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The All-Concealing "I"
- 433 statements
- 81 feature instances
- 75 referencing feature instances
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| The All-Concealing "I" | comment |
First-person narration has something of a dual nature. On the one hand, it carries an inherently tight coupling to the protagonist. As such, it's a great way to really get inside their head, showing the reader exactly what they're thinking and why. On the other hand, the structure of English grammar also makes it easy to use a first-person narrative to avoid mentioning basic facts about the narrator. These facts may include the gender, the name, and even the very identity of the narrator. This is a frequent way to achieve a Tomato Surprise. The extent to which this is possible or necessary is very language-specific, especially when the subject to be concealed is a gender. For example, Japanese first person pronouns may indicate gender in certain contexts, so depending on the type of protagonist you are writing, gender-neutral writing might not be much easier in the first person than in the third person. In fact, because people outside of family and friends are often referred to by last name alone and use of pronouns is uncommon, it can be easier to surprise the reader about the gender of a third person than it would be to surprise the reader about the gender of the narrator. Similarly, many languages (notably both Romance and Slavic languages) have enough grammatical gender markers other than pronouns that this trope becomes a practical if not a definitional impossibility. Conversely, a number of languages lack gender in the third person, permitting gender-neutral writing without resorting to first person. In principle, you could accomplish the same thing using Second-Person Narration, although you don't see that done very often. See also Featureless Protagonist. An Unbroken First-Person Perspective may be used in video games to achieve the same effect. Examples |
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Dropped link to Orca: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
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Dropped link to PinkertonDetective: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to SecondPersonNarration: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" | processingUnknown |
Orca | |
| The All-Concealing "I" | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1099a6ac | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1099a6ac | comment |
The narrator in Fight Club (both the book and the film) never actually reveals his name (at least not the one on his birth certificate). He uses a series of fake names at the support groups he attends at the beginning when he meets Marla. And of course, he also goes by the name "Tyler Durden" for almost the whole story, but he's not aware of that for quite some time. | |
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| Fight Club | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_1099a6ac | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_10ce5ad | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_10ce5ad | comment |
In Rubicon, the 7th Roma Sub Rosa book, the series-standard first-person narration is used to conceal the fact that the murder the narrator has been working to solve was in fact committed by the narrator himself. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_10ce5ad | featureApplicability |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_10ce5ad | featureConfidence |
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The All-Concealing "I" / int_10ce5ad | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_110bdffe | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_110bdffe | comment |
Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist doesn't reveal ANYTHING about the narrator other than the fact that he is male, until near the end. He turns out to be the main villain. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" / int_110bdffe | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_11c6567a | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_11c6567a | comment |
In First Among Sequels in the Thursday Next series the narrator is replaced for a time by her evil double, Thursday1-4. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_11c6567a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_11c6567a | featureConfidence |
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| Thursday Next | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_11c6567a | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_12a4d0e4 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_12a4d0e4 | comment |
Harrow the Ninth uses Second-Person Narration for large portions of the book to conceal that the narrator is actually Gideon, whose consciousness is alive in Harrow's brain after Harrow gave herself a lobotomy to erase the trauma of absorbing it. Notably, sections of the book set (supposedly) in the past use Third-Person Flashback. When Gideon is in control of Harrow's body the narration switches back to more typical first-person. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1543f8a | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1543f8a | comment |
Zero Time Dilemma, however, appears to avert this trope by telling the story through the perspective of a third-person camera and style similar to Tell Tale Games. Until the existence of a tenth player is revealed, however... Only then is it averted. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_165437d3 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_165437d3 | comment |
In the novel Then We Came to the End, the whole story is written in the first person plural. The narrators are positioned as people who work in the office in which the characters work, but it is never made clear whether any of the named characters are included in "we". It is surprisingly effective. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" / int_165437d3 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_16da4601 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_16da4601 | comment |
"The Watery Place": The Deputy never reveals their name, gender, or even description, despite being the narrator. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1a385628 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1a385628 | comment |
Slouching Towards Bedlam deliberately avoids the second person pronouns that are traditional in Interactive Fiction... but you might not notice at first. It's an eerily subtle symptom of something much bigger going on with your character. He has caught the Logos from an asylum patient, which erased his ego and all his memories. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1c6aed0b | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1c6aed0b | comment |
