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10->''"Never underestimate your audience. They're generally sensitive, intelligent people who respond positively to quality entertainment."''
11-->-- '''Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell,''' ''Series/StargateSG1''
12
13The public's been clamoring for some more intelligent television in the wake of RealityTV and LowestCommonDenominator {{Recycled Script}}s. So, you go and write a series loaded with difficult [[UsefulNotes/QuantumPhysics quantum mechanics]], quoting obscure 17th-century philosophers, with characters who are [[ThePhilosopher philosophical]] {{Magnificent Bastard}}s who speak [[BilingualBonus a dozen languages]] while conversing to each other by sending Shakespearean Zen koans hidden into [[SmartPeoplePlayChess chess move patterns]], and packed with [[RuleOfSymbolism allusions to ancient Sumerian religion]]. You make sure all your {{Technobabble}} is scientifically plausible and go to great lengths to make sure [[AnachronismStew all your ancient Roman soldiers are wearing exact replicas of period equipment]]. Now it's TrueArt, [[TemptingFate right]]?
14
15So you sit back and watch the ratings -- which plummet faster than a rocket-propelled brick in a nosedive. What went wrong? In trying to avert making the classic mistake that ViewersAreMorons, you went too far and ended up assuming that they're ''geniuses'' instead. Of course, if you're working in a medium that doesn't need an audience of millions to be profitable, you may not care. While a lot less common than its more insulting opposite (any show without the "mass-market appeal" that the less high-brow stuff has will be ScrewedByTheNetwork without mercy), overestimating the audience can be more of a death knell than underestimating it, even without network sabotage.
16
17The opposite is also true: an intelligent, engaging work may lack any sort of references at all. There's also the trap of being so consumed with the complexities that you forget simpler things like plot and characterization.
18
19However, in the eyes of artists and some fans, this is a JustifiedTrope. There are many instances where a film with dense references and information provides an UnconventionalLearningExperience, introducing high concepts in a dramatic, entertaining fashion. This empowers readers and viewers and makes them interested and curious in exploring offbeat ideas that they otherwise might have felt they are not educated to understand and accept, since many of them have internalized the ViewersAreMorons ideas and reflexively feel some movies or books are not for them. For instance, Joseph Campbell's [[TheHerosJourney Heroic Journey]] concept was fairly obscure before ''Franchise/StarWars'' used a Heroic Journey plot, which brought the concept into the mainstream. There's also changing societal norms to consider. The number of people with college educations is higher today than it was, say, in TheSixties, so what used to be obscure becomes mainstream with the passage of time, and indeed, new genres and new storytelling techniques are created because audiences have become too smart for old plots and hackneyed clichés. In the case of some artists, the dense play of text and subtext for them ''is'' the reason why they make art in the first place, and they set out to fill it with {{Genius Bonus}}es and {{Rewatch Bonus}}es so that audiences can immerse themselves in understanding the work fully.
20
21Ironically, the reverse is also true. Art forms that we regard today as High Art like opera, classical music, poetry, and even Greek or Shakespearean tragedy were popular and commercial work in the day. Audiences across the class and educational spectrum had no trouble understanding and following these works. And indeed, they were all filled with topical and common references that audiences had no trouble following.
22
23It is this distinction which is why you see so much dissonance in understanding humor as a general topic. It is far easier for the LowestCommonDenominator to "get" a joke, if there is a [[ButtMonkey clear "butt"]] of the joke. However, people who really follow humor aren't aiming to disparage people, but are instead in finding out the TwistEnding, or the {{Pun}}.
24
25The most successful way to do this may be to provide a GeniusBonus. If a writer gives the more intellectual content a small dose at a time, viewers can still enjoy the work at their level, but those who get the EasterEgg will enjoy its hidden depths.
26
27See also FauxSymbolism, MindScrew, and MoonLogicPuzzle. ''Not'' mutually exclusive with ArtisticLicense or FalselyAdvertisedAccuracy -- just because a show is crammed with obscure knowledge doesn't mean that it is correct, [[SeriesContinuityError even when it comes from the show to begin with]]. This can be the result of too many {{In Joke}}s being included in a work.
28
29See also ViewersAreMorons, the opposite side of the coin. When this trope and the latter trope conflict however, you can wind up with an UnpleasableFanbase.
30
31----
32!!Examples:
33[[foldercontrol]]
34
35[[folder:Advertising]]
36* There was a commercial that assumed people had more knowledge of what goes into their deli meats than they generally do. The commercial has two cows standing on a stage. One represents the advertiser while the other represents the competition, and from offstage someone throws a bucket of seaweed over the competition's cow. The cow representing the company, however, remains clean and "natural". They were trying to illustrate how their competition used filler materials (seaweed derivatives being very common as filler ingredients) in their meat products but that they didn't, and where thereby superior quality meats. Too bad the commercial never bothered to explain itself because most people didn't know about filler much less what the seaweed had to do with anything.
37* Denny's restaurants had a bacon-themed special called "Baconalia," a pun on "Bacchanalia," which were cult orgies in Ancient Greece and Rome. One wonders if Denny's wanted their patrons to get the esoteric reference or not.
38[[/folder]]
39
40[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
41* ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemistTheConquerorOfShamballa:'' The creators of ''Conqueror of Shamballa'' showed their work in depicting Munich in 1923. The Thule Society was a real Nazi secret society trying to enter an unknown land called "Shamballa", and the Nazi meeting Edward stumbles into was based off the Munich Beer Putsch. However, much criticism of the movie accuses the film of perpetuating the AllGermansAreNazis stereotype, suggesting many ''Fullmetal Alchemist'' fans were not familiar with this period of German history or the references to it and thought the movie threw in ThoseWackyNazis for no good reason.
42* ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'' is pretty hard on the brain. ''[[Anime/GhostInTheShell1995 Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]]'', for example, is an intertextual rumination on posthumanism that requires an understanding of the works of people like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bellmer Hans Bellmer]] for proper comprehension.
43** While being comparatively lightweight, ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' discusses sociology and [[MemeticsInFiction memes]], and if you understood it fully the first time, you either already had an undergrad understanding of sociology, or earned one in the process of puzzling it out. It also has a tendency to have characters spout plot points (often convoluted political situations) at an accelerated clip. It then rarely, if ever, repeats itself. Example: in ''2nd Gig'', the full source of the title 'Individual Eleven' and its supposed contents are explained once, despite coming in in multiple episodes before and after the explanation. The extent of the subtleties in these conversations are enough to quickly lose all but astute political science majors the first time through, much more so than the sociology and philosophy references -- not to mention [[spoiler:ultimately being a RedHerring]].
44** Near the end of ''2nd Gig'', Kuze has a discussion with Yousuke Aramaki which requires a customary understanding of basic [[Creator/KarlMarx Marxist]] economic philosophy to piece together.
45* ''Anime/SerialExperimentsLain'':
46** The central theme revolves around highly technical aspects of computers and networking, and the series is a well-known member of the {{Anime}} MindScrew Club.
47** Several extended Jungian metaphors.
48** "''Lain'''s computer hardware is so cool. How come we don't get [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Anniversary_Macintosh designs]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain#Apple_computers like those?]]"
49** Lain lacks a plot at all until you do the research. The plot only emerges at all once you get to the point where you're looking at the patent file for Microwave Audio Induction and trying to figure out if on Schuuman Resonance frequencies it can be used to trigger individual action potentials (nb: Schumann resonance is actually a massive frequency range -- the number given in the show of 7.83Hz is actually the median).
50* Many anime series produced by the Creator/BeeTrain studio (most famously, ''Anime/{{Noir}}'' and ''Anime/{{Madlax}}'') require so much reading between the lines and background cultural knowledge that most viewers refuse to believe that something worthy was there in the first place. As a result, the rather small fan community deliberately positions itself as "intelligent fans", actively shunning whom they refer to as "fanboys" and "haterz".
51* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' is positively dripping with Western symbolism. Only those familiar with Catholicism, Protestantism, the Reformation, and the cultural and religious conflicts between the two Christian branches will understand all of the references and subplots that litter the storyline. The same could also be said of the characters' backgrounds, which involve everything from the Ottoman Turks and collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Nazis of World War II and the continued disputes about Northern Ireland. The plot literally requires viewers to possess at least a decent working knowledge of European history to grasp anywhere near all of the allusions that are made to real-life historical figures, their peoples, their religions, and their possible connection to supernatural creatures like vampires, werewolves, and other monsters.
52** Many of the characters' and agency's names give hints about their nationality and roles in the plot, but don't expect anyone aside from those who are well-acquainted with European culture, Judeo-Christian religions, and fictional works to correctly deduce or identify the reasons behind their significance.
53** Not to mention Schrödinger, who is based on a [[UsefulNotes/SchrodingersCat thought concept of quantum physics]] that baffles even those in the sciences from time to time. Many viewers may never have even heard of the concept, which the show doesn't explain in great detail, either.
54** Alucard's past is based on the events of Bram Stoker's original novel (and some of the TruerToTheText 1992 ''Film/BramStokersDracula'' film) and the life, politics, and death of the historical Vlad III Dracula; NOT the [[AdaptationDistillation distilled]] Hollywood PopCulturalOsmosis {{Dracula}}. Best to have a passing knowledge of these for random flashbacks and mentions of obscure details of his life to make sense.
55* ''Anime/ErgoProxy'' casually references Myth/ClassicalMythology (Daedelus and Icarus, Theseus and the Minos maze), philosophy (Rene Descartes, Creator/FriedrichNietzsche, and UsefulNotes/AlanTuring, among many others), film (''Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin'', ''Manga/{{Akira}}'', ''Film/BladeRunner''), UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}}, art (Creator/MichelangeloBuonarroti, Creator/JohnEverettMillais), history, and many other things, almost to the point of showing off to the audience how smart they are by cramming episodes with as many allusions as possible. While you may not need an understanding of any of the references to appreciate the concrete plot, how many people caught the City Lights bookstore (a real one located in San Francisco) and its importance to the beat poetry movement, or that Re-L's name was listed as "124C41+" in a computer database, referencing the 1925 science-fiction novel ''Ralph 124C41+'' by Hugo Gernsback. Even RedShirt characters have names from obscure ancient religions.
56* ''Franchise/{{Nasuverse}}'': Kinoko Nasu really, ''really'' loves winding philosophical debate, and he expects you to as well; his plots tend to get extremely complex, bringing up rules once or twice and then building stories based on them, and the rules governing the 'verse can get pretty complex as well, with a huge amount of MrExposition giving InstructionalDialogue regarding borderline game-breaking abilities. ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' is particularly guilty. For example, several sections will be dedicated to explaining the minute details as to why imagining swords into being real is a [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway stupid, useless form of magic]], and then later it turns out that Shirou has a rare talent that turns it into a GameBreaker.
57** For a few examples: in ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', the resolution of Saber's fight with Berserker is an absurd DeusExMachina unless you've read ''Literature/LeMorteDArthur'' and remember a few odd comments about how the magic system works from earlier in the story, and there's a couple of one-off lines in the Fate route that establish just how [[spoiler:Kotomine]] survives in Heaven's Feel, and in ''VisualNovel/FateHollowAtaraxia'' the only person who can beat [[spoiler:[[RogueProtagonist Bazett]]]] is [[spoiler:Lancer]] because of a few odd details about how their powers interact -- [[spoiler:her invincible counterattack triggers when you start your attack; he [[RealityWarper starts his attack after he resolves it]]]].
58* Although ''Anime/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' mostly makes sense to its intended Japanese audience ([[GagSeries for a certain definition of "makes sense"]]), anyone who attempts to ''translate'' it deserves our pity. The official English version of the manga has about a dozen pages at the end of each volume dedicated to explaining the dozens of references, most of which are about either Japanese pop culture or obscure Japanese historical events. Without these explanations, none of them will make the least bit of sense to a foreign reader, but [[DontExplainTheJoke jokes that have to be explained are hard to make funny]].
59* ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'' never explains ''anything'', and on the rare occasions it does, [[UnreliableExpositor the source is usually less than trustworthy]]. Most of the background [[RiddleForTheAges is left deliberately vague]], and it ends with a {{Mind Screw}}y GainaxEnding. In short, if you want to sort out the overall plot (rather than the two-episode sub-arcs; those tend to be fairly self-contained), you'd better have a very good memory or be taking notes.
60* As weird as it feels to list a {{Fanservice}} manga/anime here, ''Manga/IkkiTousen'' nevertheless qualifies to some extent. The series seems to take for granted that all of its audience has some basic awareness of the historical characters it's portraying, which... for the most part, particularly in the West, they don't. It's made worse because those who ''do'' know the cast of ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'', either by having read the story or by being fans of ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'', most likely know them by their original ''Chinese'' names, but everyone in-series uses the names from the ''Japanese'' translation, making it very easy to miss the connection between, say, Sonsaku Hakufu and her counterpart Sun Ce.
61* Played with in Motohirou Katou's works, especially ''Manga/{{QED}}'' and ''Manga/{{CMB}}.'' The thing is, he always takes time to explains things that need explanation for most readers, but even with that, sometimes it still leaves us baffled (like Kana), especially things like [[EverybodyHatesMathematics mathematics and such]].
62* ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' makes references to the history of computing, the Internet, and programming, being considered by some fans the most mature and well-written of the whole ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' franchise.
63* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', despite the series being a fairly simple and straightforward tale, the real nature of all elemental visuals accompanying the Breathing Styles' swordsmanship (as in, they aren't real) is presented in little key nods spread throughout the anime and manga, such as absolutely no character commenting, friend or foe, in the potential elemental damage that should be dealt by any of the demon slayers, whereas demons who actually have supernatural powers have had their elemental effects commented upon and warned against several times. However, these nods didn’t seem enough for some people, so Gotoge had to outright confirm in the manga, volume 17, extras that indeed none of Breathing Styles manifest real elements out of thin air.
64* ''Manga/LiarGame'' is happy to explain psychology and game theory to you, but it certainly helps if you're at least somewhat familiar with concepts (like the PrisonersDilemma).
65* ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'' is confident that you won't be overwhelmed or turned off by its dense symbolism and many layers of meaning. It knows that you know - despite it's TrollingCreator (who's actually very helpful in the right circumstances) - that it has nothing to do with [[TheWalrusWasPaul the Walrus being Paul]], and that [[FauxSymbolism the curtains are never just blue]]. It knows that it is a jungle gym of symbols and it's inviting you in to hang by your knees, or do pull-ups, or just climb to the top and chat with friends. Whatever speaks to you. ''Utena'' is your experience.
66* While perfectly enjoyable without any such knowledge, only the biggest history buffs will get anywhere near all of ''Manga/OnePiece'''s references to real-life {{pirate}}s, their crews, their ships, and nautical terms and techniques during the real-life [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfPiracy Age of Piracy]]. An instance of such knowledge being beneficial to understanding the series is that any pirate named after a ''real'' seafarer will play an important role in the series.
67* You probably would not believe that ''Anime/StrikeWitches'' [[{{Fanservice}} of all things]] can be planted here. Nonetheless, apart from its [[{{Moe}} most obvious appeal]], it delves into ideas about {{Alternate Universe}}s, AlternateHistory, UsefulNotes/WorldWarII technology, {{Historical In Joke}}s, UsefulNotes/GunSafety, military organization, its takes about the conflict in Europe, the conflict in Africa and other stuff. Did you know that the real Hartmann accidentally (?) took UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's hat because his own was gone? This is the basis for the PantyThief episode in season 1.
68* You know all about {{quantum mechanics|CanDoAnything}}, right? Then you'll ''love'' ''Anime/{{Noein}}'' (though this one isn't as bad, since there's a character whose main purpose is [[TheWatson to have quantum mechanics explained to him]]).
69* ''Anime/ConcreteRevolutioChoujinGensou'''s use of AnachronicOrder makes it difficult to follow the plot and characters through its timeline. Not only that, the show's timeline takes place in an AlternateHistory with each episode events playing out a specific event that occurred in post war Japan. Combined with its philosophies on justice, specifically JusticeWillPrevail, and GreyAndGrayMorality, you can see how it ended up on this list.
70* Most viewers can enjoy ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' for its story and presentation, but an extensive knowledge of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII-era armored fighting vehicles, weapons, military tactics, and other wartime esoterica definitely helps. For instance, why is Leopon team called that, and why is that particular tank in the hands of the Automotive Club? You'd first have to know that a leopon is a hybrid big cat (leopard and lioness crossbreeding), and that their Tiger (P) tank uses a hybrid transmission (petrol engines mated to electric motors). You'd then have to remember that while the gun worked fine, the Tiger (P) was more infamous for its notoriously unreliable motive systems -- it's with Automotive Club because no other team would have the time or patience to make it work.
71* During ''Manga/NarutoGaiden'', Sasuke's daughter, Sarada, undergoes a [[DaddyDNATest DNA test]] to find, once and for all, if her real mother is Sasuke's former teammate, Karin. The test result comes out showing a perfect 100% match seemingly confirming it; [[spoiler:however, those who know genetics will point out that a parent and child only share 50% of their DNA, one only has a 100% genetic match with oneself (or an identical twin), which fits with the reveal later that the umbilical cord used for the test belonged to Sarada and not Karin]].
72* The ''Anime/YourName'' side novel ''Another Side: Earthbound'' contains extensive discussions of UsefulNotes/{{Shinto}} in Yotsuha and Toshiki's sections that will fly over the heads of anyone who isn't well-versed in the faith.
73* ''Anime/YuGiOhTheDarkSideOfDimensions'' (particularly in the original Japanese script) assumes that the viewer is as versed in quantum mechanics as Creator/KazukiTakahashi apparently became. The finer details about the abilities and philosophy of the Plana are rooted in quantum physics jargon, with only vague allusions to how knowing this stuff explains things like Kaiba’s new Duel Disk system being able to counter their powers [[spoiler:and summon Obelisk the Tormentor during his duel with Aigami]]. The movie-exclusive ArtifactOfDoom is not just called the Quantum Cube for pure {{Technobabble}} reasons.
74* ''Anime/GodzillaSingularPoint'''s human plot revolves around complicated discussions of quantum and theoretical physics to explain how the mysterious [[AppliedPhlebotinum Archetype]] element and the {{Kaiju}} connected to it defy all traditional logical views of how physics work.
75[[/folder]]
76
77[[folder:Comic Books]]
78* Nearly every panel of ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' features obscure references to English literature and/or comic art. The accompanying text-stories are, if anything, even worse/better.
79* ''ComicBook/StarmanDCComics'' is full of references to obscure things. LampshadeHanging in one issue:
80-->'''Jack:''' There's nothing wrong with being elite.\
81Or another example.\
82This one isn't about collectibles but it's the same kind of thing. I'm in a book store... for new books. I've gone a little bit crazy and I'm about to spend a couple of hundred bucks. I murmur under my breath "money's too tight to mention".\
83Now the guy behind the register, he hears this. He looks at me, nodding his head knowingly like we're in some "club of cool" together. He says, "Yeah, [[CoveredUp Simply Red]]" like it's a password, and now we do the secret handshake.\
84And I'm thinking "Simply Red"? Lame English band. More soul at a polka convention. And the book store guy thinks he's on some kind of inside loop with that.\
85'''Sadie:''' Jack, that's the smuggest thing I ever heard. A guy tries to be nice and you stand there hating him just because he hasn't heard of the Valentine Brothers.\
86You're like my ex-boyfriend. He was that way about authors. He'd deliberately drop obscure quotes and references. He'd take over conversations at parties. But none of what he read was for the love of it. His knowledge was like a weapon.\
87Don't tell me you're like that. I don't want another jerk. I've had...\
88Hey, why are you smiling?\
89'''Jack:''' Because you've heard of the Valentine Brothers.\
90''[Naturally, since Jack and Sadie both know that the Valentine Brothers are a soul duo who originally performed "Money's Too Tight To Mention" before Simply Red covered it, they have no reason to tell the readers this.]''
91* Really, ''most'' Creator/DCComics {{Crisis Crossover}}s are like this, though ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'' takes the cake. It's not just the ContinuityPorn that hung up fans on ''Final Crisis'' -- comic book nerds are very good at continuity. Creator/GrantMorrison was also doing a lot of meta and philosophical weirdness about the nature of storytelling and the superhero genre in particular, which is a great way to annoy people who don't care about [[DeathOfTheAuthor Barthes]] or Morrison's issues with [[ComicBook/WonderWoman William Moulton Marston]] and just want to see [[JustHereForGodzilla characters they love beat up characters they love to hate in heroic and impressive ways]].
