Oidipous’s question implies that Kreon, Iokaste, and other leading Thebans should have investigated Laios’s death, but the audience can see why this could not be as Oidipous supposes, for when Oidipous arrived in Thebes, defeated the Sphinx, and was made tyrannos, he supplanted Kreon and Iokaste in their power and assumed their responsibilities. Who was then to carry the banner for Laios if not Oidipous? The victim’s nearest relatives should have done so: his wife and son. His wife, however, was now remarried. The son thought himself a stranger. Thus it can be seen that Oidipous himself, both through his defeat of the Sphinx and the his subsequent marriage to Iokaste and installation as Thebes’ ruler got in the way of the investigation that he should, as son, have been the one to pursue. He, and in particular his ability to answer the riddle about feet, was in fact what got in the way of the investigation. His dispositon and his powers got in the way of the investigation that should have taken place and so contributed to Thebes’ pollution as eventually manifested by the plague. [Md] [Mp] [Mw] If the audience were to entertain the possibility that plague is sent by Apollo, it would infer that Apollo might now be working towards a resolution of the problem to which Oidipous was a contributing factor. [Apaon]