"Now the Kid sees somethin' stranger still; his mind races. Did anyone else survive? Sure enough, he finds another. He finds me."
This trope is when the person narrating the story is introduced as a character part way in and reveals this is who they are (although they might not do so immediately, this is usually the case). The narrator usually doesn't introduce themselves before this point (and may be assumed to be an Omniscient Narrator), so it's usually The Reveal. At this point the narration might stay in the third person, however if the narrator sticks around and follows the protagonist it (obviously) shifts to the first person. A good sign that you're dealing with this trope is a statement along the lines of "...and that's when they met me, [insert name here]".
Naturally this can invoke a bit of Fridge Logic; how accurate was the narrator's previous narration when they weren't present? While they could certainly have been told about it later, they could just as easily have been an Unreliable Narrator (although this twist is rarely seen along with this trope unless it applies to the whole story).
This trope often goes hand in hand with How We Got Here (since the narrator's narrating events that took place before they began talking), it may also use In Medias Res if it starts with the point where the narrator joins the story. Often overlaps with Narrator All Along, where the narrator's identity isn't revealed until the very end of the story, as a twist.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Manzou from Samurai Champloo does this where he introduces who he is after he'd already been the voice narrating.
Comic Books
- In Peter Milligan's The Enigma for Vertigo Comics, the identity of the narrator is not revealed until the very last page of the story: it's a lizard who first appeared in the story only a page or so earlier. It Makes Sense in Context and it's better than it sounds.
- The Unbelievable Gwenpool: In the first issue, she outright points out that she isn't in the truck that's shown in the panel, then points herself out in the background a few pages later (as a customer in the bank the occupants of the truck are about to rob).
Fan Works
- Half Past Adventure: Although this hasn't technically happened yet, the Lemony Narrator's voice has slipped through in a couple of obvious ways, in particular going off on a tangent about the musical talents of Flame King Phoebe.
Film — Animated
- The narrator for Mumble's life in Happy Feet is eventually revealed to be Lovelace, who actually informs Mumble he was going to be telling his story.
- Patou from Rock-A-Doodle narrates the entire movie, but first shows up in person when the Grand Duke is about to eat Edmond.
- The narrator of the intro to BIONICLE: Mask of Light is revealed to be village elder Turaga Vakama 7 minutes in. Vakama introduces the prequel Legends of Metru Nui too, with his younger, pre-Turaga form appearing 5 minutes in, revealing the story he set up is about himself.
Film — Live-Action
- The Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan the Barbarian film is narrated by Mako's character, whom Conan meets for the first time partway through. (According to one account, the original plan was for Conan to narrate, but Schwarzenegger's English wasn't up to it.)
- The narrator in Carne Tremula (also known as Live Flesh
internationally) points out his own birth near the beginning of the film.
- In the film Gor the narrator doesn't appear as a character until the end of the film; he's the sequel's Big Bad.
- Sir Anthony Hopkins's character in Alexander (about Alexander the Great). Ptolemy was one of Alexander's generals. The Framing Device of the movie is an elderly Pharaoh Ptolemy, pre-abdication in favour of his son Ptolemy II, telling the story of Alexander to a scribe.
- In The Road Warrior, the viewer learns only in the last seconds of the film that the aged narrator is the feral kid.
- Posse The onscreen narrator (the elderly Woody Strode) tells the story of Jesse Lee and his gang of anti-heroes. At the movie's climax, the posse saves a village. Before leaving, Jesse give his journal to the youngest survivor. Cut to Strode, reading from the book he's kept all these years.
- Stranger Than Fiction, with the twists that the main character is aware of the narration as its happening and the narrator is a writer who doesn't realize she's narrating real events.
- In The Lobster, the female narrator seems to be only that for the first part of the film. It isn't until the scene of David and the Maid putting the Heartless Woman into the transformation room that she speaks of David talking about it to her later. She's eventually introduced when David finds the Loner group, and quickly becomes David's Love Interest.
- The Postman: The narrator who speaks at the beginning is finally shown in the ending as the Postman's grown daughter Rose. It became more obvious over time since she calls him "My father" and then how he conceived a baby with Abby was shown.
- Youth (2017): Suizi introduces herself and the story at the start via voiceover, but does not appear in person until several minutes later, after Xiaoping has arrived at the troupe's base.
Literature
- The Bible has a very subtle example in the book of Acts. Aside from a brief introduction, the first half of the book is written all in third person. But in chapter 16, in the middle of describing Paul's journey it abruptly switches from "they" to "we", implying that that's when the narrator (Luke) joins up with the group.
- The identity of the narrator of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao isn't explicitly revealed until at least halfway through the book and there aren't many clues (It's Yunior, by the way).
