#i devoured mysteries when I was younger and I couldn't quite put my finger on what was bugging at me about his stuff until now

[eldritchtouched]

Gideon as a mystery genre archetype?

Something I've been mulling over is Gideon's position in the narrative. And I think he is like a specific mystery archetype- the detective/cop/whoever character who's generally wrong.

The archetype in question is pretty standard in mystery works and has been since the start of the genre with Sherlock Holmes. What makes me think this is both how often Gideon's wrong or missing crucial information and, importantly, how he's wrong or missing information.

It's kind of a meme that he's called the All-Knowing but incredibly ignorant of things or just flat-out wrong (that Marika wants people to war eternally and a Tarnished can't become Elden Lord). But I think it's intentional. The structure of Elden Ring and other Soulslikes is mystery-esque, imo.

It seems like Gideon does the thing that archetype tend to do. Those characters are supposed to present plausible red herring explanations that are oversimplified and lack key information that recontextualizes everything. These explanations sound like reasonable conclusions to draw and are often something the audience might easily slip into thinking if they're not paying attention to the finer details.

It acts as a good contrast. In mysteries, it's used to establish the more competent character as being more competent for noticing details the other character omitted if any details are remarked upon before the end. It's also used for similar reasons during the actual conclusion of the mystery as part of the 'game' mysteries go for, especially fair play stories and howcatchems.

It's also used to add conflict between characters. It means the actually good investigator has to deal with the more incompetent investigator's bullshit and cut through it.

For example, in A Study in Scarlet, one of the detectives assumes the word "Rache" in blood is the name Rachel, but Holmes points out details that mean it's intended to be rache, but the writer isn't German. Someone might reasonably assume someone was writing the name of a killer and and was noticed, after all. But those details are important.

Or, when the character ends up being right about something, it's either something that literally anyone following anything in the story would conclude ("got stabbed in the chest = murder"), or the problem is that they cannot actually articulate how they're right properly, or their evidence is super shaky, or their conclusion is in spite of not having enough information which makes the audience balk.

For example, Lassiter in Psych knows that Shawn isn't a psychic, but can't pin Shawn down. It's a gut thing that Shawn's faking it, and he's right, but he also can't put the pieces together of how he's right in that conclusion.

And how someone is right or wrong matters from a narrative perspective. It's why Hbomberguy notes all the stuff with BBC Sherlock not working in relation to being a mystery. While Sherlock is narratively correct, it's the process of how the pieces come together that matter. It's also why a common conflict in mysteries is "I know x did it, but I have to prove it despite y detail [which allegedly exonerates them]."

Generally, why the generally wrong characters are generally wrong varies by the writer and the tone of the works. In some cases, it's that they're hopelessly conventional and set in their ways. Other times, it's because they're lazy. Or they're stupid. Or they're in on it and actively lying. Etc.

In Gideon's case, at least part of it has to do with him getting almost all of his information secondhand. He's incredibly dependent on his informants to do the legwork and this inevitably means he's getting their interpretations of information and they may not necessarily want to share all the details with him for one reason or another, or may not get access to key pieces of information.

Likewise, he's also hiding information from the player character and initially tries to kill the player character via Ensha.

Ultimately, even when Gideon is right about anything, the audience will never accept that he's intelligent because his correctness isn't based on being well-reasoned or having all the pieces of information. He hides too much, he has an agenda, and he's also missing too much information. But, unlike BBC Sherlock, this seems to be the point with Gideon.