"The Villain Knows" Moment

"I know you! I almost knew you as soon as I saw you on the road coming to my door. Since then, there is no movement of yours that has not betrayed you! A pace, a glance, a turn of the head, the flash of your throat as you breathe... even your way of standing perfectly still — they were all my spies!"

— King Haggard, The Last Unicorn

The Heroes have assembled. They have The Plan ready to go, they may have even taken steps to ensure an Unspoken Plan Guarantee. Things are looking good. They're cautiously optimistic that they can win.

And then the Big Bad drops the major bomb on them, figuratively speaking. They already know the key piece of information or the details of The Plan, and they've prepared accordingly.

Sometimes the villain reveals that they also know the hero's true identity, their Dark and Troubled Past, and may even attempt to Break Them by Talking.

For the audience and the heroes alike, this can be a major Oh, Crap! moment.

Of course, with a Guile Hero or The Chessmaster who's good at Xanatos Speed Chess, it could end up in an I Know You Know I Know situation. A Kansas City Shuffle may also impede such moments. This is also the moment that less Genre Savvy villains engage in Bond Villain Stupidity and Saying Too Much.

In some instances, to build dramatic tension, the audience will be told the villain is aware, but the heroes will not be, meaning they're walking right into a trap.

This trope is also a common target of subversion. The villain might smugly tell the heroic character that they are privy to their little secret. Cue the heroic character sweating bullets for a moment as they brace for the impact of their carefully laid plans coming crashing down, only for the villain to then reveal that they are entirely misinformed about whatever the secret is (possibly the villain turns out to be Right for the Wrong Reasons or Entertainingly Wrong). The villain might even just be talking about something completely unrelated and innocuous, but still treat it like they are about to drop some kind of incredible insight. In this kind of situation, a character with a tendency to act before they think might actually be the one accidentally gives away the information by panicking and ending up Saying Too Much before the villain can finish his statement (at which the bemused villain might note "Huh. I was really talking about something else entirely, but thank you for telling me nonetheless."). A savvier character will be able to keep their poker-face, hear the villain out, and — being in no hurry to disabuse them of their wrong assertion — fop them off with a quick Sure, Let's Go with That.

This is very common to the Magnificent Bastard, the Manipulative Bastard, and evil versions of The Chessmaster. It's also likely to aid the villain with a Batman Gambit or a Xanatos Gambit.

Woe to the Fake Defector in these situations, as the villain likely knew about them the whole time.

More visceral and physical villains may reveal that they know of someone's actions with an Offhand Backhand on someone who was moving to attack them from behind.

Supertrope to Villain Reveals the Secret. A subtrope of The Reveal.

Can overlap with Internal Reveal if the audience knows what the villain knows, but the heroes are unaware. Often overlaps with Wham Line.

Contrast Knew It All Along, which is when someone pretends to have known something all along.

Due to the nature of the trope, beware of unmarked spoilers.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• My-HiME: Nagi's effectiveness as The Dragon to the Obsidian Prince is that he tends to know exactly what's going on and who's up to what.
  • Subverted in episode 4. Nagi hints that he knows about Natsuki being forced into Going Commando by snarking at her, "Did you catch a draft on your cute little bum?" Unfortunately for him, the thing he doesn't seem to know is when it's a good idea to keep his mouth shut, as Natsuki takes affront and shoots him point blank with an ice bullet, leaving him dangling from the catwalk railing.
  • In a later episode, Mai attempts a Guile Hero move, telling Nagi that she's prepared to play the Obsidian Prince's game and become his bride, but first she wants to meet him face to face to confirm if his ability to grant the winner of the HiME Festival a wish is true or not. Her actual plan, as postulated to her by Midori, is to attempt to take out the Obsidian Prince the moment she meets him. But Nagi and the Obsidian Prince have been doing this for centuries, and see right through her.
• Ranma ½: In the "Moxibustion Arc", after Ranma has been rendered physically weak by Happōsai, Cologne teaches him the Hiryū Shōten Ha, a technique that requires no strength and uses an enemies power against them. Ranma masters the technique, then goes off to confront Happōsai. Except there's a problem. Easily provoked as Happōsai usually is, he refuses to fight Ranma. Then it turns out that despite Cologne's earlier statement that no-one outside of her tribe had seen the Hiryū Shōten Ha in hundreds of years, Happōsai reveals that he knows the technique and that Ranma is trying to use it. How? Turns out Cologne forgot that the last time she used the technique over a hundred years earlier, it was against Happōsai.
• Space Battleship Yamato 2199:
  • Desslar has a hotline to Starsha of Iscandar. One conversation he has with her early on has him reveal to her, without saying it out loud, that he knows she's the one who provided Earth with the plans for the Wave Motion Engine, and, in turn, allowed them to make a Wave-Motion Gun. He's fully aware of their final destination, the planet Iscandar, which he can literally see from his bedroom window.
  • Nolan is escorting Yuki Mori, whom everyone has mistaken for Yurisha of Iscandar, around the capital of Gamilus. She makes the mistake of asking him about the beautiful moon in the sky, which he then tells her is Iscandar, which she would have known as Yurisha. She asks him how long he's known. He says he wasn't certain until that moment. She then asks what he plans to do. He tells her his duty is to protect her, and that hasn't changed.
  • Celestra and Desslar tip to the fact that Yuki is not Yurisha fairly quickly, but Desslar tells his people that doesn't matter. So long as the citizens of Gamilus believe that it is Yurisha, it will be all he needs to cement his plans in place.

