Dramatic Irony / Fan Works

Dramatic Irony in Fan Works.

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The following have their own pages:

• Infinity Train: Blossomverse

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Crossovers

• In Ancient Relics, when an thirteen-hundred-year-old immortal and incognito Merlin is in Transfiguration class at Hogwarts, the professor gives him detention for slacking off, stating, "You must grow up and live in the real world...I suggest you take the time to reflect on whether you really are as powerful as you think you are." It's lampshaded in-universe that all of Ron's "Merlin's ___" curses are also a case of this, as he's invoking Merlin without realizing that the real guy is sitting right next to him-and very much unamused.
• Rhode Evans (a Gender Flip version of Harry Potter) from The Unrelenting Frozen Seas: The Journey often make quips about her status as Poseidon's only child. Her father becomes a teeny bit nervous when she jokes about her lack of siblings in front of him.
• Black Sky: Under the alias "Stefano Torreta", Theodore Nott manages to infiltrate the Vongola Famiglia in order to spy on them. Unbeknownst to him, he Harmonizes with Daniela Vongola — the former Ottava — as her Rain Guardian, meaning he's considered as a close confident and ally. For further irony, Timoteo Vongola tried for years to find another Rain Guardian for his mother, and had reverted to this endeavour just as Theo was accepted in the staff.
• In Chapter 57 of BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant, Blake asks why Yang didn't take Zwei with her on her team's mission, with Ren commenting that it was unlikely that Port or Oobleck would allow pets on a mission. Of course, readers would remember from the canonical events of Mountain Glenn that Oobleck certainly would allow it.
• In The Captain of the Virtual Console, this applies regarding Giovanni, as the other Gym Leaders have no idea he's evil. Gancena, however, does.
• Child of the Storm:
  • Hermione notes of her new Professor that his name is the same as that of the ancient Welsh bard Taliesin. The audience, Harry, and Bucky all know that he actually is Taliesin, and also Doctor Stephen Strange.
  • In a much darker example, Bucky sends Harry, Carol, and Jean-Paul away so that he can hunt Sabertooth without worrying about civilians or the kids getting hurt, reasoning that Jean-Paul is fast enough and the other two are tough enough to deal with whatever might come up in the meantime. Unfortunately, he hasn't bargained for Jean-Paul leaving for a bit and Maddie Pryor, one of the two most powerful psychics in history, and Badass Bookworm Dr. Sinister coming along.
• Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron:
  • Allura has trouble imagining Lelouch's father could've abandoned him and Nunnally, unaware that not only did Charles do just that, he more or less disowned them and invaded the country they were staying at knowing they would probably die. She also assumes his father is a king when he is actually an Emperor.
  • At the end of her Internal Monologue before The Battle of Narita, Cornelia promises that she will find Lelouch, - after all, it's not like he vanished off the face of the Earth, right?
• Code Prime: In the R2 chapter A Measure of Trust, Lelouch saves Optimus from being killed by the Dark Mordred. He’s completely unaware that its being piloted by his mother, Marianne.
• Deadly Nightshade gave Bruce Wayne a biological son in Hawthorne Isley, who very much mopes over the fact his sire is nothing but a foppish, brain-dead playboy. He outright tells this to Batman, as justification for refusing to ask his father for shelter.
• A Dovahkiin Spreads His Wings:
  • Catelyn Stark hates Jon Snow since he was an infant for being the living reminder of her husband loving another woman to the point he was unfaithful to her. Jon himself feels more pity than anything towards Lady Stark, being aware that the woman Ned Stark loved enough to take her son in was his own sister Lyanna, and as such Catelyn's hatred is ultimately pointless since her husband was faithful all along.
  • Elia Martell writes to Lyanna Stark, saying that their names will enter into history. Needless to say, everyone in the Seven Kingdoms know who they were now, but for much more ugly, painful reasons that both women ever imagined.
  • King Robert Baratheon immediately takes a fancy to Jon Snow, treating him as an honoured guest and basically the son he wished he had. Neither Jon himself nor Ned can enjoy it very much, as Jon's birth father is actually the guy Robert hates for swiping his beloved Lyanna and whose name is still enough to induce frothing, murderous rage within the king.
• In Equestria Girls: A Fairly Odd Friendship, much of the humor and drama of the story is fueled by Timmy and the Rainbooms not understanding one another. Timmy's isn't aware of the fact that his new babysitter Sunset is a magical pony who is spying on him, and she and the other Rainbooms think his magic comes from a dangerous Equestrian artifact.

  Cosmo: "(Sunset and her friends) also don't know that we have super magical powers to protect you either."

• Gone Batty (Sefiru):
  • Kiryu tells Tsuna that if he (Tsuna) has no other option, he can stay as the Boss of the Vongola Family just long enough to appoint his successor and then get out, exactly like Kiryu did when he was appointed Chairman of the Tojo Clan. What they both don't know is how and why the inheritance of the Vongola Boss posistion works the way it does. The next Boss must be a blood relative of the First Boss, because the Vongola Sky Ring will reject anyone who isn't, and the Ring is proof of the inheritance (on top of being part of a set of MacGuffins that affect the balance of the universe). With Tsuna being the only known living relative (excluding the elderly Ninth Boss, and Tsuna's father who isn't eligible due to his position in the Family), Kiryu's suggestion is impossible. And even if Tsuna's father was to take the spot, he has no other children so Tsuna would end up becoming Boss anyway.
  • Reborn tries to recruit Kiryu and Majima as Tsuna's Guardians, without knowing that the two of them are already Guardians, loyal to another Sky.
• Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters:
  • At one point, someone comments to Cyrus (who's in his disguised alias as Rebellion member Drake) that they should never trust a Ludmoore. Cyrus finds a lot of amusement in that, seeing as he is a Ludmoore, and the other person is absolutely right that they can't be trusted.
  • The Guardians and Chan Clan decide to keep the true nature of the girls' powers and the existence of Meridian from Section 13 for fear that their government superiors would try and take advantage of their magic and situation. Unbeknownst to them, Section 13 is secretly controlled by the Dark Hand, who know all about the other Known Worlds and the Guardians' powers, and are working towards weaponizing magic.
• Hearts Aflutter: Taylor Hebert at one point in the police station fears that her Only Friend Ayano Aishi could be the murderer's next victim and offers her a ride home with her dad in their car, completely unware that Ayano is the Serial Killer in question and a Yandere for her.
• I'm Nobody: Euphemer asks Axel, Roxas, and Xion if they know Luxu and the Master of Masters because they all wear the same coats. The three tell them that they've never heard of these people. Except that they have; Luxu is Xigbar, who is in the same organization the trio used to be in.
• It's Always Spooky Month: The audience knows Skid and Pump are human, but Monster initially doesn't, and had he known when he first met them he probably would have eaten them due to how hungry he was at the time.
• Light, Darkness and Paradox has some of this due to its use of Rotating Protagonist. For example, the reader knows that Pyrrha is alive from the sections written from her perspective, but other characters believe her to be dead.
• Looming Darkness has Link temporarily working with Dark Link.^*really Vanitas The reader is shown all sides of the conflict, Zelda and Ciara believing that Link has gone through a Face–Heel Turn when the reader knows Link is suffering just as much as they are.
• In Lost Latte, the readers know Latte survived her fall, but the cures think she fell to her death when they find her collar.
• A Man of Iron:
  • When Ned Stark realizes his cousin Tony is actually the Magic Knight roaming around Westeros, he wonders who serves as his Body Double to throw the Crown's suspicions out of Tony's trail - dismissing Jon Snow who's Just a Kid and as such couldn't handle such responsibility. Catelyn later does the same mistake, thinking Jon is Locked Out of the Loop because a boy would be unable to keep his mouth shut if he knew his guardian is actually a masked avenger.
  • Ned trusts Syrio Forel to watch over Arya and bring her safe and sound at Winterfell or Iron Pointe if things get ugly in King's Landing. He's technically right, since Arya's mentor really does have her interests to heart... he only thinks these interests are very different things.
  • In A Song of Ice and Fire's canon, House Martell repeatedly tries and fails to arrange a wedding with House Targaryen - starting with Arianne's betrothal to Viserys falling flat because he gets himself killed then Quentyn's attempt to woo Daenerys failing because he gets himself killed. Here, Oberyn Martell decides to honour another marriage pact by offering his eldest (legitimized) daughter as a bride to Antony's heir Jon... who happens to be Rhaegar's last living child. Which means Oberyn was more successful than his brother when it came about giving a Targaryen royal a Martell spouse.
• In the series proper, Ser Barristan Selmy intensely dislikes Jaime Lannister for breaking his oaths to the mad monarch Aerys II, though it's made clear to the observer if not to Barristan that had he not done so, the entire capital would have been wiped off the map by a burst of wildfire. Near the end of Purple Days' Oxcross Loop, Sansa uses a glass candle to see into the Red Keep and sees Ser Barristan, having hit the Despair Event Horizon, killing Daenerys, his queen, in an ultimately futile attempt to stop her dragons from wiping out Flea Bottom.
• The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: Katie Kaboom had a great time on her blind date with Danny and even falls in love with him as a result. However, she is completely unaware of the fact that the only reason Danny did so many nice things for her during their date was because he did not want to risk her turning into a monster again and if anything, he seems to not want anything to do with her as a result.
• My Hero School Adventure Is All Wrong As Expected:
  • During lunchtime at U.A., Hachiman bumps into a nondescript schoolmate and copies his Quirk, a Shapeshifting one that perfectly mimics a given person's appearance after ingesting a sample of their blood. While Hachiman finds it too creepy to keep, he doesn't think too much of it. The readers, on the other hand, collectively went "Oh, Crap!, that's Himiko Toga in disguise!"
  • Hachiman's main motivation to do well at the U.A. Sports Festival is to impress Shizuka Hiratsuka enough to let him join her investigation as an intern in the case of Zaimokuza's disappearance and likely murder. He has no idea that just the profiling skills he displayed a few minutes after making that deal was more than enough to convince her that he would be a real asset to the case.
• If the readers of The Night Unfurls have played Bloodborne before, it is very likely that they would know how strong the Good Hunter is, as well as his identity as a great one, should the Childhood's Beginning Ending is chosen. They are expected to cringe on whoever crosses him, as the chances of them prevailing are nil.
• Oni Ga Shiku Series:
  • When Majima arrives to the playground looking for Izuku, he ignores the annoying crying brat because he knows Izuku is better behaved than that. The scene right before that was Izuku being reduced to tears from Katsuki's bullying. Majima is quite furious when he realizes the crying kid is Izuku.
  • After Izuku learns the Tiger Drop by copying Kiryu, he wonders if anyone has ever used it on an actual tiger. Which Kiryu has. On two of them.
• The renegade hero!!!....Invader Zim?: Zim's interactions with anyone who believes in his false status as a hero are dripping with this, as no matter what he says or does, the wording or context just reinforces that belief. This is especially true in the first couple of chapters before Zim learns of and wraps his head around this concept, and doesn't even try to spin his actions as heroic.
• SAPR:
  • During the Battle of Vale, Shining Armor and the rest of the Atlesians try to protect his wife, Councilor Cadenza, assuming that the White Fang and any other attackers are after her. In actuality the White Fang is targeting Kali Belladonna and her daughter Blake, who have managed to seat themselves next to the councilor.
  • During the same battle as the above, Ironwood makes a speech that cites Rainbow Dash as an inspiration and quotes her speech on guts and loyalty too. His feelings end up being very different when he finds Rainbow stood by and let Sunset enable The Breach months later.
• In Schnee: Hero or Huntress, Aizawa tells Weiss she needs to use her 'quirk' to its fullest extent, otherwise she'll end up bleeding out in an alley somewhere... which is exactly where Weiss wound up when she first came to the world, after using her semblance so much that her aura broke.
• Shadows over Meridian: When Elyon learns how (in the original story) Jade/Kage was thrown into the Infinite City dungeons after her first encounter with the Guardians despite the fact that Elyon ordered her kept in the castle, she is furious and commands Caleb to find the person who countermanded her orders. Unbeknownst to her or the other characters but well known to the readers, Caleb is the person in question, having acted in a fit of paranoia.
• The Silver Raven:
  • In Chapter 10, Lilith notes to herself that it isn't like Nero to sneak out of the house alone—unaware that Nero has done so many times before (and in fact was planning on doing it again after she left the house).
  • In Chapter 13, Lilith believes that Eda gave Nero the Red Queen as a present and is a bad influence on him. In truth, Nero made the sword himself and Eda is actually a good influence on him.
  • When Eda leaves with Nero and Luz for the Knee, she briefly sees a familiar white raven and assumes it to be Coronis, but she brushes it off alongside the idea that Lilith sent him to spy on Nero, musing that not even Gwendolyn was that overprotective. Of course, as was shown previously, Lilith did send her Palisman to watch over her son and she really is that overprotective of him.
• Spark to Spark, Dust to Dust is filled to the brim with this trope. Both of the story's authors have admitted that this was intentional, as Dramatic Irony is one of their favorite tropes.
  • Yang and Ruby are both determined to protect their sister from knowing the truth about their activities, completely unaware that the other is also working on the same problem from a different angle.
  • Yang badmouthing Adam's old partner with no idea that the person in question is her current partner Blake.
  • Later on, Team RRANNBW figures out that there's a woman named Sunfire involved with the Decepticon fight; however, based on their limited information they think she's a villain and attribute Cinder's activities to her, unaware that she's really Yang.
• Star Trek: Phoenix: In "You Can Lead a Horse to Water", when discussing Twilight's past in Equestria, Belle asks if she was planning to become Princess Celestia's personal student like Sunset was. Twilight dismisses this idea, as she doubts that Celestia would have ever taken her on as a pupil in this manner even if her entrance exam hadn't gone as badly as it did. In canon, however, this was precisely what happened.
• Tattered Capes Under a Shattered Moon: Alabaster groans that his teammates are robots when he finds out their weapons don't have names as is traditional on Remnant. Unbeknownst to him, one of those teammates is Dragon, an actual AI.
• In Timeless Academia, Professor Lev Lainur Flauros tries to tear down Izuku Midoriya's self confidence by reminding him about his "shitty" life prior to joining Chaldea, including All Might thinking a quirkless Midoriya isn't capable of being a hero and Bakugo's infamous Suicide Dare. While Mash and Kiyohime believe that this is him lying and trying to get to his head, both Midoriya and any readers familiar with My Hero Academia know that Flauros is telling the truth about it and how much shit he went through.

