is a bastard child from the White Death, but since she seems younger than the Son and that the White Death loved his wife above all else, it doesn't seem likely he'd cheat on her. So…what gives?
  • The Prince very well could have been The Un-Favourite to both her parents.
  • Or it could've been that her mother DID love her, but she felt neglected due to her waste of a brother needing more of their mom's consideration. There could be some parallels drawn between Azula and Zuko's relationship if that was the case.
  • Perhaps her mother simply doesn't come into this? Her beef is with her neglectful father, after all, and her mother is by this point dead and has been for a while, so there's no reason to go into it; for all we know she had no problem with her mother whatsoever. She doesn't have parental issues generally, she has Daddy Issues specifically.
  • If she did, then it can be easily explained by the fact that the Prince is clearly a psychotic narcissist, and so views anyone not giving her their undivided attention an insult.

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