92* Keith Giffen's ''ComicBook/AmbushBug'' stories are very much like this, with damn near every page (and sometimes ''every panel'') containing references to decades of comic book history, as well as famous people and trends in the industry. Combined with extreme MediumAwareness, the comics are truly incomprehensible to non-comic readers (and often a bit confusing to regular readers who just aren't up on their history lessons).
93* ''ComicBook/FromHell'': The work is teeming with references to historical figures and events, a lengthy exchange on fourth dimensional theory, psychogeography, Masonic ritual and Pagan mysticism and the Illuminati. Reading the appendix is not just recommended. It's a necessity.
94* Pretty much anything Creator/GrantMorrison has ever made. ''ComicBook/TheInvisibles'' gets special mention, since in order to fully follow it, you would need: a degree in history; a biography of Morrison; a complete and unabridged summary of British popular culture of the past 80 years with an emphasis on the 1960's; a fine knowledge into various revolutions and revolutionary groups (Mainly the King Mob, French situationism, the Cabaret voltaire and the Dada Society) a reasonable understanding of the Voodoun, Aztec, and Native-Australian belief systems; an understanding of the underlying symbolism of the Egyptian tarot; books on metaphysics, homeopathy and the various theories of the holographic universes; a familiarity with the works of the Creator/MarquisDeSade; a copy of every single piece of conspiracy theory literature ever published from the 1940s to the present day; and a bucket full of enough psychoactive drugs to make Charlie Sheen run away screaming. Even then, you probably wouldn't get it all.
95* ''ComicStrip/ThePhantom'': Not all the time, but a lot of the stories told about past Phantoms are more enjoyable if you know your world history.
96* Garkin's assorted belongings in Phil Foglio's comic adaptation of ''ComicBook/MythAdventures'' include, among other things, a ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'' paint-by-numbers book. (Talk about a NightmareFuelColoringBook...)
97* While ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' would seem to have ContinuityLockout due to a huge cast, the characters that the reader needs to know are sufficiently introduced. But to fully appreciate the story, the reader needs to be familiar with the general evolution of the genre over the last 4 or 5 decades, especially then-recent trends in [[NinetiesAntihero characterization]] to understand what the story is commenting on and, in retrospect, its own place in [[MediaNotes/TheModernAgeOfComicBooks changing the direction of the genre itself.]] The book is also replete with Biblical symbolism and imagery, and references to Christian theology. If you know that many Christian theologians consider Jesus to be fully God and fully human, and that this unique biology is essential to his self-sacrifice being meaningful, you appreciate Superman's speech to Captain Marvel a lot more (just as one "for instance").
98* ''ComicBook/{{Joker}}'':
99** One doesn't need an intimate knowledge of ComicBook/{{Batman}}'s relationship with [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker the Joker]] to understand the whole story, but it does explain certain moments, and can create a bit of DramaticIrony as you watch [[SmallNameBigEgo Jonny Frost]] (Joker's latest henchman) believe that he's [[UnwittingPawn on top of the world with the Joker]] when [[EvilIsNotAToy nothing could be further from the truth]]. There are unexplained moments when Joker is looking around or asking others to look around for him, always commenting that ''someone'' is watching him. The very first time it happens, it appears as if he's staring back at Arkham Asylum as he is released. [[spoiler:In reality, you can spot a hidden Batman among the gargoyles of Arkham, [[http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/0/3695/110324-163303-batman.gif like much of his promotional art]]. The second time is harder to spot, in the shadows on a rooftop while Joker and Jonny drive below him.]]
100** There's also a part where he shoots a man twice, and then starts talking to the sky about it not being bad enough before going on a shooting spree. The main character, Jonny, has no clue what he's talking about. [[spoiler: He's wondering aloud why Batman hasn't confronted him yet, even though he's been watching him ever since he left Arkham.]]
101* Between ''ComicBook/{{Grayson}}'', ''Comicbook/OmegaMen'', ''ComicBook/TheVision2015'' and ''ComicBook/MisterMiracle2017'', Creator/TomKing is known for going light on direct exposition, and expecting the reader to keep up with themes and character development that are hidden beneath the surface. Naturally, this gets backlash from readers who are completely missing the point.
102* Given the size of the cast in ''ComicBook/AstroCity'', many of the background characters receive little more than names and costumes. Creator/KurtBusiek relies on the reader's knowledge of other comics to fill in the blanks, particularly with obvious {{Expy}} characters like Rex Zorus ([[ComicBook/FantasticFour The Thing]]), Samaritan (ComicBook/{{Superman}}), the N-Forcer (ComicBook/IronMan), or Winged Victory (ComicBook/WonderWoman). Such knowledge rounds out the setting considerably.
103[[/folder]]
104
105[[folder:Comic Strips]]
106* A great many ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' strips do this.
107** One notable example is one where two shipwreck survivors are clinging to a shellfish-encrusted rock in the ocean, and one says "Don't worry, we'll have plenty to eat; the oysters go all the way to the top!". [[ViewersAreMorons You'd have to know that oysters actually live underwater to get the joke]].
108** Averted by ExecutiveMeddling in one case: a strip showing a shady-looking man with a jacket full of tiny deer, goats, antelope, etc, was originally to be captioned "Hey, buddy, you wanna buy an ungulate?", suggestive of [[CoatFullOfContraband a drug dealer pushing e.g. barbiturates]], but was [[ViewersAreMorons changed under pressure from the publisher]] to "Hey, buddy, you wanna buy a hoofed mammal?", ruining the allusion in the process. ([[DontExplainTheJoke "Ungulate" is the technical term for a hoofed mammal]].)
109** ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' actually [[PeripheryDemographic became quite popular among academics]] for its [[ShownTheirWork realistic portrayal]] of the natural world, including a foreword in the 2nd Far Side Gallery by a PHD (specializing in slugs).
110*** To the point that paleontologists now actually refer to the spiky end of a Stegosaurus as the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer thagomizer]]", coined by a cave man professor in one ''Far Side'' strip as "named after the late Thag Simmons".
111*** Another "Easter Egg" example is the "[[{{Pun}} Cape Buffalo Fear]]" strip, coupling the animal with the [[Film/CapeFear then-recently remade movie]] for the obvious pun. This is made ''far'' funnier when the reader knows about [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19351_the-6-deadliest-animals-too-adorable-to-run-away-from_p2.html?wa_user1=5&wa_user2=Science&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=companion the animal's propensity for getting revenge]], to the point that they're ''the'' most deadly of the "Big Five" African animals.
112* The author of ''ComicStrip/{{Frazz}}'' has actually stated that he believes his readers to be among the smartest in the world. Since he's the one getting the fan mail, we'll just have to take his word for it.
113* Justified in ''ComicStrip/MadamAndEve''. The strip is unafraid of leaning into its South African roots, frequently making jokes about local customs, using regional slang, and referring to local news and events. The comic will sometimes explain the most esoteric stuff for the benefit of outsiders, but readers not from South Africa will be challenged to understand the more subtle humor in the comic.
114[[/folder]]
115
116[[folder:Fan Works]]
117* A ''Manga/DeathNote'' fanfic, apparently about random American civilians during Kira's reign, starts off with a SeinfeldianConversation about how easy it is to do a feminist critique of classic literature, which further digresses into this exchange:
118-->'''Character A:''' Y'know, if ''Sir Nigel'' does come up on the test, I'll thank my lucky stars it wasn't, say, ''Rodney Stone''. Would've refused to read it on principle.\
119'''Character B:''' What? I've never even heard of ''Rodney'' -- oh. ''[rolls eyes]'' I'm guessing it came out around the turn of the century?\
120'''Character A:''' So I'm predictable.
121** If you knew without Googling or proceeding to the next chapter that this is supposed to mean that Character A is predisposed toward a particular side, well, it's a good thing that you came down from your [[DaydreamBeliever terrifying]] [[FanWank ivory tower]] long enough to watch a cartoon, but... chances are you're the author.
122* [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4251989/60/A_Few_Angry_Words This]] chapter of A Few Angry Words. There's a ShoutOut in there, but in the comments for the chapter, nobody gets [[Literature/TheBible the reference.]] One guy almost does, but then proceeds to cite the wrong story.
123* ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3291350/1/Prinz_von_Sommerhoffnung Prinz von Sommerhoffnung]]'', my goodness. What's supposed to be, if the author can be believed, a ''Anime/MyHime'' AU novelisation slaps you with a questionably correct piece of translation-wordplay from the title on. The various character names, ostensibly attempts at CaptainErsatz-ing, run on translations, transliterations and wordplay that need some amount of bizarre lateral thinking to decipher; not to mention that {{Shout Out}}s both to modern and older works are handled in a roundabout way. Perhaps the worst part, though? The author ''knows'' his stuff is undecipherable, and seems, well, blasé about it.
124* [[http://www.fanfiction.net/u/923867/S_Michael S-Michael]], being BrilliantButLazy as he is, will never, ever tell you anything you should already know. In [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4526981/1/Thicker_than_Water Thicker than Water]], that whole JD thing is based on real science! ''Better'' science than ''Anime/BloodPlus'' is, in fact! (Assuming of course that certain facts of chiropteran biology are inherently similar to human biology, at any rate.)
125* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' fanfic [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7276996/1/Cicadas_Case_of_the_End_Dreamer Cicadas: Case of the Endless Dreamer]]. The entire story, due to often being told by a malicious UnreliableNarrator, relies on the reader managing to weave through the various red herrings present, pick up the small details, and determine exactly what is true and what is fiction. Otherwise, the reader has to deal with various inconsistencies with canon, contradictions, and will outright not have a clue what is going on in a good portion of the story.
126* Some readers of ''Fanfic/MassEffectHumanRevolution'' have accused it of reaching this level, between the GambitPileup of clashing {{Magnificent Bastard}}s fighting wannabes and conspiracies, mysticism InUniverse and out, NarrativeFiligree and the ReferenceOverdosed.
127* The "A dance of Shadow and Light" series by [[https://www.fanfiction.net/u/3779251/Ocadioan Ocadioan]] is so ripe with historic, cultural, language and mathematical references and hints that, [[WordOfGod in the author's own words at the end of the series,]] "''if you had even noticed half of them, then you would not have been surprised by any of the events that happened in the story or the series as a whole.''". Examples of his ''easy'' Easter eggs include [[spoiler:noticing the reference to the Damocles of Syracuse, and specifically the Sword of Damocles, noticing the name behind Project Faust (yes, [[DealWithTheDevil THAT Faust]], and a small FaustianRebellion has already been done by then)]], or figuring out that [[spoiler: Mercury's ''[[AndIMustScream death]]'' coincides with him being [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything 666 years old]] and having [[SealedEvilInACan having his soul trapped at the Earth's core]]]].
128** The author is nice enough though to create a chapter in [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8538822/10/A-dance-of-Shadow-and-Light-Sidestories Sidestories]] that explains the major plotpoints that the readers would ''very'' likely not have caught otherwise. And most of the references are merely Easter eggs anyway, though there is apparently ''another'' layer to deepen the story that is only accessed through the same sort of references and a fair amount of FridgeLogic. An example of this is [[spoiler: having to notice and keep track of the irony of a main character in [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9998018/1/Phoenix-fire Phoenix-fire]] mentioning that she would be thanked eventually by the people of Alagaësia [[HeWhoFightsMonsters for going to such lengths]] to kill [[ManipulativeBastard Mercury]], then abandoning it all near the end when all of her family and friends have been killed, only to then be thanked ''by'' Mercury ''[[ThanatosGambit right after she kills him]]'']].
129* A ''Literature/GoodOmens'' fic by Creator/AAPessimal, based on the riff that ''The Devil Has [[http://archiveofourown.org/works/769628/chapters/1444071 All The Best Tunes]]'', deals with Crowley and Aziraphale getting involved in the murky world of pop and rock music. The chapters include Music/BlackSabbath getting a helping hand from Crowley, and the Four Motorcycle Riders of the Apocalypse each sponsoring trends in music that they are attracted to. [[note]]War gets Teddy boys to rip up seats in a London cinema; Famine is drawn to singers with interesting eating disorders; Pollution gravitates to Punk Rock, etc.[[/note]] The chapters become increasingly dense with references to sixties and seventies rock and pop music, and the last, where DEATH takes an interest in an [[Music/BlueOysterCult obscure New York rock band with an intellectual edge]] and gets them to write his [[DontFearTheReaper theme song]], is so [[ReferenceOverdosed packed with obscure references]] the reader would need a degree level education in music trivia to get all the references. [[WordOfGod Even the author admits he might have overdone it a little]].
130** Pessimal generally deals in Literature/{{Discworld}} fics. The general opinion of readers is that he manages a very good Pratchett pastiche and that, as with the inspiration, the tales are loaded with references, allusions and background detail, right down to lots and lots of necessary footnotes.
131* ''Fanfic/SuperheroRPF'' is arguably not as bad as some of the other examples, but it still unintelligible without knowledge of the source material (Marvel Universe, especially its teen heroes), ''and'' fandom cultures (from livejournal to tumblr and beyond). No, it won't explain anything, if you can't guess the platform from the ''formatting'', the people from the screen names, or the jargon goes over your head, too bad.
132* Some of the backstory and references in ''FanFic/SonicXDarkChaos'' are nearly impossible to understand without a theology major, historical research into Literature/{{the Bible}} and the Koran, knowledge of American right-wing Evangelical beliefs, [[CosmicHorrorStory familiarity with the works of HP Lovecraft]], and knowledge of Christian and Jewish demonology. Some understanding of [[UsefulNotes/{{Satanism}} LaVeyan Satanism]] helps too.
133** Not to mention the numerous shout-outs to the original Japanese third season of ''Sonic X'' - which [[NoExportForYou was never officially released in the West]] and is [[DarkerAndEdgier much different]] than the western dub version.
134* ''Fanfic/PacificWorldWarIIUsNavyShipgirls'':
135** Its designs incorporate tons of tiny details about the original ships' history and their namesakes that are very likely to fly over the heads of people who aren't hardcore naval history buffs. While a few things are genuinely playing to fetishes, many of the design choices have historically authentic but obscure backing, without which one can be led to believe such-and-such was thrown together at random.
136** The Japan-focused content is written by Sune, a native Japanese with IJA heritage and insight into ultranationalist thought, and requires an understanding of post-World War II Japanese conspiracy theories, culture, politics, religion and sociology to properly appreciate.
137* ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBlossomingTrail'' throws in a lot about demons from the ''Literature/ArsGoetia'' that most people won't know on first glance. For instance, Chloe paints the seal of Marchosias for a scabbard on her donut holer Cheshire. Marchosias is a wolf-demon who wishes to one day ascend to heaven but is deceived in that hope. Symbolically, Chloe wishes to become friends with Goh again, but she realizes that it's not going to happen.
138[[/folder]]
139
140[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
141* ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'', Creator/WaltDisney's [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon third animated film]], was based mostly around the assumption that viewers liked and appreciated classical music and abstract imagery just as much as he did. Although the film has been VindicatedByHistory, at the time of its release it was a massive box office flop; even his brother/business partner Roy was skeptical of the film, claiming that there should have at least been some sequences in the film based on more popular forms of music. The studio's next music anthology ''WesternAnimation/MakeMineMusic'' would feature a mostly pop-based soundtrack, while the sequences that were based on other forms of music like classical and opera (such as "Peter and the Wolf" and "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met") had narrators and full story lines (both films are good in each merits).
142* ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatMouseDetective'' has got a ''very'' subtle one when it comes to Ratigan's DisneyVillainDeath. His ''foot'' slides on the clock hand of ''Big Ben'' when ''10 p.m.'' strikes, causing him to fall to his death. You don't get it? We can't blame you. A not very well-known outside of England fact is that at ''11 p.m.'', there is a little tune playing in Big Ben. An even lesser-known fact is that there are actually lyrics written for this tune. What are they?
143--> "All through this hour,
144--> Lord be my guide,
145--> And by Thy power,
146--> ''No foot shall slide.''"
147* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'' is packed with religious symbolism the average adult viewer, and certainly the average child, would not understand. Some examples that come to mind are Esmeralda's dance dress being the colors of the Whore of Babylon, Phoebus and the soldiers offering 30 pieces of silver to the gypsies in exchange for her location, and Frollo's [[SanitySlippageSong song Hellfire]] (in which he insists his lust and obsession with Esmeralda is her fault and God's rather than his own) being sung to a confessional prayer to chants of ''Mea culpa'' (through my fault).
148** Every time Frollo appears, a background chorus sings "Kyrie elison," meaning "Lord have mercy." The song in which he murders Quasimodo's mother also has a background choir singing Dies Irae, containing "beware the coming of the judge!"
149** The damage that happens in the climax- broken gargoyles, etc- is actually real-life damage that has happened to the cathedral throughout history.
150** Quasimodo's scene with the chains is reminiscent of Samson from the Bible.
151* ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'': Carl and Russell are playing a car spotting game (red one, blue one). Dug looks off camera and says "Grey one" and a red one goes past. The "genius" part is that dogs are red/green colorblind, but the "fail" part is that they're not completely colorblind; Dug wouldn't be able to tell a red car from a green car, but he should be able to distinguish either from a grey car.
152[[/folder]]
153
154[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
155* All of Creator/WoodyAllen's films believe this. It doesn't take a genius to understand when a character says, "She believes the Sabine women had it coming to them!" or "Winner of the Zelda Fitzgerald Emotional Maturity Award" what they're getting at, solely through context.
156* Some people found ''Film/DonnieDarko'' hard to follow, so a Director's Cut was released that basically went to [[ViewersAreMorons the opposite side of the spectrum]], replacing all the interesting ambiguity with a lot of flat explanation.
157* ''Film/SouthlandTales'' is drenched in references to literature and politics that range from punishingly obvious to downright impenetrable. Everyone watching the film can tell that it's certainly supposed to be about ''something'', but what the hell is actually going on or what it's all supposed to mean in the end generally baffles most audiences. Ultimately the director certainly had a lot of faith in the audience that they'd be able to follow his thought processes. Or he just intended to [[ExecutiveMeddling make a longer film]] with more explanation, or thought more people [[AllThereInTheManual would read the prequel comic]]. Though the longer cut at Cannes got similar, if not even more negative responses than the final cut.
158* ''Film/{{Primer}}'' was written by a math graduate who studied physics intensively to produce one of the most plausible TimeTravel movies ever. In the words of one reviewer, "Anybody who claims they fully understand what's going on in ''Primer'' after seeing it just once is either a savant or a liar." Reportedly, writer-director Shane Carruth didn't think the movie would be too hard for the average viewer to figure out. Following the events that the audience (and main characters) can see happening is challenging, but possible. On the other hand, there's so much going on that either isn't shown directly or [[TheEndingChangesEverything isn't what it seems]] that, by the end of the movie, even the two main characters end up completely baffled by the massive GambitPileup they've been playing against each other.
159* Hardly anyone understands all the vital plot points from ''Film/TheDescent'' first time 'round. Either they completely missed that [[spoiler:Sarah went crazy]] or they didn't connect the dots and get that the crawlers were evolved from cavemen who stayed down in the cave or they would miss the subtext that Sarah possibly only imagined the crawlers or they would make a more simple mistake and forget the [[ChekhovsGun seemingly unimportant singular lines of dialogue which would explain things later on]]. To top it off, it's very difficult to tell who's who in the dark, and fans are still arguing over what the hell the ending ''means''...
160* Spike Lee's ''Film/TwentyFifthHour'' has a deleted scene where a pair of gangsters explain the exact reasons why the protagonist has 24 hours of freedom. Pretty much every single review either couldn't figure out the reasons within the context of the film, or presumed that the 24 hours were ''not'' TruthInTelevision. They were, at least at the time.
161* The climax of ''Film/TradingPlaces'' involves a surprisingly complex commodities market scheme. However, earlier in the film, the Duke brothers explain the basic concept of commodities trading in such simplistic turns that Billie Ray gives an AsideGlance to the audience.
