Exposition Victim just seems like What An Idiot Lite

I have some other wick checks I want to get out of way (including unfinished ones), but Exposition Victim seems like it could use one. Looking at the examples, there's a lot of whining and snarking about characters "trapping" themselves in with the killer in question (no pun intended), but similar to many of the old What an Idiot! "character goes against their personality in order to not go against their personality" examples, a lot of these characters just end up in these situations by circumstance.

Looking at the Angel example, Cordelia's just pulling an Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!; she's not "interrogating" Winters or "challenging" him any more than she's trying to reassure herself that he isn't necessarily one, before realizing she needs to find a way out. She even stops herself right at "I think I know a vampire..."

The Doctor Who and Space Mutiny examples also involve a professional of some kind doing this, so like...no duh that the aggressors would want to kill them in the first place? Even if they hadn't said anything, they'll usually notice the person has some kind of authority, and the Doctor outright admits this doesn't usually matter because he's handy. Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair even kind of combines the above two, since two people complicit in the mentioned murder act "interrogative", so they would have just died anyway.

The description definitely doesn't help—as far as I can tell it's never been updated, and it implies that this involves any situation where a possible victim tries to find out more about the murder when they're near the killer, which feels like another too rare/chairs combo. The trope only has 30 wicks anyway, so it's not doing too well. I did briefly bounce across 24 wicks yesterday (not sure if the rest of the wicks should count, since they're not really examples) for the hell of it, and maybe like three or four examples stood out to me as being correct. Even without all those issues, is there a viable concept here?

Too much complaining in the description. The actual idea could be covered by other tropes anyways (such as the "compare to" tropes in the description).

Another flaw that most examples seem to have is that immediately running away, or even fighting the villain, isn't realistic in most situations.

Yeah, I had wondered if that was worth considering, since In the Back exists. (And teleportation, which a lot of the examples already involve...)

I feel like this might be kind of nitpicky, but to me name of the trope makes little sense due to how circular it sounds in context; it's implying that the person is a victim of external exposition somehow, but the description makes it clear that they're really a victim of their own. It'd be like calling Self-Deprecation "Which One of You Spilled Pride's Guts All Over The Place?!" or something lol

Yeah, the name is almost opaque. Even after reading the trope, I had to think a bit to puzzle it out.

What should I look for in the wick check? There are 30 wicks.

Oh, I was just going to check the 24 wicks mentioned above (since I was excluding IReadThatAs.A To F and the trope descriptions it's wicked to). You're welcome to do it, though.

No, the issue is that I have no idea what the trope is supposed to describe. Neither the description nor the OP helped me understand.

Edited by LaundryPizza03 on Feb 20th 2024 at 10:10:54 AM

The trope is about when character A finds out character B is the villian, and then explains it outloud in the presence of B, for the benefit of the audience. This results in character A being in peril.

Edited by ry4n on Feb 20th 2024 at 8:40:36 AM

Sandbox.Exposition Victim Wick Check was fairly quick. I'm under the assumption that this is related to Alone with the Psycho and involves a verbal confrontation with the killer. Unlike the on-page examples, there was no complaining in any of the wicks.

Wick check looks fantastic, thanks.

Yeah, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear with the opening post. Relating this to Alone with the Psycho scenarios definitely helps put this into perspective (not just because they're trapped; I've definitely seen Genre Savvy/Crazy-Prepared vilains recognize that a Destined Bystander often unwittingly sends "help" by giving them a MacGuffin, and psychos often tend to be looking for that kind of ironic bargain opportunity more than killing them right away). He Knows Too Much is one I brought up before too.

Come to think of it, I'm wondering if this is just an alternate version of Destined Bystander in disguise (that is, "done badly"), since a lot of these characters end up kidnapped anyway for knowing too much before breaking out badassery of some kind, both due to some sort of "destiny" (though Squidward probably isn't what one would call a Destined Bystander)— the Echo, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and Angel examples, maybe the Danganronpa example (one of the on-page examples), and so on.

I have posted a draft OP at Sandbox.Exposition Victim Wick Check, and it is now in the TRS Queue. Please review and give feedback on the post contents.