Animorphs

• All Assorted Animorphs AUs:
  • In "What if they were caught during their first mission?", Temrash 114 says that killing Marco's dad would cause less trouble with Visser One's host than making him a Controller. Marco hasn't met Visser One yet, so he doesn't know that she's using his mother as a host. Later, when the Controllers are tormenting Tobias, they kill a scarred blonde woman, who the readers would recognise as his long-lost mother Loren.
  • In "What if Marco was Deaf?", Tobias wonders if his father even had a brother... then Ax shows up. This scene is based on The Pretender, where Tobias learns he's Elfangor's son (and thus Ax's nephew).
  • A lot of the tension in "What if Elfangor and Loren raised Tobias?" comes from Tobias not wanting to tell his parents that he's fighting the Yeerks, unaware that they already know about them.
• Eleutherophobia:
  • There are two references to David in chapter 2 of The Day the Earth Stood Still. First, Tom recalls Saddler miraculously recovering from his coma then suddenly disappearing two days later, and assumes aliens must have been involved. Then, the man in the cell next to him turns out to be David's father, who hopes to see his son again. Tom doesn't know that David was responsible for Saddler's disappearance, nor that he's most likely dead.
  • In City of Lost Children, Jean berates Jake for his failing school performance and wishes he could be more like Tom, who's a seemingly perfect student. Of course, the readers know that Jake is fighting a secret war in order to save people like Tom from Puppeteer Parasites. Also, Tom insists that Jake doesn't know that he's a Controller, even though Jake has known for about a year at that point.
  • In Ghost in the Shell, Tom sees a comment on the Matter Over Mind forums saying that broccoli is from space and dismisses it as nonsense, even though In the Time of Dinosaurs revealed that it was an alien race's crop that they brought to Earth.
  • In How I Live Now, Jake and Marco mention the Chee, Erek, Crayak, and the Drode in front of Tom while trying to figure out who would morph into Rachel. Tom has no idea who they are, but they're all major players in canon.
• The titular trio of Sporadic Phantoms are trying to uncover The Sharing's ulterior motives. Since they're not Functional Genre Savvy, they don't realise that it's a front for an alien invasion, so the listeners are able to put the pieces together before they do.
• In What if the Yeerks Were the Good Guys?, Tom wonders why Jake's acting so jittery after the Andalites land. Of course, the readers know that he just got the morphing power and learned that aliens exist.

Arrowverse

• In To Hell and Back, Iris notes that some days, it seems like Eddie is more into the Streak than he is her. Meanwhile, Eddie is complaining that some days, it seems like she's more into Barry than she is into him.
• In Granted, Oliver prepares to do an Unbroken Vigil for Laurel "to make sure she was safe and happy and knew how he felt, the deep bond and affection that all the years and hurts had yet to destroy." Readers know she is deeply unhappy, moments from death, their bond is in fact broken, and she knows he will never say "I love you" to her again.
• In The Outbreak, after Oliver kills Ra's and is saved by Felicity, he reflects "with any luck the others were rounding up his four men and disseminating the cure to the Alpha-Omega virus. He had defied the will of the Demon Head and managed to save his city." In truth, due to Felicity's actions, the Alpha-Omega virus has been released and people are dying. Quentin Lance is already dead.
• Rash Actions: Diggle is seething over a "betrayal" by Oliver, firmly believing you don't break a promise to a brother. Specifically he recalls that "he had always had Andy’s back while Andy had had his when he was living". In truth (though this doesn't come up in the story proper), Andy is not only still alive but also Evil All Along, and never loved Diggle.
• Vigilantes' Dawn: After Nyssa gives Laurel some limited information about the Dark Archer, Oliver and Laurel try to use that to narrow his identity down. Oliver complains that the criteria is so vague that Malcolm Merlyn comes up as a hit — something that Oliver and Laurel both appear to find absurd.
• Dear Friend practically runs on it. Oliver and Laurel both join an online dating service, and strike up an online relationship without realizing the other's identity. Most of their online relationship is actually talking about the problems with their real world relationship, and Oliver gets an increasingly low opinion of the version of himself he's hearing about.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

• In The Best Path, Jet slowly grows to consider Zuko as one of his kids, unaware the teen is actually the Fire Prince, one of the firebenders he hates so much, thinking he's actually another victim displaced by the war.
• Reluctant Hero uses this quite a bit in relation to Iroh, as Yugato and Pakku respect Zuko's uncle (based on Zuko's strong loyalty to him) while fearing the Dragon of the West, unaware they are one and the same. Yugato also wonders if Iroh would be a good candidate for the Order of the White Lotus, of which he is already a member.
  • When the Avatar's temples are triggered, the Fire Sages think they have to find a baby or toddler as successor to the mantle. The current Avatar is actually sixteen years old and activated the temples because he entered the Avatar State rather than being born.

