Basic Trope: Something known to the audience is not known to all or some of the characters until much later.
- Straight:
- Bob and the audience knows Alice is a Supervillain, but this is when Carol and Dave find out.
- Carol is a A.I. that gained sentience, as shown on the first episode. It quietly pulls the strings until the last episode of the season, when the rest of the characters find out.
- Exaggerated: Alice's supervillainy borders on Obviously Evil. Dave doesn't see it until the final episode.
- Downplayed: The audience is given a good idea that Alice is a supervillain and/or Bob already knows her secret. Carol and/or Dave finding out either is when they're confirmed.
- Justified: The secret is something that the author believes would look like an Ass Pull or otherwise come out of left field and potentially upset the audience insofar as it would look like bad, hasty writing if it were kept secret from them. Going this route allows the author to preserve the plot while allowing the story viewpoint to take a different tack in seeing how the secret-holder goes to uphold it until the proper time.
- Inverted:
- Alice was nice from day one to the audience, but for some reason, everyone feared her. It is in the last episode we find out why.
- Carol the AI, as it turns out, was just a very sophisticated program that was given sentience-like abilities to fuel WMG. This reveal is given through an As You Know.
- Subverted: It turns out Alice's villainy was all an act to trick Bob, and Carol and Dave's obliviousness was part of the trick.
- Double Subverted: But Carol and Dave weren't faking their obliviousness, while Alice found herself Becoming the Mask.
- Parodied: After many other tries and using many other methods, Alice gives a Sarcastic Confession out of desperation. It is then Bob realizes she's a villain.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice does something evil, Bob finds out about it, and he shows it to Carol and Dave. Carol is Agent Scully about it, while Dave believes him but gets Laser-Guided Amnesia. Then Bob shows his evidence of Alice's villainy to Carol and Dave again.
- Averted:
- Alice decides to quit her life of villainy and join Carol and Dave, who never find out the truth about her.
- Carol, having completed its work, temporarily shuts off its sentience capabilities and continues its functions as a normal computer. Its secret remains safe with the viewer.
- Enforced:
- The creator wanted to show the keeping of the secret as part of the conflict the secret-holder needed to face.
- Alice's secret supervillainy was a means to demonstrate her cleverness and guile in cozying up to those who would stop her.
- Carol's secret status as something not human came because she was afraid of telling the actual humans that she had gained sentience, knowing how many works out there like 2001: A Space Odyssey had depicted sentient AIs as something to fear, even if she herself is benevolent.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
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