Day 166: The Masked-Man Fallacy
For the road to the stars was a road that forked in two directions, and neither led to a goal that took any account of human hopes or fears.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End
Welcome to A Reading Journey. This is a blog about reading. Not books, book reviews, author interviews, or any of that good stuff. That’s for other blogs. This blog is about reading. I hope that by sharing my reading journey, you might find yourself reading more or differently.
Reading Tips
Tip 171: The Masked-Man Fallacy
The masked man fallacy is a frequently used ploy in literature. It works because we swap out an actual property of a person for our subjective belief about them. Just because Person A has a known identity, your brain assumes that any unknown entity you encounter must be a completely separate person.
Authors love this because our brains are naturally lazy yet efficient pattern-recognizers. We look for confirmation rather than hidden alignment!
Here’s how it works:
I know who Clark Kent is.
I don’t know who Superman is.
Therefore Clark Kent cannot be Superman.
It’s not just comic book superheroes with terrible disguises where this fallacy is used.
Here’s one from my favorite book and movie, The Princess Bride.
I know who Westley is.
I don’t know who The Dread Pirate Roberts is.
Therefore Westley cannot be The Dread Pirate Roberts.
But what about real Literature? Let’s take The Count of Monte Cristo. Edmond Dantès, a simple sailor, is framed and left for dead in a prison. When he makes an improbable escape and is presumed actually dead, he is free to come back to wreak vengeance on those who wronged him.
I know who Edmond Dantès was.
I don’t really know who the Count of Monte Cristo is.
Therefore Edmond can’t be the Count.
And Dumas goes in for the double play!
I think I know who the Count of Monte Cristo is.
I don’t know who is turning my life upside down.
Therefore, the Count can’t be the one who is turning my life upside down.
In one of my current reads, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, we get a variation on the theme from the POV of the protagonist, Pip.
Pip knows the terrifying convict, Magwitch.
Pip does not know his benefactor, so he creates the story that his true benefactor is the wealthy Miss Havisham.
Therefore, Magwitch cannot be Pip’s benefactor.
The masked man fallacy appears frequently in mysteries. Be on the lookout for disguises and mistaken identities. Try The Phantom of the Opera, lampooned by Terry Pratchett in Maskerade.
How about horror? Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde fits the bill.
Fantasy? Look no further than Dune.
And for a master class, check out Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. He pulls off the double play with panache.
What’s your favorite use of the Masked Man Fallacy in books? Drop me a note in the comments. And gamers, how could a masked man fallacy bring some mystery to your sessions?
Today’s Reading
FICTION
Heretical Fishing: A Cozy Guide to Annoying the Cults, Outsmarting the Fish, and Alienating Oneself: Book 1 by Haylock Jobson #LitRPG #Isekai #Series #Audiobook
Technically Speaking by Michael Elliot #Romance #Novella #Audiobook [completed #153]
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke #SciFi #Audiobook [completed #152]
Couriers Outbound by pirateaba #Fantasy #LitRPG #Series #Audiobook
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens #BookClub #Classic #Audiobook
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo #BookClub #Audiobook #HistoricalFiction #Classic #France #Literature
SHORT STORIES
“Rupert Weard and the Case of the Adamant Annihilist” by Rob Gillham
A beta read
NONFICTION
The Daily Buddhist by Pema Sherpa, Brendan Barca #Spirituality #Audiobook
North to the Night: A Spiritual Odyssey in the Arctic by Alvah Simpson #PrintBook
The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister #SelfHelp #Aging #EBook
POETRY
Aurora, Apricot by Devan Barlow
ARTICLES AND OTHER NON-BOOK READING
Woman of the Day:
Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein (Franziska Josepha Louise Augusta Marie Christina Helena; 12 August 1872 – 8 December 1956) was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. After the annulment of her marriage to Prince Aribert of Anhalt, Marie Louise devoted herself to charitable organisations and patronage of the arts. She inspired the creation of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House to showcase the work of British craftsmen. She established the Girl’s Club in Bermondsey that served as a hospital during World War I. She was also active in the work of the Princess Christian Nursing Home at Windsor.
INFORMATION GATHERING
Video
Quotes
If we shut our hearts to the pain of the world our celebrations become superficial. If we let that pain overwhelm our hope, we are lost in the dark. Tears in which pain and joy flow together do justice to life in its fullness. — Br. David Steindl-Rast
Journaling Prompts
What is ending in my life right now? How might I hold it with compassion?
Vocabulary
A gamut is a range or series of related things. When we say that something “runs the gamut,” we are saying that it encompasses an entire range of related things.
The flea market offerings run the gamut with a wide array of vendors each offering something unique.
“... she brings a certain je ne sais quoi to the production with themes running the gamut from circuses and rodeos to mermaids and pirates.” — Heather Douglas, Coast Weekend (Astoria, Oregon), 23 Apr. 2026
With the song “Do-Re-Mi,” the 1965 musical film The Sound of Music (adapted from the 1958 stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein) introduced millions of non-musicians to solfège, the singing of the sol-fa syllables—do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti—to teach the tones of a musical scale. Centuries earlier, however, the do in “Do-Re-Mi” was known as ut. Indeed, the first note on the scale of Guido d’Arezzo, an 11th century musician and monk who had his own way of applying syllables to musical tones, was ut. d’Arezzo also called the first line of his bass staff gamma, which meant that gamma-ut was the term for a note written on the first staff line. In time, gamma-ut underwent a shortening to gamut, and later its meaning expanded first to cover all the notes of d’Arezzo’s scale, then to cover all the notes in the range of an instrument, and, eventually, to cover an entire range of any sort.
Thanks for reading with me today. I’d love to hear from you about your reading journey, and especially what you’re reading right now.