The Reveal: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"What a twist!"''|'''[[M. Night Shyamalan]]''', ''[[Robot Chicken]]''}}
The pivot in many plotlines is
A key moment in most [[Gambit Pileup]] plots, when the heroes or the audience discover how the villains have been manipulating everyone. Can also be used to make a [[Cliff Hanger]] more dramatic. [[Myth Arc]] and [[Mind Screw]] series ''love'' springing these; [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot
The Reveal is in fact a rather [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality|easily explained trope]]. A lot of mystery stories wouldn't work without either the criminal or the detective explaining how the crime was committed, and a lot of other plots would leave people with more questions than answers if they never bothered to explain the plot to other characters...and by extension, the viewers. It's easy to explain it off-screen, but doing so would confuse the viewer and make them think they missed something.
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** In the beginning Vincent was a Proxy, the near invincible monster tailing him was his clone-fathers girlfriend.
** also, Proxy One
* Usagi/[[Sailor Moon]] is Princess Serenity. Although it could be made obvious over
* Hagino's obsession with Mari in ''[[Blue Drop]]'' gets explained by revealing that Hagino saved Mari from drowning during the catastrophe caused by her space ship.
* ''[[Hellsing]]'': Dok was actually using the remains of ''Mina Harker'' as a template for all of Millenium's vampire soldiers. Turns out that since Alucard wasn't destroyed when he lost to Abraham Van Helsing, Mina wasn't completely purified of Alucard's curse. Thus all of Millenium's soldiers are poor copies of Alucard's power.
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** Then, finally, we learn that the feathers were actually soul fragments of the clones!
** Not to mention that both the Syaoran and Sakura's real names are Tsubasa!
* ''[[Baccano!]]''
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' is loaded with these. The Eva's are alive and cloned from Angels. Rei is a clone of Shinji's mother and there's a whole aquarium full of clones. The Eva's have human souls (specifically, Shinji, Asuka and Ritsuko's mothers). [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Ritsuko is not a natural blonde.]] Kaworu is an angel. And so on and so forth.
** Eva 00's soul is probably Rei 1, not Ritsuko's mother.
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* ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]'': The rat is Mr Orange.
* One of the funniest ones ever comes from ''[[Down With Love]]'', when Renee Zellweger's character explains her [[Gambit Pileup]] in a breathless three-minute single-take [[Character Filibuster|monologue]] which, when it's all finished, leaves Ewan McGregor with a truly priceless expression of bemused confusion on his face.
* In the French film ''He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not'' (which stars [[Amelie|Audrey Tautou]]), the first half is a whimsical unrequited love story, getting a bit creepy, and then as the [[Love Interest]] is being taken away to prison, the film rewinds and you see it from his point of
* Not every Reveal has to be serious. In the 1982 comedy ''Jimmy the Kid'', some low-grade crooks use a crime novel about a kidnapping to plan a genuine abduction for ransom. The chosen target, a kid genius, leads them on until he can slip away with the ransom money. At the end, he reveals why he's so successful at manipulating his abductors: because he ''wrote'' the book they based their crime on.
* Again, lack of complete sincerity, in the movie ''Just One Of the Guys'', Terry reveals her true gender to Rick who responds with the line, ''"Where d'you get off having tits?"''
* In ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]'',
* There are not one but two major reveals in the first ''[[Mission Impossible]]'' movie - that Phelps is alive after being presumed KIA on a mission, and later that {{spoiler|he and Claire are working together against Ethan}}.
** [[Mission Impossible III]] starts with a very tense scene in which Ethan Hunt's wife is tied to a chair, whilst [[Big Bad]] Philip Seymour Hoffman threatens to kill her. At the end of the movie {{spoiler|it's revealed that it was a woman who worked for the bad guy. She is wearing a mask of Ethan Hunt's wife's face.}}
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** Shortly thereafter, Garro declares they will [[Bring News Back]] to Terra and demands that they [[The Promise|take an oath of moment]] to do so on [[Cool Sword|his sword Libertas]]. Before any of them can do so, or object, a crew member reveals an order to make the attack, removing any doubt.
* In ''[[An Abundance of Katherines]]'', Colin has dated nineteen different girls named Katherine, all of whom have dumped him, and communicates these relationships to the reader through flashbacks. Katherine Carter, aka Katherine XIX, was with him for almost a year and totally broke his heart. When he was eight, a little girl named Katherine asked him to be her boyfriend; he said yes, fell in love, and got dumped two and a half minutes later. Then Colin is asked out by [[Alpha Bitch|the most popular girl in school]], who is named Marie, not Katherine, and is finally going to break his streak... but then he sees Katherine I, Katherine the Great, and ends up ditching the date. "And so it was Colin and Katherine Carter snuck out of the house to have a cup of coffee at Cafe Sel Marie."
