Saying Too Much: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Someone lets something slip that reveals plot-sensitive information to another character. Sometimes this is a pure accident, to move the plot along. Sometimes this is the result of the protagonist pulling an [[Exasperated Perp]].

* [[Suspiciously Specific Denial]]

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In the Alabasta arc of ''[[One Piece]]'', Igaram says aloud that the royal guard currently fighting Sir Crocodile have used a [[Deadly Upgrade]] and will die shortly. Crocodile overhears this, and retreats to a rooftop to watch them die uselessly.

** [[CP 9]] agent Fukurou, in spite of having a giant zipper over his mouth, tends to blab intel to the enemy. The mission before the Enies Lobby battle was complicated by his jabbering, and the Straw Hats were able to plan their rescue of Robin thanks to his 'hints.'

* Happens many, MANY times in [[Detective Conan]], whenever the culprit is confronted.

* In the [[Ace Attorney]] manga, Turnabout Showtime features an example in which it is not revealed that the person has made a mistake until very late in the trial. Raymond Spume yells at Julie Henson for "biting her nails during the show just like (she is) now!" when pulling the murdered Flip out of his costume. It turns out that Sparklestar's (the mascot Raymond plays) back was turned to Julie while she was biting her nails, meaning that Raymond could not have seen her doing it unless {{spoiler|he was wearing his costume backwards, which would enable him to unzip it and stab Flip, who was also wearing it the same way so that he could perform a backflip the same way he did a front flip}}.

 

* In ''[[Gotham Central]]'', as a result of having been working long hours and being generally tired and depressed, Renee Montoya accidentally lets slip to Maggie Sawyer, captain of the Major Crimes Unit, that Romy Chandler had her weapon taken by Batman after she tried to shoot him.

'''Renee Montoya:''' "[[Oh Crap|Oh, Hell.]]" }}

 

== Film ==

* [[Moulin Rouge]] first has a heavily sarcastic version:

** The second one comes as a response to this:

'''Christian:''' ''Because she doesn't love you!'' ...him. She--she doesn't love him. }}

:: The first example is a deliberate leak, while the second is accidental.

* In ''[[Two Days In The Valley]]'', Teri Hatcher has hired killers to murder her husband. One of the police detectives notices that she says, "They killed my husband," implying that there were multiple murderers when the police hadn't established this fact yet. His partner brushes it off as a figure of speech.

* Several instances in ''[[Mystery Team]]''

"We won't tell the police." "Oh man, now you sound like Dad." }}

 

== Literature ==

** The ''real'' twist is that {{spoiler|the robot wasn't going to tell the truth anyway, since the First Law (manifested as a desire to protect the professor's reputation) trumped the fact that it would be scrapped if it didn't speak out, as well as the order to be quiet. The only reason for US Robotics' lawyer to call the robot to testify was in order to trick the professor, who distrusted robots and was deliberately ignorant of how they worked, into making that slip.}}

* Poor [[Harry Potter|Hagrid]] is prone to this, especially when he's distraught or talking to the [[Power Trio]]. He lets slip the means to calm [[Fluffy the Terrible]], the name of a warlock who helps immensely with a search he doesn't want them to succeed in, and several other pieces of relevant information over the course of the books. Often [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by Hagrid himself immediately after 'I shouldn't have said that'.

* In ''[[The Diamond Age]]'', Inspector Chang returns Hackworth's top hat, saying that he got it from a suspect. Hackworth thanks Chang for having "arrested him" despite Chang not having mentioned anyone being arrested, inadvertently admitting that the hat was stolen from him. He had wanted to keep the theft a secret, because the thieves had also stolen from him an illegal copy of the Primer that he had made.

 

* From [[Angel]] 5.15 "Shells":

'''{{spoiler|Knox}}''' (smirking): Oops. }}

* Whenever [[Stephen Colbert]] gets carried away in a rant and forgets he's not supposed to be talking about himself. On how ''[[High School Musical]]'' could be made [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|more realistic]]:

'''Jack''': What are you talking about? }}

'''Lister''': Ah, so you ''have'' read my diary. }}

* ''[[Law and Order UK]]: Durng the prosecution of an accused rapist/murdere, the key witness is a young woman who saw the man lurking around the building where the crime took place (she may very well have been the intended victim had she not evaded him. The man denies it, angrily accusing the girl of lying and referring to her tattoos before covering his mouth in horror as he realizes his mistake. Although the girl's arms were indeed covered with tattoos, she was wearing a jacket while in court. The only way he could have known about her tattoos was if he had seen her previously.

 

== Video Games ==

* Near the end of [[Persona 4]], after {{spoiler|guessing out the identity of the killer}}, the Investigation Team go to the hospital to interrogate him. While he initially tries to give off some basic and non-specific answers, the continued grilling from the team (and Detective Dojima) gets him to blurt out:

** This happens a lot in the series. Usually it's the [[I Never Said It Was Poison]] variety.

* [[In the 1st Degree]]. If you play the game right, Tobin will end up blurting out information that makes him guilty right there in the courtroom.

* In ''[[Catherine]]'' {{spoiler|Thomas Mutton}} assumes that {{spoiler|Vincent has figured him out}} and accidentally confesses {{spoiler|his involvement}} when he was never under suspicion in the first place.

 

* The second variation was seen in ''[[Narbonic]]'', when Helen was preparing to tell Dave {{spoiler|that he's a latent mad genius}}.

'''Helen:''' On second thought, let's make this about the sentient meme. }}

 

== Western Animation ==

** Another instance had our heroes being tried in juvenile court for egging Tom Anderson's house. Butt-Head tries to discredit Anderson's testimony by claiming that his vision wasn't strong enough to see exactly who threw the rotten eggs, pointing out that it could as easily have been Stewart Stevenson. The prosecutor then asks how Butt-Head could have known the eggs were rotten, unless he was the one that threw them. Oops.

* In ''[[Batman Beyond]]'', this is how Terry McGinnis almost immediately provesthat {{spoiler|Willie Watt}} is responsible for the strange occurences at their high school.

 

== Real Life ==

* OJ Simpson made this mistake while discussing his polygraph test with a reporter. When asked whether he had ever taken a polygraph test, Simpson replies with an emphatic, "No." He then goes on to explain how he did go to the police station, did get hooked up to the machine, and watched the needles jump whenever his victims were mentioned.

'''Simpson:''' YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT POLYGRAPHS!' }}

** Simpson then does on to discuss in great detail how he took a polygraph, and why he doesn't believe it "counts" as a "real" polygraph.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Dialogue]]

[[Category:Mystery Tropes]]