Line #38 Main/ExpositionIntuition


1	As you know, SpeculativeFiction often relies on large quantities of {{Expospeak}} in order to deliver enough information to the audience so that they can work out what is going on. When the hero is TrappedInAnotherWorld or some other sort of FishOutOfWater, he will often be provided with a companion almost immediately who is of this strange world and therefore can serve as MrExposition. On the other hand, when the series is based around ImportedAlienPhlebotinum, it may come with a comprehensive user's manual, or an alien visitor (in alien invasion series, especially an alien defector) who can reasonably act as a source of information.
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3	And then on the ''other'' other hand, some shows just, well, don't care. But we're still going to need that {{Expospeak}}. If the audience doesn't have it clearly explained to them what the aliens' plot is and how their AppliedPhlebotinum works, they might not realize how clever the writers were -- what do you think this is, ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica\|2003}}''?
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5	But if he doesn't have the special backstory to [[JustifiedTrope justify]] his insider knowledge of aliens, monsters, interdimensional beings, vampires, or mole people, how would MrExposition be able to explain what the bad guys want here or how they work?
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7	Well, let's just declare that he's a [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist Scientist]]. We all know that being a scientist is basically just science-fiction speak for being a wizard, and it means you have magical foreknowledge. We'll say that because he's a scientist, he can tell, just by looking, that the twenty-story-tall monster must gain his great power from a form of fusion energy. Therefore, it's obviously weak against low temperatures and will be attracted by the soothing sounds of John Tesh's music.
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9	Sure, he'll couch it as a "guess", as if he's just making a perfectly natural extrapolation based on what he's seen and real science. But his "guess" will be incredibly specific, it will be only one of several equally plausible possibilities based on the evidence, and it will never ''ever'' be anything other than 100% correct in every detail. This will be presented as a natural consequence of MrExposition being very smart, though some audience members might notice when they reach the [[FridgeLogic refrigerator]] that these "theories" follow about as naturally from the evidence as would deducing the color of someone's eyes from a single shoe print.
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11	Note that this trope does not apply to characters who are able to exposit based on performing ''actual'' scientific research.
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13	Compare {{Namedar}}, when an object or being is named based on its characteristics. SuperTrope of SherlockScan (a character notices a few simple clues and then quickly reaches an impressive logical conclusion).
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15	!!Examples:
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17	[[AC:Anime & Manga]]
18	* ''Literature/{{Bakemonogatari}}'': Meme Oshino can always tell what supernatural phenomena affected each girl, usually based on Koyomi's secondhand recounting of their problem.
19	* ''Manga/{{Guyver}}'': Tetsuo Segawa may be the patron saint of ExpositionIntuition: thanks to ''being a science-fiction fan'', he is able to make numerous, highly specific, and perfectly accurate "guesses" about how the Guyver suit works, the nature of the Zoanoids, that they are being controlled by a major corporation, the various details of the Cronos corporation, the [[{{Namedar}} names of individual Zoanoids]], and so forth.
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21	[[AC:Comic Books]]
22	* ''{{ComicBook/Cattivik}}'': PlayedForLaughs in a story where the [[MediumAwareness narration boxes]] turn against the protagonists. One of the characters, calling himself "TheProfessor", explains to everybody else what happened and how they need to fight for their life, "like in movies". When asked ''what'' he is a professor of, he admits he's a junior high gym coach... But he's watched a lot of movies.
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24	[[AC:Fan Works]]
25	* ''Fanfic/KnowledgeIsPower'':
26	** Harry and Hermione seem to know what Horcruxes are despite having gone back in time ''before'' the events of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince''. In fact, James and Lily explain it to them in the afterlife, but you could blink and miss it.
27	** Also having gone back in time before HBP, Harry shouldn't know who Slughorn is nor his significance to Voldemort's backstory. This is [[HandWave explained]] as him having access to Voldemort's memories, which [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands wasn't mentioned until that point]].
28	* ''Fanfic/ReturningTheStones'': Cap is able to figure out what happened to Red Skull based on their last encounter and his knowledge of the Tesseract’s powers.
29	* ''Fanfic/SecretWar'': Attelus' savviness tends to come off a lot like this but it is mostly {{subverted}} in that he isn't always right.
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31	[[AC:Films -- Live-Action]]
32	* ''Film/TheHitmansBodyguard'': When Bryce and Kincaid are picked up by a busload of nuns in rural England, there's no way Kincaid can ascertain they are Italian nuns before they speak to them. Yet, he correctly informs Bryce of the fact.
33	* ''Film/ManOfSteel'': When the World Engine starts up, Dr. Hamilton correctly observes that it's a gravity weapon. And then he declares that they are somehow increasing Earth's mass. Deducting that the World Engine affects gravity is feasible because everything is getting heavier. However, how would Hamilton even notice that the Earth is getting bigger? Yet, he's absolutely right.
34	* ''Film/{{Snowpiercer}}'': Curtis' guess that Wilford has run out of ammunition, therefore making their guns bluff, kinda comes out of nowhere. True, there are no witness holes in the magazines, but still. Yet, when he shoots himself in the head with a stolen guard's assault rifle, no bullet pierces his head.
35	* ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'': Khan knowing exactly what's happened to Ceti Alpha IV is at best a lucky coincidence. After all, if a starship struggles to scan the planet's atmosphere, how on Earth does Khan can be sure of anything when he's only using a telescope? Yet, he seems to be right.