162* ''Film/{{Videodrome}}''. A good understanding of Marshall [=McLuhan=]'s media theory is required to really get it.
163* In the Director's Cut and the Final Cut, ''Film/BladeRunner'''s world is a complicated one with little to no flat explanation, a slow pace, and a lot of rumination on human nature. It requires a certain type of viewer to understand and enjoy it to its fullest. The theatrical cut, however, includes narration in a ViewersAreMorons move by the studio.
164* In ''Film/{{Stargate}}'', the Egyptologist character figures out how to speak the language of the humans found beyond the stargate in about five minutes of dialog with the native girl he later has a romance with. When another character expresses amazement that he cracked the language so quickly, he observes modestly that he just had to get the vowels right. This is hilarious, but to catch the humor you need to know arcane details about how the vowels of Ancient Egyptian were reconstructed by modern scholars. In short: while we can ''read'' Ancient Egyptian, there is little data on how it was ''pronounced'', and the sounds we assign the language today are probably off from what the actual language sounded like. That's exactly why you can hear Ra or Re used interchangeably, neither of which has been proven to be the genuine rendering of the god's original name (for all we know, it could just as well have been "Ro" or "Ri").
165* ''Film/{{Inception}}''. There's a lot to keep track of in this film, including dream rules and levels, and after the initial period of exposition and heist planning, Nolan expects you to figure it out for yourself. His next non-Batman movie ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'' manages to go even well beyond that. Having some basic knowledge about general relativity, space-time, and exoplanet research goes a very long way in figuring out what's actually going on. And it might require some deeper understanding of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Existentialism}} existentialist philosophy]] that underlies all of Nolan's movies to be able to figure out what anything of it might be supposed to mean.
166* In ''Theatre/TheHistoryBoys'' there is an [[RealityHasNoSubtitles entire scene spoken almost entirely in French]]. There is also a lot of jokes that are more funny if viewers understand the context behind it, from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII to [[Creator/FriedrichNietzsche Nietzsche]] and from the Dissolution of the Monasteries to ''Film/BriefEncounter'' to Creator/ThomasHardy.
167* ''Film/OceansTwelve'' makes a point of omitting details and forgoing explicit exposition. It assumes the viewer will fill in the gaps. Though it never gives you all of the details, it does explain ''how'' things happen at the end via flashbacks.
168* Much of Peter Greenaway's work fits this trope. For example, he commented in the DVD bonus features for ''Film/TheDraughtsmansContract'' that he did not want to explain the plot and its ending within the film, feeling that the audience would understand what had happened. Many people disagree.
169* ''Film/TheLostBladesman'' (2011) assumes that viewers are already familiar with ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'', specifically the arc about Guan Yu's journey of "slaying six generals at five passes" along the way to returning to Liu Bei, despite the fact that the movie's actual plot is ''heavily'' divergent from that arc, with almost no attempt to explain the surrounding circumstances.
170* If you're not American, or even just a politically-apathetic American, you might have some difficulty understanding the basic plot in ''Film/TheIdesOfMarch'' as the way in US Presidential candidates are nominated is quite unique and unlike any other country's in the world. The basics of the process are largely glossed over and it's assumed the audience is already familiar with them.
171* ''Film/MrNobody''. The concept of Old Nemo's Memories, fractally nesting, equally possible subplots are easy to understand as concept, even while the film is jumping back and forth between them like hell. The fact that the scenes of Adult Nemo in a checkered vest within a MindScrew realm are littered amongst them does keeping track of the actual plot a little confusing at first. [[spoiler:That they are in this exact weird way to shout out that they did never take place in any possible lifespan is not apparent to say the least. Old Nemo has no actual backstory, so they are merely fillers in the little boy’s imagination, just like pretty much all of the film. The same effect occurs in the GainaxEnding, the fact that all these possible lives are just imagined is easy to digest, even that post-dream decision does make sense if you think about it afterwards, but to keep track of that metaphor with this whole Universe turnaround does only make sense if you're high or on your fifth run.]]
172* ''Film/{{The Mirror|1975}}'': You need a pretty extensive knowledge of Russian literature and the ability to pay extremely close attention (the same actors play multiple characters in multiple timeframes; in the lead actor's case the two characters are even referred to by the same name to make it even more confusing) to make sense of it. It doesn't help that the subtitles on the Kino DVD don't translate or even mistranslate bits of dialogue.
173* The otherwise scholocky low-budget horror film ''.Com for Murder'' assumes that the audience has a good familiarity with the 18th century German author Creator/JohannWolfgangVonGoethe's ''Literature/TheSorrowsOfYoungWerther''.
174* One of the reasons why ''Film/JohnnyDangerously'' has never caught on like other famous parody films from the same period (''Film/{{Airplane}}'' and ''Film/TopSecret'' for example) was because it was parodying a genre (the 1930s gangster movie) that had faded from the public consciousness. Not only had 50 years passed since the genre was at its height, its place in the American collective unconscious had been supplanted by ''Film/TheGodfather'' and its derivatives. It's very strange to note that although the movie came out in 1984 and was a parody of gangster movies, that there wasn't a single reference to ''The Godfather'' in it.
175* ''Film/CaptiveState'': Surprisingly little exposition, a large cast, and a lot of unanswered questions.
176* ''Film/OnceUponATimeInHollywood'' assumes that the viewer is already familiar with the real life Charles Manson murders. If you go in blind, there are certain aspects about the film that will hold little or no significance to the viewer otherwise, especially with its ending.
177* ''A Love Song For Bobby Long'' contains an utterly impressive density of references to classics of American literature, and assumes that every viewer is intimately familiar with works spanning centuries, despite the protagonists being pseudointellectual drunkards on a slow path to redemption.
178* The Architect scene from ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'' is an infamous example of this. It has commonly been mocked and parodied in pop culture because of his SesquipedalianLoquaciousness delivery which much of the audience found hard to follow (and many that could follow it still found it pretentious). It also muddles the fact that his speech is a major PlotTwist for the whole series itself: [[spoiler:that [[TheChosenOne The One]] was really a controlled glitch in the Matrix to account for human choice, whose destiny was ultimately help the machines reboot the Matrix and prevent human extinction so that it does not lose its main power source,]] and the questions it brings up regarding whether free will is an illusion. Creator/TheWachowskis are aware of the negative reception of the scene, including the MTV parody of the scene in the DVD release of the movie, and including some SelfDeprecation on their part regarding their tendency to do this in ''VideoGame/TheMatrixPathOfNeo.''
179* The film version of ''No One Gets Out Alive'' doesn't bother to explain what its main supernatural monster is, only that it originates from Mexico. For most of the movie it appears as a box with hands coming out of it, and TheReveal shows it as a fully CGI EldritchAbomination, but it does have a source, it's [[spoiler: Ītzpāpālōtl, of Myth/MayanMythology fame.]]
180* Luhrmann and co. expect you to have some kind of familiarity with late 19th-century France if you're going to go see ''Film/MoulinRouge''. Some of its most common criticisms come from modern audiences not recognizing the discrepancies between modern society and the way things operated in 1899. For example, a common criticism is that Satine keeps saying she wants to be a real actress, but is already performing every night -- no, no. What she's saying is the equivalent of a modern day porn star saying she wants to become a Hollywood actress. A deleted scene directly acknowledges another critique that can be explained with historical knowledge: Zidler needs the Duke to be his investor because, even in spite of the rich clientele, he's in debt from all he's spent on electricity. Instead, the viewer has to rely on prior knowledge and intuition, as well as a few side comments, to understand... Because it definitely wasn't cheap back then.
181[[/folder]]
182
183[[folder:Literature]]
184* Literature/TheGaiad demands a knowledge of nearly every scientific discipline and literary tradition to understand, for example comparing DNA methylation to traditional Hebrew Calligraphy.
185* Authors who [[GratuitousForeignLanguage put non-English phrases or sentences]] into their English-language novels and, instead of leaving them as a BilingualBonus, make them central to understanding the plot.
186** In Dorothy Sayers's ''Literature/LordPeterWimsey'' story "The Entertaining Episode of the Article in Question," understanding the vital clue requires a knowledge of French grammar. The grammar point in question is quite elementary, but the clue is hidden in half a page of untranslated French dialogue. While most of Sayer's original audience would have learned French in school, it's still quite a demand to make of the reader.
187** Creator/AgathaChristie sometimes does this in her Literature/HerculePoirot novels, or else puts {{Bilingual Bonus}}es in places where they ''look'' like they might be important. In "Murder on the Orient Express", the reported last words of the victim are in French. The characters talk about how important this phrase is but no one ever translates it to English for us poor saps in the 21st century that don't speak conversational French. [[spoiler:In the end, it turns out that the actual words weren't important, and the killer[s] is/was was intentionally trying to have the other people on the train realize that the victim didn't speak French at all in a convoluted scheme for blame to fall elsewhere.]]
188** Not limited to English; Tolstoy and his contemporaries pulled this kind of thing all the time. Translations of ''Literature/AnnaKarenina'', especially, are famous for retaining the French lines without bothering to so much as footnote them, making it doubly confusing by readers already confused by awkward translations of Russian idiom. However, in Russia and Europe of the 19th century, French was a common second language among the aristocracy and educated middle class so these references would have been understood and not necessarily fly over people's heads ''then'' as they might today.
189** Poe parodies this in his essay "How to write a Blackwood Article" and the "Blackwood Article" that follows.
190** The other thing you'll see in older literature is Latin tags -- sayings or phrases in Latin in an otherwise English work. At a time when little children were taught Latin (partly as a basis or intro for learning other Romance languages), these little tags like ''sine qua non''[[note]]without which there is nothing[[/note]] or ''et hoc genus omne''[[note]]and all those guys; or, and all that sort of thing[[/note]] were assumed to be understood by anyone who could read. Some like "pro tem[pore]" and "RIP" (requiescat in pace) have made it into modern usage. Less often, you'll see Greek tags. Biblical phrases are also commonly used.
191** In many non-English speaking circles, especially in continental Europe, an advanced grasp of at least written English is taken pretty much for granted and job announcements sometimes won't even mention this particular requirement due to it being not as much of a highlight and more so that a lack thereof would be considered a disadvantage (just like nobody boasts of being able to read and write). If you were to post a link to a news article in English on, say, a Swedish gaming forum, even if any of the users actually needed a translation, chances are they wouldn't dare to ask for fear of humiliation.
192* Authors using DirectLineToTheAuthor sometimes have this happen whether it is their intent or not. For instance, some early reviewers of the first ''{{Literature/Flashman}}'' novel thought it was an actual memoir (despite the fact that the protagonist is a character from Victorian fiction). Oddly, one book, ''Dickens of the Mounted'', is a SpiritualSuccessor/pastiche of the Flashman series and actually has a LawyerFriendlyCameo from Flashman and was ''also'' interpreted as being the actual memoirs of the protagonist (who was in this case actually a real person, the ne'er-do-well son of Creator/CharlesDickens).
193* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' definitely counts. While some stories may appear to be even simple children's stories, every single novel in the series contains a VAST amount of parodies, references and allusions to many equally vastly different things. This ranges from history to quantum mechanics, and from popular culture to religion. Be it mythology, geography, Shakespeare, physics, popular culture or anything else, everything is discussed or parodied, and in order to understand all allusions one would be required to browse Website/{{Wikipedia}} 24/7. However, the series is still easily accessible by those who do not have such knowledge, allowing the reader to enjoy it no matter how much he knows, but the more educated readers will still get a huge GeniusBonus. A guide to many of the references in Pratchett's books is [[http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/index.html here.]]
194* ''Literature/DragonBones'' has a horse named [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Stygian]]. A reference to the river Styx, which is located in the Greek underworld. The dark and gloomy afterlife place. Apparently, the German translator thought that viewers aren't so clever after all, and changed the horse's name to something that means "monster", so that it's clearer why, exactly, the protagonist decides to change the name to something less intimidating.
195* You can read all the way through Erskine Childers' ''Literature/TheRiddleOfTheSands'' just for the gripping conspiracy that invented the modern espionage novel or the beautifully verbose and poetic descriptions of the sea... but having extensive knowledge of sailing in small boats certainly ''helps''.
196* Most readers find Dorothy Dunnett's ''Lymond Chronicles'' largely incomprehensible for the first 100 pages due to the untranslated Latin, Spanish, and French, the fact that most characters are referred to by multiple names, that much of the meaning comes from snippets of obscure medieval literary quotations that require knowledge of the (unprovided) full piece to understand, and the plot that assumes detailed knowledge of 16th century Scottish politics. There are two official guidebooks and multiple fan-made translations and literary-reference compilations to make up for this.
197* Creator/MichaelCrichton is notorious for this.
198** Many people who read ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' right after seeing the movie were overwhelmed with Crichton's stifling detail of anthropological and palaeontologic minutiae. Then in the second book there are extended sections of dialogue explaining how much of the exposition from the first book was wrong, many of them due to ScienceMarchesOn.
199** Think ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' is bad? Just try reading (or watching) ''Literature/TheAndromedaStrain''. A lot of technobabble (accurate, though) involving genetic mutations, diseases, and molecular level sciences.
200* Creator/UmbertoEco
201** ''Literature/FoucaultsPendulum'' is a {{Deconstruction}} of [[AncientConspiracy conspiracy theories]] that spans forty years or so, is told [[AnachronicOrder nonlinearly]] using {{flashback}}s and a [[FramingDevice frame story]], and references hundreds of names and concepts related to politics, history, science, religion, and occultism.
202** ''Literature/TheNameOfTheRose'' includes monks arguing about classic Greek literature and philosophy, quarreling about medieval church dogma, and throwing untranslated Latin quotes at each other... yet all the discussions should be fully understood to get the whole book. Bonus points if you spot the deliberately anachronistic elements, such as the medieval narrator quoting Wittgenstein. The early line '"[[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/11/books/books-of-the-times-inside-jokes-from-the-knights-templar-to-snoopy.html It was a beautiful morning at the end of November]]" is in homage to Snoopy's literary style in ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''.
203* Creator/TSEliot's long poem ''Literature/TheWasteLand''. It contains quotes from various famous sources, still in their original language. If you're not reading an annotated version, it will make no sense, but even the notes don't really help much; they were described by Louis Menand as "[[http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/wasteland.htm simply another riddle -- and not a separate one]]". Eliot himself wrote in ''The Frontiers of Criticism'' that he started out just citing his quotations "with a view to spiking the guns of critics of my earlier poems who had accused me of plagiarism", before realising he had to come up with more material if the poem was going to be released as a book "with the result that they became the remarkable exposition of bogus scholarship that is still on view to-day". It also doesn't help that ''even Eliot'' seems to admit that some of the references make no sense without the notes. One of the cards during the Tarot reading represents the Fisher King, but not only is this not indicated in any way, Eliot claims to have no idea why he associates the two.
204* [[http://www.lostgeneration.com/hemfaq.htm#iceberg Ernest Hemingway's "theory of omission" or "the iceberg principle."]]. Though this depends on how you read it -- some say Hemingway is simply championing understated BeigeProse as opposed to overwritten PurpleProse, therefore adopting a nice middle ground between ViewersAreMorons and Viewers are Geniuses, others say it is this trope.
205* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in Creator/IanFleming's ''Literature/JamesBond'' novel ''Literature/CasinoRoyale'', when M complains to one of his underlings that the report the underling wrote has a French sentence without any translation.
206--> 'This is not the Berlitz School of Languages, Head of S. If you want to show off your knowledge of foreign jawbreakers, be good enough to provide a crib. Better still, write in English.'
207* While they can still be enjoyed on a superficial level, William Gibson's novels (''Literature/{{Neuromancer}}'', ''Mona Lisa Overdrive'', ''Idoru'', etc.) rely on complex and multilayered metaphors, both pop culture and "learned" allusions, and a blurring of traditional concepts of "human," "life," "technology" and "reality", among others. On the other hand, Gibson admits in interviews that readers shouldn't look too deep into the technical aspects of computer science and cyberspace in his works, because he didn't even ''own'' a computer until well after he'd written ''Literature/{{Neuromancer}}'' and was profoundly disappointed with how mundane it was. However, he ''did'' do the research; he's known to keep track of "the invisible literature" -- scientific research papers.
208* Creator/JamesJoyce's ''Literature/{{Ulysses}}''
209** It requires intimate knowledge of the history of literature (especially English-language literature), geography of Dublin, history of Ireland and a genius ability at recognizing allusions. ''Literature/FinnegansWake'' requires... surrendering the possibility of comprehension, which was perhaps the point.
210** Given that the title is the Roman name for Odysseus, understanding Homer's ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' is incredibly significant to the book. It also helps if you're familiar with Shakespeare's ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''.
211** Although it must be pointed out that objections to Joyce's ''Ulysses'' in its day had to do with its straightforward look at sex and not the density of allusions per se. Even then a lot of his references were common reading material. Like ''The Odyssey'' may not have been widely read by the general public but it's hardly an obscure poem, nor is ''Hamlet'' for that matter. The Irish political references are very local but ItMakesSenseInContext.
212** It should be noted: unlike with many other works on this page, Joyce was actually courteous enough to provide a ''guide'' to reading ''Ulysses'', as he recognized that the novel might otherwise be a bit hard to follow. When he sent to the book to his friends Stuart Gilbert and Carlo Linati, he gave both of them rough outlines of its fundamental structure, pointing out some basic details of plot progression (like when and where each episode takes place, and which episodes are meant to parallel which chapters in ''Literature/TheOdyssey''), as well as listing some of the core symbols and themes in each episode, and laying out the central images and ideas of each episode (like which body parts, colors, and academic disciplines are supposed to figure into each episode). These outlines, now known as "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_schema_for_Ulysses The Gilbert Schema]]" and "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linati_schema_for_Ulysses The Linati Schema]]", are very helpful in making the novel a bit more accessible.
213* The first half of Creator/WilliamFaulkner's ''Literature/TheSoundAndTheFury'' is incomprehensible at first glance. Benjy, a 33-year-old with a profound mental disability, narrates the first section. He narrates all events in the present tense, ''even if it's a past memory.'' The second narrator is the incredibly intelligent and thoughtful Quentin Compson. The difficulty in his section stems from his narrative constantly shifting between what's actually happening, what he's thinking about, long sections of stream-of-consciousness narration without any punctuation, and even being able to tell what really does happen at some points. Case in point: Did Quentin just fantasize about having sex with his sister, or did it really happen?
214** And to make matters worse, Quentin is narrating his part of the story while having an extended mental breakdown. For the record, he didn't have sex with his sister, he only claimed to have done so because he felt it was better than the alternative.
215** Part of the confusion stems from Faulkner's intent to have different points of view and time periods made explicit by the use of a variety of text colors. Therefore, a section narrated by Benjy in the 'present' would be printed in one color, past events in another, and a section narrated by another character in a whole different color. Printing expenses prevented the multicolor approach from going forward but the story retains the unannounced jumping perspective, making it a uniquely challenging narrative.
216* The epic ''Literature/{{Shogun}}'', featuring a fish-out-of-water Englishman in late feudal Japan, presents a challenge with imported Japanese words and phrases. Author James Clavell shows a tendency to introduce and translate Japanese phrases exactly once, before proceeding to use them for the next thousand pages. Unless you happen to speak Japanese, you'd best be taking notes.
217** An understanding of the various real-life historical figures that the novel's characters are based on will greatly enrich your reading of the text, but once you realize who is supposed to stand in for who (and it's not difficult if you know the history, as Clavell's replacement names are very close to the original, especially for the big players) it spoils the ending.
218* Garry Kilworth's ''Literature/WelkinWeasels'' may suffer from this thanks to the rapid-fire ShoutOut rate. How many of the ten-year-old target audience will get references to Shelley, Coleridge, and Orwell, among others?
219* Creator/StanislawLem's works are usually loaded with science and philosophy. Most of his parodistic works, like ''Literature/TheCyberiad'' and ''Mortal Engines'' also require good knowledge of literature theory.
220* Creator/MadeleineLEngle's ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime'' and its sequels feature an extraordinary level of use of complex physics and biology concepts considering that the books are mainly intended for children. However, it also qualifies as a ParentalBonus since they're mostly just used as plot devices and so the reader doesn't really have to understand how everything works and just accept that it does work.
221* ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' falls firmly into this category, particularly for a children's series. While this is partially {{lampshade|Hanging}}d with the constant refrain of "a word which here means--" (which often is for words that are incredibly easy to understand), it still does not explain the constant references, particularly in character names (Esme Squalor, Nero the fiddle-playing principal, Frank and Earnest, Duncan and Isadora, Mr. Poe, etc.) or the convoluted plots and MindScrew themes. While many kids around the age of 10 have enjoyed every minute of these books, they live and breathe this trope. This actually tremendously increases 'family value' of the books, because they can be very entertaining to kids and parents alike.
222* The works of author Creator/CormacMcCarthy.
223** Some can be thoroughly enjoyed without being well-versed in [=McCarthy=]'s interests or history -- such as ''Literature/AllThePrettyHorses'', ''Literature/NoCountryForOldMen'', and ''Literature/TheRoad'' -- but it definitely helps to make sense of it all (especially with ''Literature/BloodMeridian'' and ''Suttree'').
224** His ''Border Trilogy'' (of which ''Literature/AllThePrettyHorses'' is the first) has characters have whole conversations entirely in Spanish. There's a website where you can download a list of all of the translated dialogue, which you may need by your side during the reading.
225* Creator/EzraPound
226** Try reading his "Cantos" without a way of translating Chinese, ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, and ''Basque''. Yes, [[StarfishLanguage Basque!]]
227** And when you find that way of translating Chinese, offer it to Pound. His Chinese is actually kind of awful.
228** Once you've done that, make sure to study 14th and 15th century Italian painting and political history. And the world of prewar Europe. And Greek mythology.
229* Even worse: Creator/ThomasPynchon's ''Literature/GravitysRainbow''. Even having the necessary knowledge in history, statistics, physics and linguistics to understand the background might not be enough to get through the MindScrew it is. Though the MindScrew might be the point since it's about the unsolvable post-war industrial complex UsefulNotes/ColdWar that is too big for a single plot to encompass it.
230* William Gaddis' ''JR'' is a 700-plus page novel with no chapter stops that is almost entirely composed of conversational dialogue that is sometimes packed with financial jargon. And it doesn't even tell you which character is speaking; you have to figure it out from context clues. ''A Frolic of His Own'', another {{doorstopper}}, is written in a similar style, and full of legal jargon.
231* ''Literature/{{Idlewild}}'' by Nick Sagan and its sequels, several times. For instance, the character of Fantasia averts TheSchizophreniaConspiracy, but you're assumed to know what hebephrenic schizophrenia ''is''.
232* Creator/CharlesStross' ''Literature/{{Accelerando}}'' relies heavily on computer science and information theory concepts without bothering to explain them and is literally ''written in ExpoSpeak''.
233--> "Don't trust anyone whose [[HoldYourHippogriffs state vector hasn't forked for more than a gigasecond]]." [[note]]Don't trust anyone over 30[[/note]]
234* S.S. Van Dine was even worse than Creator/ArthurConanDoyle. Literature/PhiloVance uses quotations not only from Latin, but also from French, German, and Italian. They usually are at least somewhat important, and they may be a paragraph, not just a sentence, long. He had one multi-paragraph footnote in German.
235** Perhaps this is why Creator/OgdenNash wrote this couplet:
236-->''Philo Vance\
237Needs a kick in the pance.''
238* ''Literature/ParadiseLost'' is filled to the brim with allusions, intended to be read by an early modern GentlemanSnarker with an extensive library of contemporary and ancient works. Modern readers can substitute the library with Google and [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]].
239* The description of the [[{{Precursors}} Xunca]] [[LostSuperweapon superweapon]] in ''Flinx Transcendent'', the final book in Creator/AlanDeanFoster's ''Literature/HumanxCommonwealth'' series, is likely to be incomprehensible to anyone without at least a basic grasp of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory string theory]].
240* Creator/MontagueRhodesJames's classic horror story "Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come to You, My Lad" {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this trope: everything goes pear-shaped because the protagonist doesn't realize that the apparently unintelligible inscription on the whistle [[spoiler: is in Latin, just like the intelligible inscription on the other side. To be fair, there's no agreement about how to translate it, but the general gist is that anyone blowing the whistle will be in for a nasty shock]].
241** Most of the horror stories by M.R. James, for that matter. "Mr. Humphreys And His Inheritance" is the most blatant example by far, with a lot of religious, classical and antiquarian references thrown in and a few Latin phrases left untranslated -- a succinct discussion of which produces enough materials for [[http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/Article.html a full-blown literary article]]. [[http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/alberic_StudyGuide.pdf A study guide]] is also helpful if the layman wishes to appreciate "Canon Alberic's Scrap-book" fully.
242* Creator/DanSimmons
243** One can only really understand ''Ilium'' and ''Olympos'' after studying ''Literature/TheIliad'', ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', and Shakespeare's ''Theatre/TheTempest''; and be familiar with ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'', the complete works of Marcel Proust, Shakespeare's sonnets, and Hans Moravec's writings; and should know a decent amount about quantum physics, the Voynich manuscript, terraforming, transhumanism, and biosphere theory. Then it might make sense. No guarantees. It helps that there are characters who love talking about Proust and ''Literature/TheIliad'' while much of the rest can be taken as [[{{Technobabble}} "awesome magic stuff"]].
244** ''[[Literature/HyperionCantos Hyperion]]'' does the same thing but this time with Creator/JohnKeats, Jack Vance, time travel, quantum mechanics (again), transhumanism (again), Internet sociology, [[spoiler:The Wizard of Oz and the Canterbury Tales]].
245* ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves''. The weird text alone is enough to confuse most people.
246* Very little of the plot of ''Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'' is actually stated outright.
247** Creator/DouglasAdams expects readers to connect several clues by themselves, to remember minor details from early in the book that suddenly become major plot points towards the end, and to be familiar with the life and work of Creator/SamuelTaylorColeridge. The ending, in which [[spoiler: Dirk Gently saves humanity from being erased from existence]], is completely incomprehensible unless you know the story of [[spoiler:Kubla Khan and the person from Porlock]].
248** Or you could have watched (or [[MissingEpisode read or listened to]]) the ''Doctor Who'' serials "City of Death" and "Shada", since Adams basically reused their plots -- even copying some of the dialogue verbatim. He gets forgiven since he was script writer, and the episodes he wrote initially didn't make it to air due to a strike at the BBC.
249* Any copy of ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'' that doesn't include extensive annotations becomes this within, quite literally, the first few stanzas.
250** In the original context, Divine Comedy was well, a hit, since it was the first major serious work of literature in vernacular language rather than Latin and indeed the poem entered the common everyday language with many phrases becoming MemeticMutation.
251** Of course, for most of Inferno, you need mostly to understand the politics of Italy at the time. When it was written, it would be the equivalent of writing about [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush]] trotting through hell and seeing all the Democrats, Al Quaedans, and EU-eans being tortured. Though it might not have been obvious even to Dante's contemporaries who was who, since he often uses partial names, nicknames or descriptions. (The equivalent of writing "here's Nick, il Cavaliere and the boy from Eton" and letting your readers figure out that you mean Nicolas Sarkozy, Silvio Berlusconi and UsefulNotes/DavidCameron.)
252* The ''Literature/AubreyMaturin'' novels contain masses of unexplained early-nineteenth-century detail and language. There are now several companion books. On nautical matters, at least, the author has explanations addressed to Stephen Maturin as TheWatson; but pay attention, because most things are explained only once, and will come up again in later books.
253* Creator/GregEgan doesn't expect that the reader will already know sophisticated concepts in algebraic topology, computation theory, or whatever scientific concept he's interested in at time of writing, but many of his works are difficult to understand if you don't pick up enough of it from his in-universe layman's introductions.
254* Argentinian author Creator/JorgeLuisBorges is known for including multiple references throughout his books, including and not limited to religion, philosophy, and the works of fellow writers. It is said that there is no one who has been able to decipher them all. Many claim that the references are so convoluted, they even speculate he just did it for the lulz. Sometimes the works they reference don't even exist, which means it's the reader's job to find out what's really obscure and what's just not real.
255* ''Literature/{{Blindsight}}'' is probably one of the biggest examples in existence. No, you will not read "radio signals were picked up". You will read -- we kid you not -- "Fourier transforms appeared".
256* Pretty much anything by Creator/RogerZelazny. From minor things like expecting you to know why Corwin "closed her eyes with kisses four" so as not to break the spell, to needing to have a pretty good understanding of Hindu-Buddhist myths to get the whole of "The Lord of Light," to simply needing a background in pulp fiction to know that one of the guys who tries to kill Red, is Sunlight and the guy Red hands him over to is Doc Savage.
257* Creator/JohnMFord often wrote stories so densely layered and plots so wheels-within-wheels that his own editors often didn't know where he was going. "Most normal people had the slight sense that something large and super-intelligent and trans-human had sort of flown over," said one.
258* ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'': What starts out as a healthy amount of {{Genius Bonus}}es later falls straight into this as they become pretty crucial to knowing what the hell is going on. There are as many throwaway references to astrophysics as there are to pop culture, [[spoiler:a TimeTravel incident reaches near-''Film/{{Primer}}'' levels of complexity]], and one novel features an in-depth discussion of Euler's planar graph formula -- which is necessary to resolve the current situation. There are ''diagrams''.
259* Almost any fiction until the mid-19th century or later. Many specific examples appear upthread with individual entries, but until relatively recently it was a {{trope}} of most fiction to be filled with allusions to the classics, Literature/{{the Bible}}, major contemporary philosophers, and other languages. [[http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/resource_literature.html If you want the secret to all those references, go here]].
260* ''Literature/TheDarkHalf'' has an in-universe example. The protagonist has written several highly intellectual novels with great reviews and poor sales. In the meantime he has also written under a pen name intentionally trashy books that [[LowestCommonDenominator engorge themselves on sex and violence]] which have gone on to become bestsellers. Creator/StephenKing wrote the book in part as a response to his pen name Richard Bachman becoming public knowledge. The stories he wrote under the pen name in turn tended to be less psychological than those with his own name on them.
261* This is probably part of the reason why the ''Intrigues of the Reflected Realm'' series by Creator/RobinJarvis never progressed further than the first book -- the complex backstory is only hinted at and requires multiple re-readings before it makes sense, plus in order to understand the plot you need to be familiar with the concept of genetic engineering, which is integral, but again, never fully explained. Being familiar with the Elizabethan idea of the four humours helps a lot as well. Bearing in mind that this is a kid's book, the result can be hopelessly confusing on first reading.
262* Creator/GeneWolfe:
263** He is well known for leaving large amounts of his background and story as puzzles for the reader -- particularly in the ''Literature/BookOfTheNewSun'' series. Important details like which characters are the lead character's close relatives and where (on earth) the story is set are left as puzzles for the reader -- as are many obscure (but real) words used in the series.
264** Fundamentally, the reader is sometimes left to puzzle out what ''genre'' the story is supposed to be: ScienceFiction or {{Fantasy}}? Religious or secular? [[UnreliableNarrator The narrator himself may not know]].
265** Wolfe has been quoted as saying it's insulting to tell the reader something ''more than once''. Therefore, what seems a one-off aside may be an important key a multi-volume story.
266* Creator/JasperFforde's works are loaded with literary puns and in-jokes, and oftentimes he relies on the conventions and limitations of his medium to drive important plot points. It's wonderful reading but try to keep up.
267* In ''Literature/ThePaleKing'', Garrity's ghostly rants include references to Pascal, Marquise du Deffand, Latin, Greek, Metropolis, Kierkegaard, and philology.
268* Creator/NealStephenson has set up shop smack in the middle of this trope and lives quite well there, thanks much.
269** ''Literature/TheBaroqueCycle'' books in particular go down much smoother if the reader has an undergraduate-level comprehension of economic theory, currency trading, securities investment, shipbuilding, counterfeiting, alchemy, high-seas piracy, and a graduate-level mastery European political machinations during the Renaissance era.
270** You'll get a lot more out of ''Literature/TheDiamondAge'' if you are already conversant with advanced concepts in [[{{Nanomachines}} nanotechnology]] and Asian geography.
271** If you can't crack an output-feedback mode stream cipher before you read ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}'', you'll be able to by the time you finish. (There's even a handy Appendix to show you how!)
272** In ''Literature/SnowCrash'', Stephenson pauses about halfway through to ensure that the reader is brought up to speed on essential elements of ancient Sumerian mythology and human neurological development before continuing with the plot.
273** ''Literature/{{Anathem}}'' speaks learnedly about subjects many readers may not even be able to pronounce let alone describe, including epistemology, ontology, orbital mechanics and the (theoretical) quantum-multiverse. Sensing a pattern...?
274* ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' -- Creator/JRRTolkien's epic history of Middle-Earth -- needs the reader to have both a photographic memory and an understanding of pre-medieval Norse/Germanic naming conventions just to keep up with the characters that were introduced hundreds of pages previously but then turn out to have a child who married the child of the child of... okay, enough of that. There is a list of characters at the back though, along with family trees so you can see such things as how Aragorn is related to Celebrimbor.
275* Creator/CharlesStross is [[JustForFun/OneOfUs an arch-geek]], and ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' contains lots of references to Mandelbrot sets, P-complete and NP-complete equations, and a lot of other stuff that you have to have studied advanced math and the like to understand (thankfully, understanding the {{Technobabble}} isn't required for enjoyment). {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d early in ''The Atrocity Archive'' when Bob gives us an overview of [[{{Magitek}} computational demonology]]:
276-->''The [Turing] theorem is a hack on discrete number theory that simultaneously disproves the Church-Turing hypothesis (wave if you understood that)...''
277* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': [[Series/GameOfThrones The show]] may be complex, but George R.R. Martin's series is comprised of compressed paper bricks of characters, conflicts, locations, plotlines, motives, implications, deaths, twists, and revelations. There have been 24 major POV characters so far, narrating about as many distinct plotlines over half as many distinct locations, including over a hundred secondary characters. Not for the faint of attention span.
278** Reading this series can be considered a dry run for Robert Jordan's ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' -- with over 140 POV characters spread over fifteen books, 10,000 pages and if you were to sit down and listen to them non-stop, just over 19 ''days'' of audio. Whilst this could just be considered a colossal task on its own, any character could come back at any time, requiring readers to call back to previous books and remember what obscure phrase that was mentioned in passing could now mean in a revealing light.
279* Steven Erikson's ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' is quite possibly one of the most complex works of fantasy ever written. The main storylines of the series span four continents, every one of the ten {{Doorstopper}} books has a cast of hundreds, and the series' backstory covers hundreds of thousands of years. Viewpoint characters constantly change; there is extensive and deliberate use of LostInMediasRes, obtuse in-world poetry used as chapter epigraphs, oblique dialogue, digressions as characters discuss or ponder philosophy, and complex prose. The first book, ''Literature/GardensOfTheMoon'', is infamously difficult for new readers to get into. This was done deliberately, as Erikson wanted to weed out readers without the patience to keep track of his vast numbers of characters and plot lines.
280* Creator/LarryNiven expects his readers to be conversant in a basic level of physics. His character will occasionally mention some scientific principle, but will ''never'' explain that principle, or why it's important to the story, because they (the character) already know what it means. So when a character mentions it takes six hours to get a message because of light-speed delay, or mentions the tidal differential of a ship in orbit around a neutron star, or starts talking about a thickened gas torus in high gravity rotational environment and it confuses you, Niven expects you to do the research and keep up.
281* ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' is another WoodenShipsAndIronMen series, with extremely detailed descriptions of nautical work. Sometimes, C.S. Forester will explain a particular term or operation. But if you don't know what halyards or mizzenmasts or hawse-holes are... well, good luck. (Oh, and a working knowledge of the game of whist will help you too.)
282* ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland'', especially now that most of the matter that the book satirizes (particularly children's poems) are known to the vast majority of people solely through this book. ''The Annotated Alice'', edited by Martin Gardner, is both useful and entertaining for modern readers.
283* Mexican poet and writer Amado Nervo. If not his poems or tales, every article written by him included varying themes like theatre, opera, other writers' works, conflicts between other nations, travels and personal anecdotes lived in Paris and New York, among others. He also tended to use quotes in other languages, like English, French or even Latin, most of the time without giving a traduction of what he just said. Understandably, because back then (late 19th and early 20th century) he wrote for weekly newspapers and magazines aimed for upper-middle class cultured people, but now, when anyone can check his works, normal readers might feel this.
284* Melodie Crookshank of ''Literature/TyrannosaurCanyon'' is a lab geek who only interacts with one other character. Her perspective is peppered with technical names for equipment and tests as well as her interpretations of this data, with very few laymen's explanations.
285* Creator/PamelaDean's ''Literature/TheSecretCountry'' books hold your attention even if you don't know Shakespeare, Chaucer et al., but if you do, you'll discover greater dimensions to the storyline and the characters.
286* Parts of Greer Gilman's ''Moonwise'' and ''Cloud & Ashes'' may be almost incomprehensible unless you know a little about English folklore and ballads and can catch onto the ancient meanings of the words she's using: ''wood'' once meant crazy or eccentric, a ''crowd'' is a fiddle, and so on. Like Clavell, she tends to explain these things ''once''. She writes in double and triple meanings and has lots of fun with puns and dialects. [[http://www.sfsite.com/02b/gr170.htm She talks about it here.]]
287* ''Literature/WitchellASymphony'' has a suggested listening selection for each chapter. A great deal of the foreshadowing is in the music and in the (musical) descriptions of the characters' voices. For example, Tavin's older brother is suggested to be unallied by associating him with the piano, which can be very low (evil) or very high (good). Tavin himself is associated with the cello, solidifying him as the protagonist.
288* Creator/MichaelMoorcock's ''[[Literature/TheCorneliusChronicles Jerry Cornelius]]'' series contains hundreds of obscure literary and cultural references. Moorcock claimed that he didn't expect that any reader would get them all.
289* The ''Literature/{{MARZENA}}'' series itself is based on a non-fiction book called ''Outlast the Machine'', which is about explaining in understandable English the most intricate mysteries of the brain, and which likely started as a master thesis that decided to switch to the dark side. ''Transhuman Ambrosia'' is very pointy on its knowledge of neuroscience, and even comes up with its own theories of how the brain works by measuring the levels of brain activity using glial cells (exchanging bananas for bananas) and goes to great length to explain what consciousness is, how the brain creates it, and how that process could be artificially replicated and harnessed. The number of details is absolutely insane, and yet the book manages to keep things simplistic enough that you could just happily browse through it without realizing all the hidden scientific genius behind it.
290* Creator/KenKesey decided to write ''Sometimes a Great Notion'' fully in first-person. Fair enough. He decided to use multiple narrators. Also fair enough. He also decided never to explicitly tell a reader when the narrative point of view shifted. There are subtle clues, like a mention of the previous narrator in third person, but the reader has to do the work entirely for themselves. It's not as difficult as some of the other examples on this list, but it still counts.
291* Unless you're quite familiar with the ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' stories (simply having seen film/TV adaptations won't help much) and the ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos'', Creator/NeilGaiman's short story "Literature/AStudyInEmerald" will require multiple readings to make sense. Despite this, it's one of his best loved short stories and won a UsefulNotes/HugoAward. Most of Gaiman's other work (''Literature/AmericanGods'' in particular) falls under GeniusBonus instead, as it will still mostly make sense if you don't have a thorough understanding of the background material (Myth/NorseMythology in ''American Gods''' case), but you'll appreciate it even more if you do.
292* ''Literature/RickyRicottasMightyRobot'' got a title change because of this trope. The robot was originally called "giant" since he was compared to the rest of the characters in the setting but young readers informed author Dav Pilkey that since the setting is a MouseWorld, the robot isn't actually a giant and requested the name be changed to the current. Pilkey has gone on record as being ''very'' impressed with this.
