History Main / KeepingSecretsSucks

** Pinkie Pie's propensity for springing surprises works against her in the Season 5 episode "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows", as she spends the entire episode constantly struggling to keep the surprise secret of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence having a baby from her friends and everyone else. After the secret is finally broken by Cadance and Shining Armor, Pinkie literally falls to pieces.

* ''All the time'' in the ''Series/{{Arrowverse}}''. It is the cause of a lot of [[RuleOfDrama drama]], especially when those who find out about a secret being kept from them [[WhatTheHellHero become angry about it, and for good reason]].

Of course, if the keeper is [[BerserkButton having their buttons mashed in]], they may blurt it out to hurt another character. [[TheAtoner Much to their regret later on.]] Villains on the other hand will use it to {{blackmail|IsSuchAnUglyWord}} the keeper... which of course, doesn't stop it from coming to light eventually. When a character genuinely doesn't ''want'' to spill the beans, it's because TheyreCalledPersonalIssuesForAReason. This is one of the reasons TheMasqueradeWillKillYourDatingLife.

** Touka lives in constant fear of being discovered, and takes great pains to maintain her life as an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent. Her greatest fear is that her MuggleBestFriend, Yoriko, will learn her secret. To protect her identity, she repeatedly threatens to kill others and regularly makes herself seriously ill by consuming human food.

** After his transformation into a HalfHumanHybrid, Ken Kaneki becomes terrified of his lifelong OnlyFriend learning the truth. He begins to lie and avoid Hide in an attempt to protect him from the truth, before finally cutting all ties with his human life. In turn, Hide does everything in his power to find his missing friend. [[spoiler: It all turns out to have been for nothing -- when they are finally reunited months later, Hide confesses that he knew almost the entire time and never said anything. Unfortunately, it [[UncertainDoom may or may not]] have been his final act]].
** Touka lives in constant fear of being discovered, and takes great pains to maintain her life as a normal High School girl. Her greatest fear is that her MuggleBestFriend, Yoriko, will learn her secret. To protect her identity, she repeatedly threatens to kill others and regularly makes herself seriously ill by consuming human food.

** At one point in the story, he asks Toshinori when it should be alright to spill the beans to someone, only for Toshinori to remind him that this wasn't a secret to be shared lightly. The prestige of the Symbol of Peace would crumble if the public found out that what made him so powerful was transmutable and transferable, rather than an ideal everyone should aspire to. But the at the same time, the secret is also Izuku's and only he can determine who he can trust with it. In fact, Toshinori felt the exact same way at one point and ended up telling Glynda Goodwitch, now his OldFlame, as early as his second year at Beacon.

* In ''Fanfic/MyHuntsmanAcademia'', Izuku feels horrible about keeping the nature of his Semblance a secret. He ''knows'' he has to, but it eats at him whenever he's praised for how straightforward and honest he is. Even worse when others come to the conclusion that his Brokenness was "a mistake", when he knows very well that it wasn't.

[[folder: Fan Works]]

** I'm really eighty-three years old and back from the dead. Secret keeper:[[spoiler:Hazel]]
** My life is tied to a piece of half burned wood. Secret keeper:[[spoiler:Frank]]

*** Let's not forget the first episode of the second season; she literally stops what she's doing, faces the rest of the cast and ''screams'' at the top of her lungs for at least half a minute, then going on to [[ReasonYouSuckSpeech berate all present]] for [[WhatTheHellHero dumping all their biggest secrets on her]]. [[spoiler:[[FromBadToWorse Then she gets whisked away to a nunnery by Lily so her secret wouldn't come out]]]].
** For that matter, Chuck was being eaten up maintaining the lie that she was dead from her aunts, as well as [[spoiler: having not let Ned re-dead her resurrected dad, making him "kill" an "innocent" bystander Dwight Dixon with his powers EquivalentExchange]]. And in the first season, Ned was likewise being eaten up by guilt over inadvertently killing Chuck's father before he figured out how his powers worked. And not one to be left out, Emerson Cod was too ashamed to tell his mom he had a daughter (who had been kidnapped), and wanted to tell her to maintain their honest relationship. By the time he told her she had figured he was hiding something, but had guessed wrong. Really, Keeping Secrets Sucks is a big theme for Pushing Daisies.

* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', when Taylor was attempting to infiltrate the Undersiders, she found trying to hide her heroic intentions from them a great source of stress.

-->'''Pinkie Pie:''' ''(sighs)'' And you were doing so well.

* ''Film/{{Juice}}'': [[spoiler: Q nor Steel can't tell anyone that it was Bishop who killed Raheem, unless they wants to be the next victims.]]

