Not all characters are important to a story. However, those that aren't are normally not developed that well, while plot relevant characters are. On the other hand, sometimes it can go the other way, and minor, undeveloped characters (or a two-dimensional main character) can set the plot in a new direction. This trope takes that to its logical conclusion.
This character has an effect on the plot; however, they might be never introduced, or even named, or possibly even shown in the background. This is usually the result of them being a Red Shirt or Unwitting Instigator of Doom in someone's backstory (so what they did or what happened to them is only relevant for how it influenced the character whose backstory they appeared in). However, in the most extreme examples, their existence may only be implied (for example, someone who left their MacGuffin or Emergency Weapon lying around for The Hero to find).
Note that while this character might be revealed and fleshed out later, there isn't usually any mystery about who they were; their role is fulfilled just fine by them being just another face in the crowd and they need not have any further effect on the story. The best way to identify a character as this trope is if they can only be referred to by their contribution to the plot and in the past tense, making it clear that they're little more than the reason something happened (e.g. "That guy who gave Bob his sword" or "That urchin who stole Alice's wallet when she was buying her dead sister's medicine"). Indeed, the only reason they exist is the fact that they did something that had to be done by someone, and in this case that someone was nobody important.
Compare The Ghost, who functions as any other character would (and might even be part of the main cast), but is simply never shown on screen (they can overlap; the main difference is that characters who fall under this trope don't have any characteristics, while the ghost can still be a fully fleshed out character), Minor Major Character (who might overlap, depending on their importance for the plot), Posthumous Character for already dead characters who are still important to the plot, and the Featureless Protagonist, who can become this trope in sequels. A Badass Bystander will often become this if they don't appear subsequently and aren't given any characterization beforehand.
If they become a recurring character in later works or adaptations, they will often evolve into He Who Must Not Be Seen or The Ghost as a nod to their earlier characterization (or lack thereof). Contrast Lower-Deck Episode and Day in the Limelight for when less developed characters are fleshed out by the plot. Often overlaps with a Cryptic Background Reference or Diabolus ex Nihilo (for malicious examples).
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Bleach: Byakuya mentions he's only shown his bankai's senkei form to one other opponent prior to Ichigo. Who that opponent was is never revealed.
- Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: There are 14 branch heads, 13 of which participate in the story. The head of the 13th branch, however, does not attend Makoto's hearing, choosing to send their subordinate Aoi Asahina in their stead. That's all we know about them.
- Digimon Adventure: The first Chosen Children, who are mentioned in a flashback where they appear for one scene and aren't mentioned again, until Digimon Adventure tri. introduces two of them... out of five. The other three go unexplored, beyond brief glimpses. Similarly, their partner Digimon, the Harmonious Ones, of which only one appears, and that was in Digimon Adventure 02.
- Fairy Tail:
- At least four generations of the Dreyar family have been shown, and all of them have had at least some significance to the story. However, we only ever see the male side of the family—Yuri, Makarov, Ivan, and Laxus (from oldest to youngest)—with the exception of Yuri's wife, Rita, who only shows up for one pivotal scene before her death; the rest of the Dreyar women go unnamed, and it's never once mentioned where they are now.
- Ankhselam is a god of life and death who spends the entire story as The Ghost; the most we know of this character is that they're the source of the Curse of Contradiction, which turns the afflicted into an undying Walking Wasteland as punishment for defying/controlling the laws of death. Yet he is the definitive Greater-Scope Villain of the series for cursing Zeref and Mavis: the former for daring to undo the death of his brother, Natsu; and the latter for saving a friend by casting a Dangerous Forbidden Technique that effectively does Ankhselam's job for them.
- Gray's mother Mika, Cana's mother Caroline, and Jellal's unnamed father are all deceased, with their demises playing a major part in their children's growth into more resolute people, but never appear even posthumously.
- Ultear's father, the person the late Ur had a child with, receives absolutely zero involvement in the story, which focused heavily on what apparent Parental Abandonment by Ur did to Ultear.
- FLCL: Tasuku Nandaba, Naota's older brother. We only catch a very brief and vague, envelope-obscured profile of him on a postcard in Episode 6, with his American girlfriend, but the postcard has writing scribbled all over it.
- In the background of Fullmetal Alchemist, the War of Ishvalan Extermination was caused by the Ishvalans uprising against the Amestrian military. It's later explained that they did this because an Amestrian soldier shot and killed an Ishvalan child for no discernible reason, but no one knows who this soldier was and the Amestrian military claim that the Ishvalans made him up as an excuse. Later still, the trope is actually subverted when it's finally revealed that the "soldier" was the disguised homunculus Envy, who deliberately started the war as part of the Big Bad's plan.