The Steven Universe fangame Flawed Crystals provides a rare second-person example. For most of the game there is no ambiguity, as the narrator is clearly Steven. However, in the bad endings, after Steven is killed, you're suddenly transferred to a new scene, still in second-person. This is designed to mislead you into thinking Steven survived, but it's eventually revealed that the viewpoint character has changed to Connie. (The same fakeout happens in the good ending, but it's a bit more obvious.) | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1e8dcfa | comment |
Ralph Ellison uses this device in Invisible Man to conceal the narrator's name and any physical description of himself apart from the fact that he is a black male. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1f67dad6 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1f67dad6 | comment |
In The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, first person is used to conceal the main character's name when he's telling his story to the narrator in flashback. The narrator also conceals his identity in third person by just calling him the Time Traveler. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1fcfc25 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_1fcfc25 | comment |
In The Player of Games, first-person narration is used to disguise the identity of the narrator. The narrator is hiding in plain sight: he is the drone assigned to Gurgeh. A further level of deception: the drone is actually a Special Circumstances agent introduced earlier, in disguise. The Reveal is the very last word in the book. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_219914e9 | comment |
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner is one of the more successful examples, managing even to conceal that anything's being hidden at all. The best part about it is that because it's written to someone who already knows the "secret", all the clues you need to figure it out are barefaced and obvious. But because you don't realize there's any secret at all, you don't pick up on the fact that they are clues until The Reveal. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_22b2f3de | comment |
Daphne du Maurier used this in Rebecca to leave her narrator nameless, known only as the second Mrs. de Winter. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_23eec8ce | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_23eec8ce | comment |
Used to great effect in the Journal of Aframos Longjourney, a story in The Wanderer's Library, to conceal the fact that basically every assumption you make about the main character is wrong. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_25f6f1a0 | comment |
Umineko: When They Cry: In a variation, the original visual novels regularly switch between first- and third-person in a rather confusing way. The first-person sections are narrated by the protagonist — usually — but it's not until later that we find out the third-person sections are also being narrated- by the Game Master, who is always interested in tricking you. It can sometimes even be hard to spot when the POV switches. Unreliable Narrator ahoy! Episode 6 has a case of this. The difference from the series' normal use is that there are no sprites showing which character it is and the character in question is locked in a room from which s/he can't get out of. It quickly becomes very creepy. |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_27cd5275 | comment |
"Angel (Derin Edala)": The protagonist narrates in first person and their gender is never revealed. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_2e72b8cc | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_2e72b8cc | comment |
Hardboiled Wonderland And The End Of The World has a variation on this that is possible thanks to a quirk of the Japanese language. In the original the identity of the narrator(s) is concealed by using "watashi" in the main story and "boku" in the other. The English translator felt "boku" to be more intimate and used the present tense for that section. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_339e4d5f | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_339e4d5f | comment |
This trope was the only viable way to write the Memoirs of Inuyasha's father, who had no canon name. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_36d59a47 | comment |
Although Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses is written mostly in the third person, it does have a narrator who intrudes on a few occasions. He is never explicitly identified, but it's heavily implied that he is either Satan, God or both. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_37a15a81 | comment |
In The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway, first-person narration is used to conceal the fact that the protagonist has no name, because he does not actually exist for about half the book, being the Imaginary Friend/conscience of his "friend" Gonzo, until an industrial accident with some Applied Phlebotinum turns him into an Enemy Without. Not even the guy himself realizes this until about three-quarters of the way through; all he knows is that after the accident suddenly all his friends don’t know who he is and some of his most crucial memories don’t match up to reality. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_3d9ea851 | comment |
Nothing is known about the narrator of Pokémon Strangled Red, not even the gender. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_42ffb88e | comment |
A tale from the SCP Foundation, The Little Lost *blotted* is portrayed as a series of diary entries. The diary entries are peppered with ██████, [DATA EXPUNGED], and [REDACTED], in the usual method of SCP censoring delicate info. The narrator is despairing about the approach of final exams they haven't studied for and relating gossip about the dating habits of their acquaintances, when... something happens. The narrator ends up confined somewhere, alone, being tortured by horrible creatures for no discernable reason... and the last line cuts off in the middle of SCP-682's catchphrase. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
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Crossing Kevin's Crossing is a fictional blog where the narrator always speaks in first person and is never referred to by name. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
