Who Is This Guy Again?: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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{{quote|'''exenefevex:''' Now according to the nice people on the internet... World 6, will feature Morton, who is not Roy.
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The fearsome recurring villain has struck again! The heroes grit their teeth and draw their weapons, prepared for the fight of their lives. They've spent most of the arc waiting for this battle. It's time to bring down... umm...
Sometimes a series just has a hard time giving you the names of its characters. People are referred to in a manner that makes it hard to work out their actual names. Sometimes it's because everyone is past the first-name basis ("Hey, man, how're you?"); by contrast, it might be because there's a more strict social structure, and people are throwing orders around ("You! Get the [[Applied Phlebotinum]] out of the vault!" "Yes [[Blue Blood|sir]]!").
Either way, nobody ever stops to introduce themselves, and nobody ever introduces anybody else, to the point you're studying the end credits just to work out what these people are called. This has the benefit of being slightly more realistic, as people generally don't go around name-dropping everyone they talk to. However, [[Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic]]
If a series takes too long to tell you a character's name, expect the [[Fan Nickname]]s to flow.
This is different from [[No Name Given]] or [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]] in that
Contrast with [[Intro Dump]]. The inversion is [[Remember the New Guy?]], where a new character is introduced that has never appeared or been mentioned before, but the cast are long familiar with to the point where the audience should have already met them.
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** [[Running Gag|Who?]]
* Poor [[Suzumiya Haruhi|Kunikida]] is so unknown that he hadn't even been mentioned yet. The novels make it a bit easier for him, since his name is mentioned whenever he appears (obviously), but not by much.
* Happens in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' with Yoki (even in-universe), and it's
* The ''French'' [[Macekre]] of ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' went through this phase on the Saiyan and Namek arcs, as villains, even Vegeta and Freeza, ''respective [[Big Bad
* Genzo in ''[[Oh! Edo Rocket]]''. Funny enough, he shares [[Katsuyuki Konishi|the same seiyuu as Canada.]]
* Helmeppo from ''[[One Piece]]'' is the butt of this several times. Despite being one of the series' first villains, neither Luffy nor Zoro remember him or his name when he and Coby see them again in Water 7, much to his comedic chagrin.
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* In ''[[The Amazing Race]]'', teams are usually referred to by the names of both contestants. Because of this, it's easy to forget which team member is which on homogenous teams (such as the second season's Chris & Alex and Osward & Danny).
** In an attempt to make this easier on the viewers, when next to each other, such as on the mat or in post-leg interviews, teams sit or stand in the same order as their names will appear on the screen. Meaning the racer whose name is first is always on the viewer's left.
* "The [[Engaging Chevrons|Chevron]] Guy" from ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' took many seasons to be identified despite being ever-
** This is largely subverted in the later seasons, though, as he gained [[Ensemble Darkhorse|enough popularity]] to be directly addressed by his name even several times in a single episode.
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'': {{spoiler|Noah Bennett, Claire 'The Cheerleader' Bennett's adoptive father}}, though he became a major character well into the series, was originally a menacing "government conspiracy" type figure. "HRG" was coined by Tim Kring and used in the original pilot script, so as not to give away the reveal that he's Claire's father. This eventually stuck with the fans.
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* "Future Guy", the recurring one-man [[Omniscient Council of Vagueness]] from ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]''. They never did give him a name, or even come up with one. Eventually, the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]] offered answers; see [[Star Trek Department of Temporal Investigations]].
* ''[[The Wire]]'', as part of its [[Viewers Are Geniuses]]/[[Better on DVD]] package, often doesn't namedrop characters on first appearance, and not very often afterwards. Add to this that actors' names in the credits aren't even linked to their character name, and that many of them go by nicknames, and things can get confusing...
* The Cigarette Smoking Man from ''[[The X-Files]]''. It makes sense that none of the characters know who (or say) this mysterious figure's name, and it's not in his interests to tell them, but it meant he was just known by [[Fan Nickname
* A running gag in season 6 of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' was that no one could remember Andrew's name. He was always "that other guy." His biggest claim to fame was being "Tucker's brother."
** This was actually a meta joke about how Andrew was the only member of the trio who had never appeared on the show before, so fans would likely be [[Remember the New Guy?|calling him that anyway]]. Originally Tucker himself was going to be in the group, but his actor wasn't available so they had to create someone new.
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