Talk:The Westing Game

Removal of Ending

I hae solution, I found it inappropriate. But I was making that up from looking at other pages; I didn't look for a plot summary consensus or standard any where.

Rather than just reverting back, actually, I'd feel more comfortable rewriting the plot summary as a much more complete summary which includes the ending at its conclusion. Does that sound right to you? Deborah-jl _Talk 14:43, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Academic Challenger seems to have re-introduced the spoiler ending, contrary to the tenor of this discussion... More problematically, the spoiler ending isn't in the spoiler section! I'm going to remove the spoiler ending as per the above discussion, but put something a little stronger than Deborah-jl's wording. --Peirigill 01:21, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to undo the edit that added Barney Northrup a second time to the list of characters. That seems to have been an oversight by the anonymous editor. I'm tempted to remove the additional comment spoiling that Sydelle Pulaski was a mistake. That seems like it belongs in the spoiler section, if it belongs here at all. Out of context, it's not meaningful to anyone who hasn't read the book, but at the same time it does spoil one of the mini-mysteries that Raskin teases us readers with.

A better alternative might be to make the entire "Characters" section into a spoiler zone, which gives an analysis of each character. Then you could explain that Sydelle was a habitually overlooked person, so much so that Westing's lawyer made her an heir by mistake, not realizing that she wasn't the true heir, Sybil Pulaski, and that Sydelle decided to fight against the anonymity brought on by her working-class upbringing as the child of immigrants by capitalizing on whatever chance events might bring her attention: her having the only transcript of the will, by dint of her secretarial training; her young, attractive partner; her injury, which she exaggerated by painting heuirrell, not Snape, is trying to steal the stone) but doesn't give the details of the puzzles involved (how the kids overcame the magical obstacles guarding the stone, how the Mirror of Erised worked, how Rowling misdirected us with the conversation between Quirrell and Snape, etc.).

If you want to say that Turtle won by discovering that Eastman was Westing in disguise, fine, but does that really add anything encyclopedic? The meat of the story lies in how the characters mature during the course of the game, and Eastman is barely[

Sam westing dies in the 4th chapter — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1:C000:37E:6D7B:4B0B:A340:BC19 (talk) 19:15, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Turtle is the main character.

She wins anyway, so she has to be it.24.47.254.234 22:09, 30 May 2006 (UTC) vcasd31

Ugh,spoilers much!

It's not spoiling as much as you'd think... it's not who won, nor even the exact solution, that matters. It's how the solution was discovered that matters, and so far we've kept that out of the article and even the talk page. Besides, arguing over the main character in The Westing Game is like arguing over who the "main character" is on the TV show Friends... or, perhaps, like arguing that the queen's bishop must be the central piece of the chessboard because it's the one that actually checkmated the king. This is an ensemble book. Peirigill 22:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Existence of Tabitha-Ruth Wexler article

If spoilers are to be avoided, should Tabitha-Ruth Wexler even exist? People are going to notice that one of the characters seems to be given more prominence than any other. I'm considering nominating it for deletion (rather than just redirecting back here, so as to eliminate the redirect as well).

In any case, I don't see that the article has very much potential for expansion, considering that this is an ensemble book as stated above. Currently it's just a disjointed list of characteristics, and you would have to give away most of the plot to give it much more substance. –Unint 01:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

America the Beautiful

Is there a way to work in the significance of the song "America the Beautiful" into the article? I know this kind of delves into the "spoiler" bit discussed earlier, but it is an important part of the story. Trvsdrlng 19:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)turtle is anoying

Character list

Why don't we make a character list? There are alot of characters, and things about them. Seriously, it could work. I'm watchin' you,mon (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 00:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC) there are so many characters

Nice review

I came across a nice, personal-experience-type review of the book here (google HTML version); it may be good to include in the article, and in any case, it may of interest to readers of this talk page. JesseW, the juggling janitor 23:38, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

== Surely... ==[some of their descriptions. I haven't read the book in years, so I didn't have even a brief sentence for Northrup nor Eastman. Any help? User:elegantelbow 18:54, 23 July 2009

chess?

'my the only one who read the book? It's about chess. Deathsculler (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC).

Münchausen syndrome

I removed a paragraph under "Inconsistencies" regarding Pulaski's alleged Münchausen syndrome because it was pointless. To diagnose a fictional character with a very specific and frequently misunderstood disorder is unnecessary. To say it is inconsistent for characters in the same novel not to do the same is even more unnecessary. While Münchausen syndrome is often boiled down to "people who fake illness or injury for attention," not all people who do this suffer from this disorder. Pulaski does not demonstrate "classic Münchausen syndrome" because it is not as simple, nor as disposable, as Pulaski's attention seeking. Moreover, the person who wrote that paragraph doesn't seem to realize that Münchausen syndrome wasn't widely known or understood at the time of the novel's writing and publication (it wasn't even added to the DSM until two years after the novel's publication), so it is not as though Raski[

After reading through this article again, this happens to be one of my favorite short novels, I am disparaged at the gramatical quality and gross inclusion of significant poritons of the story. I will start paring this article down (Starting with the character descriptions) Hasteur (talk) 18:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Who killed sam

Who did it 2601:240:E200:28D5:F885:A5AF:4C69:7612 (talk) 17:34, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Read the book and find out.  :-)

(Trust me, it's worth it.) Space-Age Meat  19:32, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I loved this book as a kid too, but...

...this article is way too long and detailed. The section labeled "Plot" is the backstory. The plot is continued in the character sections and epilogue, which together are over 2,600 words long. I'm going to cut this way down and also merge in the unsourced Get a Clue article. Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 16:48, 4 June 2023 (UTC)