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In the visual novel Ever17, the player can choose to play as either Takeshi or the Kid. You play with a first-person POV from the selected character, meaning you can only see Takeshi when playing as the Kid and can only see the Kid when playing as Takeshi. Taking it even further, once you've made the choice, lines spoken by your controlled character are not voice acted, denying you even the knowledge of what you sound like. All of this is crucial to the final act's Mind Screw plot twist: the person you play as isn't the same person you see. Actually, both the people you see are the same person; the Takeshi seen by the Kid is a grown-up version of the Kid seen by Takeshi. Even worse, you actually aren't playing as either Takeshi or the Kid, but as a 4th-dimensional entity who's observing things through their eyes (well, indirectly in Takeshi's case). Confused yet? | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_4c9e8c6 | comment |
Use of Weapons manages to achieve this in third person with "he", "a man" etc. without the wording seeming awkward. Although the drawn-out nature of The Reveal in this case almost completely counter-acts the use of this trope if you had figured it out 100 pages earlier. Banks does throw in a bit of Nightmare Fuel for good measure though. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_4ce969a9 | comment |
The Marathon series has an odd variation of this - you play a Heroic Mime character that is treated like a tool by most other main characters, and as such the only dialogue you get is overheard conversations in which you aren't mentioned or someone talking to you giving you orders. Aside from a short, vague prologue in the manual there is no background for your character, and he is never seen. Plenty of hints are in the game, with mention of military cyborgs and soldiers made from the reanimated dead, but arguments still go on as to what exactly he is. | |
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The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_4d6ad22f | comment |
In Virtue's Last Reward, you view the game from the first-person perspective of the protagonist, Sigma. Once again, lines spoken by the main character have no voice acting. This is done to hide the fact that Sigma is actually older than he thinks he is, thanks to mental time travel. | |
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| The All-Concealing "I" / int_5016e2a7 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_5016e2a7 | comment |
In Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar mysteries, the gender of the title character / narrator is never specified. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_5016e2a7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_5016e2a7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Hilary Tamar | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_5016e2a7 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_50885508 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_50885508 | comment |
Bad Monkeys, by Matt Ruff, makes use of this. The story-within-a-story, first-person narration by the main character is done to hide the inner thoughts of the main character, which would reveal that she is The Mole for Mandrill. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_50885508 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_50885508 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Bad Monkeys | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_50885508 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_51df8ac6 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_51df8ac6 | comment |
There's also A Bright Flash, from the perspective of someone who had been disfigured in a bomb explosion and seeks revenge. It's Godzilla. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_51df8ac6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_51df8ac6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| A Bright Flash (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_51df8ac6 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_531b76f3 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_531b76f3 | comment |
Early Riser is written from protagonist Charlie Worthing's point of view, keeping viewers in the dark about Charlie's facial deformity for the first few chapters, and about Charlie's gender for the rest of the novel due to the Gender-Concealing Writing. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_531b76f3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_531b76f3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Early Riser | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_531b76f3 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_585932b8 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_585932b8 | comment |
This is used in Aimee to hide the name of the protagonist, who feels like she cannot separate herself from the the belief that she killed her friend (the Aimee who the book is titled after) who actually committed suicide. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_585932b8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_585932b8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Aimee | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_585932b8 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_5afbc0cb | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_5afbc0cb | comment |
Undertale masterfully uses Second-Person Narration to hide that the player character, the child who climbed the mountain and fell into the under in the prologue, is NOT the child you are controlling on the screen. You only learn this in the Pacifist and the Genocide routes, and only in the Pacifist ending do you learn the name of the child on the screen. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_5afbc0cb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_5afbc0cb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Undertale (Video Game) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_5afbc0cb | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_630e1191 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_630e1191 | comment |
The narrator of The Brothers Karamazov is never identified (nor is it ever explained how he knows so many details about events and conversations he had no part in). A demon that one character hallucinates towards the end of the book also speaks in the first person, which has inspired at least one literature student to suggest that the narrator is the devil. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_630e1191 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_630e1191 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Brothers Karamazov | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_630e1191 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6ac3c4bd | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6ac3c4bd | comment |
