The Omniscient

Janet: I'm Janet. I'm the informational assistant here in the Good Place.
Chidi: She's like this walking database. You can ask her about the creation of the universe or history...
Eleanor: Oh, there was a guy who lived in Avondale, Arizona, around 2002. His name was Kevin Paltonic. Is he gay?
Janet: No.
Eleanor: Really? Huh. I guess he just didn't want to have sex with me.
Janet: That's correct.
Eleanor: Well, that's fine, I wasn't that into him anyway.
Janet: Yes, you were.

— The Good Place

A character that knows everything. Either literally everything, or simply everything worth knowing under the circumstances. May or may not have Blue-and-Orange Morality or a Omniscient Morality License. Not to Be Confused with a character who incorrectly believes himself to know everything. May or May not have authored the Great Big Book of Everything.

Beings with this ability tend to be background characters that the reader is told little about. This is because "knowing everything" is a Story-Breaker Power, because it's difficult to feature a protagonist that can see all the cards, take action based on that knowledge, and maintain a sense of meaningful conflict. Another way to try to keep the story or interesting is to keep the readers/viewers in the dark about what the main character is truly doing and why, while the character executes a Gambit Pileup. (See Unspoken Plan Guarantee.) Another solution is to reveal that they are Not So Omniscient After All, or alternatively to make the universe entirely deterministic and thus give them the worst case possible of Prescience Is Predictable.

The Omniscient usually appears as an oracle (mad or otherwise), and/or leader of The Omniscient Council of Vagueness.

For The Omniscient to face a Moral Dilemma without becoming an Omniscient Hero, the dilemma has to remain very abstract. In philosophy, many thought-experiments are based on the outright or implied premise "What would The Omniscient do?"

This trope often overlap with The Omnipresent, since being omnipresent is often the reason why one is omniscient to begin with. The Omnipotent may have this as well. Is somewhat common for The Old Gods, an Eldritch Abomination, or an antagonist in a Cosmic Horror Story.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Marisou from Black Paradox, due to the portal in her brain to the afterlife, has a limited ability to see the future. When she's operated on by Dr. Suka to remove the gateway from her brain (as part of his plan to harvest more Paradoxical Night stones from inside the Afterlife), she gains the ability to become fully omniscient, and learns the full truth about what Suka has set in motion.
• Bleach: Yhwach can see the future and the present in a way that enables him to prepare for any event or defeat any combat move before it's occurred. The ability, called "the Almighty", only works at full capacity when he properly "opens his eyes", giving him three pupils in each eye. The legend of the Sealed King states that it would take him 900 years to regain his heartbeat, 90 years to regain his intellect, and 9 years to regain his power. Haschwalth claims that if Yhwach had tried to use the Almighty before those 9 years had concluded, he'd have destroyed all the Sternritter. For an unknown reason, Yhwach transfers this power at every nightfall to Haschwalth, who becomes the omniscient one for the hours of darkness before restoring it to Yhwach at every dawn.
• Amber from Darker than Black knows everything that is going to happen that affects the main story for two reasons. First, she is a Time Master and has lived the main plot several times to set things up the way she wants. As an example, she claims to have fought Heaven's War "...dozens of times to get it right." She proves her omniscience when she continues to be... everything, even after her death, as shown when she leaves the message for Misaki behind (ahead?) to keep driving the plot even after she is out of it.
• Dragon Ball Super introduces Zuno; he knows about everything in the universe. He knew exactly what Bulma's breast size was, even before they began to drop. He's even more knowledgeable than Whis.
• The First President of the Genshiken seems to know everything that goes on around the school. He implies that he may have set up cameras around the school, but he never explicitly confirms it.
• Interestingly, the main character, Aladdin, of Magi: Labyrinth of Magic is this, though not all of the time. He is a Magi who has the "Eye of Solomon," which lets him see the world, Rukh, and all of its secrets. The main antagonists, Al-Sarmen, want him for this reason. Also, he is not an Omniscient Hero.
• Ajimu in Medaka Box is a superhuman with thirteen quadrillion superpowers, including knowledge of absolutely everything. Although she intentionally makes herself unaware of certain future events to avoid spoilers.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: As part of her ascension to godhood, Madoka becomes aware of everything that has happened, will happen and can happen. This is how she drives witches to extinction and how learns about everything that Homura went through to help her in the "Groundhog Day" Loop. However, her omniscience is only because she exists at every point in space and time. So, if there was a space that could block her existence and if Madoka was forced to take a human form and exist in linear time...
• Kuran Kaname from Vampire Knight being an ancestor of the vampire race, he demonstrates almighty abilities as mentioned in the fanbook, and ability to foresee the future as he once mentioned to his comrades when he saw Yuuki's image in the past.
• Yuko from Xxx HO Li C due to being an exceptionally old and powerful witch. Unfortunately for the main characters, she's bound by Equivalent Exchange rules where everything has a price, including information, pushing her into All-Powerful Bystander territory.