36	* ''Film/{{The War of the Worlds\|1953}}'': Doctor Forrester is able to deduce how the Martian heat ray works, how the war machines levitate, and even determines ''based on nothing more than seeing what we do'' that an alien weapon which causes its victims to light up with XRaySparks then fade to nothing works by "cutting across the lines of electromagnetic force" that holds matter together.
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38	[[AC:Literature]]
39	* ''Literature/TheGodsThemselves'': This is a recognized talent on the Moon, called "intuitionism". Selene has it, and it proves really helpful. In a parallel universe, Emotionals have it, but only Dua makes real use of it.
40	* ''Literature/TheLangoliers'': Creator/StephenKing's AuthorAvatar author character manages to guess exactly what's happening just by a deserted airport with stale food. Oh, did we mention this guessing includes that they've traveled into the past by going through a circular rainbow, that traveling into the past melts everyone who's not asleep, and that as soon as a time period becomes the past it's devoured by a swarm of temporal monsters? And that they can use the bit of time-space inside their jet to fly back through the circular rainbow to get back to the future? And it works.
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42	[[AC:Live-Action TV]]
43	* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The final episode of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E6TheArmageddonFactor "The Armageddon Factor"]] starts with Shap and Merac [[RecapByAudit conveniently recapping]] some recent events and the predicament the Doctor is in. This is strange because these events happened on a different planet and no one present has been in communication with them.
44	* ''Series/{{Land of the Lost\|1974}}'': The kids, who've become fair experts on giant reptilian beasts by this point, are threatened by a two-headed snake in the first episode of season three. Having escaped, they name it "[=LuLu=]", one "Lu" for each head. How does this fit this trope? It fits, because the two-headed snake's body is ''completely underwater'', out of view, when they run into it. So how did they instantly catch on that it was a multi-headed creature, rather than two big snakes?
45	* ''Series/Space1999'': In "The Last Sunset", how does [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist Dr. Bergman]] know the exact composition of the graphite compound needed to protect the Eagles from being rusted by the Moon's newly-formed atmosphere?
46	* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
47	** [[Recap/StarTrekS1E18Arena "Arena"]]: How the hell does Spock know that it's potassium nitrate on the rocks, and not sugar, or cocaine? Is Vulcan vision equipped with a mass spectrometer? It could simply be Spock making an educated guess based on logic. Kirk is collecting the mineral, and the Metrons have said that there are materials on the planet's surface which can be used to fashion weapons, therefore the mineral must serve a role in this. A weapon uses an energy source, something to contain the reaction and possibly a projectile. The only one of those that the powder could be used for — unless the Metrons expect Kirk to find the time and resources for primitive industrial processes — is an energy source. That narrows it down to a weapon which uses chemical reactions for energy and can be used against the Gorn, and the powder to one of the reactants used. It's not too long of a shot to say that the weapon is a rudimentary cannon and from there Spock can simply narrow the powder down to whichever reactant fits the appearance.
48	** [[Recap/StarTrekS2E2WhoMournsForAdonais "Who Mourns for Adonais?"]]: Kirk leads a landing party down to the nearby planet, where the alien reveals that he is Apollo. Later in the episode, Spock, who had been on the Enterprise the whole time, makes reference to Apollo. There is no way Spock could have known who the alien was as Apollo immediately jammed the landing party's communicators: at best, he might've picked up on Apollo mentioning that he doesn't want Spock present because his pointy ears remind him of Pan and he's never liked Pan and thus Spock might've known he's related to Greek mythology, and while he did see his face on the main screen and could've made an educated guess based on his appearance on which such character he would likely be, it's still a stretch.
49	* Franchise/StargateVerse:
50	** ''Series/StargateSG1'':
51	*** Samantha Carter frequently exhibits this trope early in the series, able to deduce the purpose of alien devices and the nature of various supersciences. As the series progresses, she shifts out of this trope and toward a more realistic "Able to exposit on the basis of training and experience".
52	*** Daniel Jackson does this just as often with alien cultures and languages instead of science. He spends most of the episode [[Recap/StargateSG1S4E8TheFirstOnes "The First Ones"]] with an almost-silent alien that doesn't speak English. So naturally, he spends every scene explaining exactly what he thinks is going on, even when he doesn't have his tape recorder out.
53	** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': [=McKay=] often avoids this trope -- despite his stated arrogance, he is frequently unwilling to exposit a theory until he has given some piece of technology a thorough examination under laboratory conditions. When circumstances force him to postulate anyway, he's frequently wrong.
54	%%** This is parodied in the episode "200" with absurdly detailed examples of this trope. Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
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56	[[AC:Radio & Podcasts]]
57	* ''AudioPlay/JagoAndLitefoot'': In "Murder at Moorsey Manor", Jago is about to be decapitated by a pendulum while Fox frantically tries to find out which clock is the master clock. His reasoning is that one of the clocks matches the one seen in a {{painting\|s}} in the drawing room--particularly, Merridew's portrait, which features a golden carriage. The only thread is that his guild gifted the portrait to him for his 50th year of service but why does that correlate with it being the right clock is left unexplained. Fox even {{lampshade\|dTrope}}s it.
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59	[[AC:Video Games]]
60	* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': In the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, Liara pulls this on the Shadow Broker. She admits to you afterward that she was guessing.
61	-->'''Liara:''' You're a Yahg, a pre-spaceflight species quarantined to your home world for massacring the Council's first contact teams. This base is older than your planet's discovery, which means you killed the original Shadow Broker sixty years ago, then took over. I'm guessing you were taken from your world by a trophy hunter who wanted a slave...or a pet. How am I doing?

Context Main / ExpositionIntuition