The Outsider (1926) by H. P. Lovecraft. The narrator is an Eldritch Abomination typical of Lovecraft's work, but oddly humanized. It has also been made into a flash game -link here- for those who prefer a more visual approach. |
|
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6ac3c4bd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6ac3c4bd | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Outsider (1926) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_6ac3c4bd | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6cbc542e | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6cbc542e | comment |
In Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, the first-person therapy sessions are actually Cheryl's point of view, not Harry's. You don't realize this since Dr. K will not refer to you by name until the very end. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6cbc542e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6cbc542e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Video Game) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_6cbc542e | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6edd201 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6edd201 | comment |
Sally's brother in The Cat in the Hat narrates the story, making some small children insist that his name is actually I. In the live-action movie starring Mike Myers, the boy's name is Conrad, and in The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, the boy note who shares Sally's brother's design save for his skin color but is instead her neighbor is named Nick. |
|
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6edd201 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_6edd201 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Cat in the Hat | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_6edd201 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_70da6e51 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_70da6e51 | comment |
At least one Goosebumps used this for effect. "My Best Friend Is Invisible" waits until the titular character is made visible to reveal that the 'friend' is human, but the narrator, the narrator's family and community are all Starfish Aliens. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_70da6e51 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_70da6e51 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Goosebumps | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_70da6e51 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_80804477 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_80804477 | comment |
About halfway through the graphic novel Enigma, the narrator reveals he's a character within the story. To this point the narrator commented on events with an unusually sardonic and cynical eye, questioning his own perceptions of things and upending the reader's expectations, so it felt very much like he was an extra character in the story, though not necessarily integral to the plot. That changes with this reveal, and the narrator himself is not shown until the very end. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_80804477 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_80804477 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Enigma / Comicbook | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_80804477 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_8268c95e | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_8268c95e | comment |
Fallen: The narrator is the demon Azazel, who narrates in Denzel Washington's voice because he is telling the story while possessing Denzel's body. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_8268c95e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_8268c95e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Fallen | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_8268c95e | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_855f87e2 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_855f87e2 | comment |
Bone Dance by Emma Bull uses first-person narration to conceal the fact that the main character is genderless. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_855f87e2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_855f87e2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Bone Dance | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_855f87e2 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_8c785d4d | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_8c785d4d | comment |
The narrator of the Bert and I... sketches downplays this; from voice and the stories he tells, he's a lobsterman out of Kennebunkport. However, he is unnamed and we have no information on his life outside his boat, the Bluebird. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_8c785d4d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_8c785d4d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Bert and I... (Audio Play) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_8c785d4d | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_92a1f00f | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_92a1f00f | comment |
An exception appears in I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, where the story is told from first person. The protagonist's name was also obscured, resulting in Punny Name mixed with Role Called. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_92a1f00f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_92a1f00f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| I Want to Eat Your Pancreas | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_92a1f00f | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_92bde19f | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_92bde19f | comment |
Limyaael's Fantasy Rants: Limyaael calls attention to a few pitfalls of first-person narration in this rant. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_92bde19f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_92bde19f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Limyaael's Fantasy Rants (Blog) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_92bde19f | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_9d34190a | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_9d34190a | comment |
The Elder Scrolls: The series does a visual version of this prior to the character customization portion of the game, which combined with First-Person Ghost, makes it impossible to make out any of your character's features before the player designs them. The series' recurring in-game book Immortal Blood does this with the narrator. The "I" hides the fact that he is a vampire himself. |
