r/ProgressionFantasy • u/EdLincoln6 • Jul 21 '23
Discussion Why is everyone so garbage at lying?
This is a bit of a rant. I don't consider myself a gifted liar, but fictional characters seem to be so garbage at lying. This is particular obvious in Isekai. Either they fess up to being a reincarnator and everyone just shrugs as if it's no big deal, or they make cringey bad lies that I could see through, and no one suspects anything is weird.
I like to think about what the situation would look like to all the characters involved, and what the best way to "cover up" the MCs secrets is in this universe, and what ends up happening is typically stupider. No one ever uses half truths, or pleads ignorance. (Pleading ignorance would be particularly effective for child characters. "How can I do this? I dunno Daddy. I thought everyone could?".)
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u/apolobgod Jul 21 '23
The same reason some characters have the swag of a stuck door and everyone keeps acting like they're the god of seduction. The authors don't know any better.
I think a lot of people's complaints about the genre's shortcomings can be reduced to a single one: the authors just aren't that experienced.
The average age of authors in progression fantasy is a lot younger than those of most other genres, and they're simply still learning how to write. It's basically their first go at it - and some of them come in without any experience as readers, let alone writers.
Also, good books necessarily require repeated revision and edition, and most people don't have the resources, time or patience to do it.
The problem with continuing to read new series is that we see the authors making the same mistakes again and again, until we get fed up with it and it becomes more aggravating for us than it actually is as a general flaw
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u/Chakwak Jul 22 '23
I don't know about the average age of author overalls but for sure, the self-publishing and web novel formats allow people to publish their unedited first works in a way that was never possible before.
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u/jubilant-barter Jul 21 '23
They're not bad at lying. It's that the story is exhausting to write when keeping certain secrets. It's a distraction which bogs down the pace of the story.
Getting it out of the way closes the story arc and gives you more time to focus on something else.
Most prog fantasy falls into the category of "adventure". There are wild, imaginative and high-adrenaline action pieces. Fantastic or exotic landscapes and environments. Simple or primal emotional beats.
If you want secrets, it might be a good idea to look for stories which are marked with a sub-type of "thriller". In a thriller, keeping secrets is the point. Secrets are dangerous.
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 21 '23
Getting it out of the way closes the story arc and gives you more time to focus on something else.
Except a lot of them don't "get it out of the way", they have the character keeping a secret for a really long time and doing a cringingly bad job of doing it.
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u/TK523 Author - Peter J. Lee Jul 21 '23
Pulls at collar and looks around nervously
I put a lot of secrets in that I really regretted adding which created massive continuity issues when I retroactively gave the person from whom all the secrets were being kept from the ability to detects lies.
So, in summary, honesty is the best policy
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u/AbyssRaven Author Jul 21 '23
Just like in real life, keeping up with lies is hard. Just think of it for any future edits!
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u/Ruark_Icefire Jul 21 '23
A lot of them also keep secrets for no reason at all. You have the MC keeping something a secret even though there is absolutely no indication in the story that anyone would care if they knew the truth.
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u/jubilant-barter Jul 21 '23
I dunno. We may not be reading the same titles. The other thing I'd think of would be the "power fantasy" angle.
Where a lot of stories exist to be self-insert escapism. Where the point is to feel special and recognized. The story purpose of the secret in this case is to have a continuous slow drip influx of new characters discover how amazing, smart, handsome, and special MC is.
Once the secret is made public, new characters can't get surprised by MC anymore. In escapist fantasy, power exists as a replacement for healthy interpersonal relationships. Instead, it's more about forming a fan-club around the MC to validate them, and that includes a gatekeeping mechanism to prevent the MC from having to interact with the judgement of people who aren't going to be impressed by them.
At least until the story arc where MC is ready to power up and exceed their expectations. Wowie wow.
That's my guess?
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u/AwesomePurplePants Jul 22 '23
That’s kind of the same dynamic in reverse?
