History Main / SecondHandStorytelling

* In the ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' and ''Manga/{{Saki}}'' crossover, ''Fanfic/NecessaryToWin'', [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10130193/7/Necessary-To-Win found here]], the "Interlude" chapters, which involve certain characters telling their backstories to others, alternate between them talking to others in the present, and flashbacks to scenes in the past. WordOfGod has it that what the characters in question ''say'' happened is not necessarily true, and may involve them omitting details, not remembering correctly, or jumping to their own conclusions.

* [[FromSoftware FromSoftware's]] [[DemonsSouls Souls]] [[DarkSouls Series]] [[Videogame/{{Bloodborne}} games]] all employ this ''extensively''. Intro movies describe the setting, and select minimum of exposition comes from the few NPCs you'll meet, the ''vast majority'' of story must be extrapolated from environment, item locations and item descriptions.

* [[FromSoftware FromSoftware's]] [[DemonsSouls Souls]] [[DarkSouls Series]] [[Bloodborne games]] all employ this ''extensively''. Intro movies describe the setting, and select minimum of exposition comes from the few NPCs you'll meet, the ''vast majority'' of story must be extrapolated from environment, item locations and item descriptions.

* The original ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' novel by Frank Herbert. Interesting scenes or important plot points, such as the initial journey to the planet Arrakis in a spaceship of the mysterious Navigators' Guild or Paul Atreides drinking the lethal Water of Life, are either touched on only fleetingly or narrated by characters in retrospect, several weeks later. The chapter simply ends and cuts away from the action about to unfold to a different scene in the next chapter, with characters sitting around their camp fire and telling each other what happened. In both movie adaptions (the 1984 movie and the 2000 three-part mini-series) we actually get to see it on screen.

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

* Episode 4 of Katanagatari. Towards the end, Togame and Shichika are discussing his [[InterestingSituationDuel Epic battle across land and sky]] with Hakuhei sabi over dinner. The [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome epic battle]] was shown off screen, with the rest of the episode focusing on his [[AloofOlderBrother sister]], Nanami.

* In ''{{Manga/Saki}}'', most of what we know about the Miyanaga family is what Saki tells other characters. It's still unclear whether Saki is an UnreliableExpositor, though, although there are some indications that Saki initially doesn't fully understand how much Teru has distanced herself from her.

[[AC: {{Fan Fiction}}]]

* In the ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' and ''{{Manga/Saki}}'' crossover, ''Fanfic/NecessaryToWin'', [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10130193/7/Necessary-To-Win found here]], the "Interlude" chapters, which involve certain characters telling their backstories to others, alternate between them talking to others in the present, and flashbacks to scenes in the past. WordOfGod has it that what the characters in question ''say'' happened is not necessarily true, and may involve them omitting details, not remembering correctly, or jumping to their own conclusions.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

* Parodied by Creator/MontyPython in their movie ''And Now For Something Completely Different.'' The "Killer Cars" animated skit featured an apocalyptic battle with a giant monster cat which suddenly cuts away to a man reading a narration of the story to a young child. The man then mentions the cat being destroyed in "a scene of such spectacular proportions that it could never in your life be seen in a low budget film like this. You'll notice my mouth isn't moving, either".

* One of the many, many major problems with the ''[[Film/TheLastAirbender Last Airbender]]'' film, since most of them go into [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome Offscreen Moments of Awesome]]. When it's for budget reasons, you can understand even if you don't like it... but when the scenes in question include "they became great friends"...
* Quint's USS Indianapolis monologue in ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' which ends up being the best scene in the movie.
* In the opening scene of ''Film/TheGodfather'' Bonasera the undertaker tells Don Corleone the story of how his daughter was brutally beaten by two boys attempting to date rape her. They were taken to trial and found guilty but their sentences were suspended. Bonasera now begs the Don to exact revenge on them.
* ''Film/PulpFiction'' Captain Koons tells young Butch about the history of the gold watch that belonged to Butch's father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

* A rather strange example in the ''[[Film/FridayThe13th2009 Friday the 13th]]'' reboot. The film begins with a violent opening and the next scene has a character DESCRIBE the violent opening that the audience just saw. It was pretty stupid

* Since TwelveAngryMen is about a jury deliberating a crime, we only ever seen them talking. All information about the crime is related to us by them discussing it amongst themselves.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

** Gandalf's fight with the Balrog.

*** Most of these are actually shown in the film trilogy, with the exception of Théoden's son's death (he's found badly wounded and dies some time later) and Saruman's conquest of the Shire (which was not included).