- The second generation of Get Backers. They give Ban and Ginji their name, their car, and their analogy of a retrieval being like a jigsaw puzzle, but the only reason they exist is because the identity of the first generation is a major plot twist and a surprise to the cast.
- In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex:
- Aoi aka "The Laughing Man" reveals that he himself was arguably the second part in the eponymous "Stand Alone Complex" (an event where many people spontaneously start copying something which wasn't there in the first place); the real "Laughing Man" was an unknown person whose email exposed the micromachines company's coverup, which was found by Aoi.
- In the episode "Embraced by a Disguised Net – CAPTIVATED", a member of an Organ Theft gang accidentally kidnaps the daughter of a politician who was denying their existence. The rest of the gang are never shown, but it turns out the entire episode's plot was orchestrated by a rival who had given her a list of kidnapping targets which included the girl so she'd be branded a traitor.
- Hoshin Engi: During the Great Senin War, when Kongrong Mountain receives a blast from Kingou Island, 9 souls are seen flying towards the Hoshindai, with no explanation as to who did they belong to.
- Hunter × Hunter: Gon’s mother. Absolutely nothing is known about her. Not her name or what happened to her (barring a Death by Adaptation in the 1999 anime) and Gon isn't even the least bit interested in finding her. In fact, he adamantly designates his Aunt Mito as his mother and refuses to let his father's message to him reveal anything about his actual mother. When the playback ends, the Nen embedded in the recording erases the message so it can never be replayed.
- Inuyashiki: The aliens that came to Earth at the beginning of the story. The reason for their presence is never explained.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Stardust Crusaders: Jotaro's father, Sadao Kujo, is mentioned once at the beginning of the part as a jazz musician currently on tour. He is never seen for the rest of the series.
- Diamond Is Unbreakable: The delinquent who saved young Josuke's life when he was ill. After he recovered, Josuke and his mom looked for him everywhere to thank him, but they never discovered who he was. Nevertheless, Josuke admired him so much, he decided to emulate his pompadour hairstyle.
- Golden Wind: When Giorno was a kid, he saved the life of a wounded man, who turns out to be a gangster and promises to repay him for saving his life. This leads to Giorno's Stepfather no longer hitting him and the kids that bullied him at school start being friendly. The man is never identified, but this inspires Giorno to become a gangster.
- Kotetsu Jeeg: Miwa's husband doesn't appear in Kotetsushin Jeeg, for no apparent reason.
- Lupin III has his father, Lupin the Second. You'll often see Lupin mention his grandfather, but almost never his father, despite being his immediate nearest relative in the family bloodline.
- My Hero Academia: Izuku's father can breathe fire. That's all the main story tells us about him. Supplementary material adds that his name is Hisashi Midoriya and that he works abroad, but he still has absolutely no scenes, no one ever talks about him (other than once when Inko mentions his quirk), and there aren't even any pictures of him around.
- Naruto:
- We can infer that the third Hokage had another child, who is Asuma's sibling and Konohamaru's father. For the entire series proper we never see his face, we never get his name, and he is never even referred to indirectly — not even in the otherwise comprehensive databooks. Eventually he has the dubious honor of being mentioned in passing, unnamed, in a one-shot spin-off, after the story proper had already concluded.
- The Sage of the Six Path's father. The final arc contains a lengthy backstory about the Sage, real name Hagoromo, who was the son of Kaguya, an extraterrestrial princess and the first person to awaken chakra, which she used to bring world peace. However, the story then cuts to her giving birth to her twin sons, Hagoromo and his brother, Hamura, exactly with whom is never addressed. This predictably gave birth (no pun intended) to such Epileptic Trees as the beau being also an alien like her, a mere human, or even Jashin, the evil god that Hidan worships. While there are still others who get this treatment, Kaguya's beau is the most significant because he's supposed to be the equivalent of the companion of the person who gave independence to a world and the father of the person who would revolutionalize the same world forever, and yet the readers know nothing about him. At least before he was introduced in anime filler.
- Pokémon the Series: Ash's father is mentioned a few times in universe, even as recently as Movies 20 and 23, he's never been seen, named, or described in any canon source. A few non-canon sources have said a thing or two about him, but they conflict pretty badly. The original head writer suggested he was a loser failure who skipped out of town while later head writers would suggest he's a trainer of some skill. While there have been interest by writers to make him more known, over twenty years later and occasional references are all we have of him.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica has many of the Witches - not the characters themselves, but the girls they once were - as the mystery of who they were has never been answered. What were their names? What did they wish for? What weapons did they use? How did they witch out? Only the staff know, and they’ve kept it a huge secret.
- Shaman King pays plenty of attention towards Asanoha Douji, Hao Asakura's original mother, but his father is never mentioned.
Comic Books
- Batman: Joe Chill, the mugger who murdered Bruce Wayne's parents, sometimes functions as this, particularly if his identity is still a mystery to Batman. In other versions of the story, Bruce eventually finds him and he gets dealt with.
