Line #143 Main/INeverGotAnyLetters


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2	%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
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4	->'''Shawn:''' I must have sent [Jack] like fifteen letters, and I never got a single thing back. So I knew that he didn't want to have anything to do with me. And he still doesn't.\
5	'''Jack:''' I never got any letters. [...] My mom must have thrown them away without showing them to me.
6	-->-- ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'', episode 5x02, "Boy Meets [[Series/TheRealWorld Real World]]"
7
8	When a character is angry that another character never answered any of their letters, only to discover that a third character had been intercepting them. This can work the other way, as well, with a character angry that they never ''got'' any letters from someone, and the same explanation.
9
10	This trope often plays out entirely within families, with one parent hiding the other parent's letters from their child, or intercepting letters the child writes. This is probably because it's easy to believe that a parent would have this kind of access to a child's mail, while adults would presumably get and send all of their mail directly.
11
12	This trope also applies to intercepted calls, emails, texts, or any other form of indirect communication. The relevant part is the misunderstanding.
13
14	The OppositeTrope is NeverSentAnyLetters, which is when a character has letters (or another form of communication) sent "from" them that they never actually wrote, usually for manipulation purposes.
15
16	Also, unfathomably, but usually necessary to the plot, the person who intercepted the letters has kept them, often for decades, instead of throwing them out, so we get a scene where the letters are finally delivered. This can be a form of RelationshipSabotage if the letters being intercepted are between {{Love Interest}}s.
17
18	----
19
20	!!Examples
21
22	[[foldercontrol]]
23
24	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
25	* ''Manga/FoodWars'': Early in the manga, Alice complains to Erina about how the latter never answered any of her letters when they were younger while she was in Denmark. [[spoiler:Later on, it turns out that Erina never got them, as her father Azami shredded them in order to isolate her while he was training (read: brainwashing) her. Alice knew this, and that's why, despite complaining to Erina about it, it's Azami she really hates for what happened]].
26	* ''Manga/FullMoon'': Discussed when Dr. Wakaouji wonders if Mitsuki isn't receiving any correspondence from Eichi because Mitsuki's grandmother is intercepting communications. [[spoiler:Subverted when it's revealed that it was actually because Eichi died while overseas.]]
27	* ''Manga/MyGirl'': Kazama Masamune had been constantly writing and sending letters to his ex-girlfriend, who despite both of them being very much in love still, had moved away and cut off all contact with him. He discovers later that she had received every letter, written a reply for each one, telling Kazama just how much she missed and wanted to be with him, then stored that answering letter away and never sent any of them.
28	* ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi'': Aiko discovers that her estranged mother Atsuko had made several attempts to contact her, but all of Atsuko's letters were hidden by Aiko's father.
29	* During a flashback in the Egghead arc of ''Manga/OnePiece'', it's shown that [[spoiler:Kuma (knowing that he only had a year to live because of the deal he made with the World Government) would regularly write letters to his daughter Bonney during his work as a Warlord, telling her all about the places he visited and pouring in a lifetime of love into every word. Unfortunately, the cruel Cipher Pol agent Alpha who had been assigned to watch over her as collateral destroyed every single one without even letting her know they existed [[EvilIsPetty because his fatherly affection disgusted her]]. The only upside to all of it is that we're only seeing the flashbacks because Bonney absorbed a copy of his memories made with his Devil Fruit powers and was able to see him write all of them first hand. The needless cruelty also comes back to bite Alpha because the absense of letters is what tipped off Conney that something was amiss and make plans to help Bonney escape.]]
30	* ''Anime/SailorMoon'': In the ''Sailor Stars'' season, Rei is upset when she discovers that Usagi has received no replies to the letters she's been sending daily to Mamoru whilst he's been going to college in the United States. Turns out the reason for this is not so much that someone has been intercepting the letters, but because [[spoiler:he's dead.]]
31	* ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'': Matoi, Nozomu's biggest StalkerWithACrush, is shown to read his mail and throw it out before it reaches him. There's a joke on one point about the mailman having a bit of a crush on her because he always sees her/chats a bit when he delivers the mail.
32	[[/folder]]
33
34	[[folder:Comic Books]]
35	* ''ComicBook/TheBatmanAdventures'': According to ''The New Batman Adventures'' episode "[[Recap/TheNewBatmanAdventuresE3ColdComfort Cold Comfort]]", after Nora Fries was cured of her terminal illness, she waited for her missing and presumed dead husband Victor Fries for some time before she gave up waiting, marrying her doctor Francis D'Anjou and leaving Gotham for good. This was expanded in ''Batman: Gotham Adventures'' #51 and ''Batman Adventures'' #15. ''Batman: Gotham Adventures'' #51 shows that Mr. Freeze has been sending letters to Nora asking to see her one more time, but Francis has been hiding all the letters from Nora. Then Nora visits Victor Fries in Arkham Asylum and tells him that she still loves him and wants to be together with him. Nora breaks Victor out, and they work on a formula to restore him to normal. After a battle with Batman and Batgirl, it is revealed that Nora is really Clayface, who is manipulating him to make a cure for his condition; furious at the deceit, Victor Fries destroys the formula and leaves. Mr. Freeze figures that Nora couldn't possibly love him anymore; he wrote one more letter to her to say goodbye and that she's made the right choice by moving on, escaping Gotham for a life in the Arctic. The issue ends with Nora Fries arriving at Arkham Asylum asking for Victor Fries with a letter he sends her in her hand. ''Batman Adventures'' #15 revealed that Nora discovers that her new husband, Francis D'Anjou, was hiding the letters Victor was sending her and is angry at him, but Francis is attacked by a robot that freezes him. Refusing to believe that it was Victor, Nora refuses to believe that Victor was behind the attack and leaves for the Arctic to find him. Victor confirms that he was not responsible and he would never hurt Francis because she loves him. Nora believes him, and it is revealed that Francis, jealous of Nora's feelings for Victor, frames him for attacking him by having a robot freeze him, hoping to convince her to see Victor as a monster. Unfortunately, Victor is lost after a battle with Batman and Batgirl; Nora visits Francis D'Anjou in prison and leaves him. After talking with Victor's former assistant Koonak, Nora returns to the Arctic, hoping to find Victor's head.