* Isaac Asimov made such use of this trope that in the introduction to a collected edition of the ''Foundation Trilogy'', he called himself out for it, rather apologetically.

** ''Literature/DeathStar'' has Admiral Motti's mentor tell him about an excellent sharpshooter whose blaster misfired in his hand, giving an untrained thug time to shank him. The moral here was that no matter how good something was - say, the Death Star Motti so admired - something could always go wrong.

* Roughly half of Stephen King's ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', ''Wolves of the Calla''.

* ''Literature/JamesBond''

[[AC:{{Live-Action TV}}]]

* ''Marion And Geoff'' is all about a chaffeur talking about these people.
* Every episode of ''GroundedForLife'' makes full use of this trope in combination with {{flashback}}s.
* Used in the Danish 50's drama-series ''Matador'', describing a dramatic fight on a roof. Of course, in this case it was actually done so well, that decades later when the show was rerun, people called in to complain about the fight scene missing. The scene had never actually been shown, just described very vividly.

* The Bill Brasky sketches in ''SaturdayNightLive'' used this for comedic value. They consisted of several men sitting around, drinking and telling stories about their absent friend Bill Brasky. As the sketch went on, the stories grew increasingly ridiculous and over-the-top. The punchline: when Bill arrives, he's TheFaceless, but shot at an angle that makes him look gigantic - implying the stories really happened.

* On ''EverybodyLovesRaymond'' Ray gets a call that his brother Robert, a cop is in injured on the job. When Ray, his wife Debra and his parents Marie and Frank visit him in the hospital, they find out he was gored in the butt by a bull. Robert tells a story of how he and his partner were breaking up an illegal rodeo in Brooklyn and a bull started chasing him. At the end of the episode a tape of the bull chasing him is shown on the news

[[AC:{{Theatre}}]]
* 90% of plays, out of necessity.
** Especially [[TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples Shakespeare]]. This was an extremely good strategy for him: not only did Elizabethan theatre use minimal sets and props (making elaborate scenes difficult to stage convincingly) but, more importantly, Shakespeare's greatest strength by far is his use of language, and so he really can describe a scene (even one that would not require elaborate staging) much better than he could show it. Scenes that might appear odd or even {{Narm}}-ish if simply performed on stage can seem much more meaningful when a character describes them, and allows us to hear the character's thoughts about the events as they tell it ({{Hamlet}}'s "antic" confrontation of Ophelia, which we hear described from Ophelia's point of view, is one such scene). Nonetheless, many modern film adaptations seem to feel obligated to show the scenes on camera anyway, sometimes with a voiceover, because people have come to expect movies to show everything.
*** The Chorus' justly famous opening (and closing) of ''Henry V'' is a HUGE LampshadeHanging for this, with all The Bard's eloquence: ''". . .But pardon, and gentles all,The flat unraised spirits that have dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object: can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? O, pardon! since a crooked figure may Attest in little place a million;And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, On your imaginary forces work. . .Think when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth; For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times, Turning the accomplishment of many years Into an hour-glass: for the which supply, Admit me Chorus to this history; Who prologue-like your humble patience pray, Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play."''
* ''TwelveAngryMen'' is third-hand storytelling. The entire play/film takes place inside the jury room and consists of the jurors arguing about events that they themselves only know about second-hand. It's also an intensely gripping film, regularly appearing around #10 on the IMDB top 250 list, proving once again that TropesAreNotBad.
* A lot of what happens in ''TheWomen'' is told second-hand, in large part to [[TheGhost avoid bringing any male characters on stage]]. Most notably, the marital quarrel between Mary and Stephen Haines is related after the fact by the maid to the cook.