Comic Books

• Eight Billion Genies: The genies seem to understand anything and everything that's going on even if they weren't present for it. They're also shown to be Polyglots able to speak every known Earth language, addressing their chosen person in the language they're most comfortable with, be it English, French, Spanish, or Mandarin Chinese.
• Marvel Universe:
  • The Watchers have the ability to see and hear everything that happens in at least a solar system radius, and view alternate realities at will. They also share that information with each other periodically, so that any individual Watcher also knows what else was going on in the universe the last time that sharing took place. It is difficult but not impossible to hide activities from a Watcher.
  • In X-Factor (2006), Layla Miller's catchphrase is "I know stuff." While she's not totally omniscient, she does tend to know everything about many of the situations they get themselves into. Often to the detriment of the team or their trust in her. It later turns out that "knowing stuff" is not actually her ability, but a result of his future self downloading all her knowledge into her brain.
  • Hercules was once imbued with true omniscience beyond anything possessed by skyfathers or most cosmic beings during Chaos War. He knew anything he put his mind too. Unfortunately, it was completely useless thanks to his Leeroy Jenkins attitude. He either charges in blindly or tricked by the Big Bad Amatsu-Mikaboshi into letting the villain into the heavens. It is only when his super-smart best friend Amadeus Cho and Mother Nature both call him out on how dumb he is being with it that he bothers consulting it at all.
  • The plot of Universe X revolves around Captain Mar-vell's attempt to gain omniscience by reuniting the pieces of his cosmic consciousness. Paradise X delves a little deeper into what that means, since the more approachable Kyle Richmond is also linked to the consciousness. He explains that he knows whatever answers he looks for, but can't see everything at once. Mar-vell seems to be a step or two above that.
  • The Machine in Eternals (2021) is a million-year-old Celestial computer, integrated into planet Earth. It knows everything that happens on earth and acts as narrator for the series. However, its power doesn’t stretch far from earth — when Eternal exiles settle on Titan, it only knows what happens after they die, when their minds return to earth for resurrection in a new body.
• Mystery Girl: Trine has this as a result of a conversation with... someone... at a party. As a result, she knows everything — or at least, the answer to all questions and mysteries — except why she has this ability, or who it was she talked to at that party. She uses it to make a living.
• The Sandman:
  • Destiny in The Sandman (1989). Note that he can't put this knowledge to any use because he doesn't have free will (thus he is symbolically chained to the book). At one point he calls a meeting for no apparent reason and when people ask why he did it, Destiny explains that the book said he was going to.
  • The Lucifer spinoff has Michael show up in Destiny's realm to ask about the oncoming apocalypse only to find that Destiny had invited the title character and Michael's daughter over to discuss the exact same thing. When he asks Destiny why he wasn't invited, Destiny responds that it didn't seem necessary, since he was already coming.
  • Destiny loses this trait after a few people somehow become Immune to Fate since everything they do renders the book useless thanks to the Butterfly Effect.
  • Speaking of Lucifer, Yahweh unsurprisingly is this much to the chagrin of the title character. He created everything, knows all the rules on how everything works, knows everyone intimately, and is quite literally everywhere in the universe. Based on all this since he started the ball rolling he knows how things will turn out. The problems in the second half of the series are a result of Yahweh withdrawing from the universe for the specific reason of having a result he does not know absolutely every last detail before it happens. He comments that even attempting to observe would result in him knowing the outcome. This test actually works. Lucifer is very annoyed with this trait of Yahweh's; Lucifer's defining trait is his desire to set his own path, and Yahweh's omniscience denies him that, as whatever path he chooses is what Yahweh foresaw, which Lucifer hates. This conflict and Lucifer's attempt to get away from Yahweh's omniscience is the main driver of the plot. When Lucifer is visited by an angel bearing an offer from Yahweh, this exchange happens:
    Amenadiel: I am told that you will name your price.
    Lucifer: That I may name my price or that I will name it?
    Amenadiel: Will.
    Lucifer: You'd think part of being omniscient would be knowing when to stop.
• Downplayed with Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen. He's not exactly omniscient, but knows everything that ever happened or will happen to himself personally. Until a tachyon swarm disrupts his ability to see the future. He's overjoyed when he realizes that he doesn't know what's going to happen next.

Fan Works

• The Bolt Chronicles: In "The Seer" and "The Protection Payment," Kelvin the Labradoodle can accurately predict the future and among other things foresees Mittens's karmic meeting with Bolt in the film.
• The Super Smoke being in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series claims to be this.
• Doctor Strange seems to be this in Child of the Storm. It later turns out that he isn't — he's just what happens when you give a powerful Seer and masterful user of the Butterfly Effect and Batman Gambit the power to travel through time at will. He does have blind spots (rare, and created by outside interference), and there are things he doesn't know... but generally speaking, it's a fair bet that whatever major event is going on, he a) knows about it and b) has had a hand in it.
  Contrary to carefully cultivated popular opinion, I do not, in fact, know everything.
• The quest Communication turns the players into a group of voices in a Host's head, where they are then are to guide said Host through thanks to knowing everything that occurs in canon up to and after the point in time they are inserted into that chosen Host's mind.
• Daughter of the Sun (ShoutFinder) has Rock, just like in the canon material.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fic Machinations in the Dark, even when trapped in a dungeon for over 1,600 years, Tobias seems to be aware of everything that happens in Equestria and he can read minds. He admits that he doesn't have the power to see the future, but he can extrapolate based on patterns of what he is aware of; his predictions are always accurate.
• White Sheep (RWBY): Jinn, the spirit inside the Relic of Knowledge. Here, Ozpin loopholes the part about not being able to tell the future by asking "What is Salem planning right now?" Her plans could change, but it's still a good way of predicting what's going to happen. Jinn answers the question accurately and completely; Ozpin gets a lot of unimportant information (as expected from such a general question), but does learn that Salem's ultimate plan is to find a way to die peacefully with her mortal husband, leaving the world to their children. Ozpin suffers a Heroic BSoD at this, even briefly believing that Jinn is lying, despite that being impossible.

