Static: Mr. Hawkins, I'm glad to see you're okay.
Robert Hawkins: You can drop the act, Virgil.
Static: You know?
Robert Hawkins: Wasn't hard to figure out. Why else kidnap me to get to Static? And maybe, maybe in the back of my mind, I've always known.
Robert Hawkins: You can drop the act, Virgil.
Static: You know?
Robert Hawkins: Wasn't hard to figure out. Why else kidnap me to get to Static? And maybe, maybe in the back of my mind, I've always known.
We all know about Secret Keepers: One or two people that The Hero trusts enough to tell about his superpowers. However, there are also "secret" Secret Keepers who figured out the character's secret on their own, and instead of confronting the hero about the secret, decide to keep things quiet. They then almost always take it upon themselves to help the hero secretly from the sidelines by creating distractions to allow the character to slip away to change unnoticed, letting the hero know about dangers or problems that need the hero's attention, and so on.
There's usually a given reason for this character to not just tell the hero what they know, from the reasonable to the flimsy. These include them having learnt the information in a questionable way that could force them to reveal their own secrets, circumstances being that revealing their knowledge could actually make things harder for the good guys, they've decided to wait for the hero to eventually tell them themselves when they're ready, they're aware that the hero specifically doesn't want them to know the info, self-denial that this information is true, there being no good time to bring it up, or even admitting that they have no reason beyond "You Didn't Ask". Regardless, this serves as a good source of drama and comedy, as the hero and those in the loop desperately try to hide the truth from someone who is already perfectly aware of what's going on and is just playing along until the narrative decides to drop an Internal Reveal.
As for how they learnt the secret in the first place, they tend to fall into one of three camps:
- Purely Accidental: They happened to stumble across it, were unintentionally told, or enough coincidences happened that they connected the dots.
- Ignored or overlooked third party: They know because they were there from the beginning, and may have even played a role, but no one noticed.
- Deliberate pursuit of knowledge: They've been actively trying to figure it out and have succeeded.
Sub-Trope of Secret-Keeper. See Also: I Know You Know I Know, Surprisingly Shared Secret, and Keeping Secrets Sucks. Everybody Knew Already is when everyone is this. Locked Out of the Loop is what those who are openly (so to speak) in on the secret assume of this character, which may lead to a twist, depending on whether the audience knows they know.
Example Subpages:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films — Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Video Games
- Western Animation
Other Examples:
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Film — Animated
- In the Cinderella franchise, although Anastasia finding Fairy Godmother's wand at the beginning of A Twist in Time pushed Lady Tremaine to seek revenge on Cinderella, there is a possibility that she's known about Fairy Godmother's involvement for quite some time, as it may have been the only conclusion Tremaine could draw on how Cinderella was able to attend the ball (along with knowing the song "So This Is Love", and also retain her second glass slipper in the first film).
- And this opens up the possibility that Tremaine may have eventually hunted out Fairy Godmother under her own steam, and ultimately seized the wand; REGARDLESS of whether or not Anastasia had wandered off from doing her chores at the beginning of the third film.
- In Encanto, Dolores (whose gift is Super-Hearing) reveals at the end of the film during "All Of You" that she had been aware all along that Bruno still lived in the Casita after his disappearance, hiding in the walls. This revelation got subtle foreshadowing beforehand, most notably in "We Don't Talk About Bruno".
- In the direct-to-video Superman: Doomsday, Superman's refusal to reveal his civilian identity to Lois is putting a strain in their relationship. After his "death", she pays a visit to Martha Kent and reveals that, despite Clark's cover story of being out of the country, she already figured it out. He finally does tell her in the end.
- Wolf Children: When the two are stuck at school during a storm, Yuki confesses to her classmate Souhei that she's a werewolf and the one that scratched him. He in turn confesses he already knew it, keeping her identity a secret to protect her.
Manhua
- In Goddess Creation System after Xiaxi leaves the Wang Pu house she happens to be picked up by the crown prince, where she goes by a new name. They've met before, but he doesn't recognize her and instead tries to find out who she is: No mere commoner could possibly be as well educated as she is. Before long, he figures out that she's the servant of the Wang Pu family, but keeps quiet about it and doesn't even tell her he knows.
Podcasts
- Red Panda Adventures:
- There are signs as early as his first appearance that the Red Panda's butler, Weston, knows more about the double life his boss leads than he lets on. Weston does things like make sure the Red Panda and Kit have newspapers with the latest superhero or murder related headlines, justifying it by saying he's simply noticed his master's and Kit's preferences. However, when Kit collapses from exhaustion in the manor while still in full Flying Squirrel costume, Weston is not only unsurprised but covers for her with the rest of the staff. From that moment on he's an open and invaluable ally.
- In the chronological Grand Finale, "The Final Problem", the Mad Monkey reveals he's known the secret identities of the Red Panda and Flying Squirrel for years. The reason he never acted on that knowledge was he simply didn't care about their secret identities. He's the Red Panda's self proclaimed arch-nemesis, not the arch-nemesis of one of the city's wealthiest men.
Tabletop Games
- One Night Ultimate Werewolf has numerous roles that can learn someone else's role without that other player finding out. Some have the non-villagers reveal themselves to that role (Minion, Renfield). Others have the role look at someone else's card (Seer, Robber, Witch).
Visual Novels
- Kindred Spirits on the Roof:
- Yuna Toomi, the protagonist, acts as a "Yuri Cupid" who clandestinely helps lesbian couples get together for the sake of two ghosts (or "kindred spirits") who want to consummate their relationship; for example, she creates a distraction to allow Seina Maki to place a love letter in her senpai and crush Miki Aihara's bag. That said, Yuna generally doesn't let on that she knows about the couples unless they tell her about it; she doesn't even meet Seina until an extra scene that takes place after the main story ends.