Bleach

• Early on in Feeling Hollow, Rukia is tricked into entering Ichigo's Mental World. She wonders out loud where his hollow is, when he's actually standing right in front of her. Rukia also comments that she half expected to run into Ichigo and the hollow fighting. Which she had. Hollow Ichigo finds the irony hilarious, even if Ichigo doesn't.
• In The Snow Has Stopped The Rain, Uryu thinks to himself that if he didn't know any better, he'd say Ichigo and Ganju were related because of how similar they are. Unbeknownst to him, they're cousins.
• Swinging Pendulum:
  • Shunsui and Kaien end up talking about Ichigo's possible age (which he's kept hidden), with Kaien commenting that with how he acts he had to be at least two hundred and fifty, or two hundred, and eventually says "He can't possibly be any younger that one hundred!" The audience knows that Ichigo is actually somewhere around twenty, which would be particularly disturbing to them as typically children in Soul Society are under forty. Which would make Kaien's habit of calling Ichigo his "baby cousin" more accurate than he realizes.
  • In the same conversation, they also mention that though Ichigo's group is late getting back from a mission, they shouldn't worry because no one has sent a message for backup yet. What they don't know is that the leader (and the only one who could send anything) refused to do so out of pride before being knocked out in battle. The group's in fact desperate for help and barely scraping by.
  • A more comedic variant is that Kaien constantly worries for his "baby cousin" Ichigo's safety, not knowing that Ichigo could kick the asses of the captains with ease.

Bolt

• The Bolt Chronicles: In "The Blood Brother," Bolt's new cocker spaniel friend Duke is depicted as loving jazz and despising pop music. After the two dogs cement their new tie in a blood brother ceremony by touching ensanguined paws, Duke inadvertently quotes a line from the chorus of the Bruce Springsteen song "No Surrender" when he says, "No retreat. No surrender." Bolt meanwhile realizes he has heard the phrase before, but can't remember where.

Code Geass

• Code Geass: Colorless Memories In Chapter 11, Suzaku is talking with Lloyd and they bring up Rai, to whom Lloyd had offered a place in his unit. However, Rai turns it down as he had joined the Black Knights partly because of Kallen of whom Suzaku knew the two hung out with each other a lot and says to these lines in response.
  Suzaku: Well, you see... there's this girl that Rai hangs out with at school. If he were to join the military, though, I fear he won't be able to see her that much anymore. I would hate for them to be separated because of something that I did.
  Cecile:"So is this person his girlfriend or something?
  Suzaku: Well they never made any official statement or anything, but I think it's heading in that direction. I believe he would be safer with her than with me anyways."
• Several in My Mirror, Sword and Shield:
  • Almost everyone in his Praetorian Guard has backstabbed Lelouch. The one person who is genuinely loyal is Suzaku, who's a time traveller making sure that he dies at the right time.
  • Despite Cornelia and Schneizel’s fretting over Euphemia and Nunnally and fearing their safety from Lelouch, Euphemia and Nunnally don't want their "rescue".
  • Nunnally makes Suzaku promise to protect Lelouch when he knows that he has to let Lelouch die to ensure the timeline. Then Suzaku lets Nunnally think that he failed despite saving Lelouch's life so the timeline would remain intact.

Death Note

• In A Charmed Life feels the safest around Ryuk, a Death God. Also Light becomes more secure in his sexuality thanks to an article that was written by L under an alias.
• In Fade, L gets his hands on a Death Note, containing a part of the story of Kira's rise to power. Trying to stop that from happening leads to L's own Start of Darkness as he becomes more and more similar — and arguably worse — than the killer he's trying to find.

Disgaea

• In Fail to the King!, one of the antagonists is searching for the killer of his lover. Any reader who finished Disgaea 2 is well aware that Rozalin is both Zenon, the Overlord that he is hunting for revenge... and the little girl from the Snow Village that he almost gave up his quest to become a father for. He isn't.

Dragon Ball

• At one point in Trunks and Goten's Excellent Adventure, Vegeta claims that he highly doubts that Trunks "pathetic" father could be a threat to the Ginyu Force, an assertion Goten finds hilarious.

Fate/stay night

• Fate/Harem Antics:
  • When Bazett summons Scathach, Kirei tries to sneak up and kill her to take her Command Spells and Servant. Irisviel stops him by causing him to have a heart attack. Bazett and Scathach nurse him back to health, completely unaware of his murder attempt and Bazett thinking he is still her old ally.
  • Kirei and Gilgamesh want to use the Holy Grail to unleash Angra Mainyu, unaware that Irisviel has killed the entity.
  • Kirei is unaware that Zouken is dead, and thinks the old man is still lurking in the shadows planning something.
  • With all the oddity of the Grail War, Sakura mentions that the Grail must know what it's doing, since the War wouldn't work if it wasn't impartial. Of course none of them are aware that Shirou's mother Irisviel is actually in charge of the Grail now, and she's been manipulating things to get her son a harem.
• In Pursuit of a Single Ideal: Shirou's main motivation for hunting the Class Cards is to prevent them from hurting anyone else like they hurt him, with his little sister being on top of the list. Meanwhile the little sister has been hunting them for longer than he has, and unlike Shirou who can back out at any moment she is forced to do it by the Kaleidosticks. Shirou freaks out HARD when he finds out.

Final Fantasy VII

• Epiphany: When Cloud's party is trying to figure out what they should be doing, they decide to go after Sephiroth, believing his taking her from Shinra tower was actually abducting Aerith, not rescuing her. Cloud even makes the point that it isn't like he took her back to her mother, unaware that he actually did just that! Aerith agreed to go with Sephiroth afterwards. And Jessie jumped at the chance as well.
• In the original Final Fantasy VII, Cloud was basically seen as a loser when the truth came out and Hojo didn't even recognize Cloud, even though he experimented on him for years. In the The Fifth Act Hojo of this timelime thinks Cloud is his most perfect creation and scolded the other Hojo for not recognizing his own success.

Final Fantasy X

• When Lulu and Wakka join Zuke's pilgrimage in Guardian, they console themselves with the knowledge that Yuna will be safe and sound on Besaid. Naturally, Sin attacks there while they're having a fairly quiet journey.

Fullmetal Alchemist

• Son of the Desert:
  • Edward hates Roy for killing his mother's family and village in Ishval and wants to see him dead for it. Turns out Roy hates himself for Ishval as much as they do and would have let Edward kill him to make up for what he did.
  • Edward and Alphonse are terrified of Roy and Riza, knowing of their reputation in Ishval, and fear that if their Ishvalan heritage were ever revealed, the Flame Alchemist and the Hawk's Eye would kill them without question. Roy and Riza would never do that to them, but the kids don't know that.
• Hohenheim in My Master Ed is taught alchemy by Edward, who comments on the irony of the situation, to Hohenheim's confusion. Hohenheim also mentions what a great name Alphonse is, prompting Edward to look at him funny.
  • One chapter flashes back to how Edward ended up 400 years in the past, and his thoughts about the ways he could save everyone, blissfully unaware of exactly how far back he truly is.

Game of Thrones

• The Mountain and the Wolf:
  • Because the Wolf kills several major characters shortly before they were going to die anyway the Mountain, Ramsay, Littlefinger, and Euron, the plot mostly happens much the same as in the series. Thus Tyrion complains that if the Wolf hadn't prevented Oberyn from defending him against the Mountain, Tyrion would be free instead of a fugitive.
  • The Wolf sneers at the Night King, laughing off the idea of some corpse-emperor resisting the Chaos Gods.
  • Beric is rescued from a pack of wights by a berserker screaming about corn. Or so Arya thinks, as the concept of Khorne is utterly unknown to her.

Genshin Impact

• The Electro Archon discarded her first attempt to build an automated puppet in order to take her place as Inazuma's ruler because she felt they couldn't embody her ideal of "eternity". In Kaedehara Kazuha's Foolproof Guide to Accidental Kidnapping, Kazuha seriously considers to crown Kunikuzushi — the aforementioned puppet — as the new Shogun because he would rather worship a god "of fleeting moments of beauty" than an eternal tyrant. "Impermanence" was the ideal upheld by the first Electro Archon, Ei's beloved twin sister whom she still mourns centuries later — so Kunikuzushi is a replacement to an Archon, taking after the one person Ei wants back more than anything, and she's completely unaware of that.

Glee

• In Hunting the Unicorn, the canon portrayal of Blaine is hit with a sledgehammer. Klaine's lack of sex turns out to be because Blaine lost his virginity at sixteen out of a belief that Sex Equals Love. It then turns out that the guy was never Blaine's boyfriend, and that Blaine tried to invoke Sex Equals Love because his family's Dysfunction Junction was setting in and he was really, really lonely. One year later, Blaine is now Kurt's painfully considerate boyfriend... because he's petrified not only of hurting Kurt the same way, but of getting hurt again.
  • The Warblers constantly tease Blaine about his But Not Too Gay tendencies, as they're unaware of this. Until the eighteenth chapter.
  • Meta example: "I Am Unicorn" and "The First Time" make the story feel even worse than it does already.
• Arguably The Worst That Could Happen. Even though the whole fic is from Kurt's POV and the reader technically only knows what he knows, the reader can see connections and come to conclusions that Kurt misses for a long time, mostly due to his own well-meaning cluelessness and naivete. It leaves the reader cringing through a high amount of chapters as Kurt first doesn't realize that Dave is in love with him, which in turn means that he doesn't realize that inviting his boyfriend over for the weekend to hang out with them so that Dave gets to see that healthy, gay relationships actually exist is a really bad idea. It also takes him a really long time to realize that he's in love with Dave, which the reader has known for quite a while.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi / The Untamed

• In Gold Poisons, Jiang Yanli suggests that A-Yuan call her “Aunt Yanli" while looking after him. She has no idea that A-Yuan is being raised by her brother, meaning she really is his aunt.