Films — Animated

• Played for laughs in Hercules with Hades and the Fates. He keeps trying to explain why he needs their help but they just keep saying "We know!"
  Hades: I KNOW! You know, I know, I get it! I get the concept.

Films — Live-Action

• Glorious: Ghat knows everything, starting by rattling off all the foreign subtances on Wes' clothes, face, and hands. He offers naming the "contributors" to said subtances in alphabetical or chronological order, but Wes has already heard Too Much Information.
• In Lucy, as Lucy's mental powers evolve, she is able to perceive seemingly everything on Earth. When she recruits Pierre Del Rio, she is able to describe his desk in perfect detail without the aid of a surveillance camera. While on another continent.
• The Matrix: The Oracle is really, really good at predicting people's decisions. She does admit that her abilities have limits: if she doesn't understand a choice being made, obviously she can't predict what the outcome of that decision will be. The reality, as shown in two Smiths commenting on how events transpired before, as well as the Architect's talk with Neo on the history of Zion and the Matrix, is that the Oracle and the Architect knows what will happen because the virtual world is in a type of Vicious Cycle ever since its creation. Neo breaks that virtual cycle, which was why the Oracle met her limitations to how he would react, only to have the cycle repeat to a good end, in the real world.
  Neo: So she knows, what? Everything?
  Morpheus: She would say she knows enough.
• Men in Black 3 has Griffin, an odd variant of actual omniscience. He can see all possible futures with perfect clarity... but he has absolutely no idea which possibility is going to actually occur until it does.
• Indrid Cold of The Mothman Prophecies, who accurately predicts the future on multiple occasions, and can describe the details of John's hotel room, and even the words in a book he opens randomly, without physically being there to see any of it.
• In Thor, Heimdall can see and hear any event in the nine realms, but he has to be actively looking for it. Loki points out he has his limits, and Loki indeed knows of passageways between the realms that Heimdall is unaware of. In Thor: The Dark World, he can't see the Dark Elves' ships when they activate their cloaking tech, but he can still hear them.