36	* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'': In one comic focused on Rantanplan, a prison director runs an elaborate coverup via forged letters. A cavalry colonel drops his grandson Douglas off at the penitentiary, but he ends up escaping along with Rantanplan to join the circus. The director then responds to the colonel's letters as if they were from Douglas (leading the colonel to comment on the director's incompetence and negative effect on Douglas' spelling). When the two are reunited, the colonel demands to know why Douglas didn't tell him anything in his letters (which the director hurriedly sweeps off the desk where they're dutifully eaten by Rantanplan), only to learn that Douglas never wrote anything. The colonel turns to the director... who innocently asks which letters he's talking about, Rantanplan having finished them off out of his sight.
37	* ''ComicBook/QuantumAndWoody'': In one issue, Woody eventually stumbles across the many letters with child support checks his father had sent; his mother was too proud to cash them or mention them, but not too proud to pawn his beloved guitar.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
41	* ''ComicStrip/{{Crankshaft}}'': Taking things to the very extreme, the older of the two old maid sisters (Crankshaft's neighbors) intercepted her younger sister's letters during [=WW2=] because she was afraid she would abandon her for her beloved, who got the impression that he was dumped and although he still loved her, he never wrote again. The older sister never confessed until her sister was comatose and dying of Alzheimer's. She later had a dream where she went back in time, met her sister's younger self, and gave the letter to her sister's beloved, whereupon her sister forgave her.
42	[[/folder]]
43
44	[[folder:Eastern Animation]]
45	* ''Animation/KikoRiki'': In the episode "The Lost Apology", Olga reflects on how she fought with her friend (or boyfriend), and never made up because she was waiting for his apology. Turns out there were over thirty letters placed between the pages of a magazine she was ordering by mail but had no time to read.
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Fan Works]]
49	* Some ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' fanfics suggest that Harry was regularly sent owls with fan letters before he started attending Hogwarts, but he never received them because they were intercepted by the Ministry (or Dumbledore).
50	** FridgeLogic dictates that this didn't happen canonically; Harry was raised by the Dursleys for his own safety, and if his address was public, that would defeat the point. However, owls and other birds seem to be able to deliver a letter without an address anyway. It's done after ''Prisoner of Azkaban'' at least.
51	* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10351909/1/Girls-und-Panzer-Open-Warfare Girls Und Panzer Open Warfare]]'' (''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer''): This happens between [[OriginalCharacter Samuel Pearce]] and Riko "Erwin" Matsumoto, as a result of Sam's parents trying to discourage his interest in the military. While it does result in Sam becoming embittered toward Erwin, it does not result in Sam changing his mind, and once Sam learns the truth, [[CallingTheOldManOut he redirects his anger toward his parents]].
52	* ''Fanfic/{{Intercession}}'': Subverted when Harry [[spoiler:takes his mother's silence, not as proof of Dumbledore's claims that she rejected all things magical including Harry himself, but rather as proof that something must be interfering, because he knows there is no way that she wouldn't take ''some'' kind of action to contact him, if only to pull him out of school.]]
53	* ''Fanfic/TheLastSon'' (''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' crossover): In Book Four, it's revealed that Superman had previously met [[spoiler: Emma Frost]] at age 13, and they struck a friendship for a time. When she recognizes him as Clark Kent at adult age, she complains that he never wrote to her, to which he replies that he ''did'' write and she never answered. [[spoiler: It's then revealed that Selene manipulated Emma's dad to intercept Clark's mail out of spite, leading Emma to believe Clark had forgotten about her.]]
54	* ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/65656/letters-from-a-friend-at-the-end-of-the-world Letters From a Friend at the End of the World]]'' (''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''): The story starts with Twilight receiving a letter from Trixie Lulamoon, much to her surprise. Then she reads it and learns it's not the first one she's been sent... just the first one she's gotten. She soon finds out that Rainbow Dash had accidentally found Trixie's actual first letter over a year ago and, rather than giving it to Twilight like she planned, got nosy about the contents. Finding them to be pretty unpleasant, she unilaterally decided Twilight didn't need to get such letters and had all Twilight's mail redirected to her own house instead so she could intercept any future mail from Trixie. Twilight is disappointed in her for this but ultimately forgives her since Rainbow Dash still has all the letters and agrees to hand them over.
