Have You Told Anyone Else?: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|'''Joshua the Groundskeeper:''' Who else saw you come in?

 

Something's bothering you. You did some poking around, and you discovered a clue that just doesn't match up with what you know about the situation at large. It's almost as if your team has stumbled upon some sort of [[Evil Plan]]. So you decide to run this information past your trusted ally, [[Sdrawkcab Name|Nialliv]]. He listens, perhaps admits that this does indeed sound suspicious, and then casually asks: "Have you told anyone else?"

 

{{examples}}

* In ''20th Century Boys'' detective Chou has made a startling discovery about the the leader of an enigmatic cult named 'Friend'. Turns out the leader is actually {{spoiler|a childhood classmate of our peppy main character Kenji.}} Unfortunately he decided to discuss the matter with his assistant Yama first. Needless to say Yama turns out to be a member of said cult and "purified him." Making it even more tragic is the fact that Chou was [[Retirony|just one week away from retirement]].

* {{spoiler|Naomi Misora}} ''almost'' averts this in ''[[Death Note]]'', but almost doesn't cut it when your opponent is a [[Xanatos Speed Chess|Xanatos Speed]] [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]] who can kill you by writing your name on a scrap of paper.

* Ursula pulls a textbook example in ''Nexus'', as shown [https://web.archive.org/web/20100625154330/http://www.majorspoilers.com/archives/42155.htm/ here].

* From [[Ex Machina]] [[Grand Finale|#50]]: {{spoiler|[[Parental Substitute|Kremlin]], drunk and holding a gun to his own head, threatens to expose the fact that Hundred [[Utopia Justifies the Means|used his powers to get elected as Mayor of New York]], thus killing his Presidential campaign. At first, Hundred tries to get him to put the gun down, then asks if he's shown the evidence to anyone. When Kremlin reveals he hasn't, Mitchell [[Moral Event Horizon|tells the gun to fire.]] }}

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[The Bourne Series (film)|The Bourne Supremacy]]'' when {{spoiler|Danny Zorn (Abbott's assistant) reveals to Abbott that he realizes the crime scene is a sham, and gets a dagger in the ribs for it.}}

* Very well justified to shocking effect in ''[[L.A. Confidential]]'' when Detective Jack Vincennes, while investigating a suspicious murder in co-operation with Detective Ed Exley, finds evidence of corruption within the police department. He can't tell other cops because of the corruption and so he goes to someone he has know for a while and can trust to be out of it {{spoiler|it is the Chief after all}}. Then they ask the question in a way that assumes that he has already told someone so both he and the audience isn't alarmed when casually asked "What does Exley make of all this?"

* In the 1987 thriller ''[[No Way Out]]'', a technician that the protagonist took into his confidence in an attempt to delay the [[Big Bad]]'s plan has an attack of conscience and tells... the [[Big Bad]], after which this trope is played out verbatim.

* In ''[[The Island]]'', Gandu Three Echo tells Dr. Merrick he suspects there's something wrong with the place and heard some rumours. Dr. Merrick asks "Have you told anyone else about this?". After the predictable answer, Dr. Merrick wraps up the conversation and kills Gandu.

 

== Literature ==

* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] [[Horus Heresy]] novel ''Legion'', when Bronzi discovers a Chaos-tainted soldiers, he reports it, is asked who knows, and is warned that they need to keep it close to the chest. {{spoiler|In this case, telling them that others know ensures that they get massacred, too.}}

* In Frederick Forsyth's novel ''[[The Day of the Jackal]]'', the forger providing the Jackal's false papers tries to blackmail him, fatally assuming the assassin is merely an upper class dilettante dabbling in the drug trade. The Jackal skillfully asks a number of questions (disguised as an attempt to wriggle out of the situation, or ensure that he won't have to pay another bribe to an associate) which establish that the forger hasn't given his photographs to anyone else and that no-one will come to this location and find his body for some time.

* [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]]'s ''[[Narnia|The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe]]'': When Edmund, under the influence of [[Evil Tastes Good|evil Turkish Delight]], tells the White Witch his sister has also been to Narnia and met a faun, she quickly asks him who else knows about this, but he's in no condition, and for that matter has no ''reason'', at this point to be suspicious.

* In [[James Swallow]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] novel ''[[Blood Angels|Deus Encarmine]]'', Inquistor Stele asks an astropath whether he has told anyone else about a message. When it countermands his orders, he tells the astropath that he had not come to give a message but to kill him, and murders him.

* In [[Vernor Vinge]]'s ''[[Zones of Thought|A Fire Upon the Deep]]'', Scriber, a somewhat flaky inventor and self-proclaimed spy, comes up with a method of locating enemy spies in Woodcarver's city. He tells it to spymaster Vendacious, not realizing he's a double-agent and that Scriber's method would expose him. Vendacious congratulates Scriber and asks who else knows about this because "we'll need to swear them to secrecy also". Needless to say, after Scriber's earnest assurance that no-one else knows, death follows rapidly.

** In ''How Firm a Foundation'', Urvyn Mahndrayn takes a detour from a business trip to inform {{spoiler|his cousin Trai Sahlavahn, who runs the powder-mill}} about some discrepancies in the shipping manifests for kegs of gunpowder delivered for the mill. Unfortunately {{spoiler|Sahlavan}} is the traitor who was diverting the gunpowder shipments. He asks Mahndrayn who else he's told, and Mahndrayn says that he wanted to check with {{spoiler|Sahlavan}} before alerting anyone else. It doesn't end well.