** Then the book does it ''again''
* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|The Chessman of Mars]]'', when Turan reveals that A-Kor is a prisoner, U-Thor demands to know the meaning of it, and reveals that after O-Tar gave him the slave woman who was A-Kor's mother, he had freed and married her, and so he regards A-Kor as his son.
* The short story "Cop Killer" tells of an eager new police recruit, Max, who moves in with his veteran-cop partner and becomes a part of the family, only to be shot in the line of duty by a cheap crook. The grieving partner hunts down and kills the shooter, whose last words reveal that Max was a police dog.
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** Season Four: Jack Bristow actually killed a double of Irina Derevko. The real Irina was being held by her sister Elena in captivity. Elena turned out to be Sofia, the woman running the orphanage that Nadia grew up in.
** Season Four/Five: Six words: "My name is not Michael Vaughn." Sloane's flip-flopping between being good and evil does not count because, honestly, who didn't see it coming?
* ''[[The Dick Van Dyke Show]]''
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' (the new series) Has an on-going mystery about the identity of the twelve Cylon models. The first of many reveals is in the Miniseries, where it is revealed that Sharon must be one of them in the final scene. There are also a few other puzzles:
** Season 2: Another Battlestar survived the Cylon Holocaust.
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** Also used when the team discovers that Zack is Gormogon's apprentice.
** Also used in pretty much every episode of ''[[Bones]]''.
* In the Season 3 ''[[ER]]'' episode "Night Shift," a patient who is badly mangled after jumping (or falling) onto the tracks in front of an elevated train is rolled into a trauma room. Dr. Benton tells a nurse to page Benton's [[Butt Monkey|favorite medical student]] Dennis Gant, and everyone is horrified when the patient's beeper goes
* ''[[Dollhouse]]'': Daniel Perrin is a Doll and Cindy Perrin is his handler.
** Boyd is Rossum's founder.
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* ''[[Call of Duty]] [[Call of Duty: Black Ops|Black Ops]]'' of course, had: {{spoiler|''[[My Name Is Inigo Montoya|My name is Viktor Reznov, and I will have my revenge!]]''}}
* The flash game "Alice is Dead" does this quite well. In the first game, you see Alice's decomposing skeleton, and it is later revealed that you are the one that killed her (although, you developed some nasty amnesia and forgot most of it.) In the third game, you go after the Queen of Hearts {{spoiler|and get killed just as soon as you meet him. He slyly goes into his limo, only to find that there is another passenger: Alice. She was still alive the whole time, and only faked her death to make it easier to kill the Queen.}}
* Big Daddy in the original ''[[Gungrave]]'' is depicted as dead throughout the game. Not quite. He was actually used as a guinea pig for Harry's undead soldier program and lives on in the form of a twisted
* [[Team Fortress 2]]: "[[Oh Crap|Oh my god]], [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAb5AKm7rvo#t=1m45s you're a SPY!]"
* The main character of [[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]], Alex Mercer, is trying to find out how he became the mutant with [[Badass]] [[Cursed with Awesome|powers]] that he is. When he finally does, it turns out that {{spoiler|he's not really Alex Mercer at all. He is the Blacklight virus that infected the corpse of the real Mercer and copied his body when he was shot after releasing the Virus on the city. The protagonist only thought itself to be Mercer because it retained some of his memories as it does with all the people it infects and consumes.}}
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* In the second half of [[Portal 2]], after listening to several recordings of late Aperture Science CEO Cave Johnson talking to a cheerful secretary by the name of Caroline, it's revealed that {{spoiler|1=GLaDOS was built as an attempt by the terminally ill Johnson to cheat death by [[Brain Uploading|uploading his mind]] into an immortal AI network...and while Johnson seems to have died before the project was ready, he left instructions that Caroline should be uploaded, against her will if necessary, in his place.}}
* ''[[The Orion Conspiracy]]'' has a number of reveals. The first one is that {{spoiler|Gates is an undercover agent who has been trying to dig up dirt on the space station and gave Devlin the note about his son's death being murder}}. The second one is that {{spoiler|there are xenomorphs (aliens) running loose, killing off crew members and impersonating them}}. The third one is that {{spoiler|Captain Shannon murdered both Danny and Kaufmann. Why? Because he is a [[Complete Monster]] who killed Danny as revenge for his wife's death, and he killed Kaufmann to frame Devlin. He was also going to kill Devlin}}. The fourth one is that {{spoiler|Mogami-Hudson discovered the xenomorphs in statis in the asteroid and released some of them, hoping to get their technology in return}}. The fifth one is that {{spoiler|Doctor Chu, Waterman, and Lowe are dead and that you were interacting with xenomorphs disguised as them}}.
* ''[[Vagrant Story]]'': Lea Monde '''is''' the Gran Grimoire. And Sydney had the key to inheriting its powers all
* In [[The 3rd Birthday]], you are not really {{spoiler|playing as Aya Brea throughout the game}}. Hint: Overdive.
