Rum Arc Discussion Thread (Plot + Characters)

[Haibara & Aika ryona]

...at this point I think we all know which direction Gosho's most likely going with.

If Gosho's going to keep going in this direction... then what? What are his chances of turning the arc around?

I don't know, but I really hope there is a big twist in this arc that none of us could've expected, would be cool if there is another enemy that isn't Rum, there are too many allies right now, I was rewatching some old episodes recently and wondered why there was a sense of danger back then, but now it's gone completely, and it's because back then we didn't have the FBI, CIA and Amuro's organization as allies, it felt like everyone was an enemy or shouldn't be trusted, so it would be cool if Gosho can use this to his advantage now, I'm not expecting it though. At the least I hope that we get to learn some actual big information on the organization after Rum is revealed, old mysteries need to be brought up again.

Totally agree with you, but the problem is that nothing will happen from what you said. I do have one thing to say, is that why conan is looking for one character, and leave the others? and why the other members are not work? Are they wait Rum such as when they waited Vermouth, and Bourbon?

This question is nice, and the nicer thing is there is no answer for it

[Zerozaki4869]

The kid case with the usage of 2d:4d ratio was Kid vs Makoto(file 862-864)

[dccd]

The thing is ponytail is not confirmed as it can be flowing long hair. Also a ponytail isn't a distinguishing feature at all. The thing is hints are such that people can grasp it and deduce stuff without any ambiguity. Other than Asaka's right hand and fingers of the same hand everything else is foggy and ambiguous. So now you can't deny that ponytail is more prominent in the photo than the fingers of Asaka. Also just the palm of Asaka grabbing the lens would have been enough to convey Asaka's right-handedness. Also there's a kid case where Gosho had used 2d:4d ratio.
Given these hints and a clear measurement of Asaka's index and ring finger, Gosho is hinting to that. A hint is not a hint if it's ambiguous enough to spot in the first place. So if Gosho went through the trouble to make Asaka's Index finger and ring finger comparable to us then it has a purpose.

I strongly disagree with your definition of "hint".
You should be aware of the fact that were in a "crime-literature/manga-"context.
Given that there pretty much isnt any "hint" without ambiguity.
Even if its for the sake of "being a hint or not being a hint" itself.
"No-ambiguity-hints" are rather "proofs" since they only leave one possible deduction.
For example after your definition of "hint" the different Rum-descriptions arent hints since theyre ambiguous.
So you see how much sense that makes.

As much as I recognize the nice catch with the already used 2d:4d,
I dont think it will play any role, since there are tons of reasons against it.

-First of all a hand/fingers can change due to growing within 17years.
-I would consider the hand foggy as hell aswell. Or can you clearly see the exact 2d:4d-ratio?
Then enlighten us and tell us which finger is longer.
-17 years ago I dont think they had that high resolution-cams. And thats how the photo looks like
- You even can compare it to 980 P17. Thats the perfect moment to compare.
One might even think 980 P16 is a hint towards Rumi=/=Asaka since she didnt react to a "surprise-photo" as Asaka did
with raising her hand. Even though the situations cant be compared for sure.

Even the V-chin might change due time even though its the most remarkable thing to see in that pic.

[Zerozaki4869]

The thing is ponytail is not confirmed as it can be flowing long hair. Also a ponytail isn't a distinguishing feature at all. The thing is hints are such that people can grasp it and deduce stuff without any ambiguity. Other than Asaka's right hand and fingers of the same hand everything else is foggy and ambiguous. So now you can't deny that ponytail is more prominent in the photo than the fingers of Asaka. Also just the palm of Asaka grabbing the lens would have been enough to convey Asaka's right-handedness. Also there's a kid case where Gosho had used 2d:4d ratio.
Given these hints and a clear measurement of Asaka's index and ring finger, Gosho is hinting to that. A hint is not a hint if it's ambiguous enough to spot in the first place. So if Gosho went through the trouble to make Asaka's Index finger and ring finger comparable to us then it has a purpose.

I strongly disagree with your definition of "hint".
You should be aware of the fact that were in a "crime-literature/manga-"context.
Given that there pretty much isnt any "hint" without ambiguity.
Even if its for the sake of "being a hint or not being a hint" itself.
"No-ambiguity-hints" are rather "proofs" since they only leave one possible deduction.
For example after your definition of "hint" the different Rum-descriptions arent hints since theyre ambiguous.
So you see how much sense that makes.

As much as I recognize the nice catch with the already used 2d:4d,
I dont think it will play any role, since there are tons of reasons against it.