55	* ''Fanfic/TheUndying'': Part of Flowey's assistance of the human's genocide of the Underground is revealed to have been intercepting all phone calls intended for Asgore to keep him oblivious to the human's actions for as long as possible.
56	-->'''Undyne:''' Someone hacked Asgore's phone. He had no idea that the little freak was wreaking havoc until they were already dead.
57	* ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5768891/1/Who_Saves_the_Hero Who Saves the Hero]]'' (''Franchise/MassEffect''): In chapter 29, Shepard is revealed to be in trouble because (among other things) she retained her military position in the System Alliance while she was a Spectre (during ''[=ME1=]'') when she was supposed to resign her commission within one month. The reason why this didn't happen was that Udina kept the message saying so from Shepard so that the SA could maintain a hold over her.
58	* ''[[https://bludhavens.livejournal.com/87499.html?thread=40703947#t40703947 You can't spell "Yandere" without both "yan" and "dere"]]'' (''Franchise/AceAttorney''): Miles never received any of the letters Phoenix wrote to him throughout their separation because [[spoiler:they detailed Phoenix's increasingly twisted obsession with him. Manfred von Karma was [[HorrifyingTheHorror disturbed]] by them and kept Miles from seeing them.]]
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
62	* ''WesternAnimation/DavidCopperfield1993'': This [[{{Disneyfication}} furry, animated, children's movie version]] of ''Literature/DavidCopperfield'' implies the trope when Davey reads a letter from his mother and angrily comments, "I ''have'' written!" It's later confirmed when Murdstone says:
63	-->'''Murdstone:''' "Clara Copperfield's health is not improving, especially since her boy never answers her letters."
64	** He then proceeds to tear up a stack of them gleefully.
65	[[/folder]]
66
67	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
68	* ''Film/TheAbductionOfSaintAnne'': Wayne sneaks into Anne's house to visit her while she's being held prisoner by her father and asks why she hasn't answered his letters. Anne replies, "What letters?" Horrified, Wayne says, "What are they doing to you?"
69	* ''Film/BeCool'': Raji has been deleting Elliot's answering machine when he finds out that Chili has been getting him acting auditions. Chili proves Raji's treachery when he gets Elliot to check the messages on his cell phone, where he finds duplicates of the deleted messages.
70	* ''Film/TheDevilCommands'': When Anne finally gets to see her father after years of separation, she demands to know why he never replied to her letters, he says he never received any. When she insists she sent them, Dr. Blair says Mrs. Walters collects the mail from the post office and starts to realise that Mrs. Walters has been deliberately keeping him isolated and manipulating him for years.
71	* ''Film/GoodbyeLenin'': The mother reveals that she has been lying to her children about their father. He didn't leave for West Germany with a woman and he did write letters. Ariane later finds all of the old letters from her father and cries as she reads them.
72	* ''Literature/GulliversTravels'': In the 1996 TV miniseries adaptation, Gulliver's wife tries to write letters to Gulliver, who has been committed to an asylum, but Bates, the man who was trying woo Gulliver's wife until he returned from his travels after 8 years, intercepts them. The stash of letters is found by Gulliver's son.
73	* ''Film/TheHauntedMansion2003'': Edward was so distraught over his beloved Elizabeth being DrivenToSuicide before their marriage that his soul could not rest, and he tried to marry Sara thinking she was Elizabeth reincarnated. However, a letter was eventually discovered in the attic, revealing that Elizabeth truly did want to marry him. This letter was intercepted by Edward's butler Ramsay, who then poisoned Elizabeth, as the union would've been multiracial in a time where that was less accepted.
74	* ''Film/{{Heavyweights}}'': The cruel fat camp counselor Tony Perkis screens all the mail the campers send to their families, and throws away anything that's critical of him, the staff, or otherwise negative about camp life.
75	* ''Literature/InHerShoes'': When Maggie goes over to her father's house and is looking through his drawers for money, she discovers cards and letters from her grandmother, whom she never knew existed. Later, when Rose, her sister, kicks her out of her apartment, Maggie goes down to visit her grandmother.
76	* ''Film/TheNotebook'': Noah sends Allie one letter a day for a year, but they are never received [[spoiler:until years later]] because of Allie's mother.
77	* ''Film/OverTheTop'': The ''eeeee-vil'' granddad refuses to meet Lincoln Hawk (or was it Hawks?) halfway by hiding all the letters Linc sent to his estranged son.
78	* ''Film/SingleWhiteFemale'': When Allie's ex Sam shows up, hoping to reconcile, he asks why she never responded to the letter he sent. She claims to have never gotten it. Later in the film, when rifling through her roommate's things, she finds it.
79	* ''Film/WildHeartsCantBeBroken'': Sonora namechecks the trope nearly word-for-word when Al asks her why she never answered his letters. She later finds the letters where Al's father, from whom he'd been estranged at the time, had hidden them after intercepting them, believing that he wasn't good enough for Sonora, who'd become a surrogate daughter to him.