* Near the end of ''[[Dragon Age]]'', you find out a Grey Warden must sacrifice their life to permanently kill the Archdemon. Not long after, you find out the real reason one of your companions was sent with you was to have a child with either you-if you're male-or your other Warden companion to hold the Archdemon's essence; this would also mean no Wardens would have to die.
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== [[Visual Novels]] ==
* The ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' series, being all about very dramatic trials, has some major reveals. Perhaps the most epic is in the second game's final case, where your client, Matt Engarde, turns out to be not the killer, but [[Smug Snake|the man who ordered the killing.]] The reveal is so awesome because he [[Good Scars, Evil Scars|smoothes back his hair to reveal some nasty scars on his eye]], changing his appearance and expression extensively, and then he pulls a glass of brandy out of [[Hammerspace]]. ''In a holding cell.''
** The homepage says "a buttload more informal than Wikipedia", so let's go with some more. The ending to the third game: even after [[Big Bad]] Dahlia Hawthorne has been defeated for good, there still isn't an actual suspect for the murder. After some further testimony and debate, Phoenix accuses Prosecutor Godot. What makes this a surprise is that so far there's been absolutely nothing to even suggest that person was anywhere NEAR the murder as it happened. But it's not out of nowhere; because the player has to prove they've actually been paying attention by answering "Who do you think the witness saw?" just before
*** Or right before that, the fact that Dahlia Hawthorne is even involved. Spirit channeling had been a sidenote until that case, so the executed Dahlia was thought to be out of the picture completely.
** The first game's final case has two of them, in sequence. Lana Skye has already admitted guilt as your defendant, leading to a lot of suspicion as to: Why would you do that? When investigating a very obviously-related incident referred to as SL-9, you must go through the testimony of her younger sister, Ema Skye, to find out what happened. Many players here expect this murder gives the proof and motive to put the real culprit behind bars. The result? You accidentally find proof positive to the real killer in that incident: Ema. This sets up for a bigger reveal later on.
** Throughout the fifth game the question we've been building up to is whether the Yatagarasu is Kay's father Byrne Faraday, as Kay claims, or Calisto Yew, as Yew claims. In the penultimate challenge of the game we find out that the answer is neither option. The Yatagarasu was actually ''three people''
* ''[[Fate/stay night]]''. In the Fate route Saber is revealed to be {{spoiler|King Arthur (or [[Distaff Counterpart|Arturia]])}}, the Holy Grail is actually {{spoiler|an [[Artifact of Doom]] [[Jackass Genie]]}} and {{spoiler|that random priest at the very start}} is the [[Big Bad]]. In Unlimited Blade Works route Archer is actually {{spoiler|a [[Future Badass]] version of Shirou}}. In Heaven's Feel route {{spoiler|Sakura is Rin's younger sister who was given to the evil Matou family and during eleven years was subject of horrendous domestic abuse and [[Training From Hell]] in order to become a vessel of the Holy Grail}}.
* ''[[Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors|Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors]]'' has its first major reveal during the Safe Ending, where you find out that Ace is Gentarou Hongou, the CEO of Cradle Pharmaceuticals and the perpetrator of the first Nonary Game. {{spoiler|Except he isn't Zero. Zero, as revealed by the True Ending, is June, and that you've actually been playing as her, not Junpei, the whole time. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].}}
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* At the climax of an earlier plotline of ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', it's revealed that literally every detail of the plotline was all part of an elaborate publicity stunt orchestrated by ''FOX News''.
* ''[[YU+ME: dream]]'' - when the reader finds out that everything in Part 1 has been a [[All Just a Dream|dream]].
* [http://mortifer.smackjeeves.com Mortifer,] being more or less a [[Wham! Episode|Wham Series]] [[Growing the Beard|in later chapters]], has plenty of these. The most notable, however, is chapter 18. William Aussek, Sam's [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] new CO, is actually Joey Von Krause in disguise. And Joey is actually a demon, with [[Playing with Fire|flame powers]]. And his eyepatch hides a gaping wound with a small light deep inside instead of an eye. And then he kills Sam, who's a viewpoint character. There are several other examples, such as the reveal that Vlademyre Hynner, Joey's old boss who was [[Brick Joke|introduced in the first chapter, then forgotten]], is the new leader of the southern black market, or the reveal that [[Badass Preacher]] Zebidiah is actually a demon under Vlad's control, or the reveal that Joey's [[Talking to Themself|hallucinations]] are actually Rashnu trying to get him to redeem himself, or the reveal that Joey's plan thee whole time has been to use his William Aussek identity to eliminate Sintec and the black market for
* ''[[The Phoenix Requiem]]'': The spirits are the bad guys.
* [[Homestuck]]: The most important character in Homestuck is... {{spoiler|Gamzee Makara. Though, Lil' Cal may be more likely at this point.}}
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