Have You Told Anyone Else?: Difference between revisions

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* [[Akira Kurosawa]]'s ''[[Sanjuro]]''. A slight variation in that the nine naive young samurai were certain they'd identified the villain -- and reported that to the ''real'' villain, who asked them to meet him later at a secluded shrine to discuss matters further. Fortunately, [[Toshiro Mifune]] was sleeping in the shrine and decided to save these well-meaning idiots.

* Averted in ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', when Sutler asks Finch if anyone else has read Delia's diary. Finch answers no, but Sutler just tells him he'd better forget about it.

* This is the main driving force of the movie ''[[Weekend At Bernies (Film)|Weekend At Bernies]]''. The two leads, Richard and Larry, come across a work situation in which a customer's next of kin was issued a life insurance check multiple times, essentially meaning that either the man died four times or [[Insurance Fraud|someone was ripping off the company]]. They bring it to their boss, Bernie Lomax, who casually asks [[Title Drop|if they've shown this to anyone else.]] Being [[Yes Man|company men]], they continue sucking up to Lomax and, of course, tell him he's the first person they've spoken with. Lomax invites them to his beach house for the weekend as a reward for their work. He then tries to convince his [[The Mafia|Mafia-gangster]] [[The Don|boss]] that these two guys must be killed [[He Knows Too Much|because they know too much]]. His boss, instead, tells his hitman to kill Lomax instead. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* This is the main driving force of the movie ''[[Weekend At Bernies (Film)|Weekend At Bernies]]''. The two leads, Richard and Larry, come across a work situation in which a customer's next of kin was issued a life insurance check multiple times, essentially meaning that either the man died four times or [[Insurance Fraud|someone was ripping off the company]]. They bring it to their boss, Bernie Lomax, who casually asks [[Title Drop|if they've shown this to anyone else.]] Being [[Yes-Man|company men]], they continue sucking up to Lomax and, of course, tell him he's the first person they've spoken with. Lomax invites them to his beach house for the weekend as a reward for their work. He then tries to convince his [[The Mafia|Mafia-gangster]] [[The Don|boss]] that these two guys must be killed [[He Knows Too Much|because they know too much]]. His boss, instead, tells his hitman to kill Lomax instead. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* In the 1997 adaptation of [[Ivanhoe]], a random message-bearing mook tries (unsuccessfully) to avert this:

{{quote| '''Fitzurse''': "Does anybody know you're here?"<br />

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** 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 (Literature)|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.

* Subverted in ''[[Harry Potter (Franchise)/Harry Potter and ~~The~~ Goblet of Fire|Harry Potter]]'', when an old Muggle caretaker named Frank inadvertently stumbles upon a strange person who was previously discussing various murders. Frank, when confronted, pretends that he has a wife at home who knows where he went and who will call the police if he does not come home. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, double subverted in that the strange murderer is Voldemort, who has no problem telling that it is a lie.}}

* Subverted in ''[[Harry Potter (Franchise)/Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire|Harry Potter]]'', when an old Muggle caretaker named Frank inadvertently stumbles upon a strange person who was previously discussing various murders. Frank, when confronted, pretends that he has a wife at home who knows where he went and who will call the police if he does not come home. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, double subverted in that the strange murderer is Voldemort, who has no problem telling that it is a lie.}}

* In [[Dean Koontz]]'s ''Brother Odd'', Odd Thomas questions a number of suspects in a [[Closed Circle]] murder case. One of them asks if Odd has told anyone else about a certain piece of evidence, then offers him something to eat. Odd [[Lampshades]] this trope in his narration, then politely declines the food.

* [[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.)

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== Live Action TV ==

* Averted in ''[[~~Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (TV)|~~Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]''. Gaeta notices there's something wrong with the presidential votes and tells Saul, ''the man running the scheme''. (Not the man who thought of the idea, but still.) Fortunately, that man is not a villain, so when Gaeta suspects something's off, he freely tells Admiral Adama and the whole thing is solved.

* Averted in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]''. Gaeta notices there's something wrong with the presidential votes and tells Saul, ''the man running the scheme''. (Not the man who thought of the idea, but still.) Fortunately, that man is not a villain, so when Gaeta suspects something's off, he freely tells Admiral Adama and the whole thing is solved.

* On ''[[Charmed (TV)|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.

** On the contrary. He left one of them alive, telling him "You I trust." This trusted lieutenant did go on to betray him. This trust makes Cole look like a [[Horrible Judge of Character]], though there's no way to tell whether the reporting mook or the other witnesses would have been any more loyal than the one he spared.

