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Who Is This Guy Again?: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|'''exenefevex:''' Now according to the nice people on the internet... World 6, will feature Morton, who is not Roy.<br />
'''exenefevex's Dad:''' Oh, but Morton is ''not'' Roy?<br />
'''exenefevex:''' Yes. Do we ever fight the Morton who ''is'' Roy? There's no such thing. But that is, in fact, Morton, and not Roy.|''[[Let's Play|Let's Fail]] [[New Super Mario Bros Wii
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...
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This is different from [[No Name Given]] or [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]] in that [[Who Is This Guy Again?]] characters actually ''have'' names. They're just hard to work out. More embarrassing than [[Expecting Someone Taller]]. If you know all the names but still have trouble telling people apart, they may have [[Only Six Faces]]. [[Those Two Guys]] are when they have nothing to do with the plot besides being background and providing some mundane exposition.
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.
{{examples}}
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* 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 justified -- he debuts as a [[Harmless Villain]] in the manga's third chapter, and this was one of the two stories skipped in ''Brotherhood'' (though they do set that [[Chekhov's Gun]] early in episode 4, new viewers were likely left in the dust).
* The ''French'' [[Macekre]] of ''[[
* 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.
* ''[[Kamichama Karin]]'': Kirio fails to give his name the first time he shows up, which leads to Karin calling him "Mr. Glasses Man" for the rest of the series, due to not remembering his name.
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** At least five out of all of the inhabitants in the island remembers her ''existence''.
*** [[Justified Trope|Justified]], since she's always in her house.
* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!:
{{quote| '''Tristan:''' Hey look, it's some random stranger we've never met before!<br />
'''Joey:''' 'Scuse me pal, but have you seen any minor characters from season 1 around here?<br />
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== [[Film]] ==
* Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim in ''[[
* The first film of ''[[The Mummy Trilogy]]'' doesn't seem to mention Ardeth Bay's name anywhere. His first speaking scene in the sequel comes complete with two characters greeting him by name, as if to make sure you know what it is.
* The terrible lighting and sound quality of ''[[Ax 'Em]]'' makes it impossible to figure out who ''anyone'' is, which isn't helped by the fact that some major characters die offscreen and others seem to die onscreen [[Beyond the Impossible|multiple times.]]
* ''[[Seven Samurai]]'' has had at least two sets of English subtitles; in one of them, two of the title characters are never named.
* In ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'', some of the Basterds don't get any mention on-screen.
* In ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (
* The Ewok that Leia first meets in ''[[
** [[Big Bad|Palpatine's]] name is never given in the original trilogy; he is only ever refered to as The Emperor (or variants like "Your Highness", "My master" etc.), but he is called Senator Palpatine in his first scene in ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'', which is an [[Easter Egg]] for those fans who learnt is name [[All There in the Manual|from other sources]] and he becomes a [[Devil in Plain Sight]] for them (and those who looked at the cast credits / knew the actor, of course).
** An [[Urban Legend]] is that Boba Fett's name is never given in the original trilogy, except in the credits; it is, but it is only given briefly and you need to ''really'' pay attention- Han Solo shouts "Boba Fett! Boba Fett! Where is he?" in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'' immediately before he {{spoiler|accidentally kills him}}. Since this is an action scene and his name is never given on-screen, its unsurprising that many people didn't hear it.
** May or may not apply to any given character who appears on screen in any [[Star Wars]] movie. The lore for Star Wars is massive, which means basically everyone has a name, though it's up to the viewer whether any occasions are this trope, or if the character is simply too unimportant to the story.
* Kissy Suzuki's name doesn't appear ''anywhere'' in ''[[
* The main character of ''[[Battlefield Earth]]'' is referred to by name over an ''hour'' into the film. Whether this was an attempt at creating a bond with the audience or a simple oversight is anybody's guess.
* The main character in ''[[Fight Club (
* The love interest in [[Surf Ninjas]] has her name mentioned only once in the movie. It's mentioned during an action sequence, in panicked dialogue, and because of the way it's said, it isn't even obvious that he's saying her name.
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== Literature ==
* In ''The Merry Men'', a famous short-story written by Robert Louis Stevenson which went on to inspire Joseph Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'' (which in turn was adapted into ''[[Apocalypse Now]]''), the name of the protagonist - Charles Darnaway - is only mentioned once or twice, and deep into the book. Unfortunately, this book is also frequently used in Scottish schools for English classes, which leads to many students having to search [[The Other Wiki|Wikipedia]] for the protagonist's name.
* While most of these are the result of not seeing names ''enough'', the ''[[
* Due to its having [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], it can be hard to keep track of who each of the characters in ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' are (particularly considering that several can go unmentioned for whole chapters at a time). The worst offenders are the House of Finwë, whose members often have very similar names (there's Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin, and Celebrimbor; Amrod, Amras, Aegnor, and Angrod; Finwë, Fingolfin, Finarfin, Finrod, and Fingon), and to a lesser extent the House of Elwë (Elwë, Elmo, Elwing, Elrond, Elros).
** It also doesn't help that lots of characters have multiple names. So Elwë, which in Sindar is Elu, not to be confused with Eru, who is aka Illuvatar, is aka Thingol, which in Quenya is Singollo, not to be confused with Sulimo, who is aka Manwë.