-First of all a hand/fingers can change due to growing within 17years.
-I would consider the hand foggy as hell aswell. Or can you clearly see the exact 2d:4d-ratio?
Then enlighten us and tell us which finger is longer.
-17 years ago I dont think they had that high resolution-cams. And thats how the photo looks like
- You even can compare it to 980 P17. Thats the perfect moment to compare.
One might even think 980 P16 is a hint towards Rumi=/=Asaka since she didnt react to a "surprise-photo" as Asaka did
with raising her hand. Even though the situations cant be compared for sure.

Even the V-chin might change due time even though its the most remarkable thing to see in that pic.

The thing is your definition of hints make no sense at all. The comparison with Rum "hints" is vastly illogical.
It's beyond doubt that Rum's appearance/figure of speech/intonation/clothing can make him appear as one of the three description, but that doesn't make those descriptions ambiguous. If somebody said, "Oh, I was so far from Rum that I couldn't see him properly but I think he's a strong man." then that would be an ambiguous hint. You seemed to have misunderstood contradicting with ambiguous. The person who said Rum was this or that wasn't making a guess.

Hints are "The red guy." in Bourbon arc, Sister from another domain for "Mary" unambiguous and direct. I don't know why you don't consider these as hints.

I'll enlighten you, "the ambiguity of the picture is due to scanlation not due to Gosho's art." You can always find cleaned version from this link http://www.detectiveconanworld.com/wiki ... _manga.jpg , if you still think it's ambiguous go get an eye check-up.

Also the thing is finger growing in 17 years is a vague comment. Firstly you don't know Asaka's age, how can you be so sure that the fingers were growing or Asaka still had growth spurts? Also the 2d;4d ratio won't change even if Asaka's fingers grew. Also we Check's manga-volume image gives the hand shielding Asaka's chest and a part of the chin. That's the biggest hint Gosho has provided, by making the fingers clear. Asaka's chest and chin won't be needed if one notices the fingers wee enough. Also Ring finger is a bit longer than index finger, I'm calling Asaka as Iori or someone who 17 years ago looked like Iori.(probably Kuroda, his name has the character "Mamoru" meaning Protector.)

[dccd]

Well, I give it a last try, since its so blatantly obvious:

ambiguous = 2 or more options possible

The comparison with Rum-hints simply shows that your definition (hints = no ambiguity) is wrong.
Lets take the hint Rum "being feminine (man)".
It can mean that Rum is acting like a female, laughs like a female, has long hair like one, drinks feminine tea or whatever.
It can point towards Kuroda(tea), Rumi (female), Wakita (laughing) or whomever.
"Old" can mean physically old or having a habit only old people have.
"Strong" can mean absolutely everything.
So theres no way in hell that you can reduce those hinst to only one possible option and therefore say "not ambiguous".

And I never touched the topic about those being contradictious.
And funny what you consider being "beyond doubt".
The manga clearly brings up the option that a double might have one or combine all of those three descriptions.
Its even in the same panel.
So its far from being "beyond doubt".

I never said the "red guy"-hint isnt a hint.
Even though "red guy" points towards Akai and therefore not being ambiguous on one level -
it still is ambiguous on another level since you dont know until the very end
if it is a honest hint or just a mislead.
Hints in the context of crime-literature are pretty much always ambiguous
and this exactly is how it should be since the reader should be guessing all the way up to the solution.

Anyways, lets shut it down here.

And it seems that you will stick with your 2d:4d-ratio-thought.
Even though its so incredibly obvious that Gosho didnt make this up as a hint since it wouldnt be a "1-2mm"-difference
but a clear visible one.
Since you obviously have terrific eyes you simply might tell us if the hand on the photo is similar to Rumis (980 P17).
You have the same gesture, the right perspective and a perfect view on the ratio.

Were waiting, lets go.

[Zerozaki4869]

Hints are never ambiguous, else it can't be a hint, it's a puzzled thrown at the reader. If a hint is clear only then the reader can use it, otherwise the reader can't. That's the nature and usage of hints. If he really wanted to give us ambiguous hints, he wouldn't make Cool guy/Cool kid distinction between Vermouth and Jodie. Akai was was focusing more on Bourbon than Scotch, the hint that he's favouring Bourbon over Scotch currently at the beginning of the Arc. Or Pirates' spirit hint, so that it is noticed Gosho ensured to let the readers' know that Pirates' spirit is Rum.
Now the neither of the statements Rum is old, feminine and strong is ambiguous as they aren't stated with multiple interpretations.The one making the claim was sure that Rum can be observed as an old man/effeminate man/strong man beyond doubt. So the statements are not ambiguous but contradictory.

