THE HINTS- VITAL TO SUCCESS

[John Brown]

Yep, I had another episode over on Dal’s which I thought might as well explain here, lol.

So, the discussion was about if the first stanza in the poem includes hidden and critical information to help solve for the first clue or clues in general...depending on your solve. Shocker, I was of the opinion that the first stanza has a hint that helps solve for the correct wwwh. Some others were saying to me why do you discredit that f just talked about the Chase in a straightforward fashion in that stanza and there’s nothing more to it. To them, the first stanza is nothing but an introduction to the Chase/poem. I was like, I never said that f didn’t write it as an introduction but tell me how come you discredit that there could be something more important lurking in there too.

I woke up this morning with this gem, lol...

Hello Forrest,

If in 500 years all a person has is the poem, and no back story: they don’t know “in the rocky mountains north of santa fe” or that there are 9 clues etc. Could a person reasonably just use the words in the poem and find your treasure chest?

Thank you ~Nope
Thank you Nope. Nope. f

F can take this hypothetical scenario and make sure the poem matches the questions’ conditions and then answer. The conditions say no backstory. The searchers who say stanza one is nothing but an introduction or it only talks in detail about f hiding the tc before the Chase started are equating that to some of the backstory of the Chase.

This means that their theory of it’s only part of the backstory dooms them when f answers nope since f had to eliminate all the backstory from his reply. By happenstance, f just also eliminated any potential hint/critical information in that stanza that anyone can use. Remember, the last part of the question is they can only use the rest of the words in the poem. Since f replies that a person can’t reasonably use the rest of the words in the poem to find the tc then, of course, there’s something in stanza 1 that is critical to figure out, like a hint. Because before f has said the (whole) poem is enough to find the tc.

I'm not sure I like this line of reasoning, if I've understood you. You're saying that if the first stanza doesn't contain clues then it is "backstory" and would be ruled out by the conditions of the question? I think "poem" includes all 24 lines no matter if they are clue/hint/or whatever.

That being said, I personally agree with you that there is a clue or so in the first stanza but I don't quite know how to get there, given Forrest's statement that "Begin it where warm waters halt" is the first clue.

His statement about "contiguous" was not about the ordering of the clues. It was about the process of writing the poem and how that resulted in nine clues. In other statements he's said words to the effect that you have to follow the clues consecutively and/or in the right order. That would seem fairly obvious. The question then as to what constitutes the right order becomes important. If "BIWWWH" is the first clue, then what loops you back to the first stanza?