80	[[/folder]]
81
82	[[folder:Literature]]
83	* ''Literature/{{Boot Camp\|2007}}'': Teens imprisoned at Lake Harmony are allowed to write to their parents, but the staff rip up any letters that complain about the abuse.
84	* ''Literature/ChronicleOfADeathForetold'': A strange variation -- when Angela Vicario begins to write compulsively to the [[ArrangedMarriage arranged husband]] who dumped her, after realizing she had fallen in love with him after all. She keeps writing a daily letter, for about seventeen years, without having any response and eventually without expecting one. When he finally comes back with her, he carries several thousands of unopened letters with him -- he just couldn't get himself to read them.
85	* ''Literature/TheColorPurple'': Nettie promises to write her sister Celie, but as time passes Celie doesn't receive any letters, so she assumes Nettie is dead. When it is suggested that her abusive husband is hiding them, Celie believes that even he wouldn't stoop so low as to keep her sister from her. Later, she discovers that her abusive husband really has been hiding the letters, which is the last straw for her to work up the courage to leave him.
86	* ''Literature/TheCuriousIncidentOfTheDogInTheNighttime'': [[spoiler: Christopher's mother is sending him letters, but his father claimed she was dead and hid them from him.]]
87	* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
88	** ''Literature/LordsAndLadies'': Subverted -- Mustrum Ridcully complains that Granny Weatherwax never answered his letters. She replies that she never got the letters (which, since this would have been when you "posted" a letter by handing it to a dwarf going in the right direction, doesn't necessarily imply a malicious interloper). Ridcully replies that he sent them to her ''magically'', and it turns out she ''did'' get them, she just didn't see any point in replying since they'd made their choices.
89	** ''Literature/GoingPostal'': The postal service has stopped working because of a [[ItMakesSenseInContext letter sorter making new letters]] so the main character [[EmbarrassingFirstName Moist]] [[TheVonTropeFamily von Lipwig]] delivers a single letter, turns out to have been sent by the male party of former lovers... now both widowed, so they hook up.
90	* ''Literature/DownADarkHall'': The headmistress of the BoardingSchoolOfHorrors has been suppressing almost all of the letters that her students send to their families and friends back home in order to prevent any speculation of exactly what is going on at the school to get out. This leads to the main character Kit's mother and best friend wondering in their own letters why Kit never writes to them.
91	* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': In ''Literature/SkinGame'', at the beginning of the story, Harry is frustrated that he hasn't had contact with anyone since the events of ''Literature/ColdDays''. Turns out, it's just one of the many ways that [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Mab]] has been isolating Harry, and backing him into a corner so that he'll accept the job she has for him.
92	* ''Literature/EndersGame'': It's unknown whether it's standard operating procedure to prevent letters from home to go through, but it's certainly one of the ways they isolate Ender. Eventually, a letter gets through from his loving sister Valentine, but Ender realizes that since she obviously had to write it under duress, it just means they have begun to use her to manipulate him as well.
93	* ''Literature/FamilySkeletonMysteries'': Phone variant -- In the first book, Georgia explains to Sid at one point that her old college roommate had done this when Georgia met a guy at a party and he'd promised he'd call, but supposedly never did. Years later, the roommate found religion and decided to confess her sins to everyone she'd ever wronged in the hope of getting forgiveness. In Georgia's case, that involved admitting the guy ''had'' called, but the roommate had answered and told him Georgia already had a boyfriend in the vain hopes of winning the guy for herself. This, among other things she confessed to, left Georgia too ticked at the other woman to do anything more than hang up on her. Repeatedly.
94	* ''Literature/AFistfulOfSky'': Gypsum [=LaZelle=]'s mother uses harmful magic on her while the rest of her family is away on vacation. Gypsum calls her father's cell phone every night to plead for help, but he never picks up. When he finally gets back he claims to have never received any calls, and Gypsum realises that her mother tampered with her phone.
95	* ''Literature/TheFolkOfTheAir'': In the second book, Cardan assumes that since Jude hasn't responded to any of his letters rescinding her banishment and begging her to return to [[LandOfFaerie Elfhame]], Jude must be fed up with his nonsense and has moved on in the mortal world. In reality, [[spoiler: Cardan's mother]] has been intercepting his letters, and Jude assumes she's still under threat of execution if she comes back.
96	* ''Literature/TheGoldenHamsterSaga'': In ''Freddy in Peril'', the rats lead Freddy the literate hamster to a house with a computer he can use to email his owner Mr. John, who is out of town, for help. Unfortunately, the villainous Professor Fleischkopf has hacked into Mr. John's email account and deletes the message before Mr. John can read it.
97	* ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'': In ''Literature/WelcomeToCampNightmare'', the campers are expected to write to their parents every day. Except main protagonist Billy discovers an entire sack full of these letters, which aren't being mailed out. Justified by the reveal at the end - [[spoiler:the camp is actually a government facility, and Billy is secretly being tested so they'll know if he's ready to accompany his parents on one of their expeditions.]]
98	* ''Literature/GrassAndSky'': Timmi is angry at her grandfather for never having answered her letters, until she finds ''his'' letters to ''her'' in his house, marked "Not Accepted at This Address". Her father had been sending them back because he disapproved of the grandfather's alcoholism.
