History Main / CaptainObviousReveal

* ''Literature/TheScholomance'': TheDeuteragonist Orion Lake is a maw-mouth-wizard hybrid. All mals avoid him as much as possible, he has difficulty putting names to faces (unless they're El), he is obsessed with hunting other mals to the point of neglecting just about everything else in his life, and he lacks the basic mana control that everyone else has and can never seem to get enough mana no matter how hard he tries. It is isn't confirmed until the third book, but many fans guessed it as early as the first one because there were so many hints.

* A humorous InUniverse example appears in ''WesternAnimation/ChickenRun''. Fowler repeatedly makes reference to "the RAF", and the chickens get excited when they finally realize he means the Royal Air Force, inspiring a plan to build a makeshift plane to escape. Ginger wants Fowler to be the pilot, and is horrified when he tells her that he was a mascot and doesn't ''actually'' know how to fly a plane. Fowler is bemused that the others thought he could fly a plane in the first place, when [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome the Royal Air Force doesn't let chickens behind the controls of complex aircraft]]. After Ginger encourages him, Fowler takes the wheel anyway, and does a pretty good job of it.

** When Creator/JKRowling wrote that an "R.A.B." had already procured the Horcrux locket at the end of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'', fans figured out almost immediately "R.A.B." stood for Regulus Black. Though note that this was on the strength of just a couple barely memorable mentions of him until the final book, making this more a case of the fans being just that obsessive. [[note]]Or the fans checked foreign language translations -- the Black family was sometimes translated with a [[MeaningfulName meaningful surname]], leading to "RAB" being "RAZ" or other in some translations.[[/note]]

* Something [[InterfaceSpoiler outside the bounds of the story]] such as [[SpoiledByTheFormat its format]], plants the seed making the audience suspect there may be more than it appears.

* Something [[InterfaceSpoiler outside the bounds of the story]] such as [[SpoiledByTheFormat its format]] plants the seed making the audience suspect there may be more than it appears.

Note once again that this will never apply to 100% of the audience. Likewise, just because one audience member foresaw it doesn't mean we have this trope — that particular audience member is just good at recognizing foreshadowing. Also worth noting that among the thousands who watch a movie/read a book, someone is bound to simply ''guess'' the plot twist ahead of time, no matter how well it is set up — it's practically a statistical certainty. Just because ''you'' figured out the twist doesn't mean others will do so using the same evidence. In addition, what separates this YMMV trope from the more general IKnewIt is audience reaction. With I Knew It!, the audience is ecstatic (or at least satisfied) about having pieced together all the clues and having guessed the twist ahead of time. With a Captain Obvious Reveal, making the prediction took so little brain power that the audience is glancing at the closest clock and waiting for the narrative to finally catch up.

* Finally, it could be that no matter how well you plan your plot twists, [[IKnewIt there will always be someone who can figure it out]].

* ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'': In "Franchise/ScoobyDoo vs. WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog", many viewers immediately deduced the identity of the monster chasing Scooby and Courage way before the ScoobyDooHoax. The only person who kept a mask similar to the monster's face was Courage's abusive owner Eustace Bagge, and it furthermore attempted to use Eustace's mallet on Scooby, all but giving away its identity.

* Something [[InterfaceSpoiler outside the bounds of the story]] plants the seed making the audience suspect there may be more.

Note once again that this will never apply to 100% of the audience. Likewise, just because one audience member foresaw it doesn't mean we have this trope — that particular audience member is just good at recognizing foreshadowing. Also worth noting that among the thousands who watch a movie/read a book, someone is bound to simply ''guess'' the plot twist ahead of time, no matter how well it is set up — it's practically a statistical certainty. In addition, what separates this YMMV trope from the more general IKnewIt is audience reaction. With I Knew It!, the audience is ecstatic (or at least satisfied) about having pieced together all the clues and having guessed the twist ahead of time. With a Captain Obvious Reveal, making the prediction took so little brain power that the audience is glancing at the closest clock and waiting for the narrative to finally catch up.

Compare ItWasHisSled, where the twist was a surprise but has since become so well-known to even those who never engaged with the work that it is no longer a twist. Contrast TomatoSurprise, DeusExMachina, and ForegoneConclusion. The in-story version of this is EverybodyKnewAlready. A variation is the ObviousJudas when the most ObviouslyEvil character is revealed to be the villain. Related to CaptainObviousAesop, when a moral that most people in real life believe already ("[[AndThatsTerrible Murder is bad]]!" "BeYourself!") is treated in-story as a profound revelation.

* ''Literature/GentlemanBastard'': The second book opens with Locke and Jean, two conmen who have been TrueCompanions since childhood, cornered by some {{mook}}s. Suddenly, Jean turns on Locke and tells the mooks that he has betrayed Locke for their master. We then flash back to show HowWeGotHere, leaving this shocking swerve as a {{cliffhanger}} until the end, when we find out the obvious: the conman was conning the mooks.

* Subverted in ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'', which pulled one over on fans by making it look like a twist they’d been predicting for years (Rewind turning out to be NotQuiteDead) was finally coming true, [[YankTheDogsChain only for it to turn out that it was an alternate version of him]]; the real Rewind was not only still dead, but his killer later turned up again just to confirm his death.

** [[BigBad Count Logan]] being [[RogueProtagonist Beast Boy]] ''would'' have been a huge plot twist...The only problem being that we focus on him for the first two chapters with enough information that when the slightest hint is given, it's instead [[TheUntwist a plot un-twist]]. For starters, Beast Boy's real name is Garfield ''Logan'', and the story goes to great lengths to show the name. It also goes to great lengths to showcase his relation to Terra and his reason for ''why'' he became Count Logan in the first place, right down to using a clip from the show constantly, to the point where when they show it again and [[PlotBasedVoiceCancellation this time, with the names muted,]] it's downright obvious. ''Especially'' since one of the words that ''wasn't'' muted was ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenTitans Teen Titan]]''.