Literature

• The Aash Ra in Astral Dawn are all omniscient. Magali, who hides the fact she's one of the Aash Ra, uses her vast knowledge to aid the high spirits of light during the Astral War and helps Caspian fulfill his destiny.
• Ronnie Schiatto from Baccano!. He got bored of it, so he turned it off.
• The Belgariad:
  • Errand/Eriond starts displaying omniscience at the beginning of The Malloreon. He generally acts like an ordinary if somewhat naive young boy, but when he feels it is 'appropriate', he reveals insight into things that neither he, nor anybody else, could possibly know. His first real display of this ability is when he quotes, word-for-word, a letter that was lost at sea in a shipwreck that left no survivors. And, when further questioned, it turned out that he also knew the exact circumstances behind the sending of said letter, even though it all happened several hundred miles away. He never really loses this ability, but the ever-present 'Prophecy of Light' rather cleverly diverts the thoughts of the people around him, preventing them from trying to take advantage of it. At the end of the series, it is revealed that his ability was due to him being, essentially, a sort of proto-god, who wielded a fairly impressive array of divine powers even prior to his ascension.
  • Both the Prophecy of Light and Prophecy of Dark fit this, as they seem to have their hands in a bit of darn near everything to ensure their goals come to pass.
• Cradle Series:
  • The Signature Move of the Arelius family involves spreading out a wide net of madra that lets you see and hear absolutely everything in range. At minimum this is a dozen feet, but Eithan can cover a small city. It's considered polite not to acknowledge all this, though, resulting in Cassias relaying a message to Eithan that everyone knows Eithan heard.
    Lindon: You can see the future?
    Eithan: Better! I can see the present.
  • Monarchs have something like this, implied to be related to mentioning their names. When Eithan claims that the Monarch Akura Malice approved of his plan, Malice's daughter Mercy waits a moment, then says Eithan is telling the truth. Because if he was lying, Malice would have killed him. From a thousand miles away. Even Eithan is shaken by that.
• The Outer Gods from the Cthulhu Mythos are all omniscient.
• Discworld:
  • Vetinari is not omniscient in the first sense. However, he does fit the second to a T, and many think that part of his amazing manipulation skill comes from being savvy enough to recognize 'main characters', which would place him squarely in the third category as well.
  • Death himself fits this trope as well. In Soul Music, when Susan goes to meet him before she was even conceived, he recognizes her and answers the question she came back to ask him. He says:
    Death: I have a unique memory.
    Susan: But I haven't even been conceived yet.
    Death: I did say unique.
• The Divine Comedy frequently asserts that God knows every man and womans's thoughts, sins, and fates, having predestined all things from the time of creation. This is especially emphasized in Paradiso, where the saints mention things they learned from God that would be impossible to otherwise know.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Ivy a.k.a. The Archive is a small girl with the entire sum of all human knowledge, including magic, crammed into her head. Anything that has been written, printed, or typed, is instantly downloaded into her mind. She also has perfect recall to all that information. From the ancient magical rituals Merlin of King Arthur's time could do, to the nuclear codes and the protection software that prevents hacking into those systems. This makes her very dangerous. Protagonist Harry Dresden notes that comparing her to the weakest Fae Queens is an underestimation of her power. For this reason, the Archive restricts herself to being neutral in all arbitration. She will not sell her knowledge for any price or for any personal connection. And that isn't even getting into her role as a Spymaster and hidden leader of an ancient order of people who fight equally ancient gods, destroying anyone who has knowledge of that evil god, erasing it from every text and database until all that remains is in her mind. And once it reaches there, after a few centuries just to make sure, she deletes the being's Name confining the being to oblivion.
  • A select few ancient, powerful beings possess an ability called intellectus, which lets them know the answer to any question just by asking it. The catch being they have to ask the right question. They do not actually know everything and every moment so they can be caught off guard. A few possess a limited form of it. For instance, the Skinwalker knows what will hurt someone the most, without knowing why. The island of Demonreach knows everything that happens on it. The Archangels are implied to have the intellectus on everything.
• The Heartstrikers:
  • Mortal Spirits, the true gods of the world, have complete knowledge of everyone and everything in their domains. The DFZ, only a few hours old and rather weak by Mortal Spirit standards, immediately recognizes two people out of the hundreds of millions in her domain and knows exactly why they were in her city.
  • In the sequel series DFZ, Mortal Spirits get more focus, but from a lower perspective. Nik assumes that the Empty Wind, Spirit of the Forgotten Dead, won't notice them looting one random corpse that he has claimed; he immediately notices, and the only reason he doesn't kill Nik is because Opal apologizes and explains how this will actually help the dead soul's last wishes (and they really should have just gone to the Empty Wind in the first place). The Spirit of Dragons claims she is not omniscient, since dragons are arrogant enough without her already knowing their names when they call, but Opal soon sees through the act when she is far more familiar with Opal's strange situation than it first appeared.
• The Nine-Eyed Fish from Hollow Places, at least according to itself.
• It's Not the End of the World: Karen's friend Val. Val explains it's because she reads The New York Times cover-to-cover every Sunday.
• The Kingkiller Chronicle: The Cthaeh, a fae entity trapped in a tree and unable to act upon the surrounding world other than speaking, is an infinitely malicious version. It knows every possible outcome for any action that could ever be taken, including your own reactions. So whenever you speak to it, it will deliberately pick the exact words that would cause the worst possible result for the world at large; it has infinite choice, and it will always pick the worst. There is an organization dedicated to sniping anyone that speaks to it precisely because any contact with the Cthaeh turns you into the equivalent of a plague ship sailing for a busy harbor, bringing disaster wherever you go.
• In the Known Space story Destiny's Forge, Patriarch's Telepath is capable of reading minds all over Kzinhome, even those shielded by other telepaths, and it's rumored that his gift can even reach to other stars. He sees the whole plot of the book coming... and decides it needs to happen, only giving events a few nudges here and there.
  I already know this. I am Patriarch's Telepath.
• Discussed in Isaac Asimov's "The Last Answer" by the godlike "Voice" that created the universe: it explains that, while it has infinite knowledge and power, it does not have complete knowledge, and indeed, might not even know all the gaps in its knowledge. One such gap is the means by which it could finally die, and it created a universe of thinking beings solely to produce more data to obtain that information.
• In Life, the Universe and Everything, a character named Prak was accidentally injected with too large a dose of Truth Serum before a trial, and consequently when he was instructed to tell "the whole truth and nothing but the truth," he did exactly that, sending people fleeing from the room upon hearing the truth about every last thing in the universe. Apparently, it did not take as long as expected, but "some of the good bits were about frogs".
• The Lord of the Rings:
  • Galadriel functions as an omniscient oracle to the Fellowship of the Ring, particularly Frodo.
  • Sauron has a variant of this ability; he can see (though not extend any of his other senses) anywhere in the world, so long as he isn't being blocked (and only the bearers of the Three Rings are shown to have the power to do this), but he isn't aware of everything at once and has to actively look for something to see it. This becomes a plot point in Return of the King, when Aragorn deliberately manipulates Sauron into focusing on him to the point that he becomes blind to everything else (most importantly, Frodo).
• Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime: Santa's elves do indeed know everything about all the children who write letters to Santa, and a few particularly good and bad ones are famous enough for the Clauses to remember offhand as well.
  Mrs. Claus Why this first [letter]]'s from little Karen Courtney. Santa and I know all about her. She's a little angel.
  Ribbons/Frank: Nice to old people.
  Bows/Hank: Kind to animals.
  Jingle: Picks up her room. Brushes her teeth. Wipes her boots before coming inside.
  Mrs. Claus: I don't think we need to worry about Karen. Now, how about this next one? Alvin Erie?
  Ribbons/Frank: Picks his nose.
  Bows/Hank: Fights with his brother.
  Jingle: Pouts. Cries.
  Mrs. Claus: My goodness. Coal?
  The Elves (in chorus) Coal.
• Paradise Lost: From His throne above the universe, God can look down and see all things with perfect clarity. Within seconds, the Thunderer notices the Son at his right hand, each angel circling like constellations in Heaven, the first Humans gardening on Earth, and Satan ascending from Hell to the Primordial Chaos.
• The Grim Reaper in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.
• Rock from Warrior Cats. He knows everything about the Clans and the Tribe, and is able to explain it all to some kits in the Expanded Universe book Cats of the Clans.

