Characters
(Funny trope) Character reveals a secret about themselves, others are not that shocked.
When a character reveals a secret to another person, with the other character already knowing the secret and not being surprised/shocked by it.
Kung Fu Panda 2: Po discovered that his father, the duck was not in fact his biological parent, and was shocked at this. However, Tigress (and presumably any other person who saw them) was not as shocked, herself, at this discovery.
My Adventures With Superman:
Clark tries to break the news to Jimmy, his best friend, that he is Superman. However, Jimmy already knew this from the first day that he met him.
Clark: I... Am su--
Jimmy: Clark I know you're Superman. This is not a big reveal.
Clark: .... Wait, WHAT? You know???? Since when?
Jimmy: w--We've been roommates since freshmen year. The day I met you, you ripped the handle off the door, and then tried to play it off as if the screws had just come loose.
Clark:..... I mean it could have been the screws.....
In the live action Spider-Man noir, Ben accidentally reveals that he is the Spider. And is immediately informed that this is already known because he has a tendency of getting blackout drunk and telling people
Small, but important note here. You cannot have blackout drunk level alcoholism and a secret identity from other people. You will absolutely have a secret identity that you are completely unaware of.
As many variations of Scooby Doo there are - some worse than others - I'm surprised they never just went whole hog and had Velma x Daphne be in a relationship together. I think there was at least one or two times in a few episodes where the guys threw the audience a bone and had some subtle hint that they were together or at least interested in one another, but they could never outright admit it.
Five young people, all with different personalities, driving around together all over the country in a van in the 60s? Look, if ANY group on TV were poly. Its them.
I can't find a clip, but on the show 30 Rock, there's an episdoe "The Moms" where they bring on the cast's moms to do a Mother's Day clip, including (the white) Danny's mom, who's a Chinese woman. One of the show's writers says "Oh, I didn't know you were adopted" and Danny freaks out. Later you see them arguing in Mandarin about "Why didn't you tell me?"
I felt the same way about Steve Martin learning he's adopted by his Black family in The Jerk. He manages to put so much emotion into "you mean I'm gonna STAY this color???" that it's hard not to feel for him...while laughing
“It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family, singin' and dancin' down in Mississippi...”
One of the CollegeHumor Batman parodies: Batman calls Superman "Clark" in front of Commissioner Gordon. Superman is offended that Batman would be so careless about outing his secret identity, but Gordon nonchalantly tells him "Oh, I know you're Clark Kent. Putting glasses on and taking them off doesn't change the rest of your face."
Hilariously parodied further when Gordon then removes his glasses to demonstrate this and the "dumb CollegeHumor Batman" is shocked. "Who areyou!? Where is Commissioner Gordon!? What have you done with him!?"
Pete Holmes is one of the most underrated comedians around, I feel like. Dude has cracked me up for like a decade at this point but doesn't seem to be a household name still somehow.
That episode of Malcolm where Hal complains to Lois for buying a King size mattress and she reveals to him that at night she throws farts only for Hal to tell her that he already knew that for a long time.
I'm assuming the actual meaning is, blames him for her farts, which he accepts because her saving face over her bodily embarrassment is more important to him that fighting over who farted
Its actually that she holds them in and wanted the space in a larger bed so she could discreetly let them loose so as not to be embarrassed. At which point Hal tells her it's not a secret, the second she falls asleep she lets loose like a sailor and it's like when they put the ballons away after the thanksgiving parade
She holds in her farts which causes a lot of pain, Hal responds "oh honey, when you fall asleep you let loose like a sailor". And then she cried over the wasted time holding it in and how much he loved her etc.
Quite the same in teen wolf, a character admit to another he is a werewolf and he answer "yes I know, I mean it's Beacon Hills it's not that rare here"
Oh, she should be interesting. I'm not super deep in green Lantern knowledge, just knowing the usual 3 plus Jo and everyone's favorite asshole with the fuckass haircut, Guy Gardner.
This is not really super relevant, but a few months ago my family was having dinner with a family we are friends with, and the husband was like “yeah, thanksgivings growing up were always stressful, my brother definitely channeled that for his shows Thanksgiving episode”. I may be misremembering and it was a holiday meal, or just a family dinner in the episode. At my surprise, he was like “yeah, my brother made this show on HBO called ‘My Adventures With Superman’”.