- Batgirl: Everybody knows that Barbara Gordon is the daugther of Commissioner Gordon, but remarkably little is known about her mother. She only makes sporadic appearances and recieves little characterization, and even then her presence doesn't affect the story in any significant way. Perhaps because of this, some adaptions opt to have her dead from the start or just never mention her altogether.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Huey, Dewie and Louie's father was only mentioned in the very first stirp they appear in. Even Don Rosa fameus family tree has his face and name covered by the tree branch. Even the newer animated adaptation of Duck Tales that feature the boys' mother Della, 100% ignored the father and never spoke of him. He is by far series biggest enigma and one no one wishes to touch on.
- Similar to Roy Harper's mom, Ace West's mother in The Flash is essentially a nonentity. The most mention she's ever received is that she went missing during the events of Forever Evil and no one's seen her since. By now, no one's even tried to look for her. Given the reveal that Ace was created by a Cosmic Retcon thanks to Doctor Manhattan screwing up the timeline, it's entirely possible Ace's mother is missing because she never actually existed to begin with. It's suspicious that she's the only member of Ace's family who doesn't make an appearance when he's offered a dream world during Dark Crisis.
- Green Arrow: Roy Harper's mother might be one of the biggest examples of a Missing Mom in comic books. In modern day retellings of Roy's origin story, the focus is placed firmly on the death of his biological father when Roy was a small child. By this point, his mom was already out of the picture when Roy gets taken in by the local indigenous community (usually by Brave Bow/Raymond Begay in Arizona). There've been no indications or tidbits about whoever this woman was, if she's alive or dead, or if she was even married to Roy's father. She's such a void her absence allowed Roy to break free of false memories implanted by a Lotus-Eater Machine controlled by the Gargoyle. Because Roy knows nothing about his mother, the Gargoyle's fake version of his childhood could only go as far as saying "Your mom is-," coupled with Roy's absolute certainty on how his childhood went.
Arsenal: I don't have a mom. I don't even have a story about a mom.
- Green Lantern: Whenever the Green Lantern Corps appears in force, the background will be littered with unnamed Lanterns who exist simply to fill out the Corps' numbers and give the artist an opportunity to draw weird aliens (and give the bad guys Lanterns to kill other than the ones with names and speaking parts). Sometimes one will strike a chord with an artist or the readers and appear enough times to get a name, but many will only ever appear in one issue, or even one panel.
- Spider-Man: The (usually) unnamed robber who killed Uncle Ben. He's literally responsible for Spidey's entire career, but he's generally only ever referred to as "the robber" or "the burglar".
Comic Strips
- The Little Red-Haired Girl in Peanuts, Charlie Brown's always offscreen, always silent, always unrequited crush. She was briefly shown and named Heather in one of the animated specials, but this is not canon. A 1990s strip showed her in silhouette, dancing with Snoopy.
Fanfiction
- Maim de Maim: Besides asking who the Chancellor is, there's also the question of what she is. She has ties to Kiryuuin family and, from what it seems, Ragyo doesn't like dealing with her much, along with that we don't even know if she's human or not.
- Like Madoka the anime, Resonance Days does not have details on most, if not all of the witches in story. As a witch doesn't retain any memories of their past self bar a few faint recollections, every witches past is unknown. Unless a Magical Girl who died knew them, nothing can be known about them with only a few possible means of gleaming information (for example Elsa Maria's powers do let her know 'what' a witch wished for, but not anything more). While the area a Witch arrived in the afterlife can tell you something, the details are never quite concrete enough for a full picture. For example in the case for Charlotte Tomoe, Mami's wife and the human form of the witch that killed her, for whom any details can only be gleamed by context clues of her arrival to the afterlife. Judging by the way Charlotte arrived in the afterlife, it's implied that she had a sick loved one and made her wish on their behalf, and the wish might have had something to do with sweets judging by the theme of her witch labyrinth. Her magical girl ability was to create and control gold strings, and she died soon after contracting. And that's about it. A later arc would reveal her name to have been Nozomi Momoe.
- Vow of Nudity: Very little is known about Haara's father, in stark contrast to her mother who starred in a prequel story and whose life is pretty well-chronicled up to her death. We know he's a half-orc in an Orclands tribe who sold his newborn daughter into slavery, but his name, motivations, and current whereabouts are neither known nor discussed by any character, even those who knew her mother.
Film — Animation
- The hunter who kills Bambi's mother, also known as "Man", in Bambi. He never appears on-screen, with the only indicators of his presence being the camp that sets the forest on fire and his pack of dogs, which has the effect of making him seem even more inhuman.