99	* ''Literature/GunsOfTheDawn'': Mary is upset that she hasn't had much correspondence from her husband, Tubal, who is away at war. When Emily ends up at the front and meets Tubal, she learns the reason — the army censors letters "to preserve morale", so Tubal knew that any letters he sent would just disappear unless he lied to Mary about what things were like.
100	* ''Literature/Harmony2016'': Candy writes to her dad complaining about Scott. Later, Iris sees the letter in the trash can in Scott's office.
101	* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'': Dobby intercepts all Harry's mail in order to dissuade him from going back to Hogwarts. However, when he tries to use "none of your friends even cared enough to write" as an argument, [[INeverSaidItWasPoison it just tips Harry off to his involvement]]. Exactly ''how'' does Dobby know Harry's friends haven't been writing to him?
102	* ''Literature/HerculePoirot'' (by Creator/AgathaChristie): In the novel ''Lord Edgware Dies'', the actress Jane Wilkinson hires Poirot to convince her estranged husband, Lord Edgware, to grant her a divorce. When Poirot meets with Edgware and passes on the request, the nobleman says that he's perfectly willing to grant the divorce and wrote to his wife months ago to tell her so. She denies ever having gotten the letter, and what happened to it is an important clue in solving [[ForegoneConclusion Lord Edgware's murder]]. [[spoiler: Lady Edgware is lying. She did get the letter but suppressed it herself.]]
103	* ''Literature/InCryptid'': After Thomas is [[ClosedCircle trapped inside his house]] and Alice is away at college, her BoyfriendBlockingDad Jonathan starts intercepting any letters between them. His father Alexander eventually tells him to knock it off when this keeps them from finding out about the baby hodag Alice is hiding in her dorm room, which will soon be too big to hide. When Alexander visits, he doesn't tell Alice what her father's been doing, still hopeful that they can reconcile.
104	* ''Literature/TheIvyTree'' (by Creator/MaryStewart): The heroine quarrels with her married lover and runs away, and then sends him a letter telling him she'll go anywhere with him. When she doesn't receive a letter back she assumes he's done with her; only years later is it discovered that another character had innocently sent the letter astray. In retrospect, the heroine thinks this might have been for the best.
105	* ''Literature/JaneOfLanternHill'' (by Creator/LMMontgomery): Jane deduces that her grandmother had intercepted the letter where her father asked her mother to come back to him. Her grandmother admits it.
106	* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': Marius' father constantly writes tender letters to him, which his grandfather (also his legal guardian) immediately disposes of.
107	* ''Film/TheNotebook'' (by Creator/NicholasSparks): As in the film, the novel version of Allie expects to hear from Noah after she moved away, but her parents didn't want them to have contact with each other.
108	* ''Literature/OfMiceAndMen'': Curley's Wife (she has no other name) ''thinks'' this has happened to her; she'd once met a man at a dance hall who said he was from Hollywood and could put her in the movies, and promised to write her about it. When she never received any letter from him, she assumed her mother stole it, though her mother denied having done so when asked.
109	* ''Literature/ThePillarsOfReality'': The Mechanics Guild routinely destroys all letters to and from common-born members and their families, so that both sides will come to the conclusion that the other no longer cares about them, thus helping them ensure that members have no loyalties outside the guild. Mari actually believed this until Alain pointed out that this explanation came from a guild that had lied to her about so much else, and had been trying to kill her for several months.
110	* ''Literature/TheRunningGrave'': The Ednesor family are upset that Will never answers their letters asking him to visit his dying mother one last time. Robin eventually learns that the cult withheld those letters (albeit after tricking Will into giving them technical legal permission to do so). Will thinks his mother is still alive and healthy.
111	* ''Literature/ScumbleRiverMysteries'': In book 2 (''Murder of a Sweet Old Lady''), Skye meets an old friend, Trixie Frayne (neé Benson), whose family moved from Scumble River to Rockford long ago, and never wrote back to her. Trixie admits that her parents "had the misguided idea that I would adjust better if I didn't have any reminders of Scumble River, so they never gave me any mail". They finally confessed to this when she was getting ready to move back as an adult.
112	* ''Literature/TheSisterhoodOfTheTravelingPants'': This happens to Bridget, whose father has been keeping and hiding all the letters her grandmother has sent her over the years.
113	* ''Literature/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineRelaunch'': In the novel ''The Missing'', it eventually transpires that [[spoiler: a Cardassian whose mother thought he'd been a POW in the Romulan Empire for ten years is actually a free man with a Romulan wife and daughter. He wrote to her explaining this, but the officer in charge (who is implied to ''also'' have a Cardassian partner from the same circumstances) suppressed it because she thought both their societies would [[MalignedMixedMarriage be scandalised and cause trouble for the couples]]. When he didn't get a reply, he assumed she'd cut him off, while she spent ten years being stonewalled by the Romulan officer as she tried to find out what happened to him.]]
114	* ''Literature/TheStoryOfValentineAndHisBrother'': Violet's mother intercepts Valentine's letters in a misguided attempt to spare her heartbreak, leading her to think that he doesn't care for her anymore.
