Big Secret has a rather narrow definition: someone in a mystery who's hiding a Dark Secret (i.e., something that is embarrassing, incriminating, or otherwise harmful), and their secrecy causes them to become a suspect; however, it's revealed to be completely unrelated to the crime at hand. e.g., Alice is hesitant to say where she was at the time of Bob's murder because she was cheating on her husband across town.
However, it suffers from a very ambiguous name. The name 'big secret' makes all these key elements unclear, thus causing people to mistake it for Dark Secret or Plot-Driving Secret.
Correct use—Dark Secret + Red Herring (12/50, 24%)
- Characters.Trustfell 4 Trust Fall Or Die Hard: (Christo) Christo isn't a demon at all. He's afraid to tell the truth, especially with a canonmate around, but it ends up having nothing to do with why he was murdered.
- Literature.Gambit: Blount is adamant in his reluctance to admit that he drugged the murder victim as a petty prank. If he had revealed this earlier, it would have pointed to the real poisoner immediately and kept Dan Kalmus from being murdered.
- Literature.Lord Peter Wimsey:
- In Whose Body?, Thipps becomes a suspect because he gives a confused account of his whereabouts during the time the corpse was deposited in his apartment. He eventually admits that he had been persuaded to go to a nightclub, and narrowly avoided getting arrested when it was raided by the police.
- In Clouds of Witness, the Duke was committing adultery when his sister's fiancé committed suicide. The other woman was married to a vindictively jealous man, and the Duke refuses to put her in harm's way to clear himself.
- In Have His Carcase, a boat was off shore when Harriet found the body. The owner was surly and obstructive, and his grandson had gone off to Ireland. When they had constructed several theories involving this boat, the grandson reappeared and explained that he and his grandfather had been poaching on another fisherman's lobster pots.
- Literature.Never Dream Of Dying: When it becomes clear that the Union has an agent at the prison where Yassassin is kept, the staff are all checked for eye tattoos. One innocent man initially refuses to see the MI6 optometrist because he's suffering from a degenerative eye disease and is afraid that he'll be fired before he qualifies for his pension.
- Literature.The Cinderella Murder: Everything to do with Nicole's fight with Susan, her sudden move away from L.A. and her connection to Advocates for God. While Susan and Nicole did argue fiercely over Nicole involving Keith in the church and Nicole's devotion to Reverend Martin Collins (and this may have impaired Susan's judgement afterwards), neither Nicole or the church had any involvement in Susan's murder. The reason Nicole fled from L.A. and went to great efforts to keep a low profile is because after the argument, she caught Martin molesting a ten-year-old girl and realised Susan had been right to distrust him. Martin threatened to kill Nicole and everyone she loved if she ever told anyone about what she saw; terrified and ashamed, Nicole essentially went into hiding. Martin is concerned about what Nicole might reveal about him on Under Suspicion when he learns of her of involvement, which is why he orders Steve Roman and Keith Ratner to keep tabs on her and the others involved in the show, but he didn't kill Susan; as Nicole notes he had no real reason to and she of course saw him at his house at the time Susan was killed.
- OurMissBrooks.Tropes A To I:
- In "Stolen Aerial," Miss Brooks is able to get a discount from a wolfish television repairman who wants to go out with her. Miss Brooks is advised to keep her discount a secret so as not to get many more freeloaders wanting the same deal. Too late, Mrs. Davis and Walter Denton had already let the cat out of the bag. Miss Brooks gets deluged with broken aerials and even television sets needing repair. However, Miss Brooks keeps her promise; she hides the real reason for her sudden television-equipment windfall from Mr. Conklin. Unfortunately, the television repairman had accidentally lent Miss Brooks Mr. Conklin's checkered television aerial. Mr. Conklin concludes Miss Brooks is a "female Fagin", using Mr. Boynton and several high school students to run a television-equipment theft ring.
- The Big Secret trope again appears in "The Jewel Robbery." Mr. Conklin accidentally breaks a jewelry store window when carrying a bad a laundry to the cleaners. Conklin believes the police want him for the inadvertent vandalism. In reality, they're looking for a thief who had robbed the jewelry store a short time before.
- Series.Mare Of Easttown: Mark doesn't come forward regarding Erin's visit that night because of his history of molestation which he feared would make him the prime suspect in her murder case.
- Series.NCIS:
- "One Shot, One Kill": after his initial alibi (that he was running on the base's track) is exploded, the suspect admits the truth rather than be charged with murder: he was visiting a squad mate's wife;
- "Lt. Jane Doe": The suspect, a Navy officer, admits that he was "seeing" another officer at the time of the murder, but refuses to give the name. Gibbs says there's no crime in two officers seeing each other if neither of them is married. Under pressure, the suspect says that as far as the Navy's concerned, it is a crime... because both officers are men.
