History Main / ItSeemedTrivial

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': In the episode "Fury", the rogue amazon [[StrawFeminist Aresia]] is planning to [[{{Gendercide}} to wipe out all men from the face of Earth]]. She's revealed to be a regular human girl raised by the Amazons after being driven from her homeland by a military coup, which sparked her intense hatred of men. During the climax, Hippolyta (Wonder Woman's mother) confronts her and reveals, much to Aresia's shock, it was actually a man who rescued her and brought her to Themyscira, although he died after he reached the shore and was buried there. When Aresia asks why she was never told this, Hippolyta replies she thought "it was not important, that ''he'' was not important"), which she heavily regrets. Nevertheless, Aresia'shatred of men ultimately proves too ingrained to change her ways.

* In the leadup to UsefulNotes/TheGulfWar, the U.S. government directed its ambassador to Iraq to deliver a message to Saddam Hussein regarding the Iraq-Kuwait dispute. The message was to include conciliatory statements as well as some warnings to deter Saddam from using force to resolve the issue. The ambassador, not realizing that Saddam intended to take ''all'' of Kuwait, delivered the conciliatory part of her message, but omitted the warnings, leading Saddam to believe that he had American backing to invade Kuwait. Afterward, {{Conspiracy Theorist}}s would use the ambassador's conciliatory message to conclude that Iraq had been intentionally set up to give the U.S. a pretext for war.

* Inverted in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix''. Sirius considered the fact that he and Harry are close to be trivial--or, perhaps, didn't have the patience to deal with his irritating House Elf Kreacher knowing the information. When he yells "GET OUT!" to Kreacher at one point, the House Elf obeys him--by [[ExactWords "getting out" of the house and going to Bellatrix Lestrange]]. Bellatrix in turn tells Voldemort. Sirius has forbidden Kreacher from revealing the secrets of the Order of the Phoenix, but never thought to tell him not to reveal that he's become a ParentalSubstitute to Harry, which Voldemort can use to lure Harry into a trap.

** Interestingly, this trope ends up ''saving'' Ron [=deLite=] in ''Trials and Tribulations''. [[spoiler:during his murder trial, he offhandedly remarks that he only survived being hit in the head at KB Security because he happened to have gone to the meeting while wearing his [=Mask☆DeMasque=] costume, which everyone immediately claims is a significant detail. However, by only revealing it ''then'', it meant that no one outside that courtroom could know about it. So when Luke Atmey (who was in a ''different'' trial at the time) claims Ron had to be the killer since the scene had no fingerprints and his costume included gloves, [[INeverSaidItWasPoison Phoenix has him dead to rights]].]]

** Interestingly, this trope ends up ''saving'' Ron [=deLite=] in ''Trials and Tribulations''. [[spoiler:during his murder trial, he offhandedly remarks that he only survived being hit in the head at KB Security because he happened to have gone to the meeting while wearing his Mask☆DeMasque costume, which everyone immediately claims is a significant detail. However, by only revealing it ''then'', it meant that no one outside that courtroom could know about it. So when Luke Atmey (who was in a ''different'' trial at the time) claims Ron had to be the killer since the scene had no fingerprints and his costume included gloves, [[INeverSaidItWasPoison Phoenix has him dead to rights]].]]

* This trope is pulled in spades in the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series, infuriating the player character to no end. Witnesses will sometimes not bother to tell the player a vital piece of information or give some important evidence that could help clear their name or solve the case because they feel the item/information has no bearings on the current situation. A particularly notable example is when Miles Edgeworth [[NotSoStoic completely loses his composure]] in ''[[OOCIsSeriousBusiness the middle of court]]'' over a playing card that Adrian Andrews has been absentmindedly toying with. She is genuinely confused when he demands to know where she got it and why she didn't tell anyone about it. [[spoiler:Turns out it's the calling card of an infamous assassin, which dramatically changes the case]].

* Inverted in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix''. Sirius considered the fact that he and Harry are close to be trivial--or, perhaps, didn't have the patience to deal with his irritating House Elf Kreacher knowing the information. When he yells "GET OUT!" to Kreacher at one point, the House Elf obeys him--by [[ExactWords "getting out" of the house and going to Bellatrix Lestrange]] with news about Sirius and Harry's bond. Bellatrix in turn tells Voldemort, who uses the relationship to set up a dangerous trap.

'''Westley:''' I mean, if we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.\\

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': A combination of such events culminates in the introduction of one of the antagonists from later in the story. After landing the job of a deceased previous antagonist, Rozemyne finds a bunch of old letters in her predecessor's office, including some that she assumes to be a secret LongDistanceRelationship correspondence. Out of a misguided sense of respecting the privacy of both sides, she doesn't include the assumed love letters when she hands over her predecessor's correspondence to her mentor Ferdinand so he can sort through it. Later, she gets a letter from her predecessor's assumed lover and announces the death on a provided answer sheet that promptly turns out to be imbued with the setting's InstantMessengerPigeon spell. After that, she double-checks with Ferdinand to make sure there is no gag order on her predecessor's death while not saying anything that would make Ferdinand realize that the assumed lover isn't just a random acquaintance of the deceased who can be told of the death with no issue. It later turns out that Rozemyne's predecessor had a cherished female relative who was sent to another duchy for an ArrangedMarriage; Rozemyne's adult allies simply never got around to telling her of the woman's existence or the fact that they needed to be careful about the circumstances in which she learned about the death.