115	[[/folder]]
116
117	[[folder:Live Action TV]]
118	* ''Series/AsTimeGoesBy'': Plays an integral part in the storyline. Lionel was nurse Jean's beau during wartime; he sent her a letter, but when she didn't respond he gave up. Flash forward decades: she's widowed with a grown daughter, and he's divorced, and they meet coincidentally. Later, [[spoiler: they find the missing letter in a wartime museum; apparently it had been undeliverable at the time for some reason.]]
119	* ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'' (from HBO): While Jimmy Darmody is in Chicago, he frequently writes letters (and encloses cash) to his wife back in Atlantic City, but the letters are intercepted by the treasury agent.
120	* ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'': Shawn is angry that his long-lost half-brother Jack never answered any of the letters he wrote, until Jack reveals that he never got any letters; it's assumed that Jack's mother hid them.
121	* ''Series/BurnNotice'': Larry [[RunningGag (yes, dead Larry)]] does this to Michael in one episode, fiddling with Michael's phone so that he (Larry) can screen what calls get through. Michael notes that doing something like this is a crucial part of turning an asset -- isolating them from other opinions so that they'll be easier to influence. It all falls apart when Nate goes to visit him because he couldn't reach Michael on the phone.
122	* ''Series/DowntonAbbey'': While [[spoiler:Bates]] is imprisoned during Series 3, he pisses off his cellmate, who uses his contacts with the guards to have the governor of the prison stop his correspondence with and visits from [[spoiler:Anna]], who is trying to get him free. Both [[spoiler:Bates and Anna]] send letters to each other almost daily regardless of whether they have received another one, so they find the sudden drop off in contact very suspicious. Eventually, he figures out what happened and remedies the situation.
123	* ''Series/GhostWhisperer'':
124	** There's an episode where a teenage girl dies. Her former best friend is haunted by her since she is angry that she let their friendship die after she moved away. It is revealed that the second girl's mom had hidden the letters because the family had moved to split the girls up. They were SwitchedAtBirth, and the second mother was unable to cope with the idea.
125	** Another episode had a ghost do this to ''himself'': he wrote dozens of emails to a girl but was so afraid of seeming like a stalker he never sent them, so when he started haunting her (by "disguising" himself as an invisible vampire) she had no clue who he was.
126	* ''Series/TheHouseOfEliott'': Beatrice's letters from her first boyfriend Phillip were intercepted by her father until Phillip gave up on her. She only discovered this after her father was dead and Phillip married someone else.
127	* ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'': There's a surprisingly heartfelt moment with this, where it was revealed that Dennis has been intercepting and ripping up the letters Mac's father mailed him from prison. Mac was from an emotionally neglectful household and his father was a hardened convict, but he still hoped against hope to form a connection with his parents in adulthood; only to find out that his best friend had been robbing him of that chance. This is so devastating that rather than attack Dennis as he normally would, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness he simply sits down, stunned into disbelief.]]
128	-->'''Dennis:''' If it makes you feel any better I read all of the letters before I ripped them up, [[BlackComedy and he never once told you he loved you.]]
129	* ''Series/KeepBreathing'': Liv's mom actually sent her many postcards after she had left, reaching out to connect with her again, but her dad had gotten rid of them before she saw. Her dad claims the words weren't for Liv, but her, as she knew where they were but never came to visit. As a result, he didn't want Liv hurt by her anymore. Liv insists it wasn't right to decide that for her, and she left but didn't forget at least as shown by the postcards. [[spoiler:It turns out this is why she went out into an isolated region of Canada-her mom's last postcard was from there, and Liv wants to reconnect with her.]]
130	* ''Series/{{Lost}}'':
131	** Walt's mother hid Michael's letters to him, and the revelation that Michael had been trying to get in contact helped Walt stop being angry.
132	** In Desmond's season two flashback episode, Penny is upset that he never wrote to her when he was in prison. Her father, who doesn't approve of their relationship, was actually intercepting the letters to make Penny think that Desmond had given up on her.
133	* ''Series/McLeodsDaughters'': Craig hides Alberto's letters to Jodi, despite being the postman. Somehow, he did not get fired for it.
134	* ''Series/{{Oshin}}'': The protagonist is working in Tokyo and then in Sakata and writes to her husband Ryuuzo, who is in Saga, regularly. However, when she moves to Sakata Ryuuzo stops writing to her, so she comes to believe that he has remarried and ditched her. [[spoiler: What actually happened is that Ryuuzo's [[HelicopterParents very possessive mother]] Kiyo has been intercepting their correspondence, and Ryuuzo doesn't even know Oshin has left Tokyo. When Oshin's HopelessSuitor Kota writes to Ryuuzo ''and'' Ryuuzo's sister-in-law Tsuneko deduces what's going on, Ryuuzo gets ''pissed off'' and screams at Kiyo to leave him alone, then properly writes to Oshin and explains what happened.]]
135	* ''Series/{{Psych}}'': In two-part episode "[[Recap/PsychS07E15PsychTheMusicalPart1 Psych:]] [[Recap/PsychS0716 The Musical]]", [[PenName Z]] sent many letters to his former leading lady from his insane asylum after [[spoiler: being framed for]] burning down the old Santa Barbara Playhouse, but [[SamusIsAGirl Mr. Yang]], who was in charge of handling the mail, kept them for herself due to a crush she had on him.