|
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_9d34190a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_9d34190a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Elder Scrolls (Franchise) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_9d34190a | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_9f89a5f0 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_9f89a5f0 | comment |
Used in the Pokémon fanfic Ash's Return to maintain for the readers the Ontological Mystery caused by the narrator not remembering his/her own identity. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_9f89a5f0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_9f89a5f0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Pokémon (Franchise) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_9f89a5f0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a0290e6c | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a0290e6c | comment |
Dream High School: you barely know anything else about yourself. Page 2 gives your first hint, but on Page 4 you're first referred to as a "she". | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a0290e6c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a0290e6c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Dream High School | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_a0290e6c | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a153a18d | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a153a18d | comment |
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov does several sneaky pronoun shifts throughout the novel that eventually reveal that the narrator, Professor Charles Kinbote, is actually the exiled king of Zembla, whose tale he begged his friend, the late poet John Shade, to write about; after Shade's death, he hijacks his friend's last poem for his own purposes. Or that it's a delusional Russian professor named Botkin, who believes he's the exiled king of Zembla, etc... A lot of the fun of the novel is that it's incredibly hard to suss out which is the correct reading. |
|
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a153a18d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a153a18d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Pale Fire | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_a153a18d | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a1c3e12 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a1c3e12 | comment |
"A", or Lonely Day, does not reveal their name or gender in The Last Pony on Earth until Princess Luna blurts out their full name. She was turned into a mare, but was originally a man. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a1c3e12 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a1c3e12 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Ponies After People (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_a1c3e12 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a9599bf7 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a9599bf7 | comment |
"Rejection Slips": The only character named is Isaac Asimov, the 'letters' that he receives are unnamed, lacking a signature. While the different styles inform the reader that each letter is from a different editor, it takes a lot of familiarity with the subjects to identify them. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a9599bf7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_a9599bf7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Rejection Slips | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_a9599bf7 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_add02620 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_add02620 | comment |
In Louis Sachar's There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, Bradley does a report on a book written in the first person, and only realizes while writing the report that the narrator never gives a name or gender. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_add02620 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_add02620 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_add02620 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_afc879df | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_afc879df | comment |
Until Dawn is similar to the above Silent Hill example - the therapy sessions are actually from the point of view of a hallucinating Josh. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_afc879df | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_afc879df | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Until Dawn (Video Game) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_afc879df | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_b9cbde7f | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_b9cbde7f | comment |
Though not a Culture novel, The Wasp Factory uses a First Person Narrator to avoid mentioning that the narrator is really a girl. Something of a subversion though, as thanks to an accident (and some severely messed up parenting), the narrator is unaware that this is the truth. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_b9cbde7f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_b9cbde7f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Wasp Factory | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_b9cbde7f | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bba9da2d | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bba9da2d | comment |
Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors conceals the fact that there are actually two narrators both using I to make it seem like there is only one. Once the secret is revealed they can easily be distinguished by seeing which screen of the DS they narrate on. In Virtue's Last Reward, you view the game from the first-person perspective of the protagonist, Sigma. Once again, lines spoken by the main character have no voice acting. This is done to hide the fact that Sigma is actually older than he thinks he is, thanks to mental time travel. Zero Time Dilemma, however, appears to avert this trope by telling the story through the perspective of a third-person camera and style similar to Tell Tale Games. Until the existence of a tenth player is revealed, however... Only then is it averted. |
|
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bba9da2d | featureApplicability |
-1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bba9da2d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Zero Escape (Visual Novel) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_bba9da2d | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bc46c2dc | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bc46c2dc | comment |
