History Main / RiddleForTheAges

* In MaisonIkkoku, after fourteen volumes and some six years of in-universe time, neither the readers nor the other characters have any real idea of Mr. Yotsuya does for a living...or, indeed, any knowledge of his life outside the apartment. His one and only DayInTheLimeLight is devoted to him [[TheUnreveal evading the other characters' attempts to figure out what he does all day]].

* In ''{{The Maltese Falcon}}'' we never do find out what happened to the original.

* In the ''DoctorWho'' non-canon episode "Curse of the Fatal Death" his Companion frequently asks "why/how/what [whatever]?" and he always answers "I'll explain later," but the explanations never happen.

*** The answer is finally revealed to this one in the ''Teen Titans Go!'' official tie-in comic series: [[spoiler:While the specifics of her personality change are left unclear, Terra's brother Geo-Force confirms that the schoolgirl is in fact Terra, simply be seeing her and how happy she is in her new life.]]

* Played straight and subverted in ''Riddler's Reform'' of ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''. When Batman is able to escape TheRiddler's deathtrap of sealing him in a building that has high explosives in it, the Riddler no is so bewildered by Batman's escape that he no longer cares about going to Arkham or losing his now [[CutLexLuthorACheck legitimate business and lifestyle]] and only cares about finding out how Batman was able to survive a trap he clearly shouldn't have been able to. While Bruce later explains it to Dick Grayson, and the audience, back at Wayne Manor, he never explains it to the Riddler himself. Mr. Nygma ends up going even more insane due to [[TheUnreveal not getting an explaination]].

See TheUnreveal. Compare NoodleIncident and some [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment Big Lipped Alligators]]. This trope is also essentially a ''deliberate'' MissedMomentOfAwesome.

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* In ''FrightNight'', we never do learn what Billy Cole was, only that he was neither human nor vampire.

* What are the Dark Powers of {{Ravenloft}}, and what are they up to? WordOfGod from TSR's writers and canon statements from Arthaus proclaim that this will ''never'' be revealed, and a novel that professed to explain the DPs was ExiledFromCanon for doing so.

* What is the Tanhauser Gate from ''BladeRunner'' and where is it located?

This might be done for comedic effect, as part of a MindScrew, or just to reflect reality. After all, how many of us have had something weird happen in our lives but never discovered the "why" behind it all? Like [[TropesAreNotBad all]] [[TropesAreNotGood tropes]] this sort of mystery can be used to tell really good or really horrible stories depending on the writers' skills, though it's generally considered good form to, if you're introducing an answerless mystery, let your audience ''know'' they're not getting an answer. It's not quite fair to present viewers a mystery, suspects, and clues that clearly has some sort of resolution, if only in the author's head. Make it clear that you're not going to let people in on an important secret that you or someone on the production staff knows the answer to, and years might go by and people will ''still'' be asking you, "Why did X commit Y on Z?"

Except when there's not. Sometimes writers will create a mystery but never have any intent of actually giving us an answer. [[AliceAndBob Bob]] will wake up one day with his right leg amputated, or [[AliceAndBob Alice]] will discover someone's rearranged all her furniture while she was out. They might brush these matters aside cavalierly, or they might become obsessed with discovering the truth, but eventually they come to the realize that, if they're ever going to get an answer, it's not going to be any time soon, and brush off their respective mysteries as "one of those things".

* The Lady... or the Tiger?
** A short story in which a barbaric country's justice system has criminals [[SadisticChoice pick one of two doors - one with a beautiful bride for them, the other a ravenous tiger, but with no idea which is which.]] One criminal, [[spoiler: who was the lover of the princess, knows that she knows which is which. She gestures towards one, and he follows her gesture - to ''which''???]]

* "{{Dhalgren}}". Dear sweet incomprehensible demiurge, just... [[XJustX just Dhalgren.]] Arguably the MostTriumphantExample.

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* In ''WaitingForGodot'', who or what is Godor? Why they are waiting for him? Will he ever come?

* In ''Star Wars'', the exact name and homeworld of [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yoda%27s_species Yoda's Species]] are still unknown.

* In ''The Maltese Falcon'' we never do find out what happened to the original.

* ''[[NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' raises the question of whether Emmanuel Goldstein and his revolution against the Party actuall exists, or if they're simply a fabrication the Party uses as a target for the population's hatred and as bait to weed out dissidents. O'Brien states quite firmly and adamantly that Winston will never learn the truth about this.

* Stanislaw Lem's ''Solaris'': why did the planet send the replicas of people? The main theme of the novel is that we can't find out, because humans can't comprehend a truly alien intelligence.