A careless man's careful daughter

“He’d grown up in a time and place where people like him …well, they just didn’t have love songs.”

What really helped me about that book in particular is the fact that at no point does the main character try to justify or reason his actions and feelings, he just has them and acknowledges and acts on them. He doesn't find hope or a reason to live in the end, which is what I needed at that point in my life.

I’ve never been a fan of the theory that Poe’s ability is a form of escapism because that’s not how he uses it. For Lucy we can tell her ability is used as a form of escapism because she can go inside her little pocket dimension and do as she pleases in there. It’s a sort of literal escape from reality, but we never see Poe go into one of his own novels. Plus it doesn’t make a lot of sense for him to be able to do that in the first place because, since he’s the writer, he already knows the ending to his own mystery. If he tired to go in he’d be spat out asap. We only see him use his ability on other people or for other people.

My personal theory (and keep In mind this is a theory. I’m only guessing here) is that his ability is supposed to be a reflection of his own struggle with human connection. Only someone who’s smart enough and truly understands him would be able to figure out his mystery novels. Being able to write a story so complex that no one can solve it would make him feel smarter, but also isolate him from people at the same time. It means no one understands how he thinks, similar to how at 14 Ranpo couldn’t understand people and they couldn’t understand him.

We can also see a sort of yearning for connection in the way that he wrote his “ultimate revenge” against Ranpo. He made the author (Poe) and the main character (Ranpo) work together in his story to hide the mystery. The answer to his revenge was camaraderie. Obviously this would have been a subconscious choice on Poe’s end, he still thought he wanted Ranpo dead after all. This also lines up with the themes of Ranpo and Poe’s chapter. Ranpo is able to thrive because he has people to support him, Without Yosano he could have lost, but Poe suffers because he has no support. He refuses to connect with the Guild or anyone else. That’s why he has a pet raccoon for a best friend, it’s also why he lost against Ranpo.

Poe’s is essentially trapped in his own mind, so in turn his ability traps other people in it as well. His ability isn’t all about revenge, but he chose to use it in that manner. We can see him changing in how he now uses his ability to help Ranpo and the ADA.

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