Comic Books

• Back to Brooklyn: Bob is horrified to discover his brother Paul is a pedophile, but not as much as when he reveals this to his wife and she contemptuously asks "Who do you think was holding the camera?". Not only that but she wanted to film Paul raping her son, and he'd been the one to refuse.
• Daredevil: During "Guardian Devil", Matt asks Doctor Strange to help him figure out who has been trying to mess with him and his friends. Strange summons Mephisto, and asks him what he knows. Mephisto is summoned in a position where he's bound and blindfolded, and Strange asks him if he knows anything about the returning of the Messiah as an infant. Mephisto points out that in The Bible, Jesus will return as an adult, the way he left, then grins evilly, asking how the person who wants to know can be so blind. It is at that moment that Matt knows Mephisto is aware of his presence.

Films — Animation

• The Last Unicorn:
  • Downplayed. Mabruk, angry at being cast out by Haggard, starts to summon a powerful spell, only for Amalthea to step between the wizard and Haggard. Mabruk sees the star-shaped mark on her forehead glow and pulse, and starts laughing madly at Haggard, showing Mabruk knows who and what Amalthea really is.
    Mabruk: Haggard, I would not be you for all the world! You have let your doom in by the front door! But it will not depart that way! Farewell, poor King Haggard. Farewell. (vanishes in a whisp of smoke)
  • It's hinted shortly after the arrival at Haggard's castle that he suspects that Amalthea is, in fact, a unicorn. But he confirms it while confronting Amalthea on a balcony. Schmendrick also is aware that Haggard knows, telling Molly.
    Schmendrick: Molly, he knows. Haggard knows what Amalthea is, I'm sure of it.

Films — Live Action

• The Assistant: While working as an assistant for a very successful producer, Jane cracks and goes to HR to inform them about his mass sexual assault (including of very young women). This happens three times to her in quick succession. First, HR spells out to her that they know all about the producer's abuses and won't do anything about them. Then, when Jane returns to her desk, despite Wilcok's promise not to share that information, it becomes clear that two of her unfriendly co-workers know that she went there to report him when they tell her to "come to them first." Then the Boss himself calls Jane. After having essentially berated and attacked her throughout all of their other conversations, this time the Boss is extremely nice to Jane and tells her he thinks she's cut out for big things. Jane's facial expressions reveal that, while she's flattered, she knows exactly what caused this change.
• Die Hard: Inverted. John McClane has run into an escaped hostage named Bill Clay and is escorting him to relative safety. Of course, the audience knows that "Bill" is really Big Bad Hans Gruber, but then again, when Hans finds that the gun John gave him is empty, he realizes that so, too, did John.
  Hans: I'm going to count to three...
  John: Like you did with Takagi?
  [Hans pulls the trigger repeatedly to find the gun empty]
  John: Whoops. No bullets! [takes the gun back] You think I'm fucking stupid, Hans?
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: After finally entering the Lonely Mountain to try stealing from Smaug, only to wake the dragon up and find himself Alone with the Psycho, Bilbo finds himself locked in a desperate attempt at flattering Smaug to keep himself alive as long as possible, along with giving himself numerous titles to prevent the dragon finding out his real name. Smaug, being a Faux Affably Evil narcissist, happily plays along with it, until he suddenly reveals that he knows Bilbo didn't come to confront him alone:
  Smaug: And what about your little Dwarf friends? Where are they hiding?
  Bilbo: D-Dwarves? No, there's no Dwarves here, you've got that all wrong.
  Smaug: Oh, I don't think so, "Barrel-Rider". They sent you in here to do their dirty work, while they skulk about outside! {...} I know the smell and taste of Dwarf! No one better! It is the gold. They are drawn to treasure like flies to dead flesh!
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming has a scene where Adrian Toomes, aka the Vulture learns that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, shown in a "Eureka!" Moment. Shortly afterwards, he has his daughter Liz Allen get out of the car so that he can give Peter "the dad talk". This is where he reveals that he's figured it out and offers to spare Peter and his loved ones as gratitude for saving Liz, but only if he stays out of his way.
  • Avengers: Endgame: The Avengers perform a Time Travel across different eras to retrieve the Infinity Stones (Thanos had destroyed them in the present) in order to bring back all the people who vanished at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. However, when Nebula and Rhodey travel to 2014 to retrieve the Power Stone, Nebula experiences an overlap with the memories of the 2014 version of herself, who happens to be with Thanos at that time. Thanos scans the memories with the Nebula who's with him and discovers what the Avengers plan to do in the future. When the present-era Nebula exits the overlap, she realizes to her horror that Thanos discovered the plan and tries to go back to the present, but she's abducted into the Sanctuary II.
• Return of the Jedi: Palpatine tells Luke, who is a prisoner, that he is fully aware of the Rebel fleet approaching, as it was he who allowed the Death Star's location to be leaked to the Rebel Alliance, and that he has an entire legion of troops waiting on Endor to deal with the team assigned to destroy the deflector shield generator.
• Whiplash: After Andrew gets kicked out of college for fighting Fletcher, he talks to the investigation into Fletcher's violent and abusive conduct. When Fletcher comes to him and offers him a position in his band as Fletcher has also lost his position, he can't resist saying yes. But, when Andrew gets up to perform, Fletcher drops the following bomb on him:
  Fletcher: Do you think I'm fucking stupid? I know it was you.