* A slight variation in ''[[Anansi Boys]]''. Spider, filling in at work for his brother Fat Charlie, pokes around and discovers some odd accounts in offshore banks. He innocently mentions it to Fat Charlie's boss and suggests that it might be rather inefficient (his life up until this point has done little to prepare him for the idea that other people might be in any way deceitful). Said boss does not ask who else knows; he merely thanks Spider, who he thinks is actually Fat Charlie, and quietly rearranges things to make it appear that it was Fat Charlie who was running the money-laundering scheme. Unfortunately, his policy of not keeping on employees for much longer than a year (the better to hide his crime) bites him in the ass; Fat Charlie has been employed there longer than anyone, but a client attempting to collect on an account knows full well that the boss has been doing this for far longer than Fat Charlie's two years. This isn't even the worst of the trouble Spider causes Fat Charlie.

* [[The Chessmaster]] in the last ''[[Empire From the Ashes]]'' book pulls this off; it helps that the victim is a complete ''idiot'' about it. "I need to ''urgently'' tell the governor about the mole I placed in the terrorist organization, even though nothing's happening right now. This is on a strictly need-to-know basis, so don't tell anyone. Why no, no I ''haven't'' told anyone else. Leave a message? Sure! Here's the datachip with all the information, as well as the codes to decrypt it." (To be fair about this, the bad guy in question is {{spoiler|the governor's immediate deputy}}, and in fact the victim reports directly to him. Lack of suspicion is unsurprising.)

* Deeba falls for this in [[Un Lun Dun]].

* Subverted in ''[[Low Fantasy|Joris of the Rock]]'' by Leslie Barringer: when young page Juhel overhears several nobles plotting treason, he tells Count Raoul of Ger. The count asks Juhel, "Have you spoken of this to anyone else?" ... and then swears him to secrecy. Raoul is basically the [[Big Good]] of this story, and uses his new knowledge of the scheme to defeat it. He only made Juhel keep silent so no one would think to eliminate the boy.

 

* On ''[[Charmed]]'', Cole, in his role as a [[Big Bad]], asks this of one of his [[Mooks]] who reported some information to Cole that was incriminating to Cole's reputation. When the mook answers no, Cole [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|vanquishes him to keep him from telling anyone else.]]

** Note that this mook told him the information with plenty of other people in the room...so Cole kills them all.

* A [[Monster of the Week|Villian of The Week]] attempts to invoke this with Sam on ''[[Burn Notice]]''. Sam, [[Genre Savvy]] as he is, and posing as an undercover dirty cop, immediately says that his "supervisior" knows that Sam is interviewing him. Should something happen to Sam, then the supervisor knows who to come looking for. Nice save, Sam.

* Played with in the ''[[Due South]]'' episode, "A Hawk and a Handsaw". Fraser is undercover as a patient in a mental hospital and comes across evidence that the staff are illegally testing an anti-depressant that causes some of the subjects to commit suicide. When his partner, Ray, visits him, they're led to an empty room where they then begin to exchange all the information they've discovered before Fraser clicks in and asks Ray who he told regarding his whereabouts leading to this response, "Nobody, why? [he is grabbed by a thug with a gun] I misunderstood the question, I told everybody I know! I told the State's Attorney, I told the Sheriff, I even told my mother!" Different in that it's not the villain who asks this but one of the good guys realizing they're being spied on.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

* Subverted in ''[[Sovisa]]''. Aleksei reports to his captain about a strange signal that was sent from their ship. When the captain asks if he's told the rest of the crew yet, [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|Aleksei simply shoots him point blank in the chest]] and [[Thrown Out the Airlock|ejects his body out an airlock]].

 

* Daniel Tosh has this act on his CD "True Stories I Made Up":

{{quote|"My biggest fear is that my neighbor will knock on my door: 'Daniel, get out here! I just won the lottery! I'm out of here for good!' '...Have you told anybody yet?' 'No, you're the first one!' ...I don't know if you can cremate someone in a gas fireplace, but I'll find out. Feet first, I reckon."}}

 

== Video Games ==

* In the first [[Rainbow Six]] game, this happened to a medical expert you already rescued once. When she realizes the origins of the virus a [[Animal Wrongs Group|terrorist group]] plans to release, she calls one of your other advisors, who asked her this. After she says no, several terrorists come knocking on her doorstep.

* At the end of chapter 6 in [[Super Paper Mario]], Dimentio appears before Mr. L (a [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] Luigi) and asks him how his fight against the heroes went (knowing full well he lost). When Luigi tells him, he basically says "So the Count doesn't know what happened to you?" and blows him up.

 

== Web Original ==

* Played straight [http://qntm.org/socks this] [[Things of Interest]] fiction, where the person being told the info is mind-controlled by the evil aliens.

 

* In ''[[Kaspall]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20110305022858/http://kaspall.xepher.net/archive/pg284.html the only person they told was a trustworthy police sergeant]—in fact, trustworthy enough [[Genre Savvy|to call them idiots for not reporting it earlier]].

* ''[[Chirault]]'' had Ridriel along with the rest of the Mages' Council told (and not arguing) that whoever stole the [[Doomsday Device]] they accidentally made most likely used inside information. So in Chapter 15 she reported related evidence to a council member she requested to come alone. He asks for some details and finishes with "You have told no one else?" Guess who is {{spoiler|locked up and wears an [[Explosive Leash|explosive collar]]}} a few pages later?

* In ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' Kathryn [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2014-08-26 gives] Leutenant Sorlie a "pro-tip" about volunteering such details.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Stock Phrases]]

[[Category:Contrived Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:This Index Asked You a Question]]