- Beauty and the Beast (1991): The sorceress who turns the prince into a beast and lays a curse over his entire castle, thus kick-starting the plot. We're given no explanation for why she does this — was she motivated by a sense of justice in putting the prince through a Secret Test of Character, or was it Disproportionate Retribution at being rejected by him? She's also never seen in person, only depicted in stained glass at the beginning of the film (the live-action adaptation expands on the character).
- Meet the Robinsons: Lewis does not know why his biological mother abandoned him as a baby and the whole plot is driven by his desire to meet her, but instead he only uses Time Travel to watch her from afar, not wanting to change the future where he's Happily Adopted.
- Shrek 1 mentions a witch who put a curse on Fiona, causing her to turn into an ogre at night. This sets up the entire plot of the first movie and affects her and Shrek's entire relationship, but we have absolutely no idea why she did it (unless one goes with the theory that she was the Fairy Godmother trying to arrange a marriage with Charming).
- Treasure Planet: Jim's father. He had an estranged relationship with his son when he was a kid and eventually walked out on his family, never to be seen again.
Film — Live-Action
- Many of the events of The Gods Must Be Crazy happen because a pilot flying over Africa's Kalahari Desert - who is never named, never speaks, and appears for only a few seconds - thoughtlessly tosses an empty Coca-Cola bottle out the window.
- Total Recall (1990): The man who left the suitcase to Quaid outside of his apartment. All we're told is that they were buddies in the Agency on Mars and Quaid asked him to find him if he disappeared. After their conversation over the phone, he's never seen or mentioned again.
- The Creator (2023) is about a Robot War caused by an AI designed for defense launching a nuclear weapon at LA. There's never any description of it doing anything else or of it in general besides one character claiming the attack was really the military's fault for making a mistake while designing it. Apparently in-universe there's a conspiracy theory that it launched the attack to take people's jobs without any explanation how that would work.
- Attack of the Clones: The clone army is said to have been first commissioned by a Jedi Master named Sifo-Dyas, who was reportedly killed around the time the Star Wars prequel trilogy began, but gets no more mentions or development in the movies than that. (Behind the scenes, it was originally meant to be Sido-Dyas, a clear reference to Darth Sidious, but a typo occurred that Lucas decided he liked the sound of, despite the loose end it introduced.) His story is eventually fleshed out in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, where it's revealed that the Sith killed him and took over the clone production.
- Tropic Thunder: Acording to Tyra Banks, someone close to Tugg Speedman said "One more flop and it's over". Even he doesn't know who that is.
- The Chronicles of Riddick: The man who tries to stand up to the Lord Marshall gives a little speech, but has no name or any other lines. He exists mainly to show the audience that the Big Bad can literally rip someone's soul out of their body.
- Message from Space: Beba-1, General Garuda's outdated original robot buddy and predecessor of Beba-2. Garuda's Establishing Character Moment is him launching his buddy into space as a funeral, thus we never see Beba-1 and remains a Posthumous Character for the rest of the movie.
Literature
- Inheritance Cycle: King Galbatorix doesn't appear until the last book, yet he is a constant presence in the series.
- Big Brother from Nineteen Eighty-Four is technically the Big Bad of the story; however, he's never shown in person, and it's left up in the air as to whether he really exists in the first place. The same goes for the leader of The Brotherhood (where it's not even revealed whether the organisation he leads even really exists).
- The Malloreon: There is an unnamed character who stole the Sardion (MacGuffin of the series) and deposited it at its final resting place to be found by the heroes 300 years later, along with his remains.
- Rebecca: The protagonist is the second wife of Rebecca's husband. She's compared unfavorably to Rebecca without ever being told anything about her by his staff. Nothing is revealed about her as they figure she doesn't need to know, except that she died. In the end the protagonist learns more about Rebecca and gains the respect of the inhabitants by saving them from a fire.
- In The Bible, Cain had a wife, but her very existence is a notorious theological mystery, since Adam, Eve and the murdered Abel are the only other humans mentioned from creation until that point. Later verses do mention his parents having other kids aside from Seth offering a non-linear answer. Sometimes Cain's wife and the closely related issue of everyone having the same parents are offered as reasons to not read Genesis literally. Wild Mass Guessing can include God whipping her up offscreen for Cain and more. Discussions on who is right are best left to other venues. She doesn't even get a name, even though both wives of Cain's great-great-great-grandson Lamech are named.
- She isn't named in the Bible, but she is named elsewhere. According to the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, she was Cain's sister ’Âwân.
According to both the Jewish Midrash and the Muslim tradition, Cain and Abel both had twin sisters, and each of them was supposed to marry the other's twin. Aclima, Cain's twin sister and Abel's promised wife, was lovelier than Abel's twin sister and Cain's promised wife, Jumella, and Cain didn't want to agree to this arrangement. The sacrifices mentioned in the Bible are, in this version of the story, supposed to determine which one of them God deems more worthy of Aclima. After Cain murders Abel, Aclima leaves with him and becomes his wife; Jumella ends up wedding Seth...who isn't even born until after Abel dies.
