I have updated SCb <| sep |> The worst case of this I ever saw was in one of my favorite book seriesthe Red Rising Trilogy . In the final book , one of the good main characters gets killed in front of his best friend , the protagonist of the series . The book is from the protagonist first person perspective , in his head . It goes over his thoughts and feelings in the aftermath of the other characters death . . Then , later on near the end , it turns out that good main character wasn ' t actually killed . The bullets were blanks . Fake blood . The whole nine yards . It was all part of a plan the protagonist set up to have the character pop up as a surprise and help them defeat the main villain . Me and the rest of the reader are likewait , if the protagonist knew he wasn ' t dead , why was he so mentally depressed and saddened and hopeless about the character ' s death ? It was all part of his plan right ? . Wwe were in his head ? Its not like we were observing him acting , we were reading his thoughts . It literally makes no sense for the main character to fake his thoughts and feelingspeople can ' t read minds in that series . The sole purpose was to trick the reader . There is no inuniverse explanation for why Darrow is devastated by a death that he knows isn ' t real and is 100 % part of his plan . Literally , the one major flaw of an otherwise amazing book series . If Rothfuss was likeyeah , these hints mean nothing , other than to trick you ! In the context of the series , they don ' t mean a damn thing . Got ya ! I think I ' d roll my eyes right out my fucking head .