Who Killed Markiplier?

Who Killed Markiplier?

Alright so I’ve watched the video like five times now, and slowed it down to pick things apart. Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together so far.

First, let’s talk characters: (I’ll probably do some more in-depth posts about a couple of them later)

-The Colonel is the first person we meet, and it is our first meeting with him outside the front door, as he introduces himself to us. We learn from the Mayor that he doesn’t like Mark, but was apparently friends with him, and the Mayor as well, some time ago, but was possibly forgotten and abandoned by Mark when he got famous (as hinted at in his rant/theory). He’s an eccentric, but generally good man (according to the Mayor).

-The Butler is cordial and professional when we first meet him, and every time we see him except for in the wine cellar, when he falls apart because of the mess, and I assume primarily because of the stress of Mark’s death. He claims to know everything about the manor and about the other guests, but nothing about the murder itself.

-The Mayor, whose real name is apparently Damian, according to the Colonel, is an old friend of ours from University, and trusts us immensely, having appointed us to our new job as District Attorney. He’s also an old friend of Mark’s, having known him “since childhood”, and an old friend of the Colonel. He apparently knows the backstory between the Colonel and Mark, but doesn’t want to talk immediately. It seems as if his reaction to Mark’s death, one of shock, is the most natural.

-The Detective, whose name might have been mentioned by Mark in the security footage but I didn’t catch it, has had many partners before, but all have died tragically. He’s terrible at his job, trusting a butler’s opinion on a body, doing...things...to said body, and immediately hiring us on as his partner, with no prior training. But he was also apparently hired by Mark before the poker party to do a background check on the Chef and the Butler, whom he said were clean. It’s worth noting that while we see him talking to the Mayor in the first two minutes of the video, we’re not introduced to him until the murder is discovered.

-The Chef is an aggressive man, who threatens to kill us a couple of times, and who apparently runs a security system with his “little buddy”. It seems to me that he’s the easy, throw-away suspect because he’s so obviously aggressive in the first place. It is also interesting to me that he seems just as freaked out by the Detective’s multiple partner deaths as we are.

-Then there’s us, the new District Attorney, old friends with Mark and the Mayor, but we’ve never met the Colonel, which might mean we’re slightly out of touch with Mark. We’re also apparently very good at poker, and were wild in our Uni days.

And now, the victim: Markiplier, who’s risen to fame and fortune, and who believes that “Life is for the living,” so lives a lavish, carefree lifestyle in his enormous manor. We know that all of the guests are close, trusted friends of Mark’s, but that he’s had a rocky relationship with the Colonel, and that he doesn’t fully trust the Chef or the Butler.

Next, let’s talk about some moments that’re worth checking out in more detail:

-The montage of the night. Now looking at it slowed down, I’ve pieced together some of the events of the night. We started off playing a few rounds, drinking socially. As it got later, however, everyone (except the Butler and the Chef) gets very drunk, and the Butler even ends up joining in the games. We get drunker and drunker, as the Chef gets more annoyed with everyone’s outrageousness, from the Mayor doing a keg stand to the Colonel fighting with the Detective, to lots and lots of beer pong. The Butler refuses to drink from the Colonel’s flask, and as we all get more drunk, we get more aggressive and ridiculous, flipping off the Butler, the Colonel plays with a loaded gun (possibly playing Russian Roulette), and we end up fighting with, and losing to, the Detective. We’re found on the floor by the Mayor, and pass out in bed at 1:30am, when the murder is occuring. Some of my key questions about these events: Why were we fighting with the Detective? Why was the Colonel playing Russian Roulette?

-The argument between the Mayor and  the Colonel. The Mayor accuses the Colonel of not feeling anything about Mark’s death, and says that Mark “reached out” to him, to which the Colonel replies that just because he’s not “weeping like a child” doesn’t mean he’s not feeling anything. After this, the Mayor storms past us, out of the room. I’ve covered pretty much everything we learn from this in the characters section of this post, but basically, we learn that the Colonel and Mark were friends who fell out because of Mark’s fame, but the Mayor acted as a bridge between the two.

-The security footage shows us a conversation between the Detective and Mark, in which Mark asks about a background check on the Butler and Chef, and the Detective says that the Chef is clear, but says something I couldn’t quite understand about the Butler (UPDATE: Apparently it was "Butler is an asshole, but also clear" , thank you @sassy-in-glasses). What we learn from this is that first, Mark and the Detective were good friends, second, Mark hired him to check out those two, if not the entire party, and third that Mark didn’t trust his employees, for some reason, or at least had reservations about them.

Now, let’s talk about the crime scene, sans body. The caution tape on one side is broken, apparently from the inside (I think), and a cone is knocked over. So either someone wasn’t careful hauling the body out...or the body walked out.

Finally, let’s talk briefly about the Jims. Their video is a bit silly, but does give us some pretty clean shots of the poker table and the crime scene again. Reporter Jim touches nearly everything, which isn’t helpful at all, but most interestingly, when they’re running away, he falls over, and we get a...*ahem* close shot of him as Camera Jim says his name and panics, and the video glitches out and stops. Is Reporter Jim dead? And why the glitching? Clearly, something bigger is going on here.

So as of yet, I don’t know who did it. But I’m excited to see what’s next. What do you guys think is happening? Did I miss anything? What should I look into in more detail? And most importantly...

WHO KILLED MARKIPLIER?!