* ''[[~~Doctor Who (TV)|~~Doctor Who]]''

* ''[[Doctor Who]]''

** The episode "Boom Town" starts with an unfortunate scientist telling the mayor that her upcoming nuclear power station project is terribly unsafe, almost as if it was intended to go wrong... Needless to say, he doesn't survive the conversation. Subverted in that the scientist hadn't told anyone else, but ''had'' put his findings on the internet.

** There's dozens upon dozens of examples in the original series, of course, way too many to list.

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* In one episode of ''[[Robo Cop]]'', a scientist has a [[Eureka Moment]], and chooses to drive across town to bounce his idea off of an older scientist mentioned earlier in the episode. Said idea is that someone framed Robocop using the prototype of his signature gun. Trope applies per usual, then the older man promptly pulls said prototype out of a drawer. No, don't [[Fridge Logic|wonder why the scientist didn't just Google, why he wouldn't know in the first place, or why he wouldn't just call on one of the videophones frequently used in the series]]. In a minor subversion, he hadn't told anyone his idea, but he had mentioned where he was going, allowing Robocop to save him.

* Averted in an episode of ''[[Pretty Little Liars]]''. When the main character girls go out into the forest with a police officer to trap a killer, he asks if they've told anyone else. Hannah says yes, she left a note so her mom won't worry. Afterwards another girl asks Hannah if she really did leave a note, Hannah says of course not -- but she doesn't want the cop to know it.

* In the seventh season of ''[[~~Twenty Four~~ (TV)|Twenty Four]]'', a minor character effectively tells the [[Big Bad]] of the first half of the show "I know you aren't who you say you are. I did not tell anyone. Please come and kill me". Also invoked in the pre-season "Redemption" movie.

* In the seventh season of ''[[24 (TV)|Twenty Four]]'', a minor character effectively tells the [[Big Bad]] of the first half of the show "I know you aren't who you say you are. I did not tell anyone. Please come and kill me". Also invoked in the pre-season "Redemption" movie.

* Subverted in ''[[The X Files (TV)|The X Files]]'' when AD Skinner wishes to make a deal with the cigarette smoking man about a tape containing classified information. CSM tells Skinner his deal has one problem (namely that CSM is holding Skinner at gun point and can be easily killed and searched) at which point Skinner reveals his trump. He has had a Navajo translator read and memorize all the information on the tape and orally tell it to twenty other tribal leaders throughout the United States who are all ordered to testify said information should any one of the people in the group die. CSM, who does not wish to have all the info revealed or to kill all the people necessary to keep them silent, agrees to the deal. Further subverted in that it is implied that the original translator had no idea why Skinner asked him to come and help make the deal.

* Used in ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'' during the episode "Across the Sea". Mother asks the Man in Black if he has revealed the Light beneath the island to the villagers. When he says yes, you can almost see the gears turning as she calculates how many people she must now kill. Subverted, in that she kills everyone in the village '''except''' the Man in Black.

* Used in the pilot of ''[[Eureka]]'' when Beverley questions the wife of a deceased scientist with whom her shady organization had been working. The woman has heard too much and intends to start talking, but hasn't done so yet. Beverley overdoses her on some sort of medication hidden in her tea and plays it as a suicide.

* Jessica Fletcher of ''[[Murder She Wrote]]'' is a master at subverting this trope. Often when she only has a hunch and no concrete evidence of someone's guilt, she sets things up so that the perpetrator believes it's such a situation when in fact she has the cops ready and waiting. Played for drama.

* A variation of it in the ''[[~~Dollhouse (TV)|~~Dollhouse]]'' episode "Getting Closer". {{spoiler|After Dollhouse scientist Bennett Halverson tells Dr. Saunders that she can restore the Echo's original Caroline personality which knows who the real head of the Rossum Corporation is, Saunders shoots her in the head.}}

* A variation of it in the ''[[Dollhouse]]'' episode "Getting Closer". {{spoiler|After Dollhouse scientist Bennett Halverson tells Dr. Saunders that she can restore the Echo's original Caroline personality which knows who the real head of the Rossum Corporation is, Saunders shoots her in the head.}}

* In the ''[[Criminal Minds (TV)|Criminal Minds]]'' episode "Scared to Death", a therapist who kills his patients asks his next victim if she's told anyone she's attending therapy with him.

* ''[[The Event]]'' uses this big-time, when one guy is about to tell the government key information. Sure enough, his lifespan is measured in minutes.

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[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Have You Told Anyone Else]]

[[Category:Trope]]