Harry Potter

• The Dogfather is an AU in which baby Harry was adopted by a Muggle couple and grew up under the name Harry MacIntyre.
  • When Minerva McGonagall is compiling the list of new Hogwarts students and sees "Harry MacIntyre" at a Muggle address, she feels sorry for him because having the same name and being the same age as the long-lost Harry Potter are going to make things weird for him at Hogwarts and being a Muggle he won't understand why. She doesn't know that he is the long-lost Harry Potter, or that he's been told his family history by Sirius and Remus and will have a fairly clear idea of why everybody's being weird.
  • The Weasley family have a similar reaction when they meet Harry waiting for the Hogwarts Express, with Ron going so far as to take him aside and give him a short history of Harry Potter's disappearance in attempt to prepare him.
  • Harry wants to know more about what his birth mother was like when she was young, since Sirius and Remus only became friends with her later on, and haven't told him much about her life before that. He decides to find a teacher who's about the same age as Lily and ask if they know of anyone who knew her well and might be willing to share stories about her. The teacher he picks for this purpose is Severus Snape, whose history with Lily he's unaware of.
• Eden, by Obsessmuch: Hermione's son never questions the idea that he is the child of Lucius Malfoy, despite that he looks nothing like Ron Weasley, who raised him like a son. It's more than likely he doesn't want to believe he was fathered by a rapist bigot who murdered his grandparents and tormented his mother. In actuality, while Lucius did rape Hermione, he came to regret it and the two had entered a consensual relationship before he died. She doesn't tell him the truth partially due to heartbreak but also due to a promise by Narcissa to never let the truth be revealed.
• Ginny Weasley and the Heir of Slytherin, which tells Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets from Ginny's perspective, has several ironic Call Forwards. For example, Percy scolds Ginny for using the word "bitch", saying "Ginny, language! What d'you think your mother would think if she were here? Do you think she would ever use a word like "bitch"?"
• The Very Secret Diary: Shows up all over the place, especially early on. We know that Tom is a monster who's only using Ginny, but Ginny has no idea, and innocently loves and trusts him. As a result, a lot of Tom's lines come off as earnest, friendly, and interested to her, but sarcastic, manipulative, and sometimes downright cruel to us. For example:
  Tom: Good. Let me advise you. You know I only want to take care of you.
  Ginny: I know.
  Tom: Such a good girl. So open and trusting. You must allow me to shield you from the world… you must let me suggest what is best… will you do that?
  Ginny: Yes.
  Tom: Then remember that generosity is often a trick used to hurt nice people like you.
  Ginny: I will.

Haruhi Suzumiya

• In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Kyon feels guilty for kissing all the girls in the SOS Brigade through the fic because, even if he cares about them, he feels he's disrespecting them. The girls in the SOS Brigade are aiming for a polyamorous relationship with Kyon by strengthening their relationship as True Companions.

How to Train Your Dragon

• A Thing of Vikings: Valka sees the name Fearless on the memorial Hiccup made for her, and due to most of it being destroyed, sees only the name and assumes it is a monument to humans committing an atrocity against dragons instead of a memorial created by humans in honour of a dragon.

The Hunger Games

• Seta Suzume wrote a story where Snow forces both Gloss and Cashmere into sex slavery by threatening to do the same to the other if they refuse. Neither realizes that both of them are being pimped out, and so both of them comfort each other during moments of depression without knowing that it's being caused by the sex slavery.

KanColle

• Blizzard of the Red Castle has Fubuki, an orphan, looking for her parents. Akagi, it turns out, is her mother. Much yarn is made of this as the fic explores the "behind the scenes" moments in the anime, up to the reveal. Then the irony is shifted to how the satellite characters still don't know.

Kill la Kill

• In Scissor Sisters, Satsuki wishes she could have known the love of her mother. As the author put it:
  The gods of dramatic irony demanded of me a snackrifice for further writing ability.

The Legend of Korra

• Better Off Not Knowing opens with a twelve-year-old schoolgirl reading a newspaper article about the events of the Book 3 finale. While the narrative gradually reveals to the reader that the girl is the biological daughter of the now-incarcerated primary antagonist and the now-deceased Brute of said story arc, she herself is blithely unaware.

The Loud House

• A two-fold occurs in No Such Luck, No Such Love, which centers around an Alternate Timeline where the Loud family knew that Lincoln was lying about being bad luck and they excluded him from activities, made him sleep outside, and sold his stuff to punish him for it. The family, however, forgot to tell him this, so he thinks that they really thought he was bad luck. Conversely, the family forgot that they never told him about it, so they think that he's mad at him because of his punishment, not because of the bad luck and the stuff he goes through. Rita and Lynn Sr. realize this in Chapter 17 when they find out that neither of them discussed the matter with their son because they assumed that the other was going to talk with him.

Love Live!

• The premise of Aqours☆Swap is the idols of Aqours acting like each other, based on season 2, episode 6 of the previous series Love Live!. At the end of the story, the girls realize that pretending to be each other has no real benefits, with Chika thinking there is no way that μ's, the idol group of the previous series, would do anything like this.

Marvel Universe

• born of hell('s kitchen) has Matt and Jess covering their superpowers and refusing to allude to their vigilante second lives in front of their seven-year-old son Peter, as they fear ruining his innocence and pushing him to fear them. Cut to a desponding Peter confessing to his best friend Ned that his birth parents are utterly normal, and because of that Peter will have to hide his nascent superpowers or Matt and Jess will abandon him again.
• Devil's Diary: The final straw which transformed Erik into Magneto was a mob murdering his daughter. Years later, he instigated a mob to attack Wanda Maximoff, unaware that she is his second daughter.
• Take All The Courage has the Avengers rallying around their deaf teammate in front of Daredevil's blatant ableism for refusing to learn sign language and being generally tense around Clint. It's completely horrifying as Matt actually is blind, doesn't know how to act with someone whose handicap is directly opposed to his own, and genuinely tries to fulfill everyone's expectations only to fail due to his lack of ability and being hated for it.

Mass Effect

• Tevos, Saren, and Benezia in Mass Effect: Synthesis believe that humanity is the Obliviously Evil pawns of the Reapers who will bring about the extinction of all sentient life in the galaxy and they must work with the rogue Reaper Sovereign to stop them. In reality, Sovereign is the only Reaper still attempting to continue the Cycle with the rest all devoting themselves to synthesis and determining their new purpose in the universe.

Mega Man

• In Mega Man Reawakened, Wily does not know Megaman is Robert at first, and neither does Tron Bonne.
• Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race:
  • ProtoMan, who doesn't want to kill Mega Man anymore, is forced to train the Mega Man Killers, who are made to kill Mega.
  • Brain Bot is overjoyed when he sees the Stardroids, not knowing that the invaders do not come in peace.
• In Mega Man Recut, this is all over the place in "Future Shock," especially regarding Proto Man's password.

Merlin (2008)

• The Perfect Scry is the classical Arthur-discovers-Merlin-actually-has-magic plot, but done in such a way that Arthur believes he was responsible for awakening Merlin's abilities. Naturally, he angsts much about it and seeks to hide the truth from everyone, including Merlin himself. Lancelot almost laughs himself sick when he hears this.