- The broadcasting club consists of three members- Umi Ichiki, Sasa Futano and Nena Miyama. The former two are in love with each other, and the latter is aware of it, but doesn't say anything outright and lets the relationship take its course.
- Toward the end of the game, it is revealed that Yuna's friend Fuji Ano knows about the fact that Yuna can see the kindred spirits. Ano can faintly see but not hear the spirits, and was aware that Yuna was conversing with them at a few points.
- Melody:
- When the protagonist and Melody finally tell Hank about their relationship, Hank tells them that he already knows, because several musicians and their respective managers have tried concealing their romantic involvements from him before.
- Tim knows about the protagonist's and Isabella's relationship as soon as he hears them having sex in his house. However, it isn't until the High School Sweetheart Ending that he lets on that he knows.
- In Shall We Date?: Ninja Shadow, some characters will find out on their own that the Player Character Saori is a girl playing a Sweet Polly Oliver role and keep that to themselves, but the amount of characters who figure it out before Saori reveals the secret depends on the route:
- Eduard will always realize Saori's secret and keep mum, thinking that she has good reasons to pretend that she's a guy. (She does.) He'll only spill it out towards the very end.
- Makoto finds out in his own route and some others (i.e., Kagura's and Yuzuki's), depending on the circumstances, and doesn't reveal it unless confronted.
- Hijikata realizes this fairly early in his route but keeps his trap shut because not only he thinks she's doing it for really important reasons, but he wants her to trust him enough to tell him herself. Later, Hijikata's best friend Okita explains that he also put two and two together, and finally the deal's upgraded to "Everybody Knew Already" levels since all the guys (save for Shintaro) came to similar conclusions, and aren't surprised at all when she officially explains it.
Webcomics
- Blades of Furry: Iacob is very quick to realize that Emile and Radu are in a relationship, but realizing it is good for Radu to finally have someone, he keeps to himself and makes space for them to date until they decide to talk to him about it.
- In Bob and George, George's two roommates know that he's a superhero
because George likes to talk to himself in their thinly-walled apartment. They just don't tell him because they find his excuses entertaining.
- Cirque Royale: Quinn and Kingston only find out when Leo was being affected by scorpion venom that he had been the one to tell Quinn's father where she was when he was dying, as he knew that they were in hiding in the Sheep Kingdom for at least as long as the twins were born, as he had accidentally seen them shopping while Quinn was pregnant. He had planned on saying hello to them, but after overhearing Quinn say she didn't want anyone from the Clowny Kingdom to find them, he kept quiet, anonymously bought a stroller for them, and misdirected her father on where she might be until he was on his deathbed.
- El Goonish Shive:
- Nanase's mother knows quite a bit about Nanase's magical ability, but doesn't want this knowledge to become known, even going so far as to have a government agent convince Nanase to continue keeping magic a secret from her family.
- Also related to Nanase is how many people knew of her lesbianism before she properly came out. Of her seven friends, she goes a long time thinking only two know she's gay. Susan was with her when she realized she was gay, and her reaction to that (activating her fairy doll spell to speak to Elliot and, far as Susan was aware, dropping unconscious) scared Susan, who blabbed it to the two other friends present (Justin & Ellen). Sarah and Grace happened to overhear a conversation during Grace's birthday party. Ultimately, only Tedd (her cousin) remained completely oblivious until Nanase was actually out.
- Similarly, quite a few people figure out that Rhoda and Catalina are a couple, largely due to them both doing an awful job at concealing it. Rhoda actually gets somewhat upset when Diane and Lucy both tell her that they knew about it since the main reason she'd been hiding it was out of concern for how they'd react.
- In Khaos Komix, Charlie dates Jamie despite concerns from Tom about how he'll react if he finds out her secret. As it turns out, when Charlie finally breaks down and confesses, Jamie reveals that he learned the truth from her mother (who was under the impression that Jamie knew), and he actually suspected something was up from the moment they met.
- No End: After Jerry travels with the main group for a while, he admits that he already realized Wight is a lucid zombie but kept quiet because Wight is friendly and it wasn't his business. After weeks together in close quarters, it was a bit of a giveaway that Wight is never seen eating and doesn't always breathe.
- Non-Supers example: Haley and Roy from The Order of the Stick have both caught on that Belkar is only faking his alignment shift away from Chaotic Evil, but have agreed not to call him out for it, preferring how he acts now — which becomes an inversion at times, when he really shows signs of character development, but is promptly ignored because everyone thinks he's faking.
- In Rain (2010), several of Emily's close friends find out about her pregnancy (which she's hiding from everyone at school except Rain, since St. Hallvard High is a Catholic school where she could be expelled for having premarital sexnote ) well before the point at which the progress of said pregnancy forces her to tell the rest of the school. Maria overheard Emily telling Rain about her pregnancy at the latter's New Year's party, while Gavin and Rudy found out when Ky (who Emily hadn't been keeping her pregnancy a secret from, since they go to a different school, and who hadn't known that Emily was trying to keep it a secret from everyone else at her school) told them.
- In Schwarz Kreuz, Nigel has figured Nick's secret "ages ago", but pretended not to, since Nick didn't want him to know.
- At the end of Issue 14 of Spinnerette, it's made fairly clear from Buzz's expression as he's made to wait outside Sahira's apartment (until her Power Copying wears off) that he knows she was the six-armed woman who had shown up to a fire a few minutes before. A comment at the beginning of the same chapter may also have been testing the waters as to Heather's superheroing, but this is far less clear.
- Unsounded: Uaid knows that Mathis sold out his wife, but has kept this hidden from Matty. It helps that Uaid cannot speak and rarely goes out of his way to communicate anything beyond his immediate emotional responses to things.