- She isn't named in the Bible, but she is named elsewhere. According to the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, she was Cain's sister ’Âwân.
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Willy Wonka's rival candymakers Prodnose, Ficklegruber, and Slugworth qualify as unknowns. In the Backstory, Driven by Envy, they sabotaged Mr. Wonka's operations by sending in spies disguised as workers to steal his recipes so they could come up with Follow the Leader equivalents. Mr. Wonka, desperate to save his work, sacked his entire workforce in response and became a Reclusive Artist who — somehow — managed to get his factory up and running again without anyone entering or leaving it. The question of how he accomplished this is the key reason why the Golden Ticket contest becomes such Serious Business in the present — the chance to actually meet him, see his operations, and learn the answer is one many people want. The rivals have no other plot importance than their Backstory role and are rarely depicted (even in Flashback) in adaptations, with the key exception of the 1971 film version, in which Adaptation Expansion includes a subplot involving Mr. Slugworth's attempts to ruin him in the present by bribing the Golden Ticket finders to steal one of Mr. Wonka's new inventions.note
- "Lukundoo": Both Van Rieten's expedition and Stone's expedition are set up in the Great Forest of the Congo Basin far from any kind of settlement. On rare occasion, they do encounter a lone native. It must have been one of these natives who has told Stone's expedition about Van Rieten's expedition and provided them with detailed directions on how to reach the latter. Singleton and Van Rieten, who had not heard of another expedition in the area as no native they met had ever seen a white person before, are greatly surprised to see another white man walk into their encampment one afternoon.
- Skulduggery Pleasant features The Man With the Golden Eyes. He spends seven and a half books as an unknown, even with POV chapters, manipulating events behind the scenes and removing the memory of anybody who knows about him. In the eighth book, he is revealed to be major character Erskine Ravel.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: The Blackfyre women. House Blackfyre was a rebellious cadet branch of House Targaryen and is stated to be currently extinct in the male line. However, there's only one woman in the family given a name: Calla Blackfyre, who married her uncle Aegor Rivers. Daemon I is said to have had multiple daughters, so there at least two Blackfyre ladies around, but the only members of their family who get any screentime are the men (largely because the men were the ones occasionally showing up to Westeros with armies). Any of these women might have had kids, who in turn might have modern-day descendants (the Blackfyres are extinct in the male line; the female line goes conspicuously unmentioned), who would be legitimate blood relations to House Targaryen- which, with the return of dragons and the main house being nigh-extinct, might mean a lot. Several prophecies have also been made that seem to foreshadow the involvement of a Blackfyre in the future story, though no confirmed Blackfyres are yet introduced. Fans do, on the other hand, suspect that "Aegon VI" might actually be a Blackfyre being passed off as a main-line Targaryen.
- "Oracle": John Hamilton challenges Robert Stoney to a televised debate on whether or not artificial intelligence is possible, with the implication that, if Stoney loses, public opinion will turn completely against him and he will be unable to use his future technology to prevent a future apocalypse. Hamilton is coached by one of the students at their university, who informs him about Gödel's incompleteness theorem and other new findings that allow Hamilton to make a legitimate argument without apologetics or sophistry, meaning that when Stoney debates him, intellectual honesty is preserved. However, we never find out anything about this student or what his motives are, and he doesn't interact with the rest of the cast in any way other than Helen trying to flirt with him (presumably as a joke).
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: In "Listen", the Monster of the Week is an entity that the Doctor theorizes is the perfect hider, so much so that nothing at all is known about it. By the end of the episode it is unclear if the creature even exists or, if it exists, if it had appeared in the episode.
- Happy Days: It's revealed in an early episode that Howard and Marion met in high school and began dating when an anonymous boy gave Marion chocolate and she thought it was from Howard, but it wasn't. The identity of that boy remains unknown.
- Hudson and Rex: "Run, Donovan, Run": Jesse looks into the missing music memorabilia collection of the late David Clynburg, who is mentioned to having a son as his only living relative, yet the latter doesn't appear physically or on a picture. The reason why this is relevant is because he is responsible for having stolen said collection before it could be donated to a museum, to compensate for his lack of inheritance.
- Kamen Rider:
- Kamen Rider Kabuto: Tendou's grandmother, whom he quotes every single episode, but she's never seen. The closest we've gotten was an alternate universe version of her in Decade.
- Kamen Rider Fourze: Characters throughout the season refer multiple times to The Presenters, an unseen alien race that created the Core Switches and sent numerous of them across the galaxy, hoping intelligent life would find the switches and be able to make contact with them.