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* In ''WebVideo/DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog'', the titular character's first (and failed) attempt at his initiation into the Evil League of Evil is relayed to the audience by him through his video blog. To wit: "Captain Hammer threw a car at my head."

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''AllGrownUp!'', "Brother, Can You Spare The Time?": The main plot is set up through an event that Tommy second-hands to the viewer: winning an award for a short film he made.

* Parodied in an episode of ''ClerksTheAnimatedSeries'', wherein Dante and Randal resolve not to leave the Quick-Stop for the entirety of the episode. Meanwhile, Jay keeps running in to inform them about the excess of plot occurring outside (including, among other things, the President having his head transplanted onto a gorilla's body and then turned into a vampire).
** [[MyGirlIsASlut And Caitlyn is cheating on Dante.]]

** Similarly, [[http://the-qlc.com/loserz/go/440 this]] ''Webcomic/{{Loserz}}'' strip, where focus returned to the three main characters after a couple of weeks without them.

* In ''DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog'', the titular character's first (and failed) attempt at his initiation into the Evil League of Evil is relayed to the audience by him through his video blog. To wit: "Captain Hammer threw a car at my head."

* Hilariously lampshaded in ''The Big Fix'': Moses Wine spends the entire movie with a cast on one arm, explaining to everyone he meets how he broke his arm -- every account different, and every account calculated to make him look sympathetic to the listener (to a civil-rights activist he says, "A couple of cops were hassling this black kid"). In the last scene, [[spoiler:he attempts to demonstrate his facility on his ten-year-old son's skateboard, with the boy shouting after him, "It's not my fault if you break the other arm!"]]

* An episode of ''NatsuNoArashi! Akinaichuu'' involves the cast traveling back and forth through time in a series of hijinks involving a rare pottery cup. Different from the usual, the action stays entirely in the present. We only hear about what happens when the characters travel back in time, and considering the rules of time travel in the show's universe, there are apparently some very close calls.

* Important parts of [[BadassCrew Ala Rubra]] backstory in ''MahouSenseiNegima'' are told/shown by [[UnreliableNarrator Jack Rakan]] and Kurt Godel.

* In the ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' and ''{{Manga/Saki}}'' crossover, [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10130193/7/Necessary-To-Win Necessary to Win]], the "Interlude" chapters, which involve certain characters telling their backstories to others, alternate between them talking to others in the present, and flashbacks to scenes in the past. WordOfGod has it that what the characters in question ''say'' happened is not necessarily true, and may involve them omitting details, not remembering correctly, or jumping to their own conclusions.

** The short story "Quantum of Solace" from ''Literature/ForYourEyesOnly'' has a Jamaican governor relaying a story about a failed marriage to Bond. Bond finds it more dramatci than his just finished mission of destroying boats full of drugs.

* On ''GameOfThrones'' episode "Baelor", the battle between Roose Bolton's northmen and the Lannister's is not seen, instead Tyrion is knocked unconscious at the beginning of the battle and the events are recounted to him briefly by Bronn when he regains consciousness. This was almost certainly done for budget reasons.

* Almost more than half of Stephan King's ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', ''Wolves of the Calla''. It was [[SarcasmMode sooo interesting]] to hear about Father Callahan's alcoholism and like...two vampire confrontation over 250 pages. Sigh

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': Due to not being a POV character, everything Robb Stark did after he became King in the North, was relayed after the fact, usually to his mother (and POV character Catelyn). His entire story in ''A Clash of Kings'' was essentially told to the reader in a three page dialogue between mother and son after the fact.
** Similarly, everything we know about Rhaegar Targaryen comes from the reminisces of others, since he's dead. However, these reminisces fall into two types- extremely positive (Targaryen supporters, mainly, who describe him as a noble, sensitive prince and great warrior) and extremely negative (his enemies, like Robert Baratheon, who describe him as a right dickhead who inadvertently started a war that killed thousands).

* In ''{{Manga/Saki}}, most of what we know about the Miyanaga family is what Saki tells other characters. It's still unclear whether Saki is an UnreliableExpositor, though, although there are some indications that Saki initially doesn't fully understand how much Teru has distanced herself from her.