136	* ''Series/ShadowAndBone'': After Alina is taken away to the Little Palace, she writes letters to Mal, unaware that he's not receiving them. Meanwhile, Mal keeps writing letters to her even though he can't find anyone to deliver them. When they have their BigDamnReunion they're both angry, thinking one doesn't care about the other. Alina later discovers her friend Genya never delivered the letters because she's an agent of General Kirigan, who wanted Alina under his sway by [[LoveIsAWeakness making her think Mal had abandoned her]].
137	* ''Series/ShamelessUS'': Lip discovers that his college registration has been cancelled because he did not know that he had to renew his government grant. The necessary papers were sent to him by registered mail but the family member who signed for them just put the envelope away and never bothered telling Lip that he had mail. Lip is livid because without the grant he had to go into debt to pay his tuition. He immediately goes to the post office and has all his mail forwarded to a PO box so this never happens again.
138	* ''Series/SonnyWithAChance'': In one episode, Sonny apparently doesn't get any fan mail, causing her to think she is unpopular with the fans of ''So Random''. It turns out that Tawni hid them in the couch cushions, and it is there that Sonny ''finally'' gets the hint that Tawni hates her.
139	* ''Series/{{Titus}}'': Papa Titus has been intercepting letters to Chris from his mother, who has been in a mental hospital, and ripping them up so he can keep Juanita from contacting Titus (as he knows that Titus always forgives Juanita for her psychotic outbursts and she always goes back to acting deranged after a while).
140	* ''Series/TouchedByAnAngel'':
141	** An aged man and an aged woman who have some sort of grudge against one another. It turns out that they were once sweethearts, but the old man's father didn't approve and eventually they were separated. The old man promised to write but never did. The old woman assumed he just didn't care. It culminates in both of them telling each other that they never wrote and the man insisting that he wrote hundreds of letters to her. She says "I never got them." He answers [[WhamLine "How couldn't you??? My own father was the mailman!"]] Cue awkward silence between the two. Tough break.
142	** A woman is upset when her father, who walked out on his marriage years before, shows up at her wedding with her mom also angry. The father seems surprised at his daughter yelling over never reaching out to them, saying he sent scores of letters and his ex confesses she hid them out of anger over him leaving them.
143	** "How Do You Spell Faith" subverts this as a young boy copes with their dad leaving long ago as he always sends cards for his birthday and holidays and apologies for not being there. When his beloved older brother dies in an accident, the boy goes to find their dad to break the news in person. With the angels' help, he tracks the source of the letters to a post office a few towns over with a clerk saying how his brother would drop by every few weeks with instructions to send these cards out and make it look like they were from different towns. The boy realizes his brother was the one writing the cards to hide the truth that their father had truly abandoned them.
144	* ''Series/TwiceInALifetime'': In one episode, a woman finds out that a man she loved kept sending her letters after he moved away but her mother intercepted them. When the woman dies bitter and alone she is given a chance to go back in time to fix her mistakes. However, when she arranges for her younger self to get the letters, it screws things up for others and she now has to make sure that everyone gets a happy ending.
145	* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': Wallace is angry at his biological father (whom he did not even know he had until recently) for never trying to get in contact until his father shows him all the letters he wrote that Wallace's mother sent back.
146	[[/folder]]
147
148	[[folder:Music]]
149	* Better Than Ezra's "Desperately Wanting": Implied by the lyrics.
150	-->All the letters have dropped off\
151	Though they say you got them all\
152	I finally figured out some things you'll never know.
153	[[/folder]]
154
155	[[folder:Radio]]
156	* ''Radio/JohnFinnemoresDoubleActs'': In the episode "The Goliath Window", one character is annoyed at his brother for never replying to his letters, which he took as evidence the brother agreed with their hated father who had disowned him. When the brother asks where he actually sent the letters ''to'', he replies the only address he had; their father's house. His brother has to spell it out for him before he realises that their father would not have passed them on.
157	[[/folder]]
158
159	[[folder:Video Games]]
160	* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'': Maggie's father won't let her send letters to or receive letters from the [[InterspeciesRomance Moblin with whom she has fallen in love]]. A sidequest requires Link to sidestep the father on behalf of the [[BirdPeople Rito]] mailman in order for Maggie to finally get a letter from the Moblin.
161	[[/folder]]
162
163	[[folder:Webcomics]]
164	* ''Webcomic/CursedPrincessClub'': Because she was banished from the Polygon Kingdom as a result of the events that gave her a {{Curse}}, Princess Calpernia is convinced that her family wants nothing to do with her, a belief that is reinforced by them apparently making no effort to keep in touch with her during her exile. But when she sees them for the first time in years at the Bippity Bop gala and rushes over to confront them about it, she finds out that they ''had'' been regularly sending letters to her at the house where she was running the Cursed Princess Club. Unfortunately, a bunch of intelligent spiders had been nesting in the CPC mailbox and scaring off the postal workers.
165	* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': It's revealed -- albeit subtly -- that Baron Wulfenbach has been intercepting letters from Gil's old friends, probably to prevent him from forming lasting attachments to people who are, in essence, hostages. It doesn't work, mostly because Gil is smart enough to realize exactly what's going on the moment he meets one of his old friends face-to-face.