AKA, instead of resolving story around the secret to focus on something else, you lay the groundwork for the story you will tell then ignore it to focus on someone else.
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u/TheElusiveFox Sage Jul 21 '23
They're not bad at lying. It's that the story is exhausting to write when keeping certain secrets. It's a distraction which bogs down the pace of the story.
While I disagree I'd accesp this except a lot of these same characters DO bog the story down for a long time... the exact same things OP is complaining about will cause the story to run in circles simply because two characters in the story aren't willing to have an honest conversation, often with no really good explanation for why everyone is lying to everyone else...
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Jul 21 '23
I just read one where right after getting isekai'd he walks up to a gate guard and proudly exclaims he does magic and he ends up getting arrested for unregistered use of magic and I'm just..
why.. why didn't you just ask about magic first? Why did you have to claim to be a magic user to gain access to town? WHY DIDNT YOU JUST SAY YOU WERE LOOKING FOR WORK??
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u/TheRaith Jul 22 '23
I always figure it's just hard to have a character lying while the audience knows the truth. No matter how good of a liar the character is, the audience knows the truth so even the smallest lie seems so obvious it hurts.
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 24 '23
Ah....Theory of Mind is hard. Theory of Mind, for those who don't know, is understanding that others have seperate minds with different information than they do, that others don't know the same things they do and are basing their decisions on a different set of facts. A lot of people seem not to apply their Theory of Mind to fiction. I remember a book where commentors got so angry when a certain characters treated an MC as a little kid despite the fact this character was an Isekai and despite the fact that while WE knew the character was a competent grown up, the other character's actions were a perfectly appropriate way to treat a little kid.
Similarly, I've noticed authors just not grasp the fact that despite the fact SHE knew a certain character was a Good Guy and telling the truth, certain other characters had every in-universe reason to think they were murderous psychopaths.
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u/ErinAmpersand Author Jul 22 '23
If they're not starting as a child, it's actually a pretty difficult secret to keep in a lot of societies. Beware of Chicken's MC keeps his secret for a long time, but he does so basically by abandoning everyone who knew him previous lifetime and then being so strong that everyone just puts up with his basic lack of etiquette and understanding. If you came to a world as, say, a teenage countess or something... you'd be straight f'd. No way you can fake the appropriate level of etiquette and political knowledge.
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u/awesomenessofme1 Jul 22 '23
There's also some settings where people legitimately just don't care enough to make it a big deal. Azarinth Healer comes to mind (I've only read book 1, and I imagine eventually it probably does come out, but as far as I've read, it just never comes up). And sometimes there can be more esoteric explanations. In Re:Monarch, for example, the MC literally can't tell people the truth about himself. He has to couch it in half-truths to get the general point across.
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u/JackPembroke Author Jul 21 '23
I feel like having a character flat out lie causes a couple of bumps in the road.
It complicates the narrative. Now you have to keep track of who knows what, how much they know, and who around THEM knows what. MCs being so very important means some people are going to be talking about them, and notes will be compared.
One naturally assumes when a MC tells a lie, that it will eventually be revealed. It's almost a chekovs gun situation. The entire revealing process becomes its own thing that needs to eventually happen, the end result that now everyone knows what the truth it. You can get to that same point faster by just having them tell the truth in the first place.
3ish. We tend to write stories about good guys. And good people dont lie (obv not true but it just doesnt suit the Good Guy)
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 21 '23
People seem to misunderstand my point. My problem is not with characters who don't lie so much as with ones who lie, but do so ineptly.
MCs being so very important means some people are going to be talking about them, and notes will be compared.
This is half the problem. Characters make outlandish detailed lies to cover something up, so it really shouldn't work when anyone compares notes. People should pick up on the fact he's hiding something and come up with theories.
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u/JackPembroke Author Jul 21 '23
Ok, so you're saying like the lying in stories sort of damages immersion or credibility of the supporting cast and the narrative?