- M*A*S*H: "As Time Goes By": A helicopter pilot risks his own life to fly patients to the unit with a broken fan belt in his chopper's engine. He gets a replacement and leaves and no one ever even has a chance to learn his name, much less thank him for his bravery. When the medical staff assemble a time capsule, Hawkeye suggests including the broken fan belt to commemorate the man's courage.
- Merlin (2008): Vivienne is the mother of Morgana and Morgause. In life, she was married to Gorlois and had an affair with Uther. That's all told about her.
- Parks and Recreation: "Flu Season": The best friend Ron Swanson ever had was a guy he worked with for three years without ever learning his name. They still never talk sometimes.
- Used during the sixth season of The Walking Dead when Alexandria learns of a hostile group called the Saviors, rumored to be led by a man named Negan. They launch a covert attack on a compound they believe to be their base and kill everyone inside, and later wonder if Negan was among them. Later episodes imply that Negan may not be a singular person, but rather a Collective Identity. The matter is left vague until the season finale, when Negan is revealed to be a very real person.
- Extremely common in "The West Wing". Given that every episode has Four Lines, All Waiting, many of the subplots involve one-time characters who are either this trope, or this trope with a meaningless name, or The Ghost. Examples include:
- The pilot episode has Cubans arriving by raft in Florida.
- Multiple characters in "The State Dinner", including the domestic terrorists, the negotiator, and Toby's French friend.
- The photographer who caught Sam with his prostitute friend.
- Multiple oblique references to positions in the federal government, such as "the Senate Majority Leader", "the House Whip", or "the FBI director". Some such characters are fleshed out in later episodes or later seasons.
- CJ's stalker from season 3, who simultaneously upends CJ's life and remains an Unknown Character across a half-dozen episodes.
- Multiple victims of crime or terrorism who never get a name but demand a Presidential response often in the Situation Room.
- The Young Ones: The fifth housemate, a person whose hair covers their face and appears in the background of some scenes, usually slumped against a wall. Word of God says that they're someone who came for a party and just never left.
Multiple Media
- Though BIONICLE has a large number of characters fleshed out in encyclopedias or fan wikis, some remain little known.
- In the comic Ignition #6, an unnamed Ta-Matoran living underwater rescues Hahli from drowning and immediately dies from decompression sickness, but not before dropping info about the lost undersea city Mahri Nui.
- In the book The Final Battle, a nameless Av-Matoran gives the Toa Nuva one of the keystones they needed, then proceeds to die and mutate into a Bohrok together with twelve of his companions. The Toa are shocked to learn this is the origin of the Bohrok creatures they had once fought, and regret not asking the Matoran his name.
Roleplay
- Darwin's Soldiers:
- In Schrödinger's Prisoners, Shelton never meets the AI that spawned in the infirmary, who by process of elimination was the only one available to sound the red alert when it finally goes off. A later video game called Darwin's Soldiers: Prototype was going to resolve the mystery by reusing the character for the game's tutorial, revealing it to be Robin Kyle, but the game never materialized.
- In Disruptive Selection, the nameless security guard who fights Subject 17 in Southport long enough that he's unable to finish his massacre before the nuke goes off, giving Sharon and Anne enough time to escape the city.
Theatre
- Waiting for Godot: Godot drives the plot as the characters spend the entirety of the play...well, waiting for Godot.
Video Games
- Bastion has a couple, the most obvious one being the unknown man who seduced and betrayed Zia, which lead to both her surviving the catastrophe...and to her father setting it off. Another example would also be whoever ended up with The Kid's money, which he'd been sending back to his mother (who was already dead). Forcing him to take another tour of duty as a Mason (although with the loss of his mother he might have done so anyway) and surviving the catastrophe.
- Bug Fables: Kabbu's former friend Bit and his master. The main thing known about them is that they travelled with Kabbu from the North and were eaten by the Beast when they crossed the Wild Swamplands. The Art Book offers a little more information about them.
- Danganronpa: According to a sidestory, Makoto's position of Ultimate Lucky Student initially went to another student, but their letter was destroyed in a mishap involving Makoto and the Headmaster picked again, reasoning that any student unlucky enough to have their acceptance letter destroyed wasn't lucky enough to be the Ultimate Lucky Student, resulting in Makoto winning the second lottery. Nothing is known about this student except that she is female and ironically lucky enough to avoid going to Hope's Peak and getting caught up in the killing games.
- Elden Ring:
- The dead demigods. There are 9 living demigods (6 shardbearers, Ranni, Miquella, and Godefroy), but more are known to exist; 7 are entombed in the Walking Mausoleums, Enia mentions that one person before you (implied to be Gideon Ofnir) was able to gather two great runes (meaning they killed two demigods), and Vyke and Bernahl were said to be close to becoming Elden Lord, making it likely that they also killed demigods. None of these have names, backstories, or plot importance besides their mausoleums allowing you to duplicate boss Remembrances.
