Line #8 Main/OmniscientHero


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8	The Omniscient Hero is not merely TheOmniscient, they are ALSO a main character! This has a huge impact on the plot, because it means that the readers/viewers will either know exactly what's going on or they will not know what the hell [[UnspokenPlanGuarantee the main character is really doing]].
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10	Essentially, a being who possesses enough relevant information to make the events less interesting or less believable. Such a being who makes [[ThePlan any kind of deceptive plan]] useless by seeing through them all is likely to fall into this trope.
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12	When an Omniscient Hero is faced with a MoralDilemma, the problem is made much less complicated by the fact that they somehow...
13	# Have a flawless overview of everything relevant to the situation,
14	# Know exactly what options are available, AND
15	# Know exactly what the consequences of each option will be.
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17	Theoretical moral philosophy is full of thought-experiments based on these three premises. For the protagonist of such a theoretical thought experiment to become an Omniscient Hero, the MoralDilemma has to be transformed into a story and played straight. However, a StrawmanPolitical or StrawVulcan is very likely to [[NotSoOmniscientAfterAll mistake themselves]] for an Omniscient Hero, and then be [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone very surprised]] or go into denial when it turns out that there was at least one of those three premises that he or she did not live up to.
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19	Such a villain is likely to take their delusion one step further and also believe themself to have a OmniscientMoralityLicense, thus making it easier to convince themselves that UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans. Either that, or one turns out to having been a StrawHypocrite all along.
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21	Compare InvincibleHero, ClockKing.
22	Contrast TheOmniscient, an omniscient being that isn't the protagonist and thus far less problematic.
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24	!!Examples:
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26	[[foldercontrol]]
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28	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
29	* ''Anime/AttackOnTitan'': Eren [[spoiler: essentially becomes a variation of this once he gets access to both the Attack Titans future sight combined with the Founding Titans access to the paths. From the instant he accesses this ability he jumps off with his newfound OmniscientMoralityLicense]].
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33	[[folder:Comic Books]]
34	* In the Swedish comic ''ComicBook/{{Bamse}}'', the [[TheLancer Lancer]]/[[TheProfessor Professor]] character Skalman often fit this trope. This is done intentionally, since the target audience is rather young and the use of a BOH lets the writers introduce relatively complex concepts without making the plot overly complicated.
35	* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' Batman in many modern interpretations is so CrazyPrepared that he occasionally falls into this category. (The man has backup plans for the contingency plans of his backup plans!)
36	* ''ComicBook/{{Captain Marvel\|MarvelComics}}'': Genis-Vell acquired "Cosmic Awareness" like his father Mar-Vell, but to a much greater degree -- he literally knew ''everything'' that happened or could happen. [[GoMadFromTheRevelation It drove him mad.]]
37	* ''ComicBook/ChaosWar'': [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] is granted omniscience. This turns out to be practically worthless because Hercules either didn't bother to use it or purposely ignored it constantly making things worse. Only changed when all of his allies called him out on his crap and even then he had to be guided by others to victory.
38	* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'':
39	** [[spoiler:Adrian Veidt]] fits this trope. He has everything so well figured out that the morality issue is reduced to whether or not the goals he achieved were worth all the lives he sacrificed. However, two of the last few scenes make the whole thing ambiguous, leaving it to the reader/viewer to decide if the trope is played straight or subverted.
40	** In the same story, Dr. Manhattan himself WOULD fit the trope perfectly if it wasn't for a certain loophole [[spoiler:that effectively make him lose his omniscience halfway through the story]]. Before that point, he is so omniscient that it bores himself, but the readers/audience is spared sharing that boredom since he's a side character rather than the protagonist.
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43	[[folder:Fairy Tales]]
44	* ''Literature/HansTheHedgehog'': Clearly Hans is one of these, seeing how perfectly his choices and actions work out for him. He must have known in advance that each king's daughter would be the first "thing" to greet the king on coming home and that once he got married at the latest, he could shed his hedgehog skin, have it burned, and remain human afterward.
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47	[[folder:Fan Works]]
48	* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has Doctor Strange, thanks to his vast powers as a {{Seer\|s}} and a TimeMaster, and his PurposeDrivenImmortality (the first two exponentially magnified, and the latter granted by [[spoiler: the Time Stone]]). These mean that he can see pretty much every possible future, then tweak events so that the one he wants comes about, and has the luxury of not having to worry about how long it takes. He uses this to play the entire cast like a Stradivarius.