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* "The [[Engaging Chevrons|Chevron]] Guy" from ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' took many seasons to be identified despite being ever-present--it's actually {{spoiler|Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman}}). For the longest time, though, his nametag said "Davis," as did the nametags of many a random extra.)
** 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.
** The series has a habit of being reticent with the names of the morally ambiguous Company operatives. Neither {{spoiler|1=Eden McCain}} nor {{spoiler|Bob Bishop}} is named in their first appearances and HRG didn't get a first name till the very end of season one.
*** A funny example of this trope, seeing as the past 3 years were spent hearing everyone call the Haitian... 'The Haitian.' As soon as the series names him, every character in the series starts using his real name in all references to him. More than likely, the writers just couldn't think of a name until season four.
**** Perhaps Claire (who was the first person to say his name) asked him and then shared with everyone?
***** To be fair, there have been a few time skips in-between the seasons, and several characters are related to one-another. Its not unfeasible that they learnt it off-screen.
* Tom on ''[[
** Mikhail Bakunin was also not named when he first mysteriously appeared on a TV in the Pearl station; his nickname onset was "Patchy" and this was adopted by the fan community. However, his name was revealed immediately upon his second appearance, and so he didn't fall victim to the same confusion Tom did.
* "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
* 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|Fan Nicknames]], at least until Mulder referred to him as "Cancer Man".
* A running gag in season 6 of ''[[
** 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.
** He's the [[Big Bad]] of the [[Musical Episode]], he threatens to take Dawn to the underworld and make her his queen, he has many names... But he never actually gives one. The end credits say say 'sweet demon makeup done by...' and so the fandom has adopted the name Sweet for him ever since.
* The rebooted ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' had this problem with the Cylon clones, especially the Sixes, which frequently had, but didn't use distinct names. It was important to know which you were watching (as they were distinct characters), but there was frequently very little way to tell. Of course, the fact they all impersonate each other anyway all the time didn't help. Avoided for the most part with the Eights when {{spoiler|Sharon Agathon took the callsign "Athena"}}, and names didn't matter as much with the other models as they had less differentiation. And they never even named the hallucinations, which got the [[Fan Nicknames]] Head!Six and Head!Baltar.
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== Theater ==
* [[William Shakespeare]] was often stingy with character names. In ''[[Hamlet]]'', Claudius is never actually named except in the stage directions; the other characters all just refer to him as "the King". In ''[[Twelfth Night]]'', Viola doesn't reveal her real name to the audience until the very last scene (though she has the excuse that she spends most of the play in disguise).
* Also frequent in [[Gilbert and Sullivan]]; many of their operettas have a character whose name is given in the script and program, but never mentioned (or barely mentioned) onstage: Pish-Tush in ''[[The Mikado]]'' and Cousin Hebe in ''[[
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Lovingly [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Disgaea]]'' with the line: "Your new name is...[[Mid
* A minor case, from ''[[Onimusha]] 2'': There's a very awkward conversation between two previously seen members of the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] before the second fight with Gingamphatts. The conversation appears to be there simply to name both of them.
* Played ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]] 2''? Yes. Remember Visa's master, the awesome [[Negative Space Wedgie|negative Force wedgie]] with the graveyard battleship? Of course. Do you remember his name? No. Because he was only named once, in cut content (Darth Nihilus). What about [[The Dragon]], with his fractured body and ability to survive everything you could throw at him? Of course. Do you remember his name? No. Because he was only named once, by the player character before they even knew the name (Darth Sion).
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* Beauty spends so much time insulting Dandy in ''[[Ghost Trick]]'' that you only find out his name if you've read the manual.
* One of the major problems EA's RPG, ''[[Lord of the Rings The Third Age]]'', is that the people in your "fellowship" rarely ever say each other's names. In the first with Idrial and Berethor, they're introduced properly, but in all the other cutscenes, playable characters are called by their race: [[The Hero|Gondorian]], [[Our Elves Are Better|she-elf]], [[The Archer|ranger]], [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|dwarf]], [[Ms. Fanservice|human]]. You can find out their names if you open up the menu, but it's easier to think of them as [[Expy|Not-Aragorn, Not-Gimli...]]
* This happens to Luigi constantly in the ''[[Mario and Luigi
** This can be invoked a few times in the first ''[[Paper Mario (
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]: Oblivion'' has a few NPCs that no one seems to be able to remember the name of. For starters, what's the champion of the Imperial City Arena's name? The Grey Prince, yes, but what about his ''real'' name? It's Agronak gro-Malog, for the record. Also, Dar-Ma's mother is ''always'' called just that in the community, but never by her real name. The kicker here? Every NPC's name comes up when they're selected in-game.
* In ''[[
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** Although sometimes he can remember Roy's last name, [[They Call Him "Sword"|Greenhilt]], well enough to make a passing comment about "Bluepommel."
** This is at least in part due to what [[But for Me It Was Tuesday|he does on a daily basis.]] When Roy tries to narrow it down for Xykon, he mentions that he killed several unrelated people with the same name in the same city. Xykon remembers well enough once he connects that particular murder to how hard it was to clean out the blood stains.
* In ''[[
* In the [[Ace Attorney]] fan-comic [[Kristoph Gavin Ace Attorney]], we have, uhhh... that detective. The science guy. Simon Taylor. Yeah, him.
* [[Scandinavia and The World]] has the Faroe Islands.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Marceline's Dad in [[
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