: Doing this in-character is actually easier than doing it with the audience. Having characters rationalise answers that "make more sense" is easy, especially in the case of a Norse god walking

@Kevin153

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Doing this in-character is actually easier than doing it with the audience. Having characters rationalise answers that "make more sense" is easy, especially in the case of a Norse god walking the waking world. The final revelation is that much sweeter when they suddenly understand what they've been missing for the last however long.

Hiding things from the reader is really awkward though. 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. There are always going to be people who take one look at the first piece of the puzzle and see the whole picture. Generally you hide things from the audience by omission, but not total omission, humans see holes very well too. 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. 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.

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