Editing Plot twist (section)

===Red herring===
A [[red herring]] is a false clue intended to lead investigators toward an incorrect solution.<ref name="Asong2012">{{cite book|author=Linus Asong|title=Detective Fiction and the African Scene: From the Whodunit? to the Whydunit?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DGH1BpSyI2AC&pg=PA31|access-date=23 July 2013|year=2012|publisher=African Books Collective|isbn=978-9956-727-02-5|page=31}}</ref> This device usually appears in [[detective fiction|detective novels]] and [[mystery fiction]]. The red herring is a type of [[wikt:misdirection|misdirection]], a device intended to distract the [[protagonist]], and by extension the reader, away from the correct answer or from the site of pertinent clues or action. The Indian murder mystery film ''[[Gupt: The Hidden Truth]]'' cast many veteran actors who had usually played villainous roles in previous Indian films as red herrings in this film to deceive the audience into suspecting them. 

In the bestselling novel ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]'', the misdeeds of a key character named "Bishop Aringarosa" draw attention away from the true master villain ("Aringarosa" literally translates as "pink herring"). In the [[William Diehl]] novel ''[[Primal Fear (novel)|Primal Fear]]'' (also adapted into a [[Primal Fear (film)|film]]), a defendant named [[Aaron Stampler]] is accused of brutally murdering the Archbishop of Chicago. He is revealed to have a [[dissociative identity disorder]], and is not executed on plea of insanity. Near the end, Aaron's lawyer discovers that he feigned his insanity to avoid the death penalty. Agatha Christie's classic ''[[And Then There Were None]]'' is another famous example and includes the term as well in a murder ploy where the intended victims are made to guess that one of them will be killed through an act of treachery. 

The complete second timeline of the sixth season of the television series ''[[Lost (2004 TV series)|Lost]]'' is a red herring: initially, this second timeline seems to be an [[Alternate history|alternate timeline]] in which [[Oceanic 815]] never crashes (the main timeline revolves around the crashing of such plane on [[Island (Lost)|an island]]). However, one of the last scenes reveals that this timeline is "a place" where the characters of the series meet after they have died, similar to the [[Bardo]] or [[Limbo]] concept. A red herring can also be used as a form of false [[foreshadowing]].