![]() Including perhaps an ability to read medieval French that he doesn't have.Īs for Loki, he can hide in plain sight, too. It becomes difficult for the protagonist to prove she is Joan of Arc, when her "hobby" gives her an excuse to know everything he can possibly know about Joan of Arc. ![]() She thinks women are underrated in history (they definitely are!), and it is unfortunate the only reason Joan is remembered is because she did a man's job in battle. Find a few other female heroes she admires. That said, a good way of diverting suspicion is to embrace the similarities: The girl pretends to be an avid fan of history in general and Joan of Arc in particular, referring to her as a tragic hero, unfairly treated, horrifically killed, etc. It doesn't have to be with these particular characters, but it is an inevitable clue you have to reveal. It will NOT be "entertaining", it will look like a deus ex machina if you don't show the magic early. The reader will consider it a rip-off, a bait-and-switch if you don't reveal the magical nature of this world early in the first act. Given Joan of Arc and Loki on the stage, your setting is modern-day magical, you have a 600+ year old woman and a God. For example your Jeanne character bears a striking resemblance to a certain medieval painting of herself, have the protagonist bring this up, and a laughing Jeanne says "that's not one I remember sitting for." the audience is in "modern world mode" so it's a joke between friends, you've actually told who the character is while giving an even stronger message that they aren't that person. When you do tell the audience things you "ignore what's in plain sight", focusing instead on the details that deliberately distract from the secret you want to hide while telling the audience what you don't want them to know. Generally you hide things from the audience by omission, but not total omission, humans see holes very well too. ![]() There are always going to be people who take one look at the first piece of the puzzle and see the whole picture. Humans are strangely good at pattern recognition so while you may hide a lot of things from a lot of people you can't hide anything from everyone. Hiding things from the reader is really awkward though. The final revelation is that much sweeter when they suddenly understand what they've been missing for the last however long. Having characters rationalise answers that "make more sense" is easy, especially in the case of a Norse god walking the waking world. How, then, can I disguise the identities of these characters?ĮDIT: This trilogy of mine is set in modern timeĭoing this in-character is actually easier than doing it with the audience. For example, Loki goes by the name of Hveðrungr, until he reveals himself towards the end of the series and several of the Norse myths are sometimes alluded to in several conversations. The second character is Loki, who acts as the trilogy's secondary antagonist and throughout the series, the audience is given hints about his identity. Although, I'm trying to not make the protagonist look like a complete and utter fool because one of his major traits is his in-depth knowledge of world history and mythology and a major plot point is him trying to discover Jeanne's identity. Jeanne's identity eventually revealed via a series of flashbacks/dream sequences written from the protagonist's perspective that recount major events from Jeanne's life, which are completely devoid of dialogue (because I have no real way to justify why characters featured these flashbacks would be able to speak perfect modern English). The first is the series' deuteragonist, who is heavily implied to be Jeanne d'Arc (yes, THAT Jeanne d'Arc), who for reasons unknown decided to use her sister's forename and mother's maiden name as a pseudonym to disguise her identity from the main protagonist. My trilogy features two important characters whose identities I wish to keep hidden.
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