166	** However years later it's suggested that [[StalkerWithACrush Seffie]] [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20151030 might be the real culprit.]]
167	* ''Webcomic/HowIBecameYours'': Mai intercepted all of Zuko's letters to Katara during the three-year TimeSkip, and also prevented him from learning about his and Katara's unborn son until the start of the story. This is supposed to be seen as evil, [[JerkassHasAPoint but]] Mai gives the fairly compelling argument that she did so in order to prevent an international incident.
168	* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': After meeting his father Tarquin for the first time, [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0751.html Elan asks him]] why he never contacted him when he was growing up. Tarquin claims to have sent Elan a letter explaining the reasons for his absence, and suspects that Elan's mother threw it away - much to Elan's shock. Given what we find out about Tarquin afterwards, [[UnreliableNarrator it's not clear]] if this is actually the case.
169	* ''Webcomic/ParadigmShift'': An important clue in the mystery central to the story is revealed in a letter that the prime suspect sent an old acquaintance who's now a Chicago PD detective... to an address she no longer lived at. [[DownplayedTrope It was forwarded to her eventually]], but the delay in delivery and consequent lack of response prompted the sender to make his way to Chicago to talk to her in person, and indirectly set off the whole plot.
170	* ''Webcomic/YuMeDream'': It's revealed that Fiona's godfather has been writing to her but her stepmother throws his letters away. At first, it's implied that this is because he's gay, then [[spoiler: it turns out that it's because her father and stepmother have been keeping hidden the fact that her mother committed suicide with young Fiona in the car, which her godfather tells her about]].
171	[[/folder]]
172
173	[[folder:Web Original]]
174	* Wong Fu Productions' ''Technology Ruins Romance'' series: Subverted in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGr1lQAREB0 one of the vignettes]], in which a man reunites with his lover after attempting to contact her through letters [[RelationshipSabotage (which her uncle sent back to separate the two)]], only to realize that he could have just e-mailed or tracked her social networking accounts.
175	[[/folder]]
176
177	[[folder:Western Animation]]
178	* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': The episode "Whatever Happened to Della Duck?!" revealed that Della had sent multiple transmissions to her family on Earth during the decade she spent stranded on the moon. None of the transmissions reached them (it's unclear if it's because the signal from her ship just wasn't strong enough or [[spoiler:Lunaris was blocking them]]) and they weren't even aware that she was still ''alive'' until she got back.
179	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the episode where Homer first meets his long-lost mother, he asks why she never wrote, she says she sent him a care package every week. It turns out the postman didn't mention the undelivered care packages because "That's what happens when you don't tip your letter carrier at Christmas." This is PlayedForLaughs/Heartwarming rather than drama or tragedy though.
180	* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'': In [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E01TheLostCommanders "The Lost Commanders"]], when Sabine reveals that one of the clones gave up the ''Ghost'' crew's presence on Seelos to the Empire, she also mentions that Ahsoka had been sending messages to Rex for years that he never responded to -- because the [[TheParanoiac paranoid]] Commander Wolffe, who contacted the Empire in the first place, had concealed them.
181	-->'''Sabine:''' And there are messages Ahsoka sent to Rex, and he never answered her!\
182	'''Rex:''' What?! I never got any messages from Commander Tano...
183	[[/folder]]
184
185	[[folder:Real Life]]
186	* Lots of WWII letters never made their way to the soldiers.
187	* Urban legend says that a small mail-order company went bust after their orders mysteriously dried up. Years later somebody discovered a pile of letters behind a wall, on the other side of which was a supposedly disused mail slot that the new postman had been using to save time walking around to the front door.
188	* During the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar it was not uncommon for people to number their letters, so the recipient knew if one had gotten lost (which was pretty common).
189	** During the Cold War, people writing from the US to the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc countries, or the other direction, numbered their letters. It was unusual for a letter not to make it, but because they were sometimes opened and read, as a spot-checking method of looking for subversion, they would arrive out of order. If a letter 15 arrived after letter 16, you could mention casually in the next letter that it was alone in the envelope, or something, that way, you'd find out if something, like a personal photo, or newspaper clipping, had been removed.
190	* The comedian Ruby Wax's AbusiveParents kept love letters from her boyfriend away from her, because they didn't approve of him.
191	* During the classic run of ''Series/{{Star Trek\|The Original Series}}'', much of Nichelle Nichols' fan mail "vanished" before it reached the actress, leading her to believe her character wasn't very popular. It was only years later she discovered the "misplaced" fan mail and learned that the executives had done so out of racist and sexist beliefs.
192	* Boxing champion Creator/MikeTyson didn't even know that he had an official fan club, which his manager's daughter was handsomely paid to run. He finally visited the place, and [[https://web.archive.org/web/20170702024848/http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfeatures/show/id/6164/p/2 found CRATES of unopened letters.]]
193	* The UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic carried 3,364 mail bags from Europe bound for New York. The five postal clerks and all the bags of mail, containing an estimated six to nine million pieces of mail, went down with the ship.
194	[[/folder]]

Context Main / INeverGotAnyLetters