Miraculous Ladybug

• Alya and the Harem Reality: When meeting with Rena Rouge in chapter 2, Kagami assures Rena that she won't be a complication in the relationship between Ladybug, Rena, and Queen Bee since she is interested in another girl. Said girl is Marinette, who is Ladybug.
• Bakery "Enemies":
  • Marinette (Ladybug) thinks that Adrien (Cat Noir) might be the bearer of the Peacock Miraculous and therefore the greatest potential threat.
  • Of a more heartwarming variety: Alya and Nino help comfort Adrien over the friends he lost contact with. Everyone is unaware that they were in fact those friends.
• Cheshire:
  • Adrien genuinely wants to be Marinette's friend, but his Stunned Silence at the times that Chloe's bullied her convinced Marinette that he is like Chloe. To add to the irony, she is Cheshire, who Adrien as Misterbug want to bring down.
  • Marinette chews out Fu for not saving Pollen from Chloe, and vows not to communicate with him until he can provide Pollen so Marinette can apologize to her. Pollen was not retrieved because Adrien and Fu were trying to find a way to do so without Chloe having another excuse to take it out on Marinette.
• A Hug a Day Keep the Akuma Away:
  • Alya is frustrated over being Akumatized into Lady WiFi again because she missed the sight of Gabriel Agreste acting as a halfway-decent parent to Adrien, especially as it was Adrien being touch starved that caused her Akumatization in the first place. Alya is unaware that Lady WiFi was the reason for Gabriel's change in behavior, having used her power to teleport through his phone while he was Hawkmoth, take his Butterfly Miraculous, and Blackmail him into being a better parent to get it back. She only figures out the truth after finding the Miraculous still in her pocket.
  • After Natalie is defeated as Mayura and knowing the heroes will be coming after him, Gabriel's sole hope is that his son will find out about Emille's comatose state and will become the second Hawkmoth mentioned in the episode "Timetagger" and get revenge on Ladybug and Chat Noir. Adrien is Chat Noir, and when he finds out that his father has kept her a secret and been terrorizing Paris to bring her back, he’s enraged and would’ve Cataclysm’d his own father if Ladybug didn't stop him.
• I See What You Do Behind Closed Doors: When Marinette finally manages to confess her feelings to Adrien, he notices that she looks a lot like Ladybug... and decides to start dating her simply so he can pretend he's with the object of his affections. Since he isn't aware that they're the same person, he continues pursuing Ladybug... even after telling his girlfriend that he's Chat Noir, alerting her to his infidelity. Yet Marinette remains ironically unaware that Adrien never wanted HER, instead believing that he sincerely wanted to date them both rather than using her as a "cheap substitute" for her heroic alter ego.
• The Karma of Lies:
  • Adrien spends the entirety of the story being hit by Laser-Guided Karma that was originally meant for Lila Rossi; since he kept protecting her from the consequences of her actions, that karmic backlash lands upon him instead. However, he remains completely oblivious to this, despite being constantly warned; as the consequences come rolling in, he keeps making matters worse for himself. The Epilogue notes that he still doesn't realize that everything that unfolded was his own fault, much less that he brought Lila's karma down on his own head.
  • Alya and Nino flag Ladybug down and ask when they'll get to be superheroes again, unaware that Marinette no longer trusts them due to how they betrayed her. They then start complaining about Chloe acting entitled to the Bee, unaware that they just acted the same way about 'their' Miraculi, that part of the reason they've lost her trust is their own entitled attitudes, or that Chloe has actually had a Heel Realization and is trying to become a better person.
• In-canon, Marinette is famous for being a klutz. In Lady Fairy, Marinette has much more grace despite being blind, managing to guess where objects are despite her disability. Nooroo and Master Fu claim that this is a sign that she has her own magic.
• Never to Be: After Ladybug tries yet again to make clear to Chat Noir that she's not and will never be interested in a Relationship Upgrade, he follows her and overhears that she's gotten engaged, throwing a massive hissy fit over the news and rage-quitting. When Adrien subsequently learns about Marinette's own engagement to Luka, he congratulates the happy couple. All three are unaware of the secret identities involved; after Adrien leaves, Marinette even quietly remarks on how relieved she is that he took the news better than Chat Noir did.
• In One Hell of a Groupchat, Nino has a "kill list" containing three people: Adrien's dad, Hawkmoth, and Chat Noir's dad... of course, these "three people" are, in fact, all the same person.
• Papa Bear: When Adrien and Marinette find Hawkmoth's lair in the Agreste house, revealing to them that Gabriel, Adrien's father, is the biggest villain in Paris, Tom does all he can to try and calm them down while thinking to himself that dealing with people such as Gabriel/Hawkmoth is better left to heroes like Ladybug and Cat Noir, not teenagers like Adrien and Marinette. If he only knew...
• In Scarlet Lady's episode "Reverser", Marinette finds a book written by Marc, titled "The Diary of Ladybug", and wonders who Ladybug is. As it turns out, it's how Marc figures Marigold (Marinette's Alter Ego) would be - in other words, Marinette's canon character.
• A Small but Stubborn Fire:
  • Sabine sees Ladybug as an avatar of hope that Hawkmoth will eventually be defeated, wanting that for her daughter... while unaware that Ladybug is her daughter, who's been struggling under the weight of trying to be an Ideal Heroine and bring down the supervillain.
  • When their conversation brings up Cat Noir rejecting Marinette's feelings back in "Weredad" Sabine points out to Tom that Cat Noir is in love with Ladybug. What chance does their daughter have against a woman in a skintight outfit?
  • Sabine thinking she should teach Marinette some martial arts so she can defend herself. If only she knew what her daughter could actually do.
  • Sabine compliments that through the connections that her daughter has made that Paris practically revolves around Marinette. Paris also relies on Marinette's role as Ladybug to keep them safe.
  • When Tom is hesitant about Sabine going to talk to Nathalie about if anything has happened to Marinette during her internship due to the woman’s coldness, Sabine writes it off and tells him that Nathalie isn’t a villain. Little does she know that she works for Hawk Moth.
  • Sabine talking to her about what it would be like for Nathalie if Adrien was ever recruited as a temporary hero, likely in regard to her own fears of Marinette doing the same thing. Of course, both kids are Cat Noir and Ladybug.
  • Nathalie thinks that Adrien being in a relationship with Marinette would be much better than is obsession with Ladybug.
  • Sabine approves the prospect of Marinette having a relationship with Adrien because he is such a good kind boy, but she disapproves a relationship with Cat Noir thinking him to be a Casanova Wannabe. Doesn't help that Marinette snuck him into her room late at night.
  • After finding out that Marinette is Ladybug, Sabine is unable to sleep and remarks next time instead of coffee that someone should just tell her that Cat Noir is a kid she knows.
• In A True Hero Of Paris, when Lila Rossi tries to accuse him of sexually harassing her, Gabriel Agreste decides it's time to cut all ties with her and releases evidence of her collaborating with Hawk Moth (a.k.a. himself). As a result, he ends up hailed as a hero by all of Paris for exposing Lila as a terrorist's accomplice, up to Ladybug herself awarding him a medal...all while everyone is none the wiser that he was the terrorist Lila was working for. He has to keep himself from laughing at the sheer irony during the awards ceremony.
• In Unmasker Unleashed, Cat Noir is unable to bring himself to fight an akumatized Marinette. He thinks he just has to hold out until Ladybug arrives, believing that she will be able to get through to Marinette. Obviously, that isn't going to happen because Marinette is Ladybug.
• Who You Know revolves around Lila claiming that she can arrange an exclusive meeting with the hot new fashion designer MDC, whose identity is shrouded in mystery. Frustrated by Marinette seemingly rejecting this opportunity, Alya decides to seize it for herself, blissfully unaware that Marinette Dupain-Cheng is MDC. Even when Marinette tells her this outright, Alya refuses to believe it, lecturing her about the importance of having connections in their respective dream careers and how she shouldn't reject an opportunity just because of who's offering it... while rejecting the opportunity that her 'best friend' is trying to offer.
• This collaborative work has Adrien attempt to avoid exposing Lila as a liar when challenged by Felix in front of the whole class, as he realizes that his friends would be outraged if they knew about his Betrayal by Inaction. They wind up furious with him anyway when Marinette reveals how he'd previously assured her that he'd known Lila was lying... because they mistakenly believe that he'd lied to her in order to manipulate her into doing what he wanted.

Monster Girl Quest

• The Tyrant and the Hero:
  • A group of human lumberjacks talk about how monsters are becoming more active and approaching closer to human villages than usual, unaware that they're being overheard by a particular monster.
  • While trying to cheer Heinrich up, Black Alice says that he could become a legendary hero whose name will be known by everyone. The reader already knows that this will happen from the prologue of the story.
  • Black Alice, after sneaking out of their inn room, hopes that Heinrich is sleeping well. The section immediately prior to this had Heinrich notice her sneaking out.

My Hero Academia

• Dekugate: Nitta Mari correctly notes that it is extremely suspicious that All Might would claim for a decade that his child is Quirkless and then that child suddenly manifests an extremely powerful Quirk at an unusually late age, and that Izuku's sudden appearance on the hero scene matches up a little too neatly with All Might's retirement. However, instead of figuring out the true explanation, she instead takes this as evidence for her conspiracy theory that Izuku is not actually All Might's child, but instead an actor of some kind set up by the Hero Commission.
• Frequently appears in the For the Want of a Nail Series:
  • In Deku? I think he's some pro..., All for One decides to attempt to recruit an anonymous publishing articles about the hero system's faults, thinking they can be convinced to fight the system more violently... not knowing that the writer is Deku, the boy he's planning to kill.
  • In Mastermind: Strategist for Hire, the police believe Villain Protagonist Mastermind may have some kind of analysis Quirk that lets him create the plans he sells to villains; as the readers know, Mastermind, being Izuku Midoriya, is Quirkless.
  • In Shadows: The Horror Movie Heroes, All Might is impressed by the kid who scared away the sludge villain using the villain's fear of him, and wishes he knew who the kid was so that he could offer them One For All, but was certain that they would become a fantastic hero on their own. What he doesn't know is that it's the same quirkless kid that he said couldn't be a hero not half an hour ago.
• I am [REDACTED]: During his emotional confrontation with Katsuki in Chapter Five, Izuku points out that the person Katsuki is really mad at is Nimbus, not him, and that Katsuki is just using Izuku as an outlet. Of course, as the readers and Izuku himself know, Izuku is Nimbus, so Katsuki is technically channeling his anger at the right person, just at the wrong time and for the wrong reason.
• In Karma in Retrograde, Touya doesn't recognize Dabi at first, telling Aizawa that whoever Dabi is, he looks like the walking dead. He also scoffs at how edgy Dabi's name is. He learns a minute later that Dabi is him.
  Touya: [in his head] What the fuck kind of name was 'Dabi'? It sounded like it was made-up by someone who was trying to be edgy.
• Null and Void (NevaraRaven):
  • Iida is one of the hero students who's most against Izuku and the Villain Team, both because of how militantly he is towards the heroic ideal and because Izuku is quirkless (and therefore views him being involved as irresponsible), completely unaware that Izuku is also the vigilante that saved him from the Hero Killer.
  • After meeting Izuku, Aizawa remarks to himself that "Null and him are very similar and should never meet", unaware that they are actually the same person.
• Origin of a Non-Hero:
  • Izuku wanted nothing more than to become a Pro Hero, but was convinced that it was impossible due to his Quirklessness — until his idol granted him a Quirk and the chance to fulfill his dreams. Years later, his son Shikinori wants absolutely nothing to do with Heroes after having to deal with both of his parents putting their work first, to the point that he's desperate to have his Quirk removed in order to escape the pressure to follow in their footsteps.
  • As hard as he fought to save Shouto from his father's stifling expectations, Izuku unintentionally makes his son miserable with his own presumptions — because after all, why wouldn't his son want to help him out?
  • Shikinori wants his Quirk removed because he's convinced that it's the only way to convince his formerly Quirkless father to let things lie. Ultimately, when Izuku thinks that he's gone through with it, his knee-jerk response is planning to give him One For All, even though that would just massively intensify the pressure for Shiki to go Pro.
• In Peace's Apprentice Aizawa considers Izuku breaking his finger during the softball throw reason enough to expel him on the grounds of not having enough potential to be a hero in what's essentially an extremely transparent attempt to make room in the Hero Course for his protegé, Shinso. The domino effect of this decision results in a much worse USJ incident, where not only Bakugo accidentally killed Mineta, but Kaminari accidentally killed a dozen villains in the Flood Zone, which leaves him so shaken he abandons the Hero Course. Not only these events leave more vacancies in the Hero Course, but Shinso got his vocal chords so damaged during the attack that he could no longer use his Quirk anymore and transfers back to General Studies, meaning that everything Aizawa did to ensure Shinso's future as a Pro Hero (and all the people he screwed in the way) was for nothing.
• Rise of the Last Villain: The training camp recruits aren't initially told about Izuku's quirklessness. Instead, they're treated to a game: guess Izuku's quirk in 2 guesses or less, and you get to make one wish, as long as it doesn't interfere with the league's goals. Himiko ends up guessing it after she and Izuku take down Overhaul. She asks for a date with Izuku.
• In the Sleeper Hit AU, Aizawa expels the Quirkless Izuku from U.A. on his very first day, fudging the results of his test in order to 'justify' booting him out. One of the main reasons why he did this was to ensure that there was room in his class once Shinsou qualified for the Hero Course. By the time the Sports Festival rolls around, however, other vacancies have been created due to Asui and Mineta suffering Death by Adaptation during the USJ attack. Aizawa himself considers this to be his greatest failure, wondering whether having Midoriya's sharp mind around would have made any difference.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• Diaries of a Madman: Discord occasionally interjects to address the reader directly, and provides information that the main characters are unaware of. He doesn't always tell the truth, however.
• Friendship is Witchcraft: Sweetie Belle, who is very obviously a robot, accuses Rarity of being one because of her heartlessness and her taking acting lessons.
• Hinterlands: The forest ranger Catskill is escorting out-of-her-depth Amanita to the Crystal Empire; unbeknownst to her, Amanita is a skilled necromancer. Meanwhile, the bounty hunter team chasing after Amanita assume she's killed and enthralled Catskill to use as an undead servant.
• Just Before the Dawn: The narrative regularly switches around between characters, resulting in the reader being far more informed than the cast at several points.
• The Life and Times of a Winning Pony:
  • The Lunar Rebellion: In a last-ditch attempt to keep Shadow from defecting to Celestia's cause at the beginning of the eponymous civil war, Cyclone says that if she does, the Kickers will forever be remembered as "blackguards and betrayers, lead into infamy by a madmare". In the Winningverse's present, as established well before this story was posted, the Kickers are remembered as the only clan that remained loyal during the Rebellion, and Shadow is one of Equestria's greatest heroes.
  • The Freeport Venture: After Sunset falls out with Celestia and runs away to Freeport, the Equestrian Intelligence Service is assigned to keep tabs on Sunset on the off-chance she might go off the deep end and, say, return to Equestria as a false alicorn at the head of an army of brainwashed minions or something like that.
    Sunset Shimmer: "Yeah, there’s no way that would ever happen."
• My Choices: Twisted Tales Through Time: "Celestia, listen to me. Twilight Sparkle is not Blue Star." In Chapter 11, Luna talks her sister out of a fit of paranoia where, after noticing that Blue Star and Twilight are identical in everything but color, Celestia comes to the conclusion that her student is some sort of reincarnation or magical construct come to continue the corrupted Darklight's work. Luna states that this is ridiculous and mere coincidence. The irony is that Blue Star and Twilight are indeed the same person — or, at least, instances of the same person, as Blue Star was a name used by Twilight after traveling to and becoming stuck in the past.
• Past Sins: Twilight is afraid that Celestia will take her daughter away. Celestia is afraid that an Eldritch Abomination is loose in her kingdom, plotting to overthrow her and her sister, and bring about nighttime eternal. Celestia's knee-jerk reaction to her fear resulted in both their fears coming true.

