Basic Trope: A character explains the plot to characters who already know it so the audience can understand.
- Straight: Alice tells Bob that they're on a quest to recover the MacGuffin, even though they are already several days into said quest.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice tells Bob the history of the MacGuffin in the question, how it was stolen, and then that they're on a quest to recover it.
- Alice introduces herself to Bob in every episode even though they're childhood friends.
- Downplayed:
- Justified:
- Bob isn't taking the mission seriously, so Alice reminds him of it and how important it is.
- Bob is an idiot and needs constant reminders or else he'll never get the details straight.
- Alice doesn't care that Bob already knows everything; she just likes hearing the sound of her own voice.
- Alice and Bob are on multiple quests, and Alice clarifies that they're fighting Big Bad Charlie because he has the MacGuffin, not because he kidnapped Princess Emily.
- Bob brought people who weren't given the details of the quest.
- Alice has new information about their quest, so she leads off by reminding Bob of what he knows before introducing what he doesn't yet know.
- Alice is trying to clue Bob into the fact that something about what they know doesn't add up.
- Alice is nervous, and is just babbling obvious facts to relieve it.
- Bob recently suffered a severe injury and Alice is making sure he isn't suffering from memory issues.
- Alice knows that, and Bob knows that, but Charlie (who is eavesdropping on the conversation) doesn't know that, and Alice believes he should.
- Inverted:
- Bob doesn't know what the mission is, but Alice refuses to tell him.
- Bob doesn't know some information which Alice doesn't want him to know, and just to be on the safe side, she uses a memory-erasing gun on him.
- Dramatic Irony
- Subverted:
- Alice is cut off by a gunshot noise.
- Despite what Alice thought, Bob didn't know anything about the MacGuffin.
- Alice didn't tell Bob about the quest.Bob: What do you mean, "We're trying to recover a MacGuffin"? I thought this was just a vacation!
- Double Subverted:
- When the danger is over, she resumes telling Bob.
- Bob heard about the MacGuffin from somebody else.
- Alice did tell Bob about the quest, but she had forgotten that.
- Parodied:
- Alice tells Bob every little detail about the entire universe.
- Alice tells Bob in multiple languages.
- Alice tells Bob many things he already knows, but nothing he doesn't already know.
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes Alice explains the plot to Bob even though he already knows, but at other times, he doesn’t know.
- Averted: Alice doesn't tell Bob things he already knows.
- Enforced: "The characters know, but we need a way for the audience to know."
- Lampshaded: "I already know this, why are you telling me?"
- Invoked: The villain, Charlie, slips some truth serum into Alice's coffee.
- Exploited: Charlie hides in waiting to eavesdrop on Alice and Bob.
- Defied: Debbie, Alice and Bob’s boss, gives them strict instructions not to talk about the mission in case someone else hears.
- Discussed: Bob tells Frank how strangely Alice has been acting lately: "I hope she doesn't start every other exchange with me by telling me things I've already learned."
- Conversed: "Doesn't it just break your suspension of disbelief when characters tell each other what they already know? Why not just have a caption explaining that information?"
- Implied: The scene starts with Alice telling Bob, "...and as you know, that's the mission."
- Deconstructed: Bob gets annoyed with Alice and takes her reminders of things he already knows as an insult to his intelligence and competence.
- Reconstructed: In a Leaning on the Fourth Wall moment, Alice says she's explaining it so "other people" can hear, which Bob accepts.
As You Know, this is a trope subpage. Specifically, the playing with page.
