‘Vanguard was a hard man to describe. People didn’t like to look at his face long enough to notice any real detail. If they had looked, they would have noticed the tell-tale signs of a long career in service. They would have seen the scars and the tattoos, the patch on the side of his jaw where the skin had been burnt away. He reached up and ran one finger over the scars, feeling the coarse hairs that half masked the puckered skin. The scars didn’t make him any less attractive. Time had done a good enough job of that.’

We Men of Ash and Shadow

I find the way that humans think, act and interact with each other endlessly fascinating. It’s one of those things that comes with the territory of being a writer, isn’t it?  Observing our patterns, behaviours and nature and translating it into our characters.

Take John Vanguard for instance, the protagonist in my first book, ‘We Men of Ash and Shadow’. One of the core aspects of Vanguard’s character is his talent for going unnoticed. For Vanguard, his survival relies on it. But for other people, the feeling of being ignored or seeming invisible can lead to profound psychological consequences. Some of which you might expect and others which you might not.

For example, it can, in some cases, lead to an unfounded sense of ego or superiority. The ‘Invisibility Cloak of Illusion’ is a psychological phenomenon named in a 2017 study that cites that people often believe they are the observer rather than the observed.

We’re All The Stranger

When positioned in a crowded place people will believe that they are watching the crowd but have little perception of anybody watching them. In short, a lot of us assume that while watching what those around us are doing, we are either not interesting or important enough to be watched ourselves. Or, in some cases, we assume that we are just too good at being unnoticed for anyone to see us (that superiority complex creeping in again).

Think about it. You walk into your favourite coffee shop. You go there every morning. You walk in, and you find that there’s a person that you’ve never seen before behind the counter. They’re a stranger to you. But you sit there with your coffee, your eyes sliding over to the counter and taking the measure of them. You notice the way they talk to people. The clothes they wear. How they move. You’re watching them, but rarely will it occur to you that perhaps someone is watching you in the same way. To someone else, you are the stranger.  

Maybe there is an argument to be made that the less we believe people see us, the less they will

Simply put, more of than not we fail to notice ourselves being observed. Because you’ve donned your invisibility cloak of illusion. Perhaps this is why it can be so disconcerting – chilling even – to realise that somebody is observing us. That layer of protection has been peeled away. It makes us feel exposed because we are used to considering ourselves the watcher.

Maybe there is an argument to be made that the less we believe people see us, the less they will. It could explain Vanguard’s penchant for lingering in the shadows. After all, nobody pays attention to the figure in the background.

You can find We Men of Ash and Shadow, my gaslamp grimdark low fantasy here.