Naruto

• Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison: This gets Played With when Gai gets a POV section during the Chuunin Exams. He observes that Sakura's likely making a lot of enemies by challenging the status quo and holding her own against clan kids, hoping that his Eternal Rival will provide the support she'll need to deal with those who will try to tear her down. Readers already know that Kakashi has long since lost any trust Sakura once placed in him, due to being an Apathetic Teacher and Anti-Mentor who's used her accomplishments to motivate Naruto and Sasuke by taunting them about being beaten by a girl. However, this also serves as Foreshadowing that Kakashi will start paying more attention to what's going on and making more effort to help, showing that Gai's faith in him isn't completely misplaced.
• A Case Study in the Sturdiness of the Rookie 9: Ino blames Sakura and Shino for corrupting Chouji and forcing him to go along with their plan to betray Team 7 in the Forest of Death. The reader knows that Chouji was actually the one to suggest that plan, though he felt guilty about it.
• The premise of Grief Not Silent is that Mikoto Uchiha goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Iwagakure after the death of her little brother Obito following the Kanabi Bridge mission. Anyone familiar with canon knows that at that point, Obito is still alive but in Madara's clutches.
• Son of the Sannin has several of these in relation to canon:
  • In Chapter 16, after Zabuza returns from completing the Land of Waves mission, he tells Jiraiya that Tazuna would be dead before completing his bridge if Gato had hired him.
  • In chapter 51, Kankuro compares his father's anger over Konoha and Kiri's alliance to being similar to how Konoha would feel if he had teamed up with Orochimaru behind their backs.
    Jiraiya: Honestly, I can't picture that.
  • Kurenai in chapter 89 reveals that she considered sealing Yakumo's powers altogether so she wouldn't pose a danger to anybody, and Yakumo says she should have done exactly that. Anybody familiar with the anime knows how well that turned out, of course.
  • In chapter 106, Kin comments how it's likely that they would have ended up as an Impure World Reincarnation zombie if she, Zaku, and Dosu had stayed under Orochimaru. Anko says that it's far more likely that they would have been used as one of the sacrifices instead.
• The Line Is Not Broken: Naruto keeps on calling Tsunade "Granny". Unbeknownst to him, but not to her, she really is his grandmother.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

• HERZ: In chapter 2 Asuka ponders about her life’s several ironies: she had missed her mother terribly, but her mother had been always there and she had been unable to find her, open up and feel her love because Kyoko’s death had driven her to shut her heart; and she owed her family and her current happiness to two women she hardly considered as friends.
  Asuka leaned into the kiss. She had lost much and suffered terribly, but from the ashes, she had risen anew. She had also gained so much. Things she had not dared to hope for in the past, a past that seemed like a lifetime ago. The irony of it all. Owing so much to two women she hardly considered as friends.
• The One I Love Is...: After Asuka runs away, a depressed Shinji notes how ironic it is that he -a self-proclaimed coward and wimp- stood his ground as she -who had always been brave and indomitably stubborn- runs away.
• In The Second Try, when trying to play her old role in "Repeat", Asuka realizes that her claims of being a grownup, her attempts to seem it and her demands to be treated like such not only proved that she was still a child but also made her seeming even more childish. Sadly, she has to keep the masquerade instead of behaving like the adult she is now.
  • This is especially seen whenever we are in the perspective of another character, in which the genuine affection between Asuka and Shinji is often misunderstood.

NieR

• Tower of Babel assumes that the readers are already familiar with the many revelations of the original game and doesn’t even try to hide anything. The characters, however, are missing a lot of information, starting from the entirety of Project Gestalt, all the way to the identity of the overseers.

One Piece

• This Bites!
  • The Self-Insert Cross only has knowledge of the series up to the end of Dressrosa, which was the latest arc when he was sent to the One Piece world. This means that any information revealed afterwards is completely unknown, especially in regards for Sanji. Cross believes that the embarrassing past that Sanji was worried of him knowing was that he used to be a picky eater before meeting Zeff, instead of being abused by his father and brothers before running away to the East Blue. He also unknowingly upsets Sanji by saying that the Germa 66 might not be as bad as the Marine Propaganda describes them as, with Sanji knowing first-hand that they are that cruel.
  • At the end of the Enies Lobby arc, Cross is warned by Aokiji to beware the Blackbeard Pirates, and rushes to check the Vivre Card that Ace gave Luffy to see if Ace was captured like in canon despite Cross's efforts to warn him. To his relief, the Vivre Card is still intact, and Cross spends a few more arcs thinking that Ace was safe and that the War of the Best was prevented. In actuallity, while Ace and his allies were about to defeat Blackbeard, Aokiji had froze the battlefield and allowed Blackbeard to win. To ensure none of Ace's Vivre Cards revealed what had happened to him, he was kept in a coma until they were ready to announce his execution.
• In To Protect Everything, Nami (a Marine in this story) opposes the Shichibukai idea, citing how she'd never trust a pirate.

The Owl House

• This MoringMark comic has late-season one era Amity coming across a time pool and getting pissed off when she sees Luz making out with a purple haired girl on the other side, completely unaware that said girl is actually her future self.

• “My Brother Cain, My Brother Abel”: While on his way to what he believes to be his execution, Caleb wonders whether he will be given a Christian Burial or if his body will be left out to rot. He desperately hopes he gets some sort of burial so his body is not picked apart by scavengers. Even though he manages to escape execution, his body ends up getting picked apart by his own brother in order to make Grimwalkers.

Persona Franchise

• Hours 'Verse:
  • After encountering an early Mementos, Elizabeth thinks that the distortions won't be much of a problem and that Igor can handle it. Persona 5 has him ousted from his own Velvet Room, replaced by an imposter, and one of his attendants split into two amnesiac halves.
  • When Wakaba hears about how the people involved in the SEBEC incident and the Inaba murders were children, she says that she doesn't want Futaba to be caught up in anything like that. Unfortunately, her death will be the very thing to pull Futaba into this mess.
  • At one point, the Phantom Thieves consider the possibility that Haru is the traitor. However, the reader who has known all along it's Akechi, laughs (or screams) along with him at their stupidity.
  • During the third semester in Monarch's Cascade, Minato and Hamuko elect not to inform Akechi that something weird is going on with Mitsuru's father seemingly coming Back from the Dead and Shinjiro getting a college partnership for his restaurant. The audience is aware that Akechi is in Tokyo and already has a better understanding of the situation than they do. Subverted by the reveal that the Akechi in Tokyo is a cognitive duplicate, and the real Akechi was still in Iwatodai.
• In One Year, Yu Narukami gets a confession from his old friend, Sakura, and since he's in a relationship with Yukiko already, he decides to refuse her. The next chapter is from the POV of the confessor, who is nervous about how things will go and oblivious to Yu being in a relationship.
• In the Peggy Sue fic series Start Again, several characters see Akechi wandering around doing his thing and worry that he's going to be a threat that needs to be dealt with. They are unaware that during the events of the first entry, The Count of Monte Cristo, Haru came back from the future, and her actions led to Akechi pulling a Heel–Face Turn and never getting involved in the Conspiracy in the first place.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

• Dirty Sympathy:
  • Phoenix compliments Apollo and Klavier for putting their personal feelings aside and sending Kristoph, Apollo's mentor, and Daryan, Klavier's bandmate, to prison despite their close relationship. The audience knows that Apollo and Klavier framed Kristoph and Daryan.
  • Daryan expects Klavier to get him off murder charge that he's accused of, not knowing that Klavier is the one that framed him and fully intends to throw him under the bus.
• In The Mystery of Phoenix Wright's Family, Phoenix tells his friends that he never brought up his family to them because he thought they didn't compared to the mysteries theirs do, and that he's the only member in his family to become an attorney. Meanwhile, the ghost of his ancestors Ryuunosuke and Susato Naruhodo, both lament that he doesn't know about his heritage and how they were attorneys themselves.