Also it seems you didn't check on the link provided or you really suffer from bad eyesight.
Rumi has a longer index finger than her ring finger, while Asaka's index finger is a bit shorter than the ring finger(BTW it should have come to you earlier, that you can't see Asaka's bust/chest, face, hair without ambiguity but can clearly see and compare the size of her index finger and ring finger beyond doubt due to the close-up of her hand.)

[dccd]

Dunno if ur trolling, but I guess u dont.
Im closing the discussion since ... ah close it.

So youre basically stating that Asaka =/= Rumi.
Interesting news ...

[Kor]

Hints are never ambiguous, else it can't be a hint, it's a puzzled thrown at the reader. If a hint is clear only then the reader can use it, otherwise the reader can't. That's the nature and usage of hints. If he really wanted to give us ambiguous hints, he wouldn't make Cool guy/Cool kid distinction between Vermouth and Jodie. Akai was was focusing more on Bourbon than Scotch, the hint that he's favouring Bourbon over Scotch currently at the beginning of the Arc. Or Pirates' spirit hint, so that it is noticed Gosho ensured to let the readers' know that Pirates' spirit is Rum.

This is a false equivalence. While we can retrospectively look back and determine objectively what is a "hint" (according to your definition at least), we can't do that with the Pirates' Spirit thing. Until then, it's an interpretation.

if you still think it's ambiguous go get an eye check-up.

Also it seems you didn't check on the link provided or you really suffer from bad eyesight.

Your consistent concern for dccd's eyesight is... touching, but if that's all the material you have in the sneering department, maybe drop that act altogether? Just a thought :V

So, who is Rumi, then? With the camping case, her scars, her fighting abilities, her suspicious name, the APTX list on her computer and how she seems to be "targeting" Conan. Arguably we have on her the most material, so besides her not being Asaka, do you have an idea on who she actually is?

[Zerozaki4869]

I'll ignore the first two points raised by you as they're totally subjective and lack objective reasoning. You said false equivalence but you didn't give any proof refuting cool guy/cool kid analogy. The differences were there for everyone to see(one says cool guy other says cool kid). If both called Conan cool kid then it would have been an ambiguous hint. To make it a clear hint Gosho cleared the air. So Gosho's hints are those which make things clear, also Gosho has already stated Pirates' Spirit the Liquor Rum. So it's not an interpretation anymore, it's the interpretation.

There's a thing called jumping the Gun, I know that Rumi has scars over all of her body, has the ability/authority to get the APTX list, knows that APTX V2(Sherry Version) shrinks people(thus making a connection between Shinichi and Conan), is good in hand to hand combat situations, a person who knows Rum has a prosthetic eye and suspected Kuroda to be Rum, and clearly not Asaka. Then there's only one answer, she's the woman who took the shogi piece like stuff from dead Haneda Kohji's palm, people mistook her instead of real Asaka, who probably wasn't a woman. Her true goal is to lure out both Asaka and Rum, thus her name.

[dccd]

Since hints are always clear and not ambiguous - and therefore you should easily recognize and spot them -
you simply might just present all of Rum-arc hints given so far to us.

Where did Gosho stated that Pirates Spirit = Rum ?

PS: Atleast some really interesting thoughts (Asaka probably a man) which I had in mind aswell.
And keep the analogy-/hint-connection-search up, its good work (no irony).

[PhantomWriter]

When explaining what kind of liquor rum is to Haibara, to try to jog her memory, Conan says that it's what pirates drink (906- the three first discoverers case). Rum also has general historical associations with pirates because that was a very common alcohol back during that era among seafarers, both sailors and pirates. It was also what made up "grog," which is a mix of water and rum.

I'd also asked Serinox a while back about what terminology was used for Pirate's Spirit in Japanese, as the ambiguity could be a translation issue. In English, a spirit can refer to hard liquor, one's intentions, or a soul. As it turned out, Pirate's Spirit the horse uses katakana and is a rendering of the English term, thus having that ambiguity.

However, this could go either way with regard to Wakita- he's the one who says the dialogue in question. It could mean he's got some kind of antipathy for Rum, talking about his weakness. It could also mean he's testing Kogoro, to see of Kogoro picks up the allusion to the codename- the Org. noticed that Kogoro was involved in the soul detective case and that Kohji was mentioned. Or it could be an acknowledgement that, despite Rum's early mistakes, he was still chosen by the boss.

Wakita's ambiguity and parallels are what really bug me and I'm not sure of what to make of it. We know for a fact that Wakasa is involved with everything, what with the APTX victim list she has, and we know Kuroda has something to do with the case a while back, given the glimpse of his memory and how he connects Wakasa to the Kohji case. But Wakita has numerous parallels to Rei as Amuro and his speech pattern's bugging me. He repeatedly uses the interjection "ho," which isn't common in this series, and he likes odd and cryptic dialogue that isn't just playing the pronoun game. I'm also curious of if there's something specific about the translation that caused an ambiguity or not, because Wakita's phrasing seems more polite/formal.