- Subverted for Laughs in "Incognito": the suspect, who's both a Marine Drill Sergeant Nasty and a Scary Black Man, asks if he can reveal his alibi out of earshot of the recruits: Tony and McGee oblige him, and he confesses he was rehearsing in his local theater troupe's upcoming production of La Cage aux folles.
- Series.Only Murders In The Building: Red Herring: After spending most of the first season setting Teddy and Theo Dimas as being responsible for Tim Kono's death, it turns out they were connected by an entirely different crime.
- Series.The Murder Game: At least one of the suspects lies about their whereabouts during the murder because what they were really doing would have got them in trouble of a different kind.
- TearJerker.Star Trek The Next Generation: "The Drumhead" gives us Nervous Wreck and certified Woobie, Simon Tarses, who is accused of being part of a conspiracy on board the Enterprise by Betazoid interrogator Sabin. Why? Because he lied about his heritage when he got into Starfleet, and he doesn't have Vulcan, but Romulan bloodlines.
- WesternAnimation.Batman Gotham By Gaslight: When Bruce is arrested as a suspect. He has no alibi for the murder times. Batman does.
Just a Dark Secret (17/50, 34%)
- Characters.Halt And Catch Fire: (Donna Clark) She has yet told Gordon that she was pregnant, and she aborted the pregnancy. Given their divorce before the end of the 1980s/start of the 1990s, she likely never told Gordon.
- Characters.The Lost Crown: (Lucy Reubans) There are signs throughout the game that Lucy is hiding a secret of her own: she has a private phone conversation with an implied partner arranging to meet at the Martello Tower, surprisingly revealed to be the journalist, Alex Spitmoor. It's revealed that Alex Spitmoor is an undercover detective, and Lucy is his sister who is trying to assist in his investigation.
- Characters.Memory Sorrow And Thorn: (Towser) Privy to some rather delicate details of King John’s court, including Camaris’ Dark Secret.
- Characters.Troubled Blood: (Wilma) She and her family went to a lot of trouble to hide the fact that during the time Margot was kidnapped, Wilma had left town on family business without permission from her employers and had a relative doing the cleaning for her and pretending to be her.
- Film.Miss Violence: Although Eleni's friend and neighbor seems to have an inkling about what is going on behind the scenes, the family manages to keep the truth about the horrific abuse happening in its midst under wraps.
- Literature.Lady Clare: "Lady Clare" isn't. She's actually the nurse's daughter, swapped in when the real Lady Clare died. Despite the pleading of her birth mother, she says she can't lie, especially to her betrothed. However, when she tells Lord Ronald, he doesn't care; heiress or not, she's still the woman he means to marry.
- Literature.Liar 2009: Micah is a werewolf. Or is she?
- Literature.Three Men Out: Several of Leo Heller's innocent clients are embarrassed to say why they wanted to see him. One wanted Leo to make a mathematical estimate of how long his wealthy aunt would live so he could borrow against his inheritance. Another needed help doing her job and was afraid of showing weakness to ambitious subordinates. The third was receiving blackmail notes.
- Main.Mister Big: The Empire Novels' The Currents Of Space: Fife, the most powerful nobleman on his planet, has a Big Secret; despite appearing imposing, their legs are so short that, when they're standing and someone else is sitting, their eyes are on the same level.
- Music.Scandal: In a 2017 interview with Music Saturday, Haruna and Rina tell theirs Haruna is something of a masochist and ever since she got her own place, Rina goes around only wearing her panties at home., after hearing about this Mami gives Rina a "What the...?" look
- Recap.Law And Order S 22 E 19 Private Lives: Congresswoman Bartell didn't want anyone to know that she knew about her husband providing puberty blockers, since that would wreck her image as a firebrand conservative. Debra Myers didn't want anyone to know that she authorized the puberty blockers for Taylor. One of the prosecutors' main difficulties in the case was getting both of those women to testify.
- Recap.Penny And Aggie Missing Person The Belleville Interviews: Aggie resists telling the FBI about Brandi's assault on Xena, and the role she and her friends played in covering it up, but finally caves.
- Series.Broadchurch: EVERYONE, including Hardy. Danny has £500 in cash hidden in his bedroom, his sister has cocaine in hers and had a boyfriend who was dating a minor, his dad was having an affair, his mum is pregnant... A major theme of the show, in fact: everyone has secrets, even people who you wouldn't suspect, and every single secret is harmful to someone (which is why it's being kept secret).