293* ''Literature/Masquerade1979'' is ostensibly a children's book in which the illustrations provided clues to the burial location of the jeweled golden hare featured in the story. Kit Williams, the writer, claimed that a child of ten with a good understanding of language, mathematics, and astronomy would be just as likely to solve the puzzle as an {{UsefulNotes/Oxbridge}} don. The puzzle remained unsolved for nearly three years, and the two people who finally cracked it were physics teachers.[[note]] Not that this was enough for them to win the contest; the actual contest winner had done so not by solving the puzzle, but by exploiting a chain of personal connections between Williams and himself.[[/note]] Even now that the method behind the solution has been thoroughly documented and published, it still leaves many readers scratching their heads, wondering "How was ''anyone'' supposed to solve this?"
294* ''Literature/TheDevilsDictionary'': You need to be ''very'' well-educated in order to understand all the entries.
295** There are several puns in Latin.
296** Bierce makes a reference to the croaking chorus of ''The Frogs'' by Creator/{{Aristophanes}}. (Yes, the one referenced in the MajorGeneralSong.)
297* ''Literature/TheFamiliar'': Some lines are in untranslated (after the Narrative Construct gives up and says in a footnote: "I'm not your personal Google Translate, [[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch bitch]]") [[BilingualBonus Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew]], and ''C++''.
298* ''Literature/TwentySixSixtySix'': There are references to literary theory, geometry, mythology, psychology, philosophy, morality, art, religious symbolism, Dracula, Communism, Mexican, German, and Russian history and culture, UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and many others.
299* ''Literature/ThatHideousStrength'': Downplayed, but in a few places, the book mentions concepts that the reader wouldn't understand unless they'd taken a college-level history of philosophy course:
300** When discussing the history of Wither's mental breakdown, i.e. how he became more and more detached from objective physical reality, Lewis name-drops some philosophers and philosophies of western Europe: "He had passed from Hegel into Hume, thence through Pragmatism, and thence through Logical Positivism, and out at last into the complete void."
301** When Ransom is explaining to Merlin how [[Literature/OutOfTheSilentPlanet he was taken captive to Mars]], he uses the phrases "enginry" and "natural philosophy" where we might use "technology" and "science". What we today call science really was once considered a branch of philosophy.
302[[/folder]]
303
304[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
305* ''Series/TheWire'' is one of the best examples of the new millennium. You're expected to keep up with multiple plot lines, a dozen-plus characters and their sub-stories, and all their field terminology with no {{Expospeak}} provided. It's often cited as one of the reasons for the show's low ratings and being subject to AwardSnub despite its enormous critical acclaim.
306* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' and ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' were unafraid to have obscure references and gags because the producers knew that the joke was that the erudite characters (Diane and Frasier in the former, Frasier and Niles in the latter) were confusing the hell out of the down-to-earth characters - and people who got the reference would get more mileage, but those who didn't would laugh at the contrast. ''Frasier'' gets a special mention for being one of the shows that pulled it off well while still getting high ratings. Frasier, Niles, and some of their highbrow friends frequently make reference to all manner of obscure, highbrow things, often within the subcultural worlds of opera, wine appreciation, and psychology. They're particularly fun of clever puns or sassy insults that show off their knowledge, though these can be difficult to follow for the un-elite.
307* ''Series/{{House}}'' is a textbook case. It started out this way, collecting a small but highly intelligent and medically-savvy fanbase on the official site, tended to include lots of ''Freudian themes'' and captured the overarching themes of "Everybody lies" and "No one is ever truly happy". Later on though, the writers began to appeal to the LowestCommonDenominator and skimp on the research.
308* Part of the fun of watching a GameShow is shouting out the answers from your couch. It can be difficult, however, when the answers are so [[MoonLogicPuzzle unexpectedly obscure]].
309** ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'', which usually crams 61 clues into a single game, is probably one of the most demanding shows for those playing at home.
310** Brits have ''Series/UniversityChallenge''. In a given episode, it's entirely possible for 80 questions to be asked and for a viewer to be able to correctly answer about nine. It's exactly this extreme difficulty that helps make it so popular, though.
311** Creator/TheBBC also has ''Series/OnlyConnect'', a game show whose theme is spotting obscure links between brief clues. [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lskhg/features/quiz/ The website has some example questions]] from the hardest round of the show, which involves separating 16 clues into four groups of four and explaining the connection in each group. Against the clock, of course. The links could be anything from "fictional spacecraft" to "female British government ministers" to "words with vowels in alphabetical order" to ... well, just about anything you can think of.
312** ''Series/{{QI}}'' turns it on its ear. Not only do the viewers generally not know the right answer, it's fairly rare that any of the "contestants" have any idea what's going on, even after the answer is explained. But that's kind of the point. For a show about comedians (and the odd political figure) talking about whatever happens to cross their mind, the show is extremely smart. Creator/StephenFry is a certified genius to begin with, then adding in questions that question common knowledge ("How many moons does the Earth have?"[[note]]It's still one, but science at the time [[ScienceMarchesOn classified other small, wide-orbiting bodies as moons to Earth as well, giving us officially "2", then later "4", before being reclassified so we are back to one]][[/note]]), ''then'' the fact that the comedians are often specialized geniuses themselves.
313* ''Alternative 3'': A British documentary series decides to have a bit of fun and produces a {{Mockumentary}} about British scientists being taken to a secret base on Mars to protect them from a terrible disaster. Twenty years later, the show is now a central part of a great many conspiracy theories by those who failed to get the joke.
314* ''Series/{{Carnivale}}'' has [[UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar Knights Templar]] and [[TarotMotifs tarot card mythology]], [[MindScrew obscure symbolism]], cultural references from TheThirties, fabulous and expensive-looking recreations of the [[TheGreatDepression depression-era]] Midwest, and refusal to provide helpful exposition to the audience. It got cancelled after two seasons.
315* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
316** The show is generally pretty straight-forward, but the Seventh Doctor story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E2GhostLight Ghost Light]]" is an involved meditation on the concept of evolution that probably requires two or three viewings to understand. It also uses literary and scientific allusions as a time-saving substitute for exposition. According to the DVD, "Ghost Light" had to be cut down from four episodes to three due to [[ScrewedByTheNetwork the show's run being cut]]. It's most likely that background and explanatory scenes were the first to suffer -- something they might have got away with in some stories, but quite obviously didn't here.
317** The ''E-Space Trilogy'' was, according to the DVD specials on "Full Circle," partly written to start the show including science that "wouldn't be laughed at" by legitimate scientists. This is especially true in "Warriors' Gate," which takes place in a shrinking universe at coordinate 0 and has some connection to the I-Ching and the nature of randomness. Adric's frequent coin-flipping? Yeah, it means something.
318** Depending who you ask, Steven Moffat's major story arc involving River Song and the Silence is either this or just plain full of {{Plot Hole}}s. There ''are'' fans who insist that everything you need to know about this storyline is obvious from the show, but get them discussing it in detail and it turns out they don't agree among themselves about anything but the broadest strokes of the plot, which isn't the part that confuses people.
319** Most of the 2nd half of series 7 in 2013 is this because of the show's 50th anniversary. To fully understand the plots of many of the episodes, the viewer has to relate the current arc (drawing materials from the Matt Smith years) to various plots/characters/monsters from previous doctors, which means the viewer has to know a few episodes.
320** A lot of "Doctor Who" in the 1980s suffers from this, as it involved a lot of continuity which required the viewers to have a very thorough knowledge of "Doctor Who", down to stories which as major plot points, involve stories from the 1960s. This is often blamed for the decline of the show.
321** The Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse is notorious for this, often requiring a very good knowledge of "Doctor Who" history for this and referencing other parts of the EU, even if it may take place in a different continuity. AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho can be especially hard to follow with its mass of interconnected plots in a series that started in 1999 and has released a new audio every month, not counting the bonus releases and spin-offs. Slightly justified, as the DWEU is aimed at hard-core fans.
322* ''{{Series/Firefly}}'', "Objects In Space". Most blatantly the opening, but the whole thing is a philosophical statement on (one kind of) existentialism. Creator/JossWhedon's DVDCommentary ''might'' help the viewer to get the point (that objects have the meaning that people choose to give them).
323* While most of the more obscure stuff in ''Series/{{Lost}}'' falls under GeniusBonus, it does fall under this trope when it comes to the plot, which has become increasingly complicated as the show has gone on, with innumerable callbacks to previous episodes, [[ContinuityLockout making it extremely hard for new viewers to understand what the heck is going on]]. Not to mention flash ''forwards''. The [[TrippyFinaleSyndrome finale]] requires the viewer to have knowledge of obscure, mostly dead Eastern philosophies (UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}}, UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrianism}}, Stoicism, Manichaeism) or concepts that don't crop up a lot in America. Case in point: everyone knows {{Karma}}, but how many Americans know that "dharma" means a divine duty that leads to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha "moksha", or "letting go"]], one of the show's ArcWords and a super-critical concept in the final season?
324%% * The 1980s TV Series ''Series/MaxHeadroom'', of all things, was short-lived largely for this reason.
325* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' jokes about ''everything'', from obscure songs most people have forgotten to classical history and famous works of art. Of course the fun of the show is that [[{{MST}} the riffs]] are so frequent, you can miss one or two and still get the jokes. Their reference pool is so varied that they won a Peabody. However, they would also frequently indulge in in-jokes that ''only'' the writers could possibly get.
326* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', at its best, combines this trope with [[GeekReferencePool jokes that the average viewer might understand]]. In one Halloween episode Leonard uses several scientific references to insult Penny's ex, which can be funny if you understand them, though {{justified|Trope}} in that he didn't want [[TheDitz the guy]] to realize he was being made fun of. Of course, this can fall flat when the writers try too hard to find a way of putting a line to qualify as a statement as a GeniusBonus, when it really just comes across [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness as pretentious to anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the notion.]]. On the latter seasons, they have fallen into reciting geek references and hoping you feel smart just because you "get it".
327* ''Series/TheGenius'' is a shining example of Reality TV game show for smart people. Rules of elimination games are often extremely complex, requiring prolonged explanations of games and plays as they happen. Viewer will be required to keep track of happenings inside each episode (with flashbacks and flashforwards thrown in for good measure) and constantly evolving social standings, and that's on top the fact it's a subtitled Korean variety show with their own, unique sets of customs.
328* Among the reasons that ''Series/PoliceSquad'' only lasted one season was that ABC thought it was guilty of this trope. According to ABC, the show required the viewer to pay too much attention in order to understand the humor. TV Guide called this "the most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series".
329* ''Series/ThePrisoner1967''. Considering that the show only lasted one season, they managed to cram in enough esoterica that to list them here would require a separate page. And most of them happen in the [[GainaxEnding last two episodes]].
330* ''Series/YesMinister'' is a British comedy series about a Politician, an ObstructiveBureaucrat, and a 3rd underling who answers to the second one. Even an adult who isn't well-acquainted with the detailed workings of British government, let alone a non-Brit trying to watch the series, would find himself pausing the video to look up things like "quangos" and "marginal constituencies" on [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} That Other Wiki]].
331* It is virtually impossible for a single viewer to correctly identify all of the music and pop culture references made in ''Series/GilmoreGirls'' without looking them up. The cast would spend the majority of their readings just trying to figure out what the hell their characters were talking about, and eventually a book of "Gilmorisms" was distributed with the DVD sets to help aid curious fans.
332* Some episodes of ''Series/RedDwarf'', especially Series 5. Considering it's a comedy, a lot of people would probably just brush it off as TechnoBabble.
333* Tony's series 2 episode of ''Series/{{Skins}}'' makes a lot more sense if you have a very strong understanding of Jungian psychology.
334* ''Series/TheWestWing'': If you're not pretty damn well up-to-date on the workings of the United States government, good luck keeping up with some of the storylines, not to mention the ''jokes''.
335* ''Series/GoodEats'': Alton Brown usually calls the secret ingredient's scientific name in ''[[Series/IronChef Iron Chef America]]'' when the timer starts ticking.
336* ''Series/ThirtyRock'' plays with this a lot. A textbook example is when Cerie mentions how she's upset her fiancé wants a Greek Orthodox wedding because she disagrees with the church's stance on Cyprus. The average American viewer is not going to understand this geopolitics reference, as it's rather niche knowledge to them.
337* When the BBC first aired ''Series/{{Rome}}'' they felt that British viewers already knew a lot of the Roman history and so much of the exposition was redundant. As such they [[ExecutiveMeddling edited the first three episodes down to just two]] by trimming a lot of the politics scenes (without telling the director of the episodes). This is the official reasoning, though the fact that this placed much greater focus on the sex and violence may suggest the true motives [[LowestCommonDenominator skewed the other way]].
338* Occasionally showed up in the EndOfEpisodeSilliness on ''Series/WelcomeBackKotter'', such as the story of one of Kotter's innumerable uncles, a tailor who had a friend he hadn't seen in years named, improbably, Euripides Feldman. One day, the story went, a man who looked like his long lost friend walked into the uncle's shop carrying a torn pair of pants. Uncle Herbie studied him a moment, then asked, "Euripides?" The other man replied, "Yes. Eumenides?"
339* Understanding much of the humor in ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' (and much of their stagework and films) might involve vast knowledge of history, art, science, politics and/or British culture and customs, and in many cases, [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece a lot of topical or cultural humor]] [[TheSixties from the time]] [[TheSeventies the show was first aired]]. (1969-71) Knowing a good deal about British television and comedy shows of the day couldn't hurt, either--[[WriteWhatYouKnow almost all of the members of the troupe began as TV comedy writers]], and a great deal of the humor was spoofing, [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] or subverting the customs and clichés of the genre.
340* ''Series/ThroughTheWormhole'' can easily slip right through people's heads like a neutrino if they don't already have a strong background on science. The experts on the show try to make the concepts understandable to normal people through analogy, but this usually confuses viewers further.
341* Parodied in ''Series/BlackBooks''. Bernard, to win a bet over writing a children's book in one night, writes a 1030 page book involving the Stalinist purges and a complex plot. When Manny points out this might be difficult for the 3-6 age range Bernard says "I don't think we should talk down to children."
342* ''Series/TheLateShowWithStephenColbert'', to more of an extent than most talk shows, anyway; Stephen makes geeky and otherwise fairly obscure allusions in his comedy and tends to assume that his audience is familiar with recent political developments, government procedures, and historical events. While he has the usual rota of celebrities promoting their latest films, he's rarely content to stick to the usual talking points, and the celebrity guests are mixed with less famous but very influential political figures (including UsefulNotes/JoeBiden, UsefulNotes/BillClinton, Stephen Breyer[[note]]a Supreme Court justice[[/note]], and the ''Secretary-General of the United Nations'') and high-level business folk, including Wall Street analyst Ben Bernanke and multiple [=CEOs=] (including those of Apple, Uber, and Airbnb).
343* For ''assuming'' that viewers are geniuses, or at least reasonably intelligent, look no further than ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. Creator/GeneRoddenberry endeared himself to millions of fans with this: "''Star Trek'' started with the premise that the American television audience is a lot more intelligent and perceptive than the so-called 'experts' insist. We feel you can short-change that audience only at your own peril." He repeated this assertion for the rest of his life.
344* ''Series/SchittsCreek'': Like ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' before it, the show's humor often derives from urbane people interacting with working class people and contains many silly jokes that most audience members would understand. However, the show's attention to detail, such as the Rose family wearing authentic designer clothing that was made before the Roses lost their wealth, and the way it often layers references into both plot and dialogue rewards viewers who pay careful attention and/or are keyed into various subcultures.
345** David's ex-boyfriend is a spot-on parody of a specific kind of art world hipster, and the show expects the audience to catch on to his Film/GreyGardens style intentions to humiliate Moira.
346** Moira is about four decades too old to play Patty Hearst and the wrong race to play Imelda Marcos, something which is never pointed out.
347** Moira pitches an idea for an art park to the town council that sounds an awful lot like Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation.
348** Alexis mentions that Jared Leto was her first kiss, and the character is supposed to be about two decades younger than the actor.
349** David mocks Alexis's college in the following exchange:
350-->'''David:''' This is the same college where Malala gave that devastating commencement speech, right?\
351'''Alexis:''' I don't know, David, maybe he did.\
352[[/folder]]
353
354[[folder:Manhua]]
355* ''Manhua/RavagesOfTime'' assumes the viewer is familiar with ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'', the writings of Mencius, Confucian philosophy and so on. It also demands re-reading and a far amount of concentration to follow the plot due to the sheer amount of ChekhovsGunman, {{CallBack}}s ''and'' {{CallForward}}s, such as [[spoiler:Sun Quan's first appearance being a one-page background character as a child at the end of a chapter in Volume 6]].
356[[/folder]]
357
358[[folder:Music]]
359* Music/SteelyDan may be the epitome of a band that absolutely lived by this trope, while still managing to be very, very popular. Their lyrics are often abstract and coded, their music full of complex chord changes and voicings.
360* Music/BobDylan's voice, music, and overall persona can be off-putting and/or bewildering if one lacks a basic knowledge and appreciation of the history of blues and folk music. Add to this the fact that many of his songs contain very obscure literary and cultural references. He's still a commercially successful and popular songwriter, however.
361* Music/DavidBowie's music references everything from art-house movies and underground musicians to Creator/BertoltBrecht and French chansons, and yet he was incredibly commercially successful.
362* The entire nerdcore genre is built around this, from MC Hawking's "Entropy" to MC Lars reinterpreting Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's "The Raven" as a rap song obliquely referencing Music/VanillaIce.
363* The Music/{{Queen}} song "39" is a very strange surreal sounding story, unless you know the key to its interpretation, not spelled out in the song itself: relativistic time dilation at velocities near that of light (appropriately, band member Brian May is an astrophysicist). The protagonist of the song is an astronaut who has travelled across the "milky seas" (Milky Way -- the galaxy) looking for habitable planets. For the crew only one year has passed, but for Earth they have been gone so long that nearly everyone they knew is dead. The protagonist laments that he has his full life ahead, but nobody to share it with.
364* In order to find the classical music parodies of Music/PDQBach (a fictional composer "rediscovered" by Peter Schickele) funny, apart from the occasional slapstick bits, the listener needs an EncyclopaedicKnowledge of Baroque, Classical and Romantic music, as well as a grounding in music theory and scholarship. Conversely, listeners who only like classical and ignore popular music will miss many of the jazz, country, and other non classical elements Schickele sneaks in.
365** The classical quotations are far more prevalent, and often the non classical touches are no more than jazzy cadences. Even so, there are many pieces which mix both, like one of the fugues in "The Short-Tempered Clavier" which quotes both "You Are My Sunshine" and "Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche."
366** It's not just obscure ''music'' he makes jokes about. In "Iphigenia in Brooklyn," Orestes appears "chased by the Amenities." Cheap laughs... Except that the Eumenides were actual Greek mythological beings more commonly known today as the Furies.
367* In order to even ''begin'' to understand what the death metal band Music/{{Atheist}} plays, one would need a working knowledge of thrash metal, jazz, progressive rock, funk, and Latin music. Try listening to "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utqWrkVEQvI Mother Man]]" from ''Unquestionable Presence'' if you don't believe me.
368** To say nothing of what Psyopus and Dysrhytmia do.
369*** Indeed, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIiYwKO88aY this]] is by ''far'' one of Psyopus' most accessible songs, and it still sounds like complete aural insanity, in spite of being very much the opposite.
370** Music/{{Meshuggah}} is another good example. Enjoyment of their music almost ''requires'' knowledge of death / thrash metal, free jazz, progressive rock, polyrhythmic song structures, polymeters, and syncopes. Since 1993, they have produced exactly one song that relies on a consistent 4/4 timing, and are regarded as one of the most influential bands in the underground, despite having virtually nil in the way of mainstream recognition.
371** ''The Dillinger Escape Plan'''s first record, ''Calculating Infinity,'' is definitely a good example of this, although there is a notable exception in the [[EpicRiff main riff]] of fan favorite, "43% Burnt," which was named by Decibel Magazine to be the 8th greatest riff of all time.
372** Music/{{Gorguts}}, starting with ''Obscura'', are effectively the TechnicalDeathMetal version of Captain Beefheart (see below). To understand their music properly it helps to have a working knowledge of death metal, ProgressiveRock, AvantGardeMusic, twentieth-century ClassicalMusic, and several other genres. A thorough background in music theory won't hurt either. (Bandleader Luc Lemay has acknowledged Music/DmitriShostakovich and Krzysztof Penderecki as major influences on his writing, if that gives you any indication what you're in for.) To understand their lyrics, it helps to have a detailed understanding of history and various forms of mythology. Even with those under your belt, most of their albums won't even begin to make sense until you've listened to them at least ten times. They'll also be terrifying on the first several listens, even if you already have thorough familiarity with death metal.