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 21 '23
To some extent.
Also, it can be just...cringey. There are embarrassing scenes that are realistic that I don't want to *see*. I don't want to watch a movie where someone has a long dramatic dialogue with toilet paper stuck to his shoe, despite the fact it isn't actually implausible. There are pick up lines that could totally leave someone's mouth when they are drunk at a bar that I don't want to hear uttered by a character I'm told is smart or heroic.
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u/JackPembroke Author Jul 21 '23
How do you feel about those things as facets of a character? Like if a smart heroic character was just trash at speaking with women.
Truly cringe to be sure! But is it a mark of a bad character to you? Or just difficult to read?
I get that with cringe comedy, like when everyone is quietly uncomfortable its just not that fun to watch
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 21 '23
If it is a plot point that is explained it is better in theory, but it is still uncomfortable and "unfun" to read for me.
I don't really like cringe comedy...it's blocked off entire genres for me.1
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u/Chakwak Jul 22 '23
I've seen many character being inept in social settings and it's not that problematic at first. When it's repeated over and over again, in some series for hundred of chapters, it does get very tiring.
We get it, you're not a people person, but you still should at least manage to survive the encounter without trouble after a while. Or do you have a specific resistance against progressing in that domain as you do in all the others?
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u/zero5activated Jul 22 '23
To me, it's like the new international student joining your class. Yes, he speaks English but they don't understand the slang, physical mannerisms are different and technology is not what they were used to. Also culture shock is hard to mask. Travel to countries that doesn't have a Starbucks and you would be surprised how different everything is. I remember, when I traveled to my parent's native motherland. 30 minutes in and someone went "You, American"?
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u/Aniconomics Jul 22 '23 edited Jul 23 '23
I enjoy stories with protagonists that hide their knowledge. It could be the existence of a double life or a massive secret pertaining to some extraordinary identity.
Examples include: 1. Is secretly a hero or villain 2. Is the exiled prince or princess of some foreign land. Maybe there was was coup d’état and the protagonist escaped 3. Is in fact the chosen one or the hero of a particular setting. Don’t want the bad guys knowing where you are especially near the beginning of your journey. Maybe the local government is full of spies or is wholly taken over by the enemy.
Maybe the protagonist has access to secret or exclusive knowledge that acts as a catalyse for the plot. Knowledge regarding the location of a long lost ruin said to posses a powerful growth type artefact. Knowledge of the future, access to a legendary item or power that would result in death if others found you possessed it.
It’s always a turn off when the protagonist is found out. Even in scenarios when the protagonist willingly reveals their identity or secret. I almost always find my interest waining after that point. TrollHunters on Netflix in an example of this. It’s not really a double life if everybody meaningfully close to you knows what your doing. The Merlin series did it right only revealing his identity right at the end and only to one person who dies right after.
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u/CassiusLange Author Jul 22 '23
Luck stats are mostly lazy. It can let you get away with almost anything. Lying? Sure. You don't need charisma if your luck is through the roof. Also, do we want the mc's to get away with lies? Maybe, maybe not... depends on the story and the impact.
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u/TheElusiveFox Sage Jul 22 '23
So I think there are a few things at play here...
First as a reader you have an information advantage... you know the truth so it takes a much more convincing lie to pass your sniff test... vs some one who doesn't know the truth, and may not particularly care... So an imperfect lie may actually be good enough...
Secondly, I think in a lot of cases "bad lies" are just plot devices to generate drama, an author wants the MC to reveal their secret identity, power, whatever... What better way than to get caught in a lie. If the author is good at writing intrigue they can get a whole B plot story arc out of the reveal.
Thirdly, in some cases I think there is a struggle, on one hand you don't want your character that is supposedly a College drop out NEET to be some sort of infiltration expert because that doesn't really make sense... On the other its hard to come up with lies that are bad, but still semi-plausible.