In the live-action movie starring Mike Myers, the boy's name is Conrad, and in The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, the boy note who shares Sally's brother's design save for his skin color but is instead her neighbor is named Nick. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bc46c2dc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bc46c2dc | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_bc46c2dc | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bcb32dc6 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bcb32dc6 | comment |
Shadowrun: In the sourcebook Aztlan by Nigel Findley, the material is interspersed with a chat log between various parties who can be identified only from details included in their conversations (e.g. 'the Big D' is revealed to be the dragon Dunkelzahn). Orange Queen, a Shadowland site regular whose first-person comments appear in various articles throughout the sourcebooks, is eventually revealed to be the dragon Hestaby. |
|
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bcb32dc6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bcb32dc6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Shadowrun (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_bcb32dc6 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bd1137ca | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bd1137ca | comment |
Illuminatus! has occasional bits of first-person narration; at the end of the book, many of them are revealed to be from the perspective of FUCKUP, Hagbard's computer. Maybe. You know it's a Mind Screw when the protagonists instantly start commenting why The Reveal makes no sense, and suggest more outlandish theories, instead. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bd1137ca | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_bd1137ca | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Illuminatus! | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_bd1137ca | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c4282b71 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c4282b71 | comment |
A third person variation is used in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Who We Are in order to conceal which character is secretly a changeling; it works because while it refers to "she" and "her", all of the characters are female. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c4282b71 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c4282b71 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_c4282b71 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c5e287fd | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c5e287fd | comment |
John Scalzi uses this in Lock In to hide the protagonist's gender. Most people don't catch it on the first read, through. In fact, there are two versions of the audiobook: one narrated by Wil Wheaton, and one narrated by Amber Benson. The same is true for the sequel Head-On. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c5e287fd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c5e287fd | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Lock In | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_c5e287fd | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c62d0762 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c62d0762 | comment |
The Starship Damrey sees your character, depicted in first-person, trapped inside of a cold-sleep capsule, interacting with the world via a remote controlled mech. When you're finally able to free yourself from the capsule, an alien hand reaches out. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c62d0762 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_c62d0762 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Starship Damrey (Video Game) | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_c62d0762 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_caee72a1 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_caee72a1 | comment |
In Unavoidable Family Outing, the narrator doesn't have a name. It becomes less subtle due to Rule of Funny by book three, in which his sister blatantly introduces him to new people with the wrong name. He isn't even able to protest being named Neville. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_caee72a1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_caee72a1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Unavoidable Family Outing | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_caee72a1 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_cf2c4cbc | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_cf2c4cbc | comment |
The narrator of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever never gets a name, and it's only apparent she's a girl because her best friend is one, and she says something about not wanting to be Mary in the pageant. The sequel, The Best School Year Ever, gives her more development and reveals that her name is Beth. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_cf2c4cbc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_cf2c4cbc | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Best Christmas Pageant Ever | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_cf2c4cbc | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_d1490551 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_d1490551 | comment |
Doorways in the Sand, by Roger Zelazny, pulls this trick with a reveal coming only at the last sentence: the narration isn't from Fred himself, but by the alien recording device which took up residence in him. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_d1490551 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_d1490551 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Doorways in the Sand | hasFeature |
The All-Concealing "I" / int_d1490551 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_d4642985 | type |
The All-Concealing "I" | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_d4642985 | comment |
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds uses first-person narration to conceal the identity of the protagonist, as well as the fact that the protagonist doesn't actually know his own identity, without ever having the narration actually lie. | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_d4642985 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| The All-Concealing "I" / int_d4642985 | featureConfidence |
