Ivan’s openly stated (and borderline obsessional) intent has been to expose secrets like these to the general public.
The likelihood that he COULD be convinced to keep anything at all secret was almost nil, since he wants nothing more out of life but to do the exact opposite.
Ivan. Cannot. Be. Trusted. With. A. Secret.
Not at all.
Telling him anything, ever, would have been a terrible, terrible idea. Sending him off chasing the wrong lead or diverting his attention into harmless directions (the entire reason Jason joined Ivan’s Mystery Club) is a lot more productive, not only diverting his attention away from real secrets, but wasting Ivan’s time and energy chasing after false ones. Also, long-term, they hoped that the constant frustration of failure would, eventually, lead to Ivan giving up chasing after the secrets they need to keep.
Because the alternatives for how to deal with him effectively dance dangerously close to the line of villainy. (I think we’re about to see one.)
One thing I’ll add though, is that I don’t recall any of the “Wotch-crew” really making any significant mistakes with Ivan to get us to here. Ivan’s got this far on his own, skulking around and spying, and probably got this far ahead when he decided to stop telling his entire club his intentions all the time, keeping his cards close to his chest as it were… which meant Jason didn’t have any opportunity to divert or subtly interfere with Ivan’s most recent investigations, not knowing anything about them.
Seriously they should’ve just approached him before he did something stupid like this.
Are you crazy?
Ivan’s openly stated (and borderline obsessional) intent has been to expose secrets like these to the general public.
The likelihood that he COULD be convinced to keep anything at all secret was almost nil, since he wants nothing more out of life but to do the exact opposite.
Ivan. Cannot. Be. Trusted. With. A. Secret.
Not at all.
Telling him anything, ever, would have been a terrible, terrible idea. Sending him off chasing the wrong lead or diverting his attention into harmless directions (the entire reason Jason joined Ivan’s Mystery Club) is a lot more productive, not only diverting his attention away from real secrets, but wasting Ivan’s time and energy chasing after false ones. Also, long-term, they hoped that the constant frustration of failure would, eventually, lead to Ivan giving up chasing after the secrets they need to keep.
Because the alternatives for how to deal with him effectively dance dangerously close to the line of villainy. (I think we’re about to see one.)
One thing I’ll add though, is that I don’t recall any of the “Wotch-crew” really making any significant mistakes with Ivan to get us to here. Ivan’s got this far on his own, skulking around and spying, and probably got this far ahead when he decided to stop telling his entire club his intentions all the time, keeping his cards close to his chest as it were… which meant Jason didn’t have any opportunity to divert or subtly interfere with Ivan’s most recent investigations, not knowing anything about them.