- Godwyn's wife. Godwyn's descendants made up the Golden Lineage, so he was married and had kids (who were presumably some of the dead demigods from the previous bullet point), but none of his family aside from his descendants Godrick and Godefroy (whose relation to him remains unexplored outside of being part of the Golden Lineage) are ever named or referenced.
- Ruins connected to the Ancient Dynasty are all littered with statues of a robed man with a long beard carrying a tablet, with another tablet (a copy of the Imago Mundi, a Babylonian world map) at his feet. His omnipresence in such ruins suggests he was a figure of some importance prior to the age of the Golden Order, but he's never mentioned anywhere, even in descriptions that mention the Ancient Dynasty, and so remains a Riddle for the Ages.
- The story trailer for the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC states that Queen Marika became a god through an act of seduction and betrayal, coupled with imagery of Marika pulling a strand of gold from deep within some sort of shrouded corpse. This never gets elaborated on. The location where it happens is eventually revealed to be the Gate of Divinity, where humans become gods, but the fact that Marika apparently seduced, murdered, and usurped someone else to get there is never so much as acknowledged in-game.
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas gave us Sweet's girlfriend. She was deemed important enough to get a mission named after her (the rather impersonally named mission Sweet's Girl), but she has a generic pedestrian model, never says anything, and her existence is completely ignored after that.
- Metal Gear 1: In the opening of the NES version, three other soldiers are seen parachuting into the jungle with Snake. We never find out who those soldiers were.
- NieR: Father Nier's wife & Brother Nier and Yonah's mother. All we know of her is that she seemingly used to hold some knowledge about the Gestalt Project and the apocalyptic events that led to it and is dead of Black Scrawl in the present day.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Manfred von Karma's family. He mentions having a 7-year-old grandaughter (who has a dog named 'Phoenix') in case 1-4 and states that he has a wife (and that he considers her cooking to be on par with professional chefs) in Investigations II, but the only other von Karma we meet is his daughter Franziska, who isn't the mother of his granddaughter. A guide confirms Franziska has an older sister who is the mother of the aforementioned grandchild but otherwise doesn't give any more information on her.
- Portal:
- The Rat Man who has scrawled graffiti all over the place (although he might be closer to The Ghost, given that he's essentially interacting with the story still). A comic given out with the game's sequel fleshes out this character.
- If the AI in Portal Reloaded is to be believed, a rogue test subject is behind the decay of Aperture 20 years from now. We never see them, hear them or even get their name, though.
- In Quake IV, the protagonist from Quake II is this (Quake IV being the direct sequel to Quake II). He single-handedly invaded the Strogg homeworld and assassinated their leader, allowing a full-scale human invasion. He is never shown or mentioned by name.
- Rayman: The Muse of the Poets is a legendary character in the series. She has never made an appearance in the games, and is mentioned only in supplemental material. We know that she's the wife or partner of Polokus, the god who created the Glade of Dreams. When their children, the Teensies, were born, the muse was disgusted by them, so she abandoned her family and hid herself in an unknown forest.
- In the game Singularity, you often come across hidden messages that seem to be addressed to you, specifically. The messages are from someone who seems to know you, and who also seems to have done the same things you're doing; before certain major plot points, the messages will actually give you the heads up before anything's actually evident (i.e. "DON'T TRUST HIM", etc). It's later implied to be a future version of yourself who went back in time to leave the messages.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- King Toadstool, Princess Peach's father. He's never been seen in the games, but he must exist given that the Mushroom Kingdom is a kingdom rather than a principality. What appearances he's had are limited to the very early Super Mario Adventures comics in Nintendo Power, which portrayed him as a blithering idiot whose much smarter daughter made all the actual decisions.
- Likewise, Bowser's wife; Junior had to come from somewhere, and no, it wasn't Peach.
Webcomics
- Homestuck:
- The ancestors of the Beforan Trolls, also the pre-scratch selves of the Alternian Trolls we're more famliar with, are this due to their existence being entirely a technicality and the only one who is directly brought up is Meenah's (Feferi's Alternate Self). Years after the comic ended, Hussie revealed information about them and posted their designs on the official Homestuck Discord, but they were still complete unknowns in the proper comic.
- Also, Nanna's husband, and Dad Egbert's father. The only reason we know he exists is because Dad had to come from somewhere. He was very briefly mentioned in a hidden text file in a Skaianet Systems website, but these files were deleted after Creator Backlash and are dubiously canon.
- Whoever the Sburb players were that created Beforus, we knew they must have exsisted at some point, but whoever they were and where they are now is a complete mystery. Hussie did toy with the fan idea that the Troll's universe was created by a session of 48 squiddles (the cutesy manifestations of the Horrorterrors) but never truly confirmed it.