* In ''Webcomic/{{SSDD}}'', Michael is the only member of a group trying to prevent [[AIIsACrapshoot The Oracle]] from gaining control who is not from the BadFuture in which it has done so. He is also the only one knows that British Intelligence created something called the Echelon Plug-in (he was given a copy of it). Two problems. First, he's the group's ButtMonkey, so nobody else tells him anything, which means he has no idea what the Oracle is, never mind that it exists (he actually has to be told that the "[[http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20110328.html Old Man]]" and [[http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20110405.html The Oracle]] are [[http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20110411.html the same thing]]. Second, he's the group's ButtMonkey, so nobody listens to him, which means the others have no idea what The Echelon Plug-in is, never mind that it exists. [[spoiler:When they ''finally'' tell Michael about Oracle, Michael makes an offhanded comparison of the two programs and the others realize that the Oracle and Echelon Plug-in are ''one and the same''. In other words, the Oracle already exists in Michael's time, which explains a ''lot''.]] [[http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20110418.html The page quote comes from this.]]

* This trope is pulled in spades in the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series, infuriating the player character to no end. Witnesses will sometimes not bother to tell the player a vital piece of information or give some important evidence that could help clear their name or solve the case because they feel the item/information has no bearings on the current situation.
** A particularly notable example is when Miles Edgeworth [[NotSoStoic completely loses his composure]] in ''[[OOCIsSeriousBusiness the middle of court]]'' over a playing card that Adrian Andrews has been absentmindedly toying with. She is genuinely confused when he demands to know where she got it and why she didn't tell anyone about it. [[spoiler:Turns out it's the calling card of an infamous assassin, which dramatically changes the case]].

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem "The Sontaran Stratagem"]] has a villainous example: Luke Rattigan gets a phone call from UNIT telling him that the Doctor is coming to see him. Luke, having never heard of him, assumes that "doctor" is ''only'' his title. So, when General Staal asks him who the Doctor is, during a confrontation, Luke responds with "He didn't give his name", thus preventing Staal from realizing exactly who he just met until after the Doctor and UNIT private Ross have fled the scene, and they're trying to track them down.

* In the season one episode of ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', "I, E.T.", the crew is desperately searching for an anesthesia to use on Moya located somewhere on an alien planet, only to find out, at the eleventh hour, from a befriended local that it's a common spice they used in their food.

** In one episode, a man who'd been suffering for years was so desperate for a diagnosis that he ''took the clinic hostage at gunpoint'' to force House to diagnose him. In the end, the key to his diagnosis was [[spoiler:mentioning that he'd once been to Florida. He'd repeatedly claimed that he'd never been to the tropics, not realizing that Florida counted.]]

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': A string of such event culminate in the introduction of one of the antagonists from later in the story. After landing the job of a deceased previous antagonist, Rozemyne finds a bunch of old letters in her predecessor's office, including some that she assumes to be a secret LongDistanceRelationship correspondence. Out of a misguided sense of respecting the privacy of both sides, she doesn't include the assumed love letters when she hands over her predecessor's correspondence to her mentor Ferdinand so he can sort through it. Later, she gets a letter from her predecessor's assumed lover and announces the death on a provided answer sheet that promptly turns out to be imbued with the setting's InstantMessengerPigeon spell. After that, she double-checks with Ferdinand to make sure there is no gag order on her predecessor's death while not saying anything that would make Ferdinand realize that the assumed lover isn't just a random acquaintance of the deceased who can be told of the death with no issue. It later turns out that Rozemyne's predecessor had a cherished female relative who was sent to another duchy for an ArrangedMarriage; Rozemyne's adult allies simply never got around to telling her of the woman's existence or the fact that they needed to be careful about the circumstances in which she learned about the death.

*** Luke does this later on in the last third of the game when he neglects to tell the rest of the party [[spoiler: the local Deity had contacted him, warning him that the BigBad had captured it]]. This one can be chalked up to simple ignorance, as Luke had no idea what the message meant; [[spoiler:Lorelei had referred to the BigBad as "One who would seek glory," which is what the villain's name means in Ancient Ispanian]].

* ''VideoGame/Persona4'': Yukiko's knowledge that [[spoiler:Adachi]] was at the inn spending a lot of time with Ms. Yamano just before she died is the first non-circumstantial piece of evidence the group has towards finding out his identity as the true Killer, but she doesn't make this known unless the player casts suspicion on [[spoiler:Adachi]] in the first place... ''at the very end of the game''. To be fair, however, none of them had actually thought to suspect [[spoiler:Adachi]] of being the killer before that point.

*** Luke does this later on in the last third of the game when he neglects to tell the rest of the party [[spoiler: the local Deity had contacted him, warning him that the BigBad had captured it]]. This one can be chalked up to simple ignorance, as Luke had no idea what the message meant.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Samuel Vimes has a moment or two of this in every book he stars in, but ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'' and ''Discworld/{{Thud}}'' probably have the most.