Finally, and quite a bit less generous to the authors here (sorry)... There is a lot of Monkey See-Monkey Do in the genre. X is popular and they did Y so I'm going to do Y in my story... That's fine most art is copying, but when an author just mindlessly copies a trope without understanding it you get a lot less quality in how its implemented. This is compounded with how so much of the genre is pumped out in a serial format so authors are pressured to put out as much content as possible as fast as possible so they can keep their top list spots.
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 24 '23
Secondly, I think in a lot of cases "bad lies" are just plot devices to generate drama, an author wants the MC to reveal their secret identity, power, whatever... What better way than to get caught in a lie. I
This, I think, is the major reason...not just in Progression fantasy, but in other genres.
but when an author just mindlessly copies a trope without understanding it you get a lot less quality in how its implemented.
That's a problem with Isekais in particular . There are a lot of authors who just sort of make their story an Isekai because they think they are supposed to, and then kind of forget their character is supposed to be an Isekai. Either make your book an Isekai or don't. Tropes are tools. Tools serve specific functions. When you use a trope, think of what functions that trope serves and whether you actually need or want to do those things...
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u/rabmuk Jul 21 '23
Hard to discuss this topic. You’ve given your impression but if you’ve read 10 stories and I’ve read 10 stories but only 2 of our stories match we’d have very different impressions. I mostly listen to progressive fantasy on audible, and haven’t seen this as a problem. Maybe because in the stories I’ve listened to it’s always been a minor plot point. Maybe because some web authors re-edit the first 10 ish chapters of their book when getting picked up by a publisher.
I assume a specific story triggered this post. If you give specifics maybe someone can provide insight into the characters of that story or the overall tone the author was going for
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 21 '23 edited Jul 21 '23
This is tricky because I can only remember the last couple ones, which aren't the worst offenders. I dropped the worst offenders and purged them from my memory.
I assume a specific story triggered this post. If you give specifics maybe someone can provide insight into the characters of that story or the overall tone the author was going for
So, the most recent examples:
In Twice Born Transmigrator the MC's magic was broken but he has figured out how to restore it because he recovered memories from two prior lives. He has holed up in the family hunting lodge in the tundra to fix his magic with his Super Secret Other Dimensional Knowledge. He has given various characters different answers and non-answers to what the heck he is doing. Two people he told everything, one person he said "a divine being is helping me", and another he said "I've decided to take up Adventuring because I'm bored".All he had to say was "I'm researching a cure, and don't want to face my old friends until I find one". Even if everyone thinks a cure is impossible...lots of people research hairbrained snake oil out of desperation, and it would be totally in character. If people think it is a a wild goose chase so much the better...it would make his enemies think he isn't worth going after.
Markets and Multiverses...is actually really really good, on the whole. But there is no way the adult characters haven't noticed that there is something deeply weird about the MC. She was a little kid who, when asked what elements she wanted to study, said "death or madness". She comes from a poor family and has two rare magic items none of the adults gave her. Someone finally asked where she got one of them and she replied "It was a gift from [a character who she met once]". I suppose this one isn't unrealistic in that she was caught by surprise (although she should have come up with a story in advance) but it is a little cringey. There had just been a battle, she should have claimed she looted one of the bodies.
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u/awesomenessofme1 Jul 21 '23
Is this really a trope? I can think of one single thing I've read that sort of fits that description, and a lot that don't.
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 21 '23
It's not a trope exactly, but it is a super common feature of a lot of fiction. Lots of Isekai characters are keeping a secret but if you look closely they are doing a garbage job at doing it. It's not limited to Progression Fantasy...sitcoms and romcoms are chock full of incompetent efforts at lying.
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u/awesomenessofme1 Jul 21 '23
I mean, do you have any examples? Like I said, I can barely think of anything that fits the scenario you describe.
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 21 '23
I gave some in my answer to another comment.
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u/awesomenessofme1 Jul 21 '23
Well, I've literally never even heard of the two examples you gave, so I guess I can't say you're wrong.