Live-Action TV

• Babylon 5:
  • If we failed to mention DRAAL, He would be certain to let us know.
  • Commander Ivanova, the Executive Officer of the titular space station, prides herself on this in regard to the operating and goings-on of the station. When Captain Sheridan decides to bring her in on his big secret, that there is a secret Human-Minbari covert operations organization operating on the station, who will help the heroes fight the Shadows, Ivanova reveals that she already knows all about it, casually remarking that if you were to ever discover that something was happening on the station that Ivanova did not know about, then you should worry.
• The Collector: The Devil. The limits of his awareness and power are not entirely clear, but he can see into people's minds across the whole universe.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Doctor, for all intents and purposes. He knows effectively everything that has happened or ever will happen across the whole of the universe, and on the occasions where he doesn't know something, it's because something is wrong and anyway, Awesome by Analysis will cover him until he sorts it. He does not, however, know his own personal future and actively avoids finding out about it, even with the presence of River Song (and to a lesser extent Amy and Rory), who know at least some of his future, including how he dies.
  • Then we have Dalek Caan, a former member of the cult of Skaro who eventually shifted himself through time to the Last Great Time War, saved Davros, and began the New Dalek Empire. However, this altered his mind, drove him insane, and showed him the whole of time and space. The result: he knows everything that ever has and ever will be.
• Game of Thrones: As an experienced greenseer, Jojen Reed can see things happening far away, in the future or the distant past, and can sneak into other people's dreams.
• The Good Place:
  • Janet, an information delivery system designed to make the afterlife easier. She knows everything that has ever happened in the entire universe, including what afterlife every single human ever ended up and exactly why they ended up there, and can create anything at any time, such as furniture, food, entire houses, and a fourteen-ounce ostrich steak impaled on a giant novelty pencil that says "Lordy, lordy, I'm over 40". She'd qualify as a deity in most religions if not for the fact that she has absolutely no will of her own and rarely actually understands the information she has.
  • When Janet's powers are temporarily disabled due to being on Earth, she is annoyed both because she can't summon objects at will and because her omniscience has stopped updating.
    Janet: The instant before we left, a man in Caracas, Venezuela named Raoul Benitez was eating a ham sandwich. Did he finish it? I don't know, and it's making me crazy. I gotta find him. [goes to leave]
  • Michael is a lesser, but still impressive, version. He has perfect memory, can speed-read through all of human literature in an hour, and has studied all the humans under his care. He therefore often references random events from their lives when they are relevant, because he knows absolutely everything they ever did.
• The title character of John Doe knows everything there is to know about everything, except his own identity.
• In Lost, Ben or Jacob seem to know everything. Not at the same time, however. Ben's omniscience shrinks away as Jacob is gradually introduced as The Man Behind the Man.
• The ascended Ancients in the Stargate-verse. Upon Ascending to a Higher Plane of Existence, they become omniscient but can't share this knowledge with mortals nor can they keep it if they decide to be Brought Down to Normal.
• Star Trek:
  • The Q are a race of beings that seem to be omniscient as well as omnipotent. They are all named "Q", but one individual shows up far more often than the others of his race. This particular Q, featured in both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager typically use his powers to be as awesome as possible.
  • In the TNG season 4 episode "The Nth Degree", a mysterious alien probe gives Lieutenant Barclay superhuman intellect — he proclaims "I understand... everything!" By the end of the episode, however, he has gone back to his usual stuttering self.
• Supernatural:
  • Death is functionally omniscient. Every time Dean tries to tell him something, the bored-looking Grim Reaper notes that he's already aware. He does show surprise when the Winchesters summon him and ask him to kill an evil god for them, so it seems he needs to focus his all-knowing powers for it to be effective.
  • God, naturally, also seems to possess this trait. When they try to ask for his help, he relays through an Angelic messenger that he already knows everything they want to tell him, he just doesn't care. He did write their story, after all...
    God: What part of 'omniscient' don't you guys understand?
• Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego: There's an entity the heroes rarely contact named Omnicia; they resort to contacting her when they need clues and have no other options, but it's generally unsafe to contact her due to heavy power needs in doing so. They never really explain who or what Omnicia is, but considering her name is "Omnicia", this trope is heavily implied at the very least!

Music

• Averted by Devin Townsend's Ziltoid the Omniscient. Ziltoid claimed to be omniscient, but later went to the Omnidimentional Creator, who plays this trope straight.

Mythology, Religion, and Folklore

• Yahweh/Allah of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc.) as well as God of monotheism in general — in theory and according to the common "official" interpretation. In practice, it gets difficult, and interpretations vary.
  • The stories in The Bible, which no matter what some moderns may think were usually not meant by the ancients to be literal history, sometimes date back to times before monotheism, and often contradict each other in detail, can sometimes be read as describing Yahweh not knowing things without looking or waiting and seeing what will happen.
  • Prescience is thought to conflict with human free will on the basis that a choice foreseen might as well be preordained. This depends on the view of just what free will means, though, which is more complicated than one might think. Among those who think there is a contradiction, some theologians/philosophers have let God maintain omniscience and compromised on human free will. Others have stated that since God is wholly outside time, He doesn't know things before they happen, so that's not a problem. Some have come to the conclusion that God's omniscience is limited so that He can't see the future past indeterministic events such as choices, though this can be accompanied by stating that just this is what omniscience really means, because you shouldn't ask for the impossible. Alternatively, being omniscient means God sees the results of all choices (including the branched results based on other people's responses, and responses to those responses) which does not exclude the ability to make them.
  • According to one interpretation, while God has complete knowledge of the past and present, He selectively uses His ability to see the future, and thus can be surprised or caught unprepared (by Satan's Face–Heel Turn, for instance). So, while He does know much more than humans, He doesn't technically know everything.
  • People in general are not very good at applying such complicated concepts in their thinking even while theoretically accepting them, so a believer in God who states God to be omniscient might not actually think accordingly.
• Classical Mythology has many examples; the Moirai Sisters are notable examples, as they were the Goddesses of Fate.
• In belief systems such as Hinduism and Pandeism, there is an omniscient Creator entity, but omniscience does not translate into action on its part; in Hinduism, Vishnu knows all things, but is busy being entertained by the events unfolding within it; in Pandeism, the Creator experiences all things as they happen but cannot interfere because it has become our Universe; it cannot know the ultimate future course of events, because it has become our Universe in part to see what that course of events will be.
• Odin in Norse Mythology, courtesy of his Cool Chair that lets him see the whole world and precognition (which he bought with his eye.) The latter, however, overlaps with Blessed with Suck since not even the Allfather could defy Fate. He also has two ravens that bring him the world's tidings every day, to fill in anything he misses.
• Santa Claus knows the names, locations and personalities of everyone in the world. Granted, this can leave some children rather... unsettled.