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In The Turing Test, the game is told entirely from a first-person perspective. Partway through the game, you're warned that the AI might be manipulating or even controlling your actions. Sure enough, shortly after that point, you start losing control of yourself, as if some other force is trying to wrest control of your body away from you. When you lose control completely, you are treated to a view through security cam footage - because you, the player, are the AI controlling who you thought was the protagonist. This becomes an important mechanic for the rest of the game, as you jump between controlling the protagonist remotely and using the cameras to jump around and solve puzzles. | |
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In the distant prequel to The Lost Element, the Villain Protagonist narrator exploits this trope to avoid revealing any concrete details about himself. The closest thing to any sort of identity the reader gets is his moniker "Lord of Midnight". | |
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In Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear, one of the main characters magically gives up her name. From then on, all the sections from her perspective are written in the first person. | |
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Chapter 9 of What Tomorrow Brings is told from the perspective of an unidentified girl trying to escape from Controllers. It's not until her next appearance that we learn she's Loren, an established canon character. | |
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The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is written in the first person from two different perspectives. For a while, at the beginning, this means it's not entirely clear whether the two perspectives are two separate people or the same person at two different stages of life (unless you read the inside cover flap, at least). Even after this is resolved, the name of the younger narrator is concealed almost until the end of the book. | |
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Done beautifully in one of the text sections in NieR. One villager's dream is written like a Lovecraftian classic, sanity slipping away as you trek through halls of wanton gore. Once you navigate your way out of the dungeon, the narrator mentions their torn dress. "I can see that the one known as Hello, [Insert Name Here] is disappointed that the torn dress will be given no further description, but he hides it well." | |
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Used interestingly in the Ace Attorney fangame Two Sides of the Same Turnabout. The trial segments have you playing as lawyer Helene Allard defending herself, but are interspersed with first-person flashbacks where you play as both her, and another character named Titania Immel. The Court Record profile for the character you are controlling has a description consisting of only a single word: "me". As hinted at by the title of the game, you're only ever playing as one person. However, unlike what you would expect, Titania and Helene are not the same person: at some point Titania killed the real Helene and stole her identity. Every time you're playing as "Helene" she's actually Titania. The entire trial is a Xanatos Gambit by the prosecutor (a friend of Helene's) to make sure Titania finally faces justice for her crimes. | |
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The first miniseries for the comic book Shadowhawk was written in first person to both keep the hero's identity secret even from the reader and to immerse the reader further in the story. It was a great success, but future issues spoiled it by switching to third person. | |
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The Culture novels by Iain M. Banks have several examples: In The Player of Games, first-person narration is used to disguise the identity of the narrator. The narrator is hiding in plain sight: he is the drone assigned to Gurgeh. A further level of deception: the drone is actually a Special Circumstances agent introduced earlier, in disguise. The Reveal is the very last word in the book. Use of Weapons manages to achieve this in third person with "he", "a man" etc. without the wording seeming awkward. Although the drawn-out nature of The Reveal in this case almost completely counter-acts the use of this trope if you had figured it out 100 pages earlier. Banks does throw in a bit of Nightmare Fuel for good measure though. Though not a Culture novel, The Wasp Factory uses a First Person Narrator to avoid mentioning that the narrator is really a girl. Something of a subversion though, as thanks to an accident (and some severely messed up parenting), the narrator is unaware that this is the truth. |
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In The Left Hand of Darkness, one essay that ruminates at length on gender politics, and the effect that a lack of gender has had on the people of Winter, finishes with the off-hand revelation that the author of the essay is a woman. It's a bit of a shock because the rest of the book is narrated by a man or a genderless resident of Winter. | |
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Photopia once again pulls the You Never Asked thing to reveal you're an alien, with wings, in a free-form story being told to a ten-year-old. | |
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A common trait of Creepypasta, for example Captain's Log, where the twist is that the captain and his crew are The Greys. There's also A Bright Flash, from the perspective of someone who had been disfigured in a bomb explosion and seeks revenge. It's Godzilla. "My Perfect World, Shattered" is about a scientist attempting to build an utopia on an island, only to be thwarted by an Animalistic Abomination that survives all of his attempts to neutralize it. The final line reveals just who the scientist is: Dr. Ivo Robotnik. "Death and the Silver Prison" is an explicit parody of using this trope. Most of the story is what looks like blatant Gorn until you discover that the narrator is a Doritos chip. |
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Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors conceals the fact that there are actually two narrators both using I to make it seem like there is only one. Once the secret is revealed they can easily be distinguished by seeing which screen of the DS they narrate on. | |
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Lyttle Lytton Contest: 2001: The winner, which is an opening sentence that says no details about the hypothetical narrator: | |
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The film Layer Cake doesn't use it as a Tomato Surprise, but ends with the Narrator addressing any viewers who are feeling smug about figuring out the earlier twist before the reveal and challenging them to tell him his name if they think they are so smart. | |
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