49	** However, drama is maintained by several things: he's an important secondary character rather than the hero, he isn't going to simply solve every problem/defeat every villain. This is partly because he wants/needs them to happen to prepare Harry and company or set things up to be resolved. However, it's also partly because his powers have limits: others are working against him, with the capacity to create blindspots in his sight (he's smart enough to work around it, but the strain involved nearly kills him and drives him insane), and "contrary to carefully cultivated popular belief", he's actually ''not'' quite omniscient. These become important plot points in the sequel.
50	* Every Host in ''{{Roleplay/Communication}}'' automatically become through Consensus: the players of said quest themselves who knows every single event and character that had or will occur in the world they are put into.
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53	[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
54	* Nemo, the eponymous ''Film/MrNobody'', is a rare sympathetic example. He can remember and envision all his possible futures, and it is explored quite well what this means for him.
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57	[[folder:Literature]]
58	* The Kwisatz Haderachs, Paul Atreides and his son Leto II in ''Franchise/{{Dune}}''. Both of them come to hate this because it makes life so utterly '''boring''' when you know everything that's going to happen long before it happens. Everyone else comes to hate this because when someone is omniscient, they're effectively invincible: they know everything you're going to do before you even think of it, so no matter what you do, you're playing into their hands.
59	* ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'''s Nagato Yuki is one of these.
60	* In ''Literature/{{Horns}}'', by Creator/JoeHill, the main character has horns growing out of his head that not only cause the characters around him to reveal their darkest thoughts to him, but also give him the power to see their entire pasts simply by touching them.
61	* In ''Literature/StateOfFear'', Professor Kenner already knows or suspects the entire plot of the bad guys at the start of the book.
62	* Ia in the ''Literature/TheirsNotToReasonWhy'' series is a somewhat unusual example. She can't "just" see her ''own'' timeline, she can see ''all'' of them. This also makes her an interesting case because while she could theoretically prepare for every single way events can play out, she doesn't actually have time to A) look through all potential outcomes of a situation and B) set up contingency plans for all of them. This leaves her immensely powerful, but NotSoOmniscientAfterAll because she can never be sure which of the many possible futures will actually happen in her part of the multiverse.
63	* In ''The Wars of Light and Shadow'', Arithon s'Ffallen, Master of Shadows, has inherited the foresight powers of his s'Ahelas mother and the empathy of his s'Ffallen father, which means that he sees the implications of all his actions, and feels the suffering they cause. The only reason why the Literature/WarsOfLightAndShadow haven't ended with his suicide is because he has sworn an oath to survive at all costs, as his survival is critical to returning the Paravians to Athera.
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66	[[folder:Live Action TV]]
67	* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The Doctor has elements of this DependingOnTheWriter. He is easily the smartest person in the room, and can work his way out of just about any situation, up to and including [[spoiler:the end of the universe]]. With certain [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight exceptions]]. Notably, several episodes have the Doctor working out how to kill the enemy of the week within a few seconds, but either [[SpannerInTheWorks something happens which he didn't plan for]], and he has to play a game of XanatosSpeedChess, such as [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks "Remembrance of the Daleks"]], or he's desperately searching for a non-lethal or more peaceful solution, which he sometime finds ([[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E2TheBeastBelow "The Beast Below"]]), but often doesn't ([[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E1WarriorsOfTheDeep "Warriors of the Deep"]]).
68	* ''Series/JohnDoe'' of the eponymous show has encyclopedic knowledge of everything humanity has learned up to the beginning of the show. He's also capable of easily using that knowledge, such as becoming rich in the pilot by playing the stock market, and countering moves in an obscure martial art. He's also an {{Omniglot}}, as demonstrated when he speaks Khmer to a group of Cambodian fishermen who rescue him.
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71	[[folder:Video Games]]
72	* Theresa from the ''Fable'' series has the ability to see into the future. In ''VideoGame/FableII'' and ''VideoGame/FableIII'', if she hadn't been there to guide the hero towards their destiny, then there wouldn't have even been a plot.
73	* Can be played with in a meta sense for most videogames that offer a save function. Reloading after a string of losses to eventually overcome some obstacle can be seen as functionally identical to scanning through possible timelines of actions until finding one where victory is guaranteed, and SaveScumming can invoke this even further to fish for even more favorable outcomes. Similarly players can resort to things like walkthroughs and strategy guides to learn all there is to know about a game before the in-universe protagonist even takes their first step.
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76	[[folder:Webcomics]]
77	* ''Webcomic/{{Dominic Deegan}}'' decayed/developed into one of these by the time of the "Snowsong" arc.
78	* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' has [[spoiler: Terezi]]. However, her ability only activates when the wrong choice will create a doomed timeline. Since [[spoiler:attaining god tier, Rose]] is one too, though there are some ill-defined limitations. [[spoiler:Jade]] also knows an awful lot after [[spoiler: becoming a First Guardian]].
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