Tabletop Games

• Godforsaken: The goddess Vanemerre, reportedly, is all-knowing, at least in regard to all things Bontherre. She knows where everything and everyone is, and she sees what the future will bring. All paths through time and space are known to her.
• Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000: Though there are plenty of characters in the settings who will claim to know everything, and a few like the God-Emperor of Mankind who come quite close to claiming the title, ultimately there's only one entity who can really be said to know all...and it's not Tzeentch, the Chaos God of (among other things) Knowledge. Rather, it's the Lord of Change Kairos Fateweaver, his oracle, who can genuinely claim to know all, having been thrown into the Well Of Eternity by Tzeentch after his master grew too fearful to take the plunge himself, coming out knowing everything that is, has been and ever will be. Fortunately for the universe at large, all the knowledge of the universe came with a couple of hefty price tags. First, Kairos climbed out of the Well of Eternity stark raving mad and second, he's now completely blind to the present, only able to see the past or the future. Of course, this is less than comforting to those who actually have to fight Tzeentch's greatest Lord of Change in combat, since his all-knowing happens to include knowledge of arcane Warp sorcery.
  Kairos Fateweaver: "We know more than even he!"

Video Games

• Darksiders implies that Samael is this, or at the very least is as incredibly close as any mortal being can get to it by being the most knowledgeable being in all of Creation aside from potentially the Crowfather. Despite never leaving the spot of his imprisonment, he accurately knows whatever War's doing and claims that very little escapes his attention while stating he observed War's meeting with Ulthane despite the two being nowhere near him. II shows him quickly determining that Death has traveled to the past to meet him and that this meeting is completely unsanctioned and unknown to nearly all, and he hints he already knows what happens to War during the Apocalypse (it's never made clear exactly how far back in time Death went to meet him, but it definitely had to happen before or during the 100 years between Darksider's prologue and the game proper). How he knows so much is never made completely clear, but it's heavily implied he's a Time Master thanks to mastery of Chronospheres (which War claims full mastery of would allow someone complete control over time, including how to travel through it), which is shown by how he's able to give War a basic understanding of how to use them and how Lilith (his consort) is able to give Death the power to go into the past to confront him in the first place.
• Dishonored has the Outsider, an entity which can see all possible futures, pasts, and presents. However, knowing everything that could happen doesn't mean that he knows what will happen, and he states that his only source of entertainment is seeing what choices people will make (hence his lack of interest in influencing the actions of those he gifts with his Mark) — though he also seems to think that humanity is depressingly predictable.
  No one's watching Delilah now, except you. And me, of course. I see everything. I see forever.
• In Dota 2, the hero Omniknight worships a being named the Omniscience, which crosses this over with aspects of a Crystal Dragon Jesus who grants him light-based healing magic.
• Specifically averted in Duel Savior Destiny. God is omnipotent but not omniscient, so he's really pissed when stuff happens that he wasn't expecting. This is why he wants to destroy and remake the universe into something simpler, something he has already done multiple times before.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • This is believed to be one of the powers of the Hist, a race of ancient and sentient trees native to the Black Marsh who are worshiped by the Argonians. Through an unknown means, they are able to see into the future. Sensing the upcoming Oblivion Crisis and the trials that would follow, they recalled most of the Argonians in Tamriel to the Black Marsh to combat these threats and, through their sap (which the Argonians drink to grow and communicate with the Hist), changed the Argonians physically to better prepare them as weapons of war.
  • Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge who is also associated with Fate and Destiny, claims to be this, but there is evidence that he is not (and that fate is not definite in the ES universe). For one, a dragon and a powerful vampire state that the Elder Scrolls (the closest thing to absolute truthful records) only predict what may be, not what will be. Furthermore, the Scrolls themselves may change until the events predicted at a given time come to pass, at which point the words are absolutely fixed forevermore. So, what does this have to do with Hermaeus Mora? It undermines his claim to know all things, a claim implicitly undermined when he needs the Dragonborn's help to obtain the knowledge of the Skaal In Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC. Why would a truly omniscient being need help to obtain knowledge? The answer: he only wants you to think he is omniscient. Mora is capable of lying, or at the very least, misleading people. He led Septimus to think the Heart of Lorkhan was behind that locked door (it was actually holding the Oghma Infinium), so his claims to knowing all could be part of a similar deception.
• Elden Ring has the appropriately-titled Sir Gideon Ofnir, the All-Knowing. Though he's a bit more realistic about it. He'll openly admit that he doesn't literally know everything, and most likely never will, but damn if he isn't going to try. Even if it means committing some pretty horrific atrocities just to learn some previously unknown tidbits of knowledge. His endless thirst for knowledge also ends up biting him in the ass, as he eventually stumbles upon an Awful Truth that drives him mad.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Naminé has access to and can interfere with the memories of Sora and everyone connected to him, which might not sound much if not for the fact that Sora's heart is connected to almost everyone. Even people whom she never met, if they are so much as tangentially connected to Sora, she not only already knows who they are, but also their inner workings. She has also demonstrated the power to telepathically contact them, making her kind of an omnipresent as well.
  • The Master of Masters has precognition of everything that will happen. The catch is that the power is given by the Gazing Eye embedded within his Keyblade, so it needs to be passed from time to time for the ability to continue working.
  • The Magic Mirror from Birth by Sleep can answer any question truthfully, even one about the location of Master Xehanort.
    Magic Mirror: Beyond both light and dark he dwells, where war was waged upon the fells.
• The Legacy of Kain series has the Elder God and Moebius, both of whom have such extensive knowledge of the timeline and predestination that they can be treated as this. Neither of them do any time-travelling themselves, yet both of them address Kain and Raziel as old acquaintances centuries before they chronologically meet them for the first time, and can continue conversations without any Time-Travel Tense Trouble despite not seeing them for centuries. Unsurprisingly, they are very good at manipulating events and outcomes, at least until the Immune to Fate Raziel and Magnificent Bastard Kain work together to truly screw things up for them.
• Nasuverse: Multiple characters have clairvoyance, some of whom are so powerful with it that they qualify for the Grand Caster rank and, under the right circumstances, are recruited and empowered by Alaya to fight world-ending Beasts. They all have limitations as, for example, Goetia could not see beyond 2018 of Proper Human History with Solomon's Clairvoyance. Grimir the Sage, first introduced to the players as Cú Chulainn (Caster) and later revealed to be Odin the Allfather, has quite possibly the most powerful ability in the setting. He can see through past, present and future, can see what happens in the Lostbelts and the Singularities, and can exert his influence on all of them, well beyond the capabilities of the Grand Casters.
• Pony Island: Baphomet the demon knows everything about you. Your past, your present, and your future. Everything. However, he's not much of a conversationalist; you will only learn one truth at a time.
• Touhou Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires: The Final Boss, Toyosatomimi no Miko, who has the ability to listen to the ten desires, allowing her to know everything about any human she meets, as they are in the past, the present, and the future. This was even more-so when she first resurrected, drawing all the desires of the humans in Gensokyo to her, allowing her to know a good deal of info about the Magic Land and its inhabitants before she even left her tomb.