Pokémon

• In Jessica, Cameron forgets about the significance of the name "Jessica" after he destroys his Pokémon Yellow cartridge. He just "gets this feeling whenever [he sees] a member of the 'chu family."
• In Pokémon Master, this trope is invoked when Brock decides he'll force a mind-controlled Ash to kill Misty. He shouts "Now you'll be killed for your lover himself. How dramatic irony!"
• All over the place in Pokémon Reset Bloodlines and its sidestories:
  • In the main story, when Iris breaks down for not being able to save her family from Hunter J, Misty feels at unease as she realizes that, had she been in Iris' position, she'd be cheering instead of crying, given the way her family always treated her. She's still unaware that her sisters were kidnapped by the Bloodline King to breed more Bloodliner children.
  • Later, Belladonna might have succeeded in killing Aurora's father Tokiomi for betraying her, but she's still unaware that Aurora didn't really want her father dead, and only followed through with the plan out of fear of being left alone.
  • In the Snivy Interlude, the Samurai dismissed Snivy as useless because she wasn't a Bug-type, not knowing that she had Leaf Storm and Contrary.
  • In the Jeanette Interlude, A.J. tells Jeanette that he always wanted to meet a Bloodliner. He doesn't know that Ash, Misty and Iris are Bloodliners.
  • In the Big P Pokemon Race Interlude, Lara and Hex are revealed to be Bloodliners, and the former wishes they had more Bloodliner friends, not realising they already do in Ash and Co.
  • In the Ritchie Gaiden, it's revealed that due to catching a fever, Ritchie was unable to attend Professor Oak's Summer Camp, missing a chance to possibly meet and even befriend Ash early on in this timeline.
  • In the Ultima Interlude, William Stronger is firmly convinced of being on a divine mission to eradicate bloodliners. Unbeknownst to him, the Mars Gaiden later reveals that the one who spurred him into it is basically the equivalent of the Devil.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

• In chapter 16 of Resonance Days, the heroes (Kyoko, Oktavia, Mami, and Charlotte) are lost and taken in by the Persephone's Protectorate, a paramilitary group who are working to combat a slaving syndicate in the region. Since the slavers control the only way out of the valley, they end up agreeing to help the Protectorate take them down. Then the next chapter flips the perspective to Kyoko's Arch-Enemy Annabelle Lee, who was taken in by said slavers and it's revealed that the so-called slavers are a humanitarian organization, while Persephone's Protectorate are the actual slavers, and their leader has a potent Compelling Voice that prevents her followers from realizing what they're doing is wrong.
• The Soulmate Timeline:
  • Madoka doesn't believe she's anything special despite getting a soul mark that has five diamonds on it (one for her, four for the other Puella Magi) and that she has the highest magical potential of all Puella Magi. In the same chapter, Doctor Aiuchi states that Homura is delicate and sickly and hopes that she's not exhausting herself...just as the next scene has her firing a gun at a witch.
  • When telling Sayaka about how if she has to contract, it should be for something she won't regret afterwards, Homura talks about how she met a Magical Girl who wished to save a cat's life. Sayaka can't help but think that example sounds like something Madoka would be willing to do, not realizing that's exactly how Madoka became a Magical Girl in Homura's original timeline.
  • The fire set at a church named after Tart (Joan of Arc) that was set on fire was not actually aimed at killing a 'Witch' at all.
  • After Nanaka presses Matsuri on the details of Arisa's vision due to its similarity to Iroha's and learning it was about the salvation of Magical Girls instead of a missing sister, Meiyui starts thinking about hypothetical siblings of other Magical Girls. Matsuri is one of the ones where she thinks a sister like her would be a good thing and a sister unlike her would be a bad thing. She also believes that Kagari is likely not related to anyone. As readers of Puella Magi Suzune Magica would know, Kagari is Matsuri's Evil Twin.
  • Kyoko thinks that she must of really scared off Mayumi when she hasn't seen her make an attempt to get back into Mitakihara, not knowing that Mayumi is already dead after having turned into the Swan Witch that Hitomi and Akasuki defeated.
• In The Unlikely Ally, Kyubey spends his tenure when the girls still trust him telling Mami, Madoka, and Sayaka that Key (an Incubator who has emotions and is trying to combat Kyubey) is mentally unstable and in need of treatment. As per Kyubey, he's not lying from his own perspective. He does succeed in coloring the girl's views of Homura and Key for awhile.

Real-Person Fic

• This trope is all over With Strings Attached thanks to the presence of the Fans, whose comments are known to the reader but not to the four, even after the four start interacting with them! Of course, the fact that the Fans lie to the four about many things doesn't help. They lie to each other, too. In fact, the whole plot is one big example of Dramatic Irony, since the four think they've been sent to C'hou, empowered, and sent on the Vasyn quest by the C'hovite gods, when it's perfectly clear to the reader that the Fans initially sent them over as part of a class experiment (which went askew) and were behind most of the empowerment and the quest. (Though the C'hovite gods did have some hand in what happened.) Actually, no, they didn't, though finding this out is a Wham Line, not Dramatic Irony.

Reborn

• In Odd Job Tsuna, Nana tries to convince Tsuna and Spanner that she doesn't want any illegal money after seeing how much money is in their bank account, which the narrative describes as ironic considering all that money was made legally while her husband works in the mafia.

RWBY

• Children of Remnant:
  • Blake goes in and out of the first conversation with her parents convinced that she manipulated them into feeling sorry for her, all while she doesn't care. The very next section has Kali reveal that she could see right through her, and it pushes her to attempt to assassinate her.
  • Ruby models her social behavior after Emerald, who she believes to be an incredibly confident social expert. The audience is aware that this couldn't be further from the truth, and every social situation Emerald is in absolutely terrifies her.
  • James accuses Ozpin of lying when he says that Ironwood's plan to kill Salem will only work because the world will be destroyed with her. While Ozpin is well known for stretching or hiding the truth when he feels the need to, the audience knows that he really is telling the truth.
• A staple of Couer Al'Aran's works is having characters, often Jaune Arc, get something horribly wrong for laughs.
  • In Null, Jaune, who's on the run from a very powerful and influential Atlesian Government Conspiracy, believes that General Ironwood who's part of the manhunt against Jaune is an enemy who's in the conspiracy's pocket. The reader, however, knows that Ironwood is actually one of the very few people with real power in Atlas who is on Jaune's side and wants to bring the conspiracy down.
  • Professor Arc has several characters wonder about what life would be like if Jaune had become a student at Beacon like he intended, picturing him as the cool, popular guy everyone looked up to, not knowing he'd actually be the Butt-Monkey.
  • In the Peggy Sue fic Relic Of The Future a time displaced Jaune Arc decides to avoid large alterations to the past so that he won't invalidate his knowledge of future events. The reader however knows that by the time he's decided this he's already prevented Summer Rose's death.
  • Jaune and Roman both talk about how troublesome "cats" are in Service with a Smile, having no idea that they're both talking about the trouble Blake has caused for them.
  • White Sheep:
    • A lot of the plot comes from no one knowing Jaune is half-Grimm and the humanoid Grimm "Hentacle", particularly Ozpin's faction wondering what Hentacle and Salem want with Jaune, believing he must have some amazing/unusual power that's a threat to their plans. In reality, all Salem wants from Jaune is for her son to come home and give her lots of grandbabies.
    • Early on, the teams mention how odd it is that Qrow, a shameless skirt chaser, apparently never actually gets any girls. Nora concludes "either he's the unluckiest man alive, or he's gay." Qrow in fact is the unluckiest man alive.
• I Can Almost Hear The Hounds Bookends itself with two examples of dramatic irony. It begins with Yang struggling to function at Beacon while still grieving her "dead" sister, and ends with Cinder confidently declaring that losing The Hound was a minor setback and Ozpin couldn't possibly have figured out she's Salem's agent.

Sailor Moon

• In this comic, Sailor Venus admits to Princess Serenity, who is upset that Venus is so formal with her, that while Serenity is her dearest friend, she can never let herself relax in the princess's presence lest she fail to protect her and that she doesn't think that will ever change. Then the final panel cuts to their Reincarnations in full Vitriolic Best Buds mode with Serena whining that Minako stole her food. This plays as a heartwarming moment as Serenity got what she wanted but also a Tear Jerker because neither of them realize just how meaningful this change is.

The Smurfs

• The Smurfs That Canon Forgot:
  • Farmer, Tailor and Harmony are the most outspoken opponents of Scaredy and his faction adopting increasingly extreme measures to defend their village against threats like Gargamel, berating them for going against the more peaceful methods typically favored by Smurfs. However, they cause no small amount of strife themselves with their protests, escalating the conflict to the point where the Smurfs are physically fighting each other... and ultimately, all three are involved in trashing Scaredy's home and terrorizing him, threatening even worse violence if he steps any further into the role of leader.
  • Late in the story, it's Dreamy's panicked shout of Gargamel's name that alerts him to the fact that some of the Smurfs are nearby. Gargamel is also so intent upon getting away from the Smurfs before they can hurt him again that he winds up going right over the side of a cliff in his haste.
  • In the sequel, Smurf Village Upturned, Brainy is granted the gift of Insight, allowing him to see into the character and potential of all of his fellow Smurfs... but not his own, a fact that drives him to no end of distraction and grief.
  • Brainy's glasses are later broken, rendering him practically unable to see aside from discerning light from dark. This leads to him mistaking a glow for the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel; in reality, this is actually from Papa Smurf passing on. In other words, Papa is dying right before his eyes, but Brainy can't see that it's happening, much less do anything about it.