373** Similar to Gorguts (and probably influenced by them) are the French BlackMetal band Music/DeathspellOmega. Starting with the 75-minute ConceptAlbum ''Si monumentum reqiures, circumspice'', the band began a highly philosophical series of concept albums filled with absurdly complex musical and lyrical concepts. If you haven't made a thorough study of Christian theology and several major schools of philosophy such as existentialism, good luck understanding their lyrics. You'll probably also need to consult a dictionary to understand the English lyrics, and working knowledge of languages like French, Latin, and German won't hurt, either. Additionally, you'll need a thorough grounding in literature in several different languages to fully understand their lyrics, including writers like Creator/JohnMilton, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and ''especially'' Georges Bataille; they're fond of throwing in allusions to other authors' works with no indication that they are allusions, and if you don't recognise the allusions, they may make no sense whatsoever. Meanwhile, their songs, which often go on for as long as twenty-two minutes, bear little to no resemblance to traditional metal compositions. Again, working knowledge of genres like ProgressiveRock, AvantGardeMusic and twentieth-century ClassicalMusic will help, and again, their music will be terrifying on the first several listens even if you're already familiar with black metal. The fact that "Gorguts are the new Deathspell Omega" has become a MemeticMutation probably tells you all you need to know about the similarity between the two bands.
374* Music/FrankZappa trampled this one into the dirt. His music is not only full with quotes from 20th century classical music, but also references to politics and American society, often even going into inside jokes that are incomprehensible to other people.
375** Unsurprisingly, Zappa's classmate/[[VitriolicBestBuds sometimes-friend]]/protégé Music/CaptainBeefheart created music that was at least as incomprehensible as Zappa's, not merely for the fiendishly atonal music and complex arrangements but the often surreal lyrics that often seemed to be cases of WordSaladLyrics on the surface but often turned out to incorporate {{Mind Screw}}y metaphors about things like ecology and animal welfare. Unsurprisingly, commercial success was not forthcoming.
376* Ditto Music/JethroTull. An explanation for Jethro Tull's most lyrically complex work, the 1973 ConceptAlbum ''A Passion Play,'' can be found [[http://www.ministry-of-information.co.uk/app/index.htm here.]]
377* Subverted by Music/IronMaiden, who often explain their literary and historical references in the lyrics or even the title alone. (Examples: "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Alexander the Great," and "The Trooper.")
378** This is more GeniusBonus: If you know what the Crimean War is or who Tennyson was, all the better, but if not, hey, they still have kickass melodies and you can sing along to "Woah oh oh oh oh oh oh oh!"
379* Many Music/DreamTheater fans need to listen to their songs at least 3 times through to catch all the little details. Deciphering ''Scenes from a Memory'' could prove as a real challenge to those inexperienced to reading between the lines.
380* Modernist/Postmodernist composer ''Alfred Schnittke'' -- in order to REALLY understand his work, you really need to know classical music history, understand his own personal philosophy on music, know music theory, and it would really help if you read ''Thomas Mann.''
381* Music/{{Rancid}}'s ''Life Won't Wait'' requires you to be a near expert in both music and politics. After releasing ''...And Out Come the Wolves,'' a largely straight ahead punk record with a little ska for good measure, ''Life Won't Wait'' spanned genres including reggae, dub, hip-hop, ska, rockabilly, calypso, and everything in-between. Lyrically, the band upped the prose level by about 50% and referenced everything from the minutia of the Kennedy Assassination, conflicts in UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}}, UsefulNotes/{{Jamaica}}, UsefulNotes/{{Poland}}, and makes numerous mentions of anarchism and other political theory, even splicing in audio readings of ''Mikhail Bakunin'''s essays on anarchism. Oh and the kicker? This is the only ''Rancid'' album not to include a lyrics sheet, so even if you know what they're singing about, you have to be used to Tim Armstrong's marble mouthed vocals and Lars Frederiksen's snarl to get even half of it.
382* Possibly the worst example of this is ''Mohsen Namjoo,'' an Iranian singer-songwriter, often referred to as the Music/BobDylan (read: Music/FrankZappa) of UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}. Western listeners would be baffled because he writes lyrics in Farsi, uses a traditional Iranian music ensemble, almost never writes in 4/4, and alludes constantly to years of Persian poetic and literary tradition. Iranian listeners are often baffled because he mixes traditional Iranian folk and classical music with Western instruments, jazz, rock, blues, and flamenco influences, covers [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOCqbyljZ6U David Bowie]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_I4rrvSHoc Nirvana,]] uses parodies, subversions, and references to poets such as Hafez, Rumi, and Ferdosi, makes fun of the Islamic regime and Khamenei ''constantly,'' and occasionally throws in the odd song in Kurdish or some other regional Iranian language.
383* Electronic duo Music/{{Coil}} filled their music with lyrical and sonic references to art, highbrow literature, pop culture, the occult, and everything in between, often in the form of highly intellectual puns and jokes (mainly BlackComedy and SurrealHumor). At its essence, their entire catalogue is one giant GeniusBonus.
384* Pretty much every Music/BadReligion album requires the use of a dictionary to understand the lyrics. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by the ''NOFX'' song "I'm a Huge Fan of Bad Religion" with the lyric: "I bought ''Suffer'' then I bought a thesaurus."
385* Music/TomLehrer was a math professor at Harvard during his musical career. Both his songs and his commentary dealt heavily with science, history, and (then) current events. Occasionally it went over his audience's head, as in the case of a bit of banter on the live album ''Music/AnEveningWastedWithTomLehrer'':
386--> "I particularly remember a heartwarming novel of his about a young necrophiliac who finally achieved his boyhood ambition by becoming coroner."\
387''[tepid laughter]''\
388"The rest of you can look it up when you get home."
389* The music of ''Pep Lab.'' Listing the references is left as an exercise.
390* Music/TheDecemberists tend to do this as do Music/{{REM}}.
391* Music/TheDivineComedy's songs are about anything Neil Hannon is interested in. Which could be ''anything:'' Wordsworth's poems, 20th-century French cinema, stories by Creator/FScottFitzgerald, architecture, and landscape gardening... All liberally bespattered with quotations from literature, mythological allusions, and musical tips of the hat to Noel Coward and Scott Walker. Also, upbeat songs about hay fever, banking, and traveling by long distance coach.
392* Music/{{Tool}}'s music, while enjoyable to a casual listener, is often laden with polyrhythms, uncommon time signatures ("Schism," anybody?), and several songs deal with themes such as Transcendentalism, Jungian psychology, religion, abuse, and really run the whole gamut lyrically. Take a look at the guitar tabs; they might not sound impressive, but Adam Jones is a more "technical" musician.
393** And then you get into their "jigsaw arrangements." ''10,000 Days'' contains a song that is made by constructing three different songs and ''Lateralus'' has an entirely different song order that completely changes the meaning of the album.
394* Music/{{Pavement}}'s "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anyvPX0NjFk Conduit for Sale]]" is about the end of the House of Savoy's rule in Turin. Yeah.
395** And to think that all that most people ever remember is "I'm tryin'..."
396*** To be fair, the rest of the lyrics are a good example of Stephen Malkmus' MotorMouth. It's not surprising that the song falls into SomethingSomethingLeonardBernstein.
397* The third movement of ''Luciano Berio'''s ''Sinfonia'' takes a movement from a Mahler symphony and layers on top of it musical quotations from composers as diverse as Ravel, Beethoven, Bach, and Boulez. Some of them are very famous, some of them not so much. The piece is often cited as using the widest array of musical techniques of any piece of classical music. It would take an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music to understand all of them, but it's well worth it. Complicating matters is the fact that singers also sometimes recite passages from a Creator/SamuelBeckett novel, read graffiti from the May 1968 protests in France, or turn a musical allusion into an [[{{Pun}} Incredibly Lame Pun,]] among other things.
398** Other movements continue the Mahler references and cut up sections of Claude Levi-Strauss's classic anthropological text ''The Raw and the Cooked.''
399* To understand Schoenberg / Berg/ Webern's 12-tone atonal serialism (where all 12 notes in the western chromatic scale have to be used in a composer determined order before repeating), you pretty much have to study it, which in Western Music Theory, usually comes around the fourth semester. Complete with a 144 square matrix of all possible orders of notes. It's quite unsettling to the ear for many people, although others enjoy it.
400** It's also very difficult to play.
401** The Second Viennese School (the group started by Music/ArnoldSchoenberg most noted for 12-tone compositions) also liked to demonstrate the power of their system by creating some traditionally pleasant sounding pieces. One of these was Berg's Violin Concerto, which includes a quotation from a Bach harmonization of a hymn and another from a Carinthian folk song.
402* To an even greater extent, Milton Babbitt took it to the extreme (serializing all notes, volume, and length of note), to the point where EVERYTHING has a formula, and it would take about an hour just get around a 1-minute piece of his music.
403* So, you want to start deciphering the plots of Music/SoundHorizon's {{Concept Album}}s and {{Rock Opera}}s? Well, better learn six languages and start scrutinizing Every. Single. Lyric. for a potential double meaning.
404* Most of Music/IanDury's lyrics. {{Subverted|Trope}} in the sense that they appear intelligent (and for all intents and purposes ARE intelligent on more than a handful of levels) but Dury wrote for the common man so expected everyone to understand at least ''something.'' Don't expect Creator/TheBBC to [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll catch on]] though...
405* From Music/IceT's "Radio Suckers:"
406--> If you can't take the heat, eject / But I know you can because you're an Ice-T fan"
407* Music/MarilynManson might not be assumed to be someone who does obscure references, but yeah, he does. About five people will understand "Slo-Mo-Tion" without having things explained. Lyrics about dead audience applause and laughter and "teenage rape candidates" likely will be completely lost on anyone who doesn't know that the canned laughter and applause used nowadays was recorded in the 1950's or about casting couch accusations. "Overneath the Path of Misery"'s chorus is a Greek mythology reference. The song "Lamb of God" contains references to the death of John Lennon, JFK, and Jesus as well as a spoiler reference to Film/{{Network}}. The album ''Music/MechanicalAnimals'' is a huge shout out to Music/DavidBowie. There are references to the Waco, Texas incident in "Cruci-Fiction in Space." The song "My Monkey" has lyrics taken from a song on UsefulNotes/CharlesManson's album from the 1960's. Multiple songs, like "Kinderfeld" and "Lunchbox" are about his own life, and "Fuck Frankie" is directed at their old tour manager, Frankie, who stole tens of thousands of dollars from them. "[=s(AINT)=] contains references to the origin of the word "Ain't," which was British "dandy" slang originally. And after the release of the album ''The Golden Age of Grotesque,'' he tried to do a film about Creator/LewisCarroll. When a leaked trailer killed it, well, the CreatorBreakdown is quite obvious, due to the Alice obsession oozing out of some parts of ''Eat Me, Drink Me,'' not to mention the entirely different sound. Basically, half the stuff that makes no sense to most is references to other things, and rest was written by either one person on drugs (him) or two (him and Twiggy).
408* Music/JonathanCoulton's music is fully of computer / technology, math, physics, and pop-culture references. For example, how many people (even in New York City) knew that Soterios Johnson was a real (and ostensibly famous) person? (Unless you were a WNYC listener. Used to be their morning announcer and local anchor for Creator/{{NPR}}'s Morning Edition. Teaches at UC Davis now.)
409* Music/PattiSmith's entire career is based on this. You don't notice because she's also rocking your ass off at the same time. Her prose writing is the same way; beautifully accessible ''and'' stuffed to the gills with art, literary, mythological, and musical references.
410* Seminal Scottish post-punk band (the) Scars released a single in 1979 called "Horrorshow", that relies on one having previously either watched the film of or read the book of Anthony Burgess's ''Clockwork Orange'', as the song title indicates. The band, as short-lived as they may have been, were very literary-minded and supremely precocious (being a band of ''teenagers'') and assumed their fans/listeners would be as well.
411* Music/{{Eminem}}, while different to most of these as he's more concerned with lowbrow topics, uses references and jokes that will baffle anyone who doesn't have an encyclopaedic knowledge of TabloidMelodrama celebrity gossip from about 1985, American sports, and hip-hop. These references have become increasingly dense and obscure from 2013 onwards, along with hyper-elaborate wordplay that has spawned a cottage industry of [=YouTube=] reactors picking out layers and layers of {{Mondegreen Gag}}s and double meanings. Eminem has complained that he doesn't know how many of his fans actually "go on Genius" and look up the lyrics, and that he feels he spends a lot of time writing things "that nobody else gets".
412[[/folder]]
413
414[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
415* Wrestling/VinceRusso's entire run in Wrestling/{{WCW}} was based on the idea that Viewers Are {{Smar|tMark}}ks; the whole thing was extremely hard to follow unless you already had a general idea of how the wrestling business works and the goings-on backstage. The problem was, even if you were able to figure out what was going on, it still wasn't very coherent or engaging.
416** In one example, he had Wrestling/KevinNash cut a promo alluding to a time in the past when a Canadian wrestler had allegedly refused to put Nash over (lose a match to him.) The intention was presumably to make WCW's dwindling audience think that Nash was talking about Wrestling/BretHart, since, apparently, [[SmallReferencePools Bret's the only wrestler to come out of Canada and/or the only Canadian wrestler who had ever refused to lose a match to someone.]] In fact, Nash was most likely referring to Pierre Carl Ouelette, who had been a 3x [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wwe/wwe-world-t.html WWE World Tag Team Champion]] as a member of the [=Quebecers=] w[=/=]Wrestling/JacquesRougeau in 1993-1994, but, aside from a meaningless cup of coffee with the [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wcw/wcw-hc.html WCW Hardcore Title]], had not been involved in anything particularly relevant in years.
417** One wrestling critic noted that Russo's problem was that he seemed to simultaneously believe that ViewersAreMorons and Viewers are Geniuses.
418** It gets worse. Russo wrote for [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]], when Wrestling/HulkHogan, Wrestling/RicFlair, Wrestling/JeffJarrett, Wrestling/{{Sting}}, and Wrestling/EricBischoff were all prominent talent. So, naturally, the focus of the main event TNA storyline is the "shadow politics" that were going on in WCW. Meaning, not only did you have to be a smark to know what's going on, you had to have been a smark FOR OVER 10 YEARS. And even then, there were bound to be references you didn't get, considering they're talking about everything up to and including private drunken phone calls from years ago. And no, none of this makes for halfway compelling, or even coherent, television.
419** Russo believes that "all viewers are Smarks," and as far as his opinion goes, a smark is a moron who believes they're a genius. If you think of his logic this way, his entire career is basically spent in a massive attempt to outsmart the smarks. Unfortunately, the only real way to trick people in a story where they usually already know, at the very least, half of what's going to happen before it happens is to make the story incomprehensible with obscurities and [[AssPull inexplicable plot twists]].
420** Of course, Russo likely believes he ''himself'' is a genius, even when almost everyone else thinks he's a moron.
421* WWE commentator Matt Striker slips a ''ton'' of obscure references into his commentary. Most are designed so that they are bonuses for the hardcore fans, such as referencing past names that wrestlers have used. Sometimes, though, he goes for extremely obscure comments such as saying that Ghanian wrestler Wrestling/KofiKingston will be bringing his title back home to Wrestling/PrinceNana (a Wrestling/RingOfHonor manager who is the ruler of Ghana in that promotion's {{Kayfabe}}).
422* [[Wrestling/ClaudioCastagnoli Antonio Cesaro]] can speak English, German, French, Italian, and his native Swiss-German dialect. Naturally, the WWE was originally promoting him as a smarter than you, high coulter European. Eventually, they decided to put him in the Real Americans stable, which is led by Zeb Colter. Smart marks know that Zeb Colter is played by Dutch Mantel, which prompted JBL to say: "Antonio Cesaro speaks five languages. And now thanks to Zeb, he's learning Dutch."
423* About the only promotion that does it right is Wrestling/{{CHIKARA}}, since, rather than talk down to their audience or attempt to confuse them with hopelessly obscure insider information, the wrestlers and announcers will sprinkle the matches with a [[ReferenceOverdosed dizzyingly fun mix]] of {{Shout Out}}s and {{Take That}}s covering pro wrestling and pop culture in general (EVERYTHING from ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' to ''[=Yo! MTV Raps=]'' to Music/LadyGaga to ''Theatre/{{RENT}}'' and the list goes on and on from there), not to mention naming shows after Music/TalkingHeads albums, [[Music/BenFolds Ben Folds Five]] songs and Music/JoniMitchell lyrics (''Through Savage Progress Cuts the Jungle Line''), that the combination requires a ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' [[JustForFun/XMeetsY meets]] Creator/QuentinTarantino [[JustForFun/XMeetsY meets]] Wrestling/JoeyStyles-level of cultural and wrestling awareness and attention span.
424* Once Wrestling/KennyOmega won the [[Wrestling/AllEliteWrestling AEW]] world championship in late 2020, the main event arc pivoted to Omega, now a heel, trying to woo the babyface tag team Wrestling/TheYoungBucks, his Bullet Club and The Elite cohorts from New Japan Pro Wrestling, back to his side. In tandem with that angle, Omega began his run as "The [Belt] Collector", pursuing multiple world titles from Japan, Mexico, and Wrestling/ImpactWrestling with long-time wrestling personality Don Callis as his manager. While this could be deeply rewarding to those with an extensive knowledge of the history of the aforementioned parties and the crossovers within -- and AEW isn't shy about catering to hardcore smarks -- those with a more casual AEW following were left wondering why the AEW world title picture now didn't seem to focus on AEW itself.
425[[/folder]]
426
427[[folder:Theater]]
428* ''Eyepiece'', a play in Iowa City. If you're familiar with Shakespearian plays, Greek comedies, Modernistic plays (''Death of a Salesman''), postmodern plays (''Waiting for Godot''), puns, metaphor, pataphor, medical terminology, Greek culture, theater culture, "disabled" culture, Christian culture/Literature/{{the Bible}}, and for one particular scene the origins of Fascism and the real meaning of the word "faggot" (A bundle of burnt sticks that had been used to burn an offering), and you're observant, then the play will seem perfectly straightforward and understandable. If not, well, certain scenes will seem rather obscure.
429* ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}'' is overflowing with references to other rap/hip-hop music and other Broadway shows, not to mention the subtle history puns like "I never thought I'd live past twenty/Where I come from some get half as many"--sung by the guy on the 10 dollar bill.
430* Creator/TomStoppard's play ''Hapgood'' initially flopped because so much of the plot exposition is contained within one character's metaphorical double-speak about Quantum Physics. The re-write makes the metaphors easier to understand even if you've never heard of quantum physics, and the plot significance is better signposted. Many people can treat it as a straightforward who's-the-defector spy mystery, missing the revelation (in the first act, in another rambling metaphorical monologue) of who the bad guy is and the idea that the rest of the play is about how they prove it, not about finding out.
431** In fact, Tom Stoppard continually walks the line on this trope, and most of his (theatrical) work can be argued to be either refreshingly intelligent and stimulating, or purposefully obscure and elitist.
432*** Although he flips it around in ''Rock 'N Roll'', which makes a lot more sense and has more emotional impact if the audience knows a good deal about '60s counterculture and rock music, specifically Pink Floyd.
433* Creator/BertoltBrecht is perhaps the only playwright in history who considers a piece with a character named Swiss Cheese to be SeriousBusiness. If an audience is unfamiliar with his [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verfremdungseffekt Verfremdungseffekt]], they're likely to be lost from the first line onward. That said, many of Brecht's plays were comprehensible in their day, and Theatre/TheThreepennyOpera was a major commercial success in Germany and abroad.
434* Many stage musicals with music and lyrics by Music/StephenSondheim have this criticism levelled at them. Sondheim and his collaborators avoid pat sentimentality and create complex works of art -- perhaps a setback when many audience members are expecting ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic''. Just a few examples:
435** ''Company'' is a mediation on contemporary marriage. The show has no plot and reduces character empathy to an absolute minimum; instead, it explores different aspects of marriage through a series of non-linear vignettes and songs. There's an emotional and intellectual journey to be had, but it requires the audience to really invest themselves in the material and pay attention.
