The Secret History of Twin Peaks

[FrightNight]

I like how the guy arguing that changing Nadine's maiden name "opens the door" for, like, Cooper to be turned into a mailman instead of an FBI agent is accusing other people of being absurd.

I like how the guy justifying an author just arbitrarily and blatantly changing stuff of his own previous work around with a notion of "important vs. unimportant things" is accusing other people of lacking common sense and poses as a sort of logical referee.

[FrightNight]

hell I just skip from the killer reveal episode to the series finale when I rewatch the show anymore

This hurts my heart. I love those episodes. I am sad now.

Me too (love those episodes). I am, too (sad). But I love it how he puts it - "no trumped up drug charges to keep flannel wearing cooper in town" .. LOL, man! (Btw, I'm sorta embarassed to admit I'm also a sucker for Cooper's mid-S 2 outfits and was actually shocked a good number of years after the airing, in the age of Internet, when I found out that it's practically canon to consider them abhorrent )

I agree with the frustrating read thing. I don't know how well or not well Frost cared for any of that latter season two stuff. Regardless, instead of changing it to fit what he thinks it should have been like, he should've just left it as is (if that is what he's trying to do). It wouldn't have harmed anything. A new fan would watch the whole series, move on to the book and stuff from those "poorer" episodes would just never be brought up again (except for the lodge stuff). No big deal.

THIS, a hundred times! Surely anyone with enough common sense shouldn't find it hard to understand ...

[laughingpinecone]

I honestly didn't mind any canon switches -- everything seems to be done for a reason. I don't think sloppiness had a part in it. if anything the show details seem to be on firmer ground that before.

How does Laura being 18 at the time of her death impact the show positively? Is it to make the older men somehow "less sleazy"? Does it impact any story points that you can see?

It makes more sense given her birthday in July, from what I understand of the American school system (not a single astrological sign was changed - hell, not a single birthday, they must've really valued that consultant they brought in for the cards back in the day!), and also for some of the things she did on her own - ie consulting Jacoby on her own, as the document itself says, and getting a safety deposit box.

The book itself considers a woman of 21 "almost a child bride" when her husband is over 60, so cutting down on the sleaziness shouldn't be it. I was actually worried that the sleaziness (when sleaziness is due) would be undercut, like so much of s2 did, but I was very pleasantly reassured.

[ForKeeps]

Nah, I'm with you man. I don't even think I can watch Season 3 now. I hear they changed his name to "Agent Don Caper" and he loves orange juice and bagels.

[LonelySoul]

After listening to the latest Red Room Podcast wherein I think it was Scott who basically issued a call to action to dissect the book more, how about we start a little project? Might require a brand new thread - you tell me.

What if we started compiling all the known "errors" (i.e. either things that seem to not jive with the original seasons or things that don't jive with each other in the book) in chronological order of appearance. That way we can organize them and see if it leads us anywhere.

Although I still wonder if some problems are just oversights or mistakes, Frost's quotes (although somewhat seemingly contradictory in nature at times) lead one to believe there's more to it. So I think there really may be something to all this hubbub. It might just be red herring/misdirection/obfuscation, but it would still be fun to research.

What we need for each alleged issue is the following:

- Specific issue
- page number it appears on or starts on (US edition, but we can add in other language page numbers as they are released if possible)
- author speaking at the time (suggested by crossoverman) such as Dougie, the Archivist, etc.
- what "actually happened", i.e. what we saw take place in the show or what someone said that casts doubt on a claim in the book
- possible explanations (other than just "mistake" as we're assuming any of these could be mistakes and it'll also save space to leave that out)
- Other notes (perhaps context in the book, interesting facts or other things)

Then I'll start compiling them into this publicly accessible Drive spreadsheet in order of page number and we can see what there is to see, if anything.

Spreadsheet link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

So new thread or keep it in this one?

[crossoverman]

LonelySoul, I think this is a great idea - and definitely keep it in this thread.

One thing I think the spreadsheet should list is who is writing at the time of the mistake. Is it Dougie Milford's writing? Is it the Archivist? Is it Norma or Audrey? Would be interesting to know if the inconsistencies mostly come from one source. (For example, the "mistake" on the postcard - the date stamp - is a pretty major error that must be deliberate. I'm not sure who we'd classify as the author of that error, though.)

[LonelySoul]

LonelySoul, I think this is a great idea - and definitely keep it in this thread.

One thing I think the spreadsheet should list is who is writing at the time of the mistake. Is it Dougie Milford's writing? Is it the Archivist? Is it Norma or Audrey? Would be interesting to know if the inconsistencies mostly come from one source. (For example, the "mistake" on the postcard - the date stamp - is a pretty major error that must be deliberate. I'm not sure who we'd classify as the author of that error, though.)

Very good point. Column added.

Should I make it publicly editable? I was wary of that given the infighting here. I was thinking it'd be better to get a generally agreed upon notion of what a record should be, then have it added by me or someone else who I can add as an editor.