- Series.Forever 2014: The main secret is Henry's immortality.
- Series.The Lakes: This is a community that is full of imperfectly concealed secrets. A lot of people and pretty exclusively centred around adultery.
- Theatre.Curtains: Niki has one, namely that she's actually friends with Daryl Grady and he's been purposely praising her in his reviews to help further her career. Subverted since knowing this would have helped Cioffi solve the case, since Grady is actually in love with her and was committing the murders to keep her from leaving Boston for Broadway.
- WebVideo.Yogscast Minecraft Series: Parv hiding his Blood Magic training from Martyn.
Any sort of Plot-Driving Secret (5/50, 10%)
- Characters.Genshin Impact Xiao: He insists in his Friendship Level 3 lines that he doesn't harbor any desire. When the player reaches Friendship Level 6 with him, however, he clarifies that he simply would not speak about it to others, believing that spoken wishes will not come true in the end.
- Characters.Kotoura San: (Yoshihisa) He has one during the second half of Episode 7. It's actually a Surprise Party for Haruka's birthday which is celebrated at the end of the episode. The fact that he managed to keep this away from Haruka that entire time was extremely badass on his part!
- Film.Joe Dakota: The Big Bad convinces the townsfolk that what happened to the old Indian is this, so they shouldn't tell outsiders (like the stranger) about it.
- Literature.Stage School: Olivia has been practising her tightrope walking in secret, which makes her look suspicious when precious items are continuously stolen from the practice room windowsill.
- Manga.Kotoura San: Forgot About the Mind Reader: Yoshihisa defies this in Episode 7 by not telling anybody else about his plans since his girlfriend is a telepath who should not know his Big Secret until The Reveal. Afterwards, he admits this as the reason behind his suspicious behavior to work around her Power Incontinence issue, and quite literally at that.
Other (3/50, 6%)
- VideoGame.Dark Fall: Despite there being a bank robber secretly hiding out at his hotel, George has much more serious things on his mind. The kids at Shangri-La Children's Home were far more aware of the terrors haunting Harwood House than the adult staff, and had even devised fairly sophisticated plans to foil it. Too bad the girls never risked sharing their plans with the boys or vice versa...
- VisualNovel.Daughter For Dessert: Averted. MC’s relationship with Amanda doesn’t come out during Mortelli’s investigation of him.
- Played straight when MC visits Kathy to ask why she hasn’t shown up to work lately, and he finds out that Kathy hasn’t been writing the popular erotic stories she’s been posting online. Amanda has.
- WebVideo.Twitch Plays Touhoumon And Moemon: The exact Rom versions being used, as well as the exact input method, remain under lock and key even with three days to go before the run. It was eventually revealed that the games would share one series of inputs, and that the roms being used are Touhou Puppet Play Enhanced (Touhoumon 1.8E) and a still-unknown version of Moemon. But yes, both were Fire Red hacks.
Pothole and ZCE (13/50, 26%)
- Fanfic.Asthma: Ludwig when he realizes Reader's Big Secret.
- Fan Nickname.Sports: A-Rod became A-Roid after he was revealed to be on list of players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. A list that was supposed to be confidential.
- Funny.Shadowjack Watches Sailor Moon: Ami: I don't know, like adultery or something. A shameful secret from society. Not something you'd see openly.
- Film.Mickey Blue Eyes: The reason Gina rejects Michael's marriage proposal at first.
- Literature.April Lady: Nell's bill from the dressmaker. Leads to a half-serious case of Mistaken for Cheating.
- Literature.Lessons For A Perfect Detective Story
- Main.Whats Inside Plot: A big, dark secret, that's what.
- PlayingWith.Unmanly Secret: Exploited: Bob, Charlie, or Alice are suspected of a crime. The investigator finds out that they have a secret and thinks this secret is evidence they committed the crime.
- Recap.Odd Squad S 1 E 39 Disorder In The Court: Friendship Moment: One occurs when, during the recess, Olive refuses to tell Otto her Big Secret when he asks her where she was for the last 10 minutes of her break.
- Recap.Supernatural S 08 E 17 Goodbye Stranger: Properly Paranoid: Sam does not want to discuss the trial with Meg, and she clearly feels left out.
- Series.Eli Stone: Eli's aneurysm and his visions.
- Video Game.Scratches: Big Secret: James Blackwood and Christopher Milton again.
- WMG.Glee Confirmed: Karofsky's Big Secret still seems a little too much like Chekhov's Gun.
