Also, there's the even worse thing an author does when there's only one POV character who knows things, and they restrict the POV character from actually thinking about it in the narration-- there should really be a TvTropes article for that particular habit. Like, "When I hung up the phone with Saul, I knew found the key to the whole mystery. But first...." [ten pages later] "...and so, I explained to Cramer, I had known a whole week ago it wasn't the real Mr. Poor." And it's SO ANNOYING because it boots you right out of the story. Whereas this way it's also sort of annoying (well, if you're the kind of reader who cares about the mystery plots, anyway) but at least we get to be in Archie's POV and *he's irritated too* and he gets to talk about how annoying it is to be kept in the dark and even make some sharp remarks to Wolfe about people who think they're being so smart when actually they're just keeping you ignorant for dramatic effect. I never really thought about Archie as an audience substitute in that sense before...
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Also, there's the even worse thing an author does when there's only one POV character who knows things, and they restrict the POV character from actually thinking about it in the narration-- there should really be a TvTropes article for that particular habit. Like, "When I hung up the phone with Saul, I knew found the key to the whole mystery. But first...." [ten pages later] "...and so, I explained to Cramer, I had known a whole week ago it wasn't the real Mr. Poor." And it's SO ANNOYING because it boots you right out of the story. Whereas this way it's also sort of annoying (well, if you're the kind of reader who cares about the mystery plots, anyway) but at least we get to be in Archie's POV and *he's irritated too* and he gets to talk about how annoying it is to be kept in the dark and even make some sharp remarks to Wolfe about people who think they're being so smart when actually they're just keeping you ignorant for dramatic effect. I never really thought about Archie as an audience substitute in that sense before...