The Secret History of Twin Peaks

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ThatGumULike
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by ThatGumULike »

I am slowly but surely trying to catch up on this thread, but I'm still a couple of dozen pages behind, so forgive me if this has already been covered :)

But if Briggs's suspicion about Lana being a paid assassin is correct (and I know -- not everything thinks it was). But if it was... why was she so intent to win the Miss Twin Peaks contest? I mean, I've heard of "maintaining cover," but that seems like a ridiculous level of immersion to go through, especially once her assassination job is long done. And the demeanor she played during her first appearances (Douglas's wedding night and the days following her death) and her later appearances (the Miss Twin Peaks contest) was drastically different; we saw a very driven, ruthless power player in those later scenes vs. the naive ingenue we saw earlier.

So, why would an assassin sent to murder a man with ties to the supernatural/extraterrestrial care about a beauty pageant? The crown? The fame? Maybe a small scholarship?

Or... could it be that she knew what would REALLY happen to the winner? Was this her secret employer's plan to get an agent into the Black Lodge? If Lana had won, if Earle had taken her to Glastonbury Grove, would this have been her goal all along?

(I do not really think that this was Mark Forst's intent when writing that section about Lana, but it is interesting to think about nonetheless!)
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by laughingpinecone »

ThatGumULike wrote:I am slowly but surely trying to catch up on this thread, but I'm still a couple of dozen pages behind, so forgive me if this has already been covered :)

But if Briggs's suspicion about Lana being a paid assassin is correct (and I know -- not everything thinks it was). But if it was... why was she so intent to win the Miss Twin Peaks contest? I mean, I've heard of "maintaining cover," but that seems like a ridiculous level of immersion to go through, especially once her assassination job is long done. And the demeanor she played during her first appearances (Douglas's wedding night and the days following her death) and her later appearances (the Miss Twin Peaks contest) was drastically different; we saw a very driven, ruthless power player in those later scenes vs. the naive ingenue we saw earlier.

So, why would an assassin sent to murder a man with ties to the supernatural/extraterrestrial care about a beauty pageant? The crown? The fame? Maybe a small scholarship?

Or... could it be that she knew what would REALLY happen to the winner? Was this her secret employer's plan to get an agent into the Black Lodge? If Lana had won, if Earle had taken her to Glastonbury Grove, would this have been her goal all along?

(I do not really think that this was Mark Forst's intent when writing that section about Lana, but it is interesting to think about nonetheless!)
Could be! Personally, I love the assassin angle and my updated reading of Lana is as such: she stuck around because she needed to be sure that Dwayne (or anyone else) didn't know anything about his brother's dealings. That's why she married him (she had to stick around because of the investigation on Doug's death iirc)
And she had lots, LOTS of fun while she was there. She's probably good with old people, finds them funny, and a PAGEANT? Fun squared.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by Harry S. Truman »

_/\_wowbobwow_/\_ wrote:
chrisfil wrote:Don't know if it's been mentioned before but could the 1991 crime actually be the murder of Coops doppelgänger? Maybe by Annie? She could be being protected. Maybe the doppelgänger story will already have been resolved and the new series deals with the real cooper out of the lodge...


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Please god let this be true rather than this alternate universe, time-travel theory that seems to be very popular. Who's going to be able to follow any of that if the Showtime series turns out to go that way?

Annie could have changed the dossier to hide her own existence (or someone else could have done it)... fascinating. If TP is actually Dale and Annie's daughter and TP has to investigate her own father's murder (even though it was really BoB who was murdered, and good Dale gets out somehow) and then track down her mother (all the while not knowing any of this) and meets up with the Town residents and starts to encounter the lodge beings WOW... as Donald Trump would say, "tremendous."

I'd be way more excited for something like that and it would be more accessible to new fans than the whole time travel plot - yuck

I will see the series with or without time- travel, but with time-travel, better!! Would be very espectacular and very accesible for all the people. The book give up clues over the time and his troubles.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by FauxOwl »

I really enjoyed the book even if it wasn't quite what I expected. I missed the announcement if there was one that this would not be a bridge between the second and third seasons, and it took a while before I realized there would hardly be any material that covered that took place after the end of season 2. The format was very interesting, but admittedly I had difficulty adjusting to it. I ended up getting an audible trial and downloading the audiobook for free, and did something I've never done before, listening to the audio book while reading the book. That was actually a surprisingly enjoyable experience and it certainly smoothed out the somewhat disjointed read I was having jumping back and forth between the documents and footnotes.

All the esoterica and incorporation of historical figures was right up my alley. The extensive UFO stuff and the prominence of Doug Milford was also quite a surprise... I'm not sure what to make of it. I'd be surprised if much of that ended up in the third season. But overall I was never put off by it.

