We Would Have Told You But: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
An episode in which a main character ''and'' the audience is kept in the dark by their friends or colleagues. This is to pull off a [[Sting (music)|Sting]] against someone else, never a main character.
They will be given the excuse at the end ... "We would have told you, but we needed your reactions to look genuine." In settings that include telepathy it's often done to foil even that.
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When this is done to the actors, it is [[Enforced Method Acting]].
{{examples}}
== Comic Books ==
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* Occurs in ''The Light Bearer'' (a historical fiction novel about ancient Rome). The male protagonist allows his aunt Arria to think her children have died in a fire in order to save them from abduction by Nero. Since Nero was in the room when the announcement was made, the protagonist knew he would not have been fooled if Arria had not expressed real shock and grief.
* The entire plot of ''Mordant's Need'' by Stephen R. Donaldson revolved around {{spoiler|a king pretending to be insane to drive away his allies. He needed to appear weak}}.
* [[Lucky Starr]] pulls this all the time, often dramatically accusing the wrong suspect on purpose and using people's reactions to gain proof against the real culprit. The worst instance is in ''[[Lucky Starr]] and the Rings of Saturn'', in which Lucky allows everyone to believe [[Fake Defector|he is going to betray Earth]]
* In the last few pages of ''[[The Hunger Games]]: Catching Fire'', it turns out that Katniss' friends kept her in the dark about some pretty huge things, {{spoiler|including the fact that District 13 really exists,}} because Katniss' poor deception skills and [[Chronic Hero Syndrome]] would have ruined their plans if she had known.
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== Webcomics ==
* In ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'', [[Cloudcuckoolander|Elan]] is not told about a plot to catch Therkla in an [[Engineered Public Confession]].
{{quote|
'''Lien''': Because we wanted it to work! Seriously, how many times do I have to go over the "[[Good Is Not Dumb|Good, not dumb]]" thing? }}
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Plots]]
[[Category:
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