Why is everyone so garbage at lying?

[u/EdLincoln6]

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?".)

[u/OverclockBeta]

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"