* This is the premise of the central story element of ''Film/ReservoirDogs''. We see before and after TheCaper, but never the actual heist itself. [[WordOfGod According to]] QuentinTarantino, the whole idea was to have a heist movie without the heist.

* The fate of [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Miss Kitty Fantastico]].
* The jellyfish incident on Friends spends a lot of time as a NoodleIncident, before turning into a second-hand story.
* On the ''{{Seinfeld}}'' episode "The Fire" Kramer tells a story of how he recovered his girlfriend's severed toe and also stopped an armed robber on a bus. Originally they were going to cut to a FlashBack during it but Kramer telling the story was so funny by itself that the actual scene showing the incident was dropped.

SecondHandStorytelling has a long tradition dating back to ancient Greece, where the traditions of Attic Drama insisted that ''none'' of the action actually take place on-stage. Whenever a character dies in ancient tragedy, for instance, the event is related by an eyewitness in the messenger speech.

Occasionally this is used for a TakeOurWordForIt, or to set up TheRashomon. Battle related SecondHandStorytelling is sometimes preceeded by a ChargeIntoCombatCut. Related to FramingDevice, but "framing device" applies more to cases where the second-hand story is a very large piece of the story and presented with all the vividness of the main narrative. Particularly bad examples have a tendency to turn this into a OffscreenMomentOfAwesome. Please keep in mind, however, why this is [[TropesAreNotBad not always bad]] - making it impossible for anything important to happen if the protagonist is not present is, after all, a prime trait of the BlackHoleSue. Compare with the NoodleIncident, wherein the SecondhandStorytelling incident is presented as something tantalizing that is only referred to obliquely.

* Inadvertent example: The DVD of the first ''DungeonsAndDragons'' movie reveals several instances of SecondHandStorytelling. Sequences that were actually scripted and filmed were only described in the final cut, because they didn't have the budget to finish the effects.

* Used late in the first ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet1984'' movie when Nancy's mother finally gets around to explaining the original death of Fred Krueger.
* Used to great effect in Creator/AlfredHitchcock's ''{{Rebecca}}''.
* The climax of ''BurnAfterReading'' suddenly cuts to two minor characters discussing the aftermath of said climax followed by the credits.[[TropesAreNotBad Contrary to what you'd expect]], this ends up creating one of the [[CrowningMomentOfFunny funniest scenes in the whole movie]].

* One of the many, many major problems with the Last Airbender film, since most of them go into [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome Offscreen Moments of Awesome]]. When it's for budget reasons, you can understand even if you don't like it... but when the scenes in question include "they became great friends"...

* A rather strange example in the ''Film/FridayThe13th2009'' reboot. The film begins with a violent opening and the next scene has a character DESCRIBE the violent opening that the audience just saw. It was pretty stupid

* Many key events in ''TheLordOfTheRings'' take place "off-camera" and are only related to the reader by the accounts of the characters within the book. Examples include:

* The original ''{{Dune}}'' novel by Frank Herbert. Interesting scenes or important plot points, such as the initial journey to the planet Arrakis in a spaceship of the mysterious Navigators' Guild or Paul Atreides drinking the lethal Water of Life, are either touched on only fleetingly or narrated by characters in retrospect, several weeks later. The chapter simply ends and cuts away from the action about to unfold to a different scene in the next chapter, with characters sitting around their camp fire and telling each other what happened. In both movie adaptions (the 1984 movie and the 2000 three-part mini-series) we actually get to see it on screen.

* Happens from time to time in the StarWarsExpandedUniverse, often containing Aesops of one flavor or another that the character telling the story wants to impart.
** In the ''XWingSeries'', Corran Horn tells Gavin Darklighter, who's interested in [[InterspeciesRomance dating outside of his species]], the story of his very hot date with a Selonian, the moral being that even assuming there are no massive anatomical issues, problems can arise.