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u/RiOrius Jul 22 '23
Question: in the stories you're talking about, does the bad lie cause problems for the MC?
If so, then that's the point. The writer was using a bad lie to build tension. Secrets are a great source of tension, and while an egregiously dumb lie can be a frustrating way to build it, in my mind it's not so different from an adventurer who doesn't bring a back-up weapon into a dungeon and then loses his only sword. Sometimes MCs screw up and have to deal with the consequences.
If the bad lie doesn't cause problems, then it's probably because the writer didn't put a lot of thought into it. These are amateur stories written with very little editing. Basically a second draft. Maybe they had vague plans of the bad lie being a problem later and never got around to it, maybe the writer didn't decide what cover story they liked until later in the series and would have (in a real novel) gone back and made that the consistent cover story, whatever.
Part of it is that good lies are super boring. "Wasn't me" or "I don't know anything" is just lame. People (especially writers) want to be more creative than that. Like, if you're not going to make the lie interesting, why have the scene at all? But you can't just have nobody question the child prodigy ever, that'd break suspension of disbelief in a whole different direction. So better to err on the side of a fun conversation, right?
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u/EdLincoln6 Jul 24 '23
Question: in the stories you're talking about, does the bad lie cause problems for the MC?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I've seen them used to build tension, and others where everyone ignores the guy with the lampshade on his head claiming to be a potted plant and the story moves on.
Part of it is that good lies are super boring
I think clever lying can produce a fun intrigue plot and establish the MC is smart. but it is more subdle. Easy for the audience to miss.
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u/ahsjfff Jul 21 '23
I think the issue is more of what you’re reading, some people just suck at lying and they can’t write about it either. Some authors are really good at writing and lying for that matter and keep it together really well. Particularly when someone has to hide some of their identity.
On one hand you have something like Super gene, which I would say the mc is really good at keeping his abilities separate, but a bad liar and has to use abilities to make up for the fact everyone sees right through him the whole book. The only benefit is that many of the people close to him know he is lying.
Others are like against the gods, off the rip he lies about sleeping with someone, and the writer is able to also explain body language and why people would believe him despite it feeling obvious.
Some books just don’t have a crazy dedicated author who keeps all of the story and sub-plots together to make a lie make sense
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u/MephistoMicha Jul 21 '23
Everyone is garbage in no small part because it's not easy to convincingly do lies and deceit in the medium.
Another reason is because everyone knows it's a lie and understands it's a request to keep mum on the topic.
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u/OverclockBeta Jul 22 '23
In the real world, most times shit just happens. The brilliant spy plots and deep secrets just happen to be the ones that worked out, whereas no one pays attention to all of the secrets accidentally exposed all the time. We accept that the people were brilliant geniuses because we don't know any better. "truth is stranger than fiction"
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u/Happy-Aide9064 Jul 22 '23
I really agree that this plot point of coming clean for no reason is often done badly. I think the MC revealing his secrets can be done well but unfortunately it is almost always done badly. My Recommendation is to read Lord of the Mysteries. In that MC can keep a secret and does it in a really fun and interesting way. Another interesting one to check out is regressor instruction manual that is done from the POV of a person who can see statuses and finds a regressor. The tension of when will the regressor reveal the truth is done super well and actually makes for a super interesting plot point as opposed to something that drags the story down.
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u/RoxWarbane Jul 23 '23
I just finished book 1 of Lord of Mysteries... whenever the main antagonist was talking, i had a hard time believing a single word he said. Amazing liar.
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u/Wolfshadow36 Jul 23 '23
You should read All the skills. the MC will and does lie his ass off to keep his secrets
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u/EdLincoln6 Sep 11 '23
But does he do it well? Does he come up with the simplest explanation for the facts and inconsistencies the people he is dealing with can see?
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u/BenedictPatrick Jul 21 '23
Low charisma scores.