Im dont really buy the premise, why would someone leave such elaborate clues and then be surprised when he tracks her down - why leave the clues if not a test of his dedication? Its like making someone do a residency and when they get through it, the board is like "lol, jk, we went through all this trouble trainging you as a goof"
shareI was coming to post this exact thing. The trail of clues was both super complex, but also obvious in that she left one right in his room. Her explanation was so he'd know she was alright, but that's a huge gap in logic.
He does all this detective work and finally gets a location, Agloe. Margot assumes at this point he'll just be like.. "Oh mystery solved she's in Agloe everything is right in the world." Obviously he's going to take the next step and travel to this location.
Why not just leave a note that says "I'm in Agloe but don't come looking for me because everything is chill here. Bye."
And to the other poster who says "because then there would be no movie," well, with a plot like this, maybe that would have been better.
Totally agree with you. This Margo comes out to me as a selfish bitch. She says she does not get on with her parents, but her young sister does. Does she not care that her younger sister may have the same problems with her parents as she did? She is supposed to be so special and intelligent, yet she dated an idiot, Surely with her brain like hers she would have known that the popular school jock would be screwing all the girls he could get. Lastley as most people have said why leave clues if you don't want people to know you have left. So, she left the Paper Town to go to a one horse town. The actors were good, shame about the film.
shareit seems as though the male protagonist wasnt made out to be as important as he thought he was when margo said "i leave clues all the time"
shareIt's her MO. They established this in the beginning of the movie when Q was describing other times that she's disappeared and the rumors that would go around about where she was at and what she was doing. She's left clues for people before - her sister and sometimes her friends I guess, but it was just to give them a heads up that she was alright and not lying dead in a ditch somewhere. No one has ever been desperate to locate her before. They assume that she'll come back when she wants, and they go on with their lives.
Q was the one who insisted on following the trail to get to her. If I remember correctly, she sent him to the abandoned souvenir shop just because she thought it was a cool place and she wanted to share it with him, not because she expected him to put a map on the wall and use the pin holes to find her. She never intended for that to happen. Q elevated all of her motives and thought everything had to mean something, when in fact, it was just Margo being Margo.
You lay clues all over the place and act surprised when somebody once actually takes a look at them? She even took the trouble to put a clue in his room, while she only went there that night. She was just really weird.
shareShe was weird, no doubt about it. I'm not really a Margo fan, so don't get me wrong, I'm not defending her in a general sense. But like I said before, she left clues so that the people who cared about her would know that she left by choice and was not in danger. It was to say "hey I left for this adventure, don't worry about me while I'm gone."
She did put a clue in Q's room to send him to the abandoned minimall so that he would see her message about Paper Towns, but that was the end of it. She did not think he would search any further than that. The map/thumbtack thing was not intended as a clue if I remember correctly...Q stumbled upon that on his own and it was not part of her plan for him to see the holes in the wall and figure out her destination. She did not realize how determined he would be to find her, because no one else has taken it that far in the past.
I loved Margo! She really was a Ninja! A great vision of a woman doing life her own way! I was sad to find her depressed at the end, but her friends had disappointed her. I wish she would have reconciled with the friend who didn't let her down.
shareQ elevated all of her motives and thought everything had to mean something, when in fact, it was just Margo being Margo.
Which is annoying? Q reading into everything, or Margo being Margo? Or both hahaha
I was honestly okay with the fact that things did not end in a cliched romantic way. I think that Q learned a lot and that the story was really about him and his character growth. Margo was a myth that was more or less debunked by the end. And yeah, they both had their annoying moments, but that felt real to me. Or as real as it can get with a high school year who can travel as far as she wants whenever she wants to do so.
I don't buy this it's who she is and "she likes leaving clues" explanation. I didn't want or expect a Hollywood ending, but the lack of depth to a character we had a brief glimpse of and seemed to have depth was just left as an empty shell of nothingness. I understand that the story is about Q and that the purpose was not to be about finding true love, but I felt that last scene between Margo and Q was a wasted opportunity. It should have been so much better and give some explanation of her character. In the end the whole meaning of the movie is about Q's journey, to not waste a moment of life and to always have hope, but it's it also that hope can be deceiving?
As for the clues I just don't understand the meaning. Before I get to the actual clues whatever her motives or personality they shared a night and a moment. She showed him that life was for living and she didn't think that disappearing and leaving clues would not lead to either him finding her or for him to worry that something had happened to her? This points to her as being unthoughtful and cold, but she didn't seem that way. If she always had this plan, which it seems she did why did she not just tell him?
Ok now for the clues. She left a clue to an abandoned mart in a bad part of town. Please explain to me how this tells him that that she's ok? If anything this tells him she might not be ok. I also don't buy that she didn't think he would find the map and work out where she was. If she didn't want this why even use a map in the first place and why leave it there? She could have torn it up. Once she had the place in her head she didn't need it any more so why leave it?
Lastly I just can't believe that she isn't more shocked to see him and by this I don't mean when they first embrace but when they talk afterwards, and why she isn't apologetic. She seems so emotionless and not the girl that took him on that night of revenge and finding each other again. She seemed to have morals and this suggested that she was not a bad person, that she kind of knew what she was doing. Wouldn't he have asked how she was surviving and what her plan was, even if there was no plan? I don't think he'd have just left, even if it meant missing the prom. And even if he did he would want to stay in touch surely? If she didn't want this then their talk should have been deeper and more drawn out. I liked the film, but it didn't seem to fit together and was confusing. With a few small changes it could have been so much better, but still leaving the mystery, the message, and the characters. Even a last explanation from Q about his thoughts and how he would move on would have given closure and still leave us wondering.
She did not leave clues to Agloe. She left clues to the abandoned store, which had the message which essentially told him she was alright.
Q did the rest on his own out of obsession. Finding pins and a map wasn't a clue.
Exactly! She didn't left him clues as much as he was an obssessive creep.
If I don't reply, you're probably on my ignore list for something I forgot already
Im dont really buy the premise, why would someone leave such elaborate clues and then be surprised when he tracks her down
Perhaps the ending would have been more interesting if the girl had not willingly left any clues for the boy. Instead, the boy was just doing a really good detective work and assumed that the girl had deliberately left clues for him to find. In the current version it's really unclear why she needed to leave such obscure clues, why didn't she just leave a simple and clear message for the boy about where she is, so he would know she's alright.
shareTo be annoying... This is confirmed when she says she was only doing it to let him know she was alright... There's like a thousand less complicated ways of doing that where she could make clear that there's no need for him to travel.
So yeah. To be annoying. It fits.
"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"