The discrepancies in the book from the established TV narrative are admittedly confounding. It seems too prominent for it to be a mistake. The section about Big Ed Hurley, for example... there seems to be little in it that is necessary or relates to the central mysteries covered in the book. It's almost like the only reason it's there is to highlight the discrepancies. But yet I'm not sure there's any possible explanation that I'm comfortable with. Alternate reality seems awfully dicey to introduce this late in the game... I can't see Lynch handling that in any kind of literal sense. It's of course something he's sort of toyed with in his work, but it's more that he plays with nonlinear reality than any kind of literal alternate reality. I don't really like the idea of of the documents being that unreliable either. Nor am I hot about the idea that it's just a mistake by Frost or retconning. We'll see, but no doubt this is a significant part of the book. If Season 3 can handle this skillfully I'll be fine with it, but it's going to be until then before I can really assess.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by Robot Butler »

I think the Briggs suspecting Lana to be an assassin shows Briggs is a bit of a paranoid. He sees conspiracies everywhere, aliening himself from the rest of the word, which is sort of the point of the book.

It's a purposely unreliable secret history of Twin Peaks, because it's all filtered through Major Brigg's flawed perception of the world. He's very much the tragic hero of this story.

So you can pick and choose which parts of the book you want to add to your head canon. It's all up to you.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by bneg221 »

This is my first post on here. I read the book on the release weekend but I've spent the past few weeks reading other peoples interpretations on the board. Really insightful stuff!

One thing that I don't think anyone has directly correlated (from what I've read anyway) is how the book progresses with the notion that Dougie Milford is a bad guy. Frost is clearly trying to sway the reader this way by the Archivist and TP notes on him in earlier sections. They're basically telling you how you should feel about him. Then towards the later portions of the book, Dougie Milford is now a good guy. (Black and white thinking to get the point across)

Perhaps this character shift is directly correlated to the ring. The reader is given the impression that Parsons and then Nixon have the ring. During this period, Dougie Milford is portrayed as a dark mysterious figure working through various sectors of government agency who is capable of doing anything to hide/conceal information. Towards the end of the book however, the reader is given the impression that Dougie Milford now has the ring. I feel at this point in the book we see a clear shift in character traits and perception on Dougie Milford. Is it possible that wearing the ring turned Dougie "good"?

To try to further that point, MIKE turned from his evil ways because he "saw the face of God". What we don't know is when and how MIKE had this epiphany. We are introduced to this ring from MIKE. Perhaps the ring acts as some purification object. Maybe MIKE at one point had worn this ring himself which is when he was redeemed.

In FWWM, MIKE was very anxious to have Laura wear this ring before her death from Leland/BOB. To the viewer, Laura still died and the viewer is left with a lot of questions as to what the purpose of the ring was. Perhaps the ring in that case purified her soul to enter heaven. We do see this visual towards the end of FWWM with Laura seeing the Angel return. In summary, perhaps MIKE is acting as somewhat of an agent of God while BOB is the devil in this case preying on peoples weaknesses. Albert concludes in the series that BOB is "the evil that men do". If Laura was purified, BOB couldn't prey on her. The series does have heavy points set between good and evil.

If I were to believe this theory to be true, the next question would be: Why did Cooper tell Laura not to take the ring? I believe the answer to that question is as simple as Cooper knew Laura would be killed by BOB is she did. I think it is important to note that not everybody who had worn this ring had resulted in a tragic death. Nixon/Milford…. Age was mainly the factor in those cases.

Hawks description of the black lodge is "every spirit must pass through there on the way to perfection." The "waiting room" is essentially purgatory if this were true. Purgatory in biblical reference is described as an intermediate state after physical death in which those destined for heaven "undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven". In order to enter heaven, you must "rid" yourself of all sin (aka the path to perfection). In the show we are shown multiple versions of each character in the various red rooms in the finale. These dopplegangers are the split versions of the inhabitants. Good/Evil.

Seems like a simple explanation to a complicated show but I think the show/book purposefully obfuscates things.

Overall I think the book is a big red herring with very few revelations that will further the story to season 3. I think there are definitely some clues in there yet to be discovered but the "answer" is definitely not in the book and is subject to interpretation until season 3. Which is the whole point I guess, to get people thinking and talking about it without revealing anything concrete. haha With that being said I did thoroughly enjoy the book, even the UFO parts.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by guildnavigator »

About Lynch shying away from a potential alternate reality storyline: Lost Highway (which Lynch says could be set in the same universe as Twin Peaks) was almost entirely based on a character's experience with an alternate reality. Mulholland Drive also dealt with a similar break in reality. Lynch seems to use these elements of a storyline as an advantage rather than a hinderance or limitation. I could totally see this happening in the new season.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

