Apologies if this has been presented onto the forums previous but search didn't give me any sugar.

What I am wondering is Discarding and Defeating a monster the same thing?

To put it into context:

In my most recent game there was a rather obnoxious Wraith in Tokyo who had cursed my lead character when it spawned. One of the other characters was some elderly fella with a big beard (astronomer I think) with the ability to spend clues to " discard a monster on a gate "

If he used his ability to discard the wraith does that mean we can trigger the effect whereby we can discard a cursed condition or not because we didn't actually defeat the wraith but rather discarded it?

We decided to treat it as being defeated as we reasoned that the cursed condition was due to the wraiths presence in the world and now that t was gone the curse would be too.

Thanks for reading

Discard != defeat.

Discard : remove from the board.

Defeat : monster has lost health >= toughness. A consequence of defeating a monster is that you then also remove it from the board.

The distinction is important since the rules state the following for Epic Monsters

So, in this case I'd rule that you don't get to trigger the wraith's "when defeated" trigger. For a framing story: imagine the only way to list the curse is to force the wraith to the point where it is nearly defeated at which point it bargains for its "life' by removing a curse, after which your investigator still goes on to defeat it.

[edit for grammar]

I see your point.

In the black and white rulescape of the board gaming world the exact definition of the wording is everything and so if defeating can only be achieved by removing health equal to or greater than it's toughness then i agree that the curse removing effect would then not trigger.

Maybe one for the FAQ though.