[Zerozaki4869]

When explaining what kind of liquor rum is to Haibara, to try to jog her memory, Conan says that it's what pirates drink (906- the three first discoverers case). Rum also has general historical associations with pirates because that was a very common alcohol back during that era among seafarers, both sailors and pirates. It was also what made up "grog," which is a mix of water and rum.

I'd also asked Serinox a while back about what terminology was used for Pirate's Spirit in Japanese, as the ambiguity could be a translation issue. In English, a spirit can refer to hard liquor, one's intentions, or a soul. As it turned out, Pirate's Spirit the horse uses katakana and is a rendering of the English term, thus having that ambiguity.

However, this could go either way with regard to Wakita- he's the one who says the dialogue in question. It could mean he's got some kind of antipathy for Rum, talking about his weakness. It could also mean he's testing Kogoro, to see of Kogoro picks up the allusion to the codename- the Org. noticed that Kogoro was involved in the soul detective case and that Kohji was mentioned. Or it could be an acknowledgement that, despite Rum's early mistakes, he was still chosen by the boss.

Wakita's ambiguity and parallels are what really bug me and I'm not sure of what to make of it. We know for a fact that Wakasa is involved with everything, what with the APTX victim list she has, and we know Kuroda has something to do with the case a while back, given the glimpse of his memory and how he connects Wakasa to the Kohji case. But Wakita has numerous parallels to Rei as Amuro and his speech pattern's bugging me. He repeatedly uses the interjection "ho," which isn't common in this series, and he likes odd and cryptic dialogue that isn't just playing the pronoun game. I'm also curious of if there's something specific about the translation that caused an ambiguity or not, because Wakita's phrasing seems more polite/formal.

For the first part your answer, thank you for standing beside me. I appreciate the help that Pirates spirit was a hint towards Rum, not towards the horse.

As for Wakita, his get-up is very similar to Rum, one-eyed man, but he was eager to show his injured eye. So we can say that Wakita was stating the truth about his eye. So there's a boil/stye in his eye. It's not prosthetic and his get-up wasn't to test Kogoro but a necessity.
About Wakita something is already stated, he knows of Kudo Shinichi; knows this much that his(Shinichi's) return is good enough to astonish him.(just like Kuroda) Thus probably giving us a hint that Wakita knew Shinichi was done in, by Gin, but unlike Wakasa doesn't know much about the side effects of APTX. Also his reaction came while reading the Shinichi part while Kuroda's came while reading the Kudo part.
Thus it's a hint that Wakita needed the Shinichi also while Kuroda needed the Kudo part only. I think for Wakita he knows two Kudos who can solve mysteries, so he needed to know which one. While Kuroda knows about only one Kudo(Shinichi) as his father's exploits were mostly during the time Kuroda was in a coma.

Also the last person whose mobile screen was shown, he was also looking at his mobile screen uploading a comment. But unlike the general populace his face wasn't shown. If he's a Rum suspect then I can only think of Iori/Chikara Katsumata. Less likely to be Iori as he was there at the scene when Shinichi was chasing the Tengus abnd then when the inspector called in Shinichi and Heiji, he was also there. So it's unlikely for him.

[PhantomWriter]

No, I think that split of kanji might have been done for dramatic effect. One reading Kudo, the other reading Shinichi, showing that they're both looking at that information.

As for the panel showing the person holding the phone, it could just be showing what they're reading or could be like the preceding panels, where it's just showing the general population talking about it and seeing it.

(I agree that it's unlikely Iori's involved in the main plot, especially after the tengu case.)

[Zerozaki4869]

Think of this line at the end of the chapter, "Three Rum suspects are staring at.........", now clearly Rumi is staring at something completely different also Rumi is not a Rum suspect(as she's not an womanly man.)
So that line has told me, there's another Rum suspect, who is equally interested in Shinichi and his exploits just like Kuroda and Wakita. And for some reason Gosho doesn't want us to see his face.

So I'm betting that the man looking at his cellphone besides Kuroda and Wakita is Rum.

[Kor]

Think of this line at the end of the chapter, "Three Rum suspects are staring at.........",

That side text isn't written by Gosho, but by the publisher (with the intention of hyping up stuff). Far as I recall that side text is absent in the volumes.

also Rumi is not a Rum suspect(as she's not an womanly man.)

Within the context of the manga, yeah, she is a Rum suspect. The manga clearly tries to frame her as such. If you don't think she's Rum, it's fine, but if her current function weren't meant to be a "Rum suspect", Gosho wouldn't have made her so suspicious.