Webcomics

• Captain SNES: The Game Masta: The Sovereign of Sorrow claims to have the ability to see everything that is going to happen, but without a certain artifact containing some of her power, cannot see the past.
• Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: Fa'Lina, though it's limited to the academy and she mistakenly refers to it as "semi-omnipotence".
• LaPlace's Demon appears briefly in the "Advanced Dungeons and Discourse" strip of Dresden Codak. When ordered to attack an Invincible Villain, it immediately leaves, prompting another character to observe, "Guess he knew something we didn't."
• Homestuck:
  • Doc Scratch is this in theory. He has lapses, you see, but he pieces together what's happening pretty quickly.
    Occasionally I discover there are things I have not always known. It gives me the opportunity to make deductions, which are practically always flawless. It's gratifying.
  • Rose implies at one point that a fully realized Seer in Sburb could become this. John finds the idea of the already very smart Rose suddenly knowing everything to be rather disquieting.
• JoJopolis: Reverend Fred's Stand, God Only Knows, lets him see every event that has ever happened and will happen in the universe's history. The only exception is if a Stand-using blood relative is nearby... someone like Jordan, which also causes Fred to temporarily forget all of the knowledge he got from his Stand.
• In Kill Six Billion Demons, the God-Emperor Jadis tried to witness the true Shape of the Universe purely For Science! — effectively punching through a You Cannot Grasp the True Form of literally cosmic scope. Omniscience came to her in a Brown Note that scoured her mind and body, leaving her de-powered, entombed in glass, and capable only of whispering unerring but semi-coherent prophecies, which her priests are prone to misinterpreting in small but crucial ways. Even outside her glass tomb, she's a deeply jaded, nihilistic woman who believes actions are illusions and everything else (including people's identities and minds) are moot compared to the vastness of the Shape.
• The Order of the Stick has the kobold Oracle. Complete with snarkiness and Breaking the Fourth Wall. He can see the future, well enough to answer any questions from others as well as to know when he's going to die (next) and prepare for it by asking someone in advance to teleport in to resurrect him. He can also understand the gibberish Haley speaks at one point by looking into the future where the present comic is compiled into a book and it has translations for it. As an aside that seems to be unrelated to seeing the future, he can see disembodied souls that others can't.
• Schlock Mercenary:
  • Petey affects the mundane high technology and surveillance version, as part of his "I'm just trying to do what I think a god would do in my position" thing. He's not actually omniscient yet, but he's good at faking.
    'Kweng: Breacher beacon detected. Shall I let it transmit?
    Admiral Emm: Fine.
    'Kweng: It's simple text: "Admiral Emm. The Fleetmind will not interfere in this dispute, but we are watching."
    Admiral Emm: Let them watch. We'll finish this in one of the bays.
    'Kweng: Oh, hey...there's more text now: "We can watch there, too."
  • Petey's surveillance is so extensive that when someone needs to get a message to him through jamming, they decide to just send out a radio message (knowing it will be blocked by the top-secret ship that has captured them) and assume he'll hear it. It's pointed out that this is very similar to prayer.
• Sonichu: Magi-Chan Sonichu, CWCville's local exposition dumper originally merely had glimpses of the future that made the comic's plot self-spoiling. This changed as Flanderization kicked in, fully becoming an example of this by Sonichu 13. Chris herself also gained this ability in the same issue by virtue of becoming a goddess (specifically a CPU Goddess, though those didn't have omniscience). Chris also believes she actually has this power in real life, at least over Dimension C-197. Considering the fact that she's the author of the story that takes place there, she has a point.
• Navigators in Tower of God are a downplayed example. They (or at least the Red Witch variety) have an ability to see the future and to somehow see destinies that, absent rare special conditions, enables them to see the possible "paths" in any given situation or available to a person in the long term. So they know exactly what to do next. In a battle against a monster, a Navigator can tell you how to Attack Its Weak Point; they can walk straight through a maze, avoid traps, or solve a complex puzzle easily. The comic's wiki also tells us that "Navigators have excellent analysis skills, and an A-Rank Guide can determine the power of an individual just by looking at them."
• Union of Heroes has "The One Who Knows." His superpower is that any fact known by at least three people will be known by him as well.
• Zero Percent Discount: A kid's shoes are allegedly omniscient.
• Ramas of Zodiac might turn out to be this. He can see the future, but his hints kinda makes him a one-man (-jackal?) omniscient council of vagueness.