- The Culture: The narrator in The Player of Games. Each of the main sections begins with some taunting about he's not going to just tell you who he is or how he knows this story. At the very end, he reveals his true identity, the militant drone from the beginning, having been disguised as a different drone which accompanied the main character for the rest of the story, wonders if the main character ever caught on to who he was, and admits that he couldn't possibly have known things like what the other characters were actually thinking or doing when he wasn't there (so he just made those bits up).
- In From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the Framing Device is that this is a letter from the titular Mrs. Frankweiler to her lawyer to explain why she is changing her will. Mrs. Frankweiler herself doesn't actually show up until almost the end of the story.
- Jill Paton Walsh's 1981 children's book The Green Book mostly seems to be written in the third person, but every now and again, the narration uses "we" or "us". It isn't until the final pages that the book is revealed to be a diary (and the green book of the title) written by Pattie, one of the colonists fleeing a dying Earth at the beginning of the book.
- In The Plague, the narrator pointedly refrains from revealing his identity until the end, though the third-person limited Point of View makes it fairly obvious who he is.
- While he's never exactly a character, there are a couple times in Slaughterhouse-Five where Kurt Vonnegut states that a solider mentioned in passing is himself.
- Jonathan Barnes's The Somnambulist initially seems to just have a sinister Lemony Narrator. The villain only reveals himself as the narrator when the Stage Magician hero has figured out his identity.
- The prologue to each volume of The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign is narrated by the same character (though the rest of the books are in third-person). In the first volume, no context is given as to who the narrator is. Reading further reveals them to be the White Queen, the main heroine and main antagonist of the series.
Live-Action TV
- The narrator of Dear White People is introduced at the end of season two when Sam and Lionel go to meet with a secret society.
- Doctor Who: In "The End of Time", the Narrator (credited as such) appears briefly halfway through Part One, and is revealed at the end of the episode as a Time Lord. He's identified as Rassilon (and Lord President of the Time Lords) in Part Two.
- Galavant: The end of the first episode reveals that the omniscient narration/recaps are sung by the Jester, who is introduced earlier as a member of Richard's court.
- In the miniseries I, Claudius, it's around three episodes before the narrator is even born, although it's explicitly a story told by that character from the beginning.
- My Name Is Earl. A very brief delay. The first scene of the series has the narrator describing what we're seeing:
You know that guy you see going into the convenience store when you stop off in that little town on the way to Grandma's house? Sort of shifty lookin' fella who buys a pack of smokes, a couple lotto scratchers and a tallboy note at 10:00 in the mornin'? The kind of guy you wait to come out before you and your family go in?
Well, that guy's me. My name is Earl. - Played with in Never Have I Ever. We already know former tennis star John McEnroe is the narrator, and his part in the story is that he was Devi's dad's favorite tennis player. But in the Season 1 finale, he helps her get to the beach in time to throw her Dad's ashes.
- In Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger, the narrator who does the Previously on… and On the Next narrations is introduced as a character in episode 11, eventually joining the team as the Genre Savvy Sixth Ranger.
Video Games
- In Bastion the narrator is a mysterious old man named Rucks. When the Player Character reaches the eponymous Bastion after the first level, he's revealed to be the only other person who made it there and introduces himself in the narration (although he doesn't reveal his name until a bit further in when The Kid brings back other survivors).
- The narrator of Valkyria Chronicles isn't introduced until midway through Chapter 2, despite narrating the events previously. How she could narrate events she was not present for is handily explained, since she is an investigative journalist and researched the events in order to write her book on the war. This also overlaps with Narrator All Along, since her identity as the narrator is not revealed until the end of the game.
- In Dragon Age II, Hawke first meets Varric, the narrator of their story, one year after arriving at Kirkwall. Although this gets meta; Varric is the first character introduced in the game, and the main events of the game are framed by his "present-day" scenes where he's telling the story.
- Gaia isn't introduced in God of War series until after narrating the entirety of the first game and the prologue of the second.
Web Animation
- The first episode of RWBY:
- The series opens with narration by an unknown woman. The end of Volume 3 reveals her to be Salem, the Big Bad of the series.
- At the beginning of Volume 9, an unfamiliar voice starts telling the story of "The Girl Who Fell Through the World". The volume's penultimate episode reveals it's Ruby Rose's mother Summer Rose. A flashback reveals that Summer is reading the tale as a bedtime story to a very young Yang and Ruby; the book she's reading from is the same one that's portrayed in the opening credits of the volume.
Western Animation
- Tex Avery's MGM short "The First Bad Man" is narrated by what turns out to be at the end the First Bad Man himself.
- Another Tex Avery cartoon, "Who Killed Who?" is introduced by a live-action host who solemnly proclaims that the short will show that "crime does not pay". The cartoon is a wacky chase between a cop and a hooded killer, who is finally caught, unmasked, and revealed to be — the live-action announcer, who bursts into tears.