- Stand Still, Stay Silent: The members of the main and secondary casts are all descendants of characters that were shown in the Distant Prologue, that takes place ninety years earlier. As such, having the main characters exist at all required one or two generations of people simply being born, finding a mate, and having children of their own. With the cast consisting of six different families taken together, this creates plenty of these. A family tree published after Chapter 12 fills most of the gaps.
- Onni, Tuuri and Lalli's grandfather seems to be intentionally this. He's the only person without a last name on the tree and the author has confirmed it was as literal a one-night stand as one can be, which makes the guy come across as literally existing only to sire a pair of twin boys to their grandmother.
- One of the more noticeable pairs is Emil's parents, due to him being Torbjörn's nephew.
- Reynir's parents are very likely to have used the same genetical material donor or pair of donors for all four of their older children, considering how similar they look to each other. Whoever that person or pair of people is, Reynir owes them the existence of his siblings.
- Most adult prologue characters are either already married or have their future spouse appear in the same segment. The only exception to this is Árni Reynisson. Since he's the aforementioned Reynir's great-grandfather, him eventually meeting a woman and starting a family with her is a given.
Web Original
- Petscop:
- There is mention of a wife, a husband and someone who is addressed by "Paul". In Episode 6 "Paul" finds put there are four more "Pets", while three of them are different versions of Care, the last one isn't even pictured.
- Micheal Hammond, however, he's dead, so there isn't much to know about besides a few details shown.
- The Proprietors of the YouTube channel.
- There's Rainer. From what we do know, he created the titular Petscop game and he has some connection to Marvin but that's about it. His real name is actually Daniel Hammond.
- Jill is someone Paul knows and she has a connection to the Wife in-game but we know nothing about her. Later in the series, we found out that she is his and Care/Carrie''s (if she exists outside of the Petscop game) aunt and that the Proprietors are his other relatives that she's leading in some scheme.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Iroh's wife and Lu Ten's mother. She presumably died at some point before the beginning of the series, but she is never named or mentioned, even in flashbacks. Iroh's son plays a large role in his backstory, but nothing is said about who he had that son with.
- BoJack Horseman: Erica, a character who remains offscreen for the entirety of the series. We're not even told what species she is, although there is a brief reference to having a disfigured face.
- Gravity Falls: Dipper and Mabel's parents. Their arms are briefly shown in a flashback in the first episode, but apart from that very little information is given about them and they make no full appearances. The only photo of them seen is cut off above the shoulders. Various interviews and similar Word of God give small pieces of information about them, such as that their first names are Dipper and Mabel's middle names (which doesn't reveal much as the twins' middle names are never said), but almost nothing is said in the show proper.
- Hey Arnold!: Mr. Smith, the mysterious tenant at Arnold's boarding house. A very private person who never interacts directly with the other tenants, has security cameras in the hallway outside his room and in the dining room, and gets his food through a dumbwaiter. The only time we see him is a quick glance when he’s leaving the boarding house at one point.
- Love, Death & Robots: In Suits, when Hank, Jake and Crazy Mel are about to face the swarm of DeeBees, Beth mentions other characters; Zing, who is cut off and the Camel brothers, who are pinned down. This leaves the three to face the swarm for themselves.
- Mighty Max: The series' Big Bad, The Skullmaster, often speaks of his own master, but he was never seen.
- Robozuna: Gizi and Zeve’s parent by which they are related to their aunt Danuvia and grandfather Caesar Malum. Despite being a member of the Corvus royal family and one of the off-worlders, presumably sent to steal the Mother Stone like their sister and father, they never actually appear nor is their existence ever acknowledged beyond the fact that their children are characters in series and half off-worlders. The same can be said for their spouse.
- Samurai Jack: In "Episode XCVII", after Ashi exits Da' Samurai's bar looking for Jack, a shadowy figure points her in the exact direction to where he is and promptly disappears, never revealing who they were and how they knew Jack's location.
- Steven Universe:
- Lapis Lazuli's backstory has three pivotal Gems: whoever attacked her when she was caught up in the rebellion while visiting Earth, whoever mistook her for a Crystal Gem and placed her in a mirror to be interrogated, and the random Homeworld Gem that trampled (and cracked) her as they were all fleeing. All of them are introduced via an artistic flashback, and the bodies of the latter two Gems are never seen. A character very similar in appearance to the first Gem was later introduced; Word of God confirmed after the show ended that they were indeed the same Gem, but it never came up in the series itself and neither of them know about it.
- Season 5 introduces a permanent Fusion between six Gems, Fluorite. Her components are never seen or named, and the only thing known about them is that they all fell in love with each other and decided to stay together as Fluorite.
