History Main / TheAllConcealingI

* A third person variation is used in the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfic [[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/38135/who-we-are 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.

* On a lighter [[IncrediblyLamePun note]], the song "Christmas Isn't Christmas Without You" seems like a typical jazzy song about a woman who's sad that the man she loves can't be with her on Christmas Eve. In the end, it's revealed that the woman is Mrs. Claus.

** According to the live-action movie starring Mike Myers, the boy's name is Conrad, and in ''WesternAnimation/TheCatInTheHatKnowsALotAboutThat'', the boy (who is now black via RaceLift) is instead named Nick.

* A tale from the Website/SCPFoundation, ''[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/the-little-lost-dragon 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 [[spoiler: [[OmnicidalManiac SCP]]-[[HumansThroughAlienEyes 682's]] CatchPhrase]].

** There's also ''WebOriginal/ABrightFlash'', from the perspective of someone who had been disfigured in a bomb explosion and seeks revenge. [[spoiler: It's [[Film/Godzilla1954 Godzilla]]]].

* A common trait of CreepyPasta, for example ''WebOriginal/CaptainsLog'', where the twist is that the captain and his crew are [[spoiler:TheGreys]].

** There's also ''WebOriginal/ABrightFlash'', from the perspective of someone who had been disfigured in a bomb explosion and seeks revenge. [[spoiler: It's [[Film/{{Gojira}} Godzilla.]]]]

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 [[GenderNeutralWriting gender]], the [[NoNameGiven name]], and even the very identity of the narrator. This is a frequent way to achieve a TomatoSurprise.

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, [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns Japanese first person pronouns]] ''may'' indicate gender in certain contexts, so depending on the type of protagonist you are writing, GenderNeutralWriting 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.

* ''The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler'' by Gene Kemp is written so as to make it natural to assume that Tyke is a boy, thanks to GenderNeutralWriting and her tomboyish character.

* ''Literature/EarlyRiser'' is written from protagonist Charlie Worthing's point of view, keeping viewers in the dark about Charlie's [[spoiler: facial deformity]] for the first few chapters, and about Charlie's gender for the rest of the novel due to the GenderNeutralWriting.

* The secret concealed by this trope in Creator/AgathaChristie's ''Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd'' provoked considerable outrage, including the possibly apocryphal reaction by the Queen, "Oh, Agatha, how could you?"; in this book, possibly the pinnacle of Christie's mystery-writing career, the narrator and de-facto assistant to the detective [[spoiler:was the one who did it]].

* This trope was the only viable way to write the ''FanFic/{{Memoirs}}'' of Manga/InuYasha's father, who [[NoNameGiven has no canon name]].

* Many Japanese light-novels invert this trope, if they have multiple viewpoint characters -- Japanese first-person pronouns not only mark the gender of the speaker but also things like formality, so they're actually an identifier. Thus, for example, in ''LightNovel/BakaAndTestSummonTheBeasts'', which is usually narrated by Akihisa but (when two sets of events are going on) sometimes by Yuuji, it never bothers to specify which one, because Akihisa uses "boku" and Yuuji uses "ore" (the few chapters from the POV of Himeji, Minami, or Hideyoshi, likewise, use "atashi", "uchi", and "washi"). Light novels also use "which person says which pronoun" as a shorthand for identifying speakers other than the narrator, since they generally don't make much use of dialogue tags.

* A tale from the Wiki/SCPFoundation, ''[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/the-little-lost-dragon 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 [[spoiler: [[OmnicidalManiac SCP]]-[[HumansThroughAlienEyes 682's]] CatchPhrase]].
* Used to great effect in the Journal of Aframos Longjourney, a story in ''Wiki/TheWanderersLibrary'', to conceal the fact that [[spoiler: basically every assumption you make about the main character is wrong.]]

* The narrator of the first ''Fanfic/PoniesAfterPeople'' fic, mainly known as "A" or Lonely Day, does not reveal their gender in the story until [[spoiler:Princess Luna]] blurts out their full name. [[spoiler:She was turned into a mare, but was a man before.]]

* A third person variation is used in the WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic fanfic [[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/38135/who-we-are 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.

* Darren Shan's "Zom-B" novels begin with a book by the same name. The narrator only goes by their initial ("B"), dresses ruggedly and shaves their head, and the text goes out of its way to avoid pronouns--it isn't until B's father uses [[spoiler: her]] full name, [[spoiler: Becky]], that we find out B is [[spoiler: a girl]].

* John Scalzi uses this in ''Literature/LockIn'' to hide the protagonist's gender. Most people don't catch it on the first read, through.

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,[[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns Japanese first person pronouns]] ''may'' indicate gender in certain contexts, so depending on the type of protagonist you are writing, GenderNeutralWriting 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.

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 [[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns generally]] has separate male and female first-person pronouns, so GenderNeutralWriting isn't 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.

* Used in the WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic fanfic, "FanFic/MyLittleDashie." We know the protagonist is a young man, but that's about it.

->''"The frank yet graceful use of ‘I’ distinguishes a good writer from a bad; the latter carries with it the manner of a thief trying to cloak his loot."''