436** ''Pacific Overtures'' is a historical pageant detailing the opening of Japan to the West in the late 1800's. Again, personal involvement is kept to a minimum, and the events are viewed through a [[UnreliableNarrator purposefully biased Japanese perspective]]. The score includes a 9-minute mini-opera detailing American, British, Dutch, Russian and French trading treaties with Japan, and a 7-minute Taoist meditation about observation and memory in which ''nothing happens''.
437** ''Sunday In The Park With George'', despite its minimalist, Britten-like score, can still be enjoyed as a classic tale of an artist (Creator/GeorgesSeurat) who alienates his lover for the sake of his art. Until the end of Act I, at which point the action fast-forwards ''a whole century'' to focus on contemporary installation artist George, great-grandson of the original. Repeated viewings help tease out the direct, micro- and macrocosmic parallels between the two Acts to make the whole work serve as a treatise on art and posterity.
438* ''Theatre/SomethingRotten'' contains rapid-fire streams of references to other musicals in songs like "A Musical" as well as the titular song. Theatre-goers unfamiliar with the last fifty years of musical theatre may find little more than dick jokes left for them after so many references fall flat.
439[[/folder]]
440
441[[folder:Video Games]]
442* ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' is fairly accessible, and commercial success, but nonetheless a lot of the stuff depends on HistoricalFiction and it's a special treat for History buffs of famous and obscure periods, architecture-buffs who will squee over their recreation of famous monuments and places, and conspiracy and trivia buffs who get the obscure references to various myths, symbols, legends and rumors and how it interweaves into the story.
443* ''Franchise/BlazBlue'''s plot is already pretty difficult to follow due to a GroundhogDayLoop, {{Alternate Timeline}}s and one heck of a TimeyWimeyBall, but that's just the beginning of your brain's struggle to keep up with the creators: Both characters and the lore include allusions to UsefulNotes/{{Christian|ity}}, Myth/{{Classical|Mythology}}, Myth/{{Norse|Mythology}} and Myth/JapaneseMythology, history and legends. Taxonomies, character names, {{Significant Birth Date}}s and character crests all include some level of GeniusBonus and not even the command lists go safe what with the ThemeNaming of the special moves (e.g., MadScientist-[[WasOnceAMan turned]]-EldritchAbomination Arakune's command list consists entirely of references to advanced mathematics). Finally, there's also the importance of things like [[QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything "Observers" and "Phenomena Intervention"]], which are allusions to UsefulNotes/QuantumPhysics, most importantly stuff like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition Superposition,]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse Wave Function Collapse,]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement Quantum Entanglement,]] the UsefulNotes/SchrodingersCat Paradox and the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation Many-Worlds Interpretation.]]
444* [[http://www.deathball.net/notpron/ Not Pron]] -- by step 4, you're already deciphering Morse code.
445* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' delves into meme theory so deeply that it is used to ''teach'' meme theory. (That is, [[UsefulNotes/{{Memetics}} units of cultural transmission]], not [[MemeticMutation Internet memes]].) Some parts of the plot were explained in later games, but those were the ''simple'' parts, not the parts involving Raiden as a deconstructive metaphor of the relationship between player and game, or the parts where the plot deconstructs itself to examine the game's nature as a sequel. ''Those'' were not explained at all.
446* ''VideoGame/Persona3'' and ''VideoGame/Persona4'' have a rather literal take on this in the form of various pop quizzes throughout the game. They tend to ask you random trivia facts about math, grammar, science, philosophy or Japanese history. Answering correctly gives you a permanent bonus to a particular out of combat stat. There is nothing in the game that tells you the answers, so you have to use your own real-world knowledge ([[GuideDangIt or cheat]]). There are also midterms where you get a whole bunch of these in a row, but the midterms are composed entirely out of questions that they've already asked you so if you had been paying attention it should be simple to answer.
447** To clarify the original point that was being made, the first time you are asked the questions, when they aren't on the test, they don't give you the answers. It's when the test rolls around that you should already know the answer.
448** The social link's tarot classifications show a shade of this. This comes from the fact that the dev team has produced one of the few instances where they did do the research on the actual meaning behind the major arcana of the Rider-Waite tarot deck. ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' eventually tells the player some of the definitions of the various Arcana about 2/3 of the way through the game, in a long speech many would speed through without reading. Even if a player read the whole speech, most of the given interpretations only scratch the topmost layer of each social link. All the social links become a lot more meaningful if you have any sort of in depth knowledge of the major arcana.
449** The Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei franchise as a whole really [[ShownTheirWork does its research]] on world mythologies and religion. Your average player might be confused as to why Lucifer and Satan are two separate entities, and why you can find the latter chilling out with YHWH ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton the true name of God in Judaism]]) in ''Shin Megami Tensei 2''...unless they know or find out that in certain interpretations, Satan is a separate character who basically acts as [[GoodAngelBadAngel the devil on God's shoulder.]]
450** ''Persona 4'' has a nighttime activity in which you can prepare lunch to share with a school Social Link the next day. You will be asked a multiple-choice question on how to prepare it- one answer gives a good result that gives relationship points, another answer gives a bad result that gives no relationship points and the third results in the food being inedible and the protagonist throwing it out. Unless you're willing to engage in some SaveScumming, you have to know how to best cook certain Japanese dishes if you want the right answer.
451* ''VideoGame/{{Scratches}}'' has a bottle in the master bedroom labelled [[spoiler: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide Thalidomide]]]]. Most players may or may not notice the bottle and the player character can comment on it during the additional chapter, ''Last Visit''. Those who do, will realize that [[spoiler: said drug is known to ease morning pain for women, but can cause horrible birth defects, and is likely the reason for Catherine Blackwood's various pains during her pregnancy and why Robin has such horribly severe malformations]].
452* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' is mind-screwing, especially on the psychiatry and Kabbalah sides (with the [[spoiler: multiple personalities, paradoxical split selves (see [[PropheticName Lacan]] and Grahf), and overlapping selves]] that have postmodern and poststructuralist resonances). The plot is also impossibly convoluted.
453** Ditto with ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}''. It includes numerous references to Jungian psychology, Gnosticism, classic Christianity, Kabbalah, quantum mechanics, etc.
454*** At least ''Xenosaga'' had the courtesy to include a ''massive'' in-game database (which they removed in Episode 2... for some bloody reason).
455* The ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' series has an enormously dense storyline. Even after playing all five games, you may not have any idea what's going on. It doesn't help that it involves time travel, multiple timelines, and the mechanics of both are explained in pieces over several games.
456* The first ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' game is like this. You're given no instructions, backstory or reason why you're on a lush yet deserted island, or even what you're supposed to be doing. This actually adds to the immersion of the game, as it encourages you to behave as you would if you inexplicably found yourself on the island in RealLife, and figure it out for yourself. Later games assume that you've completed the first one and [[spoiler:become friends with Atrus]].
457* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesII'': Has a fun scene with Zeri and Julianna discussing Galia's world equivalent of Centrism.
458* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' has the ''36 Lessons of Vivec'', [[InGameNovel a series of 36 sermons]] penned by the PhysicalGod himself. At first glance, they seem like the [[BlatantLies scribblings]] of a [[UnreliableNarrator mad man]]. However, if the books are cross-referenced with one another and deciphered, one finds a world of [[MetaphoricallyTrue Metaphorical Truths]], BreakingTheFourthWall, {{Anvilicious}}ness, Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad, and a sprinkling of InJoke.
459* ''VideoGame/LaMulana'' doesn't just expect you to know how to solve its increasingly complex puzzles, but also to understand references to ancient history, and MSX games, in order to solve its puzzles.
460* ''VideoGame/{{Kuon}}'' seems to apply, even though there is no full agreement in the fanbase about [[MindScrew what the hell was going on there]].
461* ''VideoGame/{{Killer7}}'' exists halfway between this and flat-out MindScrew. Entire papers have been written analyzing every facet of the game and the underlying themes, such as a conflict between American and Japanese values.
462* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' has an example of this with an EasterEgg. Using the Cryptographic Sequencer, one can find three hidden radio frequencies, each of which has a computer voice reading off a sequence of numbers. The first is a standard "letter number" cypher (1 = A, 2 = B, etc); easy enough. The second is an inverted letter number cypher with all the numbers shifted up by 3 (4 = Z, 5 = Y, etc); a bit tougher, but a reasonably clever player could figure it out. The last, however, requires the player to run the numbers through '''three''' separate cyphers (letter number, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atbash Atbash]], and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigenère_cipher Vigenére]]), including guessing the keyword for the latter ([[spoiler:"Scarecrow"]]) to decrypt it. Put together, the three messages (plus the aforementioned keyword) make up a giant SequelHook teasing [[spoiler:Scarecrow being the BigBad of the next game, ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'']]. The game's director Sefton Hill [[http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2014/03/26/batman-s-easter-egg-hunt.aspx said]] that he never thought anyone would crack the codes, only for it to happen about two weeks later.
463* The ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series, especially the later games, generally requires you to know the history of a given civ to understand why they get certain benefits or why their AI act in certain ways. That's easy for some of the staple civs - Egypt gets bonuses to building Wonders because of how many of its ancient monuments remain, Montezuma is a warmonger because Aztec religion was big on HumanSacrifice, and so forth. But other entries are more obscure, like the Songhai of ''Civ V'', so you'd have to know the importance of the Niger River to west African kingdoms to understand why Askia has the "River Warlords" ability. Historical knowledge can also add new enjoyment to old memes - the [[MemeticPsychopath "Nuclear Gandhi"]] characterization is funny because of how out-of-character it is for Gandhi to be threatening to nuke his neighbors, but modern India ''is'' a nuclear power and has been one of the nations that has been more aggressive with its nuclear force in recent history.
464* ''VideoGame/ToukenRanbu'' is based around Japanese swords, figures and history, so to the fans who get drawn in by the {{Bishonen}} or the anime adaptions it becomes an UnconventionalLearningExperience.
465* To collect the artworks for the museum in ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'', the player has to distinguish real pieces from the forgeries that [[ConMan Redd]] is selling, all of which are based on famous real life works. Since there's no side-by-side comparisons in-game, it requires the player to actually know the exact appearances of the real life artworks to distinguish if they are fake or not.
466* ''VideoGame/MySummerCar'' basically requires the player to be a GreaseMonkey in order to identify all the parts you need, know how to assemble them, and diagnose issues should they arise, in order to get the [[CoolCar Satsuma]] ''working'' let alone tuned to be licensed or raced. That's ''on top'' of the numerous survival needs, [[TheManyDeathsOfYou all of which can kill you if you don't pay attention to them]]. The dev does nothing but make the the game ''harder'' with each progressive update, to get [[{{Realism}} as thoroughly realistic an experience as possible]].
467[[/folder]]
468
469[[folder:Visual Novels]]
470* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' has a few points where outside knowledge is required to point out a contradiction, such as the fact that a baseball glove is worn on the non-dominant hand, or that the driver's seat is on the right in a British car, or the general concepts of double jeopardy and extraterritoriality. Other times, the game does provide the information necessary to point out a contradiction, but the time between the information being presented and it becoming relevant makes it difficult for the player to remember it, especially with all the other information flying around. For example, one deduction in case 5 of the third game requires the player to remember a specific moment from case 3 which lasts all of 5 seconds.
471* ''VisualNovel/C14Dating'': Hendrik's seldom-encountered sexual orientation is properly depicted, but said depiction assumes that the player is just as informed about it as the game's creators are:
472** The recurring mentions of cake are a nod to a joke within the community that its members [[spoiler:would rather eat cake than have sex with another person]].
473** The orientation's shortened name is "[[spoiler:ace]]", but that only gets spelled out late in his romantic route, which causes some earlier scenes to be a little obscure for players who don't already know this.
474** His obliviousness to both flirting (his own and that of other people) and the innuendos he makes while talking about geology are meant to be hints to the fact that [[spoiler:sex is not a place his brain goes to easily]].
475** The mere fact that Hendrik is in love with Melissa, but also [[spoiler:not attracted to her in a sexual way]] in his romantic route flies in the face of a common misconception about the orientation.
476** Even dialogue from after Hendrik and Melissa become a couple beats around the bush when it comes to the orientation's defining element, which is [[spoiler:a lacking or outright absent sexual attraction towards other people]]. The same happens with its most frequent direct consequence and the reason it's a potential issue in a romantic relationship: [[spoiler:rarely to never being in the mood to engage in intercourse (even with a romantic partner), and most people considering the lack of sex in a romance a dealbreaker]]. Because of those things, Melissa's reaction to Hendrik [[spoiler:booking them two nights in a high-end hotel catering to couples (which implies he's ready to have sex with her as an affectionate gesture)]], in his romantic route's epilogue can be hard to understand, as well.
477* ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'':
478** Shizune's route has a very subtle narrative style that requires a lot of reading between the lines in order to truly understand, especially when it comes to the dynamics of Shizune and Hisao's relationship. It also helps to have a working understanding of the subtleties of how sign language works as a medium of communication and how it differs from spoken language. Unless they are really paying attention, a lot of this will go over most players' heads, leading to people complaining about the "lack of romance" in her route.
479** Rin's route is as much a mediation on the nature of genius, philosophy of art, and the question of whether or not it is truly possible for two people to understand one another (as well as whether it really matters), as it is an [[HGame eroge]] love story.
480* In ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'', several puzzles as well as aspects of the plot involve the use of hexadecimals and base36 in numbers. The first time a puzzle involving it comes up, you're given the chance to work everything out yourself, without the game even explaining how hexadecimals work. Although, if you need it, the game does give you a run down on the basics of it. However, there's a number of times when hexadecimals come up later on in the game after this point: At these moments you're expected to remember everything you learnt about it. If you don't, then you'll be forced to either go back and refresh yourself on it by starting a new playthrough, or research it yourself. Or just try everything until you eventually get it by luck.
481** The game in general makes constant references to obscure scientific and historical trivia (i.e. Ice-9, polymorphic resonance, ''Literature/FutilityOrTheWreckOfTheTitan''.) Some of these are actually based on fiction and urban legends, but are treated as true anyway (Ice-9, for example, is a reference to a [[Literature/CatsCradle Kurt Vonnegut novel]], but it's falsely claimed in-game that scientists eventually discovered it in real life[[labelnote:*]]There's something called "Ice IX", but it's completely unrelated[[/labelnote]],) which can make descerning the actual TruthInTelevision bits from the made-up stuff difficult for those not already in the know.
482* ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry''
483** It has Creator/Ryukishi07 go on about the basics of Schrodinger's Cat, Raven Paradox, and Devil's Proof. He also makes lengthy articles about his philosophies of anti-mystery, cultural noise, and chessboard logic. And to top it off, he makes numerous references to famous mystery writers. However, his critics accuse him of not knowing what he's talking about, even when it comes to his own inventions.
484** Counterargument: [[spoiler: Shkanonyasutrice. The Second or, possibly, the Third]].
485[[/folder]]
486
487[[folder:Webcomics]]
488* ''Webcomic/DinosaurComics'' occasionally becomes this.
489* ''Webcomic/{{Achewood}}'' is full of obscure references to pop culture, music, history, and foreign languages.
490* ''Webcomic/AmongTheChosen'' states this as part of its author's writing style. The basic introduction to the story may be read [[http://amongthechosen.com/about/ here]]. ''Among The Chosen gets'' confusing in a hurry. The mil-speak, the {{Technobabble}}, mythological references, and the tendency to mention important information exactly once all contributes to this.
491* ''Webcomic/DresdenCodak'' very much falls into this, frequently covering subjects such as [[UsefulNotes/CarlJung Jungian philosophy]] and {{transhuman}}ism.
492** The ''[[AlliterationAndAdventurers Dungeons & Discourse]]'' [[http://dresdencodak.com/2006/12/03/dungeons-and-discourse/ comics]] [[http://dresdencodak.com/2009/01/27/advanced-dungeons-and-discourse/ in particular]] make a ''lot'' more sense if you have a decent knowledge of philosophy. A "[[Creator/SorenKierkegaard Kierke]][[{{Pun}} guardian]]" shouting "My existential dread won't affect them if they have no sense of self!" is highly amusing in context -- trust us.
493* Nearly all ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' strips make jokes about [[http://xkcd.com/364/ rather obscure topics]]. Fortunately, the ''xkcd'' [[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page fanbase]] does include plenty of geniuses, and they post explanations on the forums. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in the comic's disclaimer: ''"Warning: this comic occasionally contains advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)."''
494** And again in [[http://xkcd.com/18/ an early comic]].
495** [[http://www.xkcd.com/514/ This strip]] actually links to the appropriate Wikipedia article.
496** Standard operating procedure for ''xkcd'' is generally that if you don't get Monday's strip, just wait a couple of days and you'll laugh at Wednesday's strip.
497** Also, [[http://xkcd.com/532/ this comic]] has an obscure punchline, based on another joke.
498** The last panel of [[http://xkcd.com/474/ this comic]] requires some knowledge of particle physics.
499** Be warned, [[http://www.xkcd.com/609/ it'll ruin your life]].
500* Similarly, ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'' frequently has high-level concepts mixed with dead baby and sacrilegious jokes for good measure.
501* As do ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'' and ''Webcomic/TerrorIsland'', but the more obscure topics are often explained in the annotations of both strips.
502* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' is a lot more understandable if you have a working knowledge on physics, cybernetics, mathematics and philosophy. Among other subjects.
503* ''Webcomic/{{Lackadaisy}}'' has so many historical references regarding not just the prohibition, but pop culture, advertising, slang, and politics during TheRoaringTwenties (not to mention Rocky's ramblings on physics, mythology, and poetry) that the published first volume has an entire section in the back of the book explaining each and every one.
504* ''Webcomic/HarkAVagrant'' deals with fairly obscure western history on a pretty regular basis... much of it ''[shudder]'' '''Canadian''' history, which even [[ButNotTooForeign those of us who are Canadian]] aren't too familiar with.
505* ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'', being a story that plays on [[MagicVersusScience the dichotomy between magic and science]] with an AllMythsAreTrue premise, focuses on obscure world mythology and... chemical elements. Having a working knowledge of both ''may'' help hugely in figuring out its [[JigsawPuzzlePlot intricate plot]]. Case in point: the fandom, using a '''bare''' minimum of information, figured out that the character Brinnie's [[spoiler:"Old Man" is Odin, and shortly after, that Brinnie herself is the Valkyrie Brynhild]]. The information they had: [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=541 this page, and nothing more]]. There hadn't been a single mention of the [[spoiler: Norse pantheon]] in the story so far.
506** The caption for that comic, [[AuthorCatchphrase "mystery solved"]], was [[TrollingCreator originally intended to be ironic]] because fans had been curious about a photo of this character for a long time, and this page explained so little about her. As it turns out, if your fanbase is smart enough, a little information is enough. [[HeartwarmingInHindsight Mystery solved, indeed]].
507* Andrew Hussie, on being accused of making ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' [[AnachronicOrder too]] [[FourLinesAllWaiting convoluted]] [[TimeyWimeyBall to]] [[JigsawPuzzlePlot follow]]:
508-->''"I believe the reader is well prepared for every shift in the nature of the story's unfolding. There are primers on what to expect along the way. Very early, when we first met Dave, we began a humble exercise in non-linear pacing. Conversations he had with John and Rose, then revisited from an earlier timeframe from his perspective. Some nonlinear revisitations with Jade's story as well. It wasn't just messing around. It established that time was something to be tinkered with in this story, more intensively as we progress. The MC intermission was a primer on complicated time travel dynamics taking center stage in the story. It was a tangent, quite silly and convoluted, but very good preparation for the concepts to follow, which have dominated the story since. The troll arc was a very aggressive primer on completely off the rails nonlinear story progression, which has somewhat extended beyond it into the main story, and will continue to do so. All of these primer concepts are now firing on all cylinders at once. And the word primer is [[Film/{{Primer}} the title of a very complicated time travel movie]], which I have not seen yet. I imagine watching it would serve as a decent primer for reading Homestuck."''