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guildnavigator wrote:About Lynch shying away from a potential alternate reality storyline: Lost Highway (which Lynch says could be set in the same universe as Twin Peaks) was almost entirely based on a character's experience with an alternate reality. Mulholland Drive also dealt with a similar break in reality. Lynch seems to use these elements of a storyline as an advantage rather than a hinderance or limitation. I could totally see this happening in the new season.
Exactly. I see a lot of people not wanting an alternate reality scenario, and I'm not even sure what I think to be honest. But I think if they do go that route it will be much more along the lines of Lost Highway and MD than something like Lost, Fringe or Star Trek.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by FauxOwl »

I do think there is a difference between how Lynch has handled fractured/non-linear/alternate realities in LH , MD and IE and the very literal implications of there being physical documents in a dossier proving the existence of alternate timelines. With Lynch's previous work it was always more symbolic and representative of a fractured psyche... I've at least never literally interpreted those films as alternate realities in the same sense as it is regarded in multiverse theory.

Of course this likely would be different because of the fact that this is Twin Peaks, which has mostly always had one foot in traditional narrative structure, even at its most surreal in Episode 29 and FWWM. In the other films Lynch jumped into non traditional structure with both feet (maybe MD being an exception, but even that challenges the audience to keep the narrative grounded). Frosts input could very well lead to a more grounded, literal explanation of events dealing with the same themes as Lynch's more esoteric films. I doubt the season 3 narrative will become completely untethered like those films... I wouldn't mind it personally as I love those aspects of Lynch's work, but I think Lynch would approach Twin Peaks differently and I'd think both Frost and Showtime would not be so eager for the project to leap into those untethered areas with both feet.

Regardless, it's been a couple of days since I finished the book, and the more I think about it, the more I'm coming around to alternate realities being almost the only possible explanation for the obvious incongruities in the book.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by PsychoFox »

Hi,

I am Alex, from Paris. This is my first post here, but I am a long time lover of the show, as the most part of the members here.

About the questions raised by the book, I agree that we are more in an alternate/deformed reality than in a simple time manipulation. I don't see how you can change Norma's mother, without deleting Norma herself. Except if Vivian died before Annie's birth, and Ilsa is Norma's foster mum.

Otherwise, I have my theory about the modifications of the story that we know. After reading the book, and when I look at the new cast.

Perhaps the new reality is based on the story Frost & Lynch wanted initially ? Without the changes imposed by ABC at the time ? And without actors defections ?

See:

- The characters of Annie and John Justice were created because, it seems, Audrey was too young to date Dale Cooper (and perhaps because of LFB).
So Annie and John don't exist anymore. And Lana is Miss Twin Peaks 1989.

- Robert Foster takes the role of sheriff Truman, as originally written.

- It seems that the role of Donna was proposed to Laura Dern 25 years ago.
Now, Laura Dern is Donna Hayward.

- Monica Bellucci takes a role near the one that was planned for Isabella Rosselini.

- The network wanted the murderer to be revealed. So Leland was discovered, and Maddy killed.
In the new reality, we don't know who killed Laura. Leland and Maddy are alive (On this point, I understand that the book confirmed that the reality is still the same, but I take into account the last episode of the show, with Norma and Shelly that seems to have forgotten Annie's fate, but at the same time Truman remembering her. Is a progressive change of reality, not blunty, possible ? Can he affects the data of the book ? Just a thought !)

- Perhaps the number of inhabitants of Twin Peaks will be reduced to 5000 ? Like Frost and Lynch wanted ? And which is more realistic when we know the town.


For Ben Horn's double cross about his "good" change, I remember Catherine foresaw it, no ? At the ferret party, there is a dialogue between the two characters. She didnt believe in his sincerity. I don't think there is a change of reality whith Audrey's note in the book. Just another view.
Last edited by PsychoFox on Wed Nov 16, 2016 1:34 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by laughingpinecone »

And Forster was originally meant to play Harry... (*slides ten bucks to Mark Frost* give me the deets on Frank's creation and if/how it plays off all the other sibling weirdness)

And in the reality described by the book, which is 'alternate' compared to that of the show, Laura is still very much dead and her killer very much caught...

But really, Dern was an option for Donna? I didn't know that - it's an interesting mental image. Echoes of Sandy, since Kmac and Rossellini were also more or less expected to reprise their BV roles?
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by _/\_wowbobwow_/\_ »

Alternate timeline/re-boot would be devastating to me.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by LurkerAtTheThreshold »

Long time lurker. First time poster here.


I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the discussion of TSHOTP on this forum, even the sometimes heated arguments about the book being good or bad.

My initial reaction to the book was that it was a complicated, (If over stated with ‘original documents’) epistolary novel, enjoying it merely on that level as a fan of the art form, and the original series…..but like many other readers here, that was coupled with vague feelings of dissatisfaction that the world expansion was altering the unique feeling of the Twin Peaks series, turning it into something stale, X-files-ish, or something that thematically had been visited too many times for me. (Aliens. Illuminati. Government cover ups) whilst perhaps losing the quirky, emotional quality of the soapie drama/murder mystery and intrigue of all the loveable townfolk.