[Double R Diner]

Well, it could be assumed that Doppel-Coop brought some other Doppelgängers along, no? Hurm...

I think the think with Annie not winning the peagant may have to do with her disappearing just as she won. They still need to call out an official Miss Twin Peaks!!
But yeah, Annie is curiously absent from the material, in a way where it is clearly foreboding, and not a mistake.

[Driftwood]

Going to have to change the name of the site, dugpas were never actually mentioned in the world of twin peaks now lol

[dronerstone]

The spreadsheet is a brilliant idea for us nerds.
thanks, LS!

[laughingpinecone]

Okay but no-one is bringing up the two REAL shortcomings of the book here:

• 1. not nearly enough Harry (or Frank for that matter) (and hey, another post-cliffhanger fact is that Harry resigned, folks!)
  2. poor Sam deserved better. By which I mean he deserves an explanation. The way his two lines are phrased makes it look like a glaring red herring, but a red herring for what? I doubt his story will turn up again in the upcoming material... oh well, at least he 'just' had a breakdown, considering the fate of the rest of the Blue Rose list there he can consider himself lucky

Will gush about the characterization highlights at a later time. I am thoroughly impressed by way everyone got rounded out, and dear Audrey gets to be her own person again, with a steady focus on her own fundamental character arc, instead of becoming a prop to Ben's moral quandaries.
I also can't believe Hawk barely spoke during the original run because he was too foul-mouthed for prime time tv

[laughingpinecone]

It's the 'Pete played checkers, not chess' bit that I can't believe. It's so specific an inconsistency. He couldn't possibly have forgotten all those chess scenes (could he?). It almost seems outright spiteful!

Perks of being a non-native speaker: googling unusual turns of phrase
I'd say that the fact that Pete got a chess-related metaphor only confirms that he's a noted chess player even in this version of the events.

[Double R Diner]

BTW - for the people who go "I doubt they'll pick up X's story": I think we'll at least get a nod somewhere down the line. As in "Oh, the team they sent in before Coop went missing, all of them."

[gonetocroatan]

reheated X Files leftovers

it's mystifying why windom earle was too silly but involving nixon wasn't.

A lot of people seem to be taking issue with the UFO-centric parts of the book, often because they've "heard it all before". This is because Frost is hewing just as closely to the historical record as he did in the earlier segments. Kenneth Arnold is brought up for the umpteenth time because his sighting was the beginning of the UFO cultural phenomenon, and he actually wrote all the articles mentioned in TSHOTP. Fred Crisman actually was involved with the Maury Island sighting AND was subpoenaed by Jim Garrison for the JFK investigation. Even the Nixon/Gleason story is a well-travelled bit of lore (Jackie's wife was the first to tell the story), though obviously that part can't be independently confirmed.

I get that the X-Files got there first--kinda--but just as no Secret History of the Founding Fathers can fail to mention Freemasonry and undercover agents of Europe, no account of the modern era can ignore black-suited men and government cover-ups.

[laughingpinecone]

Having read up on the spoiler thread, I don't think I've seen my gut reaction to the inconsistencies voiced so far. (tl;dr version bolded )

So there are minor inconsistencies and glaring inconsistencies and even inconsistencies within the book itself. There are also amazingly minor details being brought up again. A sloppy writer who didn't review the old material would get the football team's name wrong, but wouldn't get the coach's name right in the same breath. Unless we are witnessing a half-botched attempt at replicating Borges' famous short story about rewriting Don Quixote, I mean. There is a very small likelihood of a haphazard guess getting the bakery's name right, or not one but three birthdays. Then he goes on to give an explanation to minutiae like the Twin Peaks Post VS Gazette discrepancy in the show, and comes up with a delightfully creative reason behind that honking MAR-T sign that everyone just kind of ignored.
Some kind of in-depth fact-checking went on here, these things couldn't just magically match.

And some of the discrepancies are probably mistakes someone should've caught - Robert dying twice, or Jeffries' disappearance taking place in 1987 on one page and "two years before 1988" in the following one. Others are obvious rewrites that keep the spirit of the original events while remixing the details. Others still - like the town seemingly changing geographical location every once in a while - look like tongue-in-cheek throwbacks to the same damn thing happening in the show.

Now, what I take from this is that Frost doesn't do a Lynchian blurring of realities - that's his buddy's job. He does a Frostian blurring of realities, and I like it very much, and I think it's a good yang to that yin. Showing a variant of known events does not quite mean pulling a Rashomon on the whole thing, because the heart of the events remains the same, the point is the same. But reality is in flux. In boldly negating some of the show's most iconic passages, in a way, this book even elevates the previous big inconsistencies to an integral part of canon as a whole. Sometimes Maddy knew Donna from childhood, sometimes she didn't. Sometimes it's Coop who investigates Teresa's case, sometimes it's Chet. Sometimes Caroline's death is a distant memory for Coop, sometimes it's a fresh wound. Sometimes Norma's low self-esteem is exacerbated by her mother, sometimes it's not. Behind these smoke and mirrors, the fundamental truths of these characters remain.