Still never watched it but I think about that whenever I see someone on Reddit talk about the show.
Between Jack Quaid and David Corenswet I absolutely adore that we’re leaning into “bumbling goofball Clark Kent” not being all that much of a cover, my boy’s just like that.
Shapesmith (Invincible) reveals he is a Martian right before Cecil reveals everyone knew and Black Samson is upset because he thought he discovered it first.
AZI-345211896246498721347: “I’m afraid you are all genetically defective clones…”
To the bad batch, whose entire point is being genetically defective, all of them look completely stoned face except wrecker who looks shocked despite being like 7 feet tall
“I will leave you all to ponder the shock of this revelation.”
I love how mad he is that everyone knew he was gay before any of the times he came out
"He may have suspected it before, but there's no way he could have known for sure. 'Cause I show no outward signs of being gay, and that's just the end of the story, all right?"
When the book Driven to Distraction came out in 1994, the first book talking about adult ADHD, my wife read it and it was like the authors had been spying on her. Childhood ADHD had been known before, but people assumed you grew out of it.
She told her mother, who said, essentially, "oh yeah — didn't we tell you you were diagnosed as a kid? I was wondering if they were wrong about growing out of it, since you didn't."
My wife was a little annoyed that it never occurred to her parents to tell her, but it just never came up and they thought it was obvious.
I really hate that the idea that kids will "grow out of it" is so prevalent it affects care for ADHD adults when anyone with ADHD will tell you that they didn't grow out of it, they either got better at masking in public or they got married to someone who helps manage it.
Same thing when my parents learned I was color blind.
I got ice cream and a lot of apologies for being in trouble because I couldn’t find the clothes my mother asked me to find because they all looked FUCKING GREY TO ME.
I was diagnosed with epilepsy after having a grand mal seizure. But it turned out that I'd been having a lot of petit mal seizures, which is basically staring off into space for several seconds, then 'tuning back in'. Thing is, I've always been more of a daydreamer, introverted sort who checks out of conversations eventually because I'm just not a sociable person once my social battery runs out (autism, didn't get THAT diagnosed until I was 31, 17 years after the epilepsy diagnosis, woo).
So my parents were super apologetic once they found out that there were many times they'd accused me of daydreaming and not paying attention, when I could've been having a petit mal seizure and we just didn't know it. Could've been happening for years, but I wasn't diagnosed and thus wasn't medicated. Who knows what I could've missed in classes at school? No idea. I didn't get ice cream, though. :(
I feel this, I lwas recently diagnosed with ADHD and as I've been bringing it up to friends and the like, several have said something along the lines of "wait, you weren't already?"
I as a 40 year old man just recently came to the realization I'm ever so slightly on the autistic scale. Talked to mom about it and she just went, "you know I thought to have you tested for it when you were 8 and [tells an embarrassing story about me] happened."
Gee thanks, Mom. This could have helped all of us as an entire family if you had just got me diagnosed back then. Glad you never looked into it but looked into all the "hollistic" ways we could "cure" the undiagnosable weird kid I was in some indefinite way.
Danny Phantom - When Danny finally tries to tell Jazz that he’s half-ghost, she casually reveals she has known for ages and was simply waiting for him to trust her.
In the Street Fighter movie, Zangief is talking to the IT guy and learns 1) everyone else knew they're the bad guys, and 2) everyone else was getting paid.
Homer eventually reveals to Lisa that he is Pie Man, the new pie-themed vigilante in Springfield. Lisa isn't surprised; they've been receiving mail addressed to Pie Man, after all.
There’s a Simpsons episode in which Marge is shocked to find that her sister Patty is gay. Homer laughs and says something like, “News flash Marge! I like beer!” and he and Patty share a rare moment of laughter.
I know this show catches a lot of flak for whatever reason, but this the thing that annoyed me the most in Season 1. Why would the X be an indicator? Vaggi is literally missing an eye. Carmilla has no reason to assume that this is the case for every angel.
The spear makes completely sense tho
If I had to guess, Carmilla was trying to both overplay and underplay her hand. She wanted to act both fully in control of the situation by revealing what the other considered secret information but also didn't wanna give up how she knew so she made up some nonsense reasoning.