* DavidWeber uses this technique a lot in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series. Often, he'll cut away from a battle scene either A. just as the shots start firing, or B. when it's about to get worse for someone, with the following chapter having the other characters discuss the results. Tends to happen if the battle is ''particularly'' one-sided, or if the viewpoint characters of the battle [[KilledOffForReal got wiped out.]]
* Due to not being a POV character, everything [[ASongOfIceAndFire Robb Stark]] did after he became King in the North, was relayed after the fact, usually to his mother (and POV character Catelyn). His entire story in ''A Clash Of Kings'' was essentially told to the reader in a three page dialogue between mother and son after the fact.
* ''Literature/TheCatWhoWalksThroughWalls'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein is written from a first person perspective as the protagonist recounting his memoirs. The climactic battle, however, is narrated in an ApocalypticLog style, glossing over the details of what happened and deliberately leaving the audience hanging as to whether or not he survives.
* One SherlockHolmes story ends up with its quote marks nested four deep: Holmes describing a past case to Watson, in which a character describes to Holmes an incident he was told of by another character, in which yet another character describes an event...
* Almost more than half of Stephan King's ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', Wolves of the Calla. It was [[SarcasmMode sooo interesting]] to hear about Father Callahan's alcoholism and like...two vampire confrontation over 250 pages. Sigh

* Because the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series is written almost exclusively from Harry's point of view, any event that he does not personally witness or cannot be included in will become this. Exmaples include what other Champions did during ''Goblet of Fire's'' Triwizard Tournament what happened to everyone except Harry and Hagrid in the chase scene early in ''Deathly Hallows.''

* This is why Weevil had to stop working for Keith in ''VeronicaMars''.
* ''WhosTheBoss'' frequently does this. For example, they show Danny Pintauro wearing a cast and telling Judith Light about how he got it from a nasty gymnastics fall rather than showing the fall itself ("Johnathan The Gymnast").
* ''SeventhHeaven'' has frequent (ab)use of second hand storytelling, especially in later seasons. For examples, [[http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show.cgi?show=8 check out their page on Television Without Pity]], and [[http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/story.cgi?show=56&story=6816&page=1 this season 8 review]] of their most poignant moments, which turned out to be mostly second-handed.

* In TheMagiciansNephew, Uncle Andrew complains about how Queen Jadis went all MageInManhattan and forced him to sell his watch at a pawn shop, robbed a jewelry store, and so on. But for those few hours, the narration treats us to the story of how Digory was sitting at home waiting for Jadis and Andrew to return; and both the narrator and the character obviously find this quite boring. Wouldn't it have been more interesting to read if it had narrated the events that were going on with Uncle Andrew. And the book does contain a couple of other scenes that narrate Uncle Andrew's misadventures that take place when Digory's not around; it's not like it has a strict policy of only using Digory's point of view.

** Gandalf's first confrontation with Saruman
** The discovery of the Ring by Smeagol
** Boromir's defense of the hobbits against the orcs leading to his being fatally wounded
** The death of Theoden's son in battle with the orcs
** The fall of Isengard at the hands of the Ents
** Faramir's stand at Osgiliath with the legions of Mordor
** The battle between the Dead and the Corsairs

* In ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' we follow Jake Sully's story practically minute-by-minute until he begins to gether the tribes, when we just get narration.

* ''Primer'', ''Primer'', ''{{Primer}}''. Half the reason the film is so {{mind screw}}y is because several key events are described rather than shown... and the characters doing the describing are geeks who would rather be laconic than descriptive.
* This is the premise of the central story element of ''ReservoirDogs''. We see before and after TheCaper, but never the actual heist itself. [[WordOfGod According to]] QuentinTarantino, the whole idea was to have a heist movie without the heist.

* ''PulpFiction'' Captain Koons tells young Butch about the history of the gold watch that belonged to Butch's father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
* ''AnatomyOfAMurder'' completely avoids showing Barney Quill's murder or Laura Mannion's rape. This lets the audience know no more of what actually happened than the protagonist does in his investigation.
* The beginning of Tim Burton's Film/{{Batman}} has a bunch of {{Mooks}} telling stories about the rumor of the Batman. Since Batman dresses up as a bat to play on criminals' fears, this scene [[JustifiedTrope is very effective]] at showing that it's working.

* Almost more than half of Stephan King's TheDarkTower, Wolves of the Calla. It was [[SarcasmMode sooo interesting]] to hear about Father Callahan's alcoholism and like...two vampire confrontation over 250 pages. Sigh