A Song of Ice and Fire

• Robb Returns:
  • Just before his trial by combat, Baelish smirks when remembering Brandon Stark's death in the latter's father's "trial by combat" against Aerys the Mad's champion — fire. Probably what was in Jon Arryn's mind when he got Littlefinger to wear heavy armor before handing him a heavy axe and sending him against his champion — the sea.
  • Upon meeting Gendry, Robert wonders why Joffrey had to look so much like a Lannister. The readers obviously know why.
• Dragonstone:
  • The story starts when Robert Baratheon decides to grant the eponymous island to Ned Stark's illegitimate son Jon... who's actually Rhaegar Targaryen's last surviving son and as such, entitled to the title "Prince of Dragonstone" as the rightful Crown Prince.
  • When Olenna rages over Margaery's betrothal to Jon, she muses her granddaughter deserves a king for a husband, not some crass Northern illegitimate son. Jon does have Northern blood since he is also the son of Lyanna Stark, but he is also acknowledged as the true King of the Seven Kingdoms since birth, so Margaery will end up a queen after all.

Sonic the Hedgehog

• Little Hands, Big Attitude:
  • The Wachowskis assume that the alien newborn they found has a mother who's probably looking for him. What they don't know is that the infant is the god Mephiles brought down to a mortal, so he doesn't have parents.
  • The Wachowskis, not knowing who Mephiles is, give him the name "Obsidian Phillip Wachowski" after they adopt him, having no idea that it's a Meaningful Name to him. "Obsidian" to them was just a reference to his fut colour, but to Mephiles it's a reference to Iblis (Mephiles' other half) being connected to volcanoes, and "Phillip" shares a common syllabe with his real name, which is why he had a visible reaction to it.
  • Kaia, the creator of the Chaos Emeralds, has no idea what happened to them after the Echidnas stole them from her. She didn't even know that the Echidnas were enemies with the Owls. Sonic and Kncukles have to sit down and explain everything to her.
  • When Kaia tells Tom that Obsidian created an illusionary dreamscape, Tom assumes that he created some surreal Sugar Bowl setting based on the toddler TV shows he watches. Except that Obsidian is mentally an adult - the scene immediately cuts to Obsidian showing Knuckles and Tails how Maria was murdered.
  • GUN thinks that the one responsible for the empty parking lot being blown up is Shadow. While Shadow was at the location at the time of the explosion, the ones behind it was The Guild, erasing evidence of their presence.
  • A GUN agent calls Agent Towers "Commander [Walter's] Pet". Towers thinks to himself that he (Towers) was the one who convinced the GUN exacutives to remove Walters from the Green Hills case, so Walters definitely hates him now.
• In Prison Island Break, Shadow and Silver find out they're father and son at roughly the same time, but can't bear to tell the other for fear of rejection - even though the reader knows they'd probably embrace it. Shadow starts treating Silver like a son (teaching and protecting him), while Silver starts taking on some of Shadow's stronger traits - ironically because Shadow is being kinder to him. But neither knows the other knows.

Star Wars

• Double Agent Vader gets a lot of dramatic irony out of the fact that Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader is the highly-placed Rebel mole Ekkreth is Padme Amidala's husband is Luke and Leia's father, with very few people knowing more than one of those identities and nobody including Anakin himself knowing all of them. There's a reason why five (at current count) of these fics are tagged with 'truly ridiculous amounts of dramatic irony'.
  • After Senator Leia Organa becomes the Rebels' contact with Ekkreth, they become friends. Leia starts to see Ekkreth as a second father figure, and Ekkreth to see Leia as a daughter figure. Leia is not aware that Ekkreth is her father, and Ekkreth isn't even aware that he has a daughter. He's noticed that she has the same name he intended to give his first daughter, but is convinced it's just a coincidence.
  • Leia has a recurring dream of Padme, the mother she never knew in life. Once she finds out that she's Force sensitive, she correctly guesses that she's the daughter of a Jedi, but assumes because of the dream that it was her mother. During one of the dreams she remarks to Padme that she thinks Padme would have liked Ekkreth if they'd ever met.
  • At one point, a Rebel agent named Fulcrum gets assistance from Leia to keep Vader away from an operation Fulcrum is running. Leia and Ekkreth are amused by the irony that, unknown to Fulcrum, it's Vader himself taking on the task of distracting Vader. Unknown to any of them, there's an additional irony in the situation: Anakin never learns that Fulcrum is his old friend Ahsoka, nor Ahsoka that Leia's friend Ekkreth is her old friend Anakin.
  • Leia reveals to Luke that she's Force sensitive, so she can teach him what Ekkreth has taught her, and having that in common, as well as the fact that they've both been left alone after the Empire killed their families, leads them to form a close bond and adopt each other as Family of Choice, unaware that they're family by birth as well.
  • Luke and Leia have conversations about Luke's famous father Anakin Skywalker without being aware that he's Leia's father too, or that he's Ekkreth/Vader.
  • Ekkreth insists that Leia tell him nothing about the Force-sensitive pilot who destroyed the Death Star, so that there's no danger of him betraying anything to the Empire, so she doesn't tell him that the pilot's name is Luke Skywalker, which he would have immediately realized the implications of. Likewise, she doesn't tell Luke the name of her teacher in the ways of the Force, which would have triggered a similar revelation, because Luke would have recognized the name "Ekkreth" from Tatooine mythology and known that, at the very least, Ekkreth is somebody who knew his father.
• The Sith Lord Who Brought Life Day is about an Imperial officer who loses a bet and has to give a Life Day present to Lord Vader. The reader has a far better understanding of what the present ends up meaning to Vader than the character does.
• Tarkin's Fist: Major Eritech is a zealous supporter of Emperor Palpatine and the Empire's New Order. Eritech was born on Coruscant and his parents were killed in a terrorist attack by the Separatists during the Clone Wars. Palpatine was secretly in control of the Separatist movement, and any Separatist attack on Coruscant could only have occurred with Palpatine's go-ahead.

Steven Universe

• In What Might Have Been, White, Yellow and Blue gave Pink her second pearl with the intent of helping Pink become a leader. It’s unlikely that they were expecting her to become the leader of a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits in direct opposition of the Empire.

Supernatural

• In Perfect Words, Gabriel wants to make a good impression on his crush, so he delays and delays talking to him, trying to think of a romantic way to introduce himself. He ends up blurting something out while asleep in the hospital, embarrassing himself more than if he'd simply said "Hello".

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)

• Snow Blind: While he eventually realizes that the Nightwatcher won't hurt him (since he saved him, treated his stab wound and brought him somewhere safe to recover), Donnie doesn't dare let his guard down and notes to himself that he'd feel more at ease if one of is brothers was there. He doesn't realize that the Nightwatcher is Raphael.

Thomas & Friends

• In Thomas' Fuzzy Friend, Thomas tells the stray dog that's riding with him that it has to meet Emily sometime, unaware that it already has met Emily.

Transformers

• In Pondering, Pondering, Ratchet starts suffering Domestic Abuse from who he thinks is Optimus. What he doesn't know (but the readers do) is that "Optimus" is really Makeshift, who has taken Optimus's place in order to gain intel on the Autobots, and the real Optimus is being held prisoner by the Decepticons.
• Transformers Mosaic: The Night When Sentinel Prime was Killed: Starscream is sent to recover the mech who assassinated Sentinel Prime, and happens to save him from the guards who were chasing him to arrest him. Grateful, the mech vows that he shall never forget this, and Starscream dismisses the thought that someone's gratitude would ever do him any good. Unbeknownst to Starscream, the mech just so happens to be Megatron, and said gratitude will be the only thing stopping him from permanently terminating Starscream for his treachery.

Undertale

• In-Universe with Inverted Fate, where Flowey, Chara, and the reader are the only ones who knew of the previous, canonical timeline. Chara and the reader are thus powerless in their knowledge that Flowey also remembers, and uses that to his advantage to successfully manipulate the oblivious Frisk along with the other monsters.
• In Monster in the Mountain, we see through Frisk's eyes in an alternative timeline where they never went Underground as a child, and thus unaware of the significance of who Asriel Dreemurr is where those familiar with the game's ending are. Doubly so when the reader is drip-fed hints a True-Pacifist ending occurred in one of the previous timelines.

Wicked

• In Trusting In Faith, Nessarose thanks Glinda after she enchants her shoes so that she can walk without assistance. When Glinda tells her to be strong, Nessarose replies that she doesn't need to be anymore. Glinda's love and the Unnamed God give her strength. That was their last conversation. A few years afterwards, Nessarose was killed in a freak accident involving a house falling on her.

World of Warcraft

• Amusingly used in Travels Through Azeroth and Outland, where the narrator makes a few statements that most World of Warcraft players would know to be incorrect.

Worm/Ward

• Taylor Hebert, Medhall Intern:
  • Taylor fantasizes about Shadow Stalker dangling Sophia out of a window, not knowing that they're one and the same.
  • Taylor and Greg reject the idea of working for a white supremacist cartel, not knowing that their workplace is a front for Empire.
  • Taylor vouches for Brian to Medhall as an honest guy who can be trusted, not knowing he is a member of the Undersiders.
• Rachel, the main character of When Your Mother Is Khepri, worships Khepri, a legendary parahuman who saved the multiverse. Her father is a priest of the same religion. Her mother is a completely normal housewife who has absolutely nothing to do with Khepri. Rachel isn't aware of her mother's history, resulting in every other sentence she says being ironic, such as "Khepri help us, we’re doing this."
• Confrontation: Taylor and Sophia absolutely despise each other but their secret identities, Buzz and Shadow Stalker, are actually rather good friends. When they learn each other's secret identities at a bad time, Taylor immediately smashes Sophia in the face with her collapsible baton, breaking her jaw.
• In Peggy Sue story Warp, Vicky partially blames her sister Amy's breakdown and subsequent sanity slippage on her mother Carol disliking Amy for hypothetical crimes Amy might commit in the future. Nonetheless, Vicky is about to cut ties with Amy because of future crimes Amy hasn't committed as of yet.

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