My feeling towards the documented ‘inconsistencies’ was that people observing them were being obsessively pedantic, or ‘fan boyish’, about the mythology of something which was never more than a clever work of fiction.

However, that all changed when I read a few particular observations on this forum, and heard some of Mark Frost’s own reactions during questions in his book signings. I now am having trouble moving past the idea that there is more to this work than meets the eye.

———————————————————————————————————————————
THE CASE FOR HIDDEN CLUES IN THE DOSSIER

For me the big giveaway that something else is going on here, was not the mistaken details of: Laura’s age, Norma’s mum, Robert Jacoby’s multiple deaths, or Nadine and Big Ed’s backstory. It was the typewriter. The typewriter error can hardly be seen as anything other than a deliberate note from Frost that further examination of the dossier than first read is required.

When you first read the book, your objective is quite simple. Like outlined by Cole, you believe you are trying to work out the identity of the archivist. Fans of the series will probably begin to suspect Briggs early on, this is intentional, as we all associate Briggs foremost with the somewhat cringey UFO element of series 2. But then after getting a centuries long history of the town, the owl cave ring, and Dougie Milford’s shady history, the whole task is seemingly handed to us on a platter when the central mystery is forfeited by the archivist himself. We end the book with the minor revelation that Briggs was the archivist, and the more tantalising suggestion that Evil coop may have killed Briggs and the dossier was perhaps found at his death scene. Then our brain snaps back to thinking about series 3 and what might happen 25 years later. We assume we have read something akin to ‘The Access guide’ and that there is nothing beyond the surface layer of the town world building and conspiracy lore, forgetting that Mark Frost was a central creator of season 3, knows all the plot turns to come and is unavoidably therefore an accessory to all that will follow, whatever he and Lynch’s differences in subject preference, this book holds the key by omission alone.

This now seems so deceptively simple to me. When I finished the book, I didn’t even question why Frost would set up a kind of ‘game’ only to ruin it by making the revelation of the archivist so spelled out. But then we come to the all essential typewriter clue. The archivist goes to particular length to display his typewriter, apparently for no reason at all, with a note that says ‘my faithful corona’. Although this seems like a dubious and pointless piece of information, when the archivist has ALREADY revealed himself as Briggs…. what is more glaring is that, there is another very significant mention of a typewriter in TSHOTP.

These facts have already been mentioned in this forum, but I think its important to revisit them to progress with our analysis of the text. On page 168 (before the only document apparently actually written by Agent Cooper appears), there is a note from TP that the work was typed on a Vintage Underwood typewriter, which has ‘permanent residence in the bookhouse’. The signifcance of a Vintage Underwood, (As has already been pointed out) and which one can easily observe from a quick google search:

VINTAGE UNDERWOOD TYPEWRITER
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=vint ... jQT2XKOvbM
%3A

….A vintage underwood typewriter has no 1’s. This sets up a direct correlation with the other subtle observation made by people in this forum, that all of the archivists text (And some other documents) use 1’s to substitute the I’s. This includes the ghost wood contract and Doguie Milford's buick receipt, (Which are therefore also evidently faked). This makes an immediate inconsistency in the book. The archivist claims he is using a Corona, yet he is clearly using a Vintage Underwood. TP claims that Agent Cooper is using an underwood from the bookhouse, when that article clearly isn’t. So why is TP lying? Why is the archivist lying or misleading? Why are these typewriters swapped?

I don’t believe this is a mistake. This is a clear message from Mark Frost that there is a subtext to the book. The initial task is only a cover for the broader task of analysing what is really going on. Of building the mystery that is to come, and planting the seed of doubt. It is happening again……

---continued in second post----- :mrgreen:
Last edited by LurkerAtTheThreshold on Wed Nov 16, 2016 1:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by PsychoFox »

laughingpinecone wrote:And Forster was originally meant to play Harry... (*slides ten bucks to Mark Frost* give me the deets on Frank's creation and if/how it plays off all the other sibling weirdness)

And in the reality described by the book, which is 'alternate' compared to that of the show, Laura is still very much dead and her killer very much caught...

But really, Dern was an option for Donna? I didn't know that - it's an interesting mental image. Echoes of Sandy, since Kmac and Rossellini were also more or less expected to reprise their BV roles?
I updated my post, thanks ;-)

For Laura Dern, yes, I will find the sources if you want.
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Re: SPOILERS: The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Post by dronerstone »

is the archivist possibly BAD COOP????

hence not the slightest mention of Annie, maybe she doesn't exist anymore at ALL in his brain/reality, or he treats it as if she never existed?
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