509** During one [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/2723 off-hand flashback]] referencing something not all that memorable that ''did'' happen in a split second during a long, intense Flash presentation over 1500 pages back, the LampshadeHanging could not be avoided:
510--->''Remember how that happened? That didn't stop being a thing that happened or anything.''
511* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' half {{avert|edTrope}}s this, half plays it straight -- you can understand all the happenings in the plot without having any knowledge of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', but many of the non-punchline jokes will be completely nonsensical. In fact, they're used so often, and so consistently and savvily, that people who didn't have a knowledge of D&D when they started reading the comic can acquire an understanding of the vernacular over the course of 750+ strips without once searching for D&D information elsewhere, in the manner of the dialect in ''Literature/AClockworkOrange''.
512* In ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell'', writer Bill Holbrook ''de facto'' left it up to the readers [[https://kevinandkell.com/2020/kk0119.html to chose Leona's wedding dress]] from five different options. A month and a half later, when Sheila [[https://kevinandkell.com/2020/kk0309.html bemoaned the fact that Leona's wedding dress was chosen by "strangers",]] the spirit of Leona's mother responded thusly:
513-->'''Leona's mom:''' I know. At least they had good taste...
514* ''Webcomic/LastRes0rt'' -- the concepts don't require much outside knowledge, but the plot is just that involved (The start of Volume Two, for instance, is complicated by [[spoiler: a RealityWarper whose presence is only figured out well after they're raiding a ship and being affected by it]]), and the ArtEvolution gives the comic an experimental feel that makes a few scenes harder to follow than they should be because of the way the camera jumps. About half the readers get it, and the other half will need some help, most likely from [[http://www.lastres0rt.com/cast/ the Cast page]] and [[http://www.lastres0rt.com/new-readers-welcome/ New Readers' pages]].
515* ''Webcomic/ThePackrat'' is impossible to get without fundamental knowledge of synthesizers. Fortunately, it is targeted at and hence only known to synth geeks.
516* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' invited readers to calculate the height of the "Hellavator" lunar space elevator on their own... only to find that sometimes, the viewers really ''are'' geniuses.
517--> [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2001-01-23 Schlock fans get an A+. You are all far, far smarter than I gave you credit for.]]
518* ''Webcomic/MountainTime''. Yikes. Aside from the blink-and-you'll-miss-them literary and philosophical references, you also face character and plot continuities spaced tens to hundreds of comics apart.
519* ''Webcomic/SandraAndWoo'' has several examples so far. Of special mention:
520** Comic number 338, a challenging comic. Apparently some readers complained that the comic wasn't challenging enough, so the author made a challenging comic. The text of the comic required people to translate Bahasa Indian, convert RGB values to ASCII characters, search the HTML source for a linked page, and be able to crack text ciphers. This was invoked though, and the author offered prizes for correct answers. Once all the correct answers were submitted, they posted a deciphered version for the non-genius readers.
521** Comic number 500, titled "The book of woo", was based off of the Voynich manuscript. The author developed a custom set of symbols and text cipher for both English and German. Again invoked, there is a standing offer of cash prize for a correct translation. No one had managed it yet, And the page was posted 2013.
522* ''Webcomic/{{Godslave}}'' has a tiny bit of foreshadowing that can be easily deciphered if you have more than just passing knowledge of Egyptian mythology. [[spoiler:Set was a god of storms, which is how the Blacksmiths refer to the god who's supposed to be Anubis.]]
523* ''WebComic/PolandBall'' requires a thorough knowledge of vexillology to even know who is suppose to be who. The jokes are based around the international relations of rather obscure countries as they are the more famous ones.
524* The jokes in ''Webcomic/{{Digger}}'' are often pitched with the presumption the readers will know as much about geology, anthropology, comparative theology and pre-modern industry, cloth-dyeing/pigment use, lead-smelting, and healing as Ursula. As the comments show, a truly scary amount of the readers do know this stuff.
525[[/folder]]
526
527[[folder:Web Original]]
528* The Chess-centric [=YouTube=] channel ''WebVideo/{{agadmator}}'' operates under the assumption that anyone watching chess analysis of their own free will is smart enough and well-versed enough in the game to understand some very esoteric chess jargon, and uses such with cheerful abandon.
529* Animated sci-fi/UrbanFantasy series ''WebAnimation/BrokenSaints'' has a sprawling, slow-starting, and enormous plot with numerous characters, [[FauxSymbolism deep religious/philosophical themes and motifs]], [[AuthorAppeal references to obscure works, events, and cultures,]] and heaps upon heaps of TechnoBabble. The creators are themselves of the opinion that these elements are why the series is more popular in Asia and South America more so than North America.
530* The Literature/WhateleyUniverse. Think about an 'ad' for a movie made based on Creator/UmbertoEco's ''Literature/FoucaultsPendulum'' (which see)... as directed by noted conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone. Or a classroom discussion of Lucan's ''Literature/{{Pharsalia}}'' when one of the people in the room is actually the avatar of Juno.
531** Those are pretty much all in the Phase stories, which can have all kinds of genius bonuses, down to the snarky humor and the longterm planning. It turns out that information about epics and Greek mythology in the fourth Ayla novel is important [[spoiler: in saving the day in the seventh one]].
532* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': While they can all be enjoyed on their own, many [=SCPs=] require the reader to be this in order to fully appreciate them.
533** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1348 1348]], for example, requires a ''thorough'' understanding of Abrahamic culture and mythology. Even the Site Director's name is significant.
534** Or [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2280 2280]], which is plenty weird but makes more sense if you realize it's a creative reinterpretation of the Egyptian goddess [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_(goddess) Nut]].
535** [[http://www.scp-wiki.com/scp-2167 SCP-2167]] contains many advanced mathematical concepts and a reference to a real world document about acoustics.
536** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3966 SCP-3966]] excepts the reader to understand neuroscience and [[spoiler:4-D geometry]] to understand the true nature of the anomaly.
537* In Season 1 of "WebAnimation/InventionPioneersOfNote", Winston Whitworth declares, "As you already know, Plato once said..." Any idea of the viewers possessing intelligence is dropped for the later seasons.
538* One of ''Website/{{Cracked}}'''s [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-no-one-laughed-at-your-joke/ reasons no one laughed at your joke]] is "They Didn't Have Enough Information to Get It". It states that the best practice for an InJoke that relies on knowledge of something obscure like ''Film/RockyIV'' or ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'' is to find a discreet way to [[DontExplainTheJoke explain the reference]] in the setup.
539* The POYCPAK sketch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFKNfV2nf8A "'Lectuals"]] is a trailer for a fake teen drama that would likely have run on this trope.
540* ''Roleplay/ScaryNewsOutOfTokyo3'' is '''''loaded''''' not only with innumerable pop-culture {{Shout Out}}s, but with erudite quotes, obscure literary references, and scientific & pseudoscientific jargon.
541* ''Literature/{{Unsong}}'' is full of multilingual puzzles and puns, as well as obscure trivia, history, poetry and kabbalah references. It may have an excuse: before writing it, the author surveyed his fanbase and found an [[http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/11/04/2014-ssc-survey-results/ average IQ of 139]]. Nevertheless, he's been [[http://unsongbook.com/chapter-5-never-seek-to-tell-thy-love/#li-comment-704 disappointed]] by how many references people have missed.
542* Mocked with the "[[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/to-be-fair-you-have-to-have-a-very-high-iq-to-understand-rick-and-morty To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand]] ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty''" meme, which calls out fans who treat their series as an example of this, but in reality is just them giving it the EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory treatment.
543[[/folder]]
544
545[[folder:Western Animation]]
546* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' eventually degenerated into ''nothing but'' this trope, then degenerated even further to the point of ''parodying itself for having degenerated into nothing but this trope''.
547-->'''Peter:''' Yeah, that's what they said about Benjamin Disraeli!\
548(''Cut to Disraeli working in an office, when he suddenly looks up and glares at the camera'')\
549'''Disraeli:''' [[LampshadedTheObscureReference You don't even know who I am!]]
550* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' frequently relies on political history, much of which you would have to have studied the subject to know about. Roger (and to a lesser extent Greg and Terry) will also drop some references that you have to be GenreSavvy of gay culture and icons to understand.
551* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', particularly the first ten years or so, managed to do this from time to time while still managing to be hilarious to most people who didn't get the more obscure references. Indeed the show has a considerable RewatchBonus for younger people who come back and catch the GeniusBonus that passed them by on first viewing.
552** The show's characterization is so strong a lot of viewers will laugh at jokes despite not completely grasping the subtleties of the underlying gag. For instance, Lionel Hutz hastily changing the punctuation on his business card from saying "Works on contingency -- No money down" to "Works on contingency'''[++?++]''' -- No'''[++,++]''' money down'''[++!++]'''" is funny simply as evidence of Hutz' shamelessness, even if you don't know what a lawyer working on a contingency basis is.
553* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'''s writing staff had a combined 3 [=PHDs=] and 7 master's degrees, so it's only natural that they slipped in references to their fields of expertise from time to time. Topics such as mathematics, physics, and computer programming pop up from time to time in one-shot visual gags or dialogue. One DVD bonus feature had a mathematics "lecture" pointing out and explaining some of them. The writers also created two "alien" languages to be displayed in the show; reportedly, viewers were able to decipher these within 24 hours of first being shown. Taking the cake is an episode in which one of the writers slipped in his then-unsubmitted complete doctoral thesis in mathematics. In other words, that episode had the writer resolve its conflict by ''finding the answer to a previously unsolvable math problem''.
554* It's debatable whether or not it's a "gross overestimation" of the viewers' intelligence given the PeripheryDemographic, but ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' regularly references things like quantum theory and existentialism, throws words like [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness sesquipedalian]] around and makes occasional (full) use of LaymansTerms. The creators once commented on this; it went along the lines of "We make the show for ourselves but don't exclude anybody from the enjoyment."
555* ''[[WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien Ultimate Alien]]'' makes accurate statements about biological structures and Darwin's natural selection theory when talking about the alien's artificial evolution and their DNA database system. Psychological issues, such as StockholmSyndrome and personality disorders, are also current, though in a much lighter way due to the TV ratings. The series also references characters and lines from Greek and Hebrew myths, H.P. Lovercraft's books, and Richard Lovelace's poems, alongside other pop culture elements, the most (in)famous being the character Will Harangue, a journalist whose show is a FrankensteinsMonster of various Fox News programs and a spoof of "Steven Colbert's Colbert Nation".
556* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' often assumes that its target audience is a lot more familiar with Asian languages, mythology and history than the average 9-year-old is likely to be. This is probably what makes it so popular with college students.
557* ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'' constantly made references to older literature and short stories, stuff that only someone who read a lot would know, and unlike most shows aimed at teenagers, it never assumed that the audience was stupid.
558* Full understanding of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' requires a game-show contestant's depth of knowledge in pop-cultural history, which many children at the time lacked.
559** A fitting example would be the song entitled "When You're Traveling From Nantucket to Saint Paul." It's all about the relativity of time, our planet's closeness to the sun and when you'd arrive if you took a plane from one place to another. The difference is that the trio does not expect to be understood as evidenced by certain lyrics. Examples include:
560--->'''Yakko and siblings:''' Time Is relative, dependent\
561You can save it, you can spend it\
562Doing things you like to do or learning how.\
563You can't see it, you can't taste it\
564But you certainly can waste it\
565Which is really what we're doing here right now!
566** The last stanza of the song seals the deal even further:
567--->'''Yakko and siblings:''' So remember, when you're traveling\
568From Nantucket to St. Paul\
569In that airport as you're staring\
570At those clocks upon the wall\
571You should think about this song, my friend\
572And then you will recall...\
573That it was mildly amusing\
574But then totally confusing\
575And we bet you wish we never sung at all!
576* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' often turns on a dime between sex jokes and references to obscure historical figures.
577-->'''Archer''': [[OhGodWithTheVerbing Oh, God, with the curry again]]. This shirt smells like Indira Gandhi's thong.
578** Particularly in the earlier seasons, there would often be one character making obscure references that are funny with the requisite knowledge, then they would lampshade how unlikely anyone was to get the reference, making it more palatable for non-geniuses.
579-->'''Archer''': I would prefer not to... ''(enemies cock their guns)'' Bartleby the Scrivener? Anybody? Not a big Melville crowd here. Eh, he's not an easy read.
580* Getting the most out of ''WesternAnimation/MyGymPartnersAMonkey'' requires knowing an encyclopedia's worth of animal physiology and behavior. Quite often, some character will behave in a certain way that doesn't make sense unless you already know the animal that character is based on really does act like that in similar circumstances. This may have been the reason the show was not as popular as it could have been. Luckily for its target audience, this was heavily toned down by the time the team did ''WesternAnimation/LittlestPetShop2012''.[[note]]Though it does happen from time to time--Pepper, a skunk, starts spraying recklessly and runs out within several seconds in "Books & Covers," which feels like an AssPull unless you know that skunks really CAN run out that quickly.[[/note]]
581* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': When Morty's parents, Jerry and Beth, are gunning down monsters, Jerry tells Beth that he wishes her shotgun were his penis. Beth responds, "If it were, you could call me Creator/ErnestHemingway!" This is a [[SophisticatedAsHell blowjob joke]] that will only be understood by people who know that Hemingway killed himself by [[AteHisGun putting a shotgun in his mouth]]. Naturally, Jerry doesn't get it.
582* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': It purposely leaves clues for its viewers to solve, sometimes years in advance. Some of the clues include [[CreativeClosingCredits cryptograms in the credits,]] backwards messages, and [[FreezeFrameBonus details hidden in the background.]] Creator Alex Hirsch has said that he did this so that if anyone was as weird as him, they would find what they're looking for. Regarding the cryptograms, Season 2's is written in a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigen%C3%A8re_cipher Vigenère cipher]], an encoding process regarded as impenetrable for hundreds of years and which remains extremely difficult to break even in the present day without a key or a computer decryption program. Thankfully, said key is hidden within the episode, both as a word or phrase spoken by the characters and as text hidden within the background.
583** The best known example of this is when [[spoiler: Grunkle Stan rescued his twin brother, the author of the journals, from another dimension. Fans had guessed this twist nearly two years in advance of the episode's initial airing.]]
584* The ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' first season episode "Damien" was about the final confrontation between Jesus and Satan. Early in the episode Damien proves his power by turning Kenny into a duck-billed platypus. The boys go to visit Jesus as he's training, and ask him if he will cure Kenny if he wins. Jesus gets indignant and says: "what do you mean IF I win?" This is a reference to an incident that only occurs in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus gets angry when someone asks him to cure his daughter "if he can".
585* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'' ''adores'' obscure references; from rarely-seen superheroes to ancient myths to 80's children's toy advertisments.
586-->'''The Alchemist:''' ''[[ItMakesSenseInContext (holding a character's ear that fell off)]]'' Uhh, you dropped your Dino Damage.
587[[/folder]]
588
589
590[[folder:Real Life]]
591* {{Alternate Reality Game}}s all assume the viewers, or at least some of them, are curious, bored, and in some cases masters of BatDeduction. Valve's ARG involving ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' has some especially heavy shit going on. Strange data-like audio snippets appear in game. Forum members pick apart the game content files and extract audio files for these new snippets. In their analysis, someone has the bright idea of trying to run these sound clips through software that can decrypt digital images through analog ''ham radio transmissions'', and come up with fully-rendered colored images which, themselves, contain clues to the phone number for an old fashioned ''BBS'', calling which gives cryptic ASCII images -- but only if you managed to find the ''other'' hidden code for the username/password in one of the radio transmission images!
592* Trent Reznor of Music/NineInchNails did something similar before the release of ''Year Zero''. USB sticks were left at the toilets during/after shows, containing music/audio files (which were different on different USB sticks) then when run through a spectrogram, revealed images and, in one case, a phone number which you could call to hear a new song. Also, there were t-shirts where the highlighted letters formed the words "I am trying to believe", which turned out to be a registered domain name, while the rest of the sites were simply in the same IP range. So in order to find those, you'd have to know how to search domains by IP addresses.
593* Most Platform/{{Unix}} manual pages are confusing even to people who have doctorates in computer science. And the Unix system itself, where one mislaid command as root can hose your entire system.
594* [[http://www.amazon.ca/Everything-Bad-Good-You-Actually/dp/1573223077 Everything Bad is Good For You]] discusses the idea that popular culture has become more complex and that, in turn has made us smarter. This is why 80s TV shows seem simplistic by today's standards, and conversely many of today's shows would have been unwatchable 25 years ago. The author also hypothesises that this is connected to the Flynn Effect, where each generation scores slightly higher on IQ tests than the previous one.
595* Creator/DennisMiller:
596** His short stint as a commentator on ''Monday Night Football'' drew ire from fans who found his dry, academic wit hard to understand. Indeed, pretty much ''anything'' Dennis Miller says qualifies. The Encyclopedia Britannica website actually had a feature where they attempted to [[http://espn.go.com/abcsports/mnf/s/annotatedmiller/archive.html explain his references]] every Tuesday.
597** He once hosted an episode of ''Wrestling/WWERaw'', where he had a brief monologue at the start of the show and several backstage segments. While most of the segments were passable, his monologue and one segment that turned into a ''Dennis Miller Live'' "[[CatchPhrase I don't wanna get off on a rant here]]" rant (complete with dimmed lights) contained a series of references and witticisms so dense even by HIS standards, many were left believing he was [[AdamWesting making fun of himself]].
598* Now-disgraced BBC presenter Stuart Hall was a [[TransAtlanticEquivalent British counterpart]] of Denis Miller. His football commentaries on BBC radio were classics of literacy, fluency and verbal gymnastics, which deservedly won him many fans and admirers.
599* Wikipedia articles on even slightly technical topics tend towards assuming that the reader has at least a degree in the relevant field.
600* Anything ever produced by Creator/TheFiresignTheatre. Once described by Creator/RobinWilliams as the audio equivalent of a Hieronymous Bosch painting, and you're always looking for the little man who's coming out of the ass of a chicken. If you think you even got all of "AudioPlay/TheFurtherAdventuresOfNickDanger" the first time, for example, you are probably wrong.
601* The ARG/MITMysteryHunt. According to [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]], puzzles have involved "arcane or esoteric topics like quantum computing, stereoisomers, ancient Greek, Klingon, Bach preludes, coinage of Africa, and Barbie dolls". And that's not even getting into the actual ''steps'' required to solve the puzzles.
602* The University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt, affectionately known as Scav is similar. To complete many of the items on the list you need to already have a working knowledge of odd subfields that can include physics, cooking, a particular website or even certain languages.
603* Creator/PattonOswalt often lampshades this; he'll make a reference to Creator/HPLovecraft (or something), then lambaste himself for going over the audience's heads, then start coming up with even more obscure references, like Creator/ArthurMachen or Creator/FrankBelknapLong.
604* Comedian Daniel Tosh stated that one of his gimmicks is wearing a single joke on and on "until only six people have a clue what [he's] talking about."
605* Creator/EddieIzzard mixes obscure history and references to science and philosophy into her stand-up, and goes so far as to conduct an entire 5 minute sketch in French, in front of American and British audiences. She even lampshades this last bit, telling the audience that they don't understand anything she’s saying, and are only laughing because French sounds funny.
606* Some aspects of Website/TVTropes aren't exactly newcomer friendly. For instance, some tropes, trope names, and even rules of this wiki can be confusing to some people. [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes This is also the reason why several tropes have their names changed.]] As an example, the trope "Dropped A Bridget On Him" had its name changed to the (admittedly less creative) UnsettlingGenderReveal, largely because people who have never heard of the meme or ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'', where the meme comes from, or the trope DroppedABridgeOnHim would possibly have no clue what that trope is about until they open it. See FanMyopia.
607* William F Buckley Jr's essays, and show, was loaded with this, along with several helpings of SesquipedalianLoquaciousness. He tended to include Spanish, French, Latin, and wildly obscure English in his essays, which were generally high-minded "plane of ideas" type pieces about public policy and the theory thereof. Try watching his show Firing Line. If you drift off for a second or aren't well-versed in interventionism, the Federal Reserve, US education, and sexual morality, have fun figuring out what's happening.
608* Creator/{{PBS}} and Creator/{{NPR}} are well-known for catering to educated audiences.
609
610[[/folder]]

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