Literature

• The Dark Half: Elizabeth Beaumont, confronted by the physical manifestation of her husband's pseudonym, George Stark, is abducted, along with their twin children, by the dark reflection of her husband. She manages to conceal a pair of scissors in her panties to stab Stark if the opportunity presented itself. Once they reach their destination, an occasion arises where Stark needs the scissors and reaches into Elizabeth's undergarments to retrieve them. She is both alarmed and astonished that he knew they were there.
• Discussed in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Immediately after Harry, Ron and Hermione have formed their secret Defence Against the Dark Arts group "Dumbledore's Army", notices appear all around the school from Professor Umbridge decreeing that all student groups are disbanded. Harry says angrily that it's not a coincidence, and that Umbridge knows. A similar moment occurs on their own side when their ally Sirius Black reveals that he also knows, which they were not expecting.
  Harry: Umbridge has passed a decree, meaning we're not allowed to have Quidditch teams.
  Sirius: Or secret Defence Against the Dark Arts groups?
• The Hunger Games: In Catching Fire, President Snow visits Katniss at her home to warn her that her and Peeta's action of threatening to commit mutual suicide rather than be forced to kill each other at the end of the 74th Hunger Games is inspiring an uprising among the oppressed districts. He reveals that he knows about her hunting in the woods with Gale, which is illegal, and the only reason he doesn't execute her is because it would make the districts even more angry (Gale has no such protection, however). He uses this information to threaten her that while she's on the Victory Tour, she better act like she's nothing but a silly, lovestruck girl and no Icon of Rebellion. His last words to her before he leaves the house are "By the way, I know about the kiss," revealing that he also knows about the time when Gale kissed her when they were alone.
• Living Dead Girl: One of Ray's favorite tactics of emotional warfare against Alice is to pretend that he knows less than he does, only to reveal that he does even if it's petty. The biggest and most dramatic example is when he goes to the park and learns that Alice has been talking to Barbara, a police officer. Though Alice hasn't engaged with Barbara, Ray doesn't believe her and ultimately rages at her to the point where he stabs her.
• Yes, Daddy: Jonah's relationship with Richard goes horrifically sour after he writes a dramatic scene where a fictional Expy of Jonah confronts "Richard" for sexually assaulting him. Jonah falls asleep and leaves the laptop open, causing Richard to read the scene on the laptop. For a while, it appears that things might be okay, but it soon becomes clear to Jonah that it won't and Richard will make him suffer.

Live-Action TV

• Leverage: Frequently subverted on the show. There are many instances where it looks like the Big Bad of the episode is aware of the heroes and what they're doing, but typically this is a Kansas City Shuffle by The Chessmaster, Nate. The first and most glaring example is in the pilot episode when Victor Dubenich shows his Dragon the bug the team had planted, then leads him out of the room so they can talk freely, saying that he figured it out quickly, what with Nate using "Nigerians", as it was too reminiscent of an internet scam. But it turns out Nate and the others wanted Victor to find the bug "with the blinking red light" so he would give himself enough rope to hang himself thinking he was being clever.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "The Best of Both Worlds", the Enterprise crew comes up with a plan to stop the Borg using the Enterprise's main deflector dish. At the end of Part One, Riker gives the order to fire and Worf initiates it... only for it to have no effect at the beginning of Part Two. Locutus reveals that because he's the assimilated Captain Picard, the Borg have learned all the anti-Borg plans that he knew about and have already adapted to counter them.

