Discussion Main / HowDidYouKnowIDidnt

From You Just Told Me:

Not to be confused with "How Did You Know?" "I Didn't.", where someone appears to act on certain information that another person knows is secret, then reveals at the end that they didn't know it after all.

This puts the trope down to supposedly acting on secret information when you don't actually have the information. However, the examples in the actual trope description are all violence-oriented, with Spot the Imposter being the only one that might not be (and that's usually "How did you know this was a killer bot, not a friendly one?" "I didn't, I just attacked" type deal, still about violence). Even the laconic example explicitly mentions violence with "disastrous collateral damage" and "kill." Was this angle taken just a way to spice up the description and give it flavor, and the reason it only includes that angle is because the description can't contain every example ever so the one we do have is action-focused? Or is this trope actually only about action, "I didn't know it would be nonlethal," "I didn't know that was actually a killer bot" examples, and "How did you know that cake was stale?" "I didn't" wouldn't be allowed because it doesn't involve anyone taking action that you would reasonably think risks collateral damage or death?

A lot of these examples don't quite fit, and those that do would probably fit under Kick the Son of a Bitch.

Edited by henry42 One does not shake the box containing the sticky notes of doom!