Web Original

• The Minecraft Multiverse:
  • In general, as the audience and viewers, in theory, the stream chats (should they be canonized to manifest in-universe) know everything that has been conveyed or presented in livestreams or episodes, and can freely access different perspectives to know what's going on with every POV character on the SMP. In practice, the chats only utilize this ability when they have to, such as in response to the creator-character specifically consulting them for advice (as most creators have a ban on metagaming or spoilers), and how much everyone actually knows depends on the individual. Notably, Jack Manifold's chat on the Dream SMP manifested as voices in his headset, who occasionally spit out messages and bits of information he wouldn't otherwise have known^note basically the chat metagaming and/or spoiling lore while he's in character through text-to-speech donations, causing him to think that the headset is both strange and important to him.
  • Empires SMP Season 2 plays with this in a non-traditional sense. While Pixlriffs is fairly knowledgeable about the history of the Empires world as a Game Master and the resident "Lore Man", he's actually this for Hermitcraft, a completely different universe to his own, by virtue of narrating for the Hermitcraft Recap Companion Show. Naturally, this causes complications once the Hermits actually show up in the Empires world during the crossover between the series.
    Gem: They've [the Hermits] found out that I like LARPing, it's weird.
    Pix: (laughing) Yeah, you and me both, right? Like, the first– the first thing they've said to me is like, "Oh, Hermitcraft Recap?" and I'm like, "Well, my cover's blown."
• RWBY: Jinn, the spirit inside the Relic of Knowledge, can answer three questions every hundred years. Any question, so long as it isn't about the future, and she'll even provide a narrated dream sequence for more complex questions.
• SCP Foundation: SCP-343 ("God") seems to have a knowledge of all topics, allowing him to speak with anyone about anything.
• Welcome to Night Vale: Cecil, host of Night Vale's community radio show, sometimes speaks of things he by all accounts shouldn't have any knowledge of. At least twice he has narrated one of the nefarious plots that happen daily in Night Vale, at the precise moments they were taking place, the participants heard it on the radio.
• In Worm, the Simurgh is so powerful a precognitive as to be effectively omniscient, being able to model the effects of her actions to achieve a domino effect which gets her what she wants. Unfortunately, she's also a monstrous Endbringer out to destroy humanity.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time:
  • Parodied with the demon cat.
    Demon Cat: Hello, Frank the human boy.
    Finn the human boy: How did you almost know my name?!
    Demon Cat: I have approximate knowledge of many things.
  • In one episode, Finn puts on a pair of magical glasses that give him omniscience... but also drive him insane. Amusingly, he knew he would go insane and planned his Batman Gambit accordingly.
• In Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, librarian spirit Wan Shi Tong claims to be this — his name is literally "He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things", which is a Taoist expression for knowing everything. However, he is dependent on whatever knowledge is brought to the library, either by his assistants or by outsiders, which makes him susceptible to corrupted and even outright wrong information. By The Legend of Korra, his isolation from the human world has made him ignorant of modern society.
• Clockwork in Danny Phantom. Since he's the ghost of Time, he knows everything that has happened, is happening, or can happen.
• Futurama:
  • The god entity in "Godfellas" knows what you're going to do before you do it... unless you do something else.
  • Also Bender in "Overclockwise". He manages to calculate the reason we exist, which ceiling-fans will fall, Fry's and Leela's ultimate fate as a couple, and possibly a lot more.
• Bill Cipher of Gravity Falls is implied to be this. He already knew who Gideon was before he summoned him.
  Gideon: How did you know my name?!
  Bill: Oh, I know lots of things. LOTS OF THINGS...
• Invader Zim's first episode has the Almighty Tallests described as "all-knowing" and "all-powerful". They're... really not.
• Skips from Regular Show is an immortal yeti who Mordecai and Rigby always look for when they have troubles. Due to his longevity and experiences of life, his omniscience always gets the job done, except for a few situations such as solving Error 219 in the computer and stopping Pops' sugar rush by eating more sugar.
• Trigon from Teen Titans (2003) is said to have this ability.
  Slade: What you fail to understand is that Trigon is all-seeing. His mind can be at any place, at any time.

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