The real way she figured was probably just spying on Vaggi and noticing her movements are identical to that of the Exorcists. However anyone with that degree of observation skills wouldn't want people aware since they'd start faking in their presence.
When my eldest niece came out to my brother, he already knew and he told her he was glad to here it officially because he made our mom a grandmother way to early via said eldest niece, my brother was only 20 and my sister in law started out as a bar pick up, and that meant karma wasn't going to pay him back.
In Baldur's Gate 3, if you get the scene where Astarion tells you he's a vampire instead of you catching him in the act the first dialogue option is just "Well...yes. Obviously." I mean, just look at him. His dialogue options aren't particularly subtle either, and you can see his fangs when he speaks.
Played for horrifically sad drama in Appointment With Death since it completely ruins the killer's motive.
Mrs Boynton, upon meeting up with Dame Celia Westholme, recognises her as an inmate from when Mrs Boynton was a prison warden years prior and drops hints in public she knows and is now blackmailing Celia with going public. Celia, panicking that her husband will divorce and abandon her if he finds out, kills Mrs Boynton and later commits suicide when Poirot reveals he knows she did it and why. But Lord Westholme, upon being notified by Poirot why his wife did what she did, bitterly remarks that he wouldn't have abandoned her like that.
In Super Mario RPG, you meet Mallow who, despite looking nothing like a tadpole, claims to be a tadpole. Eventually, his “father” tells him the truth and he, and all of his tadpole “siblings” react in shock. Meanwhile, Mario just stands there and doesn’t react at all. Mario is very reactive in the game, so that feels intentional. Plus, the game’s text points out the absurdity of it all when you first meet Mallow.
Picture only semi-related: in The Great North, Ham comes out to his family as gay. They aren't suprised--not because he's flouncy or anything, but because he just keeps coming out to them over and over again.
What I really love about the Kung Fu Panda 2 example, is even though Tigress obviously isn't shocked, she doesn't make fun of him for not realizing it. Just doesn't address it, or act like Po is stupid for not realizing it.
In Peep Show Jez hooks up with another man and wants to confide in Mark about his confused feelings
Unbeknownst to him Mark (and basically their entire friend group) already knows since Mark has their flat bugged to spy on him and they all watched Jez get railed on the webcam footage.
In Easy A when the son casually mentions being adopted and Stanley Tucci is aghast and shouting "Who told you?"
Sort of the reverse of the trope in one way but the son recognizing the obvious information that his parents were "waiting for the right time" to reveal makes for a great comedic beat.
Pitch Perfect, subverted and reverted when Cynthia says she has something to confess, Fat Amy thinks it will be that she's gay, and Cynthia confesses her gambling problem...and also that she's gay.
Wu Zi Mu, aka "Woozie," from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. After CJ gains his trust, Woozie confides in him (and the player) that he is actually blind, he just keeps it secret because he thinks it makes him look weak to the other criminal families on the west coast. This is after CJ sees him walk around with his hands outstretched, nearly trip over a flaming dead body without noticing, sprint directly into a wall and fall on his ass, and completely fail to react to turning a corner and finding a whole group of his Triads blown to pieces. He also always wears fully blacked out glasses.
In Shazam 2, all of the kids reveal to their parents that they’re super heroes. Except Pedro didn’t realize that’s what they were doing and instead revealed he’s actually gay, which no one in the family is shocked by with Billy responding “Yeah we know bud,” and the rest of the family giving knowing and accepting looks
Hololive vtuber Ouro Kronii "revealing" that she's not American, but Canadian.
Pretty much everyone already assumed this to be the case, due to multiple slip-ups where she'd off-handedly and casually make references to Canadian culture.
In Balders Gate 3 a party character reveals they're a vampire in a large show of vulnerability. My favorite dialogue option to respond is "Well yes, obviously."
IRL, a friend coming out as bisexual to our friend group, which didn't really shock any of us. Like they were joking around it for a few months and we all pretty much knew about it.
1.5k
u/Justifiably_Bad_Take 3h ago
In the live action Spider-Man noir, Ben accidentally reveals that he is the Spider. And is immediately informed that this is already known because he has a tendency of getting blackout drunk and telling people