* In ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'', under her parents instructions, Elsa is to keep her ice powers a secret from everyone including Anna, fearing that it will not only hurt and kill other people by accident but would also lead to her getting burnt at the stake for accusations of witchcraft. Unfortunately, it led to Elsa living a miserable life where for thirteen years, she is forced to become TheShutIn and drive her sister away to prevent her from knowing of her powers and irreversibly strained what was once a close bond shared between them. The psychological damage done to Elsa is so great that when her powers get exposed, she ended up accidentally plunge her whole kingdom into an EndlessWinter out of sheer panic when trying to run away from them.

* A rare AI example: [[spoiler: HAL 9000]] in ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''. [[Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact The sequel]] and the [[Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries novels]] have confirmed [[spoiler: that HAL went crazy because he was ordered to keep something very important secret from the crew, when his entire prime directive was to provide accurate, truthful data. Ordering a computer to lie can be a ''very'' [[{{Foreshadowing}} bad idea]] ]]:

** Paperinik, alias DonaldDuck, suffers greatly from the contrast between [[DudeWheresMyRespect the lack of respect he gets in his civilian identity]] and the admiration, or at least grudging respect, he receives as Paperinik, especially because he fully understands the {{Irony}} in [[WhosLaughingNow having become Paperinik to take revenge for the disrespect]] and finally getting respected only in his masked identity while said identity sometimes making things ''worse'' for him, as he'll miss important engagements due his superhero duties and cannot explain why. In the "classic" stories (outside the ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'' continuity) he even lacks a confident, as his identity is ''that'' important-to the point Gyro reacted to being told about his identity for this purpose by ''[[LaserGuidedAmnesia wiping his memory of it on the spot]]''.
** Paperinika, alias Daisy, goes through Donald's same problem at balancing superhero work and civilian identity. Thankfully, her GadgeteerGenius did ''not'' wipe her memory of her identity, so she has a confident.

** The Red Bat, alias Fethry, shares the same trouble with the different treatment his identities get as Paperinik. Differently from him he can take it in stride thanks to a more optimistic character and knowing he's treated that way because he's a terrifying {{Klutz}}.

[[folder:{{Film}}]]

* ''All the time'' in the ''Franchise/{{Arrowverse}}''. It is the cause of a lot of [[RuleOfDrama drama]], especially when those who find out about a secret being kept from them [[WhatTheHellHero become angry about it, and for good reason]].

* In ''Manga/AnatoliaStory'', Kikkuri and the rest of Kail's entourage must keep the news of [[spoiler: Ursula's upcoming execution]] from him since he's cught in serious trouble. They're really, really unhappy but know that they can't let Kail get distracted by such terrible news.

** After his transformation into a HalfHumanHybrid, Kaneki becomes terrified of his lifelong OnlyFriend learning the truth. He begins to lie and avoid Hide in an attempt to protect him from the truth, before finally cutting all ties with his human life. In turn, Hide does everything in his power to find his missing friend. [[spoiler: It all turns out to have been for nothing -- when they are finally reunited months later, Hide confesses that he knew almost the entire time and never said anything. Unfortunately, it [[UncertainDoom may or may not]] have been his final act]].

-->'''Rei:''' She is crying and hurt and upset and I don’t know what to do and yet she ''still'' tries to make me feel better and I just had to leave her and run away because if I don’t she’ll ask why I can’t say anything or she’ll get hurt and [[{{Angrish}} aaaaRRRGH]]!

** It sucks ever more for John as everyone believes him a [[JackTheRipper serial killer]] while the entity controlling his mind was the real murderer. Janine and later James are the only ones who know the truth and treat him accordingly.

* In ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf,'' Ranma swears to keep Ryouga's curse secret, even when Ryouga uses his cursed form to sleep with Ranma's fiancee Akane. Ryouga's cursed form is as a cute little piglet that Akane adopts as a pet. DoubleSubverted in that while Ranma won't come right out and say it he does drop a megaton load of hints, but Akane just [[MasterOfDelusion doesn't get it]] - and the times she does seem to realize it, Ranma goes out of his way to protect Ryoga's secret.

* In ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf,'' Ranma swears to keep Ryouga's curse secret, even when Ryouga uses his cursed form to sleep with Ranma's fiancee Akane. Ryouga's cursed form is as a cute little piglet that Akane adopts as a pet. Semi-subverted in that while Ranma won't come right out and say it he does drop a megaton load of hints, but Akane is just [[MasterOfDelusion that dense]] that she doesn't get it.
** Unfortunately when Akane does seem to realize it, Ranma goes out of his way to protect Ryoga's secret, making this DoubleSubverted

* ''Series/IronFist2017'': Ward Meachum has to keep secret for over 13 years that his father Harold is alive and is the one calling the shots at Rand Enterprises from behind the scenes. This is implied to have been a contributor to his drug addiction problem.