Video Games

• Far Cry 3: Player Character Jason Brody and his new associate Sam Becker have been going undercover in order to infiltrate the Ruthless Modern Pirates who operate on the Rook Islands. Most recently, they've been invited to a game of poker by the Privateers' boss, Hoyt Volker, in which Sam plans to stab Hoyt to death. Early on in the game, though, whilst a lull is going on, Hoyt suddenly pulls out an even bigger knife, and he's the one who stabs Sam to death instead, before turning to Jason and delivering this Wham Line:
  Hoyt: Let's raise the stakes a little, shall we? Foster... Jason Brody... whatever your name is, it's slipped my mind. HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK I AM?!
• Honkai Impact 3rd: In Chapter 39, our heroes have been prepared to go against the "god-like entity" Sa, which threatens to destroy the "bubble universe" they're in, including the possibility that "she" might be omniscient, so they try doing their thing with only the subtlest of communications. But it's when Prometheus was backstabbed by Sa's agent, Vita, that it's revealed that Sa can read their minds too. From then on, it's almost by the sheer stroke of luck that our heroes can finally have a chance of fighting back.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Near the end of the game, once all Sages have been rescued in the Temples, Link reunites with Sheik in the Temple of Time, who tells him the truth about how the Triforce works and then reveals her true identity as Princess Zelda. She tells Link that she disguised as Sheik so she could escape Ganondorf's evil forces and help Link over the course of his adventure, and then gives him the Light Arrows (which are capable of penetrating the evil king's defenses). Unfortunately for her, Ganondorf casts a Crystal Prison onto her, and reveals that he knew all along about Link's plan to awaken the Sages and defeat him; he hadn't done anything against him by that point because he knew that Sheik would eventually drop her guard and expose her true identity. Link has no option but to go to Ganon's Tower to confront the Big Bad and save the princess as well as Hyrule.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Halfway through the episode "The Day of Black Sun", there's the big Internal Reveal that Azula's known about the invasion for months, and she planned ahead (meaning that Ozai isn't anywhere where the Avatar can get to him, she has her Dai Li agents to protect her (seeing as how they're earthbenders and unaffected by the eclipse), and she's easily able to manipulate Sokka into wasting the precious time they have.
• Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures: "Assault On Questworld" has Surd use Questworld to take Hadji hostage, threatening to fry his mind unless Dr. Quest and Race Bannon enter Questworld to confront him in five minutes. Only Dr. Quest and Race are on the other side of the world in the Himalayas, and unable to be contacted at that time. Jonny and Jessie use Questworld to mask their identities as their fathers to confront Surd. Only for Surd to reveal that he knows it's Jonny and Jessie, as he hacked the Quest's email system and moved up the date for Dr. Quest and Race to go on their trip.
• South Park has an example involving a Gambit Pileup between Eric Cartman and Scott Tenorman in the Season 5 episode Scott Tenorman Must Die. After Cartman ultimately fails to recover his money from Scott (who burns it right after humiliating him), he devises a plan to humiliate him in return: He begins training a pony so it bites Scott's penis during a chili festival, and tries to persuade Stan and Kyle to invite Scott himself into the event; the two boys not only refuse to join his plan but secretly call Scott via phone to leak the information to him, thus giving him a chance to retaliate with an even more humiliating plan (to make Cartman eat chili seasoned with the pubic hair of half the population of South Park during their chili festival). During the fateful event, Cartman tries to convince Scott to ride the pony so everybody can see it bite his penis, but Scott ends up overriding the plan in favor of both going first to eat chili, so it all seems like Scott has succeeded in his sordid plan. However, when the two characters are about to finish eating and Scott prepares to reveal the Awful Truth (that Cartman supposedly ate the chili seasoned with pubic hair), Cartman in turn reveals to Scott that he knew about that plan; so he not only ate chili from a different bowl, but also reveals that Scott inadvertently ate chili seasoned with the remains of his parents. Cartman proceeds to explain how that happened, and it all started from the moment he tried to invoke this very trope thanks to Stan and Kyle (the plan about the pony biting Scott's penis was a decoy).
• Teen Titans:
  • "Masks" sees a new and enterprising villain known as Red X stealing components that Slade wanted, then offering to sell them to Slade. Having finally gathered all the components, Red X asks Slade what he wants with them, at which point Slade says, "Patience. You can't expect me to trust with such sensitive information right away, can you...Robin?"
  • Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire are fighting evil duplicates of themselves, who know what they know, who can do what they can do, as Robin and Slade try to retrieve Raven from the Underworld. The trio know they're fighting a delaying action, and they don't stand much of a chance. However, when they effectively win by switching dance partners, as it were, the duplicate of Starfire decides to turn the tables by revealing to her master, Trigon that Robin and Slade are moving against him. Trigon calmly and casually says, "I know." Cyborg notes to his friends that Trigon had always known, and was just toying with them.

---